"There are active ports in Syracuse and Tripoli,"
"Benghazi, if he has the fuel,"
All of this was met with a map and a laser pointer. How it always came back to the map. These people must really love their geography, Rachel thought. She knew it was not a nice thought, but she thought it all the same and then looked at the map with the rest of them. The seeds were out there. He had one ship. They could do this.
"Vellek's not a runner," Tom said, confidently.
"The Greek Convoy's rusting at the bottom of the Med." Mike said with a grin. He loved that they took those other three ships out. It was nice to have done it, nerve wracking. "Can't stay put either,"
It nearly tore her to pieces, the thought of losing Kathleen, but Kathleen was safe. She didn't have to worry. Kathleen didn't really have a job to hurt from right now. She and Tex were having lots of time together. She'd gotten mostly superficial wounds but that didn't mean that her dad didn't lay it on thick with the overbearing nature of his.
Meylan took a stab at it this time. "With a helo, he can get some of his product to just about anywhere in this area," He said, circling a large swath of the map with his hand. None of this seemed to do them any good. "If it's planes he's meeting, we'll need to focus on airfields."
She looked at the map and shook her head. "We have no information that will bring us closer to him right now," She said, exasperated. "And every second we wait, we get away from the seeds."
There was a knock at the door. Mike ordered the person in. It was Alisha Granderson. She smiled at Granderson, who smiled back at her and then looked to Mike with a serious face. "We have a Navy Blue from Commander Garnett," She gave the folder to him.
Mike opened the Blue folder to find pages inside. He read them quickly, and before he told anyone anything about what was in the pages, he simply shook his head and smiled, "That crazy son of a bitch," He said.
"What?" Someone asked.
"Haifa Aegis Ashore picked up three planes inbound, headed for an airfield in Mdina,"
"Malta," Tom said.
Rachel looked at the page and then looked at the map. The facts bore out. Vellek wasn't running scared. He was still headed towards Malta. Even though, he knew that they would be coming. He wasn't straying from his path. Rachel could almost applaud the man for such a logical way of thinking, but she was pretty sure that this decision did not come out of logical thinking at all.
"So we're headed to Malta?" She asked.
"Yes, Malta it is,"
When she found Tex to tell him the good news, he was already headed to the Helo bay. A choice that she did not agree with.
"But I thought you wanted one of us on the seeds?" He asked.
She shook her head. She couldn't believe the stupidity of needing one of them on the seeds. They had almost lost Kathleen just yesterday and now she couldn't bear the thought of Tex going out there and trying and getting himself killed too.
"I need you here. Kathleen needs you here," She told him.
He nodded. "Alright, well, I've got to let the guys know though," He said, jogging down the corridor.
Tex thought it was incredibly sweet that Rachel had a change of heart of who needed to be where. They had played hero so many times. And considering that there was likely not the expert research on the ground, he would have a chance to do it again for her. Just probably in a less stressful environment.
He caught up to Danny. "I'm tagged out of this one," He said as he looked back at Rachel. "Almost losing Kathleen yesterday has her really freaked out. And she wants me to stay behind on this one," Danny didn't do anything but nod and smile. He was a guy with a family too. He understood what it meant to take on something like this with your family nearby. Mahmoud had been murdered when his family was nearby.
When that was done Rachel went up to the bridge to hear what was going on and Tex went to spend some time with the daughter that clearly took up more importance to his wife than the glory of saving the world. In all honesty, he would choose his daughter over glory any day of the week. Glory would come and go, getting chances with his daughter, they were so rare and he treasured each of them forever.
"Nathan James, Vulture is in. Helo just took off. We are now in position of the tarmac. I can confirm visuals on two planes, three hostiles loading crates, British and Russian crews,"
Rachel chewed on her thumb, knowing this could be it. This could be the end of everything. Hell, it was supposed to be the end of everything. They were supposed to find the seeds on those planes and then it was supposed to be over. They would be able to figure out where Vellek was and maybe talk him down. Talk him into joining them. Talk him into giving them the research. Anything, but this was supposed to be the big stand. And Rachel knew that.
