Chapter 12: "Cloak and Dagger"
2 January 2024
"Take a day off," the captain had started the conversation by telling him, and although Lucas found that his 'day off' was a bit directed in nature, he wasn't arguing. After all, he hadn't seen Doctor Westphalen since his last year at MIT, and Darwin had been hanging out around the research areas at the university where Kristin was currently conducting her research. Without seaQuest, the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology at the University of Hawaii had become the home of the vocorder; they had a long and comfortable understanding with the Navy, and MIT didn't exactly feature a dolphin research center. While streamlining his program, Lucas had traveled quite a bit between Hawaii and MIT, but ever since joining the Navy, he'd been a bit distracted.
Darwin had dropped by the shipyard a few times, of course, but it wasn't the same as having him on board. Now that the boat was wet and staying that way (and they'd successfully tested the swim tubes), it was almost time to bring Darwin home. They had to wait at least a week, of course, to allow the water in the tubes to settle out, but the captain had already told Lucas that moving Darwin aboard would be his responsibility. Lucas was more than a little excited to have been chosen to do so, too, because it showed that the captain hadn't forgotten his relationship to Darwin, and that maybe Bridger was starting to put this Lucas together with the kid Lucas who had been assigned to the first seaQuest.
Besides, he was still nursing his New Year's hangover a bit—he, Ben, Tim, Miguel, and Lonnie had gone out again the night before, and though they hadn't drank nearly as much as they had on New Year's Eve, apparently Lucas had imbibed enough to make himself somewhat woozy the next morning.
What was Ben feeding me? he wondered several hours too late. I thought I could handle more liquor than that, but man, my head hurts.
The captain had volunteered Petty Officer Riley to drive Lucas, so at least he wasn't stuck squinting in the bright January sunlight and trying to drive. He'd even managed to get a bit of a nap in on the way to Coconut Island, though the drive wasn't nearly long enough to let him get a good sleep in.
That, and he had to get on a launch to actually get to the island where the University's Marine Mammal Research Program was located, which put a serious dent in his naptime.
"Lucas! Welcome back," Doctor Westphalen greeted him with a huge smile, pulling him into a hug almost as soon as he stepped out of the car. Then she stepped back to inspect him, her hands still on his arms. "The uniform looks good on you."
"You're not…angry with me?" he asked, hating the way his voice tried to waver. I wasn't even sure she knew that I joined the Navy…I should have called her, but somehow the chance just never came up.
Sure it didn't, Lucas, his sarcastic inner voice replied. You couldn't wait to see her reaction to this, could you? But Kristin wasn't giving him the disapproving look he had feared; in fact, she was smiling.
"Nathan told me, and I yelled at him for letting you," she replied cheerfully, squeezing his arm affectionately. "So I won't yell at you."
He swallowed hard. "I thought…"
"I understand your reasoning, even if I do wish you'd stick with science," the familiar British voice cut him off, wrapping an arm around him and leading him towards the outer edge of the research facility. "Come on. Darwin says he misses you."
"I miss him, too," Lucas replied. "We've been so busy lately..."
"Nathan told me. Or didn't, really, though I did watch him almost fall asleep on the couch at a New Year's party," Kristin told him with a grin.
He grinned in return. "That certainly sounds like the captain."
"Fortunately, a Marine biologist friend of mine rescued him from sleepy boredom," she continued with a chuckle. "And, actually…he also has rescued Darwin from the same fate. Boredom, I mean."
"Is that what all of today's cryptic behavior was about? He kicked me off the boat and sent me out here and didn't even bother to explain why." Lucas shrugged, then added: "Not that I'm complaining, of course. I'd rather be out here visiting Darwin than going through another one of Commander Hitchcock's simulator evolutions any day."
"You Navy types," Kristin teased, rolling her eyes. "All work and no play. The answer to your question is yes, though. We've found a friend for Darwin—she was just flown in this morning from the Mote Marine Lab Dolphin and Whale Hospital. Her name is Minerva, and Darwin can't wait to meet her."
