The Nathan James
"Where are they?" Rachel said as she paced the officer's mess. "They should be back by now," She said.
Ravit smiled a little at her crazy friend. Ravit was acutely aware that getting the seeds, especially from Omar, who was with a buyer, would take more time than Rachel thought it would take. It was going to be stressful and time consuming and there would probably be some wounds that came from it. Ravit wasn't allowed to go out to help, because she was there to help secure Rachel at all times. If there was no Rachel, there was no Ravit.
Ravit put her hands on Rachel's shoulders and stopped her. Rachel got the message long enough to stop moving, that way Ravit could sign. "They're fine. We'd know if they weren't."
Rachel pushed out a breath and nodded. That was true. They would know if something went wrong. People were here to help her in and out of important rooms, so that things could be told to her. She would know.
She looked at her watch and thought again about how much she worried about them. She had heard the call that Slattery had missed the exfil, but not much else. There were so many reasons that he could have missed an exfil.
Tex called it in. When she heard his voice over the radio, she swooned. She couldn't believe how moony she was over him. It felt so silly at the moment. It felt like the whole thing was so superficial for her, but it was what her heart felt.
She stared at the radio, hoping for some more calls over it, but there were none. None for awhile. They would do it when the time was right. They would be more transparent when they weren't dodging two types of people who desperately wanted to shoot at them.
"They're going after him, aren't they?" Rachel signed to Ravit.
Ravit nodded. It was the most obvious choice. They had to find Slattery. He had the seeds. And he was nowhere to be found. And the whole thing was about the seeds.
Rachel nodded and went to the CIC, where Kara smiled at her. "Good you're here. I need you to hear this too." Kara said. "Captain Slattery was last seen with the seeds underneath the fight arena," She relayed this to Captain Meylan as well. "Vulture team has split up to take on the hostiles. CO had the package. Somehow, he got cut off from the rest, and he's been radio silent ever since,"
"Captain Slattery would never go radio silent for this long, unless there was a reason." Rachel told Kara. "We know this."
"We do," Kara acknowledged, "But we have no idea what the reason might be,"
"He's with the seeds?" Meylan asked.
"Yes sir," Kara replied. "With the seeds."
"And no word on the buyer. Who he is? What his assets are?" There were so many questions. And there simply were no answers to them.
"...I recommend that Nathan James move to a more secure location," Kara finished.
Rachel's eyes went wide. "That means being farther away from Vulture team? Isn't that counterintuitive? We have so many people on that island and they know where we are right now, won't we confuse them?"
"That's a risk we have to take. And we can give the huey and the RHIB the new coordinates. It'll be okay. It's just a defensive maneuver. We're not leaving anyone behind. We all have family on that island."
She felt the panic go away a little, because of course, Danny was on that island too. There was no way that Kara would leave him behind. They had a son together. It was important for him to have his family.
Gator went on. "I've identified a jagged stretch of coastline here, two nautical miles north of our PIM. It will hide the ship, but will also allow us to remain close enough to maintain radio contact and help with the exfil." This was an entirely proportionate plan that took into account many aspects that she didn't even have the nerve to think about. This was a thought out plan. And all she was raising was panic.
"Very well," Meylan said. "And you're sure of what you heard, about who joined the team on the ground?"
"Wait, someone joined the team on the ground,"
"Yes, ma'am," Kara said as she looked from Rachel to Meylan. "And yes, sir. Tom Chandler." She looked down a little bit. She had known that there was something there with Rachel and Tom.
And for the first time since getting out of decon and into the general populous of the ship did she feel like the breath was kicked out of her once again. Tom Chandler. He was with Tex and the group on the ground.
They had found him after sixteen months. It was something else. She wondered how he got caught up in this, but she knew that eventually they would find him. The world was dying. It was only a matter of time before Tom Chandler had to find his way around to save it. It just made sense, in a way that water being wet made sense.
Meylan and Kara moved out of the CIC and went the way of the pilot house. Rachel went back to the mess and tried to not think about the whole thing. She tried to think of the easiest thing she could think of, which was food. And how it would be easier to eat if Tex were here. But he was out there trying to find her seeds.
