Chapter Four

Lucas gave himself ten minutes in bed in case Bridger came back. Deciding that his lie had done the trick he jumped out of bed and turned his laptop on. An idea was forming in his mind but he just needed to check the Stinger schematics to see if he could pull it off. While he was waiting for that to fully load he quickly began a search for anything on the admiral. There had to be something that he could use to show the UEO what this man was really all about.

The Stinger came up on the screen so Lucas left the search program to run in the background while he waded through the technical info on his beloved design. It was ironic that the very thing he had poured so much of himself into was the thing he was now planning to destroy. Getting it to run on autopilot was the easy part. Disguising a deliberate electrical overload to make it look like an accident was going to be the hard part. He knew that Commander Hitchcock would go over the wreckage with a fine-toothed comb. As he thought about that he suddenly stopped and sat back in the chair. Katie! She would blame herself for this. He was going to cause her so much anguish. His face creased into a frown at the thought but then he pulled himself back up in the chair and kept searching. She was a career officer. She would understand that he was only trying to protect the captain.

"If I ever get to explain it to her," he thought sadly.

After nearly three hours of searching and running simulations on the computer Lucas thought he finally had a way to pull it off. Now he needed a voice recording to make the bridge think he was actually on the Stinger at the time of the "accident".

While he thought over what to put into the recording to make it sound genuine Lucas decided to have a look at what his search on the admiral had pulled up. Scanning through it quickly there didn't seem to be anything useful. Mostly just snippets of press articles that mentioned his name but nothing that really stood out. He wasn't really surprised because it wasn't like the man was going to advertise "I'm a traitor!" on the Internex. It was going to take some more serious searching to uncover what he needed.

Getting back to the voice recording Lucas decided to keep it short as that meant there was less time for anyone on the bridge to react and possibly spoil his plan. When he was done he saved it onto a chip and deleted it out of the hard drive. It wouldn't do if anyone found it there after his "death".

Now he just needed the remote control for the Stinger and the plan was ready to go. Lucas looked around the room and made a quick inventory of what he already had on hand. Bits and pieces of hardware were sitting in a box under the desk as well as various hand tools. It wasn't going to be enough but it was a start. Lucas picked up the yellow vocorder and began to unscrew the back of it. Nobody would think twice if they saw him with it tomorrow. He quickly began to pull out the central computer chip and strip away wires. After two hours of painstaking work he sat back and realised he had run out of supplies. He had used every last thing he could possibly use but he was going to have to go down to the lab to get the rest of what he needed. Lucas glanced at his watch and realised it was after midnight.

"Doesn't time fly when you're having fun?" he thought wryly. At least at this time of night it was pretty quiet and he had a good chance of getting down to the lab and back without running into anyone who might ask awkward questions.

"I can also stop by the mess and get some ration packs" he thought. He didn't know how long he was going to have to hide and he was going to need a food supply.

It was nearly 0400 hours before the remote was finished and Lucas was satisfied that everything was going to work together. He just needed to get into the Stinger and do a bit of rewiring but that would have to wait until tomorrow. If he were caught down there now it would look too suspicious when he had his "accident". The ration packs were safely stowed in the air duct above his room and Lucas had taken one last look at the search results on Admiral Rogers. There was nothing usable there just as he had suspected. There was nothing more to do for now but try and get some sleep before he was due on the bridge at 0700 but sleep evaded the exhausted teenager this night.


It had been a long bridge shift. Bridger had asked if he was still suffering from his migraine when Lucas appeared for his shift looking tired and pale. Shrugging off the concern he had managed to convince the captain he was fit for duty; he just hadn't slept very well. All morning the captain had been casting glances in Lucas' direction trying to gauge what was wrong with his youngest crewmember without embarrassing him in front of the others. Lucas had kept his head down and concentrated on the WSKR update the captain had wanted done. The minute his shift was done he had fairly bolted from the bridge and headed for the Stinger.

As Lucas worked in the back of the Stinger fiddling around with various wires the captain had approached un-noticed. He knew something was wrong with the way Lucas was behaving and put it down to yesterday's visit to UEO Headquarters.