All of Lucas' lingering exhaustion vanished, replaced by excitement. "Have you tried talking to her with the vocorder yet? It's mostly programmed for Darwin's specific frequencies, but I should be able to expand the programming if we get enough data samples from her," he replied, all but bouncing up and down with excitement. Immediately, a thousand thoughts starting racing through his mind, and he started mentally rewriting the code for the vocorder to expand its capabilities.
"No, I thought I'd wait for you. It is your program, after all."
Kristin's smile was so big that Lucas thought it might split her face in half, but before he could respond, she waved him towards a long dock on the island's north side. The scenery was gorgeous, of course—a typical idyllic Hawaiian marine mammal haven—but Lucas hardly noticed. He was still too excited, and felt like a sixteen year old again as he followed Kristin.
"Come on. Minerva's in one of our floating pens, and Darwin's been lurking around outside for hours. Nathan and I told him about her yesterday, and he's terribly excited."
"D'you have a wetsuit I can borrow? The captain didn't bother to tell me I should bring a change of clothes," Lucas said apprehensively. "And Commander Hitchcock would probably kill me if I ruined my khakis."
Westphalen grinned, and for a moment, Lucas felt just like he had back when he was first meeting Darwin, so many years before. The mystery and the excitement were the same, and here was Kristin, just like old times. "Of course I do, Lucas. Come on, then."
Ten minutes later, Lucas emerged from one of the nearby buildings in a UHI wetsuit, and Kristin led him over to the edge of the floating pens. Still smiling, she handed over the portable vocorder. "Darwin's probably nearby, so you most likely won't even have to call him. He and Minerva have been talking through the divider all morning."
Lucas sat down on the very outside of the floating pen, dangling his feet into the water as he dialed in the frequency on the unit. As excited as he was to meet Minerva, he wanted to greet his old friend, first, and spotted a gray streak swimming his way under water. "Hey, Darwin," he said into the vocorder, and then waited.
"Lucas play?" was the immediate response, coming almost as soon as Darwin's head poked up out of the water.
Lucas grinned so hard his face hurt. "Hey, buddy. Yeah, Lucas is here to play for a little while. And to meet your new friend."
The excited chittering didn't need translating; finally, Darwin calmed down enough to say, "Darwin happy. Darwin like friends."
"Yeah, I bet you do, Fish Breath. Let's see if we can get this girl talking," he said, punching in a few new commands into the unit. He hoped there was enough range in the programmed frequency to at least begin communicating with their new dolphin, but he wouldn't know until he tried. And if not, I'll just have to tweak the code.
"Darwin want in," his old friend said stubbornly, butting his head against the gate that separated Minerva from the outside world. On the other side of it, Lucas finally noticed a young-looking dolphin watching him curiously from only two or three feet away.
"Lucas, this is Minerva." Hearing her name, the dolphin came right up to the divider and thrust her head into Kristin's hands. "She's very bored, and very affectionate."
"Has she been in quarantine long enough to let Darwin in to play with her yet?" Lucas asked, reaching over to rub the dolphin's beak.
"She's fine. She's been at the Mote for almost two years—every time they tried to release her, she came back. Minerva's well socialized, though she does tend to enjoy humans as much as she does dolphins, which worried some of her old keepers."
The new dolphin flipped over in response to his touch, offering up a fin. Chuckling, Lucas obligingly rubbed right where it meet her body. "She'll get along great with Darwin, then."
"Yes, something tells me that her preference for humans won't be a problem in her eventual home...Project Anzio, or Stingray, or whatever they're calling it this week," the doctor replied dryly.
Before Lucas could respond, Minerva's tail flashed up out of the water and smacked down hard, covering both humans in water as the dolphins laughed. By the time he'd managed to spit enough salt water out of his mouth to talk, Lucas had completely forgotten to ask just how it was that Kristin Westphalen knew so much about seaQuest. He was too busy laughing wryly.
"Oh yes, she'll fit right in. I'm sure she'll have plenty to say once we get this thing reprogrammed."
"Why don't you try it out?" Kristin asked as Darwin chimed in.
"Minerva talk like Darwin?"
Minerva had flipped over and was watching them intently now, Lucas noticed, her dark eyes following every motion of his hands. She seemed to have figured out that the vocorder did something different, although Lucas was not sure if she understood what.
