Storm Front
By R. L. Keller
(Fidelma has a tendency to pick out sentences that I
had originally intended for nothing more than a ‘throw-away’ line and request
“the rest of the story.” This is one
result, from a line in ‘Jigsaw’ where Jamie reminds Lee that he’s seen Lee so
mad at Chip that he could barely think straight. Blame this story on her J RLK)
Dr. Will Jamison paused as he
spotted his boss, Admiral Harriman Nelson, coming toward him in one of
Seaview’s wide corridors. There was a
frown very evident on the Admiral’s face and, noting the direction he was
coming from, Will figured that he knew at least part of the reason. “Just come from the
Nelson grunted. “If anything, it’s gotten even colder.”
Will shuddered. “Still no indication of why?” Nelson merely shook his head. “Isn’t there anything that you could do?”
“And just what would you
suggest, Doctor?” Nelson growled.
Will hesitated a moment. “How about we lock them in the same cabin
until they settle whatever is going on?”
Nelson grimaced. “The entire sub is barely large enough to
contain them. I don’t think the boat
would survive the explosion that close a confined confrontation would most
likely produce. At least as it is, one
tries to stay as far away from the other as much as possible.”
“Good point,” Will nodded,
his expression now matching Nelson’s.
“I’ve tried taking each
aside. Didn’t question them,” Nelson
admitted. “Just talked about other
things but gave each the opportunity to vent.”
His frown came back. “No takers.”
“They seemed fine before this
cruise started.”
It was Nelson’s turn to
nod. “Even the first couple of days they
seemed fine. Then something…” His voice trailed off.
“Yeah,” Will agreed. “Two of the closest friends I’ve ever seen –
let alone worked with – and with no apparent reason they are suddenly turning
this submarine into a deep freeze, as icy as they are toward each other. Not to mention that it’s spilled over to the
rest of the crew. I’m sure you’ve
noticed how almost everyone is getting more tense with each passing day.”
“Yeah,” it was Nelson’s turn
to mutter.
* * * *
THE PREVIOUS WEEK
Lt. Cdr. Charles P. (Chip to
his friends) Morton let out a short whistle as he stepped out of his SUV in the
parking lot of the Nelson Institute of Marine Research, where he worked as XO aboard
NIMR’s research sub, Seaview. The sound
stopped his CO – and best friend – Cdr. Lee Crane’s progress up the
Chip was giving Lee an
evaluating look up and down as they entered the open area outside Admiral
Nelson’s office. Lee stopped walking and
raised an eyebrow at Chip, as did Nelson’s PA, Angie, into whose domain they’d
entered. “What?” Lee demanded with a
glare.
Chip continued the
examination a moment longer. Then, with
a wink at Angie, told his friend, “Just checking for signs of bodily
mayhem. You and Pete rarely go hiking
without one of you ending up with an owee of some sort.”
Before Lee could open his
mouth to verbally squash, albeit good-naturedly, his insolent XO, he was
distracted by chuckles from behind them and turned to find both Admiral Nelson
and Dr. Will Jamison, Seaview’s CMO, entering the area. Lee’s glare turned sullen. “I’m fine,” he growled, before his expression
turned to a broad grin. “However, Pete
got stung by a bee,” he said all too innocently.
“Where?” Will wanted to
know. Ninety-nine percent of bee stings
were, while painful, fairly insignificant in the larger scale of injuries. Will was merely curious.
Lee’s expression went
extremely sheepish. He glanced at Angie
before telling the men, “Rather not say, Jamie, if you don’t mind.” That drew a round of chuckles. “We had sting stuff in the first aid kit,” he
continued. “He’s fine.” It was Lee’s turn to chuckle. “Or, at least, he will be in a couple of
days.”
On that note, the four men
entered Nelson’s office for their usual Monday-morning-while-in-port senior
staff meeting. Mostly it was used to
catch everyone up on any work that was going on aboard Seaview and to cover
updates for upcoming cruises. Over large
cups of strong coffee – not nearly as strong as Cookie made it aboard Seaview,
but Angie knew her senior staff well – they quickly covered everything as there
had been no major changes from what was already known.
Nelson did throw Chip one
small curve. “The computer tech that
ComSubPac was sending to help with the sensor computers…” His voice trailed off as he searched through
several sheets of paper.
“Lt. Galway, sir?” Chip
offered respectfully.
“Yes,” Nelson agreed, but
continued to scan the sheets for a moment longer before finding the one he
wanted. “Apparently
Chip’s quick eyes scanned the
sheet. “Adam Dawes. Of course, sir. I’ve taken a bunch of computer classes with
him, both at
Towards the end of the
description Lee started to nod. “Yeah,
now I remember.” He rolled his
eyes. “How do I put this tactfully – not
the brightest light bulb in the world.”
Chip backhanded his buddy
lightly. “So, he was a little
naïve.” Lee shrugged. “He was great fun to be around, easy-going.” Lee was frowning. “What?” Chip half-demanded.
Lee shrugged. “Just seemed like he never put in any real
effort – tried to get by doing the absolute minimum he could get away with.”
“At least he wasn’t trying to
prove that he was god’s gift to the Academy,” Chip muttered.
Lee sent him a glance. “No, that would have been Alex Van der
Slate.” Both men shuddered despite
identical, and slightly evil, grins.
Will turned to Nelson. “I really do hate it when they give out these
little gems of intel but never elaborate.”
Nelson nodded but still told
his CMO in a serious voice, “There are, however, a few things I don’t think you
and I really want to know about.”
“The statute of limitations
has to have run out by now,” Chip told Lee.
“Not Gunny Zitka’s statutes,”
Lee replied, and both younger men shuddered again before returning only
slightly overdone attentive expressions back on their boss.
Nelson didn’t quite cover his
grin behind his coffee mug, but did have a question for Chip. “If he was two years ahead of you, why were
you taking the same computer classes?
And any idea why he’s still only a lieutenant?”
Lee answered the first
part. “You remember, sir, that because
of Chip’s aptitude he was scheduled for advanced classes a lot more rapidly.”
Chip nodded at Lee, but spoke
to Nelson. “That and, like I said, he
was always a bit on the naïve side. I
rather suspect that it’s clouded the odd Fit-Rep or two.”
“Security clearances?” Lee
asked.
Chip once more scanned the
sheet of paper Nelson had handed him.
“Doesn’t really say much, Lee, but ComSubPac would never have approved
his substitution if there was any question.”
“True,” Lee agreed.
“We don’t sail until
Wednesday afternoon,” Nelson reminded everyone.
“There’s time to check clearances.”
“And I’ll call and get a copy
of his medical records,” Will put in. He
added, with a frown aimed at
Nelson, “If he was even remotely associated with these two…” He didn’t finish as Nelson choked on the
swallow of coffee he’d just taken. Will
ignored the glares he got from his CO and XO – by this time he was pretty well
immune. As they both knew only too well
so the glares didn’t last long, especially when Nelson, now recovered, sent
them broad grins.
* * * *
A mound of paperwork kept Lee
busy for the next couple days until Seaview sailed, and a minor glitch in
Engineering kept him out of the
Lee spent the meal updating Nelson
on the Engineering snafu, now fixed, and going over several other odds and ends
of boat’s business – what was a frequent topic of conversation at
mealtimes. With Lee involved with the
boat and Nelson with his projects and research, it was sometimes the easiest
way for each of them to catch up with the other. Will kept one ear on that conversation and
the other on the next table, where computer jokes seemed to be the order of the
day.
At one point Lee half-turned
as soft laughter filled the room, and then sent both Nelson and Will a broad
grin. “If the Academy had accepted ‘Geek
Speak’ as the foreign language requirement, Chip wouldn’t have had to struggle
so hard getting through French.” It was
their turn to send chuckles into the room.
Lee didn’t turn around again, but his grin broadened as he watched
Nelson look beyond him and laugh out loud.
“I remember,” the Admiral
agreed. “That was not his
favorite subject.”
“No, sir. Well,” Lee’s expression turned mischievous,
“except for the time one of the French naval attaches, Captain Duchard,
visited. Chip was assigned to escort the
group on a tour and the Captain’s daughter, Angelique, took quite a fancy to
him. Sure weren’t any communication
problems for the week the Duchard’s stayed at the Commandant’s place.”
Nelson’s blue eyes
sparkled. “That was towards the end of
your plebe year?” he asked. Lee nodded,
and Nelson’s grin grew. “I recall the ‘Dant
making a comment or two. Seems Captain
Duchard was getting a little concerned.”
“That sounds like our future
XO,” Will offered, and all three men laughed.
When Chip rejoined Lee in the
A flat hand smacking his
cabin door made him glance at his desk clock and discover that it was nearly
2300 hours. “Goodnight, Chip,” he called
out amiably, got an answering chuckle, and headed for bed.
* * * *
The following afternoon found
Lee making one of his casual walk-throughs of the giant submarine. The crew was very used to Lee’s
‘walk-a-boats’ as they called it, and enjoyed the relaxed way their Skipper
kept in touch with them. He wandered
through Engineering, where today everything was running smoothly. Same with Reactor Control, Mechanics, and
Electrical. He spent some time in the
Missile Room, kibitzing with several of the crew as they performed routine
maintenance checks on the dive gear stored there.
Lee expected to find Lt.
Dawes in the small lab set up to handle the computers being tested this
cruise. Nelson had designed some new
sensors that, if they worked as well in the field as they did in NIMR’s lab
tests, could be set out and send back detailed computer graphics that would
greatly enhance Seaview’s future charting missions. The testing area was around Easter Island, a
fairly straight shot south from
After a quick stop in the
machine shop – used mostly for storing spare parts but still manned, even if
minimally – Lee spent almost half an hour with Chief Hauck, Seaview’s
Master-At-Arms. Lt. Chris James, most
often Chip’s second in the
Lee found Lt. Dawes curled up
in a corner of the Wardroom reading a book when he stopped in for a quick hit
on the coffee urn. “Ah, that’s where you
are,” he told the lieutenant with a soft smile both on his face and in his
voice.
“I’m sorry, Lee,” Dawes told
him, laying the book in his lap but still not standing, as protocol would have
dictated. Lee saw Cookie frown before
heading back into the galley, but Lee merely increased his smile. Obviously Chip had impressed on Dawes that a
bit less formality was the more normal plan-of-the-day aboard Seaview. “I didn’t hear a page.”
Lee shook his head as he
filled his mug with the powerful, possibly radioactive sludge Cookie lovingly
called coffee, and which the whole crew was extremely fond of. “Just expected to find you fine-tuning your
computers,” Lee told him, resting a hip on the closest table.
Dawes picked his book back
up. “No need,” he said more to the book
than to Lee. “I don’t need them until we
get to the area and the divers start setting out the sensors.”
“Uhm,” Lee agreed around a
swallow of coffee. “But if you happen to
run into any glitches from moving them, you can fix them now and we don’t waste
time doing it later.”
Dawes apparently had no
answer for that one. He put a marker in
his book and ambled out without another word.
Lee sent an amused expression at the lieutenant’s back and downed the
last of the coffee. It would appear
that Dawes hasn’t changed his stripes. He
shook his head at that horrible pun. He’s
still putting in as little effort as possible.
He must really like staying a lieutenant. With a shrug he headed back toward the
The short conversation was
forgotten until Chip stopped by Lee’s cabin at 2000 hours to give Lee his usual
evening report. They covered half a
dozen odds and ends before Chip sent Lee an unusually penetrating look. “You know, Lee, there was no need to land on
Adam with both feet this afternoon.”
