"Do you know what this is about?" Rachel asked Tex when he came to interrupt her during her work. The scientists back at home were hard at working, making sure to isolate what they could of what made the rust so untenable, but it seemed to be different in everything they tried.
Tex shook his head, "Kinda exciting, that way, huh?" He said as he took her by the hand and walked her to and into the meeting.
She had to agree. After all the terrible starts they had with the seeds, they still had them. And the seeds were the only reason that she was put into any sort of team meeting, because she was set to be by the seeds' side. So there must be an update. That could only mean good things, she thought. But she kept her expectations level. There had been so many missed opportunities.
She and Tex strode in and were greeted and then shortly there after, Tom came in. He looked at them, sheltering his eyes from theirs still. Even in the uniform, he couldn't do it. They would have to talk about it.
"Now that everyone's here, Captain Slattery was just sharing a bit of good news," Meylan said as he smiled and looked over to Slattery, before informing everyone in the room, "Commander Garnett managed to locate another plane in Tel Aviv. She's altered the flight plan to meet us at Tregua Island."
"There's an airstrip there. It's private, but it's operational," Slattery expressed to everyone as he pointed to the tiny island on the map.
Rachel beamed as she looked at it. Such a little island with so much hope for the world. She almost felt tears welling up in her eyes. Getting the seeds to the states would be so much easier and they could start so much faster if they could move through the air.
"But most importantly, unlikely to be on Vellek's radar,"
Tex looked at Rachel, while she frowned. The idea that they had to do all of this while evading Vellek, he knew that she felt it should be unnecessary, but he was a madman from all the talk she had done with him. His importance to the goal, it was understandable, but he also felt the radiating consternation from her.
"Turns out, Aegis Ashore was a good call, Captain. Thank you for that" Slattery nodded to Tom.
Tex put a finger up, making sure that he was seen and therefore heard. He wasn't about to let his wife go into this in the blind. "So, how do we know that this won't be on Vellek's radar? He has to know that we're looking for a way to get the seeds out and to St. Louis. He's gotta be combing his options."
"We're not taking any chances with this plane," Meylan started, "As it's probably the last one we'll have at our disposal for some time,"
That meant everything had to go totally right for this plan to be worth it. Tex wasn't exactly a numbers guy, but the Nathan James did not have great odds when it came to plans going off without any hitches in their giddy-up.
He nodded to Meylan, "So we're going to risk this plane and my wife, when we could find a way to kill this bastard and then get it back to the States?" He asked.
"It is a risky plan. But it's the best one we have so far. And we can't get out of the med without some sort of confrontation, which while we have the seeds is not an amenable solution," Meylan said to him.
Rachel touched his arm. "Let's just hear what they have to say," She said quietly.
He took a step back and put his hand in hers, not wanting to ever let her go into another dangerous situation without backup again. She deserved more.
Meylan nodded, with approval, but Slattery took over the talking points. "Nathan James will meet the plane. Dr Scott, Ms. Cooper, and Ms. Bivas will personally escort the seeds back to our lab in the States, where the rest of the scientists are standing by." He looked proud. He beamed with pride at Rachel. It was such a funny sight.
Rachel beamed back at him. They hadn't really had a chance to talk since she boarded, but she loved Mike dearly, with his presence being fatherly. It wasn't always the easiest relationship, but now they had a profound respect for each other. He seemed to care that she got back home safely, which couldn't be the easiest thing to feel given his need to shepherd hundreds of sailors back home too. To feel special, it wasn't a contest, but she felt like she won.
"The rest of us, prepare for phase two, finding and capturing Dr. Paul Vellek,"
"Any sign of that Greek warship?" Tom asked.
"Negative,"
A load of Rachel and Tex's shoulders. Tex was sure the guys doing the actual steering of the ship were also glad that they didn't have to street around defensively against another warship. They'd done that enough.
"I think it should stay that way until the seeds are far away from the Med." Meylan offered. Sasha looked over and nodded to Rachel, who nodded back to her.
There were a few other pleasantries including thanking Commander Fletcher for helping them get the seeds. He seemed a little nervous by the formality of it, which seemed funny to Tex because he was British and they seemed to have more rules about that kind of thing. But then they were let go. Fletcher, Meylan, and Mike left fairly quickly, with Sasha not far behind, though she gave Rachel a quick arm squeeze before she left. And then there were three. And it was impossible to not use the time.
"Tom…" Rachel said as she looked at him straight in the eye.
His mouth opened and shut and his eyes, they desperately wanted to look away. But they didn't look away from her. It was a test of it. Tex moved up from behind her.