"That's what we hope, Darwin," Lucas replied. "Probably not much more than 'hello' right now, though. We'll have to get a set of flashcards and program the base deck the way we did after that lightning strike a few years ago." Nevertheless, he punched in a couple of numbers, figuring that it was worth a go. Still… "The range of signals the digital converter can recognize is pretty narrow right now, and specific to Darwin."
"But it never hurts to try," Kristin pointed out, poking him in the shoulder. "Go on. Give it a shot. Dolphins are smarter than even you give them credit for, you know. Perhaps she'll figure out a way to help."
Why not? Lucas took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders. If he was one to back down from a challenge, he would never have created the vocorder in the first place, so there was no use procrastinating. Failure wasn't a foreign concept to him—it was just the temporary state that tended to exist before he worked all the kinks of a program out.
"Hello, Minerva. My name is Lucas," he said into the transmitter, pointing first at her and then himself, and taking care to speak slowly.
She watched him silently, moving her head left and then right, and then cocking it slightly to one side, as if thoughtful.
"That's Darwin, he's a dolphin like you. And this is Kristin, she's a human like me. Darwin and Minerva are dolphins, Lucas and Kristin are humans," he said, pointing to each of them in turn again. He wasn't sure if it was working, but sometimes these things took time, and the program didn't necessarily translate what he was saying literally.
Silence.
"I'm Lucas," he repeated, pointing at himself. "You're Minerva," he added, pointing back at her.
More silence. Minerva did not respond, but something in her eyes told Lucas that she was paying attention. Or maybe he was imagining things.
So much for that idea. He felt his frustration starting to rise as he punched in a new frequency range, repeating the process with the same results. "I'm not sure it's working," he sighed, glancing at Kristin. "We'll have to get a few data samples of her talking to Darwin so I can find her frequency."
Kristin, however, was watching Minerva. "I'm not so certain…"
Minerva splashed them again, making Darwin whistle gleefully.
"Thanks, Minerva, but I've already had a shower today," he said sarcastically, wiping the water off of his face. "Darwin, can you ask her if she understands us?"
Darwin didn't even hesitate. "Minerva understands. Minerva play."
"Minerva play," a second voice echoed a moment later, making Lucas' head snap around in surprise. "Minerva play."
The younger dolphin was giving him a cheerful look that clearly told Lucas she'd just been making him wait for the fun of it. Her head came up out of the water and smacked down, splashing him again.
"Lucas play."
He sighed theatrically. "Great, a dolphin with a sense of humor worse than Darwin's."
She bumped his feet with her head next, and none too lightly. The blow almost made Lucas lose his balance and topple into the bay, and it did make Darwin whistle with more laughter. His old friend contributed: "Lucas swim!"
"I think what they want is fairly obvious, Lucas." Kristin had wisely pulled her feet out of the water, but was clearly trying not to laugh.
"This is a conspiracy, isn't it?" he asked, but he was grinning despite his frustrations. He hadn't had a chance to relax like this in ages, and it felt good. He'd missed being Lucas the scientist, and the prospect of having two dolphins on board, even if they had wicked senses of humor, was a pleasant one.
He slid into the water. "All right, you two. Lucas play."
4 January 2024
The captain frowned, examining the status board. Construction had fallen behind schedule again; the experimental bio-skin that the builders claimed to be up to par clearly wasn't, and they'd torn it off of Chimera's hull yet again. That was three tries, now, to duplicate the old seaQuest's specially designed bio-skin, and no matter how many UEO files they cracked, no one seemed able to duplicate the recipe. Doctor Hartenstein's design had come the closest yet, but even it had failed to meld onto Chimera's titanium hull.
Idiots. All of them. Perhaps Hartenstein, a recent addition to the design team, might be excepted from that evaluation, but for the most part, Macronesian engineers were a narrow-minded lot. They were perfectly good in areas they were accustomed to operating in, but take them out of their comfort zones and they became babbling fools.
General Stassi looked over. "Another failure?"
"Yes. The technology base exists, but the fools seem incapable of leveraging it correctly."
"The president won't like this," the general pointed out unnecessarily.
"I don't like it, General," the captain retorted. "It is, however, an unfortunate fact of our existence. They will simply have to try again."
"And how much money do you plan on flushing down the drain before you give up, Captain?" he asked.