Lee’s instant expression was
one of total confusion. “Huh?” he asked,
somewhat stunned at both the comment, and the tone of voice with which Chip had
delivered it. “I have no idea what
you’re talking about.”
“He said that you reamed him
out for taking a few minutes of down time.”
“I did no such thing,
Chip.” Lee’s expression turned more
frustrated than confused. “Dawes was in
the Wardroom reading when I stopped by for a cup of joe. I made an offhand comment about expecting him
to be checking his computers, and he said that he didn’t need to do it until we
reached the test site. I reminded him,
still all friendly, that if he did it now and found any problems, that he could
fix them now and we wouldn’t waste time later.
End of discussion. He left and I
headed for the
Chip sent him one of his
patented frowns the entire crew was only too familiar with. Lee almost smiled, but was still confused
enough to wait for Chip’s explanation.
Chip finally relaxed, at least slightly.
“You sure you didn’t say it stronger than that? Maybe in that voice you use to scare the
you-know-what out of the new recruits?”
Lee snorted. “That’s your tactic,” he told his
friend firmly.
Chip finally grinned. “True,” he agreed. “But whatever happened, Adam is really
upset.”
Lee shrugged. “Have no idea why,” he told Chip.
“You never really did like
him at
Lee frowned. “Never had all that much to do with
him.” He grinned slightly as he thought
back to his conversation earlier with Admiral Nelson and Jamie. Chip raised an eyebrow again and Lee figured
that he’d better say something, so chose the lesser of several evils. “I had my hands full keeping you, Tim, and
Jerry out of trouble. I didn’t need one
more cut-up.” As expected, that caused
Chip’s frown to deepen. Lee chuckled and
gently slapped his friend’s knee.
“Well, I’ll talk to him in
the morning and get it sorted out.”
Chip’s voice held a careful quality.
He got the feeling that there was still something Lee wasn’t telling
him. But he let it drop, sent Lee a bit
of a crooked grin, and headed to finish his own paperwork before hitting the
rack.
Lee got hung up the following
morning with Admiral Nelson. Among other
things, Nelson handed Lee several sheets of instructions for Dawes. Lee raised an eyebrow, silently asking why
Lee was delivering them instead of Chip who was already being asked to work
more closely with the lieutenant than Lee.
Nelson merely grunted and said that Chip had his own list of
instructions. Both were late getting to
the Wardroom, and ended up eating by themselves before Lee made a quick check
on the
Today Dawes was exactly where
Lee would have expected to find him – in the computer lab. Lee entered carefully, not quite knowing what
he was going to find. But Dawes sent him
an easy grin. “Chip said you slept in
this morning.”
Lee frowned. “Hardly. Got tied up with Admiral Nelson
first thing, even before my first cup of coffee. Always makes for an ‘interesting’ morning.”
“Better you than me,” Dawes
replied, still grinning. “Not sure how
I’d handle the brass hanging over my shoulder 24-7. Nelson especially. He was a real ash can at the Academy. From what I’ve seen and heard he hasn’t
changed much.”
Lee took a deep breath before
answering. Defending the Admiral wasn’t
what he’d come down here to do. And he
figured that it would take a good deal longer than Dawes was scheduled to be
aboard for anyone to explain to him, or him to even begin to understand, the
genius that was one Admiral Harriman Nelson.
Another deep breath and Lee got back to the purpose for his visit and
handed Dawes the papers Nelson gave him.
He wasn’t impressed that Dawes barely glanced at them before tossing
them to one side.
In deference to Chip’s
comments the night before, and even though Dawes didn’t seem to be having any
problems this morning, Lee decided to say something about their conversation
the day before. “Apparently I somehow
upset you yesterday with my comments about the computer calibrations. Just, on Seaview, we like to be ahead of
timetables, not running to catch up.”
Dawes sent him a puzzled
look. “No biggy, Lee. I understood where you were coming from. From my experience I knew that I could have
it done fairly quickly. I could see that
with your limited computer experience you might not realize that. At least, that was Chip’s explanation. I didn’t give it another thought. I’ll have it all up to speed by this
afternoon.”
“Good.” Lee tried to keep the mutter out of his
voice. “Then I’ll get out of your
hair.” Lee stalked out of the lab. While it was true that he didn’t have Chip’s
knack for computers he wasn’t a total idiot.
But what bugged him more was, he never thought that Chip would put him
down like that behind his back!
* * * *
Once more Nelson and Will
were already sitting and eating – lunch this time – when Chip came in. He glanced around after filling his plate,
but ended up in his usual place opposite the other two.
Nelson saw Cookie frown from
behind the serving table and asked his XO amiably, “Lee get hung up
somewhere?” He was totally unprepared
for Chip’s grumble.
“Haven’t a clue. Came into the
“You don’t know what set him
off?” Will questioned. It was his
observation that the two long-time friends could most often read each other’s
minds. There had, of course, been
instances where they hid things from each other. But it was rare. Will sensed ‘something’ in Chip now, and
suspected that he wasn’t being totally truthful.
“Not a clue,” Chip repeated
with a mutter. But he refused to meet
Will’s eyes, and Will and Nelson shared a quick nod before visiting about
nothing at all while they finished the meal.
The nods turned to frowns as Chip hurried through his meal and left as
rapidly as he could.
“Oh, oh,” Will did his own muttering,
albeit quietly so only Nelson heard.
“Not the most pleasant way to
start a cruise,” Nelson agreed.
“Hopefully it will go the way
of past issues and be over quickly.”
Nelson raised his coffee
cup. “One can hope,” he agreed.
* * * *
Chief Frances E. Sharkey,
Seaview’s COB, decided to take a break from the tension in the
Sharkey quickly realized
something else about the Skipper. He’d
learned by watching Cdr. Crane’s seemingly aimless ambles around the boat any
time he had a few extra minutes that it often lead to picking up more of the
subtle nuances of crew temperament than ‘official’ observations. Crane wanted to know what was going on around
him at all times, as any abnormalities could so easily affect crew performance.
Sharkey shook his head. That was exactly why the current problems
between CO and XO were so unusual. Oh,
there were always the occasional little squabbles – that was expected any time
this many men served together in tight quarters. A grin hit Sharkey’s face. Mr. Morton made no bones about Crane
continuing to take ONI assignments. But
Sharkey was quick to acknowledge that those moments had absolutely nothing in
common with the current tension between the two. At least, as far as anyone knew there hadn’t
been any indication of that being the problem.
Whatever was going on, it wasn’t dissipating fairly quickly as those
spats always did. In fact, it was
growing worse with each passing day.
The frown from those thoughts
was still on his face as he passed by the open door to one of the storage
areas. It grew as he caught a bit of the
conversation going on inside. “That’s
just stupid,” came in Senior Rating Kowalski’s voice, at the moment filled with
disgust. “He’d never say anything like
that.”
“I tell you, he was heard
saying it.” Sharkey easily recognized
Seaman Maxwell’s voice. The man was part
of Seaview’s Damage Control team. One of
the reasons he was so good at his job was his even-tempered confidence. Sharkey wasn’t happy to hear the edge in his
voice now, especially directed at one of his best friends aboard.
“Hey,” Sharkey called out
loudly, and quickly walked into the room.
“What’s going on?” The two men
were standing nearly toe to toe, but turned to face Sharkey as he came to a
halt just inside the door. “Well?” he
demanded, when both merely looked at him.
“Ah,” Kowalski started, “it
was nothing.”
“Sure didn’t sound like
nothing from the corridor,” Sharkey continued to challenge them, hands now on his
hips.
“Just a misunderstanding,”
Maxwell told his COB
“A big one,” Kowalski
growled, not entirely to himself.
“Whatever it is, it ends
right now,” Sharkey did a little growling of his own. “Understand?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Both men
answered, Kowalski a bit more slowly than Maxwell.
Sharkey wasn’t thrilled with
either man’s response but huffed loudly, turned on his heel, and left. Behind him, in the storage area, the two
seamen turned their backs on each other and tried to finish the task at hand
without admitting that the other one was even there.
Eesh,
Sharkey told himself with a heavy sigh, just
what this boat needs – more squabbling crew. Shaking his head, he once more headed aft.
* * * *
Lt.’s O’Brien and Keeter,
besides their other duties in Engineering and Mechanics respectively, normally
shared duties as Watch Officers during Seaview’s “C” and “D” watches from 2000
hours until 0800 hours. O’Brien tended
to crash as soon as he got off duty at 0200 for six hours or so, and the pair
often ended up eating breakfast together about 0900 after Keeter got off duty
and finished his stack of reports.
Today they sat with heads
close together so their conversation couldn’t be overheard. “Man,” Keeter said, shaking his head, “I just
cannot believe Mr. Morton’s thinking about leaving Seaview.” He sighed heavily. “I mean, I know that he’s ticked at the
Skipper.” He sent O’Brien a bit of an
impish grin. “Nothing new there when it
has anything to do with ONI. But
normally he just threatens to toss Crane into the nearest bulkhead.”
Bob O’Brien swallowed a bite
of his breakfast. “I heard that the
Skipper is going to ask Admiral Nelson to fire Mr. Morton for
insubordination. Said that he can’t work
with him anymore.”
“You have got to be
kidding.” Keeter was totally amazed.
“Nope. He was overheard complaining that Mr. Morton
was undermining his authority.”
“With who?”
O’Brien shrugged. “Not sure,” he admitted.
“Certainly wasn’t with me,”
Keeter assured him.
“Me, neither. Just, that’s what I was told.”
“By who?”
“Lt. Dawes. Said they got into it right in front of
him. Said he figured that, since he
wasn’t regular crew, they didn’t care if he heard.”
Keeter shook his head. “That doesn’t sound like either one of them.”
O’Brien nodded. “I said the same thing to Dawes.” He paused.
“But, you have to admit, I can’t remember ever seeing them this ticked
at each other for so long a time.”
“Got me there,” Keeter
agreed.
“Not sure that I want to stay
if Mr. Morton goes,” O’Brien told him.
Keeter stared at him. “I know
that it’s different for you. You came
aboard after Crane. But I was one of the
original crew. I’ve never had another XO
here except Mr. Morton. Not sure I’d
want to stay if Crane gets rid of him.”
Keeter was quiet for a bit. “Something to think about,” he admitted. “I’d never have thought that the Skipper
would do anything like that. But…” His voice trailed off.
“Yeah,” O’Brien agreed. They finished the rest of the meal in silent
contemplation of their own thoughts.
* * * *
Chip practically slammed
Lee’s cabin door behind him as he left from giving his CO the required 2000
hours report. Mostly it was merely a
formality as Lee spent as much time in the
But not this week! For whatever reason Lee was being a
particular pain in the six, and staying as far away from the
Originally going to his
cabin, Chip changed his mind and headed for the Wardroom. Cookie’s high-octane brew probably wasn’t the
smartest thing in the world to be drinking at this hour if he wanted to get any
sleep. And tonight of all nights he
needed the rest as tomorrow they’d be at the test site. If this were a normal cruise Chip knew that
Lee would be going out on as many dives as possible to set out the new
sensors. But things were far from normal. Besides Lee’s weird attitude, Admiral Nelson
had requested that Chip be in the computer lab monitoring Lt. Dawes’
tests. Lt. James was perfectly capable
of handling the
And, after the first couple
of days, it appeared that Adam was right.
Adam was a basket case about staying away from Lee. He’d complained to Chip after that first
encounter and hadn’t quit whining since.