Everything about this came back to the seeds. Every time she tried to move away from the seeds in her thoughts, they just kept coming back. It was the only thing that mattered in the long run. But it felt like they were so far away. But they weren't. They really weren't. They were on the island. They were less than a mile away. And they were with someone that they knew. The seeds were going to be with her soon.
Sardinia
"All right, fight pit's here." Tom drew a map and put an X where the fight pit was. It wasn't like a detailed map, but enough to get them where they were going. "Nora Pula's this way," He added an arrow to the map. "Where are your rally points?"
"Rally point alpha is here," Sasha said, adding to the map. "Helo's still doing racetracks."
"Really?" Tex said, as he looked at the group, "You're all, just, on board with the fact that we found the commodore while we were looking for the seeds?"
No one said anything. And instead kept going, but the air in the room changed. It was clear that not everyone was ready to deal with this fact and Tex bringing it up, well, it wasn't exactly the right time for them. He sighed and motioned for the group to keep going with the conversation. If no one was going to say anything, well, they obviously needed to get a move on.
"Should have taken him, what, only fifteen minutes on foot?" Burke asked.
"He's gotta be hurt. Or they already found him," Danny, always a pragmatist, in situations like these. To be fair, he'd been in a lot of them. A lot of sticky situations that went down poorly. He deserved better, but in the Navy, you didn't get what you deserved all the time.
Wolf chimed in though. "No, I don't think so. There's still too many bad guys out there looking,"
That was true. It wasn't exactly like they heard no noise from their hovel which they had laid claim to for the time being. It was hidden and out of the way, but they still heard noises from the window.
"RHIB's parked at rally point Bravo on the beach," Sasha finished, adding an extra point to their crudely drawn map in the dirt. Now they had all the information they needed on the map.
Now it was just about using that information. And using it smartly.
"It'll be crawling with Giorgio's men very soon," Tom gave them the news. That was a smart use of the information. They would be able to hide for awhile. At least keep Diaz on his toes while he was out there keeping the boat company. "We took his yacht into town."
Tex nodded. This was all good information, but if they didn't find Slattery soon, it might be all worth nothing. Getting the seeds, thoughts pricked his lower neck about how important they were. And how Slattery being out there wandering, they kept getting further from reach.
"How many men does Giorgio have?" Sasha asked. A good question. Maybe they could just overwhelm them with force if necessary. If Giorgio's posse was small, that was always an option. And an option they would and could easily take.
"Dozen or so fighters. His personal detail."
That was actually not a bad idea. Taking out Giorgio's men would be easy.
"Omar travels with an army," Burke reminded them. Fuck. And that was the other shoe, dropping hard and fast. It was true. They had seen him in Oran, looking for the seeds. He had his own close detail and then he had men who worked for him. They would absolutely die for him. They would die for him or they would die like Mahmoud. Omar wasn't exactly a forgiving man.
"Streets are getting hot, we got to move," Miller told them.
Everyone stood up and Tom took the lead, like he always did. "We break up into small teams, hit both rally points simultaneously in case-"
"Split up?" Fletcher interrupted. "We're already outnumbered. We stay together, we stand a chance if things go south"
"Better for finding the seeds if we have more groups going out than just one. We can go farther. We don't know where the CO is yet," Tex said to Fletcher. Fletcher was a good guy, but something about him bristled him the wrong way. But Tex could never quite figure out what it was.
"Who are you?" Tom asked Fletcher, before turning to Sasha to ask a similar question. "Who is he?"
"Part of the team that's been saving the world for the last year," She told him quite frankly.
That was true. But it didn't mean that Tex liked him any more than a working relationship. Which was funny because he'd gone past working relationships with just about everyone. But he couldn't get past it with Fletch. He never knew why.
Fletch and Rachel talked like they were pals. They had the science thing to work out on. And Tex knew that Fletch would never go in on Rachel. It was clear that he and Sasha had a thing. They were professional about it. But she cared for him deeply. That much was clear. He would have thought that because Rachel and he were friends, they could get along, but something always caused just a little bit of a rift.
