Chapter 6: "Screw-ups"

22 November 2023

There was nothing quite like sitting and doing nothing in the SUBRON offices while Oliver Hudson went on to take command of the best boat in the fleet. In fact—Katie checked her watch—her old CO should be reading his orders right about now, officially relieving Captain Clayton of command. And here she was, sitting in a bare cubicle with nothing but a computer to entertain her.

Hudson had claimed that he'd asked for her again as his XO, but he said that there were orders in the pipeline for her, ones that he'd been told could not be countermanded, no matter how many people he yelled at. Of course, that conversation had taken place not long after he'd taken her to task for siding with Captain Ford about the stealth submarine Jonathan and Miguel had run into, so Katie was a bit unsure how sincere Hudson was being. All she had said was that the matter really could stand to be investigated, but Hudson had a habit of taking comments like that personally.

Nothing new in that. She hadn't lied to Jonathan two weeks ago, not really. Hudson wasn't that bad of a CO to work for…most of the time. The hardest part of being his XO was knowing how to avoid hot topics when his temper was up, which usually wasn't all that difficult. Under normal circumstances, he was even a good listener, and was decent at taking outside input. His real flaw, however, at as far as Katie was concerned, was his refusal to listen to anyone else during a tactical situation. Once he got a plan in his head, his boat was going to execute that plan…no matter what it cost.

Thankfully, he was a great tactician. Hudson really was good, and up until they'd lost Torsk, Katie had been willing to let everything else slide because of that. She'd learned a lot from him, after all, and if he was rough around the edges, his gruff determination almost contained a little bit of charm.

And then he'd lost Torsk because he was too 'determined' to cut his losses and run after he'd done significant damage to the enemy. No, he'd had to keep going at them, even after his initial ambush had sank two of their boats and damaged another. Torsk had done very little damage after that, and half of their crew had wound up feeding fish on the bottom of the Pacific because Hudson didn't know when to quit.

Maybe he'd learned something from it. Katie didn't know. She just knew that she would never forgive him for it.

Her inbox chirped, indicating that a new message had arrived. Sighing, she clicked on the header without really looking at it; it was from the Bureau of Personnel, which meant it was probably another request for information on one of her old Torsk crew members; the sinking had left gaps in about half of the survivors' evaluations and service records, and she'd spent the last two months straightening those messes out.

OFFICIAL CHANGE DUTY ORDERS FOR
CDR KATHERINE A HITCHCOCK

WHEN DIRECTED BY REPORTING SENIOR, DETACH IN NOV 23 EDA: NOV 23
FROM UEO SUBRON 3
HOMEPORT HI, PEARL HARBOR

REPORT NOT LATER THAN 27 NOV 23
TO UEO STINGRAY SS 262
- REPORT AS EXECUTIVE OFFICER

A knock came on her cubicle wall before she could fully digest the orders. Turning her head, she spotted Lonnie Henderson standing there, looking confused.

"I'm sorry for bothering you, ma'am…but I just got the strangest set of orders," the young ensign said.

Katie blinked. "Strange?" she asked, glancing back at her own screen. What was it about the Bureau sending her orders right before the holidays? She'd gotten orders to seaQuest on her birthday, though that had been a lot better occasion than this one. Happy Thanksgiving, Katie!

"Yeah, to some boat called Stingray, but I've never heard of her, ma'am."

"Neither have I," Katie replied automatically, her stomach sinking. This has Hudson written all over it. Why else would the XO that pissed him off and the ensign whose bubbly personality he hates wind up with orders to a boat that doesn't exist?

"I tried looking her up in the Naval Registry," Lonnie added after a moment. "There was a Stingray, but it was an old diesel sub decommissioned in the 1980s. There hasn't been one since."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, Lonnie, I've got orders to her, too." Katie forced herself to smile, but she could not manage to make her voice as light as she wanted to. "Whatever she is."

"You have?"

"Oh, I have." Behave yourself, Katie. You never know what this might be.

Whatever it was, she was detailed to be the XO of something, so Katie would have to make the best of the situation. And, of course, she'd have to look out for Lonnie while she was at it; the young ensign was one of the most gifted engineers Katie had ever met, and she had the potential to be a good officer.

Assuming she got the chance.

"I'll see what I can't find out about her," Katie promised Lonnie, pushing such maudlin thoughts away. "I've got a few friends who might know something."