"Tex," He gasped. "I'm so sorry…"
Tex shook his head. "Don't you dare say you're sorry for saving my life." He growled.
"No," He crumpled as he took his friend in his arms. This was about something else. "I just…I had to go,"
Tex nodded. "It's okay," He whispered and rubbed the back of his friend. He pulled away just a little bit and smiled. "You had to go, we understand,"
"I saw something in myself I didn't like. It was…unfair," Tom looked Rachel in the eye. "I didn't understand what you did until that moment and it was all instinct. Just all instinct. It was uncontrollable. I need you to know that I am so sorry for leaving you to deal with all of this all by yourself."
They both gave him smoothing gestures on the back. It was something that they all needed. They all let it go in the end.
Rachel went to the cabin and booted up her laptop, looking through some of the emails that she had. Some of them were interesting developments in finding out how the Red Rust was thriving, but without the seeds there was nothing that could be done about it. So far as they knew while, the red rust found ways to penetrate every single crop. Knowing where was half the battle, unfortunately now it was engineering crops to be resistant to it. And that wouldn't happen without the seeds.
It was incredible that one seed could be worth so much, but there it was. It was safely locked up and she didn't have any contact with it. Not until the plane. She liked it that way. She would be a target no doubt to other people, but if she had the seeds, it would be even worse. It might actually mean the end of her life.
None of those emails compared though, to a simple email that read: Possible Slatterys'. She hadn't told Mike that since the network of people with computers and technology came back online, she was looking for lost people for the crew. She'd found a few friends for Kathleen and even found Ray's dad. They were slowly getting to know each other again.
She'd been looking for Mike's girls for a while. Pretty much since the China thing. Whenever she got an email about possible Slatterys, she always did a little digging. So far nothing had come up that was worth anything.
But this one, it came up looking like it might be something. She looked at the pictures that her contact sent her and from the one that she saw Mike looking at a lot, it looked a lot like them. And the facts lined up. They knew the name of Mike's wife. They also knew where they were during the Red Flu. That was good. Everyone else hadn't gotten past this point.
She looked at the picture of the two girls. They looked so much older but they looked like his girls in the photo. She was looking at it hard.
The door opening brought her out of her trance. She didn't know how long she'd been looking at the picture of the two girls, when she looked up and there was Tex. She smiled at him, as she looked back at the picture, and closed her laptop.
"Something interesting?" He asked.
She nodded. "You know, I've been helping people reconnect," She told him. He nodded as he sat down on the bed, but he motioned for her to go on. "Well, I've been trying to find Mike's family. For a while. And I think I might have found his daughters. Both of them."
"Wow," he gasped. "That's amazing. When do you tell him?"
"Should I? Right now?" She asked.
"Why wouldn't you?" He asked. "You're going to be on a plane before you know it. You won't have time afterward. He's going to be focused on capturing Vellek," She rolled her eyes at the mention of the name Vellek. "Wow, you really do not like that guy."
She shook her head. "I just think he's dangerous and this plan of making him help us…I don't think it's going to work. I think he's too much ego to ever want to do it for the good of other people."
"Well, you'll hopefully have plenty of time to work before you even hear his name again," He told her as he kissed her forehead. "But you should tell Slattery about his potential kids. It'd be good for him to get some good news right about now."
She gave him her hand and he helped her up, her laptop underneath her other arm. They left the cabin quietly and headed toward the bridge, where no doubt they would find Slattery doing his due diligence and looking after the ship. There was a storm brewing and from the occasional glimpse outside they got of it, they were headed straight towards it.
When they got up to the bridge, Slattery wasn't there. He was in the medical bay, getting an examination, but he should be back soon. They were allowed to stay, so long as they didn't get in the way and they looked right out at the storm. Tregua would be coming up soon. And she was packed and ready, so she would need to go down after this anyway.
It would take a few minutes for Slattery to come back, but he came back in the same way that they did. He raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't you be getting ready to get off this bucket?" He asked, with a joy in his voice.
Rachel nodded. "Yeah," She blushed. "But I actually have something I need to show you. It's important,"
He showed her to the map room and the bulkhead closed behind them. "Alright, so what do you have for us, doc? Please tell me it's not that the seeds are dud, because that would be…catastrophic," He chuckled nervously.
She put her laptop up on the table and logged in. "Nothing like that," She promised him.
She logged in and Slattery did the gentlemanly thing and looked away. As if she was scared that he would somehow try to steal her identity or her work. He'd need to understand it. She chuckled. "I'm in," She said and let him turn back around.
"That's just your email, Doc," He said.
She nodded. "Well, I have a very special email for you." She told him. And she brought it up. "I know you miss your family. I've been trying to reconnect people from the Nathan James to their families and yours has by far been the hardest to find."
