Tuesday, March 15th, 2016—USS. Nathan James, Caribbean Sea, Approaching the Panama Canal, 0900 hours, local time.

Mike stood on the Bridge of the James, the door to the Pilot House open, allowing the sea's sound and the salt laced air to permeate the room. It was a beautiful day, 82 degrees and sunny—a southern bound breeze of 6mph lapping at the ocean's spray. He was proud to be at the helm on their maiden voyage after three and a half months dry dock. They'd set sail two days prior from Mayport with supplies and equipment to deliver to their base in San Diego. Commander Garnett stood happily to his left—a serene expression of calm as they did what they knew best.

"Sir, I'm picking up some surface contacts on radar, they appear to be small shipping vessels – but the pattern, Sir? It seems like they're blocking the canal." His Lt. spoke. He frowned and walked over to the console, verifying the information for himself. He frowned as he studied the map – that was a blockade alright.

"OOD, come to full stop!"

"Aye, sir—CCS Bridge, Come to full stop."

"Master Chief, set General Quarters—I'm not taking any chances," Mike commanded.

"Yes Sir," Jeter confirmed, making his way to the intercom. "All hands set General Quarters," he instructed, the crew immediately responding.

"What do you think it is?" Garnett asked, the concern evident in her tone.

"Goddamn Pirates! I thought we were done with that in Asia." Mike muttered under his breath. "I need to get a hold of the Commander in Chief," he said. Stalking out to head to their communications center.

March 15th, 2016—White House, St. Louis Missouri

"Well, you've been here for less than three hours, and there's already a crisis," Sasha said dryly. Tom looked up at the sound of her voice, she'd invited herself into his office without so much as a knock and thrown a communications file down in front of him.

"Nice to see you too,' he deadpanned. Earning himself a small smirk. He picked up the file and scanned it. "Pirates?" he surmised skeptically.

"Pirates," she confirmed, a tilt of her head, and a hand gesture as if she were presenting him a great gift, effectively illustrating the irony of it. It's like they were going in big circles. Repeating the same scenarios over and over again.

"And they've taken the Panama Canal," he said, not hiding the skepticism in his voice.

"It would appear that way, and with it, they just cut off the supply mission that I have spent the last ten days, planning." She was pissed off, that much he could tell.

Tom sighed, "And we didn't have this intel—"

"Because we don't have up-to-date, real intelligence in the region," she finished for him, giving him a big fake smile. She was right to be angry. Like she'd said, he'd been there for less than three hours, and it was immediately apparent that the famine had as good as erased much of the progress Michener had made. Oliver hadn't been dealt a fair hand; inheriting Shaw's mess had been a considerable burden to overcome. The level of distrust at an all-time high, and just as he'd managed to turn the tide, the rust hit. And slowly, but surely, entire regions—mostly outside of the main cities were plunged back into chaos.

Their land convoys were constantly hit and raided. They'd lost yet more from the populous of skilled, essential workers—foreign agreements and trade deals thrown to the wayside as each nation scrambled to protect itself and their own, while they searched for the seeds. And Now? Now that they'd developed a cure and shared the science? The political grandstanding to hold the US at ransom—crops in exchange for fuel—had reached its tipping point. And they hadn't even produced their first yield yet. Wouldn't have enough to feed their own people in that first batch, let alone share product with the rest of the world. They weren't trying to horde—there simply was not enough to go around.

"You sending Vulture Team to do recon?"

Sasha gave him a wry smile in response to that question—reminded again of just how much she liked working with him. "You know it. James is hanging back from the bay, out of sight but in range. Green's leading an amphib team tonight to go check it out. Let us know what we're up against."

"Good. In the meantime—who do I talk to about this?" face scrunched up in disgust, handing her a report. She scanned it quickly, it was a summary of their current fuel reserves across all four branches, along with an estimated consumption rate and various other data points, concluded with recommendations on where best to allocate allowances.

"Stevens—first name's Pete." She handed it back to him, and he took it back with a slight flare in his wrist.

"It's wrong," he declared. Oh, she did not doubt that, she wet her lip slightly and exhaled. "That's because he was a corporate attorney for a big shot Petroleum company, prior to becoming the most closely qualified candidate Oliver could find for Secretary of the Interior," she deadpanned, raising an eyebrow. "Has great knowledge of our energy operations, both domestic and foreign, but a strategist, he is not."

"I see," he responded the inclination of his head telling.

"We lose that canal, Tom... we're gonna be in a world of shit. West coast operations need supplies desperately. And with how low our reserves are? We can't afford to keep sending land convoys and planes. It's the most inefficient and fuel-intensive method we have."