Ravit smiled. She was not used to seeing Rachel so nervous. It was funny to her that Rachel was this nervous. Rachel had begged Tex off the mission and still she was nervous. Ravit gave her a gentle clap on the back.
"Everything will be fine," She said, a little louder than someone with normal hearing might have said it.
Rachel, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. She still chewed on her thumb and tried not to think about all of the ways this could go horribly wrong. Those guys were still family. They weren't Tex and Kathleen close, but Danny was out there.
"Roger, Vulture, don't start blowing shit up till we know what's in those crates," Mike said into the phone making sure that he was understood. He looked at Rachel and then looked away quickly, "We still need those progenitor seeds."
"Roger, Vulture, on me."
And then the radio went silent and perhaps the most painful part of the wargames came to pass, the waiting. The waiting was the toughest part. She usually was in a lab doing things. She didn't have to worry about waiting on whether or not things worked out with the wargames. But this time, there was nothing but waiting. She and her associates had found the ways the Red Rust was attacking but until they could get those seeds, it was just not going to work.
They were stuck waiting for what seemed like hours in her mind. It must have been, she thought. The sheer weight of the silence was killing her, but still she remained there, chewing on her thumb, waiting for something to ring out.
Anything.
"Mother, we've got troops in contact,"
"Be advised, we have one eagle wounded, status unknown. We are taking sniper fire from the tower."
In between the messages was a lot of gunfire. Guns firing left and right. She knew that meant they were probably on the right track, but who knew? Sometimes people just liked to shoot each other and watch the world burn. She hoped that this wasn't that.
Mike jumped into play immediately. "Divert from search pattern, set course for Malta, flank speed." Diaz complied and quickly started turning the ship toward Malta. They'd be going to Malta too. Get their boys. "Any other ships in the area?"
"Showing five unidentified vessels, no distinctive signatures,"
They worked on getting to Malta but it was not easy. They had to make sure that they weren't showing their hand too quickly. They had to get to that ship. It had research, pounds of it probably, that would be essential to making this project move quickly once she got back working in a lab, but that was hard considering it was a warship, built to be quick and sneaky, even with how big it was.
"Be advised sniper is neutralized, but we are still taking fire. Miller and Green are secure, but down hard. We need to get them to exfil, ASAP!" Burke radioed.
Rachel pinched her nose, nothing about this was going according to plan. Maybe she should have let Tex go down there and fight for those seeds. It would be at least one more body on the ground and they'd have slightly better numbers. But he was with Kathleen. And he was with her, because she insisted that Kathleen still have her dad at the end of this whole thing. They were getting there. It would be today. But who where those seeds were, only time would tell at this point.
"Do you have the seeds?" Tom asked over the radio.
Azima's voice came through the radio this time, "Negative. No sign of the progenitor. All of the crates are carrying plants, covered in insects,"
Rachel's eyes widened and she looked at Sasha and then looked to Tom and Mike, "Bugs." She said, "He's going to…"
Sasha finished for her. "He's spreading the nostos the same way the red rust spread, through leaf eating insects," Sasha squeezed her hand and smiled as she looked at Rachel. Rachel was smart but sometimes her words hadn't quite caught up with her mouth. Thankfully, Sasha had also been on this project for a long time. Probably the longest person on the project besides Tex and her.
"That's why there's only a few plants in each crate,"
"They're just the poisons. The bugs are the vector," Rachel said. "The insects will do more than enough damage if they escape. They can't get out of that airfield."
"Vulture team," Mike radioed, "The bugs are the vector. I say again, the bugs are the vector for the nostos. You need to destroy those crates,"
"They have to kill the bugs. Fire. Fire would work especially well," Rachel reminded him.
He took that into consideration and radioed back to Vulture team. "Do not let any bugs get off that plane. They all must burn! Torch those planes. Burn it all! Burn it all now!" He said into the radio and then he looked back to the bridge and smiled. "The team's back together again," He said. He actually seemed overjoyed by the fact that they were fighting again.
It only took a minute or two to get the message that the first plane was done, the contents of it burning. That was good. It was very good that they got one. That was a win. They were winning. One battle at a time. One tiny battle it seemed. But it was enough for her to take her thumb away from her teeth and look out to sea.
