Chapter 7: "Deceptions and Planning"

27 November 2023

"Please have two forms of identification in addition to your military ID and orders ready for inspection," the bored sounding guard told the five people remaining in the room. "When your name is called, you will be brought out for screening."

Katie wanted to snap at the young Marine corporal that they had heard him the last three times he had given this speech after someone else was called from the conference room. Unfortunately, with three enlisted sailors and a junior officer in the room, Katie had to keep her cool and maintain a professional image. She had been one of only two officers in the large group that had been bused over to this complex in an obscure corner of the base this morning, and from what she'd gathered, all thirty-four of the sailors were assigned to Stingray, which meant she was their XO. Or would be, soon enough. And that meant she couldn't afford to let her temper get the better of her—they did not need to see her as a screamer who could not control herself.

First impressions, my ass, she thought in irritation. She was bored of sitting in this room, bored of having nothing to do for the last two hours, and frustrated with how long and convoluted the security process was. Everyone in the room already had a security clearance, so what did the security pukes think they were accomplishing, anyway? Katie liked to be doing things, and patiently waiting her turn just wasn't something she was very good at. The only up side to this whole Stingray mess was that it had gotten her away from Oliver Hudson.

Fat load of good that does you, if you're stuck in a bureaucratic nightmare instead. I'd almost be willing to go back to Hudson, if this is some stupid UEO "think tank". Almost.

Jonathan hadn't been able to uncover anything about the mysterious "submarine" Stingray, and neither had any of her other friends scattered across the Navy. She'd even gone so far as to call one of her old bosses at the War College, but no one had heard of any boat named Stingray, unless they counted the one from a movie named "Down Periscope."

The movie was funny—she'd watched it after enough people told her about it—but what it implied did not exactly bode well for her career prospects. The only good thing was that the UEO's Naval Registry now did list a submarine with that name, officially a "new technology test bed." However, Katie figured that was just an additional layer of security. After a week of digging, she'd come to the conclusion that Stingray was simply a cover for something else. The submarine community was a tight one, and if such an experimental boat had existed, someone would have heard of it by now.

Unfortunately, that left her again with the assumption that this was some sort of think tank. Or that it was a hole that the Navy threw people in when their careers belonged in the rubbish bin.

"Why do you think security's so tight, ma'am?" Ensign Henderson asked her in a hushed whisper, glancing towards the Marine as if he would shoot them for talking to one another. Judging from the look on his face, he might have wanted to, but Katie was willing to take the risk that he wouldn't.

She outranked him by about a mile, after all, and while he might have had positional authority over her at the moment, Marines were always respectful to senior officers.

"I guess we'll find out when we're done with it," Katie said, wishing she had a better answer to offer. She hated not having answers, and she hated the look the three sailors exchanged when she couldn't offer them an explanation as to what was going on.

"Do you think…" Henderson hesitated, and Katie sent another mental curse in Oliver Hudson's general direction. Ever since they had been rescued from Torsk, the young officer had been quiet and withdrawn, not at all like the bubbly, open, young woman who had gotten on Katie's nerves before. She wouldn't have thought so at the time, but Katie would do almost anything to get the chattier version of Henderson back.

"Go on," Katie prompted her. Henderson leaned closer to Katie.

"Do you think we're allowed to go to the bathroom?" the ensign asked, voice dropping down to a whisper.

Katie resisted the unprofessional urge to giggle, and then had to stifle a sigh. Henderson's question wasn't entirely unwarranted. They'd been here since 0600, first in a waiting room, and then they had each passed through an initial screening before entering the conference room. Checking her watch, Katie noticed that it was approaching noon, and they had yet to be offered anything to eat or drink, nor a chance to use the restrooms.

She stood up and approached the corporal. He tensed, watching her warily, and Katie just arched an eyebrow at him. At least he seems to be paying attention.

"I'm going to have to ask you to take your seat until your name is called, ma'am," the corporal told her.

She looked him in the eye. "I'm going to have to ask you where the head is, Corporal. I assume that's permitted?"

He actually blushed. "Um, yes, ma'am. It's right over there."

Katie followed his gesture with her eyes, shooting him a slightly wicked smile. "Thanks, Corporal." Turning back towards her old seat, she gestured to the young ensign. "Come on, Lonnie. Let's go be girls."