"I don't plan on giving up. If you want the Alliance of Macronesia to rule the seas, you require a submarine capable of enforcing that rule. Chimera will do that." The captain glanced at the plans again, running eager eyes over the warlike lines of the boat. "There's never been a boat like this one."
Admiration slipped through the cracks of the captain's ironclad self control, because one could not help feeling awed by a submarine like the one on the other side of the glass window. Chimera's skeleton was long since finished; the hull itself was mostly complete, except for the infernal bio-skin. Designed to be fast and deadly, she was nine hundred feet of pure power and compatible with the new Lysander sub fighters, which she would carry.
"Macronesia already rules the seas. The UEO has nothing that can contest our current fleet. Not since my people took care of seaQuest," he retorted, clearly not bothering to conceal his own self satisfaction. Then the general sneered: "This pet project of yours is a waste of valuable resources."
"Not if the UEO builds another one. They have the capability, even if they lack the willpower. If that day comes, you will need Chimera. If not, she will cement Macronesia's absolute rule. No one will challenge us with a boat like this."
The fact that President Bourne approved of the project did not require mention; Stassi knew that, and was infuriated by the amount of funding required to build a boat like Chimera. To Stassi, power projection was a function of mere numbers, of by which ratio Macronesia outnumbered their enemies. He did not understand the psychological importance of building Chimera; with her, Macronesia would rule the seas with the ease seaQuest had once provided the UEO. No one would challenge them. No one.
"By the time the UEO gets themselves straightened out to make that decision, we'll already have steamrolled them into the ground, Captain. If we plan on maintaining our power, our focus needs to be on ground forces."
Why must we have this argument again? "Don't be foolish. You and I both know that the president does not intend to conquer the entirety of the UEO, so we must be ready to fight them when they do decide to reengage. Besides, I am the commander of the submarine fleet, and able to use my budget as I see fit."
He snorted. "If you can ever finish your project, you mean. The president is not pleased with how long you are taking. Nor does he like to hear that you can't actually deliver any of the technology you claimed you could."
"seaQuest took six years to build from the time they laid her keel until she was commissioned," the captain reminded him sharply. "Warships of this caliber are not completed overnight, especially with substandard engineers assigned to the project. I have delivered everything I promised, and if you could scrape up someone with enough intelligence to fill the head of a pin, Chimera would be launched within the year.
"The problem is the bio-skin. None of our engineers can make it work, and the rest of construction is delayed because of that."
That was not something the captain liked admitting, but there was no escaping the truth. seaQuest's bio-skin had given the boat a dramatic edge over any foe, allowing damage to seal itself without requiring the crew to physically weld or patch the shattered hull together again, and that was an advantage the captain was determined to duplicate for Chimera.
A gleam entered the general's eyes. "Someone who was involved in the seaQuest project, perhaps?"
"We've already hired as many of them as we can bribe."
"Which means it's time to think outside the box, Captain. I can arrange for my people to...acquire...new talent for you. Someone who has the necessary knowledge both about seaQuest's original design and the bio-skin."
"Explain." The captain was not in the mood for games. Not at all.
"Nathan Bridger."
That made the captain snort. Bridger had undoubtedly gone back to that island of his after losing the second seaQuest; some rumors even indicated that he had left the UEO for good after losing the first one and that the UEO had continued building the second one without him. "And how exactly do you propose to accomplish that? Bridger may have split with the UEO over his dislike of war, but he's not the type you can bribe, either."
"Bridger hasn't split with the UEO. He's working in Pearl Harbor as head of their Weapons and Tactical Development Division," General Stassi replied, sounding smug.
"He's been what?"
"Those new intercepts the UEO has been using are his design. He's got some big weapons project going that we've been trying to get someone into, but we've been hitting brick walls every time," he said.
"I see," the captain replied slowly, leaning back and studying the general. "What exactly are you proposing?"
"Bridger has all of the knowledge we need in that head of his. I already have people in place who could grab him. If you and your stealth sub are waiting off the coast, they can deliver him to you easily enough," he replied.
"It will take almost a month to get Spectre in place, and then a month to return to Macronesian territory," the captain replied, biting back the urge to tell Stassi what an idiot he was. He did have a good idea, even if he had no understanding of navigation at all. "Perhaps an airlift?"