"Captain Slattery is on Evade and Escape, operating in the blind, no comms, no weapons, possibly injured, and carrying what seems to be the most important thing in the world. Since we know where he's heading we have an advantage. Like Tex said, more groups means more flexibility, with the ability to move faster, and possibly, well, hopefully find him." Tom said, "But that's just my opinion. I'm new here. It's your show,"
It wasn't exactly a dressing down, but it was close to one. It was something that Fletch should have known. They had been doing small groups with Omar and his teams for awhile. It seemed outrageous that he would suggest such a thing as staying in a large group now. But that was Fletch. Always seeming to be one step off from the dance they were dancing.
"We split up," Danny agreed.
And with that, most people left the hovel they were crouched in. Azima stayed back to say something to Captain Tom Chandler, but he had already gotten the destiny speech from Azima, so he was sure what it was.
And then they were on the move. Azima went with Burk and a few of the others. Tom, Sasha, Fletch, and Danny were on his team.
"So are we going to talk about it now?" Tex asked.
"Yeah," Danny said, "I think we do. You been in Italy all this time?"
"Greece,"
"You just drop the navy, drop everything, and travel the world?" Tex asked him. He couldn't believe it on some level. He couldn't figure out how this all made sense. It didn't make sense how he could just be here. How he could just be in the middle of everything while they were looking for the god damn seeds.
"Something like that," Tom said, as he looked at the ground.
There was more to it than that, but Tex didn't press on about it too much. They had to find the seeds. Rachel was on the Nathan James and they were going to have some trouble soon too if they didn't find the seeds.
Rally point alpha didn't offer much. Slattery wasn't there and Sunshine and Kathleen had done a local search for him and still didn't find him. It was odd. They were trying to find things and they were just out of reach. Rachel was probably going crazy with these updates. But she should be researching. Although, what exactly, he wasn't sure. She was here to take control of the seeds once they got them and get them to America, but there wasn't much else she could do right now. She hardly had a lab worth her genius.
"Our intel said the buyer had the know-how and the labs to fight the plant virus," Sasha said as she looked forward, kept moving with every step she took, "You were with him,"
"Sash," Tex looked between her and Tom, "That guy didn't exactly look like he had a lot of brains,"
"You're right," He said to Tex, "Giorgio's a thug, but he answers to somebody," He shot back. Tom still didn't look at him right in the face. It was always a half look. Like if he looked directly at Tex, he would find something in him.
That plane, it hadn't been so long ago. He understood why it was so hard. He just wished that he could do or say something to make it better. As much as it was a pain in the ass to find him in the middle of the world's biggest dispute, he wanted to see Tom's bright blue eyes, because maybe then they could start to fix this. It felt like there was a chasm between them and the only way to build a bridge would be for them to finally face each other.
"The woman he was with at the coliseum?" Sasha asked, plainly. "The one watching you fight?"
That was the moment when Sasha turned around to look at him. And there was the look. Fletcher looked uncomfortable. Tex could understand why. It was clear that there was something with Sasha and Tom, even without knowing all the history behind it. Poor Fletch must have seen it. Yeah, he didn't like the bastard, but he respected that Sasha and Fletcher were an obvious item. They tried to keep it hidden, but well, the small space of a DDG didn't exactly make that easy.
Sasha and Fletcher made a good team, he had to admit. They spoke each other's language and understood deeply what it was to be entrenched in the mission. But they also could calm each other down and care for each other even in the most chaotic moments. To speak truth, it was easy to see why they liked each other. They were no nonsense kind of people. They found each other and spent a lot of time together working with Rachel to find the seed that could possibly save the human race from extinction via starvation. And they loved their work. So it was easy to see how the feelings would have transferred.
"His sister," Tom said.
They were working their way around the rally point, when they heard the helicopter blades whirring towards them.
"Sunshine, we have a visual on you, no sign of Charlie Oscar." Fletcher told them.
