During the time Mike is in Sydney and Hammersley has been out at sea on patrol, Steve has been working hard figuring out why Maxine would pass on private information to other officers, plus also why Kate's application for promotion never made it to the board.
The investigation is very hard as Maxine tries her best to stall everything, effectively providing no answers to the questions. When asked about why she told Kate what Mike had said to Fleet Command she came back with "Navy is Mike's life, I was doing what is best for him". As time went on Steve was starting to get very frustrated with the lack of progress, he had never had this much trouble before.
Steve decided to start digging into the past of all three officers from once they joined ADFA and go from there. As he was doing this he found that Maxine and Mike had been through ADFA together at the same time in the same class. The more he looked into it, the more he found that the two were close. They had spent some time serving together or living in the same town but serving on different boats, until ten years ago when Mike took a short posting in Sydney. When given the chance to command Hammersley he took it, while Maxine got a promotion and took the posting in Canberra, as it was much better for a solo mum to be landed based than sea based.
Steve then asks for a email search, as each sailor is given an email address once they join, it is what they are to use for all personal and work emails, and he wants to go back through them. Seeing when the two last made contact before Maxine took the job in Cairns surprises him as well, because she was very quick to accept the offer of transfer to Cairns. He's now wondering if her coming here was more for personal matters than work.
Once he gets access to these he asks one of the more computer savvy officers to go through it and find any emails dating way back that might still be on the navy's sever. Anything that is from either one of them to the other.
During this time he interviews all the staff at Navcom, asking them different questions and what not; trying to get a bigger picture to see if what has been going on is just related to Mike, or is happening with others. Once all the interviews are done and he has had time to go through it all, he finds it must be just related to Mike. He is not happy about this, but he is a tad pleased it is only related to a select small group.
A week before Hammersley is due back in port he decides to relieves Maxine of her duty, putting her on paid leave till this is over. He is hoping that without her in the office he might be able to have better luck in finding out what is going on.
Of course, he knows Kate will get her promotion. The board has been waiting for her application for a while now, knowing she is more than ready for it. He speaks to Canberra and confirms that she will get the running of Hammersley, something they don't often do. It is routine for the applicants to attend the course to help executive officers and commanding officers get a head start on life ahead of them, or for those who have not been at sea for a period of time to complete the training again to make sure they are up to speed.
On the day the promotional signal comes out, Steve rings Kate on board Hammersley and informs her that she has gotten the promotion, she asks him to do a few other things for her, which he is more than happy to do.