The ensign looked almost comically relieved. "Thanks, XO."

"Any time." Her nod and smile seemed to reassure Lonnie, and the young woman moved back to her own cubicle looking a little less bewildered. Once she was gone, Katie pulled up her contacts list and started dialing.

Jonathan wasn't due to get underway again for another week or two, and she had his private line. Hopefully, he'd know something—he was still the UEO's golden boy, after all, having stepped off of seaQuest and straight into command. Admirals loved his dedication, Katie knew, and tended to tell him more than they should.

"Ford here," the familiar voice answered, even though she couldn't see anything more than his left arm. He was clearly in the middle of some routine paperwork, and hadn't bothered to move the screen so that the caller could see his face.

"Hey, Jonathan," she said, actual humor creeping into her voice. Some people would never change.

His face swung into view immediately. "Katie! Hey. What's up? You want to catch lunch again tomorrow? I don't have any Thanksgiving plans if you don't, though I'm going to spend the rest of today getting in a fight with the port engineer."

"Sure." She laughed despite herself, and then took a deep breath. "But I wasn't really calling for social reasons, though. I was wondering if I could ask for a favor."

"Anytime."

"Have you ever heard of a boat named Stingray?" she asked.

"Um…not a current one." Jonathan thought for a moment. "There's one in an old sub movie that's really funny, though. I forget the name. Is this something Hudson has you hunting down? I thought a change of command ceremony would keep even him busy."

His easy assumption that she'd continued on with Hudson made Katie swallow. "I'm not on Scorpion, Jonathan," she said, trying to keep her voice casual. "I've got orders to this Stingray. As XO."

"I don't think we have a sub named Stingray, Katie." She really wished that he wouldn't look so worried. Seeing that just made her more concerned.

"I was hoping you wouldn't say that," she sighed.

"Sorry. It might be some special projects boat, though. I'll see if I can't uncover anything for you, if you want."

That bad feeling in the bit of her stomach was just getting worse. "Thanks."

"It's no problem," he replied with a smile. "I like keeping track of my old shipmates—especially since Miguel just got stolen for some mysterious 'Project Anzio'. And Tim dropped off the face of the earth about six months back, too, so I'm running out of people to look after."

"Only you would think having your own boat doesn't keep you busy enough," Katie teased him, finding her smile again.

"What can I say? I like to multitask." Jonathan shot back with a shrug. "So, are we still on for lunch tomorrow?"

"Sure."

Even if he didn't have the answers she was looking for, it would be nice to spend the holiday with a friend. And more than ever, she'd learned lately not to take the simple things for granted. They were fighting on the front line of a war, after all. The fact that they were both still alive was certainly reason enough to be thankful.

Bridger was hardly the type to air dirty laundry in public; while he had noticed that Lucas was missing when the department head meeting started, he pushed off asking any further questions until afterwards. Oddly enough, it was Ben who answered when he asked at the beginning of the meeting, admitting that he'd tried to find Lucas with no success, but at least that meant Nathan wasn't confused when Ben stuck around after he had dismissed the rest of the senior officers.

"Well?" he asked, his eyes moving between Tim and Ben. In some ways, it was unfortunate that he'd had to tag Tim O'Neill with the job of acting Executive Officer, because Tim wasn't exactly the most assertive officer Nathan had ever met. He was, however, an administrative monster, which meant everything was running as smoothly as he could have hoped. "Where is he?"

Everything except Lucas, that was. And it seemed like this problem had been going on for awhile, judging from the looks these two were exchanging.

"Spit it out, gentlemen," Bridger ordered when neither answered.

Apparently Ben pulled the short straw, because he was the one who responded. "That's just the thing, Captain. I couldn't find him before the meeting. He's around somewhere, but..."

"But?" Nathan prompted, knowing he was sounding annoyed and not really regretting it—every now and then, someone had to play the Big Bad Captain. He'd accepted that facet of his chosen career a long time ago.

Ben looked like he was about to try and pull one over on the captain, but Tim stepped in. "He hasn't been coming to the meetings, sir." His tone was regretful but resigned.

"Is there a reason why not?" Now he really felt like he was pulling teeth; Nathan still felt that he had the best department heads in the UEO fleet, but there were times that their close friendships could really get in the way. It was rather obvious that Ben and Tim were trying to keep Lucas out of trouble. Again. "I assume he knows about the meetings. Correct?"

