Chapter 11: "A Cup of Kindness"
31 December 2023
"When I promised we'd have seaQuest wet by the end of the year, I hadn't intended to take myself quite so literally," Bridger joked, watching the console over Ben's shoulder.
"It could be worse, sir. At least it's four in the afternoon instead of a few minutes before midnight," the Supply Officer replied lightly, his eyes glued to the Damage Control readout in front of him.
When Katie said that I'd be managing the DC Console for the General Quarters watchbill, I thought she was joking! Sure, it's nice to have something to do instead of sit in my stateroom, but this is supposed to be an engineer's job! Ben thought, trying to decide if he wanted to grin or grimace. He was stuck there, however, no matter which strange twist of fate (or his ex-wife's mind) had brought him to this place. Of course, Brad Williams was an 'old school' engineer, who wanted to spend his time covered in grease and in engineering spaces instead of on the bridge, which explained why young Lonnie Henderson sat on at the Engineering Console while Brad babied his precious reactors in person. seaQuest's Auxo seemed to have a natural flair for engineering and was doing fine so far—but Lordie, the girl was wet behind the ears!
That thought made Ben grin. Of course, the fact that Lonnie seemed to have a crush on him wasn't very amusing, but that was the breaks. Fortunately, he wasn't interested in her—not at all—because Katie would probably have killed him if Ben had even harbored a thought in that direction. She's way too young for me, he told himself, ignoring the fact that he usually went for women about Henderson's age. And since Katie's taken her under her wing, waaaay off limits!
"Let's not tempt fate, shall we, Mr. Krieg?" the captain responded lightly, jerking Ben's attention back to the present. Thank God that wasn't a response to what I was just thinking! Heaven only knew what the Captain would think of Ben even looking Lonnie's way. He'd rather face Katie's wrath, come to think of it.
"Oh, that's definitely not my intention." A light on his console was flashing, too, so it was a good thing that he'd started paying attention. "Material Condition Zebra set throughout the ship, Captain."
"Very well."
Immediately, Chief Carleton, the Diving Officer, piped up to add "The ship is rigged for dive, sir."
"I concur." Bridger dropped a hand on Ben's shoulder briefly, seeming to sense his tension—how did the man seem so calm? Submerging in a submarine had become old hat to Ben years ago, but submerging a submarine that had never been wet before was nerve wracking as all hell.
On the bright side, the new weapons officer—whatever his name was, Brady or Brody or something—looked a bit green. In fact, he looked really green, which made Ben feel quite a bit better. At least he wasn't the only one who was nervous.
The captain moved a step away before lifting the handheld radio that allowed them to communicate with the crew controlling the now-sealed flooding drydock. "Control, seaQuest, we are rigged for dive. Flood the drydock."
"Flood the drydock, aye," the radio crackled, and Ben tried not to hold his breath.
In the end, the fact that he'd managed not to turned out to be a good thing. The process took hours.
seaQuest belonged to the UEO Navy from start to finish; unlike most newly-built warships, she did not remain the property of the contracting company that had built her up until what the Navy called "Delivery". Instead, she was built, designed, and managed by the Navy, which used specialty contractors to build and install equipment where necessary. It meant that the pre-commissioning crew had bore the enormous responsibility of getting the boat ready for sea, but keeping her in the Navy's hands also increased the likelihood of seaQuest's existence remaining a secret. Back when her keel was laid, the UEO had decided that a slightly extended construction timetable was a worthy trade off for secrecy, but there were downsides.
"Deck's awash," Ortiz reported, using the traditional navy phraseology to indicate that seaQuest was now fully underwater. If she'd had a sail like most other submarines, it would have still be above the water, but seaQuest's unique design eliminated that.
"Hull integrity at 100 percent," Ensign Henderson reported, her voice sounding relieved. They'd had some minor flooding two hours before when the water level had finally reached seaQuest's bottom, but overall, the new bio-skin seemed to be holding up just fine.
"No additional leaks reported," Krieg added on, rather unnecessarily—but this was his first time manning the DC Console outside of training, so his nerves were understandable. Most captains told their supply officers to make themselves scarce during any tense situation, but Krieg was best kept busy.
Besides, Ben knew his stuff. The man was actually a damn good officer, when he wanted to be.
"Very well," Nathan replied, leaning casually against the navigation table. Somehow, he managed to keep his tone from revealing the headache he'd been fighting for the last four hours—as much as he preferred to keep every aspect of his boat's construction and testing under his control, this evolution was turning out to be more stressful than he'd anticipated.