"What are you working on?" he asked while sticking his head around the side of the Stinger.

Lucas jumped and banged his head on the roof. "Ahh. Damnit!" he said while rubbing the top of his head. "Oh, sorry, Sir. I didn't hear you come in."

"Obviously," smiled Bridger. "I was just wondering what you're working on here."

"I just had an idea for an upgrade and I wanted to try it out as soon as possible. I was going to take it for a quick run when I'm done." Lucas held his breath as he waited to see if the captain would stop him going out.

"Well, actually I wanted to have a talk with you about yesterday's meeting and … " the captain left the thought unspoken, waiting for Lucas to pick it up.

"Can it wait 'til I get back? I really want to see how this works," said Lucas trying to put as much eagerness into his voice as he could.

"All right then. Come and see me when you're done and let me know how this upgrade goes, OK?"

Lucas nodded agreement and went back to his wiring. Fifteen minutes later he had the Stinger in the water. Making sure nobody was around to see he carefully climbed into the wall duct which led to the engineering tubes. He had already stashed a laptop in there earlier as well as a few other useful tools. Starting the Stinger up with the remote control, he maneuvered it out through the docking bay and into open water. A small display on the vocorder showed the view from the Stinger and Lucas carefully turned it so none of the WSKRs could pick up that it was driverless.

Captain Bridger had returned to the bridge, still trying to work out what was going on with Lucas. He felt an urgent need to talk with him but Lucas seemed to be giving him the brush-off since he had returned yesterday. He had been on the receiving end of Lucas' silent treatment before but that was always after Bridger had laid down the law and Lucas had decided he didn't need to abide by it. This was very different and Bridger was determined to get to the bottom of it. He couldn't stand the thought that something was seriously bothering Lucas and he hadn't confided in him. As the captain was mulling over this his thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a frantic voice.

"Mayday! Mayday! This is Lucas. I have an electrical fire on board."

The words rang out over the loudspeakers as O'Neill tried to establish contact with the Stinger. "Lucas, can you read me? Lucas?"

Miguel was sending a WSKR in the direction of the Stinger's signal when the captain rushed up behind him.

"What have you got, Mr Ortiz?" he asked.

"He seems to be dead in the water, Sir. I'm trying to get a view up now."

"Lucas, can you hear me?" asked O'Neill with an edge of fear in his voice. "Lucas, please respond!"

As the WSKR view came up on the main screen it was obvious that the Stinger was adrift in the current. Blue arcs of electrical current were running down the side of the mini sub. At that moment a brilliant flash lit up the screen as the Stinger was literally blown to pieces before their eyes.

Nobody moved for a few seconds. None of them wanted to believe what they had just witnessed. Tim sat with his headset pulled to one side and stared at the screen. Miguel seemed frozen to the spot while his hand hovered over the WSKR controls, unsure what to do with them now.

Nathan Bridger stared in horror at the screen, replaying the scene in his mind's eye. His legs felt like jelly and he felt the urge to vomit. "No!" he whispered. "Lucas … Oh my God! Not again."

Commander Ford was the first to recover his senses and ordered a seacrab be sent out to search for Lucas. He knew there was no way anyone could have survived that but he had to look anyway. Maybe the kid had managed to get out before it blew. He had breathing gear in the Stinger but at this depth he wouldn't survive long.

Bridger had managed to stay on his feet long enough to make it over to the moonpool. Darwin seemed to sense his distress and had appeared at the side of the pool. The captain leaned on the rim of the pool and tried to speak. The words stuck in his throat as he looked into the calm eyes of the dolphin before him.

"Find Lucas," he croaked. "Please, my friend, find him!" With that, Darwin turned and swam out into the aquatubes and went looking for his friend.

Commander Ford was standing beside his captain and he tried to steer him over to a seat. The man looked like he was going to fall down.

"Maybe you need to go to you quarters, Sir. I can send word as soon as we know anything." Ford gently sat the captain down and looked into his eyes trying to gauge what was going on in his head.

"No, Jonathan. My place is on the bridge. I need to be here. I can't leave Lucas out there alone … I have to … he needs me…"