"Yes, sir. And Commander Krieg and I have both spoken to him about needing to attend. In his defense, he's almost always doing work when we do hunt him down after," Tim replied.

"I don't think Lucas needs defending at the moment, Tim." Nathan checked the urge to sigh. He loved the boy to distraction, but he'd never been in the business of making up excuses for anyone.

He gave his acting XO a hard look, waiting for more information.

Tim shifted uncomfortably under the look, darting another glance towards Ben. It was interesting that these two were working together on something like this with all of the other fighting they had been doing, but wholly unproductive at the moment. Tim gave in after a moment, just as Bridger knew he would. "He hasn't been adapting very well to the military aspects of things," Tim admitted.

"Tell me something I couldn't guess," he replied dryly, then went straight to the point. "How many meetings has he missed?"

"All except two," Tim replied.

"And you were going to tell me about this when?"

Another look passed between the two officers. "He has been getting his work done, Captain. And no one else has offered any complaints. I think he just forgets sometimes, with the old crew," Tim explained.

"Stop making excuses for him." Nathan knew his voice had grown hard, so he did his best to bring it back to a level tone. "Tim, I know that I've given you a raw deal with this making you the acting XO. I'm not blaming you. Lucas is a genuine genius, and he's not a child. You should only have to tell him once, and when counseling him on it doesn't work, that's when you tell me. Not two weeks later."

"Yes, sir," Tim replied.

Nathan shot Ben a glance. "Same goes to you, Ben. I can help you, but I do need to know it's necessary."

"I guess we just thought it wouldn't be necessary, Captain." Only Ben Krieg would try to argue at a moment like this.

"Yeah, I gathered that," he replied dryly, and then looked back at Tim. "Pass the word that Lieutenant Wolenczak's presence is requested in the Captain's Cabin, will you?"

"I'll find him myself, if necessary, sir," Tim said.

"Just pass it on the 1MC. They installed it yesterday, so it should be working."

At least he could be fairly confident that Lucas was on the boat; as seaQuest crept closer to completion, the crew worked more and more on board and did less in their shore-side offices. They still weren't sleeping on board, but at least the boat was no longer such an industrial environment that you had to wear protective gear like a hard hat and ear plugs just to walk around. And the boat's general announcing system, or 1MC, was working...or had been that morning, anyway, and probably still was unless someone had decided to rewire it again.

"Yes, sir." Tim stepped over to the phone on the wardroom table and dialed in the appropriate access code to speak on the 1MC, passing the word himself. "Lieutenant J.G. Wolenczak, your presence is requested in the Captain's Cabin."

"Thank you, Tim," Nathan said quietly, rising from his seat at the head of the wardroom table. Noticing his Ops officer's worried expression, he smiled. "Don't worry. I won't beat him up too badly."

"Of course not, sir," Tim replied, though his worried expression didn't ease.

Nathan waved them out and then headed through the hatch himself, pausing to check on a few workmen along the way. Like it or not, he spent half of his time acting as the Project Manager for his still-unfinished boat, which meant the time he had to dedicate to his still-unfinished crew was more limited than any captain would want it to be. Normally, he'd have an actual XO to take on some of the workload, but Tim had his own department to train up, which meant that he couldn't take on the XO's full time duties, either. Obviously, some things were suffering for the lack of attention.

One conversation with a welder took a bit longer than Nathan wanted it to—they'd received a shipment of less-than-stellar materials, though, and he was glad that the man took the time to tell him. Besides, it would probably do Lucas a bit of good to wait; much though Nathan despised senior officers who made their juniors wait on them for hours, a bit of military unpleasantly might teach Lucas a lesson or two. I know he's working hard, he thought to himself. I only wish that was the problem. Nathan had expected Lucas to have a problem or two with military discipline, but this was a bit much, and he was still ticked off that Tim had let it continue for so long.

However, he was back in his cabin within fifteen minutes...and there was no sign of Lucas.

Five minutes later, his temper was really starting to warm up. Nathan wasn't exactly the strictest disciplinarian in the Navy, but even he had his limits—and if he had to pass the word for Lucas again, he was going to be more than a bit peeved. In fact, he was reaching for the phone on his desk to call the Quarterdeck watch when Lucas breezed through the open hatch, focused on a stack of papers in his hand.

"I'm almost done with fixing the program for the sonar package. Some idiot ordered the wrong processor and it's messing up all my code."

