ONE REFUGE
by Teresa
It was dark and raining by the time the shuttle reached the beach of Nathan Bridger’s small island. Tony had lowered the throttle just as the shuttle had set itself on the sand. The large door opened upward and Jonathan Ford stepped towards the exit.
He turned around to address his crew, “I’ll go let Nathan know what’s happened and then we’ll bring Lucas up to the house,” Jonathan said to them, “We don’t want him to get more of a shock than he’s already going to get.” They all nodded.
Lonnie looked at Lucas who was lying unconscious on the make shift mattress. His complexion pasty white and his body already wet from perspiration, Lucas shook even as he slept. Lucas had been slipping in and out of consciousness ever since they had removed the arrow. He would wake shivering violently with hallucinations and excessive adrenalin. At least one of them had to stay with him to make sure he didn’t hurt himself with his frantic tossing and jerking.
Jonathan was concerned about whether or not they had done the right thing in torturing Lucas just to remove the offending arrow. Lonnie had assured him that he would have been much sicker had they not removed it, as the poison would have had more of a chance to work. Jonathan hoped that Nathan would be just as understanding when they told him. Concern for both Nathan’s reaction and Lucas’ condition worried him as he trudged up the sand towards the house.
He slowed down as he came closer and, witnessing some movement behind the curtains inside, he bravely made his way over to his ex-Captain’s door and knocked.
There was a rustling inside as someone fumbled with the door. It vaguely occurred to Jonathan that it might be later than he thought, as he had no idea what time it was.
Jonathan was greeted with the almost intimidating look of Nathan Bridger as the man opened the door to someone whom he thought was a complete stranger, disturbing his evening for what was likely to be an absurd reason. Nathan’s near threatening look was replaced with shock, surprise, and then confusion as he recognised the man at the door.
“Jonathan!” Nathan greeted in his originally pleased response. He then looked at Jonathan’s worried and tired features and realised how strange it was that Jonathan Ford would come, alone, knocking on his door at this time of the month, let alone this time in the evening.
“What is it? What’s happened?” Nathan asked with concern.
“Nathan, the SeaQuest was attacked. We identified our attackers as UEO. We have no idea why or what has happened, but we need to get to UEO headquarters in person and find out what is going on so we can salvage what is left of the SeaQuest and the crew.”
Jonathan obviously wasn’t finished but Bridger cut him off anyway, “Oh my God,” he said, almost disbelieving. He stuttered for some explanation of his own but he couldn’t find anything, “Wh… Jonathan it’s raining you should come in,” he said as he opened the door more to allow for Jonathan to step inside, “Oh,” he continued before Jonathan could respond, “Are you alone?”
“No, Hudson sent a group of us to make our way to headquarters. But… Nathan, there’s been an injury. It’s Lucas. We can’t get him to a hospital anywhere in UEO territory until we find out why the SeaQuest was targeted. Lucas doesn’t have that long.”
Bridger looked horrified, “Lucas? What happened to him? Where is he?” Nathan walked out to where Jonathan was in fearful anticipation.
“He’s at the shuttle,” Jonathan said as the two began walking quickly, “We’re going to bring him up if you can look after him.” The two men’s voices shook with fear and vibration from their feet hitting the sand heavily as they hurried towards the open shuttle.
“Of course I can look after him!” Nathan exclaimed, “God, I hope so.”
“He’s hurt badly and he’s very sick,” Jonathan warned Bridger as the older man walked into the shuttle ahead of him.
Bridger briefly acknowledged Lonnie and Tim, who were still sitting beside Lucas where he lay on the mattress, before couching quickly next to Lucas. Alarm was written all over Nathan’s quickly ageing facial features, “Oh my God,” he said, as he reached out to touch Lucas’ face. Feeling the warmth there, he snapped his head up to address whoever was closest, “He has a fever,” he said urgently.
“He was poisoned,” Lonnie told him.
“What? How do you know?” Nathan asked her.
“He’s hurt. Here,” Lonnie reached passed Bridger to lift Lucas’ blood soaked uniform shirt and t-shirt.
“Oh God,” Bridger breathed quietly at the hideous colour of Lucas’ wound, “What the hell happened?”