And then they heard from Burke. "Second plane's crippled. I can't blow the package till I get these guys out of here," Right. Danny and Eric were still out there, hurt to high hell, just sitting on a tarmac, no good for injuries.
She could work on one of them if they were here but they weren't. And Doc Rios he was persnickety about having actual regular medical personnel working on their people. A thing she always thought was a little stupid, but she acquiesced to his preference. Still, she could help down there if there was a problem. But the problem was they were still not back.
"There's a third plane," There was the twist in her heart. She couldn't believe that there was a third plane. "I say again. A third plane on the north runway. I do not have a line to take target," It was only a few seconds later that Burke was on the radio again for them. "Mother, Burke. Enemy aircraft taking off, facing 013, marking with laser. Request immediate fire support."
"Soon as we engage, we'll give away our position." Mike said.
"If we lose that plane, Mike…"
"What choice do we have?" Sasha said.
"That plane cannot leave that airspace. If those bugs make it to anywhere in the world. They could decimate people." Rachel pleaded as she looked at Mike.
"Mother, maintaining laser lock on enemy target,"
Mike had the entire ship set general quarters and for that Ravit and Rachel were to stand out of the way of everyone doing their job. And then Mike did the thing that they needed to do which was get CIC to find and get that plane out of the air.
"I've got a lock on Vellek's ship," Granderson called out.
Rachel and Ravit stood back while the others crowded around the screen. "Heading straight for us," That did not sound good and she wasn't a tactician or anything. She couldn't imagine it sounding worse. But it probably did.
"They're tired of missing. Lucia wants a fistfight,"
"She knows we can't fire back. Might as well get within potato range." Mike said. She didn't understand any of that, but she did understand what they were doing next when Mike said, "Gator, set course for Linosa, we need island cover." They'd done this trick a thousand times. Use land to buffer their location.
"Hardly a fair fight. We can't fire." Master chief recalled. That did seem to be the main thing holding them up was that they had the seeds still. Nathan James desperately needed those seeds. Because getting the seeds and the plants to the people, it would be necessary to stop global starvation.
"So we knock the fight out of them," Tom declared. He seemed to have a plan ready. And when he opened his mouth again, he got into the weeds of it. "Let them chase us around the island, but drop a couple operators in a zodiac right in her path. Board and cripple that ship. Nathan James can then come out of cover and take control while we find the seeds."
It was a good plan, she could see it on Mike's face, but there was something wrong with it. "We still have to exfil our operators."
"And we're two down," Rachel added.
Mike just gave her a look and she quieted down. "From the sound of it, they're not in any shape-"
"I'll go," Tom said. "It's personal for Lucia. They have the seeds. She wants me. If I fail, Nathan James lives to fight another day"
Sasha moved closer to him, "I'll go with you," She said. "It's personal for me too."
"Take Tex," Rachel told them. "It's personal for us too."
Sasha nodded and she and Tom moved to leave the bridge. Now it was just her and Mike up here. They could get through it. Everything would be okay. She knew it. If they were getting the seeds now, it was time to think about the family, and saving the world for them to be on did rank slightly above daddy daughter time. Mostly because it enabled more of it.
They waited until it was dark, it was best to do stuff like this in the dark when no one could see you. Meylan was the one giving them the plan. Tex thought it was crazy that she had called him being an infiltrator on the island but needed him on the boat, but love made you do crazy things sometimes. And honestly, Kathleen was fine, what she had were barely flesh wounds. She had mostly been scared.
"First, you'll need to burn the ship's radar by crippling its cooling mechanism-"
But Tom couldn't bear to let him finish a thought without interrupting. He got a feeling that Tom didn't like Meylan that much. "Cooling skid's in the engine room. Got it."
"When that goes you'll have a couple minutes before the radar systems auto-shutdown from the heat. No radar, no targeting,"
"Understood," Tom finished.
Meylan looked to Sasha next. "Compromising the engine's reduction gear will grind the ship's propulsion to a halt. It's usually padlocked. All you got to do is gum up the works," He said with a smile, considering that he wasn't interrupted.