Nathan felt his eyebrows mate with his hairline. "Excuse me?"

Lucas looked up. "Isn't that what you wanted me for, sir? Miguel's data should be analyzed by tomorrow, at the latest."

"No. It isn't." Don't be too nasty, Nathan, he chided himself. The kid really doesn't get it, even though he should. "You missed today's department head meeting, Mr. Wolenczak."

The use of his last name seemed to catch his attention. "Yeah, I was in the middle of wrestling with a code gremlin, Captain. I didn't want to lose track of where I was."

"You didn't want to lose track of where you were," Nathan echoed, hoping that repeating the words might clue Lucas in to where he'd gone wrong.

"Look, Captain, I'm sorry I didn't figure it out sooner. I know how much you wanted that data analyzed," Lucas replied. Clearly, hints weren't going to work.

Nathan bit back a frustrated sigh, sitting back in his chair and looking his EWO straight in the eye. "This isn't about the code, Lucas. It's about your conduct."

Lucas' expression closed off. "Ben snitched on me, didn't he? I can't believe him, I thought we were friends."

"Ben didn't 'snitch on you', as you so inelegantly put it," Nathan replied a bit more sharply than he intended. "I was at the meeting you missed, since it happened to be a meeting with me. We do hold those meeting for a reason, you know. And not just when it's convenient for you."

"Sorry for thinking you wanted me to do my job, sir," Lucas snapped in response. "Seeing as I pretty much had to start from scratch on some of these systems."

It took all the self control Nathan had not to reach out and shake the kid. "I want you to do all of your job, Lieutenant, not just the parts you like. And that means attending meetings. That means being on time. That means using your chain of command. You've joined the Navy, not a fraternity, and we expect our officers to meet certain standards."

He knew his tone was biting, but Nathan didn't care. When he continued, however, there was a little less coldness in his voice, and a lot more passion.

"The worst part is that I know you can meet those standards. I know you can exceed them, if you put your mind to it. And I know this isn't easy for you, because this isn't the seaQuest you served on last time. It can't be. And that means I can't accept the absent-minded genius routine. I need you to be a Naval Officer, Lucas. Not the sixteen year old geek who can get away with murder.

"And you're not doing that. Not right now."

Lucas' expression remained closed off, but he seemed to have been paying attention, even if his response was cold and short. "Yes, sir."

He'd smacked Lucas with the stick hard enough; now it was time for the carrot.

"I'm not expecting you to be the perfect naval officer, Lucas," Nathan said more gently. "Hell, I'm not the perfect naval officer, and I've gotten in trouble for a lot stupider things than you are right now. But I am asking you to try, kiddo. Because I know you can do better than you are.

"If we weren't likely to go to war very shortly, it would be different. I'd probably just smack you upside the head, tell you 'don't miss another meeting', and be done with it. But we are going to war, and that changes everything. We've got a lot of new sailors on this boat, a bunch of which are in your department. They're going to look to you for leadership, and they'll notice every little thing you do wrong.

"So, what I'm asking you do to is minimize those screw ups." He smiled wryly. "And also to remember that I do try not to waste my officers' time—when I call a meeting, its usually for a pretty good reason."

"Yes, sir," Lucas replied again. He was obviously still angry, but at least he wasn't lashing out with his anger.

Nathan really wished that the kid would say something else, but he knew Lucas well enough to know that if he pushed harder, the EWO would only clam up further. "Do you have any questions?"

"No, sir."

"That's all, then." Nathan felt positively ancient as Lucas turned to go—he hadn't felt this guilty about laying down the law since Robert had been eighteen and Nathan had caught him drinking. He spoke up as the young officer started to step through the hatch. "Oh, and Lucas?"

Lucas paused, only half turning back. "Yes, sir?"

"Your performance as EWO has been great. It's the little details I'm worried about—you've got the big stuff down."

Lucas' expression was unreadable. A few years ago, the kid would have been grinning like a Cheshire Cat. "Thank you, sir."

Nathan watched him go, still feeling old. He hated having conversations like that with any of his officers, but he'd hated this one more than most. Somehow, reminding himself that it was necessary didn't make the feeling go away—but he had a sneaking suspicion that he'd have to do a lot of things he didn't like in the years to come. Might as well get used to the feeling, Nathan.

