23. Paradise

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"Here's the plan.."

They were gathered for a briefing in the mess of the James. Chandler was giving Slattery the lead role of laying out his plan for them, because this had after all been his idea. To find a private island in the close proximity of their home country, close enough that they had possibilities to get more supplies. Gitmo wasn't that far away and there was still some supplies there, but who knew if they were the only ones surviving at sea?

"We'll work in 3 day shifts and then 3 days off.." "Granderson, you're in charge of organizing schedules."

It sounded so normal, as if they were trying to build a community here, on this island. Slattery seemed to have a very detailed plan. The island had everything, thanks to some rich person who had developed it to his or hers needs. There was a reverse-osmosis facility for getting fresh water in addition to water collecting. Solar panels that were powering that facility along with a backup generator. And a waste water treatment facility. Even the toilets on the island were in working order, flushing with seawater. Someone had used millions to build a paradise and even in the end they weren't using it. She wondered what had happened to the person who owned this all? Was he or she already dead?

"Our task at hand is to maintain the ship, in this case the Russian ship as it has a fuel source that won't be running out anytime soon.." "Commander Garnett has the lead on that.."

The main house on the island had been transferred to a supply storage and the kitchen was in heavy use as Bacon was using it to feed all the people on the island, working together with Darien Chandler and Christine Slattery. Everyone seemed to have their role, even her own mother was working with Master Chief with holding the morale and being a negotiator between the Navy and the civilians. She was rather surprised to learn that her mother had taken on this kind of responsibility, not sure if she could withstand the pressure of it. But it seemed like she was made for it.

"Lieutenants Burk and Green. Senior Chief Taylor. You are in charge of maintaining the training amongst the enlisted."

"Lieutenant Bivas and Master-at-Arms Cruz. You are in charge of the training of the civilians. I think they all should know how to defend themselves when it comes to it..."

"We also need a schedule for guard duty on the Russian ship." "Lieutenants Benz and Smith, you take lead on that."

What Commander Slattery had discovered on the Russian ship was rather puzzling. There was presumably a scientist inside of a isolation tent. Apparently he seemed to be infectious with the very virus they were trying to cure. Not sure what his role in all of it was, because he wasn't talking all that much, even though his infatuation towards Dr. Scott was obvious. And they had also found Dr. Tophet's wife and daughter on the ship, realizing what his motive had been in betraying them.

"Commander Green.."

And her own duty was to train everyone who had the skills to work on the CIC, but the challenging part was that she needed to train them to handle the Russian ship which was a little more different than the James. Not only language wise. Captain Chandler along with a survivor who spoke Russian, had been assigned to translating duty and marking the entire ship so that they could actually manage to run it. She still couldn't believe how Slattery had managed to maneuver the ship to the Bahamas in the first place. Although the controls were pretty much the same.

Startled from her thoughts, she felt Danny's hand grazing her forearm briefly to get her attention. "Kara?"

"Commander Green, am I boring you?" She heard Slattery's amused voice. Feeling the sudden blush on her cheeks. She wasn't sure what the topic at hand had been, too consumed by her own thoughts.

"No, sir." She replied and moved to sit more upright in her chair and she could hear Danny and the others chuckle a bit.

"Last but not least. Everyone is getting a physical evaluation. We need to be prepared for everything. We don't know how long we will be here. How long it will take for Dr. Scott to create a vaccine." Slattery informed them.

She glanced quickly towards Danny and he met her gaze. They still hadn't told anyone about her pregnancy. She wasn't that far along yet and who knew what would happen.

"Myself and Captain Chandler will be in charge of a evacuation plan, hoping it won't come to that and also locating possible places to go and find supplies for the manufacturing process of the cure."

Sounded like their commanding officers had a pretty strong faith in Dr. Scott's capabilities. That one day she would succeed. But how long would that take? And even if she would create a vaccine, they didn't have endless amount of supplies to manufacture the vaccine. Would they even have enough for the ones on the island? And how to decide who got a vaccine and who didn't?

She was glad that it was Dr. Scott who was giving her the physical evaluation. She didn't want to ask for her specifically because it would only raise questions and rumors and she didn't want her condition to be common knowledge, not yet at least. It did seem that everything was fine with her, a little high blood pressure measurement, but she did feel herself a little tense in the moment. But before she could speak about her secret to Rachel..

"As part of Commander Slattery's plan.. I need to discuss birth control with you." Rachel said.

Had Slattery thought of it all? She thought. Apparently in their preparations to evacuate they had also secured supposedly a sufficient amount of birth control medication. After all it would be difficult if there was a sudden outcome of pregnancies and not to mention they were short staffed on people with medical experience. Even though back in the day women had survived through a natural childbirth but she did feel a sudden panic go over her, would she survive through it?

She met Rachel's eyes and said "I think it's too late for that." Seeing that Rachel was a little surprised by her revelation, but it did seem she wasn't going to lecture her about it.

"How far along?" Rachel asked, writing something on her notes.

"Not sure, perhaps six weeks?" She answered.

After Rachel had examined her, she had come to the conclusion that she was roughly around 6 weeks and her due date would be around July 11th. They agreed they would try the older ultrasound machine on the James on a later point.