"Rachel-"
She shook her head. "You just have to take a look," She told him. "I've run them all through basics and no one has gotten this far. They know you." She insisted. "So just listen."
She pressed play on the video.
"Is this thing on?" A voice sounded. And she could hear Slattery's breath hitch. Then the picture started as two brunette young women sat in the foreground. "So, I guess we start," The voice said to the other woman.
"We're Hannah and Rebecca, our mother's name is Christine. We're looking for our Father, Mike Slattery. We've been told that what we say here will make it to him. So we love you. We're currently living out in what is the Baltimore area. Mom lives here too, but she's made it clear that she doesn't want to be in contact with you. We're sorry if that hurts." They looked down at the floor,
"We had a younger brother named Lucas. He was the only one in our family to die of the Red Flu that we know of. We hope you know how proud we are of you. We just didn't know how to get into contact with you. An email address will be provided with this video, if you want to get in touch,"
He paused the video. "You found my kids," He said with tears coming down his cheeks. He hugged her tightly and didn't let her go. It took her a second, but she leaned into it. He was a man who obviously cherished this kind of connection.
When they came away, she smiled, "I'll forward that email to you," She couldn't believe the sound of her own voice. It was shaky. It was unbelievable what finding his family had done for her too. "I should go," She said as she opened the bulkhead.
She saw Tex and smiled a little. Mike came out beside her and he looked like he should with a righteous demeanor on his face. But he was different now. It looked different. She'd been up here with him before when he had to be like that, and the energy was just different. She sighed. It was good to get people home.
"We should go," She said to Tex who nodded and took her hand. They turned to leave when the Master Chief got a call.
"Bridge, Copy. Alpha track bearing 165,"
They stopped in their tracks. That was not good. The seeds were due off the ship any minute and now they had a ship tailing them, that couldn't be good.
"Radar contact! Two additional unknowns in company, bearing 160 at 50 miles,"
"That makes three all day," Slattery told Chandler. Tex squeezed Rachel's hand.
There was some more commotion about the Bravo Ship, it matched logs off the one that they met off of the coast of Sardinia.
Everyone came to the same conclusion at the same time. Vellek. He was chasing them for the seeds. He'd never fire on them, they had the seeds and you could never be sure where they were stashing them, so no place was safe, but he would and could blow up their plane on Tregua Island.
"I thought he wasn't supposed to be able to find us," Rachel said.
Slattery shrugged. "Looks like Luck had other plans." He said as he looked out the window and into the storm, "Gator find us a spot to hide,"
Gator found a spot to hide. It would take about an hour to get there. Rachel looked at Tex and thought, there was nothing more for them to do. They weren't needed and now they were in the land of actually getting in the way. Tex lead her back to the cabin, where she kicked one of the bunks. She couldn't believe it. That stupid genius Vellek. How could they be outmaneuvered by such a man? It seemed impossible.
"We had it," She said. "We were right there. And now, who knows?"
Tex let out a gentle soothing sound and put his hands on Rachel's arms. "We're going to get the seeds back to the states. It's going to be okay. This is a little kink in the plan. It's not like we've never had those before,"
She looked at Tex and calmed down. "You're right. I should be focusing on getting out of here. I wasn't supposed to be here for this long anyway," She said as she looked around. "It still feels like home,"
He nodded. "Yeah," He said as he looked around. They had a myriad of their collected stuff. A couple of small books that she brought. Stuff to clean shoes and weapons piled in the corner. A shirt or two out for both of them. Of course, photos taped to walls of important people, including especially Kathleen's pictures. It was downright domestic.
"General Quarters! General Quarters! All hands, man your battle stations. Make ready for heavy seas,"
As soon as it came over the intercom, Tex and Rachel looked at each other, and they sighed. They weren't technically a part of the general movement, but they both had jobs to do. Rachel went to go help where she could and Tex would have to be ready for anything they threw at him.
Where she was needed was with the refugees. She walked around and made sure that they had water and company. She didn't speak many of the languages that they spoke but many were just happy for someone who would listen to them for just a little bit. Especially the children. She smiled. This was good. It was good to be down here and remember what they were doing this all for anyway.
These people were starving and ready to eat, but even the mighty Nathan James had to ration when it came to these people. With a crew as big as hers, it wasn't easy to find more food in these dire times.
Bacon was here with her. Not much use for a cook in general quarters, but there was a lot of use when they had refugees on board.
"You look at peace here," Bacon smiled as he made the rounds.
She smiled back at him. "It's the rejuvenation of the mission. It's why getting those seeds was so important in the first place," She told him. "To feed the world. Not just ourselves."