Lonnie laughed outright, and one of the nearby petty officers snickered a bit, but clamped down on his amusement the moment Katie looked his way, clearly expecting to be yelled at. "Relax, Garrett," she said with a smile. "Even Commanders have to use the head sometimes."

Since she did have to go to the bathroom, and she really wanted to move around, Katie figured that going to the head was a good idea. Besides, her comment had finally brought a smile to Lonnie's face, and that had to be good for something.

28 November 2023

By the time they got off of the plane, Miguel felt like he'd been through a blender. Twice.

"What time zone are we in now, sir?" he asked, squinting in the sunlight.

"I think the more important question is what time it actually is," Bridger replied with a snort.

"It's zero-nine hundred, sir," the lieutenant commander who had shown up to escort them said helpfully. Miguel had already forgotten her name, but she looked angry, for some reason.

"Thanks." The captain spoke politely enough, but Miguel caught a mischievous twinkle in his eye that said he didn't really like her, either. "So, are you ready to wow everyone with your technical expertise, Miguel?"

Miguel tried to ignore the twisting feeling in his stomach, wiping sweaty palms onto the sides of his trousers. "I think so, sir."

"Relax," the captain told him as they got into the waiting car—Miguel had never actually been chauffeured anywhere in his life, but there was definitely a driver in the front seat. "You'll do fine. Everyone on that board puts his or her pants on in the morning the same way you do."

"You're not going to tell me the one about imagining them in their underwear, are you, sir? Because I know what some of these people look like, and I'm not sure I want to be thinking about that," Miguel said with a grimace. "I won't be able to concentrate on anything, if I did that."

Bridger laughed; their escort, sitting up front with the driver, looked like she wanted to shout at Miguel. "No, using that line usually just gets me in trouble."

Miguel managed a smile in return, though it did little to help his nerves. He knew once he got talking, he would be fine. There were very few people in the Navy who knew sonar like he did, and he didn't have a problem bragging about that. But some of these people would only understand one word out of three that Miguel said, and he hated having to dumb things down for politicians.

The ride from the airport to UEO Headquarters took about an hour; Miguel spent most of it reviewing his notes on a mini comp that had come with his posting on the first seaQuest; Lucas called it an antique, but it worked just fine for him. As an added bonus, this computer held all of his notes from the last several years, which meant he never had to track them down when he was working on a new project.

The captain, he noticed, did much the same, punching through multiple files on his own mini comp with a look of concentration on his face.

"We're here," the lieutenant commander said, looking like she had something smelly stuck under her nose. Of course, she was wearing her dress uniform, whereas Miguel and Bridger were still in their khakis, which were more than a bit rumpled from the flight.

"Thank you, Commander," the captain said courteously, gesturing Miguel out of the car first. "Still nervous?"

"Until I'm done," he replied. At least he knew he'd have the captain on his side, in there. He couldn't imagine going in without at least one friendly face in the crowd.

Bridger grinned again. "Most of what you have to say might as well be in Greek for these people, so just keep it simple, and I'll translate for anyone who doesn't understand. Your piece shouldn't take more than fifteen minutes, and then the Commander here will show you into an office where you can get some work done while you wait for me."

"Do you anticipate whatever you're talking about to take long, sir?" Miguel asked. He couldn't help being a little bit nosy, and if the captain wasn't willing to share, he'd drop the subject.

Bridger's straightforward answer made the lieutenant commander—Michaels, her nametag said, now that he could see it—scowl. "Unfortunately. I'll be here for the entire meeting, and war planning is rarely a quick process."

Miguel had known they were gearing up for war, of course, but to hear the captain be so frank about it sent shivers down his spine. This wasn't the Nathan Bridger who was captain of the first seaQuest, who could more often than not be found on a science deck than doing anything even vaguely militant. "I'll try and be patient, then, sir."

"Thanks." The captain's smile was a bit strained. "I'm still hoping that this meeting is pointless, of course, and that this thing won't come down to actual war, instead of nasty border conflicts."

"And Commander Krieg won't try and run any of his infamous schemes this tour either," Miguel offered with a half smile.

"Right," was the laughing answer. They were across the parking lot, now. Glancing up at the building, he noticed that it looked surprisingly drab. He'd never been to the UEO headquarters building before, and somehow Miguel had expected it to be more impressive. After all, wasn't the UEO supposed to be the world's greatest power, capable of keeping the peace and all that?

Then again, if people believed that, we wouldn't be almost at war, he thought to himself. And I wouldn't have to tell a bunch of admirals and important people about a Macronesian stealth sub. They wouldn't build something like that if they were still afraid of us.