"I suppose I can have one arranged," the general relented, clearly put out that his grand plan required adjustment.
"Do it."
9 January 2024
Riley shifted into the right lane fast enough to jerk Bridger's head up from the report he was reading, gunning the accelerator and cutting a convertible off to make the next exit. Nathan opened his mouth to ask what was going on, but never got the chance to ask. I'm late enough already, but—
They were already running late thanks to a lengthy breakfast conversation with Admiral Lexy Smith in a little place off base. Smith had returned from retirement after the death of her daughter during the Johnston Atoll missile attack and was now the leading member of the strategy board, a job that fit well with her sneaky sense of tactics. She'd had a few interesting ideas that she wanted to integrate into Operation Wildwood, which led to Nathan leaving the boat just after the work day started to meet with her.
Nathan had enjoyed seeing his old CO again, even if he wished the circumstances had been better. He remembered all too well the feeling of losing Robert, and admired Smith for having the dedication to step up when she was needed instead of burying her head in the sand. She would have been well within her rights to do so, after all, having retired ten years ago. But she, like so many others, had made the hard decision—the right decision, he reminded himself again—to offer her vast wealth of experience to the UEO. Nathan had barely even realized how much time they spent talking strategy, before it put him two hours behind schedule on everything he had planned on doing that day. Now, however, Riley seemed determined to delay the start of the day even further.
"You want to get down a bit, Captain?" his driver/security man asked tightly, his voice several octaves higher than Nathan was accustomed to hearing. "I think we're being followed."
"You're joking."
I do not need this today, Nathan thought to himself, the order to ignore whatever was happening and just head for the base on the tip of his tongue. I've got a boat with a hundred foot hole in her centerline so we can replace some faulty batteries, and I've got sea trials starting in ten days. I don't have time to play paranoid security games!
Riley shook his head, and Nathan noticed that his driver was all business; his customarily joking attitude had vanished. You always knew he was good, Nathan. Now here's when you get to see how good. "There were three cars following us, but one missed the exit. The other two are that big blue van and the green SUV—and the SUV has base stickers, so we can't go there."
Nathan glanced behind them, and sure enough, there were the two vehicles following them, battling through Monday morning traffic to stay close. Suddenly things were serious.
"The floor's yours, MA1," he told Riley, his heart starting to pound in that familiar pre-combat way he remembered far too well. "I'm not trained for this business, unless you've got a torpedo or two in the trunk."
"Don't I wish!" Riley barked out a short laugh. "That'd be really useful right now."
"Tell me about it," Bridger breathed, sneaking another look.
"Sir, will you please keep your head down?"
He obeyed, feeling embarrassed. Slumping in his seat like this felt awkward as hell, but now was not the time to complain. "Sorry."
Gunning the accelerator again, Riley made it through the next light right before it could turn red. The shops and cars outside were whizzing by; Nathan was pretty sure that Riley was paying no attention to the speed limit whatsoever.
I suppose getting pulled over right now is the least of our worries!
Another sharp turn. "Two down, one to go, Captain. The van's gone."
"Good job."
"I'm heading back towards the highway. Best place to lose them, though I'm going to see if I can't shed them near the shopping centers up ahead, first. The more cars around, the harder it is for them to follow us," Riley reasoned.
"You're the expert. You want me to call anyone?"
"I hit the beacon. If that didn't get through, they're jamming us, and there's not much we can do about that."
"Got it." Nathan hated feeling helpless, hated being able to do nothing. He hadn't felt like such a passenger since he'd been stupid enough to agree to staying on board the first seaQuest when he was still determined not to command her. Somehow, I don't see this situation turning out quite like that one, the captain thought to himself.
It took all of his self control to make himself sit still as Riley took another corner faster than the town car wanted to, making the vehicle tip precariously to the right. Immediately after that, however, Riley had to slam on the brakes to avoid running a red light, and Nathan's chest slammed hard against his seatbelt as his driver swore quietly.
"You sure these guys are after us?" he had to ask.
"The passenger in the van had a rifle in the front seat, and there's at least one pistol in the SUV," Riley replied flatly, crushing Bridger's hopes.