The last time he'd pre-commissioned a boat—way back in 2005, which made him feel really old—he'd been a spectator watching USS Jimmy Carter slip into the water. At the time, he'd ached to have more involvement in the process, dreaming of the submarine he'd started designing and would someday build…but he'd been a bit naïve about the entire process, too. Nathan had no idea it would be this much work until he'd started it, and by then he was far too terminally stubborn to back out and tell the UEO that they ought to build seaQuest the traditional way.
He lifted the radio again. "Control, seaQuest, the boat is submerged. Complete flood and pressurize to simulated depth of 500 feet."
Shipbuilding had come a long way since the first time he'd watched a boat launched; then, you had to wait until sea trials to actually see how the sub handled pressure. Nowadays, a specially constructed drydock like this one could increase the apparent pressure once flooded, a feature that would hopefully save them a lot of grief once sea trials started.
"Control, aye."
I should have started with something a bit more benign, Nathan thought to himself, struggling not to let his impatience get the better of him. Like one hundred feet, not five hundred. So far, the evolution had taken four hours, including the pause while they'd plugged up some flooding in the aft torpedo room. It was almost eight o'clock PM by now, and he had promised his crew that he'd try to get them off the boat in time for New Year's. He couldn't give them more than a day off—not with trials scheduled to start on the nineteenth—but Nathan knew they needed something. The last fourteen days had been stressful enough to make everyone short-tempered, and they deserved a break.
All the same, seaQuest took the added pressure like a champ. Flooding the rest of the drydock took only moments once they knew that the boat wasn't going to suddenly spring a leak, and within five minutes of that, the first pressure check was complete.
An hour later, they were at the drydock's max pressure of ten thousand feet, and Nathan's headache was vanishing rapidly. His feet, however, were growing sorer by the moment. It had been ages since he'd spent six hour watches standing around in a submarine's control room, and he'd almost forgotten how much Navy regulation shoes could tear up his feet when given half a chance. Still, Nathan was a big believer in the old submariner tradition of not sitting in the Captain's Chair until the boat was accepted by the Navy. So, his feet would stay sore.
Nathan finally let himself smile. "Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'd say we've closed out 2023 with a bang. Well done."
His watchstanders were too professional to break out cheering, but they did exchange grins and a few discreet high fives. Oddly enough, the only one not celebrating was the officer most prone to do so. He turned.
"Something troubling you, Mr. Krieg?"
"Ummm…I'm starting to get some funny readings on Deck Fourteen aft of frame 900."
A sinking feeling started to fill the pit of Nathan's stomach. "Funny like ha ha, or funny like out of parameters?"
"Um. I'm not sure, Captain." For once, Ben looked completely puzzled, and Nathan could tell it was not an act. "Not funny like ha ha, at any rate. It might be faulty sensors—do you have anything, Henderson?"
"Not yet…Cheng's sent someone to check it out, though."
"What readings do you have, Ben?" Nathan asked, walking up the stairs to the upper level, and looking over the Supply Officer's shoulder again.
"I'm showing a slow leak in the seawater supply system on the port side," Krieg answered as he got there. "Might just be faulty sensors—Commander Williams thought they were kind of squirrely and had me order new ones for the system last week, but they haven't arrived yet."
Instinct prickled, and Bridger lifted the radio immediately. "Control, seaQuest, return pressure to normal."
"Return pressure to normal, Control, aye," the operator on the other end answered immediately.
Katie threw a questioning look his way, and he headed back to the center of the bridge to talk to her. "We've proven the boat can withstand ten thousand feet of pressure," he answered quietly, leaning on the back of her chair. "There's no need to push it—and besides, I hear some of you have New Year's plans."
"Not if we start springing leaks we don't, sir," she replied dryly, but Nathan could see the laughter lurking in her eyes. Katie played the disciplinarian perfectly, and most of the newer crew members still hadn't discovered her rather wicked sense of humor. "And no one is going anywhere until I'm satisfied with seaQuest's cleanliness."
Several watchstanders groaned aloud hearing that, but Bridger grinned.
"I knew you'd make a good XO," he said with a chuckle. "You're meaner than I am."
"Bet your ass I am, Captain," Hitchcock grinned in return. "In fact—"
A sudden call on the boat's communication system cut her off. "Bridge, Chief Engineer, we've got major flooding in the aft torpedo room, estimate fifty gallons per minute from ruptured seawater service piping. Sealing the space now!"