With that happy thought, he and Bridger followed Commander Michaels inside and through a labyrinth of hallways, up four floors on an elevator, and finally up a flight of spiraled stairs. Finally, they reached a door with two guards outside it, both of which were alert. Definitely not rent-a-cops, those two, Miguel thought. They're actual Marines.

Everyone in the Navy knew that if something was really important, you guarded it with Marines. Guess the security here is tight, he realized. Great. Can I go home yet?

The Marines checked their identification with a scrutiny that made Miguel uneasy, but at least they didn't let Lieutenant Commander Michaels through the door. She was still looking at Miguel like he was some slimy creature from outer space, and having her in the room would definitely have made matters even worse.

At least he didn't have to stay for the entire meeting—that would be torture of a new and creative sort.

"Showtime," Bridger said, but he was not smiling as he led the way through the door.

"Glad you could join us, Nathan. Mr. Ortiz, isn't it?" Admiral Noyce said, standing up from the table to shake the captain's hand.

"Yes, sir." Miguel tried to keep his eyes from popping out of his head—there were way too many stars in that room.

Bridger, however, replied a lot more casually as he took the admiral's hand. "Hello, Bill."

A fast glance around told Miguel that this was going to be a small meeting; there were only seven people in the room and only nine seats around the table. Four of the people already seated, however, were flag or general officers, in addition to one captain and two commanders. The surroundings were plush, too; every chair at the table was plush-looking leather, and there were carafes of water and glasses set out, already. Each seat had its own mini comp station, and every bit of electronic equipment in the room was first rate.

"Have a good flight in?" the admiral asked, gesturing the two seaQuest officers towards empty seats as he returned to his own. "You haven't eaten breakfast yet, have you? We're having food brought in shortly." For a war meeting, everyone seemed terribly cheerful.

"Long," Bridger replied, sitting down without any preamble. At least he didn't seem to be bothered by the fact that he'd sat next to a commodore, but Miguel was really glad that only a commander was to his right.

The chairs were comfortable, though. Comfortable enough that Miguel started immediately worrying that he might nod off—there wasn't a military plane in the universe that had seats this comfortable, and he'd cramped his way across the Pacific. I guess that it's fortunate I'm too terrified to sleep. And I hope I'll be briefing first, so I can get out of here fast.

"You remember General Thomas, of course, and Commodore Vanalden," Admiral Noyce said towards the captain, mostly ignoring Miguel. Fine by me. "General Sullivan is the commandant of the Marine Corps, Captain Jones is joining us from the Royal Navy, Commander Wright is Intel, and Commander Piper is part of the war college's Strategic Studies Group."

Bridger nodded a greeting, looking strangely military. Then the admiral's attention shifted towards the rest of the room. "And you've all heard me speak about Captain Bridger, he's the head of our Weapons and Tactical Development Division."

The head of what? Miguel thought, but Bridger shot him a warning look to keep him quiet. He'd known seaQuest was classified, but that was a bit much. Then again, calling her "Project Anzio" was a bit over the top, too, so I guess this is par for the course.

"You've been behind the development of the new interceptors and torpedoes, no?" Commodore Vanalden asked.

"I have, but much of that is due to Doctor Bob Palardy and his team. They're geniuses in weapons development; I mostly just give them direction and stay out of their way," Bridger replied honestly.

"Still, it's pretty impressive," one of the commanders said, making the captain shrug. Miguel, on the other hand, was staring at him and trying to hide his confusion—what were these people on about? Then again, he must have been doing something in the years we didn't have a seaQuest. Why not that?

"That actually brings us neatly to the first topic," Admiral Noyce said cheerfully, reseating himself. "Nathan here has dug up something interesting. Some new stealth technology?" Admiral Noyce asked pointedly. Miguel felt his stomach flop again, knowing it would be his turn to speak very soon.

"Actually, credit for this find goes to Captain Ford on Atlantis," Bridger replied. "I just stole his sonar officer, and we've had some time to go over the data, which I believe reveals an alarming increase in Macronesian stealth technology. In fact—"

"Is this the same report that Commodore Allan failed to endorse?" It was Vanalden again, and Miguel already didn't like him.