"What about the partnership with Canada?" having remembered it referenced in the fuel report. Sasha made a face that let him know it wasn't an option yet.

"Secretary of Foreign Affairs is working it—but we're stalled in negotiations. They want too much food, and we can't spare it." Tom scrubbed a frustrated hand over his face. He'd forgotten just how many moving parts there were; how long it had taken to get simple initiatives off the ground with twelve other cooks in the kitchen, let alone the political nonsense. "Now you know why I need you," she quipped. "We don't have many intelligence assets left. I already tapped everyone I could from what's left of the CIA, but ultimately, they're Hughes assets, and she gets preference on operations." He furrowed his brow slightly, mentally recalling the introductions he'd been given this morning. "She has the skills at least former department head, but, between us, and them? We're stretched thin. Her teams got us secure intel in the middle east, but we still need them there—last thing we want is to lose our pulse on Saudi and Omar."

Tom gave her a distinct look of agreement—it had been bad enough when he'd deployed to Iraq. If there was one place on Earth that he never wanted to be again, it was the middle east. It was an entirely different game over there, one that had taken him about five years to get right from. "They ever manage to finish the audit of our continental bases?"

Sasha smiled slightly because he was thinking on her wavelength. "No, they did not. Focused on the main chokepoints and diverted personal to those. Then Shaw and the regional leaders set about trashing the records of what we had done as she went. The generals we have left compiled as much intel as they have but, there's gaps. Wasn't a focus as much as figuring out food reserves and ration segments."

"Well, why don't I start there. Might find something we don't know we have." He mumbled.

Sasha inclined her head. "You read my mind. I'll bring you everything I've found so far." Heading back to her office to grab a box of files.

Tuesday, March 15th, 2016—Panama Canal—2300 hours local time

Burk, Green, and Wolf emerged from the water slowly. Night vision binoculars fixed on their target. Danny grimaced slightly. The water was slick with a layer of oily pollution, runoff from the amount of crap that dredged through the channel. He motioned for them to approach an appropriately secluded ban—made silent, efficient work of traversing it before settling themselves out of sight.

They observed with binoculars; this was more than just pirates. There were military trucks on the ground and forces, wearing what looked like Panamanian insignias—but there was something that didn't quite fit about the way they'd arranged themselves. It seemed disorganized. Haphazard and poorly thought out. Multiple attack points left open. He scanned; further, the vessels they had blocking the canal were civilian ships. Shipping vessels mixed with fuel barges. Green pulled his binoculars back to exchange confused looks with both Wolf and Burk.

"Rebels?" whispered.

"That's my best guess," Burk agreed while Wolf gave a nod.

Wednesday, March 16th, 2016—White House, St. Louis Missouri, 0700 hours

Both Sasha and Tom stood at the communications center. They'd asked Debbie to run the kids to school, as well as had her pick them up yesterday. Tom didn't want them to walk or have to use the bus system. Darien had always taken them. She'd felt it important for them to have someone there, and he agreed. He hadn't even made it two days, and the routine had already started to break down, the one he wanted to keep to for the kids' sake. The one he told himself was important because it personified him "being there". They'd stayed well past 8 o'clock last night; Ashely had made Sam dinner and was already helping him with his homework by the time they'd come home. They were here today at the crack of dawn. He already felt guilty.

The comms specialist indicated they were live and about to receive a transmission from the James, so they picked up their headsets.

"White House, this is Nathan James actual reporting as scheduled." Came Slattery's voice.

"Nathan James, White House actual—I have someone here that would like to say hi," Sasha replied, a mischievous smile playing at her lips. Tom returned it before speaking.

"How's my ship, Mike?" Tom asked—a routine for them. He heard Mike chuckle on the other line.

"Doing just fine, surprised to hear your voice! Does that mean Sasha finally convinced you to come back?"

She looked sheepish and crossed her arms slightly, avoiding his eyes.

"Eh, not quite—though she is my temporary boss, so…" he trailed off, keeping the tone light but filing the information away for later—another chuckle from Mike.

"Oh, I'd pay to see that."

"I'm sure you would," she chimed in, "what can you tell me?" focusing the conversation back to the intel.

"Well, we're not dealing with pirates. They're rebels. They've commandeered weapons and ground trucks from the Panamanian Military; using shipping boats to block the canal. Green did a little ground reconnaissance and found them setting up multiple checkpoints along the banks. Right now, they're only letting local traffic through, and pilfering any other ships for supplies."