Finally letting out the frustrated sigh he'd been holding back, he turned to the vidlink and decided to seek out a more friendly conversation.

"Ford here."

If the world should suddenly end, Nathan expected that the officer he was calling would still answer the vidlink the same way. The thought brought a smile to his face, especially when he noticed that his old XO wasn't looking at the pickup. As usual. "Good morning, Jonathan."

As expected, Ford almost jumped out of his skin. "Captain Bridger! I didn't expect a call from you, sir. It's been months."

Was that an accusatory edge in his old XO's voice? If so, Nathan could not blame him; it had been months since they'd talked. In fact, the last time Nathan had called was after Jonathan lost SeaWolf, and the subtle reminder made him feel a little guilty. Kristin often accused him of losing himself in his work, but he'd really done it this time.

"Yeah, I suppose it has," he replied, keeping his absent-minded professor expression on. "I hear you've been busy."

"Busy's one word for it," Jonathan said dryly. Then he smiled, though, and Nathan knew he didn't actually hold a grudge. "But it's a good busy, at least, sir. What have you been up to? The last I heard, you were involved in the design of the Kraken-class sub."

"A bit, yeah," Nathan admitted. "Lately, I've been doing some weapons design, though. I hear you made some good use of the Mark V Interceptors lately, too."

"You bet we did." His old XO's face lit up. "Did you design those, captain? They're worlds better than the old ones—my weapons officer said that he'd marry one if they could cook."

The mental image of a typical Navy "Weps" trying to marry an intercept torpedo made Nathan snicker. "I did, but I'm not sure I'll admit it, now."

"Unless you teach them to cook, I think you're safe," Jonathan replied with a grin.

"That's good to know!"

They shared a grin, and damn, he missed Jonathan. A new seaQuest wouldn't be the same without Jonathan as XO, but Nathan had done the right thing in cutting him lose. If Jonathan had stayed with the program, he would have torpedoed his own career—Nathan had been able to stay on the design side because he had a background in it, but if Jonathan had tried to stick around, particularly back when the UEO was determined not to build another seaQuest, he would never have gotten a command.

"So, what did you call for, anyway? I can't imagine it was just to chat," his protégé asked. "Not that I'm objecting if it is, of course."

Jonathan always had been bright. There was probably no way to keep him from guessing at information he really didn't need to know, but Nathan would proceed carefully, anyway. "Unfortunately, no. I saw your report on the Macronesian stealth sub."

"Did it even make it past Commodore Allan?" was the immediate, bitter, response.

"Not very far," he replied with a snort. "But they always forward things like that to the technical community, even the so-called experts claim the mere existence of such a sub is impossible."

"You don't agree."

"Not in the slightest." Oh, he had Jonathan's attention now. "Allan's always been a bit of a conventional thinker, and he doesn't know about the new types of stealth technology we've been experimenting with. Frankly, the information you brought back on this boat sounds eerily familiar to me."

"That doesn't sound good at all," his old XO said warily.

"It isn't," Nathan replied briskly. "I listened to the tapes Miguel recorded of her signature, and some of her sound characteristics remind me an awful lot of a system we were working with about four years ago. There's nothing specific we can pinpoint yet, but it's definitely safe to say that you weren't chasing biologics."

Unfortunately, giving Jonathan a compliment had never worked at distracting him from important information. The other captain's eyes narrowed.

"If you're working with Miguel, I'm guessing that you're involved in Project Anzio," he said shrewdly.

Nathan looked him in the eye. "You know I can't comment on that."

"Roger that, Captain." Jonathan took the implied rebuke like a man, as much as Nathan hated giving it. "Unfortunately, if you're looking for more information, we haven't uncovered anything new since Miguel left."

"I didn't think you had," Nathan replied wryly. Much though I might wish otherwise. "But I know that you're getting underway again on the sixth. If you happen to encounter this mystery boat again, I'd appreciate it if you could send me whatever data you get."

"Our underway date is classified." Jonathan eyed him a bit peevishly. Nathan had known him long enough to know that this was Jonathan's revenge for his own refusal to give him information, but he didn't take it personally.

He just grinned cheekily. "So's this conversation."

"I'll send you anything I get," the younger man relented, smiling again.

"Thanks, Jonathan," he said feelingly, and moved to cut the connection.

"Captain—a quick question."

"Shoot."

"Have you ever heard of a sub named Stingray?" Jonathan asked. "Katie called me about an hour ago. She got some really strange orders to a boat that doesn't exist."