"Nothing from up here either, I'll put her down and-"
"Contact, three o'clock,"
"Hold your fire!" Sasha clocked to the team on the ground. He wished he would could say it was easy following that order, but it wasn't. She kept going. "Too many, do not engage,"
"Mother, we're taking heavy fire, we gotta get out of here."
"Should we engage?"
"Rally point's blown. Mike'll go for Bravo," Tom said confidently to the group.
There was one thing that they were counting on in a time like this, it was a relationship to Mike, and that was Tom. Tex had a good relationship with the man, they kept up the search for his family back home. They had found some good leads, but Tom and Mike had known each other well before the virus had come into play.
The Nathan James
"...Too many hostiles and no sign of the CO. Scram rally point alpha,"
"Copy that. Moving to rally point Bravo,"
"Copy that, sunshine, scram rally point alpha. Widen your aerial search and proceed to Bravo,"
Rachel took a deep breath. Hearing the hail of bullets aimed at Kathleen while she did the same thing to a group of people on the ground, it wasn't the easiest thing in the world. All she wanted was her stepdaughter to be kept safe. Now granted, it was going to be hard to give her a life threatening wound when she was in the helicopter, but it could still happen and Rachel worried about silly things like that.
She looked to Meylan. "So we think that Mike has moved to Bravo to protect the seeds?" She asked him.
He nodded his head, "Ma'am, as far as we're aware, Captain Slattery still has the seeds and is still on his way to us. You're welcome to stay in here and get updates until someone says otherwise,"
Rachel nodded. Captain Meylan was incredibly welcoming considering the fact that he didn't really know her, only her mission to take the seeds back to the United States, to try and get the global food supply going again.
Maybe that was enough for him. After all, this was a ship that fed the US Navy and that meant keeping bellies full normally, but now, it meant only one plate and no refills. What could be harvested was, but it had to go farther now. It had to go much farther. Who knew what the red rust would touch next.
She thought about Tom and being with the team. He was there, who knew if Tex knew about him. There was something about this island that was making them all go a little crazy. It would be hard for Tex. Hell, it was hard for her and she was just on the ship. She didn't know what kind of crazy ideas they were getting on the ground. They always got into things on the ground. It was just the way of the beast.
Kathleen was also doing heavy work. "Riding the fifty cal," is what she always called it. But she had a job to do with that gun. How on earth had they been convinced to let her join the navy and with air rescue, no less? It seemed so dangerous that she was doing that. Then again, who knows if they could have held her back. Hell, they didn't even think that they'd be in this fight again. It was supposed to just be her and starting the new fights.
But the world was not safe for her yet. And so Tex and Rachel rallied to save it yet again. To save it for their family, because that was all they could do. They could be part of the solution or part of nothing at all, and that was hardly a choice. So they did what they could and sometimes that meant staying. Sometimes that meant knowing that the child they wanted to keep safe was going to be in danger sometimes.
Sardinia
After a brief argument with Tom, about who was actually in charge, Sasha let everyone know over comms what was happening. They would be doing a grid search, finding the CO and getting him the hell out of dodge, with the seeds, and there would be no questions about that. If someone did have a question they could sure as hell ask it to someone else.
Tex chuckled a little as the whole thing went down because what the hell else was going to happen? They all got to lose their skills because the Commodore was back. No way. "Come on, pal, you'll be okay," He said, as he gave the man a pat on his shoulder, a little awkwardly. He didn't know he was so awkward around the man now. It was like because Tom couldn't figure it out, now he couldn't either. Which was crazy. He had done this enough times, been in enough awkward encounters that he should be good. But no, apparently this was special.
They stopped at an archway, "You just can't help yourself, can you?" Sasha asked Tom.
"Old habits."
"Glad to see you still have them." She said, with a quick smile.
They moved forward silently after that and it was a while before they got anywhere with any sort of headway. They tried doors, but they wouldn't open or didn't understand. When they found people on the street, there were no helpful tidbits to be found.
