Chapter Twenty-Three;
On The Horizon

A few days later Michael Collins, nickname 'Radar', sat at the navigation controls bored out of his mind. Fresh out of Officer School, the Hammersley was only Michael's second post after a brief stint on the HMAS Kanimbla, a stint he'd rather enjoyed because of the obscurity of the large ships. On the patrol boats everyone knew everything about you and, in the case of the pranksters like ET and Seagull, sometimes used it against you.

Seated at the controls, as he'd been for the last two hours with no contact with anyone else, Radar was staring at the screen making popping noises with his lips. He was bored. Very bored.

Radar had never had the best social skills, the kind of guy who was so eccentric and strange in the real world that people struggled to find a shared ground with him, and the silent and brooding type when he was on the job. His last girlfriend had been 8 years earlier and he had no siblings. It was the kind of compilation that made the 27-year-old hard to befriend. So while everyone else enjoyed the lack of work as a chance to catch up with family (or in the case of Seagull, Clark and 14-year-old Oscar Drake – other people's family), Radar was left alone on the bridge. He frowned at the screen almost willing something to happen.

He didn't pay attention at all to the little dot sitting on the horizon.

***

Bomber splashed her face in the bathroom then returned to the main cabin, watching Spider flick once again through the small pile of papers she'd been reading. "You look confused."

"I am. What are these?" He held up the sheets, waving them.

"Stock lists, each number refers to a specific food product we have in stock. When they run out I have to fill in these forms and mail them in so I can have new rations approved." She snatched the sheets from his hand. "This was so much easier when we could just go ashore somewhere, buy what we need then send the Navy the bill. Now it's all forms, facts and 'do you really need eight loaves of bread?' every time I try to restock." She slapped the forms down on the table next to her bunk. Grabbing a hairbrush and flicking on her iPod dock, she glanced back at him. "But enough of my very, very hard life." She grinned. "You still look confused."

Spider pointed at the iPod dock. "Just wondering what the hell you have on there." Bomber turned and flicked off, registering just for a second that it was one of her many bad 80s songs. "Oh come on, I was enjoying that."

Putting the hairbrush down she crawled into the bed next to him. "Well if you prefer that then…" She reached over to turn it back on but Spider snatched her arm back. She grinned then her smile fell. "How's your mum?"

Spider rolled back, putting his hands to his forehead. "Oh there's mood killer line of the century."

Bomber propped herself up on one arm. "I'm serious, is she okay? I mean, she hasn't been following me around at all for a good few days now." She lowered an eyebrow. "You didn't tell her off did you?"

Spider shrugged. "Not exactly." He glanced at her. "I have an admission to make." Bomber frowned. "It was kinda me who told her to keep a closer eye on you."

Bomber pushed herself out of bed quickly, standing up. "You did what?" She fumed.

Spider stood too. "I saw you with Alex and Buffer remarked you were getting maternal, I got worried and so I went to talk to mum, she told me to talk to you, I asked her to keep a closer eye anyway and if she thought the same as Buffer then I'd talk to you but then I saw you drowning your sorrows in that Special K and I felt bad so I told her to back off. I'm sorry." The entire speech came out in such a rush, with barely a breath between each word, that it took Bomber a second to register what he'd said.

Then she grinned. "Oh Billy, you are a shining lighthouse in the bay of stupidity." Shaking her head she grabbed his wrists and pulled him closer.

"You're not mad?" He sounded shocked but allowed her to wrap his arms around her.

"I'm shocked. The one thing you're good at doing is talking yourself into bad situations and the one time you should've talked to me, instead you decide to have me stalked?" She laughed. "You're an absolute idiot."

He frowned. "I talk myself into bad situations?" She nodded. He pulled a face. "Mmm, you're probably right." He hugged her tightly, lifting her off the ground until she laughed. "How's this for a bad situation?"

***

"Ma'am, we have a boat that has been sitting on the horizon for the last day and a half. I might be over-reacting but it seems to be following us."

Nav looked up from the paperwork in front of her. It was late afternoon and for the last few days Radar had been grumbling that nothing was happening. She took this into account as she listened to his thoughts. It didn't help his cause that, standing in the doorway, Radar looked unsure of what he was trying to make her believe. For these reasons Nav passed it off. "Find the Swain, get him to find out who they are."

Radar nodded. "Yes ma'am." He was about to go when Clark appeared at the door.

"Ma'am, Scruffy just got a call from a boat about 5 klicks north of here. They say they're taking on water." He said, breathless from the flight downstairs.

Nav did react to this one. Pushing herself out of her seat she followed the men back to the bridge to launch help for the vessel.

The boat on the horizon was forgotten…