The ship started rocking and she looked to Bacon. He shook his head. He had no idea what was happening either. If she had to guess, it was that storm that they saw earlier. They were headed straight towards it now and the water was getting worse.
She stood back up and tried to calm a few of the refugees down. Ultimately, she didn't know if it worked, but they seemed coddled enough not to completely freak every time there was a wave and they went crashing into another wall. They seemed to be faring better than she did, with her stomach queasy, but maybe that was just because she didn't understand their languages.
The boat crashed again when Sasha came in and they all went flying to the side again. Danny was on it though. He was ready for it. "All right, let's get ready to move," He said, so she picked herself up and steeled herself for it. "We're going to go one by one."
There was some more shouting, but Doc Rios and Wolf were getting ropes ready, something that would steady them all and steady the weight of the boat hopefully between these bursting waves that were constantly making a mockery of the human bodies inside. They moved children first, only right she thought.
But there was a man. The captain of the boat. He was having some sort of distress. But she was so locked up behind people that she couldn't get to the front to try and help. She felt betrayed by the whole thing, but she tried not to dwell on it. They were taking him to medical. He'd be cared for there much more than what she could do right now in the field. It'd be okay, she breathed. It'd be okay.
She helped others with getting onto the rope and working to balance the ship. This was her job. Her job was important. And doing these things meant that they all got through this safely. She didn't have to worry about ships other than this one.
Tex was working on making sure that hallways were cleaned up when the boat captain came through to medical. He was making sure that things were all tied up. It was quick enough that Burk and Miller let him down into medical and then were off again. He thought nothing of it, and moved along. He wasn't going to be useful down there with a bunch of refugees where he definitely didn't understand their languages.
He moved to another hallway, using the straps to make sure that everything was put up. They would have done this earlier, but getting into this storm well, it was a quick decision. When the boat rocked, he knocked his head into the wall, and thought of Rachel down in the helo bay with all of those people, how they were doing.
He covered the bump on his head and kept moving. Something about this whole thing, it felt odd to him. How they had found them. Rachel was right, they were sure that this wouldn't be on Vellek's radar and yet here they were trying to avoid him through a storm.
He ran into Sasha, Slattery, and the chief that was in comms. That was weird, "Why the party?" He asked.
"Chief said she found something." Sasha supplied.
"What you got, Chief?" Slattery asked.
"I was monitoring signals for the greek ships. I ran an ID check against all prior calls routed from our satellite-"
"And?"
"It's Commander Fletcher."
"What about him?" Sasha asked defensively.
Tex rolled his eyes. "You can't tell?" He asked. Everyone looked at him, including the chief. "Geez, she spelled it out for you. He's a traitor. He's placed a call to the greeks." He told them.
Chief nodded. "Yes, very broadly. He didn't place a call to the Home office in London this afternoon," She supplied them. "He contacted another ship."
"Who'd he call, Chief?" Tom asked.
Tex rolled his eyes. "I can't believe this. I spelled it out for you. Hell, she spelled it out for you. Greek warships. Fletcher. Calling a ship. There's only so much more that she can do for you without holding your hand,"
"The channel he used matches that of the Bravo Contact we identified as the greek navy's flag." She said as she looked down at the book, making sure that nothing she said was incorrect.
It was finally clear to everyone what the hell had happened. It was Tom who voiced it. "He gave the Greeks our position."
"That's how they found us in the first place," Slattery finished the thought, "They knew where we were going,"
"I have to find him,"
"Are you kidding? That fucking bastard," He said as he kicked the wall. "I knew that there was something about him. It didn't sit right with me. It never did," He said as he looked at everyone. "So what do we do now?"
"Alert the Master at arms and duty gunner's mate," Slattery said to the Chief as he and Tom went in one direction, Sasha went in another, and the Chief went in yet another direction, which left Tex standing there in the hall. Everyone had a job or calling except him. Well, screw that. He went in the direction of Tom and Mike.
He made it through a flurry of decks before the emergency alarm went off and Slattery was coming over the comms system. It was bad. It was Fletcher's doing and they were trying to lock him down on the ship, which meant that he was trying to get off. The best thing to do for Tex was try and get topside. Which is what he did.
There was wet on his face and he normally would have enjoyed the rain, but it was a little hard when they were looking for someone who was a traitor. He moved around the doors, trying to find where he might come out, wondering if he was even on the right side of the ship.
That was until he saw two blurred figures in the distance. He ran as fast as he could without slipping, which was harder than it looked. And he saw one of the figures raise his hand at the other and the other on the floor. Not good. He thought it was suspicious and he let the idea of his own safety go and went towards the figures with all the force he had in his bones.