He kept telling Chip that Lee went out of his way to put him down but
was really sneaky about it, doing it when no one else was around. That so didn’t sound like Lee. But then, neither was the mood Lee was in!
Chip was therefore surprised
to find Adam sitting in a back corner of the Wardroom, reading. No one else was there, but Chip knew that it
would be nothing new to have Lee walk in at any hour of the day. Or
night, for that matter, Chip grumbled to himself. If Adam wanted to stay out of Lee’s line of
fire he hadn’t chosen a particularly safe place. Shrugging, Chip glanced at the coffee urn but
hesitated pouring himself a cup. A soft
clearing of the throat caused him to look up and he found Cookie watching him
through the Galley doorway.
“I was just about to throw
that out and make fresh before going off duty,” Seaview’s premier chef told his
XO.
Chip sent him a wry
grin. “Wasn’t sure that’s actually what
I wanted anyway,” he admitted.
“Won’t take me a second to
whip up some cocoa.” Cookie wasn’t big
on special favors but not only was it wise to keep the XO on your side, the
tension on the boat this cruise was causing everyone to walk softly and do what
they could to keep things from getting any worse. When Chip continued to hesitate, Cookie sent
him a nod and headed for the big walk-in fridge. With another wry grin Chip walked over to
where Dawes was sitting and collapsed heavily into the next chair.
“Rough day?” Dawes asked.
“A little frustrating,” Chip
toned down his rotten mood.
“I don’t know why you put up
with the crapola around here when you could have so much more.”
Chip sighed. “Most of the time it’s not a problem. Oh,” he admitted, “we get our share of
weirdness.” He sent Dawes a smile but
didn’t try to explain what caused it.
“But I really, really like it here.”
“Playing second fiddle to
Mister Perfect? I don’t understand how
you can put up with Crane.”
Chip chuckled at that one,
totally confusing Dawes. “I’ve tried to
tell you, whatever his problem is this cruise, he’s usually pretty
laid-back. He’s easy to work with, he’s
one of the most knowledgeable skippers I’ve ever met or served under, knows his
job, this boat, and her crew inside out.”
Chip sighed heavily again. “I
wish I knew what set him off this time.”
He added, but only to himself, But
once this cruise is over I’m going to beat the answer out of him.
“You’re way too good to be putting up with
his garbage, no matter what.” Dawes glanced toward the Galley but Cookie
was still out of sight. “Look, once this cruise is over I’m resigning my
commission and setting up my own computer consulting firm.” He
frowned. “They’re going to kick me out anyway so I might as well.”
Chip raised an eyebrow. “I’m just about to get passed over for
promotion. Two strikes and you’re out – stupid Navy rule.” The
growl was totally overridden by his sudden impish grin. “On the other
hand it’s probably the best thing that could happen. Come with me.
No more cow-towing to the Navy, no one looking over your shoulder. Set
your own hours, be your own boss.”
“Leave Seaview?” The very idea was so foreign to Chip’s
thoughts that he couldn’t help the incredulity coming through his voice.
“Think about it,” Dawes urged
him, ignoring Chip’s tone. “You and me –
it will be great! We’ve always worked
well together.”
Chip started shaking his
head, but anything he might have said was stopped as Cookie came out of the
Galley holding a large mug. Chip,
grateful for the interruption, stood up and met him halfway, taking the
steaming mug of hot cocoa and concentrating on it as he stood with his back to
Dawes. Cookie gave him a puzzled look, and
Chip finally sent him a small smile and a thank you. He still didn’t quite know how to respond to
Dawes’ offer without blasting him into the next time zone for even thinking
Chip would leave what to him was the best job he could ever think of
having. Despite the weirdness, he admitted to himself. He gave his head another shake and walked out
of the Wardroom without a backward glance at Dawes.
* * * *
Will took a deep breath. And, another swallow from his fifth cup of
Cookie’s extra strength brew. It was
nearly 1230 hours and Seaview’s CMO was dawdling over lunch. He’d brought one of his medical journals with
him to read as he expected to be eating pretty much by himself. Nor was he mistaken. Seaview had reached its destination fairly
early that morning and the activity level aboard had instantly increased. Will knew peripherally what was going on even
though he wasn’t actively involved.
Lee was one of half a dozen
divers who went out to place Admiral Nelson’s new sensors. Will was actually pleased that, with the warm
waters just north of
Chip was relegated to the
computer lab set up for Lt. Dawes. Will
had raised an eyebrow when Admiral Nelson told him that a couple of days ago as
the two ate dinner – once more by themselves.
Chip was eating at another table with Dawes, and Lee was nowhere to be
seen. Nelson admitted that he wasn’t
willing to risk the whole trip on the Navy’s choice of computer operator and
wanted a pair of eyes he totally trusted to oversee the tests. While the final evaluations would be done
much later back at NIMR, Nelson wanted to make sure that they didn’t have to
re-do the entire cruise because the tests weren’t run correctly. Will had sent a glance toward where their
visitor was sitting and then back toward Nelson. The Admiral hadn’t elaborated, but the
expression on his face said volumes to someone who had served any amount of
time with him – Nelson wasn’t enamored with their guest!
Will hadn’t said anything
either, but he did start to pay more attention to the boat’s unusual
atmosphere. Dawes was the wild card –
the only abnormality aboard. Will hadn’t
considered it before now as Dawes seemed to be such a non-entity. He wasn’t one of the occasionally manic
scientists Nelson invited aboard. He
seemed to keep mostly to himself, although he ate regularly with Chip. Will hadn’t seen him wandering around the
boat. On the other hand Will didn’t do
much of that, either, so he might not have noticed. So, he’d spent the last couple of days
quietly working on a research project of his own.
One of the things that had always
fascinated Will was how small groups of people maintained optimum working
conditions over an extended period of time.
When he’d come to NIMR it was the first time he would be serving aboard
a submarine and he’d anticipated lots of good research. Unfortunately he’d been extremely
disappointed. His research had been
almost instantly reduced to one sentence.
‘The Command team structure and dynamics keep everything on an even
keel.’
Well, it wasn’t quite that
simple. But it hadn’t taken Will long at
all to realize that NIMR’s ability to hand-pick their employees, coupled with
Lee’s relaxed command style and connection to his crew as individuals, went a
very long way toward facilitating and maintaining a calm work atmosphere. So Will had been relegated to doing his
research on, for the most part, the teams of scientists Seaview delivered to
the undersea labs and Antarctic stations they regularly resupplied. Will would conduct interviews with the teams
going in, as well as the exiting teams, and over the years had written very
knowledgeable research papers on what worked and what didn’t. They’d earned him a modest but well received
following in Psychological fields.
Things stayed so calm aboard
Seaview that he’d gotten out of the habit of keeping tabs on his own crew. He was embarrassed to admit to himself that
even with how bad things had gotten this last week he’d not thought to try and
track down the cause. Well, over and
above that it had something to do with Lee and Chip being at each other’s throats.
Will spent most of the next
day in quiet observation of his boat mates, with a specific focus on their
interaction with Lt. Dawes. He started
with obscure questions directed at his two corpsmen. Frank and John spent more time among the
regular crewmen than Will did but they were fairly unhelpful. The only thing he learned was that Dawes
seemed to ignore any crewmen he came in contact with, treating them basically
as somewhat beneath his dignity. But
also that any contact was kept to a bare minimum simply because Dawes spent
most of his time either in the cabin assigned to him, the computer lab, or the
Wardroom. Shrugging his shoulders at
that lack of information, Will set out on some reconnaissance of his own.
Will had a good relationship
with the crew. While holding the rank of
Lt. Commander, he was not considered part of the Command hierarchy. On top of that, the crew recognized Will as
someone who wasn’t afraid to stand up to the ruling triumvirate any time the
three chose to ignore their own health issues – not an easy job, but
occasionally a very necessary one. That
alone brought Will a great deal of respect.
And also, a great deal of autonomy to wander around as he pleased.
Since his corpsmen indicated
that the seamen didn’t have much knowledge, Will now went in search of his own
intel among the officers. He casually
checked each department and sought out the officer in charge. He kept his questions casual and friendly,
seeming to merely be killing time while Seaview was relatively stationary. He hoped that the men he talked to didn’t
even realize that they were being questioned.
He knew that if they did they’d clam up.
Nicely, of course, but still keep their own counsel. Lee didn’t like scuttlebutt messing up his
orderly boat. The crew was well aware of
that and kept such chatter to a minimum for the most part.
So it was that Will learned
basically nothing in his first three stops.
While there was a definite tension level that wasn’t normally noticed
aboard the submarine, Will was unable to draw anyone into more than casual
chit-chat. Frustrated, Will wandered
down to the Missile Room. Chief Sharkey,
always a veritable fountain of information, was monitoring the divers from
there. Will had no intentions of
actually trying to question the COB. The
problem was never getting the man to talk, it was a matter of balancing what he
said against the man’s fierce loyalties to Nelson, boat and CO – in that order
– followed then by XO, with the other JOs at a considerable distance. Will had a smile on his face as he entered
the area. There was never any doubt that
Sharkey ran a tight, well-organized boat.
He just had his own way of doing it.
Sharkey had his headset in
place, responding if necessary to the divers.
But audio was also coming through the room’s speakers so Will merely
sent the COB and the several other crewmen a nod and took a seat out of the
way, listening to the divers’ conversations as they set out the sensors in
whatever grid pattern Nelson had plotted.
He easily recognized Lee’s voice as he kibitzed with Kowalski about
several passing Hammerhead sharks. Will
happily noted the casual way Lee was communicating and was again glad that his
CO was finding at least this moment of peace from the stress he’d been under the
last week. No one was overly concerned
about the sharks. Will, as well as
everyone else, knew them to be fairly harmless to the divers if left alone.
Apparently the dive was about
complete as Will heard
Will hung around until Lee
and Kowalski came back aboard. He was
prepared for the frown Lee sent him so shrugged again, made light of a bit of
boredom, and helped Lee out of his dive gear.
It gave Will the opportunity to take visual stock of his CO, something
he’d not had much opportunity to do of late with Lee’s absence from the
Wardroom at normal mealtimes. Will
wasn’t at all happy with the stress so very evident in Lee’s bearing, nor the
loss of weight, easily recognized as Lee changed back into his khaki’s. Will would have liked to spend a couple
minutes massaging some of the tension out of Lee’s shoulders but didn’t
dare. While he could get away with a lot
around his occasionally temperamental CO – and friend – there were lines that
he didn’t cross. If they’d been alone he
might have suggested it, but not in front of other crewmen. He watched Lee give a quick glance around the
room as all traces of the dive were properly handled and stored, give a quick
nod to Sharkey, and head out. Will
assumed to the
Instead, he headed toward
Nelson’s lab. Knocking, he didn’t wait
for an answer and quietly opened the door.
Nelson looked up from the sheaf of papers he was scanning and motioned
Will the rest of the way in, at the same time sending a definite ‘what’s up’
expression. “Just wandering around,
taking the temperature here and there around the boat,” was Will’s answer as he
settled into a chair.
“And your prognosis?” Nelson
asked, relaxing back in his own.
“Not good,” Will admitted
with a grimace.
Nelson almost growled. “So help me I’m about to take your
suggestion, relieve both those two nincomtwits of duty, and throw them
overboard.”
Will shivered
involuntarily. “You remember what
happened the last time you relieved Lee of duty?” He wasn’t prepared for Nelson’s instant
chuckle. “You think that was funny?”