Tread carefully, Nathan. He did not dare hesitate before answering:

"Are you talking about the boat from Down Periscope?" he asked innocently.

"I've seen the movie. It's amusing, but I'm willing to bet that Katie's not going to Hollywood," was the droll reply.

Nathan chuckled. "Especially since it's underwater?"

Joking about the Great Quake felt wrong, but Nathan had a feeling that he'd joke about worse things before the war was over. He'd done it before.

"Touché," Jonathan replied before asking pointedly: "Do you know anything, Captain?"

He had to ask me directly, didn't he? Nathan suppressed the urge to sigh in frustration. He didn't want to lie to Jonathan, but there weren't exactly a lot of other options. "If I did, I couldn't tell you."

"Captain…"

"That's all, Jonathan." And stop asking! he didn't shout, no matter how much he wanted to.

Thankfully, his old friend relented, and after a few minutes more of personal conversation, they hung up.

Nathan sat back in his chair, sighing. He really wished that he could say more, but even he could appreciate the security situation his project was working under. They'd had two separate attempted security breaches in the last three weeks, one of which had almost actually gotten past the different layers of deceptive information available in the Pearl Harbor mainframe. If it had been up to him, he would tell Jonathan everything about the new seaQuest…but it wasn't, and if he was going to see this boat to completion, it wasn't going to be by breaking security rules.

24 November 2023

The gnawing horror in Katie's stomach was only growing as she cooled her heels until her report date. She should have been enjoying a long holiday weekend, but even a long run around base hadn't been enough to banish her anxiety. She had decided instead to be productive and see what she could find about her new crew, returning to the ghost town that the SUBRON 3 offices resembled on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Not that her efforts were proving to be worth much. There were a handful of sailors due to report on Monday, but aside from that, the entire thing seemed to be a giant black hole. Nowhere could she find mention of who would be commanding this mysterious Stingray, let alone a crew manifest.

And the personnel files for those reporting with her were far from heartening. Save for herself and Henderson, not a single one of them were without disciplinary statements of one sort or another.

Insubordination, dereliction of duty, gambling, contraband… She scrolled through the list of offenses she had compiled. What is this, the Dirty Dozen? Scorpion is starting to look better and better…

But no, she wouldn't work under Oliver Hudson again if she had anything to say about it. Especially not after the last fight they had. If he couldn't trust her judgment, their entire working relationship would be undermined. And the fact that he had assumed she was going 'against him' simply because she had asked a relevant question did not bode well for any crew stuck with the two of them—friction between a Captain and his XO would wear off on the sailors in a heartbeat and make for a dysfunctional command. She'd seen it happen before, and Katie would be damned if she'd let it happen on any boat where she was the XO.

But dealing with the UEO Screw-up? I don't know, Katie…

She started at the top of her personnel list again, hoping to find something to indicate that these sailors weren't as bad as she thought. The only faint praise she could manage was that none of them seemed to be repeat offenders. Many of them even seemed to be brilliant in their fields, right up until they'd managed to derail their own careers. Most of them were young, even, and were getting dumped into her lap after their first disciplinary action.

Being torpedoed after one screw-up sounded awfully familiar, though. In fact, it sounded rather like her own situation—Don't think like that, Katie. You don't know anything, and you're angry enough that you'd blame Hudson for starting a thunderstorm, so stop it. Don't dig yourself in any deeper than these orders are making you go.

She groaned, shutting down her computer. Those files weren't going to change what they said, just because she wanted them to, and poring over them would only drive her nuts.

Suck it up, Commander. They may be a bunch of rejects that are being dumped on you, but they're your rejects now. Deal with it.

26 November 2023

Miguel was just about to quit for the day when Tim stuck his head into the sonar space that he had been working in. The data feed coming from the WSKRs was coming across his console corrupted, and although Lucas thought that the problem was in the code (which had been designed for seaQuest II and only three WSKRs, not seaQuest III and a potential maximum of six), Miguel wanted to be sure that none of his hardware was malfunctioning before he blamed it on Lucas' several-year old code. The EWO was about three-quarters of the way through updating it, after all, and some of the faults the sonar system was displaying just didn't fit the pattern.