Neither did Bridger, judging from the look in his eyes. "It is. However, as I was saying, we've had time to reevaluate the data since Captain Ford made his initial sighting report. Chief Warrant Officer Ortiz—" he gestured at Miguel "—was seaQuest's senior sonarman on her first two tours, and I assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that he knows his business. Captain Ford did encounter a stealth submarine, and if we ignore that fact, we're going to find ourselves sorely unprepared when the time to pay the piper comes along."

He turned to face Miguel. "The floor's yours, Warrant."

Miguel cleared his throat, glancing down at his notes briefly, before looking up to address the brass. "Good morning, ladies and gentleman, my name is Chief Warrant Officer Ortiz, and today I'll be briefing you on...

Day two of the endless security checks started with a bang—quite literally, in fact. A hurried-looking yeoman rushed through the doors five minutes after the new "Stingray" crew members had been bused over from the barracks they were required to sleep in (a real idiocy, in Katie's opinion, since she had an apartment in Honolulu, and many of the other sailors lived locally, as well), and proceeded to drop the portable fingerprint scanner she was carrying. It landed with a crash…and then proceeded to shatter into four separate pieces.

"I could fix that for you, you know," one of the senior petty officers on the crew offered, making the Yeoman give him a Look of Death.

"I'm not letting you fix a piece of equipment that's going to be verifying your identity," she retorted, looking superior.

"Oh, come on," the sailor retorted. His nametag read 'Reynolds, George, ET2,' and Katie vaguely remembered from his file that he'd been demoted for gross insubordination. "I'm an electronics technician, not a hacker. I can't reprogram it worth a damn, but I can put it back together again."

"Go sit down," the yeoman ordered tartly.

"It'll take about five minutes," he wheedled.

"Sergeant!" the yeoman spun, calling one of the Marine guards over. "This Petty Officer refuses to take his seat as required."

"Forget it," Reynolds muttered, turning to plop down in one of the same uncomfortable chairs they had all sat in for fourteen hours yesterday. "Last time I try to be helpful on this rust bucket."

And there I was thinking that Hudson and I fighting could create a dysfunctional crew, Katie thought to herself, trying not to scowl. Regardless of who my boss is on this boat, we're being handed a dysfunctional crew right from the get-go. This job was just looking better and better by the moment.

I just hope the captain isn't dysfunctional, too, her mind added before she could stop it.

Meanwhile, the same yeoman was telling one of the Marines that a new fingerprint scanner would have to be fetched from the base's main administrative office, and that they couldn't possibly get started with any of the other required checks until the scanner was there, which meant that the entire day's schedule would have to be bumped back by at least an hour, and everyone would just have to wait.

"Are they saying what I think they are, ma'am?" Lonnie asked from the seat to her left.

Katie bit down on her frustration. "Yeah, I think they are." She got up and went over to the yeoman, doing her best to pull off the persona of a Big Scary Officer in the process.

It must have worked a bit, because the yeoman looked up from the desk she was behind immediately. "Can I help you, Commander?"

She smiled at the young woman. Anyone with any sense would know it wasn't a nice smile, but the yeoman didn't show any recognition of Katie's irritation. "Is there some reason why we can't skip the fingerprint scan for now? I'm sure your superior officers would love to hear about the initiative you took to keep things moving along smoothly."

"Oh, no, ma'am," was the unfortunately earnest response. "My lieutenant was very clear when I spoke to him this morning after Quarters: every check has to be done in the specific sequence that has been ordered. I'm very sorry for the delay."

Katie wanted to reach across the desk and strangle the by-the-book yeoman, but with the Marines loitering around, she knew that would only get her into more trouble than it would be worth. "Is there any way you could call your lieutenant and tell him what happened?"

"I'm afraid he's in meetings all morning, ma'am, and I couldn't possibly interrupt those."

The benefits of strangling her were starting to outweigh the negatives. Behave in front of your crew, Katie. "Let me guess—he's in meetings with his superior, so there's no chance of talking to him, either?"

"Yes, ma'am. It shouldn't take more than an hour to get a replacement machine here, though. We'll be up and running in no time."

"Is there nothing I can do to convince you to continue with our agenda instead of making us suffer for your mistake?" Katie asked, fighting to keep her tone polite.

Something irritated flicked across the yeoman's face, but she erased it before Katie could even think about calling her disrespectful. "I wish I could, Commander, but it's just not done that way in the security world."

Judging from the look on her face, she wished anything but that, though there was nothing Katie could do to prove it. And strangling the yeoman would get her nowhere, no matter how many times she had to tell herself that.