Will asked him, incredulously. Will was
referring to a time Nelson had wigged out on some mis-prescribed medication. The boat barely survived that incident.
Nelson sent him a fond grin. “Funny, no,” he told his ticked off CMO, “Just the effect that it had on Jiggs.” Nelson named the head of ComSubPac, Admiral
Jiggs Stark, an old friend of Nelson’s who had been aboard at the time.
“Oh,” Will breathed out, and
relaxed. He sent Nelson a bit of a smile
of his own. “I wasn’t sure Lee was going
to make it back from that cruise in one piece.
Which would have been a shame since he managed to save all of us – Stark
included.”
“Fried poor Jiggs’ brain, as
Riley would phrase it,” Nelson said with a grin.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t
help Admiral Stark’s animosity towards Lee.”
Nelson laughed outright. “Jiggs doesn’t dislike Lee.”
“Oh, really,” Will muttered.
“Not at all,” Nelson assured
him. “But he realized that he can’t
intimidate Lee. He has a great deal of
respect for Lee’s abilities, but Lee throws him off-kilter and Jiggs covers it
with added gruffness.” Nelson chuckled
again as Will finally nodded.
They were interrupted by a
knock on the door, whoever it was this time waiting for Nelson’s call to
enter. Will was half-expecting Lee, but
it turned out to be Chip.
He handed Nelson several
sheets of paper. “Preliminary report on
the first dive, sir.”
“How does it look?” Nelson
asked him.
“Good,” Chip replied. Both Nelson and Will raised eyebrows at the
short response.
“No problems?” Nelson asked,
trying to draw Chip out of what Will suddenly realized was a severe moment of
stress, and knew that Nelson had figured it out as well.
Chip took a deep breath,
hesitated, but finally answered. Will
got the distinct impression that he’d rather not have, but couldn’t figure out
a way to get out of answering the direct question. “One small glitch, but Adam and I have it
under control.”
“And what is that?” Nelson
refused to let his XO off the hook.
“Every one of Lee’s sensors
are misplaced by point 017 degrees. His
nav-meter was apparently mis-calibrated.
We just need to adjust the data the sensors are sending back.”
“That doesn’t sound like our
ultra-competent Skipper.” Will tried to
make it sound like a joke, to get Chip to relax a bit.
Unfortunately it had just the
opposite effect and Chip’s expression went even darker. Nelson, too, noticed, and sent a look Chip’s
way that said all too plainly he was waiting for further clarification. Again Chip hesitated, but finally
answered. “Adam suggested that Lee did
it on purpose to skew the data and make Adam look bad.”
“Lee would never do that,”
Nelson blustered, leaning forward and glaring at his XO.
Chip visibly cringed under
the glare, but held his ground. “Before
this trip, sir, I’d have agreed with you.
But right now…” He let his
thoughts trail off unspoken.
Nelson held his gaze a moment
longer, before finally exhaling loudly.
“Dismissed,” he told Chip none too gently, and the blond wasted little
time complying with the order.
Will made a soft attempt to
defuse his boss, who appeared ready to explode.
“Someone else who’s not afraid to speak his mind,” he said
casually. “He’s obviously been hanging
around Lee way too long.”
The look Nelson sent him
nearly had Will running for cover. But
he sent Nelson back a small smile, and the thunderstorm broke with a
snort. “True.” Nelson agreed, finally
settling back again in his chair.
“But it’s still worrisome,”
Will added thoughtfully, “that he would show you that much disrespect to say it
at all.”
Nelson nodded, having already
come to that conclusion. “Also
true.” Both men were silent, staring at
the closed door. “Have you ever visited
It was such a complete change
of topic that it took Will an extra couple of seconds to register the
question. “Actually, no,” he finally
answered, looking at Nelson with a totally puzzled expression.
“Amazing place,” Nelson
continued, still looking at the door instead of at Will.
“So I’ve heard,” Will played
along with whatever game Nelson was up to.
Nelson continued to look at
the door as he spoke, but did send Will the occasional glance. “While it’s probably best known for the Moai,
the stone monuments, it’s actually quite a cautionary tale for humanity.”
“How so?”
“When the island was first
colonized by Polynesians it was covered with trees. Although many of their staple crops wouldn’t
grow there a couple easy crops, like sweet potatoes, thrived. The trees included one of the largest species
of palm tree. The bark and wood supplied
the inhabitants with cloth, rope, and canoes, and also a way to move the stone
heads from the quarry where they were made down to where they were
erected. There was abundant fish and
birds, and the colonies grew rapidly.
It’s theorized that the living was so easy, that’s what gave the people
so much time to carve the statues.”
“So, what happened?”
“A combination of things, but
all based on a closed society. A lot of
it is speculation.” He glanced at Will,
who nodded that he understood. “But as
the colonies grew, more land was needed to grow crops, and more and more trees
were cut to clear land. The only
livestock they had were chickens, which didn’t supply enough manure to
replenish what nutrients the crops leeched from the land. Fights started to break out between the
different groups as resources were becoming more scarce, eventually leading to
cannibalism as the crops failed and fish around the island were depleted.”
“Eesh,” Will muttered. “Its surprising that anyone survived.”
Nelson nodded. “By the 1870s there were only a little over
one hundred descendants of the original inhabitants left. Starting in the early 1700s the island was
getting the occasional visiting ship. It
actually got it’s English name when the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen first
visited it on Easter Sunday 1722. But
those occasional visits weren’t always helpful.
One missionary brought tuberculosis to the island and wiped out almost
half of the population.” A soft ‘damn’
escaped Will’s thoughts to be spoken out loud, and Nelson nodded. “Eventually after
“You’re right, Admiral,” Will
told him, “there’s a lot for the world’s societies to learn from that. But, while I appreciate the history
lesson…” It was Will’s turn to let his
thoughts trail off.
Nelson shrugged and sent him
a rather enigmatic little smile.
“Thought perhaps, since we’re this close, that you might enjoy visiting
there. The island is so small you can
see a lot of it in one day.”
“Were you planning on being
my tour guide?” Will couldn’t help ask.
“Nooooo,” Nelson
drawled. “I was thinking I’d ask Lee to
take you in FS1.”
Will momentarily closed his
eyes. “Toss him off the boat and leave
me to deal with him.” He opened his eyes
and glared at Nelson. “Thanks a lot,” he
growled.
Nelson grinned. “Not exactly, Will. Merely ask him to help you scratch an itch.”
“I wasn’t aware that I had a
rash,” Will muttered not quite totally under his breath, causing Nelson to
chuckle.
“I suspect that at least part
of Lee’s frustrations stem from not having enough to do this trip.” Both men shuddered slightly – there had been
issues on past cruises when Lee got bored.
“While the diving now helps, I think he could use a bit of time
away. He likes you.” Nelson sent Will a fond smile. “You, he won’t throttle.”
“Under the circumstances,”
Will continued to mutter, “I wouldn’t be too sure of that.”
“Try to keep him gone as long
as possible. All day and into the
evening if you can manage it.”
“I hope you don’t expect me
to ask him.” Will was still muttering,
unhappy with the whole plan. “He’ll just
blow me off.”
Nelson nodded. “No, I’ll take care of that. You just be ready for a day of sightseeing
right after breakfast tomorrow.”
Will took a deep breath, let
it out slowly, nodded, and rose to leave.
He sent Nelson a frown, which again Nelson smiled at enigmatically, and
Will headed back to
He couldn’t know, but Nelson
was saying something of the same thing to himself. He had a sketchy outline of a plan in his
head, one that would benefit from having only one combatant to deal with. Since Chip was needed to help monitor the
tests, that left getting rid of Lee for a while, and the nearness of
* * * *
From Nelson’s lab Chip headed
for the Control Room. But running into
Sharkey instantly changed his mind. With
COB in tow he headed for the Missile Room, telling Sharkey that he needed to
check the nav-meters to correlate with the computer data. Sharkey nodded. He never tried to understand his XO’s
techno-babble. He was perfectly comfortable with the fact that his talents lay
in other areas, and never let officers get under his skin.
There were several crewmen
working on different tasks in the Missile Room when Chip and Sharkey
entered. Chip ignored them all and went
straight to the locker that contained, among other things, the small, hand-held
underwater navigation units that the Admiral had invented and patented several
years before. “Do you know who used
which unit?” he asked Sharkey.
Before the COB could respond
to what to him was a stupid question, Kowalski spoke up. The senior rating was nearby, refilling air
tanks used during the earlier dive. “I
think I can help you, sir,” he told Chip.
“I put them away and I sort of remember in which order.” Chip nodded, Kowalski passed off his job to
Nielsen who was helping him, and walked over.
“These two were Marks’ and Lewis’,” he pointed to the top two in the
cabinet. “Not sure which used which.”
“That’s okay,” Chip told
him. “It doesn’t totally matter that I
have it exact.”
Kowalski nodded and
continued. “These two are Nielsen’s and
Mickelson’s.”
“Mine has a tiny nick in the
top left corner,” Nielsen said with a glance at Sharkey. “I accidentally banged it on a rock.”
“Not enough to affect the
unit,” Sharkey assured everyone. “It’s
barely a scratch.”
Chip nodded and Ski pointed to
the next unit. “This is the one I used
and this,” he indicated the one right below it, “is the Skipper’s.”
Chip’s quick move to grab the
last two units Ski pointed out somewhat startled both he and Sharkey but they
didn’t say anything, just shared a puzzled look. Chip held one in each hand and turned them
on, looking at the readout screens. “Did
you recalibrate them before putting them away?” he asked the rating in almost a
growl. It caused Ski to hesitate, but
only a second.
“No, sir.” His voice carried puzzlement. “I glanced at each one, especially after
Nielsen’s little knock. But they all
looked good and the readouts were identical.
And we always recalibrate before each dive anyway, just in case.”
“So you didn’t do anything to
the Captain’s unit?” Chip’s voice was
still hard, and again COB and rating shared a glance. Especially at Chip’s formal address instead
of his usual ‘Skipper.’ “No, sir,” Ski
repeated. “Like I said, they were all
reading okay so I turned them off and stowed them.” He was totally puzzled as Chip put both units
back, turned on his heel, and practically stomped out. Both he and Sharkey all too clearly read the
hard, dark expression on Chip’s face, and didn’t say a word until the hatch was
closed.
“Man, Chief,” Ski breathed
out. “What was that all about?”
Sharkey huffed. “Obviously none of our business or Mr. Morton
would have said. Now forget it and get
back to work.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Ski
acknowledged. But he still cast another
long look at the hatch as he walked back to finish the tanks.
Chip was disgusted. And worse, he wasn’t sure who he was
disgusted with more. It started with
himself. He couldn’t believe that he’d
said what he did to Admiral Nelson. Even
if it was what he was thinking at the time he could shoot himself for actually
saying it out loud. He hadn’t wanted to
believe Adam’s comments in the first place.
That kind of tactic was just so un-Lee!
But when Nelson had pushed him, what with all the days of frustration
and anger and, because it was fresh on his mind, it had slipped out
unbidden. He was almost glad that Nelson
dismissed him so rapidly – all he wanted to do at that moment was get the heck
out of there before having to say anything else.
When he’d run into Sharkey
he’d had the harebrained idea to redeem himself by proving that it was the
nav-meter’s fault. He’d latched onto
Nielsen’s little scrape as a perfect way for Lee’s unit to have gotten just
that little bit out of whack. But not
only didn’t Lee’s have a mark on it, it read exactly the same as Kowalski’s and
all of the rating’s sensors had been placed correctly. He’d instantly been ticked once more at
Lee. What other explanation was there
but that Lee had purposely misplaced the sensors.
