CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: EAST
Everyone jumped in the RHIB and they raced back to the ship as fast as it could possibly go. Tom took it as a good sign that, after the initial explosion, the smoke trail had disappeared. Hopefully that meant it had originated from something behind the ship, not the Nathan James herself. However, he couldn't relax until he knew for certain that his ship and his crew were okay. Right now, this felt too much like Baltimore - he'd left them and then all hell had broken loose.
On the Nathan James, the crew was on full alert, with everyone hurrying to their stations. A few sailors were standing by on the deck to help the teams on the RHIB get back aboard. "Does anyone know where my kids are?" Tom asked as he climbed onto the deck.
"I saw them an hour or so ago in the wardroom with Mrs. Tophet and Dr. Scott," one responded.
"Can you take my daughter there, too?" Mike requested as he and Katie joined them. "You'll be safe with them," he promised his daughter.
She nodded, trying to be brave. "I'll be okay, Dad. Go."
Tom and Mike broke speed records making their way through the ship. "Captain's on the bridge!" someone called out as they walked in.
"Sitrep?" Tom barked, looking around for Lt. Cdr. Garnett. The red-haired engineer stepped forward.
"Sir, a small boat approached from the starboard side. No response to radio hails and they appeared to be on a collision course. We opened fire; the boat exploded before impact. We believe it was carrying explosives."
"Damage?" he wondered. He'd seen the hole in the side of the USS Cole after it suffered a similar type of attack in Yemen in 2000. If the Nathan James took the same kind of damage, they would be in serious trouble with no available options for repairs.
"DC teams are still evaluating, but they believe the hull is intact. Sickbay has only minor injuries."
"Sir?" Another crewmember spoke up. "Forward watch has another boat inbound!"
Through the windows, they could see a small boat, no bigger than a RHIB, running at full speed toward the ship. Tom's heart clenched; this was a serious, coordinated attack. "Blow them out of the water," he ordered.
"Aye, sir."
Once the order had been relayed, the 20mm Gatling gun opened up again, spraying the boat with bullets. With a puff of smoke, its engine stopped, and moments later, the boat disappeared in a fireball.
"Target is destroyed!"
They weren't going to stick around to see if a third boat came. "Is everyone onboard?" Tom wondered.
Garnett nodded. "Both RHIBs have been recovered from the water."
"Good. Then let's get the hell out of here - now."
In the wardroom, Ashley, Sam, and Ava were seated at the table with Kelly and Rachel. They'd been in the middle of a science lesson when the ship was rocked by the explosion. Rachel had come up to help with an experiment, and was now glad to be on hand to assist with calming the children down.
"Your dad wouldn't let anything happen to this ship," she told Ashley and Sam as she sat between them, an arm around each of them. "Everything's going to be fine."
Ashley looked up at the sound of the hatch, and her eyes widened when she saw Katie standing there. The sailor who had escorted her dropped the bag he'd been carrying and hurried away. "Katie?"
Sam looked up as well, and they both jumped from their seats to go give their friend hugs. "How did you get here?" Sam wondered.
"My dad found me," Katie explained. "I was really sick, but he gave me medicine and then brought me back here."
Rachel's ears perked up at those words. "You were sick?" she asked. "How long has it been since you were given the cure?"
Katie shrugged. "Almost two weeks maybe?" She'd been semi-conscious for a few days as her body fought to recover, so she didn't really remember.
"How have you been feeling?"
"I get tired a lot."
Rachel nodded. "I can imagine. Your body went through quite an ordeal… Are you the Commander's daughter?" She thought she could see a resemblance.
She nodded. "Yeah. I'm Katie Slattery."
"We went to school together at home," Ashley explained. "That's Dr. Rachel Scott and Mrs. Tophet," she introduced the women to her friend. "And that's Ava Tophet."
Katie gave them a timid little wave. "Hi.
"What's in here?" Sam wondered as he noticed the duffle bag on the floor by the hatch.
"I don't know," Katie replied. "Your dad had it when we came on the ship."
Sam knelt down and opened the zipper. The first things that caught his attention were the blankets inside. "It's our stuff!" he joyously told his sister.
"What?" Sam pulled out her quilt and handed it to her before reaching back into the bag for his own. "Dad went home…" Ashley realized.
"Patches!" Sam exclaimed as he found his teddy bear. He hugged the toy tightly to his chest.
Ashley continued looking through the bag and found her own stuffed animal. After a moment of thought, she stood up and gave it to Katie. "Here," she told her friend. "So you have something, too."
Katie looked down at the teddy bear. "Are you sure?" she wondered.
Ashley nodded. "I have my quilt."
Katie smiled for the first time since she'd arrived onboard. "Thank you."
Sam considered his bear, then went over and offered it to Ava. "I can't take that," she told him. "You love it. And you just got it back."
"I've been sleeping without him for a while now," Sam replied. "So it's okay. Just… take good care of him."
Ava nodded. "I will. Promise."
Rachel smiled at Kelly as they watched the children interact. "And then there were four," she commented to the other Brit. Kelly laughed.
As Tom stood on the bridge, watching his ship race out to sea, he was incredibly grateful that they'd managed to get all four of the ship's turbines operational again. They had pulled out of the Chesapeake Bay at full speed, nearly 40 mph. It was a drain on their fuel reserves, but he'd wanted to get far away from Norfolk as fast as possible before any other boat-bombs found them. Now that they were miles away, they were finally starting to slow down.
"How are we looking?" He asked Mike when he saw his XO finish reading over a report.