"Then I suggest you make it your first priority to get that replacement unit here as soon as humanly possible," Katie said, her voice growing hard. "And in the meantime, see if you can get in touch with your lieutenant during one of his breaks."

"I'll do my best, ma'am."

Was the yeoman even trying to sound sincere now? Katie wasn't sure if her own frustration was getting the better of her by this point, so she nodded and turned away before she could say anything nasty. Even if her next boat was full of screw-ups, she wasn't going to act like one, and she refused to let her new sailors see her vent her fury on another enlisted sailor, no matter how much the yeoman deserved it.

"Looks like we're stuck waiting," she said, sitting down next to Henderson again.

"Thanks for trying, ma'am," the ensign said softly.

Katie mustered up a smile, resigning herself to another painfully long, boring day. I should have brought a book...

But no one had thought to put 'entertainment items' on the packing list enclosed in her orders, and who would have thought that she'd have to endure this administrative nightmare before checking into whatever Stingray was a cover for? For a moment, she actually missed her ex-husband; at least Ben would have thought up something interesting to do.

Then she regained her sanity. Adding Ben to this situation would have only added insult to injury. At least he's one screw-up I won't have to deal with!

Miguel had left the conference room after breakfast, and Nathan trusted that the sour-looking lieutenant commander had found him someplace comfortable to work and/or nap while he waited for the rest of the Strategy Board to finish up, because the meeting promised to be a long one.

What he found most interesting was that every board member, including himself, to a certain degree, seemed to view eventual war with Macronesia as inevitable. Commander Patricia Piper was busy briefing what the War College assessed Macronesia's initial deployments would look like—and in Nathan's experience, those war games had a disturbing tendency accurately predict actual events—but no one had even given war prevention activities any lip service at all.

Does the fact that no one is considering how to prevent another world war disturb you, Nathan, or is it the fact that you agree with them? his conscience asked helpfully.

Trying not to scowl, Nathan pushed the thought aside. He'd decided that he had to put his hatred of war aside over a year ago, now, and he wasn't there to play the peacemaker—the UEO had politicians for that, and they were doing a bang-up job of getting people killed at the moment. Frankly, war would probably be better for the UEO Navy than peace would; at the moment, more boats were getting sunk because they couldn't fight back than would probably be lost during wartime. And there was nothing Nathan hated more than getting sailors killed because the politicians were afraid.

After Commander Wright added the current intelligence estimate to the tactical picture, Nathan spoke up. "How confident are you in the numbers of Macronesian bases and warships you've projected?"

"About eighty percent, sir," Wright answered immediately. "We're fairly sure that we've got the locations of the bases nailed down, but we've known for some time that there are at least two secret shipbuilding projects underway, and we haven't been able to gain any intelligence on how many submarines they are building or where they are doing it."

That sounds familiar, Nathan thought without letting amusement color his expression.

"So," he said, doing some quick math in his head. "We're looking at an eight- or nine-to-one tonnage disadvantage right now, and that'll only get worse the longer we wait to declare war."

"Exactly." Wright's expression looked strained; in fact, every face around the table looked grim. They all knew what the numbers meant—every day the UEO government waited to declare war, the Macronesians pumped out more military equipment and trained more people…something that none of the UEO's member nations or confederations would be willing to do until war was declared. No one wants to spend money on the military when it might not be needed, but when it is needed, it's already too late to start.

Nathan rubbed a hand across his chin, feeling a bit of stubble. Fourteen hours on a plane after a long workday meant he really could use a shave, but he'd accidentally left his razor in back in Pearl Harbor.

"The politicians are going to want us to form what vessels we do have in a defensive line, trying to keep the Macronesians from breeching our borders," Commodore Vanalden said testily. "And we don't have enough boats to cover existing territories as it is—where do they want us to get enough forces to counter that armada?"

Bill shot Vanalden a frustrated look; Nathan gathered that this was a discussion they had frequently. "We can't change what the politicians do or don't do," the admiral replied. "We can only figure out how to best deploy the assets we have."

"We can't counter them ship on ship," Nathan spoke up before Vanalden could, but he addressed the Commodore's concerns. "So why try? What we really have to do is force them not to deploy their full strength against us. If they do, we're screwed."

"What do you suggest?" a British accented-voice asked, and Nathan turned to face the speaker.