"Oh."
On a whim, he pulled out his cell phone. Nathan needed to do something, anything, to contribute. Sitting still and doing nothing was going to drive him insane—but the phone's 'no signal' indicator was blinking. Riley had been right. Whoever these jokers were, they were carrying a jammer powerful enough to keep them from calling for help. This day gets better and better, doesn't it?
"Shit," Riley swore, swerving the car hard to the right.
Nathan started to twist to look—
"Stay down!" The car swerved again, taking a sharp left at almost eighty miles per hour. The engine whined in protest, and then roared as Riley found an emptier side street and gunned it.
Horns blared, and someone's brakes screeched. The town car twisted into another turn, making Nathan hold on tight to avoid sliding across the back seat despite the best efforts of his seatbelt. His mini-comp did, crashing into the back of Riley's seat with an ominous crunch and then bouncing off of the floor a few times. His seaQuest ball cap followed it, though Nathan had no idea where that went—and really didn't care. Tires squealed as Riley took yet a third turn, and then slowed abruptly as he merged into traffic.
Thirty seconds ticked by, and then a minute.
"I think I lost them," Riley said breathlessly, and Nathan finally sat up, turning to look out the window. "We should—"
That was the green SUV tearing towards them. "Riley—!"
He never got a chance to say more; the SUV crashed into the driver's side of the town car, throwing both of them around like rag dolls.
Almost a month after the attack, JANS was still trying to put itself back together. Hudson was back at the decimated naval station, his boat having played courier for desperately needed medical supplies and foodstuffs. Usually, he detested the idea of using a warship to play delivery boy, but under these circumstances, he was glad to do the job. He had also volunteered his crew to help with some of the relief efforts. The UEO still hadn't been able to spare many resources, and while Scorpion had to get back to patrolling the area, they could afford to spend at least one day helping where they could.
Right now, that mostly meant working on getting the rubble cleared away and adequate housing reestablished. They had passed the point where anyone expected to find any more survivors, and while the death toll was still slowly climbing, most of the people living on and around the naval station had been accounted for, one way or another.
Navigating his way across the base, he felt like he had been transported back in time to the Second World War. Many of the buildings were condemned at this point, bombed out and falling down, and in some places the roads were so torn up they could only be traveled on foot. Almost a hundred years had passed since the atoll had last seen this sort of destruction at the hands of the Japanese. The comparison, however, only stoked his anger.
And I'll make sure the Macronesians pay just as high a price as the Japanese did, he thought darkly. This is a UEO base, and I'll be damned if I let those bastards off easy just because the bureaucrats can't get their heads out of their asses and make this war official.
Despite what some people claimed, Hudson didn't like war. He hated it, in fact, with every fiber of his being. But he also knew that peace came at a high cost, and someone had to be out there fighting to give others the chance at freedom. He'd made his choice years ago, before the Treaty of Reykjavik brought an end to World War III.
And I haven't regretted it since. But if giving up my command and turning in my uniform would end this stupid war with Macronesia before anyone else died, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
"Sir?" Lieutenant Commander Shepps, his XO approached.
"Yeah."
Hudson turned, tearing his eyes away from the pile of rubble he had been staring at. Sunset was rapidly approaching, and Scorpion had a scheduled underway time of eight o'clock PM. He knew what Shepps wanted—his second in command's facial expression made it adamantly clear that he really wanted his CO to stop staring at the ruins morosely and start being his usual obnoxious self. Oliver forced himself to smile.
"Am I depressing the crew that much?"
Shepps snorted. "Just a bit, sir. It wouldn't be so bad if you hadn't started this wander-and-stare thing two hours ago, but after about ninety minutes of it, they were starting to worry about you."
"Tell them to worry about the Macronesians. I'm just grouchy." He was touched by his sailors' concern, but Hudson would never say that.
"Aye, sir." Shepps gestured back in the direction of the only pier still standing at JANS. "The base commander asked if he could come on board for a tour in about an hour. I told him you'd be waiting."
Hudson scowled, though not at Shepps' presumption. Shepps was doing what a good XO should do, managing his captain's schedule and keeping Hudson from forgetting anything. But he hated the idea of giving an admiral a tour of his boat, especially when Scorpion was trying to finish offloading supplies in time to get underway. He gave Shepps a dirty look, just on principle.