"Chief of the Watch, call it away!" Bridger snapped before his brain completely caught up with what he was hearing.
The words went out over the 1MC as soon as Chief Crocker could grab the microphone, following the traditional sound of rapidly ringing bells to get the crew's attention.
"Flooding, flooding, flooding. Flooding reported in the aft torpedo room, compartment number One Four tac Nine Zero Four tac One tac Mike. Away the at sea fire party away, provide from Repair Five."
Chief Crocker repeated the announcement again, sending seaQuest's emergency response team to compartment 14-904-1-M, the aft torpedo room. Immediately Chief Carleton started compensating for the flooding by subtracting ballast up forward—keeping seaQuest level was an intricate balancing act at any time, but when she was confined to such a narrow space as the drydock, doing so was especially important. The last thing they wanted was for her stern to sink far enough that it impacted the drydock's floor…and it wouldn't take many degrees off center to accomplish that, what with how shallow the drydock was. Bridger watched him for a moment, but the Chief seemed to have the boat 'dialed in' just fine.
Even if the space flooded solid, seaQuest wouldn't sink—not that doing so was really much of a problem in the drydock—but it was still an annoyance. If the aft torpedo room did entirely fill with water, they were likely to have to replace a lot of the equipment inside it, which would take more time than they had. Our production schedule definitely isn't geared for replacing finicky hydraulic equipment like torpedo tube rams and the torpedo handling system, Nathan thought with an internal grimace.
Of course, right now all he could do was wait and let his people do their jobs. Meanwhile, however, he turned to Katie with a wry smile. "Me and my big mouth, huh?"
"I wasn't going to say it, sir."
"I guess this is a good time to be happy that you worked the kinks out of all of our underway watchbills, don't you think, Commander?" he asked instead of replying to the dry look his XO was giving him.
Katie smiled, seemingly despite herself. The watchbill argument was one they'd had a week ago; Katie had wanted to put off figuring out which stations the crew would man until they had a bit more training under their belts, but Bridger had insisted on completing them before launch. "I was beginning to think you'd gone crazy, but it seems like there was a method to your madness after all."
Only years of experience in dealing with unanticipated disasters, he didn't say. Instead, he turned to ask:
"How bad is the flooding, Ben?"
"Faster than the pumps can keep up with, but it looks like Cheng has activated the eductor, so as long as they can secure whatever system is—" Krieg stopped, listening to information being passed through his headset. "They've got the seawater system isolated, sir. Dewatering in progress."
"Good." Nathan turned to the rest of his watchstanders. "All right, folks, now that Mister Murphy has paid us a visit, I want to check this boat from top to bottom. Now that she's wet, she'll be staying that way, so it behooves us to make sure we stay dry inside. We've got—" he checked his watch "—about three hours until midnight, so if we want to have any fun tonight, we'd best get to work."
Of course, it would be Krieg who had to comment: "Can we convince this Murphy character to make his New Year's resolution be to leave us alone?"
Now that the minor crisis was under control, he was right back to his usual joking self, and Nathan had to chuckle.
"Let me know how that works out for you, Mr. Krieg," he said dryly, and turned his attention back to his boat.
A bit more than two hours later, Katie felt punch-drunk already. They'd finally released the crew after dewatering the flooded space and verifying which equipment probably needed replacing, and she'd finally pried Brad Williams out of engineering and personally kicked him off of the boat. He hadn't actually needed reminding that he had a wife and kids at home, but Brad did tend to forget to look at the clock for long periods of time, so Katie had gone after him herself. Of course, she remembered being just that bad back in her own days as seaQuest's Chief Engineer, but now that she was the XO, part of her job was making sure that people got rest when they needed it.
That even includes you, Hitchcock, she reminded herself sternly, ignoring how much she wanted to stick around and make sure nothing else went wrong. Besides, her parents had flown into town for New Year's, and their hotel was only about a thirty minute drive from the base. She'd make it to the Sheraton around eleven o'clock, so she really didn't have an excuse to avoid them.
Not that she wanted to. She was just dead tired, and figured that one glass of champagne would make her pass right out. There was no way she was going back to the boat tonight, though, so she might as well take advantage of the opportunity to have a bit of fun before going back to being the hellacious XO everyone loved to hate.