It was clear the two figures were in a fight, over what, he couldn't be sure, but it didn't seem like two people who were clearly allies, which meant there was a high likelihood, one of his guys had to be in that fight. When he got close enough, he saw O'connor. Tom was right behind him. And he shot the person fighting O'connor in the back. Tex couldn't help but smile. He didn't know what he would have done, having no weapon except his fists and his wits.
They made it to O'connor together, but the man, the one O'connor had been fighting, had gone forward, even with two shots to the back. When they got to O'connor, they realized the extent of his wounds. It would be hard, but Tex immediately went into action mode and ripped a good part of his shirt off to make a dressing for it. They'd have to do more for it when they could get a doctor, hopefully though, stopping the bleeding for a few minutes would give him the critical time that he needed.
"He's gonna be fine," Tex said with a smile as he looked down at O'connor, purely bullshitting his way through the conversation, "You need to go find that guy. And Fletcher. We need the seeds," He knew it would be the one thing they were after. There was nothing else of value to the Greek Navy on their ship.
He took O'connor inside and got him to the medical bay as quickly as possible, with Rachel running towards him, putting her hair up and snapping gloves on. She'd have to this as quickly as possible. He wasn't going to make it long with just the dressing.
She looked down and saw who it was and looked up to Tex with a look of horror on her face and then quickly looked back down with a focused attention. It was not time for lost seconds, she thought. She threaded a needle quickly and sutured him up. It was a knife wound, so at least there was nothing to worry about in the case of bullets, but god, the inhumanity of the wound. It was barbaric.
She looked over at where the seeds used to be and cursed under her breath. Tex, for his part, wore a scowl the entire time. O'connor had been one of the very first kind people to both of them here, and they would be damned if they were going to let him die.
Once the sutures were done, it was time to get check for other issues. Any internal bleeding or other problems that would need attending to. There was a couple of ricochet burns from bullets. He'd been lucky with the way they landed. She put some dressings on them with some ointment, hopefully, that would be healing enough.
Honestly, it was not her finest hour when it came to trauma work, she thought, but she stood by Tex and looked over O'connor and thought that if he could make it, then she was reasonably sure that everything would be okay. He just had to live.
Doc Rios came in and gave him the once over, before kicking them both out of the medical bay. That was enough for her. The whole night had been tiring. "Let's go get some rest,"
It was at that point that Doc Rios popped up, "I think they want you guys in the Officers' Wardroom for some meeting,"
Tex groaned. All he wanted to do was go to sleep with Rachel. Seeing as the seeds were gone, they were going to have to find a way to get them back, but couldn't that wait just a little bit? He knew what the logical part of both of their brains said. No, it couldn't wait. But he didn't want to listen to the logical part of his brain right now.
"I know," Rachel said softly as she took his hand.
It was that comfort that brought him out of his frustration. She also wanted to go to bed. Hell, she'd been the one to say it, but she was willing. He should be too. She was supposed to be going home. They'd been so close. And now, without the seeds, there was no reason for her to go home again. She'd have to answer for that too.
Tex walked them to the wardroom where they waited for everyone to assemble. It took awhile for the room to include: Sasha, Tom, Mike, Meylan, and the Master Chief. They closed their eyes when it was clear that it would take awhile, but it was not the rest they wanted.
Master Chief was the last one to come in. And he was talking about the helo, Kathleen and Rodney, doing an infrared search, but nothing being found. That didn't surprise either of them. As much as he hated Fletcher, he was good at what he did. He wouldn't have been so careless as to still be out in the ocean by now.
They all looked at all the accoutrement of the "fishing trawler captain" on the table. Clothes, a knife, some other bags, a copy of ulysses, a flashlight and lighter, and some stuff that quite frankly, Tex couldn't make heads or tales of.
"There's absolutely nothing in these belongings that suggests that refugee was an actual trawler captain," Meylan said as he slammed the picture of the supposed trawler captain on the table. "Or actually middle eastern for that matter."
"No question he and Fletcher were working together. From the beginning," Mike added, "As much as I hate him right now, I hope to God, he survived the swim, for the seeds sake,"
"He survived," Tom said, gravely, "The Greeks must have had a ship waiting behind Asteris,"
Rachel nodded. "Well, at least the seeds aren't at the bottom of the ocean then," She said it a little sardonically. At least if they were at the bottom of the ocean there wouldn't be wars fought over food. Or at least everyone would have to try to work together. But no, the Greeks had the seeds, which meant that they controlled the world for now. Having those seeds, who knew what Vellek wanted to do with them, but she couldn't imagine that it was anything good.