Chapter 15 Rebound
Kate arrived at the hospital to take Mike home, Alexia couldn't wait to see her dad as she ran through the hospital to her dads room.
"Daddy" said Alexia.
"Squirt how are you " replied Mike as he picked up Alexia.
"Good daddy can we go home ?" Alexia asked.
"Yep lets go" Mike replied as he threw Alexia up into the air as she giggled. After an hour drive home Mike walked through the door the familiar smell hitting him, Alexia ran past him she had changed so much. It felt like just the other day he was holding his tiny baby and now she is running around Mike thought to himself.
Mike and Kate put on there whites and headed to there meeting with commander Marshall, they walked into his office with Alexia running over to hug Marshall, and to Mike and Kate's surprise she saluted him they all laughed as he saluted back, picking Alexia up as she sat on his lap.
"So Mike are you good to return to Hammersley, because we have something you might be interested in" asked Marshall.
"Yes Sir almost healed and I would rather be out on the water instead of being in that hospital" replied Mike.
"Good, and you will be happy to know Lieutenant Caetano is going to be fine she will return tomorrow" replied Marshall.
Hammersley left port at 0900 hrs en-route to intercept a large shipment of weapons heading to rebels in Papua New Guinea, Mike was glad to be back in the hunt.
Kate walked up onto the bridge with Alexia she was having a break after being up 19 hours straight she needed to see her daughters face, Alexia jumped up taking the helm while Kate was talking to Mike.
"So I was thinking after we get the weapons back we should go to your mum's place, I haven't seen her in a few years and I think she might want to met Alexia" Kate asked Mike.
"Yeah I haven't seen them in a couple of years either and Christmas is coming up so why don't we go down for Christmas" replied Mike.
Kate nodded in agreement, as she walked over to pick up Alexia to put her to bed, Kate started to walk down the steps when Mike yelled " ill be down in a minute".
"Ok, ill see you in a minute" Kate replied as she continued to walk down the steps.
When Charge said to Nav " you so can tell there a married couple" as they all laughed, Mike smiled.
"Nav you have the ship" Mike said as he walked down the steps.
"On the bridge navigator has the ship" Nav replied still giggling at Charge, they were acting like party clowns but it was some amusement to break the boredom.
Mike walked down to his cabin, stepping in he saw Kate reading to Alexia as he thought to himself "and she was worried that she wouldn't be a good mother" as he sat down in his chair finishing of some paper work that had to be done, listening to Kate 's voice and the laugh of his daughter.
Kate sat on his rack watching Alexia as he sat behind her letting her fall onto him, Kate's eyes started to get heavier and heavier as she fell asleep in Mike's arms.
Mike pulled the blanket on top of her whispering in her ear " I'll be back soon" with a kiss on the head he left to head back to the bridge.
It was good timing on Mike's part as he walked up a message came through from Navcom, the FFV was in range and was 40 miles east of there position, they would intercept them in 2 hours that would give Kate at least an hour sleep.
Mike sat in his chair with his music on waiting for the FFV to come into range.
"Radar contact" Nav piped up.
"Got it on EOD" charge replied as Mike stared over at the screen.
"Got em" Mike said before grabbing his radio, "Do you hear the captain speaking we have spotted the FFV, 2Dads, Buffer , X, Spider and Bomber you will be on the boarding party, that is all" placing the radio down, he left the bridge to get Kate stepping into his cabin Kate was still asleep.
"Kate wake up your needed on the boarding party" said Mike, gently rubbing her arm to wake her up.
"Great" she mumbled in reply she was tired and didn't want to get out of bed, Mike laughing as she sat up in his rack.
"Just be careful we don't want a repeat of last time" he added walking over to shut the door, leaning down to kiss Kate passionately as if it would be the last time.
Kate stood up and headed down to the armoury still half asleep passing the galley she got a quick brew to at least wake her up a little bit, there would be no time to make errors on this mission.
The Rhib powered after the FFV, using the element of surprise sneaking up from the back.
Mike stood on the bridge staring through his night vision binoculars waiting to hear Kate's voice, and then at least he could put his mind at ease. The mission time had just hit 7 minutes and with no radio contact. Mike was starting to get worried and after 10 minutes the radio crackled into life. "Charlie 82 this is Thunder 82 come in over" it was Kate finally.
"This is Charlie 82 go ahead X" replied Mike.
"Sir we have the weapons more than we expected, we have found a large quantity of drugs and money" replied Kate.
"Nice work, Navcom will be happy, bring them onto Hammersley and leave a steaming party on board the boat" replied Mike.
15 minutes later Kate, Buffer and Bomber returned to Hammersley with the smugglers leading them down to austere.
"Nice work Kate " Mike said patting her on the back.
"Thankyou it was easier than we thought it would be" replied Kate as she headed down to the galley for a brew and some dinner.
Kate walked to Mike's cabin to check on Alexia but instead of watching her she fell asleep, Mike walked in to find Kate sound asleep, taking his paperwork he went into the seniors mess giving Kate some peace and quiet.
After 14 hours steaming home they reached port docking they handed over the weapons and smugglers and refuelled, unfortunately they still had another 3 weeks left of patrol and the crew couldn't wait until it was up. Kate walked up onto the bridge holding a box that contained Alexia's dog tags, calling Nav over to have a look and to take one of the tags.
"Nav I have something for you" as Kate opened the box handing one of the tags to Nav.
"Aw its sweet and the other one is for Bomber right?" asked Nav as she stared at the tags, pulling out her tags she added alexia's to her own chain.
They headed back out into the Arafura sea, destination unknown. Kate sat in the mess eating dinner when Mike walked in carrying Alexia, she was wearing a navy uniform with her name on it, everything kitted out. Kate laughed at the sight.
"You can thank Buffer for this" Mike laughed as he walked over to Kate sitting down.
Bomber headed up to the bridge for her watch, just as she reached the first step 2Dads jumped out in front of her scaring her to shred's, he was wearing a clown face and Bomber hated clowns they were a perfect match.
"You idiot" yelled Bomber as 2Dads stepped back.
"Chill Bomb, its just a mask" replied 2Dads.
"You will chill when I throw you over board" replied Bomber as she started to lighten up.
a/n: sorry guys this was a boring chapter I'm in the process of coming up some idea's lol but yeah I'm going to update in a couple of days sorry for the wait.