Sasha smiled back to him. "Not a problem."
And then he looked to Tex. "You're on seeds. I can't tell you much about your job, but help the other two then try to find Vellek's lab as soon as you can. Get those seeds and get back out of there. As soon as you have them, radio in and we'll do the rest,"
"Aye Aye," He said, doing some sort of two finger salute.
Meylan rolled his eyes and looked at the whole party. "Now, we won't make a move till we know you guys are DIW. So, if anything goes south, bail and we will come around and we will pick you up-"
"Captain," Tom said, "We got it,"
"I can see that," Meylan said and looked at all of them, giving them a nod, "Good luck," And they went their separate ways. Meylan went back inside to supervise the CIC. And they went into their boat to get ready to be a boarding party.
Up in the bridge, Ravit held Rachel's hand which Rachel squeezed as hard as she could. Ravit was used to this. She could take it. It was keeping the other woman quiet as she worked through the emotions of being so close to the seeds.
"How we doing, Gator?"
"We're on the lee side of Linosa, Master Chief. Vellek's ship is bearing 125 degrees and approximately twenty knots."
Rachel breathed through it and let the tension ease a little in her hand. She looked at Ravit, who simply nodded. They were doing it. This was the plan. They were doing alright.
The bait was set. When the man saw the hook and went to investigate, Tom muffled his mouth with one hand and slit his throat with a blade in the other. Then Sasha and Tex, affirmed that the man was dead, how could he not be and then moved to infiltrate the ship, with Tom behind them.
An alarm sounded and there were people running every which way, a sign of what was coming. "General quarters," Sasha said.
"Means they're closing in on Nathan James. We got ten minutes." Tom explained. Hopefully, he meant ten minutes to enact the first part of the plan, crippling the ship and not the whole plan because it would be hard to find the lab with all the people around he thought. There'd be a lot of bodies to explain and the silencer, only worked so well.
"An entire greek ship against the three of us," She looked between the two men and smiled.
He looked to Tom and smiled. "Been in worse odds. You should tell her about the russians," He said as the other two rolled their eyes, but moved on. They loved him. He knew it. It was okay, that they didn't like his commentary all the time.
Tom shot men as they came up. He didn't even seem to worry about it on his conscience. He was just a machine at this point, which could be appreciated. They simply stepped over the bulkheads and bodies, till they were at the engine room. This was where they had to have this part of the plan go perfectly. It had to happen.
The other two stepped in and started on their part as Tex stood guard on the door and made sure that no one came this way and would blow up their plan, because again, he reminded himself, it had to go perfectly. They had to be able to cripple the ship. Or Nathan James was going to be in very bad shape.
Sasha and Tom did their jobs perfectly. Tom spun all of his dials perfectly and Sasha went in further and was found, but a couple of quick bullets and she made her way to what she was supposed to.
Tom made it back to him and they moved towards Vellek's lab. They didn't quite know where it was but making some stops wouldn't be so bad. It was a big ship, but it wasn't as big as Nathan James and there weren't as many places a lab the size that Vellek needed it to be could hide.
On Nathan James, they got word, "Vellek's lost propulsion," Which meant the plan was going well, according to the plan. The plan was working. It had been crazy to do this in the first place, but at least it was working.
"I'd say that's the cue from Chandler," Meylan said with a grin on his face.
"OOD, get us out from behind this island," Mike said with confidence. They were really doing this now. "Head straight for that Greek Destroyer, all ahead full," As the sun came up, they sailed through the water that they'd been hiding out in. They were headed straight for Tex, she thought. He was getting her the seeds and now they were coming to get him.
The alarms continued to wail on the Greek ship. And there were people rushing through the major gangways, something that shouldn't be happening by now. General Quarters had already been set and it was kind of hard to do jobs with alarms blaring and people moving. Why wasn't it stopping?