He was already starting to
fight a sudden headache when he entered the
Frank, Seaview’s senior
corpsman, was surprised when his XO walked through
He was surprised once more a
few minutes later, when Doc came back and he relayed what had happened, that
Doc took the news with little more than a shrug. Seaview’s CMO took his charges seriously, and
was especially attentive to the three senior officers who seemed to go out of
the way to ignore their own health issues.
Will noticed his corpsman’s raised eyebrow, and sent him a smile that
was more grimace than anything. “Ran
into the XO a little while ago,” he admitted, without being specific. “I’m actually happy that he admitted the pain
and did something about it.”
“Me, too,” Frank told him,
breathing out, and the two shared a genuine smile.
Will glanced at the
clock. “I’ll take another dose up to him
after dinner. That, hopefully, will get
him through the night, and with any luck he’ll be better by morning.” Frank nodded, and they left it at that.
Lee was checking the chart
for the next day’s dive location when the call came from
“Hear what, sir?” Chris
replied with a small grin.
It caused Lee to chuckle
softly. “At least Doc should be happy
that for once, one of us admitted that we didn’t feel well.”
“Yes, sir,” Chris responded,
and then turned bright red as he realized how enthusiastically he’d said it.
Lee laughed out loud, which
didn’t help the poor lieutenant’s facial color at all. But anything else that might have been said
was interrupted, first by Lee having to stifle a yawn, and immediately after by
a call from Admiral Nelson for Lee to come to his lab when he had a few
minutes. “You didn’t see the yawn,
either, Lieutenant,” Lee once more growled, but quickly sent the younger man a
small grin.
“Must have been a good dive,”
Chris felt comfortable enough around Lee to say. After the last week he’d try anything to help
ease some of the tension. Lee was a bit
surprised that Chris would be that open with him, but figured that he knew
why. With a grin he nodded, and headed
up the spiral staircase.
Not knowing quite where Lee
was at the moment, Admiral Nelson had used the all-boat intercom to make his
call. Chip was just throwing himself
down on his bunk when he heard it. It
was a measure of his lousy mood that, for a man who rarely swore, a
particularly vulgar phrase slipped out.
Chip had no doubt about what would happen. Even though he was longer aboard Seaview than
Lee, and even though he had the computer printouts and Kowalski’s testimony to
back him up, he knew that Admiral Nelson’s loyalties would be more firmly
behind Lee. Oh, Nelson would find a way
to let Chip off the hook for his accusations.
But it would be there between them nonetheless. Chip had meant what he’d told Adam – he
didn’t want to leave Seaview. But
suddenly it was looking like he might not have a choice. He couldn’t continue to work here under
current conditions.
Lee rapped lightly on
Nelson’s lab door, and entered at the Admiral’s call. Nelson sent him a fond smile and waved him
toward the chair Will had recently vacated.
His grin broadened as Lee didn’t get another yawn completely
buried. “Long day?” he asked. “Or, too short a night last night?” Lee ducked his head. While it seemed sometimes that Nelson might
keep himself buried in his own projects to the exclusion of everything else, he
still had an uncanny knack for knowing what was going on. “The tests go well today?” Nelson changed the
subject just enough to let Lee off the hook that he’d gently put him on. With the tension his young Captain had been
under it was a wonder he was sleeping at all.
That and food tended to be low on Lee’s priority list at the best of
times. Under stress, both were apt to be
easily ignored. Normally Nelson and Will
looked to Chip to keep Lee’s habits halfway under control. This trip, all bets were off.
“You’d know more about that
than me, sir,” Lee told him. “I just set
out sensors.”
“That went well?” Nelson continued to keep his voice light and
a soft smile on his face.
“Yes, sir. Everything went extremely well.” He couldn’t stop another yawn and he sent
Nelson a slightly disgusted look that morphed into sheepishness when Nelson
chuckled.
“Well, I have a favor to ask
that will keep tomorrow a good deal less physical than today was.” Lee said nothing, just raised an
eyebrow. With the Admiral, there was
never any telling where and how he’d get sidetracked. “I’d like you to take Will over to
Nelson wasn’t halfway through
the explanation before Lee started shaking his head. “Can’t, sir,” he told his boss. “Chip just took himself off-duty with a
headache. I need to stay aboard just in
case.”
Nelson buried a grin. He didn’t know about Chip, but he knew that
Lee would find some excuse to get out of the request. “Lt. James is perfectly capable of handling
the
“Jamie won’t want to leave if
Chip’s still down.”
Nelson was actually pleased
to hear a note of concern for Chip in Lee’s voice, despite the recent apparent
feud between the two. “I’ll check with
him this evening. But unless you hear
differently, plan to leave by 0800.”
Lee took a deep breath. When Nelson used that tone of voice, no
matter the slight smile still on his face, Lee knew that it would take
something totally out of the norm to change his mind. “Yes, sir,” he acquiesced. “As long as everything is under control,” he
still said, reminding Nelson that he wouldn’t back down if he wasn’t
comfortable with what was happening.
After his recent conversation
with Will on basically the same topic, Nelson couldn’t stop the broad grin that
hit his face. “Absolutely,” he told his
all-too-young-but-extremely-competent Captain.
Glancing at his watch he added.
“A bit early but suppose we head for the Wardroom. I suspect that, with all the exercise you got
today, you’ve probably worked up a hearty appetite.”
Again Lee shook his
head. “I need to make sure the
“See that you are.” While Nelson was still smiling, his voice had
a definite edge to it. Lee nodded,
stood, and left. Nelson gave his own
head a shake, stood, and headed for the Wardroom alone. If nothing else he was in desperate need of
coffee!
He wasn’t the first one
there. It surprised him somewhat to find
Lt. Dawes already eating, his nose stuck in a book. Nelson glanced at the title out of habit,
curious to see what was holding his attention so much that he barely looked up
when Nelson walked in. Expecting a
computer manual or something similar, he was slightly irritated to discover
that it was nothing more than a trashy science fiction novel. He turned toward the coffee urn and
discovered Cookie glaring at the lieutenant from the safety of the Galley, and
sent him a nod. Filling his mug with the
chef’s potent brew he turned back around.
“I’m surprised to see you here, Lieutenant. I haven’t gotten your report from today’s
tests yet.”
At that Dawes did look up,
but never laid down the book. “Chip said
that he’d take care of it, sir.”
The last word wasn’t quite an
afterthought, but Nelson wasn’t at all pleased with the tone in which it had
been delivered. He nonetheless tried to
keep his own voice under control. “I
very promptly received his report. There
wasn’t anything in it from you.”
“No need,” Dawes tossed off
lightly. “He was with me the whole
time. The reports would be
identical.” Dawes dropped his head back
to his book.
“Hardly,” Nelson practically
growled. “Chip had his own
checklist.” It popped Dawes’ head back
up, which gave Nelson a small measure of satisfaction. It also had him wondering why Chip apparently
didn’t share that information, and why now it had caused such a knee-jerk
reaction in the lieutenant. “I’ll expect
your report by 1930 hours. Deliver it to
the
“Okay, sir.” Dawes continued to read, but seemed to at
least eat a bit faster than he’d been doing.
Nelson didn’t know the man
well enough to be sure but he thought that he detected a slight smirk on the
man’s face. He merely nodded and turned
to dish up his own meal.
He was just sitting down when
Will walked in, followed by several JOs.
Nelson found it interesting that they chose to sit elsewhere instead of
the table Dawes was sitting at, and realized that Will had caught it as well
when he sat down opposite Nelson, where Lee and Chip usually sat. “Chip?” he asked so quietly that no one else
could hear.
Will answered in kind. “I’m actually amazed that this hasn’t happened
to both he and Lee at some point the last week.
Speaking of whom…”
“In the
Will shuddered. “How did that go?”
“Actually, better than I was
expecting,” Nelson admitted. “Oh, Lee
tried to wiggle out of it.” Both men
nodded. “Tried using Chip’s headache as
an excuse for not being able to leave.”
“Really.” Will immediately picked up on the
significance of that, as Nelson had done so earlier. Lee, no matter how mad he was, still cared
for his friend.
“And then that you’d not want
to let Chip out of your sight,” Nelson continued.
Will grinned. “Yep, that sounds a lot more typical.”
Nelson nodded. “Chip?” he asked again.
“While I’m still a bit blown
away that he actually admitted to the headache and asked for meds, I suspect
that there’s something more behind it.”
Nelson’s eyebrow went up. “Frank
said that Chip seemed more angry than anything.
And you and I both know what kind of mood he was in shortly before
that.” Both men cringed slightly. “Under present conditions that doesn’t seem
all that unusual. But Chip prides
himself on the ability to keep his cool no matter what’s going on around
him.” Nelson nodded. “I suspect that he was more angry at himself
than anything for the momentary lapse, and that he used the headache as an
excuse to buy himself some time to regain his composure. My guess is he’ll have himself back under
control by morning. However, I’ll take
him another dose of meds about 2000 hours.”
He shrugged. “I’ll try to talk to
him, but…”
“Yeah,” Nelson muttered.
“Those two.” Normally Will used that phrase in a teasing
tone when referring to something the pair had been up to. Not this time, however, and received another
nod from Nelson before they went on to other topics.
Nelson didn’t quite get a
grin buried at one point, and it was Will’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Have you noticed how Cookie keeps glancing
at the door?” Nelson said softly.
Will relaxed and nodded. “I figured that I’d ask him to fix a sandwich
or something, and I’d take it up to Chip when I go later.”
“And looks like I’d better go
chase Lee out of the Control Room. I’m
not sure Cookie could handle having both of them not show up for a meal without
an active crisis going on. Well,” he
qualified, “like what’s been going on isn’t crisis enough, but you know what I
mean.” Will nodded, and they finished
their meals and headed in different directions.
Nelson wasn’t sure how much
trouble he’d have pointing Lee in the direction of the Wardroom. Or even if Lee would actually make it all the
way there and eat before ‘something just happened to sidetrack’ him. He ended up using Lee’s unwillingness to
stick other crewmembers in the middle of things against Lee. Lt. O’Brien followed Nelson into the
Lee came back to the
“Yes, sir,” he agreed. He knew perfectly well what Nelson was up
to. Whatever was going on between he and
Chip – and Lee still wasn’t sure he knew what that was – Nelson was taking the
opportunity to try and get Lee to relax even a little bit. He also knew that that was behind being
assigned to escort Doc the next day, although he suspected that it was
something Jamie had cooked up. He’d
really like to tell both men where they could stuff it but didn’t have a good
enough reason. The boat would be
perfectly fine without him for the day, and the crew would probably benefit
from having at least one of the antagonists gone, even for a little while.
“I was just going over the
latest batch of project proposals,” Nelson continued, before Lee could come up
with a retaliatory crack. “We have quite
an assortment. Hey,” and he sent Lee
another big grin, “how about, instead of circumnavigating the planet the usual
way, we do it pole to pole.” He chuckled
at the incredulous look Lee sent him and shrugged. “It was just a thought,” he added.
Lee finally smiled. The whole conversation was so reminiscent of
the silliness he and Chip would get into from time to time that he felt himself
actually start to relax. It lasted only
an instant as steps on the spiral stairs turned out to belong to Adam Dawes. He was just opening his mouth to ask what the
lieutenant wanted when Nelson beat him to it.
“Ah, Mr. Dawes. Right on time.” Dawes barely spared a glance at Lee, merely
walking up to Nelson and handing him the folder he was carrying. “Thank you.