Traffic was thankfully light, though, and she reached their room a few minutes before eleven. Katie had changed into her khakis before leaving the boat, of course—her parents always griped about never seeing her in uniform, but she'd be damned if she was willing to put on her dress blues just so they could seeher in it. Again.
"Katie!" her mother opened the door with a grin on her face, and pulled her into a hug before Katie could get a word out. "Don't you look wonderful!"
With an effort, she resisted the urge to make a snarky comment about the fight they'd had last New Year's Eve. Back then, her mother hadn't been pleased with Katie rejoining the Navy, and had made her own opinions extremely clear. She had seen Katie's decision as a setback, giving up a hefty paycheck and the prestige of her own command for the chance to get shot at by Macronesians. She hadn't really cared that Katie wanted to make a difference more than she wanted to make money, but apparently her mother's unpredictable nature had struck again.
I guess she's had a change of heart since then. As usual.
"Thanks, Mom," she replied. "How was your flight in?"
"Awful. They're still routing everything through Texas, which makes everything take so much longer. But come in! We've missed you terribly, and you hardly ever call."
Katie had almost managed to forget that most of the west coast of the US was gone. She had been so busy since the earthquake dealing with seaQuest and worrying about Macronesia that she hadn't even had time to figure out the insurance paperwork on the condo she'd had in Los Angeles.
"Sorry, things have been busy. I was going to call you on Christmas, but by the time I remembered, it was the middle of the night for you," she apologized, following her mother into the hotel room.
"Happy New Year, sweetie," her father called from the bedroom, sounding distracted. Of course, her parents had rented the penthouse for their stay in Pearl Harbor, but Katie wasn't surprised. They'd always done things like that.
"Don't mind him," her mother told her for what had to be the millionth time. "He's talking to the trainer of one of the two year old racehorses he owns. They're thinking that this is the 'big one', and I can't pry him off the vidlink about it." She waved Katie towards the enormous spread of food laid out in the front room. "Help yourself, and while you're at it, tell me about this new assignment of yours. You're not usually this secretive."
"Did you get all this food for just the three of us, or are you expecting more people?" she asked, neatly sidestepping the second part of her mother's question.
Her mother shrugged. "Well, we were hoping that Ben might show up—did you know he was here in Pearl, honey?—but he said he had other plans."
"Tell her to try the Kendall-Jackson champagne. It's extraordinary," her father called in.
"You invited Ben? Mom, he works for me right now," she snapped, hardly even hearing her father's comment. And he's damn lucky he was smart enough to say no!
"Well, we didn't know that, now, did we?" was the innocent response; her mother offered her a glass of the aforementioned champagne without looking the slightest bit chagrined. "If you told us anything about your current assignment, we might have. Besides, Ben's a family friend. That isn't against regulations, is it?"
Katie felt a headache blossoming. She took the glass of champagne, swallowing down almost the entire flute without bothering to taste it. She would probably regret it later, but for now, she would need the liquid courage to get through the night with her mother. "We've been divorced for ten years. I spend enough time with him at work, and I don't want to see him in my free time."
"I'm hardly suggesting you remarry him, Katie," her mother tried to soothe her. "You father and I just miss him sometimes, that's all. He's a wonderful young man."
"If you think he's that wonderful, why don't you just divorce Dad and marry him yourself, Mom?" Katie asked sarcastically.
"I heard that!" her father called in from the next room, laughing. In some ways, Ben had always reminded Katie of her own dad, perpetually good natured and always wearing a smile. Katie had inherited her drive from her mother, who had been CEO of her own massive banking corporation before retiring a few years earlier. They were very alike, which was probably why they fought so much, and why Katie had always turned to her dad when she needed a shoulder to lean on.
Her mother, however, gave her a dark look. "Oh, don't be overly dramatic, Katherine. I was simply expressing regrets. Why don't you eat something? You look exhausted."
Katie sighed. She was exhausted, of course, but if she told her mother that, she would start asking questions again. And as much as Katie wanted to gush about the new seaQuest, they were too close to being done for her to be comfortable taking that risk. Nineteen days until sea trials, and then maybe I can talk to someone outside the crew about this, she thought tiredly. Maybe. Knowing UEO security, it would take a lot longer than that.
"Can we please just not talk about my failed personal life tonight?" Katie practically begged, hoping to derail that conversation early. After all, it was hardly the first time her parents had felt the need to extol the virtues of Benjamin Krieg. And it probably wouldn't be the last.