Captain Jones' manner was rather more respectful than any exchange between captains of equal rank usually was, but Nathan figured that he had to be the single most senior captain in the entire UEO, even if one didn't count the years he'd spent retired. In fact, he'd become a captain long before Vanalden was even a commander, and he'd had his first command two years before that. He really did fit the Navy's stereotype of the "old man" commanding a submarine, but Nathan didn't mind.

The day he let someone pin stars to his collar was the day he retired for good. He liked being in command—and not of a desk. Or even a squadron. seaQuest was home, and that was that.

"We take the fight to them," he said simply, making Vanalden scowl.

"Fine words, but do you have an idea to back it up, Captain?"

He ignored the sneer. "Wolfpacks," Nathan answered. "Unrestricted submarine warfare. The Germans did it in World War II with great success, despite their fleet being sorely outnumbered, and NORPAC did the same in the Aegean campaign during World War III. The world has changed quite a bit, so we'll have to modify the operating orders, but if we can get boats behind Macronesian lines and start destroying infrastructure and wrecking havoc on their supply lines, they'll never be able to deploy overwhelming force on the border."

Suddenly, he had everyone's attention.

"The politicians will hate that," General Thomas put in immediately, but he looked pretty happy. He'd been downright belligerent in the first part of the meeting, but had fallen silent when naval tactics had taken over the discussion. Thomas was an army officer, after all, and knew about as much about naval warfare as Nathan did about parachuting. Probably less.

"They'll hate losing the war more," Bill countered.

"How do we do it?" Vanalden interjected immediately. "The logistics of supporting a group of subs deep in Macronesian territory would be a nightmare—and this isn't the Battle of the Atlantic. You can't hide an oiler in their waters and hope to get supplies to the boats that way."

"No, it'll have to be more like the Aegean campaign," Nathan agreed. "Once we cut the boats loose, they'll have to go completely EMCON and it'll be an independent command. If we plan for it to be a long deployment—and the initial one gives us the best chances of doing so, along with the best chances for success—one of the boats will have to play supply and weapons hauler for the others."

"That won't work with an attack sub," General Thomas put in, glaring at Nathan. Apparently he did know something about submarine warfare…but not enough.

Nathan and Bill exchanged a glance, and he waited for his friend to nod before continuing. Everyone in the room had the highest of security clearances, anyway, and sooner or later, the UEO's top military leaders had to know. Now was as good a time as any to let the cat out of the bag. Nathan took a deep breath.

"You can with seaQuest," he said quietly.

Vanalden's and Jones' eyebrows shot up immediately, but Thomas got in first—and with a whole lot more fury:

"Not this again!" the general snapped, swinging to glare at Bill. "We've gone through this a thousand times—and even if the UEO was willing to cough up enough money to build a new 'supersub', it would take you years to build one, and we don't have enough time for that!"

"Time is not the problem, Frank," Bill put in quietly. "Nathan?"

"Our slated commissioning is March 25th." He met Thomas' angry gaze. "And she's been built under wartime conditions, which means that upon commissioning, workups will be compete and she will be ready to deploy."

Silence filled the room for almost a complete minute, and Nathan could realization dawning on each face.

"That could change everything," Vanalden remarked. He was one of the most aggressive submariners in the service—Oliver Hudson had been his protégé until they'd had an interesting falling out—and clearly had not expected an ally in Nathan Bridger. Heads around the table nodded, agreeing with the commodore, and Thomas looked like he had no idea what to say. A small part of Nathan wanted to celebrate; pulling one over on Thomas was nice, given how much he despised the army general, but the situation was too serious for smiles.

Bill smiled. "That's the idea. Now, ladies and gentlemen, before we get further into planning, I think we should make it clear that this will be a Codeword-protected operation, with no one outside this room told about it without my permission. Is that clear?"

Everyone answered in the affirmative, and Bill punched a few keys on his computer, clearly calling up the random generator that the UEO used to name protected information. "In that case, folks, let's start working on Plan…Calcimine."

This day keeps getting better and better, Katie thought to herself. It had taken closer to two hours for a replacement fingerprint scanner to be brought in, and if she had been in a less generous mood, she would have accused the yeoman of purposely slowing the process down instead of expediting it. Then they had to go through the process of confirming everyone's orders. Again.

As if anyone would fake orders for this freak show.

They were back in the conference room now, the same place where they'd spent so much time being screened the day before. Katie was really starting to hate this room, and the chairs were making her back hurt. She kept her sigh as quiet as possible, flipping through the stack of forms she had been given with growing irritation.