And from now on I’ll expect your reports in a timely fashion.” There was a bite to the voice, and a glare
that went with it, which he saw out of the corner of his eye Lee caught all too
well. He wasn’t sure about Dawes, who
did nothing more than nod before heading back up the stairs. Once he was out of sight Lee turned back to
Nelson. The Admiral just waved it
off. “A minor misunderstanding about
status reports.” He kept his voice
casual, but suspected that Lee knew there was something far more serious going
on. Nelson glanced at his watch. “I suspect that you’re just about to head out
on your evening patrol through the boat.”
Lee ducked his head and sent Nelson a small smile. “Well, don’t be all night at it.” This time the warning was definitely directed
at Lee. “I told Will to be ready to
leave by 0800 hours. You’ll need to be
up early so that you have time to eat a decent breakfast before doing the
pre-flight on FS1.”
Lee sighed. “Yes, sir,” he told his boss. Obviously there was not going to be any
backing down from the slightly strange project.
He sent Nelson a quick nod, and headed out to do what Nelson had rightly
assumed he was about to do.
* * * *
Cookie only grumbled a little
bit about fixing a light supper for his XO, and then produced a thick ham
sandwich, chicken pasta salad, sliced peaches, and one of his ‘Death by
Chocolate’ brownies. Will quickly buried
a grin – Seaview’s premier chef may present a grumpy, grouchy exterior, but he
did everything within his extensive culinary powers to take very good care of
his crew.
Will wasn’t sure what to
expect when he rapped on Chip’s cabin door about 1945 hours. He didn’t think that he heard a ‘come’ from
inside, but opened the door anyway. Chip
was sitting up on the edge of the bunk, looking pretty rough around the
edges. “Did I wake you?” Will asked
solicitously. “Sorry.”
Chip shook his head, but
carefully. “Nah, Doc. Wasn’t sleeping.” He glanced at the tray in Will’s hands. “Not hungry, either.”
Will smiled. He’d been expecting that. “Just a sandwich and a few things to go with
it. All I ask is that you try to eat at
least part of it. Hunger will only make
your headache worse.” He saw Chip’s
mouth move and suspected it was along the lines of ‘that’s not possible’, but
no sound reached the few feet between the two men. Will came the rest of the way into the cabin
and placed the tray on Chip’s desk.
Continuing on into the small head, he returned with half a glass of
water. Sitting down next to Chip he
reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small packet. “These should help,” he said, waited until
Chip held out a hand, however unwillingly, and dumped three pills into the
palm.
Chip lifted his eyes enough
to glare at Will, but it lacked the power Seaview’s XO used occasionally to
flatten a crewman without ever having to say a word. Will had learned over the years to pretty
much ignore that look and merely held out the glass, still a soft smile on his
face. “Why did you bother bringing
dinner if you were going to drug me into oblivion?”
“Because,” Will used the
lecturing voice he frequently had to resort to with the senior officers,
“contrary to what you’re thinking, that’s merely to help the headache.” He had to carefully control his expression as
Chip finally surrendered and downed the meds.
“Thank you.” He hesitated a moment,
not sure now if he should try to get Chip to talk or not. Suspecting that, if his head was still
pounding as much as it looked like conversation would be hopeless he rose,
returned the glass to the head, and walked toward the door. But at the last minute he couldn’t help
himself. He pulled the door open, and
then turned and looked at Chip. “How
does it feel having Lee ticked at you for a change, instead of vice versa?” From the look that Chip shot him he decided
that now might be a really good time to leave, and promptly did just
that.
Chip continued to glare at
the closed door. How dare Will say
that! He had every right to be
angry. It was Lee who was totally off
base; Lee who was causing all the trouble.
Chip hadn’t done anything wrong.
Lee had absolutely no right to be doing the things he was. Chip had the proof! Food ignored, Chip flung himself back on his
pillow, a fist pounding the bunk to the beat of his pounding head.
Admiral Nelson poked his head
into Will’s office about half an hour later, finding the CMO with coffee mug in
hand, reading. One of the multitude of
things Nelson appreciated Will for was his constant effort to keep up with what
was new in the world of medicine. Will
had enough common sense that he didn’t always take much stock in ‘new and
improved’ methods or medicines. Nelson
occasionally had to bury a grin when something Will read sent him off on a
tirade of ‘now why are they doing that when this already works just fine and it’s
safer and a fourth the cost?’ But Will
never quit keeping up, and would easily switch to a new practice or
prescription if he found enough merit to it.
Nelson wondered what had set him off this time as he turned a scowl on
the interruption, which he covered fairly quickly. “Can I offer you a cup of what Lee and Chip
refer to as ‘doctored’ coffee?”
Nelson grinned broadly. Will kept a bottle of brandy in his bottom
desk drawer. He didn’t dispense it often
but it had been known to come in handy. “Not tonight, Will,” he told him,
staying in the open doorway. “Just
stopped to see if you’d had any luck getting Chip to open up about what’s going
on.”
Will grimaced. “Sorry, Admiral. Not only wasn’t he in the mood, but I think
that I may have made matters worse, if that’s possible, by teasing him. Just a little,” he qualified, “but…”
“A little too much?” Nelson
asked, understanding in his voice.
Nelson was, unfortunately, familiar with the occasional backfire.
“Yeah,” Will confirmed. “Any chance Lee and I can get out of here a
little earlier than planned tomorrow morning?
Not sure I want to come face to face with Chip any time soon.”
“Oops,” Nelson chuckled
softly, but nodded nonetheless. “I’ll
tell Lee. And also ask Cookie to have at
least some breakfast ready to 0600. He
usually does, but it would be our luck that he’d be late tomorrow.”
“Appreciate that,
Admiral.” Both men nodded, and Nelson
left.
* * * *
Lee gave Will a sideways
glance as he came down the access ladder into Seaview’s little yellow
offspring, the Flying Sub, about 0645 hours the following morning. Will wasn’t sure what Nelson had told Lee the
previous evening, but even though there was a slight smile on Lee’s face Will
decided that he’d screwed up enough for one cruise and said nothing except a
bit of small talk. Since he was
apparently going to be spending the majority of the day in Lee’s company he had
no wish to tick Lee off by being the least bit irreverent, as he’d
unfortunately managed the night before with Chip. As they left Seaview’s belly he did ask what
the plan for the day was.
“Not sure,” Lee
admitted. “The Admiral didn’t say what
all you wanted to see.”
Will buried a frown by
coughing into his hand. Thanks a lot, Admiral he muttered to
himself. Send me on this fools errand and don’t tell either Lee or I what’s
going on. Thankfully Will had done a
bit of research of his own the previous evening so wasn’t caught totally
flatfooted. “I was thinking just a nice
overview,” Will told Lee, now back under control. “We’ll dock at Hanga Roa, I presume,” he
named the main town, where three fourths of the island’s population of slightly
under 4000 people lived. Lee
nodded. “Then I guess we rent a jeep,
maybe grab something to take with us for lunch…” He paused when Lee pointed toward FS1’s bunk,
where two smallish backpacks were laying.
Will grinned. “Cookie strikes
again?” He got a somewhat sheepish grin
back. “Okay, lunch solved,” Will told
him. “Then, a leisurely drive around the
island checking out the moai. I would
like to see the quarry where they were carved.
I understand that at least half of the ones made were never moved?”
Lee nodded. “It’s a bit of a hike up to the outer rim of
Rano Raraku, the ancient volcano that the quarry sits in.” He glanced at Will. “But it’s not all that hard.”
Will sent him a glare. “I’m not that old,” he growled, and was
rewarded with one of Lee’s brilliant smiles.
Will relished it – it had been all too noticeably absent of late. “I gather you’ve been there before.” He wondered what he’d said wrong when Lee’s
smile turned hard.
“Yeah,” came out with a soft
growl, and Lee focused on the instrumentation in front of him.
“Skipper?” Will asked softly,
and relaxed when Lee took a deep breath and sent him a half smile, half
grimace.
“For probably something of
the same reason as this trip.” Lee
flipped a couple switches.
It was Will’s turn to take a
deep breath. “I know I’m going to regret
this, but…” He paused and Lee sent him a
half-smile again. “What was the reason
that time?”
“Had an ONI mission get slightly
out of control. The first flight out of
Will was smart enough not to
take the bait and admit that that was pretty close to why Nelson had ordered
this trip, although he had no doubts that Lee understood all too well. He sent Lee a small shrug and went back to
the original conversation. “There’s
supposed to be a couple special moai at the quarry.”
Lee sent him a very short
glare, but then nodded. “The biggest one
on the island is there. Theory is, it
ended up too big to move. And also, the
only kneeling moai is there. All the
others are head and torso only.”
It was Will’s turn to
nod. “You must know of other things to
see.”
Lee sent him an impish
grin. “Want to go caving?” he asked way
too innocently.
“NO!” Will told him
emphatically, and was treated to another bright smile.
“The view from Rano Kau is
spectacular. Means another climb but
it’s worth it. And not far from there is
Orongo. Lots and lots of petroglyphs. Well,” he amended, “there are lots of
petrogryphs all over the island.”
“Sounds like plenty to keep
us occupied,” Will said carefully. Lee
frowned just a moment but it didn’t last long, and they finished the short trip
in relative silence.
* * * *
Chip was in the shower when
he felt Seaview’s nose dip ever so slightly.
Not knowing what was going on, he hurried through the rest of his
morning ablutions and headed for the
“I see that you’ve discovered
the side trip I sent Lee and Doc on.
Sorry you weren’t informed sooner, but Doc said you were down with a
headache and not to bother you until this morning.”
Chip’s glower dissipated,
although his voice still held a slightly disapproving quality. “How long will they be gone, sir? That’s not in the log.” He was very conscious of yesterday
afternoon’s conversation. Nelson seemed
to have forgotten the whole thing which, unfortunately, seemed to confirm
Chip’s assessment of Nelson’s ultimate reaction. But sending Lee away? That didn’t make any sense at all.
“And you can blame me for the
log as well. I told Lee that I’d take
care of it, and then got sidetracked.
They’ll only be gone for the day. I expect them back this evening.” Nelson refused to explain further, and that
confused Chip even more. The cruise
parameters specified three days of testing the sensors in slightly different
areas and conditions. If Nelson was
getting Lee away from the tests, why would he be back again for the final
day? Chip felt his headache coming
back. Nelson sent him an enigmatic
little grin as if he was reading Chip’s thoughts. “Come along,” Nelson said lightly. “We’d better get some breakfast. It’s going to be a busy day.”
“Yes, sir.” Chip answered,
and let Nelson coax him toward the Wardroom.
Not knowing what Nelson was up to made him extremely nervous. But all he could do was his job, and pray that
Nelson wouldn’t be too vindictive.
* * * *
“Got a stupid question for
you, Skipper.” They were nearing Hanga
Roa on the west side of the roughly triangular island. They had come all the way, which in fact
wasn’t really all that far from Seaview, underwater.
“What’s that, Jamie?” Lee loved piloting the little craft and had
found a good deal of his recent frustrations falling away, the further he got
from the submarine. He honestly enjoyed
spending time with the doctor. Well, as
long as Jamie wasn’t harassing him about health issues. Lee got a kick out of his occasionally
irreverent comments on what was going on around him. He had a knack for scoping out an issue and
targeting the main points of contention.