And if she even thinks about bringing up grandchildren again, I'm leaving, she thought grouchily.
"Of course we can, honey. I didn't mean to ruin your evening," her mother replied. "Now, eat something, Katherine, before you fall over."
She knew better than to argue with that tone, of course, so Katie dug into the food that was offered. As usual, the selection was really good, so she was able to actually enjoy the food—and the conversation, once her mother stopped talking about Ben, at least. Fortunately, her father emerged from his call a few minutes later, and Katie was soon inundated with information about his newest star racehorse, who her father was certain would make the big races next year.
"You owe me one," Nathan muttered as they headed up the walk.
"Owe you? Why would I owe you anything?" Kristin retorted. "I'm the one wearing high heels here."
He snorted. "This is your friend's party. And I'm wearing a suit, which you know I hate to do."
"And I'm wearing a formal ball gown, which I like about as much as you do suits. Stop complaining, Nathan. These are your kind of people—Marco is even head of the Mote Marine Lab Dolphin and Whale Hospital. You've been bugging me to introduce you two for years."
They'd reached the mansion's door, and Kristin elbowed him. Hard.
"Now smile, Nathan, and act like you mean it."
"Yes, ma'am," he answered, pasting a smile on his face and trying to look sincere. Truth be told, he'd usually feel excited to meet some of these people—being around scientists had become his favored method of stress relief since he'd gone back to being full-time Navy—but he was just so darn tired that drumming up enthusiasm for anything was hard. Still, it had been a good day—seaQuest was wet, so he supposed he could afford to smile.
Moments later, the door opened, and they were soon engrossed in the party. The novelty of being with fellow scientists was enough to keep Nathan awake through watching a replay of the ball dropping in New York City and through four glasses of champagne, though somewhere around twelve thirty, he really started to feel the pressure of the last few days and began to droop. Thankfully, a good conversation about dolphin rescue with Dr. Marco Rodriquez saved him from falling asleep on his feet, though, and soon the two were trading experiences and stories.
"The problem is," Rodriquez was saying, "what with the way the various political powers in the world are ratcheting up the tension, the number of marine rescue groups we can work with has rapidly diminished—especially after we lost a good third of them when California sank into the Pacific. Several of our old partners are in areas now owned by Macronesia, and they're just not able to take adoptees from inside the UEO."
"I didn't realize things had gotten that bad." Not while I had my head under a rock named seaQuest, anyway, Nathan thought to himself, feeling guilty.
"Thankfully, most of the rescues and not-for-profit groups in Florida are still with us, though this year has been really hard on the dolphin population. Everyone's just about full up, and I've had to send a few dolphins to Sea World Orlando—not my favorite place to send a rescue in need of care—just because I'm out of space.
"Usually, I try to eventually release every rescue I take in, but right now I'm sitting on an almost three year old female who simply refuses to stay in the wild," the other marine biologist continued. "Every time we send her out, she beaches herself again, and there's nothing physically wrong with her. The only problem we can pinpoint is that she likes being around humans. She's an absolute doll, and usually I wouldn't complain, but Minerva is taking up space that could be used to heal a hurt dolphin."
"What brought her in?" Nathan asked, unable to help himself.
"She and her mother got caught in some tuna fishers' nets," was the snarling response. "The mother died, but we were able to save her, thankfully. She was touch and go for the first year and a half, getting infections, respiratory issues, and a lung problem that almost made us lose her, but she's a tough little girl." Nathan could hear the affection in his voice, and had to smile. "I'd love to send her to a research group, because she's one of the brightest dolphins I've ever encountered, but no one has any room."
I really shouldn't, but…ah, hell. Why not? "Have you thought about talking to the Navy?" Nathan asked with as much nonchalance as he could muster.
"The Navy?"
"Before you call me crazy, let me explain," he replied with a chuckle. "One of the holdovers from our work on seaQuest is quite a bit of dolphin research—I'm sure Kristin has told you about what we were working on back before the incident with World Power."
"Your crew was working on the vocorder!" Rodriquez exclaimed all of a sudden. "I thought that project was discontinued when seaQuest sank."
Nathan wasn't surprised that an eminent Marine Biologist like Marco Rodriquez would have heard of the vocorder project; although Lucas' work had been classified for a long time, nowadays the UEO had actually admitted that the vocorder existed. Of course, they were still claiming that the project was 'ongoing' and 'beginning to show progress', but at least the information was beginning to reach the scientific community.