"I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that's," Tex whispered as he pointed to the sky, "A bad thing,"
"Excellent observation skills, Tex. Just a regular Joe Crack'em." Tom said in the same hushed tone. "You're right. That should be off. We can't worry about that now, though,"
Tom led the team down a series of exits that seemed to all say the same thing in greek. He assumed that it meant lab. Since that was now the big goal was to get to the lab and get the seeds. As they entered the room, it had a nice sitting room outside it, a luxurious experience. Clearly, he had been spending a lot of time here.
The doors into the lab were circular and Tom and Tex went in first, with Tom in the lead, only because he was more proficient with a gun. They saw Vellek with a match and something wet everywhere, not good. It didn't take a genius to figure out that what was wet would soon become flammable.
But Vellek just waited there for a moment standing there looking at them.
Two men with guns pointed towards him and what he had was a flame and he did nothing, but stand there for a moment.
"The seeds, where are they?" They asked practically in unison.
"My son…" Vellek mumbled.
As Tom stood there with the gun, Tex looked around to see if there was anything that could be housing the seeds in their near vicinity. No dice. "Look, man, your sons, they're not here. But the seeds. You know where the seeds are. Tell us where the seeds are."
"You can still redeem yourself. You can redeem your family," Tom said. He didn't know if it was because this man was so smart or because of the connection to Rachel, but Tex believed that he could be redeemed too. He was just a sad man really. He wanted his sons even at the end. When it seemed both of them were gone. "Give us the formula for the cure without the nostos," Tom demanded. "Feed the world."
Tex was still busy going through the many places where scientific equipment had clearly been and it wasn't there. There was so much stuff to go through in what seemed to be a relatively small lab, but there were still hiding spots everywhere. He even found smallish gold containers, that in the end were empty, but were clearly used for something important.
When Sasha came in, Tex stopped for a moment to look over to the discussion happening with Tom and Vellek.
"A random act of violence," Vellek said, "That's what they called it when my son was beaten to death. Then the virus came and "random" became "constant." Man's real nature, his conscience, his compassion, went to sleep. Smothered by his addiction to violence. I offered a way back." Vellek said all of this while the flame on his match was growing ever nearer to his fingers.
"It wasn't a way back. It was a way out," Tom said. "You have a formula. You have the seeds. Whatever you've done-"
"-Cannot be undone," Vellek said as he took what looked like a large paperweight out of his pocket, looked at it for a few moments, and then looked back to them, "What's gone is gone." He said, before throwing it and the match onto the ground and running through a back hallway.
"Go!" Sasha said. "Get Vellek!"
"We'll find the seeds," Tex added.
It was a lot harder to find the seeds with flames everywhere. Not to mention that any research that they could gain from the lab would still be an excellent find. Sasha saw a fire extinguisher and wrapped a cloth around her mouth and nose. And he did the same. He wasn't going for the extinguisher like her though. He was looking through all the cabinets, behind books and various files, anywhere the seeds could be hidden.
Sasha did a good job of extinguishing the fire on the plants and other areas, but there were still large swaths of the lab covered in flames and unfortunately those were the places that he needed to go to find the seeds. Because the only place that he hadn't seemed to have looked in was a small case with flames in front of it.
Rachel stood behind Ray and Mike came up to him. "BM3, what's the first order you get when you take the helm?" Mike asked.
She didn't know but this sounded like a fairly easy question. Definitely something Ray would know. And he did. "Don't crash the ship, sir,"
"I want you to belay that order," Oh no. They were going to crash. And Mike intended for that to happen. Something Rachel squeezed Ravit's hand extra hard for. Even Ray seemed confused by the whole thing. But Mike went on. "You do whatever it takes, but get us alongside that enemy ship as hard as you can,"
That sounded even worse.
"OOD, bring us in at target angle 170. I want that ship to need a cigarette after this."
"Mike," Rachel asked. "Are you sure about this?" She asked.
He nodded. "I've never been more sure of anything." He told her and she nodded. Great. They were going to crash the ship so hard that it would need a cigarette after this. Don't mind that the first thing people learn is for the safety of people on board, we don't crash ships, but hey, he was sure. So nothing was going wrong.
"Master Chief, no way vulture team gets back in time. And they're beat to hell. I need a boarding party."