"We're in one piece," he replied. "Minor damage… We got lucky."
Tom nodded. He'd prefer to avoid these situations altogether, but… "I'll take lucky."
"Wonder who we pissed off?" Mike commented.
"Dunno. Maybe whatever's left of the Maryland State Police?"
The XO looked at him, surprised. "You think?"
Tom shrugged. It wasn't that long of a trip up the bay to Baltimore, and they definitely hadn't parted on good terms. Explosives explained how the other ships at Norfolk had taken so much damage. By returning to the same port twice, the crew could have put themselves in someone's crosshairs. "Who knows. But I don't think we're going back anytime soon."
"No." There was nothing there for them. Actually, their prospects in general weren't looking so good; no one had come across a facility to help with making the cure. "I assume we're headed south?" Nobody wanted to go north on the Atlantic in the middle of February if they didn't have to. The weather off the coast of New England and Canada could be ferocious.
Tom looked out the window at the vast ocean before them. He felt like he knew - to some degree - what it had been like a few hundred years ago when sailors had set out on journeys. They had a goal in mind, but no idea what lay over the horizon. "Actually," he told his XO, "I was thinking we'd go east."
Mike frowned. "East?"
"Way back when all of this started, the rumor going around the world was that the US was hoarding a vaccine. We didn't have a cure then, but we do now. And I, for one, don't want that rumor to be true."
Mike was silent for a long moment, considering that. "Europe took heavy damage," he reminded the Captain. "The firestorms in London, the nuclear strike on Paris. And I thought that Dr. Scott said North Africa was the hottest of hot spots?" He only hesitated slightly in mentioning the scientist's name and there was considerably less venom in his tone than a few weeks earlier. Tom hoped that was a good sign for the future.
"I know. I never said it would be easy, but I'm not running from hard if it's a matter of doing what's right."
Mike nodded. "Aye, Captain. We'll head east."
It wasn't until after the ship's new course had been set and Tom had spoken at length with both the damage control and engineering teams that he realized how late it had gotten. Dinner was long over, and he hadn't had a spare moment to go check on his family. In fact, he'd barely thought about his kids through much of the evening, consumed by his role as Captain of the ship. That probably should have been cause for panic or remorse, but he didn't feel too much of either. He knew Ashley and Sam had been with Rachel. They were safe and happy with her, and she would have let him know if something was wrong.
Tom carefully opened the door to his kids' stateroom, unsure whether they would still be awake or not. It turned out that they were; Ashley and Sam were sitting with Rachel on the lower berth. Both children were in their sleepwear and had their quilts spread out over their legs, describing the significance of each square of fabric.
"The blue ones were from my baby blanket," Sam was telling her. "Mom used to say I could sleep anywhere if I had my blanket."
"You can still sleep anywhere," Ashley pointed out, earning a raspberry from her little brother. Rachel just laughed. "This is my favorite part of mine," she told Rachel. A white square with an American flag and black text that read 'Meeting my Daddy for the first time.' "I wore that when Daddy came home. I was just a little baby, so I don't really remember, but I think I was excited."
"You were asleep," Tom spoke up from his spot in the doorway. "But I was more than excited enough for the both of us."
Both children giggled as they looked up. "Hi, Dad."
"Hey. You guys okay?" They nodded.
"Is everything alright with the ship?" Rachel wondered.
"Yeah, we'll manage. You guys showing off your quilts?"
The kids nodded. "This is me and Daddy's favorite, right?" Sam asked his father, indicating a gray square with blue text and a graphic of an anchor.
"Daddy's First Mate," Rachel read aloud. "That's adorable."
The boy smiled. "It was a shirt I had when I was little. When I got a hole in it, Grandma put it in my quilt."
"These were a great idea. And a wonderful thing to have now."
"Yeah," Tom agreed. "You can bundle up in them and go to sleep… like right now. It's past your bedtimes."
Both children got up and gave him hugs goodnight. Tom lifted Sam up to his bed and helped tuck him in. "Thank you, Daddy," Ashley whispered as he made sure she was snug under her own blanket. "For getting our things."
He smiled. "You're welcome, sweetheart. Sweet dreams."
When Tom and Rachel stepped out into the hall, he didn't even give her a chance to head for the lab. He just pulled her behind him into his stateroom. "What's wrong?" she wondered.
"Nothing. Everything's right for once." And then he leaned forward and captured her lips with his own. Her arms circled around his neck as their kiss deepened. They ended up leaning against the back of his door again, a sense of deja vu taking over.
"Tom, wait," Rachel murmured, turning away. No matter how much she wanted this - and dear God, did she ever - she couldn't do it. She'd promised both of them that she wouldn't.
"Open your eyes," he whispered, dropping a kiss on her temple. She obeyed, to find him holding up his left hand in front of her. As he wiggled his fingers slightly, she realized that they were all bare. His ring was gone.
"Tom - "
"I left it in Norfolk," he explained, knowing what she was about to ask. "I'm not going to forget, but I can move on." He kissed her soundly, trying to ensure that she could feel how much she meant to him. How much he wanted her. "I'm ready, Rachel."
"You're certain?" she whispered. "You won't regret it?"
He smiled. "The only thing I could regret is not still having you here in the morning."
TBC...
A/N: I'm sticking to a "T" rating, so I will leave what happens next up to your vivid imaginations. ;-) Once upon a time, I had planned to end this story here, but my muse (and some encouragement from readers) gave me new ideas that got me to keep going.