"Next time, Commander, you can give the good admiral a tour."
Shepps only grinned.
Officer Ken Watanabe and his partner John DeSoto were getting their morning coffee when they heard the horrific screeching noise of metal hitting metal. As a team, they tore away from the Starbucks counter, completely forgetting to pay for the beverages waiting for them, and even knocking one of the cups clean off the counter. The clerk yelped in surprise, but neither noticed; they were too busy racing out the door and across the parking lot. Radio in hand, Ken called the accident in to dispatch as John sprinted to their cruiser to grab the emergency medical kit from the trunk.
"Dispatch, this is Car Twelve, we have a two car motor vehicle accident at the corner of Bougainville and Valkenburgh, please send an ambulance to this location. My partner and I are checking for injuries at this time," Ken said into the radio, keeping his pace down to a jog so that his words would not be obscured by heavy breathing.
"Roger, Car 12, ambulance is on its way." He had been a cop for twelve years now, and a first responder for six. He'd seen his fair share of car accidents, and while each one was different, this was just another routine part of his job. A horrific part, but still normal enough.
Ken grabbed the oxygen tank his partner had pulled out, and they both turned to head towards the intersection where the accident had happened. Fifty feet away, he could see that a green SUV had rammed into the side of a dark-colored town car with UEO government plates. The car had tipped partway onto its passenger side and was crunched enough to indicate that the SUV had hit it at high speed.
While they watched, the driver and passenger of the SUV climbed out and headed towards the car, one headed towards the driver and the other towards the back. Must be someone back there. But at least they're bothering to check to see that everyone's okay, Ken thought, grateful for the fact that, for once, someone had decided to take responsibility for their actions. All too often, drivers tried to leave the scene or refused to help anyone except themselves, and Ken was sick and tired of listening to excuses.
The situation was starting to look up, right until he heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being fired.
"Shots fired, shots fired!" he yelled into the mike of his radio, diving behind the car that John was already using as cover. "Damn it!" he swore, dropping the oxygen tank and pulling his sidearm. Suddenly things weren't quite so routine any more.
Is this what I get for being complacent?
There was more gunfire, and Ken dared to inch his head up, peering up over the hood of the car. They were only across the street from the accident, but by some miracle, neither bad guy had turned their way. Their attention was focused—oh, shit. One of the two men from the SUV had pulled the passenger, dressed in Navy khakis, out of the car and had a gun to his head. The driver of the car was still inside, exchanging fire with the other man from the SUV.
"Damn it," he swore again, taking careful aim at the man with the hostage. The bad guy was dressed in black and looked damn serious; although he had an automatic weapon of some sort slung across his back, he was smart enough to use a pistol to threaten the hostage. Whoever the victim was, he had to be important, if he had a driver. An admiral? Realization sank in.
"I don't think they know we're here," he said to John.
"I don't have a shot, Ken," John replied, his voice tight with tension. "Not without hitting that sailor. Shit! The other guy is running!"
"Deal with him," he told his partner. "I've got the other guy." Ken narrowed his focus, ignoring the screams from bystanders and the shouting of the men by the two cars. His radio was crackling and dispatch was asking for more information, but he tuned that out. None of that mattered. He trusted his partner to handle things, and they'd both been trained to deal with situations like this, even if Ken had never encountered an actual hostage situation.
Don't hesitate, he told himself.
Finally, the man with the hostage turned, and Ken took his shot. One. Two. Blood blossomed on the bad guy's shirt, and he fell like a ton of bricks, dragging the sailor down with him.
A/N: Yes, this is the first of many cliffhangers. We'd apologize, but it's so much fun. :) Stay tuned for Chapter 13: "Into the Abyss", in which we actually do let you know what happens to Captain Bridger, General Stassi gets poked in the eye, and Lucas has a very bad day. Oh, and if anyone can guess who the mysterious captain is (and yes, this person *is* tied to the stealth sub), you'll get some major kudos from us authors.
Also, from the co-author (Sol): This chapter is a prime example of why Robin shouldn't let me name characters. Cookies to anyone who catches my two happy little shout-outs.