Rachel looked at Ravit and nodded. They would not be staying out of the fray on this one. She had to get onto that boat and make sure that she got the seeds and the research. And being part of the boarding party, well, it just made sense. Besides, she was handy with a gun even if she didn't love using them. But Ravit would be there too. To make sure that things didn't go too far south.
"Attention all hands, this is your Master Chief. At this very moment, our ship's most capable operators are making their way back from one hell of a fight. But we're not done here. Our captain needs volunteers to join him in boarding the enemy ship and bringing Cooper, Captain Chandler, and those seeds back in one piece. Anyone willing to lay their lives on the line, muster in the helo bay in five minutes. That is all,"
Rachel started to lead Ravit and Mike raised an eyebrow. "Where are you two going?" He asked.
"We're going to the helo bay. To muster. For the boarding party." Rachel told him simply. "I have to be on board to get those seeds. I won't let this go."
"Do you even know how to fight?"
"Tex taught me the basics," She promised him. He nodded and let them go then. It was everyone's fight. He wasn't going to stop her. Besides, Rachel was not the only person on this project. She talked about all the people she had back home working on this stuff constantly. They'd be fine in an emergency.
In Vellek's lab, the flames were out and as he looked through the case, he was getting frustrated by not finding anything till he saw a glint out of the corner of his eye of something. There they were. Those pesky little seeds. A war fought over seeds. He thought it was crazy. But then again, yesterday evening he was rocking his little girl to sleep because she had been blown out of the sky for those seeds. So it wasn't as crazy as he thought before.
He took them and got out of there. Sasha stayed to get the research and things. More of the plants if she could. But she wanted him out. She wanted the seeds out.
The boarding party readied. It included Kathleen, which Rachel was heavily against. "I want to be a part of it," Kathleen argued though.
And she couldn't really argue back. It was the reason that she was going too. And then it was time to brace for contact with the ship. And it was real. The need to brace against a wall so you didn't slam yourself against something, it was the reality of coming into contact with the Greek vessel.
Rachel was squeezed between Ravit and Kathleen to keep her safe. It wasn't that she was the sole person who could help the world, but she was one of the key figures in American Politics. And it wouldn't have looked great if they just let her go out there willy nilly.
When they boarded she followed Ravit's instructions, which came out a little hoarse, because she wasn't used to using her voice, but Rachel could understand them. She made sure that if she saw someone, she shot at them, making sure to not shoot their own people. But Ravit lead her down to what seemed like it would be the lab area where they met up with Tex.
"What are you doing here?" He asked as he held her in his hands.
She shrugged. "I couldn't let everyone else do the hard work." She told him. She looked underneath his armpit. "Are those…?"
He nodded. "They are. But come on. Vellek's gotten away," He said as he moved them up and out of the hallways and into the open air decks where eventually they would find Tom and Vellek in a stand off again.
He handed the seeds to Rachel and pushed for them to get down.
Lucia shot and Tom went down on one knee. Lucia made a big deal out of things, something about how she was swooning. It seemed like utter total nonsense to all of them, but clearly it was important. She was about to shoot Tom, for Giorgio. Tom seemed to have given up hope that he could be saved.
When Sasha came out and sprayed several bullets into the body of Lucia. He helped them stand up and smiled. Sasha was a good cookie, come to save them all. He looked between them and Sasha, Rachel showed him the seeds, and he looked to Vellek.
"This world, somewhere this world is good," Vellek said.
"You could find it," Rachel said.
But he simply didn't listen. Instead he went to the edge of the ship and looked out. They all tried catching up with him, but he was fast and it was a long ship. And who knew what kind of weaponry, he had. He claimed to be a pacifist, but claims and reality could often be very far apart from one another, so they didn't get too close.
"Step away from the edge, Vellek," Tom tried.
To no avail. Vellek was now agitated with the world. His daughter was gone. His sons were gone. And he was done with this world. "I offered a cure, man. A real and final cure for the sickness in us all. You of all people should know about that, what you've seen, what you've done,"
"Vellek, we can help you. You can help us. You do not have go down for nothing," Rachel said. She empathized with him. Losing her mother was one of the most horrible and the most catalyzing days of her life. From that point on, she dedicated her life to science and to curing people, to helping people.