But he had subtle – and sometimes not so subtle – little ways of getting
his point across. Lee had been educated
and trained in what were most often very black and white methods. Unfortunately, especially as he became
involved with ONI, too many lines got rubbed into multi-shades of gray. Jamie had a way of combining the edges back
into forms that could be dealt with in a coherent fashion. And he didn’t always care which bureaucrat
got verbally flattened in the process.
Lee had come to depend on the doctor’s strong common sense. Jamie was frequently the calming effect Lee
needed to get his own world back into order.
Of course, most of that went unspoken – the two far more often engaged
in verbal battles of will. Lee grinned
broadly as that bit of pun flitted through his mind. He cocked an eyebrow at the doctor, inviting
him to expound on the comment that had started his bit of rumination.
Will wasn’t sure what had
triggered Lee’s slightly evil grin. But
he decided that it was at least better than most of the expressions on his face
the last week, and asked his question.
“We didn’t bring a co-pilot. Who
looks after FS1 while we play?”
“She looks after
herself.” Lee sent Will a broadening
grin and reached into an inside pocket of his jacket. “Another of Admiral Nelson’s new gadgets,” he
said, bringing out a cigarette-pack sized black box.
“Help,” Will muttered,
causing Lee to chuckle.
“Not to worry, Jamie. If it doesn’t work it’s me who gets to take
care of the problems.”
“And just what, pray tell, am
I going to be expected to rescue you from when whatever that is blows up in
your face?”
“Going to have to tell the
Admiral you don’t trust him.” Lee sent
Will another brilliant smile.
“Harrumph!” Will growled.
Lee all but giggled, however
briefly, before getting himself back under control. “This is a take-off from the magnetic
retrieval system we have aboard Seaview,” he started to explain as he tucked
the unit back into a pocket. “But it
assumes that FS1 is operational, as opposed to that system, and it’s tied into
the navigation computer and helm controls.”
He glanced over at Will, who nodded to show that he was following the
explanation. The system on board Seaview
was based on retrieving the little sub if it was damaged or non-operational for
some reason. “I pick a spot on the
bottom to safely park FS1,” Lee continued.
“I program it into the unit and the autopilot. We surface, in this case at the dock, and get
out, and the unit will send FS1 back to that spot. She’ll be in lockdown mode so even if someone
finds her they can’t get in.” Will
nodded. “Then when we’re ready to leave,
I bring her back to the dock and off we go.”
“And it’s been fully tested?
Lee sent Will a grin that,
while slightly sheepish, was also slightly mischievous. “Sort of,” he said with a shrug. “It works most of the time.”
“Terrific!”
“Like I said, Jamie, if it
messes up I’ll take care of it. Mostly,
the glitch has been in the retrieval part.
It has had a couple of other little problems, but nothing you need to
worry about. Especially this trip. I’ll park it fairly close in to land and if
it won’t come back I’ll just swim out and bring it back manually. You’ll stay all nice and dry.”
Will sent him a glare for the
teasing references to the fact that he didn’t like to dive. While he had to know how, to serve aboard a
submarine, he much preferred to only be underwater with said submarine safely
around him.
* * * *
Chip double-checked the
diving parameters with Chief Sharkey and then headed for the computer lab. Lt. Dawes was already there, as expected,
tweaking the system and setting it up for the next test. “Missed you at breakfast,” he tossed over his
shoulder.
“Ate early with the Admiral,”
Chip said quietly. He really didn’t want
to chit-chat, which was one reason he left the Wardroom as quickly as
politeness allowed so that he wouldn’t have to visit with Adam – or anyone else
– any more than he absolutely had to.
He’d far rather be in the Conn, where a grouchy exterior would have the
duty crew carefully staying out of his way and leaving him alone as much as
possible. Unfortunately he had tests to
monitor so he was stuck here.
“Ugh,” Dawes grunted. “Better you than me.” Chip didn’t respond, merely busied himself
comparing his notes to the equipment settings.
“So, which units does the illustrious Capt. Crane have today? The farthest out again?”
“He’s not diving today,” Chip
answered, again quietly.
Dawes grinned broadly. “Got set down for yesterday’s screw-up, did
he?”
Chip frowned. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he took
offense at Adam’s obvious delight.
“Double-check station six,” he growled.
“Your setting is off from what I have listed.”
Dawes sent him a long look
that Chip ignored, shrugged, and re-checked his settings. The entire day’s tests were conducted in
relative silence between the two.
* * * *
FS1’s arrival at the dock at
Hanga Roa drew a small audience of locals.
Will exited the top hatch and took the careful steps necessary to stand
safely on the dock, holding the backpacks while Lee closed the hatch and joined
him. Will nodded slightly when Lee used
his body to shield the new control unit from curious eyes as he sent the little
sub back under the water, giving the impression that someone was still aboard.
A member of the local
constabulary was standing at the end of the dock when they turned around. “Hope you brought your passport,” Lee teased
Will. Will frowned on general
principals, but in actual fact probably would have forgotten if Nelson hadn’t
mentioned it when he came into the Wardroom briefly that morning for
coffee. The officer was pleasant, merely
checked passports and military I.D. after their slightly unorthodox entry, and
welcomed them to Easter Island, which he referred to by its local name of
* * * *
Once Admiral Nelson finished
breakfast with Chip he carried a full mug of coffee back to his lab, puzzling
on recent events. He understood Chip’s
unease that morning, sure that Seaview’s XO was feeling self-conscious about
yesterday’s outburst. What worried
Nelson was, did Chip actually believe that accusation or was it merely a
moment’s bit of frustration? He was sure
that Chip had been totally torqued this morning to find Lee gone – Chip might
have a pretty good ‘poker face,’ but Nelson had no problem reading the anger
when he’d come down the spiral stairs.
However, what did that mean?
Well, he’d maneuvered Lee off the boat for the day to give him time to
find out. He still wasn’t quite sure
how. He did know that he owed Chip the
opportunity to get himself back under control.
Chip had been a major driving force behind Seaview’s success. Her first captain, John Phillips, had highly
valued Chip’s organizational skills. The
crew had come to depend on his calm in the face of whatever chaos happened to
be going on at the moment, at the same time maintaining optimum attention to
their duties so as not to set off the disciplinarian side of the Exec. Chip was never vindictive, and always
fair. But the crew had learned quickly
not to tick him off!
Nelson grinned to himself,
thinking about a few of Chip’s more eclectic solutions to the occasional
problems any crew of this size could find themselves in. Chip had an absolutely wicked sense of humor,
although for Seaview’s first year it was rarely seen unless you looked very
closely. Nelson remembered John walking
into the Wardroom one afternoon, barely able to contain his mirth. Seems one of the crew, fairly new to the
boat, had made the unfortunate mistake of being late for his shift in the
Yep, that’s Chip, Nelson now told himself, sipping his coffee. And on
top of everything else, he’d have already had his own count of what was stored
there, and woebetide if the crewman hadn’t matched Chip’s records.
Once Lee took over command of
the boat, and because of his years of friendship with Chip, Chip’s personality
became more evident as the two gently – and sometimes not so gently – harassed
each other. It absolutely never
interfered with the command structure of the boat. Well,
Nelson admitted with a small shudder, until
this cruise. But under Lee, Chip had
not only continued to be an exceptional Executive Officer, but became more and
more comfortable commanding Seaview when necessary. Chip always insisted, when the subject came
up, that he didn’t want a command of his own; that he was perfectly happy with
what he had. And Nelson knew that, at
least up until now, Chip meant it. But
if the rift that had developed between the two longtime friends couldn’t be
healed, all bets were off.
Nelson was not a stupid
man. He had every reason to believe that
part of Chip’s unease that morning was his conviction that if anybody was going
to leave Seaview it would be him. Chip
was perfectly aware that Nelson and Lee shared a very special relationship that
went beyond employer/employee to almost father/son. Nelson was never sure himself quite how to
describe it. And yet, he owed Chip a
strong sense of loyalty as well.
This is intolerable, he growled. Whatever was going
on, he had to find a way to straighten it out before it split his boat, and his
dreams for the future, irrevocably apart!
He swallowed the last of his coffee in one swallow, wished it was
something stronger, and stormed out of his lab.
* * * *
When Will forgot about what
had brought him to
It was hard to imagine that
the island had ever been covered with trees of any kind. The landscape was dominated by large
stretches of barren ground dotted with evidence of ancient lava flows. There was also evidence of major soil
erosion. Will was thankful for the jeep
as, except for the main roads right around Hanga Roa, most everything else was
a gravel track. Not that there was a lot
of traffic; never a high tourist destination, today they seemed to be virtually
alone. It was a bit spooky, although
Will was actually enjoying it. Sometimes
even Seaview’s great size could get a bit claustrophobic.
Besides the moai they passed
there were any number of stone buildings called tupa, or hare moa. The entrances were very low, requiring
crawling to get inside. Lee told Will
that human remains had been found in some, and the locals said that they were
the burial places of the ariki, the
“I thought that was what the
Ahu were used for, and what the moai represented.”
Lee shrugged. “I think a lot of things got scrambled during
the infighting between the various tribes which eventually brought down the
entire culture. Probably nobody will
ever know for sure. What is known, from
the various excavations that have been done, is sketchy at best.” Will nodded and they continued on.
Once at the bottom of the
volcano they parked, shouldered their backpacks, and headed up the narrow trail
to the outer rim. As Lee had warned it
was a fair hike. He’d sent Will another
soft grin as he lead the way up the trail, through foot high grasses and rocky
outcroppings that wound its way up the side of the volcano past scattered moai,
some upright and some on their sides.
Stopping only briefly at the outer rim to take drinks from their
canteens they continued down into the ancient crater, now surrounded by more
and more moai, many never finished being carved.
There was a bit of ‘once
you’ve seen one moai you’ve seen them all,’ so they didn’t spend a lot of time
before making their way to the one unique moai on the entire island. It was obviously ancient; many of its facial
features were worn away by weather and time.
But what made it so special was still obvious: arms at each side and,
below the torso, legs carved in a kneeling position. Will took several more pictures, from
different angles, before the pair made their way back to the jeep and continued
the drive around the island.
Their next stop was almost
back to Hanga Roa, at Tahai. Lee wanted
to show Will the Ahu there. It sat near
an ancient canoe ramp made of rounded beach stones and was thought to be among
the earliest of the ceremonial sites, dating back to approximately 690
A.D. Will found it amazing that the
island had been inhabited that far back.
He wasn’t sure why and mentioned it to Lee, who nodded.
“I think that, while we are
aware of the ancient civilizations, we most often think of those around the
Will sent Lee a quick
smile. “It’s a little hard visualizing
seventh century A.D. Polynesians setting out in their simple boats, traveling
this far into unknown waters.”
“People thought Christopher
Columbus was crazy, and that was eight hundred years later.”
“Ever wonder what we’ll be
like that far into the future, Skipper?” Will asked, suddenly thoughtful. He was instantly brought back to reality.
“No! Got enough trouble keeping track of the here
and now.” There was an ever so slight
edge to Lee’s voice. Will nodded again,
snapped a few pictures, and they walked back to the jeep.
Driving back through Hanga
Roa they continued this time all the way to the southernmost tip of the island,
to the ancient
Lee and Will climbed the
trail up to the top of the crater wall, and Will was almost overwhelmed by the
view. The bottom of the crater was
filled with small freshwater lakes and marshes.
The curvature of the earth as he looked out across endless miles of
ocean, balanced against the knife-edged circular crater wall, was beyond spectacular. He glanced at Lee, a look, he knew, of
wonderment on his face.