“He was shot,” Jonathan explained from behind him, “With a metal arrow of some kind.”
“You can see that the skin around the wound has taken on a funny colour,” Lonnie told him, “Its defiantly poison but I have no idea what type.”
“Will it kill him?” Bridger asked her.
“I’m hoping that it will leave his system once he has the strength to fight the infection. But don’t think he’s going to be strong enough without some antibiotics.”
“So,” Nathan gasped out, “You need me to nurse him while you all complete your mission.”
“That’s right,” Tim confirmed.
Bridger turned around to Jonathan, “Do you still have that arrow?”
Jonathan hesitated for a few moments and then nodded, turning to retrieve the nasty piece of metal from where they had put it.
Jonathan presented the weapon to Bridger and the ex-Captain stood up to take a look. Bridger tried to stay professional but Jonathan could tell that it upset him to see the sharp bladed looking end.
“It looks painful,” Nathan commented as he looked carefully at the bluish tint the blood seemed to have taken on as it mixed with the poison.
“I’m sure it was,” Jonathan said.
“How did you get this out of him?” Nathan asked.
“The old-fashioned way,” Ford told him gently but simply.
Nathan nodded but made no comment. He took the instrument from Jonathan, “I’ll need this to find out what kind of poison it was.”
He turned back to kneel next his young friend, “We better get him into the house. I’ll see if I can get him more comfortable.”
Lucas stirred as Tony moved passed Lonnie and carefully took Lucas’ upper body and Tim took his legs. They stopped moving him for a few moments until they realised he was still unconscious and then started to take him out of the shuttle. Nathan walked along with then to make sure that Lucas stayed comfortable even though he was being carried. Wade hung back out of the way, not wanting to cause any more trouble.
As they left the shuttle Lonnie gave Lucas a quick kiss on the forehead and Dagwood followed suit by stroking his hand across Lucas’ hair as they walked passed. Jonathan watched as the four of them left the shuttle and placed a comradely hand on Wade’s shoulders to show that he had noticed his effort to stay out of the way.
Tony and Tim carried Lucas into Nathan Bridger’s living room where Bridger indicated for them the place him on the couch in front of the fire. Nathan collected a pillow and blanket, while they set Lucas on the couch and then he carefully set Lucas up so that he could be warmer and more comfortable despite his condition.
He then turned to Tony and Tim, “I’ll take of him,” he assured them, “Thank you.”
Tony nodded and began to make his way out. Tim hesitated for a few moments, and then followed Tony out of Bridger’s house quietly.
Nathan followed them to the front door and watched the two walk back to the shuttle. Once he saw that it was powering up, he nodded at Jonathan, who was still visible to him, before the hatched door closed down and the shuttle came to life and slipped back under the waves.
Nathan quietly shut his front door and turned back to the sick and injured boy on his couch.
***
Part Four
McGath sat back in his chair as he mentally tried to ease his thumping pulse, “How the hell did this happen?” he whispered rhetorically.
Admiral Noyce answered anyway, “Obviously, we have a mole. Or a number of them by the looks of it.”
The Secretary-General looked at the Admiral sitting across from him, “Do we know of anyone we can trust?”
Noyce sighed, “I believe we can trust most UEO veterans. It’s the newer people we’ve got to worry about.”
McGath narrowed his eyes, “Are you sure?”
“Something like turning half the UEO fleet against each other takes something pretty big. Either someone has stirred something up pretty badly…”
McGath finished his sentence, “Or they were never UEO in the first place,”
“That’s right,”
“Then who the hell are they?”
“We need to get a hold of them to find out,” Noyce told him.
“And to do that we need to pull up nearly every record available. Find out who fired on whom. Weed out who the liars are,”
“And to do that,” Noyce continued, “We need someone whom we can trust isn’t falsifying anything.”
McGath leaned forward, “How many people are aware of how serious this situation is?”
“Just the two of us,” Noyce replied. McGath looked surprised, “The UEO is about to collapse. I don’t think we should make it public news.”
McGath nodded, “Well no, but we should at least inform most of the senior UEO executives,”
“We can’t trust all of them either,”
McGath sighed again loudly and passed a hand across his face, “This is intelligence service stuff. We need Section Seven.”