"No one will talk, too scared," Tex said as he came back from yet another shut door in his face. Sasha agreed with him, which was funny because they rarely agreed. "So what do we do now? Because the sunshine twins are bound to be on us sooner rather than later."
"Giorgio has a lot of influence in this region," Tom said, not looking at any of them.
Fletch looked increasingly uncomfortable, his mustache bristled. "The longer this takes, the more time they have to find the captain. And us."
"It's not like Tom wants them to find us, anymore than we want to be found," Tex said as he stopped in his tracks. Fletch couldn't believe that seriously. It was seriously out of line. He looked to Sasha and then to the ground.
"So we level the playing field." Tom said, as he looked forward. They found a small group of Giorgio's soldiers and took them down. It was easy. The group only had three people and they were four, and even at his worst, Fletch was still pretty good at fighting. Tom took a walkie from one of them and then they were going to find Mike one way or another.
The Nathan James
"TAO! EW detecting a new radar emission bearing at 085 true, moving south-southwest"
Rachel looked at, "What the hell?" She whispered underneath her breath. "What is that?" She pushed her glasses on and looked at the screen. "That is not supposed to be there. Something that big, it can't be Giorgio's yacht."
"It's rounding the tip of the island," Meylan told the crew, "What is it?"
"Analyzing radar band and frequency, sir" Kara told him.
"We've got an X-band radar signal. Plugging it into our library now," Someone else said.
There was something so interesting about the whole thing that seemed out of place. It was so weird. It could be nothing, but Rachel got a really bad feeling about the whole thing. And Rachel learned to trust that feeling.
"SSES has indication of an EHF transmission signal," Alisha said.
"Based on the parameters, I've identified contact…as hellenic Navy vessel," The man told them. But that seemed impossible. "Hydra Class."
Rachel came over and looked over his shoulder, "Excuse me? Hydra Class? Navy Vessel?" She said as she looked at the screen, but there it was in technicolor. She looked over to Meylan. "If they have a Naval vessel, this just became much more dire,"
"They have a greek warship?" Meylan asked as he came over to look over at the screen. "I guess so, fuck."
Kara looked up, "That's no coincidence,"
"Is it possible the Greeks are behind this whole thing?" Master Chief asked.
Rachel shook her head. "We've been working with Greek scientists and politicians. They've been having just as much trouble as us with trying to find a way to feed their population. If it's the greeks, they're going through a dual identity crisis," She told him.
"No conclusions," Meylan said, "After all, not long ago, we were all part of Nato,"
"Which means they know all our battle plans," Kara told them. "EW, any signs of hostile intent?"
He shook his head. "No ma'am. So far, no aggressive maneuvering. And fire control is not engaged,"
"Gator, how protected is this coastline?" Meylan asked.
"As long as we stay close to land, they shouldn't be able to distinguish us from the rocks, sir,"
"Set EMCOM condition alpha," Meylan told them.
Rachel whitened. She hated this idea. They had people on the ground. They had a CO out of comms. And they had a helo in the air. This was not the time to start going to EMCOM. Even if there was a ship out there. But here they were doing exactly that.
Sardinia
Greek came through the walkie intermittently but they kept walking. Tex was just muscle, in this group of brains, so he didn't bother with it, but it kept a focused face on Sasha, Fletch looked worried about her. And in the end, it was Tom who stopped them.
"Something's happened…An American…"
"You speak Greek now?" Sasha asked.
Tex chuckled, "Not your best timing, hun,"
"...At a house a few blocks from here." Tom Finished, "That's gotta be Mike,"
They followed Tom just like that. To the ends of the earth. He knew where Mike was and well, that was that. It was easy to follow him. Easy to believe him. Believe in him.
They found house and the woman covered in blood. It was obvious that she didn't want to rat on Mike and so they just killed her. But they looked around and found medical supplies that had been used. She obviously helped him. He was hurt. He probably still had the seeds though. That was the hope that they were hanging onto. He was doing all of this to try and get back to the Nathan James with those seeds.
More bad news though.