Sasha squeezed her eyes closed and pinched her nose. This was worse than expected. "How many?"

"Green counted around 100 soldiers at each checkpoint. Spread that down the entire length of the canal… well, you can do the math." He said grimly.

"Any idea whose leading them?" Tom asked, his brow furrowed.

"Negative. Wasn't safe for the team to make contact with any civilians." Mike said.

"Damn it," Sasha muttered to herself. "Alright, set a course back to Mayport. President wants those supplies, and we're just gonna have to do it the old-fashioned way. I'll do what I can to get answers from my end. White House, out."

"Nathan James copies all. Roger out."

Sasha motioned to the coms specialist to end the transmission taking off her headset. Tom made eye contact with her, this was bad, and they both knew it. Sasha exhaled and shook her head, silently communicating her trepidation to him. The same apprehension she knew he felt. "I'll brief the President. You'll get this to the analysts?" He nodded once at her, and she left.

Friday, March 18th, 2016—St. Louis, Missouri

After the whirlwind of his first week back, Tom was relieved for the weekend. That was the silver lining. The fact that he got one of those, despite their work being critically important—it wasn't the same as being on a mission. It was a job where they went home every-day, slept in the same bed, put down the files, and acted like normal human beings – not people that held the fate of humanity directly in their hands for weeks and months on end.

Tom descended the stairs. The kids were in bed. He was showered and shaved and enjoying the simple comfort of wearing sweatpants around his house, while everyone he cared about most was safe under his roof.

"Babe?" he called—most all the lights were off except for the orange glow of a small table lamp in the living room. It was almost midnight, and while she'd stopped for dinner – she'd spent most of the night quietly distracted. Had set up in the oversized armchair after eating and had been camped there ever since. Tom knew her to be a workaholic, but there was an edge. A sadness about her tonight. She seemed off, had dismissed it as being tired when he'd asked if she was okay, but it was more than that. He could tell.

She looked up as he stepped into her field of vision and gave him a soft smile that didn't quite reach her glassy eyes. "Hey," she whispered.

He frowned with concern and tipped his head to the left somewhat. "You sure you're okay?" he asked compassionately, moving to crouch down to be at eye-level with her. She squinted slightly, touched by his approach. Her attention shifted towards the manila folder perched on the arm of the chair she was hiding in. Sasha picked it up gracefully, inhaling as she did. He could tell she was nervous about something, decided that waiting patiently for her to open up was the best course of action.

She set her lips in a firm line, and she brought it towards her. Holding it above her lap for a few moments while she considered opening it. After a pregnant pause, she made her decision, and wordlessly pulled the contents out and showed it to him. Tom took it from her and waited for her to elaborate. It was a printout from a satellite feed; the time stamp said it had been taken that day around sixteen hundred. Tom was a little confused—it wasn't an asset or a base.

"It's my house." His eyes moved from the file back to her. Understanding now why she'd been acting this way all night. "I think I'm ready. This proves it's still standing at least…" she stopped again. Not quite able to voice everything she was thinking. Being vulnerable had never been easy for her. "I need to know." She finally decided on. Voice stronger and more convicted. "And, I was hoping you would go with me, but maybe Debbie could keep the kids? Just for a weekend?" It was cautious, and it dawned on him then that maybe that's why she was worried. That somehow, he'd take offense that she wanted them to do this alone. Not just the fact that she'd been putting this off for so long—running from it.

"Of course," he said smoothly, eyes warm and reassuring. A plethora of emotions flickered over her face for a second. Surprise, relief, curiosity. Though he noticed, he didn't press it. Didn't want to tease her for the misplaced anxiety over what he might say to her asking to take a road trip with her, sans children.

"I don't want you to think that I'm trying to make you—" choose.

He took her hand in his own to cut her off, "I don't," he assured her readily. "When do you wanna go?"

"Next weekend? I already mapped out a route. We shouldn't have any trouble, the looting happens on the main supply runs. Take us about twelve hours one way. Figured we could do six hours each?"

The pad of his thumb stroked her hand lovingly. "I'll ask Debbie in the morning."

The corners of her eyes crinkled, and she smiled, this time with a lightness, and he felt satisfied that the burden had been lifted. "Come to bed?" he implored tenderly, the muscles in his legs just now beginning to protest the length of time he'd been squatting. He stood slowly, not letting go of her hand, and she allowed him to pull her up with him. Tom smiled at her fondly, caressing his other hand down her face as his nimble fingers combed through her hair gently. She lost herself in the endless blue that she so loved. Counting her blessings again that she'd somehow ended up with him, and followed him as he led them upstairs.