"Didn't we fill out these same forms back at the SUBRON, ma'am?" Lonnie asked her in an undertone, leaning over so that no one else could hear her. "I thought that our orders told us to arrive with these forms already filled out?"

"Yeah, we did fill them out, like our orders said. I'm sure it's wishful thinking that they didn't mean to make us do this twice," she replied.

Lonnie scowled. "Why do I get the feeling that we're being screwed with?"

"I'm sure the UEO doesn't have the inclination to waste their resources messing with us, Ensign," Katie said sternly. At least, I don't think they do...

"Sorry, ma'am. I guess I'm a bit frustrated," her young subordinate said, turning a bit red. Lonnie changed the subject in a hurry. "What do you think the boat is going to be like?"

"I honestly don't know." She didn't like admitting to that, but Henderson didn't need Katie lying to her. "Whatever it turns out to be though, she'll be ours."

"Some of the enlisted guys are saying that there isn't a sub named Stingray at all, and that this is all a cover-up for something else."

Lonnie looked half-frightened, half-hopeful as she said those words, and Katie could not have agreed more with those feelings. However, it was her job to put a good face on everything, whether she liked the situation or not. Sometimes, I'd really like to go back to just being an engineer, she thought. Her old job had been so much simpler than being an XO—the ship either worked, or it was broke. You either fixed things, or you didn't. End of story. And then she hadn't had to watch her temper nearly so much. Everyone expected the Chief Engineer to be cranky, but as the XO she had to be an example.

She weighed her options of telling Lonnie what she had learned from Jonathan the week before, but with the enlisted men straining to overhear their conversation, she wouldn't be able to be nearly as candid as she would have liked. "There is a Stingray in the Navy's registry. I checked after we got our orders."

It just didn't exist last month, she didn't add.

"There's a very good chance that there's almost no information about Stingray because she's new. And if she's new, then that means she'll be top of the line," Katie offered. It sounded pathetic even to her own ears, though the words did seem to mollify Lonnie slightly.

"Do you think she's a Valiant-class, then, ma'am?" Lonnie asked, clearly relaxing a bit at the thought. Torsk had been the second boat in the Valiant class, and no young officer relished the idea of relearning everything just because they'd gone to a new type of submarine.

Don't I wish. The Valiants were the newest and most advanced subs in the fleet, and so far as Katie knew, Scorpion was the newest one. And of course, Hudson had gotten that plum command. She was pretty sure that she'd read a news release about the next one being named Trident, not Stingray. But she wasn't going to tell Lonnie that. Not right now.

Instead, she smiled at the young woman. "That's as good a possibility as anything," she said. And not even a lie.

Lonnie smiled back. "A few of my friends from OCS got to pre-commission a new boat. They said its hard work, but really rewarding in the end."

Katie hadn't ever been on a pre-commissioning crew either, but if the retrofit of the first seaQuest was anything to go by, it would involve long hours and lots of stress. Still, she wouldn't have traded that experience for anything, so she was able to say honestly: "Let's hope it's rewarding enough to make up for this mess they're putting us through first."

"I bet it will, ma'am." Sunny Lonnie was back—did the girl ever stay down for long? But her happy attitude made even Katie smile despite herself.

The obnoxious yeoman stood up and came to the front of the room, stealing away Katie's chance to reply. "Ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow morning we will complete the security screening process. If you have been disqualified for some reason, you will be notified tonight and given new orders immediately. For those of you who qualify, you will be turned over to your new command tomorrow.

"This concludes today's business except for urinalysis testing. Chief Gatewood?"

Katie tuned out the burly chief as he explained the urinalysis process; she had gone through the testing at least a hundred times since arriving at the Academy in 2006, and she knew nothing had changed since—after all, she'd had to sign off on the results every month as Torsk's XO. But at least Chief Gatewood was a more engaging speaker than the stubborn female yeoman Katie still wanted to strangle, and he was mercifully blunt, too.

"It's pretty simple," Gatewood said with a snort. "Just pee in your cup, don't put anything else in it, and don't let anyone else touch it. Any questions?"

A/N: Stay tuned for Chapter 8: "All Hands", in which Katie and Lonnie finally get to the boat, Lucas gets in a spat with Schafer, and a certain sarcastic Seaman from season 2 arrives. In the meantime, please do review!

Also, keep an eye out for a new story from me called "Before the Kings", which ties into the Freedom-verse. It should go up today.