"There's a greek warship approaching the island."
"Stavros," Tom clarified.
It was something they should have expected that he would know about that too. But Tex raised his eyebrows at it. There was something eerie about having someone who knew so much about the enemy and yet was not the enemy. Tom was a friend. He was a good friend. One of the best. And well, Tex wouldn't ever admit out loud to it, there were other feelings there. He thought maybe Tom felt it too, but they never pushed it. He had Rachel. And last time he saw Tom, the man had Sasha. But now, it was something else.
"He came by Giorgio's house," Tom said as he looked away from everyone. "And the CO's been drugged,"
"How do you know?" Sasha asked.
Tom held up some leaves and sighed, "I've seen this before," He told them. "He won't make it far in this condition,"
"Well, then it's about time to rattle on out of here," Tex said as he made his way to the door and let everyone out before closing it slightly behind him, just the way they found it. Before Fletch moved out, he put a sheet over the dead woman. It was the least they could do. It was a nice gesture. But that was it.
The Nathan James
She had to get out of the CIC for awhile. There was nothing in there that made her happy. Being at EMCOM made it impossible to reach out to her family. They had briefed the crew that they were going to EMCOM and the reason why, but that didn't mean that she didn't like it. She was allowed not to like this.
She was on the deck, in front of the bridge when some light caught her eyes. She thought it was just the way the sun was hitting. But then it happened again. And again. And again. Not a coincidence.
She went into the pilot house and it was the same thing in there. "What the hell is that?" She asked.
"Looks like someone trying to get our attention." Alisha said. The Master Chief walked over to them.
"Let's take a closer look," He said.
They went outside to look and Rachel heard that it was a signal mirror. She was relieved that there were still ways to communicate that weren't trackable. She stood in the doorway, careful not to block it and looked out at them.
"Long Short, Long Short,"
"...Morse code,"
"Long Long Long," The master chief said. "Now it's starting over,"
"Charlie Oscar" Alisha said and then repeated. "Do you see him?"
The Master Chief looked out and then back, "No, but I do see where the signal is coming from. The top of that Cathedral,"
Rachel moved out of the doorway. That was important information that no doubt had to go to Meylan and the others and it wouldn't be prudent for her to be in anyone's way. She was a guest on this ship and while she had full access to things, she was still expected to defer to the battle plan. And that meant not being in the way.
They broke EMCOM for that.
"All teams be advised, we have Charlie Oscar's location. He's at the Cathedral."
Now there was more waiting. They had to let the teams on the ground do their job. It was up to them to bring him home. Bring the seeds home. Help humanity start eating again. Rachel was not religious but she gave a small prayer that everyone would arrive back to the ship safely and with the seeds. It was a leftover from childhood, but she kind of liked it.
Sardinia
"We see it." Sasha said, looking up to the top of the Cathedral, looking at the blinking light going in and out. "He found the high ground,"
Tex shrugged. "Guess that's one of the reasons he's a Commander," He smiled. They had a plan and a way to get out. They were going to get Mike and they were going to get off this island. And so far, it didn't seem like the last thing they would do.
"Let's go get him," Tom said.
And they all agreed to that, so they drove their path straight for the Cathedral. It took a few minutes, but it was natural. And there was no one around, so it was a fast walk to the Cathedral. They headed there as quickly as they could.
"Vulture, what's your whiskey?"
"Vulture team is approaching the Cathedral."
All the ground teams met and approached each other and they split off into two groups. Danny was back with them. And they took up the rear of Vulture team. They heard the shots coming at the other team and waited as long as they could without having to shoot back but at some point, it was inevitable.
Tex took out his hand gun and shot it, looking for quick and precise kills and stuns, rather than bloody ones as they ascended one set of stairs, while Giorgio and Omar's men ascended on a parallel course to them.
The two teams came back together and some of Vulture stayed outside to keep the attack at bay with Cobra team. But Tex, Tom, and Sasha went inside first. They were looking for the staircase. Which Tom found with no problem and guided everyone to it, once Cobra team was inside the Cathedral.