Unfortunately, ten straight hours of work (he'd forgotten lunch until Ben dropped a sandwich on his head) gave him no additional leads, and the cranky system was just going to have to wait until the morning. At least he'd gotten the stealth sub's signature processed as much as possible, so everything else could wait. Miguel was beat.

"Hey Miguel," the acting XO said cheerfully. "The captain wants to see you before you head out for the day."

That was a surprise. "What for?"

"I'm not sure." Tim shrugged. "He just asked me to tell you."

"Aren't you a bundle of help?"

In the "real" Navy (as opposed to the strangely relaxed hodge-podge of the old seaQuest) a junior officer really shouldn't say something like that to a lieutenant commander—but Miguel was a Warrant Officer, now, which meant he was supposed to be obnoxious and crusty. Warrants were chosen out of the chief's mess to be exactly that—subject matter experts who might just happen to be a little rough around the edges. Technically, Tim was his boss; Sonar and Sensors did fall underneath the Operations Officer. But Tim only grinned.

"Aren't I just?" he answered. "He's in his cabin right now, if you're on your way out."

"I was, yeah."

Those words sent Miguel trudging down the passageway and towards Bridger's cabin. A long time ago, when he'd first reported to seaQuest as a first class petty officer, he had dreaded that walk—but Stark had always been hard on her crew, no matter how charismatic she could be on a good day. Captain Bridger, however, was not Stark, and Miguel had long ago figured out that there was no need to fear the "Old Man" unless you'd royally screwed up. Even then, if you came to him with a solution to your own mess, he usually wasn't that bad.

As far as Miguel knew, he hadn't screwed up lately. Since the walk from Sonar Room 5 to the Captain's cabin was not a short one, he had plenty of time to contemplate his own possible misdeeds, which meant he should be in the clear.

The hatch to Bridger's stateroom was open, but he knocked on the rim of it, anyway. Inside, Bridger was flipping through some papers. "You wanted to see me, Captain?"

"Come in, Miguel. And close the door, if you don't mind."

Wondering if he'd been wrong about messing up, Miguel did so. Fortunately, Bridger did not give him long to think about it, waving him into a chair and saying:

"I've been looking at the data on that stealth sub Atlantis detected, and I think it's pretty solid. More importantly, I think it needs to be brought up at the upcoming UEO Command Strategy Board."

Miguel blinked. "I…um, thought that the commander of SUBRON Three squashed that report."

"He did," Bridger replied. "Unfortunately for Commodore Allan, though, I've been invited to attend the Strategy Board, and I plan to bring the information with me. And you, of course."

"And me?" he couldn't help it if his voice squeaked a bit on that last word; Miguel had enlisted in the Navy as a deck seaman and had worked his way up to being a Chief Warrant Officer. Nowhere in that job description, however, did it include talking big-picture strategy with the UEO brass.

"And you," Bridger confirmed. "You won't be there for the entire meeting, just the parts about the stealth sub. No one knows this subject better than you do, and they need to understand that there's a threat out there. Otherwise, we're all screwed."

There wasn't much to say to that, was there? One of the crappy parts about serving on seaQuest was that it sometimes meant you were the fleet's expert on something weird, which was definitely not a status programmed to make Miguel comfortable. He hated things like this. "I…guess I'll do what I can, sir."

"Good man." Bridger rose, signaling that the conversation was over. "We're on a military flight out of Hickam in three hours. Go pack a bag."

There were times that Miguel really wanted to kick Bridger, but that just wasn't done. There was a bright side to such short notice, though. At least he wouldn't have days to fret about this—the meeting would probably be over by the time he could work up a good storm of worry. "I'll be there, Captain."

Of course, by the time Miguel made it back to his barracks room, he was well and truly nervous—he didn't like admirals, and he didn't like UEO officials, either. And in his experience, they didn't like him, either.

"This is crazy," he muttered to himself, shoving his dress uniform into a suitcase. The captain hadn't told him to pack it, but with the UEO brass around, he was sure to need it. Miguel stared at the rest of his closet for a long time, and finally started dumping random bits of other uniforms into the suitcase. He'd just bring everything.

A/N: Here's the first update for this week—look for the next one on Friday. Thank you all for the reviews, and please do continue to let us know what you think! In the meantime, stay tuned for Chapter 7 "Deceptions and Planning," in which Miguel refuses to think of people in their underwear, and Katie fights with Marines and Yeomen both. Oh, and one of my real-life (former) chiefs makes a cameo appearance, just for fun.