"Not quite. In fact, Lucas Wolenczak is still involved, but so far, we've really only had one dolphin dedicated to the project. If Minerva is as bright and as willing as you say, I could probably get the funding authorized for her to join the project."
Not many people got to see such a pleasantly shocked expression on Marco Rodriquez's face—his reputation called him more than a little difficult to work for—but Nathan was definitely treated to it as they began to work out the details.
I did promise Lucas more dolphins, the captain thought to himself. And it's not like there isn't room on seaQuest. As long as she gets along with Darwin, we should be able to move her over pretty quickly.
Of course, adding Minerva to the crew would just add one more thing to that long list of tasks they had to accomplish before sea trials, but something told Nathan that Lucas wouldn't complain about this one any more than he would.
1 January 2024
"Last call, folks," the cute waitress that Ben had been flirting with all night said as she passed their table. Ben checked his watch. 0252. Damn. At least we have tomorrow…today…off.
"Alright, lady and gentlemen, time to go home," Ben said to his companions. The night had originally started with him dragging Lucas and Tim out to the Officers' Club on base. While not the most exciting place to go, the O Club was at least nearby and wouldn't be nearly as crowded as any of the civilian bars off base. That, and getting back to the boat from there was a damn sight easier than corralling this group out in town would have been.
Their group of three had expanded to five when Miguel had joined them, and then Lucas had noticed Henderson sitting alone, so they had invited the young ensign over to join them as well. To her credit, she had barely tried to flirt with Ben at all, even after Miguel and Tim had taken turns buying her drinks.
"'s not time to go yet," Lucas slurred, and Ben tried not to laugh at his friend. It had become apparent rather early into their night that the young man just wasn't used to heavy drinking, despite having just turned 22 the week before. But Ben had drawn the short straw for the tragically noble role of designated driver, and as such, had encouraged Lucas to enjoy himself more than he might normally have otherwise.
"I can get Ensign Henderson back if you want to deal with those two," Miguel offered. The two of them had shared the enjoyment of watching the other three get progressively more inebriated as the night moved on, remaining mostly sober themselves.
"Thanks," Ben said, hauling Lucas to his feet. "Come on, buddy. Time to go home." He nudged Tim, who had his head down on the table. "Let's go, O'Neill. I can't carry both of you."
The muffled reply sounded like some sort of curse, but Ben wasn't quite sure. He was sure that is had been in Chinese, though. At least, I think it was Chinese. Maybe it was Korean. Vietnamese? Miguel was laughing at him, Henderson leaning heavily against his side and giggling drunkenly.
"Good luck, sir. Don't call me if you need reinforcements," the warrant officer said before making his retreat. Ben nudged at Tim again, but the commander didn't lift his head, and Lucas continued to wobble precariously at his side.
"Need a hand there, Commander?" Lieutenant Brody asked, sidling up to the table. Ben resisted the urge to grimace, smiling instead. Brody had only managed to somewhat annoy Ben the few times they had worked together, though he certainly had the potential to get further under Ben's skin than that. Brody was clearly the type of guy who thought his life was an action movie and he was the hero, and to make matters worse, he acted like he thought everyone else should believe that, too. Ben had seen him throughout the night, but he had been surrounded by a gaggle of girls, and he'd felt no need to invite him over.
Guess his lady friends abandoned him for the evening. But beggars can't be choosers, Ben, and you can't get these two back to the boat by yourself.
"Grab O'Neill, will you? I think he's fallen asleep," he said.
"Sure thing, Commander," Brody replied, tucking himself under one of Tim's arms to haul him up off the chair. Ben wished he had a camera handy to capture the image of the usually put-together Tim O'Neill with his glasses askew, hair a mess, and drool stuck to the side of his face.
Guess I'll just have to rely on my memories. Shame, it would have been great blackmail material.
"Happy New Year, boys," Ben said, leading their procession out into the cool Hawaiian night and back to the boat.
A/N: We're back on the one-a-week schedule again, woohoo! In all seriousness, this chapter was finally the calm before the storm, because from the next chapter onwards, things really begin to happen-both in the war and in the lives of seaQuest's crew. Stay tuned for Chapter 12: "Cloak and Dagger", in which Lucas meets Minerva, Hudson gets annoyed, and yet-to-be-revealed nastiness happens to a character. In the meantime, please let us know what you think!