They raced up the steps, desperate to get to Mike because it was starting to look dicey on whether they would get everything back to the Nathan James. But they were determined to try. The shots kept firing from both sides.
When they found Mike, he was in a sorry shape. He looked like he couldn't tell up from down and it was a trap. Tom tried to make him understand who they were, but his eyes they just got more distant.
The boys were setting up explosives on the door and everyone was charged to take cover, once that was over. That meant that Mike had to as well, and it wasn't like he could do it himself right now, so Tex and Tom muscled him over to a place with some cover and ducked down too. It was the only way.
"...It's now or never, Sunshine," Danny yelled into the comms.
It seemed like forever that the everything was going on, but it wasn't. That was just the time warp of battle. Everything seemed to go slower, but it was incredibly fast. Giorgio and Omar's men were coming up the stairs, beating on the door.
"When the door blows, I'll aim low and you aim high."
It was all just background noise to Tex who was looking over Mike. He was in bad shape. Anyone could tell that. But he still had his instincts. He wanted to be in the fight. Tom had to tell him to stay down and that didn't help. Tex ended up keeping a hand on him so he wouldn't try and get up too early. Because they needed him to get up, but just not to get shot.
They'd be heading back to the Nathan James soon. It would be over soon. They just had to wait on the helo. Sunshine and Kathleen had their backs. If Sunshine was anything like Kathleen's gushing, it wouldn't be an issue. All he could think about though was that door. The shouting got louder and louder. There was no way that they weren't trying to break down the door. It was surprising how long it kept up.
"Can't wait on the helo, Fletcher let her go,"
"10 inch steel,"
And then there it was, the explosion of the door. They all got showered in wood chips and then they immediately had to go for guns. This was just the way of things, unleashed by the dogs of war. Tex kept his hand on Mike, but looked to the door where he took a few shots, not sure if he was really doing anything to help the cause right now by doing so. His main goal though was Mike, was keeping him away from bullets and in that he succeeded. Mike looked like he had lost a significant amount of blood and Tex hoped that Sunshine and Kathleen would come down and help them right now.
Then suddenly he was smiling. And someone in that much pain, smiling, it could be hallucinations of some kind. Commodore said that he'd been drugged, but it looked like he was out of it, not hallucinating. But Tex brought him closer to Tom and killed some of the bastards that Mike was holding a hand out, seeming to try and touch.
"He's not right. He shouldn't be smiling," Tex said to Tom.
"That's the drug. I don't have a lot of time to explain it right now,"
Then the helicopter was there and all they dragged him on it. And everyone else got on too. They kept him horizontal, better to keep the blood where it was and not to disturb him, going in and out. Everyone else sat on the sides they were supposed to.
The Nathan James
When the helo touched down, Master Chief escorted Rachel down the bay. They looked around and all they saw was chaos. Their commander was not long for this world in that condition. And there was medical supplies out to make sure that didn't happen.
Everyone else was coming in now. And she found most of them to be safe. She gave Wolf, Burke, and Miller a quick nudge, a thank you for coming home back safe. Then Danny, Fletch, and Sasha were next in. She gave Danny a quick hug. She was glad he made it home. He was a friend. He was their best man.
Kathleen got a huge hug and a kiss on the head, her beautiful stepdaughter. She'd been instrumental in getting this job done. And she was safe with no injuries. She thanked God for that.
Then there was Tex. And behind him, came Tom. They didn't look at each other in the moment they walked in the door. But it was impossible not to look at Tom with his grown beard and full curly head of hair and not think what a man. She ran a hand through his hair and thought it would have been easy to pick him.
"So you're back?" She asked him.
He shrugged, "I don't know yet." He smiled, "But we have something for you," He said as he delivered the seeds into her hands.
And she looked at Tex with a manic smile. It was alright to be manic in the moment. This was what they had been looking for, for over a year. It was right that she was over the moon about this. Tex took her in his arms and breathed her in deeply.
"You can start the research," He said, and he almost had tears in his eyes. His baby was going to save the world again.