“We’ll propose the involvement of Section Seven at a senior board meeting,” Noyce assured him, “Who else can we trust?”
McGath looked at him ironically, “Most of the senior crew of the SeaQuest,”
“Who are missing,” Noyce looked at him.
McGath shut his eyes, “And likely destroyed,”
Admiral Noyce looked at him with something that resembled disgust, “Give your men more faith, McGath.”
McGath shook his head, “I would like to, but we can’t protect the SeaQuest, and how can they protect themselves if they don’t know who their enemies are?”
The Admiral pursed his lips, “Is that all?”
“I would say, Nathan Bridger,” McGath said.
Noyce nodded, “I would agree. But he’s retired. He’s not likely to be able to help us.”
“Bill,” McGath said seriously, “This is a possible overthrow of the UEO!”
Noyce stood up, irritably, “Don’t be so Goddamned negative,” he cursed, “And I doubt Nathan would be very pleased if we drew him into something like this,”
“Being who he is he is already going to be drawn into it - by the wrong people,” McGath argued, “He’s likely to need our protection.”
Noyce became silent, contemplating this. McGath continued, “And if the SeaQuest hasn’t just disappeared this time, or even if it has, he’s going to be involved in other ways anyway.”
***
Nathan came back into the living room with a bowl of water and a wet cloth and kneeled next to Lucas.
After checking Lucas’ pulse and temperature, Nathan had gone about setting up a bed for Lucas. He decided to set up the makeshift bed in his own room so that he could keep checking Lucas while he slept. Michael would be jealous but he was asleep at the moment so hopefully he wouldn’t have to worry about that until the next day.
However, when he had come back to try to get Lucas into the bed, he had realised how badly hurt Lucas was. The boy probably also needed his wounds cleaned, and Nathan was going to have trouble dragging Lucas towards a bath by himself without injuring him further. Especially when the young man was still unconscious.
Nathan decided to leave Lucas on the couch and set up a makeshift bed for himself near the couch and the fire instead.
Now, he sat beside the unconscious teenager and tried to sooth the boy so that he could rest better. The high temperature wasn’t going to help, so he placed the cool cloth over the boy’s forehead.
He sighed shakily, afraid that Lucas was sicker than he realised. He lifted up Lucas’ shirt to look at the wound. Lonie had already done a good job of cleaning it, and most of the poison was already in Lucas’ system. So there was really no point in cleaning the wound. He supposed he should just cover it to stop the bleeding. He sighed again. He needed to talk to a doctor.
His frantic thoughts were interrupted with a gentle beeping from behind him. He had set the vidlink communicator on a quieter tone after he put Michael to bed so that it didn’t disturb him. He took one more look at Lucas and then got up to retrieve it.
Just as he reached over to press the button and accept the call, Lucas made a noise. He turned quickly to find Lucas tossing and shaking. He ran over to him and pulled they boy into his arms. It was then that he realised the teenager was convulsing. He held him tighter while Lucas’ muscles cramped. Lucas’ breathing came out in gasps, as the boy struggled with the pain.
After what felt to Nathan like an eternity, Lucas stopped shaking so violently. Nathan pulled back to look at him and realised he was conscious. At some point during the drama, the vidlink had stopped, started again, and then stopped again. Nathan figured that, it was that important, they would probably call back.
Lucas’ blue eyes looked partially glazed over from the pain, but he seemed somewhat coherent, although confused, “Ca-Captain?”
Nathan nodded, “Your with me, on my island. Do you remember what happened, Lucas?”
Lucas scrunched up his face, trying to remember, “I was shot with something..” he croaked weakly, “The SeaQuest… Oh my God, where are the Commander, Lonie, Tim..”
Nathan put a hand on his chest to calm him, “It’s okay. They’re okay, they aren’t here, Lucas,”
Lucas looked at him confused, “Where are we?”
“We’re at my place. In my house.”
Lucas absorbed the information without much reaction and swallowed weakly, “Oh okay,” The boy closed his eyes in pain.
Nathan passed a hand across his head again, “You try to sleep, son. I’ll get you some help, okay?”
Nathan stood up and looked towards the vidlink. Suddenly, he had an idea. Relief passed through him at the thought of her. He knew a doctor he could trust.