He didn't hear her though. And he was focused on Tom. "You need what I'm offering more than anybody."
"You're right, doctor." Tom said, acknowledging that he had a past. "I have seen the worst in people, the worst in myself. But I've also seen strength in others that you wouldn't believe," He looked over to Rachel, Ravit, and Tex standing there by his side and Sasha on the other, before looking back to the good Dr. Vellek. "And kindness that would bring you to tears."
"That was beautiful man, I can clearly see why people follow you. But you are the one eyed king. I offer you peace, you choose war."
"Peace at the cost of free will? I'll take war anytime"
Kathleen, Mike, and Meylan crept up the side, guns drawn, ready to fire, but there was no need. Despite what it seemed, the guy was actually a pacifist. He didn't seem to have any weapons, except words.
" 'We the people..' addicted to your darkness." Vellek scoffed.
Kathleen, Mike, and Meylan were now standing next to them, guns at the ready, but they weren't shooting. They were just there to make sure that no one else got hurt.
Tom shook his head and looked at Vellek. "Being human isn't about cutting out the darkness. It's about fighting everyday to find the light." As Tom said that, the sun rose on rocks behind them, and it was a beautiful sunrise, one from a picture.
Vellek turned to face it. "No, Captain." He said. "You don't have to fight to find the light…"
"Give the world another chance," Rachel said as she gave the seeds to Tex to keep safe. "You are a brilliant mind. You could help so many people."
"See the good for yourself." Tom added. "The people still need you. We have the seeds. But we need your science."
"I appreciate the invite, guys." He said to both Tom and Rachel, "But there's heaven." He said pointing out to between the rocks, the sunrise. "And I gotta go," He told them, before jumping off the edge of the boat into the water, and towards what he decided was heaven.
Rachel gasped as she saw it. The others they stayed where they were and Mike went to look over the edge. He was gone. Bubbling up as someone who was drowning might, but he seemed at peace. And there was no getting away from the fact that it was over. It was finally over.
Tex, Rachel, and Ravit were the first ones scurried off back to the Nathan James. Kathleen still had work to do and for that, they were okay with it. There was now less danger on board than there had been even just a couple of minutes ago.
Once they were over the railing, Tex gave Ravit the seeds and kissed Rachel firmly. He couldn't believe that she'd been willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good. "You're such a…"
"I get it," She said.
Several hours later, they were back in the wardroom, after touring the plant that they had taken from the lab and the seeds. They were happy. Rachel and Tex stuck together like glue, with Tex's arm over Rachel's shoulders and Rachel's arm attached to his waist.
"We have the seeds," Slattery said, "They look good."
Rachel nodded. "That they do. I was worried that maybe they might have some nostos in them, but it seems like he had to that at the plant level. And with all of the Nostos plants gone, we can make cured plants."
He nodded. "We salvaged what we could of Dr. Vellek's research, got our hands on some cured plants that are nostos free, and plenty of bugs,"
"That was one way that Dr. Vellek saved us all. He gave us a genius plan for spreading the cure again. The bad guys are good for that one, I guess." Rachel said as she looked down and remembered Neils for the first time since she had finished her work with the cure. "We'll be able to spread the cure faster than the red rust took to poison it."
"Hell of a stunt you pulled, ramming that ship," Tom said to Mike.
Mike just shrugged. "I've seen crazier," He said as he sat on the edge of the table. "Anyway, he found a port to refuel, and we got a plane to evacuate our wounded as quickly as possible."
"Where we headed?"
"Not far from your old stomping grounds in Greece. We're gonna deliver the refugees, and you can decide if you wanna be dropped off too or pick up your family" Mike told Tom. At this Tom perked up. Picking up his family. Being a family, it was weird for him. Not his normal mission, one he looked like he wanted to try. "I can take you wherever it is you might want to go next."
"How about home?"
"Yeah," Mike said as he looked between Tom and Tex and Rachel, "Home it is." They all had things waiting for them at home. A cure. A life. A family. They all had families to go back home to.