“Told you the views were cool
from up here,” Lee said nonchalantly, but his own face reflected the wonder of
the place as well. Belatedly, for until
now neither had been hungry, they found a spot to sit and enjoy the view while
they ate what Cookie had packed for them.
Will took one look at the bounty inside the backpacks and almost made a
crack about Cookie thinking Chip was with them, so much food was inside. Luckily he choked off the thought before he
actually said it out loud. So far Lee
was being quite amiable – for the most part.
Will had no wish to mess that up.
* * * *
Admiral Nelson was becoming
increasingly frustrated. He knew that
Will and his corpsmen had tried unsuccessfully to mine the crew for information
on what was causing the rift between Lee and Chip. Chief Sharkey, usually a wealth of
information – no matter that it tended to be a bit skewed – wasn’t much help
either. Nelson couldn’t yell too loudly
– the silence said volumes about the loyalty the entire crew felt for their
commanding officers and also each other.
But right now, when he needed information no matter how much of it was
idle gossip, it was driving him a little crazy.
At almost 0900, before the
divers were to go out for today’s tests, he was contemplating one of Lee’s
solutions to frustration – driving his fist into the nearest bulkhead. The only thing that stopped him was a call to
come to the Control Room. Hurrying down
the spiral stairs he glanced at Lt. James, who had the
Nelson’s frown turned
instantly sheepish. “Oops,” he muttered,
mostly to himself. “Tell me what
happened,” he said a bit louder.
“I had her when she left
here, sir. The Skipper radioed in that
everything was green across the board. I
knew that she’d be out of range, and that the Skipper wouldn’t be aboard for
most of the day. But I also knew that I
could send a burst and get a response from the automatic systems check. I thought that I’d just double-check before
your tests started, so that my signal wouldn’t mess anything up, and I can’t
get anything back.”
Nelson nodded. “I’m afraid that it could be my fault,” he
admitted. “I gave Lee a new piece of
equipment to check. It’s been working –
well, most of the time, anyway – in the lab, and I thought that this would be a
good time to give it an unofficial field test.
One of the problems I’ve been having with it is, when it’s on, it tends
to interfere with some of the other systems.
Thought that I had that part figured out and fixed.” He sent
“And I’m sure that he’ll call
in as soon as he gets back from exploring the island,” Nelson agreed. “But thanks for letting me know.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” As Nelson walked away,
His slight miscalculation
having defused – at least momentarily – his building frustration, Nelson went
back to prowling the boat. He ended up
down in the Missile Room just as the last of the divers were headed out to
place their sensors, and stayed to visit for a bit with Sharkey. Like the day before Sharkey had his headset
on so that he could respond if the divers needed anything, but the whole
conversations could be heard over the speaker system in the room. As all the divers reported in that they were
at their first assigned location there was an acknowledgement over the speakers
from Chip in the computer lab, followed by a comment in a different voice. “At least we don’t have to worry about your
illustrious captain messing things up today.”
Sharkey slammed his hand down on one of the switches to cut off the
sound to the speakers, but not before Nelson and the several crewmen scattered
around the room heard it all too clearly.
Nelson glared at Sharkey, who clicked a different switch. He also switched the speakers on again, in
deference to Nelson.
“Chief Sharkey to XO Morton,”
he said into his mic, all the while being held in Nelson’s hard glare.
“What is it, Chief?” Nelson read an air of disgust in Chip’s
voice.
“Ah, check you mic, sir. I think that it’s stuck open.”
There was a noise of some
sort, whatever it was definitely choked off, before Chip’s voice came back in a
more civilized tone. “Thanks,
Chief. Sorry about that.”
“No problem, sir,” Sharkey
answered blandly, but it was an effort considering the expression he was still
seeing on Admiral Nelson’s face.
Nelson was so mad he was all
but speechless. The voice had definitely
been that of Lt. Dawes. He was also
worried because Chip had apparently made no effort to defend Lee, lending
credence to yesterday’s outburst. Not
able to get out a coherent thought, Nelson turned on his heel and stomped out
of the Missile Room, slamming the hatch behind me.
His thoughts were so
overwhelming, trying to make sense out of total chaos, that he found himself in
the Control Room without really knowing how he got there. He glanced around, but thankfully all seemed
business as usual. He took a deep breath
and walked up to the chart table. “Looks
like everything’s under control here,” he forced himself to speak calmly to Lt.
James.
“Aye, sir,” James confirmed.
“I’ll be in my lab if you
need me,” was all Nelson could come up with.
He barely waited for a nod before heading up the spiral stairs.
* * * *
Once Lee and Will finished
eating, surrounded by the glorious view, they ambled back to the jeep and drove
closer to Orongo to look at the multitude of petroglyphs, most based on the
birdman culture that had replaced the building of the moai. Here there were more tourists, but not enough
to disturb the peace Will was finding the more he wandered around. Lee had explained earlier, when he was
talking about the egg-gathering ceremony, that the birdman culture had begun to
take over as more and more infighting phased out the building of the moai. And then it died out as well. Lack of trees for the birds to nest in
affected the frigate bird population, and over hunting depleted other
species. Lee told him that there was
some evidence that the two cultures had existed for a time together. In one of the houses in Orongo there was
found an 8-foot high moai complete with a loincloth base relief carved on it,
but superimposed over the body were birdman symbols.
“Or,” Will theorized, “as the
new culture took over, it was someone’s idea of a bit of revenge, or
one-upmanship, or whatever, to take one of the old symbols and turn it into
their own.”
Lee pointed an eyebrow at the
doctor. “Has anyone ever told you,
Jamie, that you have an evil streak?”
Will chuckled. “I suspect that it’s muttered behind my back
a great deal. Especially by you and
Chip.” Will could have kicked himself
into the next time zone when that reference to Chip slipped out as the grin on
Lee’s face instantly went hard. Damn! he told himself, and tried to
distract Lee by pointing out some especially interesting petroglyphs a bit
further along the small path they were following. With a shake of his head Lee allowed the
distraction. Will was still furious with
himself, so much so that he didn’t pay attention to where he was stepping. Without warning he found himself flat on his
backside as his foot slipped and he tumbled out of control to one side. A string of oaths, not totally silent,
slipped out and he looked up to find Lee grinning broadly. “What’s so funny?” he growled.
“I was going to ask if you
were okay, but obviously you’re just fine.”
Will was forced to grin. At least his boo-boo had distracted Lee from
his previous utterance. He reached out a
hand and Lee helped him off of the rocks and back to the trail. “Thank you,” he still said with a bit of a
mutter, and they continued walking.
They came up to a small group
of women doing pretty much what they were doing. Will buried a smirk as a couple of the
ladies, who appeared to be in their early to mid 40’s, seemed to think that the
scenery was somewhat better in the men’s direction than toward the
petroglyphs. But the thought was
abruptly choked off when there was an abbreviated squeal and one of the women,
who had wandered several feet off the trail, slipped off the rock she’d been
standing on and fell down between two others.
“Stay still,” came in Lee’s
Command tone as one of the women started to head toward her fallen friend. On the boat or not, his crew or not, all the
women stopped dead. Lee slipped off his
pack, which he handed to Will, and carefully started to make his way across the
slippery area. Will slipped off his own
pack, in which he had a first aid kit.
But from the bits of conversation it sounded like the woman was more
startled than injured. After his own
minor miscalculation he could totally understand that she was probably feeling
more embarrassed than anything.
The rest of the women kept
their comments to their friend kind and supportive, but Will still saw several
glances that had him suspecting they were wishing it was them that had slipped
and was gallantly being helped back to the path by the handsome stranger.
Will was surreptitiously
watching the ladies so he didn’t totally see what happened next. One second everything was fine. Lee had helped the woman to her feet and the
pair was making their way back to the path, the woman in the lead but with Lee
right behind, a hand offering her a balance point. Lee told him later that the woman had slipped
again just as Lee was taking a step.
She’d tried to use Lee to regain her balance and did actually make the
path, albeit a bit unsteadily.
Unfortunately, in gaining her balance she’d done just the opposite to
Lee. He fell forward and to the side
somewhat awkwardly, landing stomach first across one of the larger rocks. Will heard a whoosh of air but Lee instantly
pushed himself upright, sent Will a sheepish look, and returned to the path,
totally embarrassed by the multitude of gushing thanks he received from the
ladies. Will tried to keep another smirk
off his face when Lee looked his way, seemingly beseeching Will to help
him. But he knew that he’d failed when
Lee frowned, having finally sent the ladies on their way and coming to stand in
front of Will with his back to them.
“Sorry, Skipper,” Will
apologized, but he couldn’t say it without a slight chuckle. Lee’s expression went momentarily hard, but
he couldn’t hold it either and finally sent Will a quick, slightly sheepish
grin. He reached down for his pack and
tried to muffle a slight groan but wasn’t totally successful. “Skipper?” Will was immediately all business.
Lee held up one hand as he
straightened up with the pack in the other.
“Chill, Jamie. Landed a little
hard, but nothing damaged except my pride.”
He paused, and reached a hand into the inside pocket where Will had seen
him stash the little unit he’d used on FS1.
“Well, no damage to me, anyway.”
What came out of the pocket was a handful of mangled electrical
parts. “Oops,” he said with a sheepish
grin. “A swim back to FS1 for sure.”
Will decided to keep things
light. He suspected that there was a
pretty fair bruise to go along with the broken equipment, but now didn’t seem
the right moment to fuss. “Lets hope the
ladies are nowhere around when you strip down,” he teased his CO. He’d have a chance to visually inspect Lee’s
ribcage at that time. He watched as Lee
took from his pack one of the plastic bags Cookie had packed sandwiches in, and
emptied his pocketful of mechanical trash into it. He shrugged, shouldered his pack, and the two
headed back for the jeep.
* * * *
Admiral Nelson spent a
restless morning in his lab, unable to concentrate fully on any of the
experiments he had in progress. Finally,
shortly before 1300 hours, he headed for the Wardroom. Coming around a corner in the corridor he
caught the tail end of a low conversation between Lt.’s O’Brien and Bryson as
they exited the Wardroom and turned the other direction, not noticing Nelson.
“Man, I still think that it’s
crazy,” O’Brien told Bryson, very new to the boat and assigned to Engineering
under the senior lieutenant. “But at
least that makes more sense than what he told us.”
“Sorta explains why the
Skipper would disappear in the middle of the tests,” Bryson agreed.
“And just who told you what?”
Nelson demanded in one of his better blustering voices.
“Sir,” both lieutenants
nearly squeaked, turning and coming to attention.
Nelson wasn’t above taking
his frustration out on a couple of JOs.
“I’m waiting.” He stopped in
front of the two men, a menacing glare aimed at them.
“Ah,” O’Brien started. He’d been on board since Seaview was first
launched. “We were just talking,” he
tried to get he and Bryson off the hook.
Nelson wasn’t about to let
them escape. “And I want to know about
what,” he demanded again, his voice rising slightly.
Bryson visibly cringed. O’Brien held the Admiral’s gaze, took a deep
breath, and surrendered. ‘We were
talking about Mr. Morton leaving Seaview, sir,” he said softly.
“What?” Nelson all but
yelled. This time even O’Brien cringed
under Nelson’s glare. Behind the
lieutenants a couple of crewmen, headed down the corridor, decided to change
directions rather abruptly and disappeared back around the corner they’d just
come from.
“It’s what we heard, sir,”
O’Brien told his ticked off boss.
“From who?” was Nelson’s next
demand.
The hesitation was even
longer, and Nelson’s glare turned nasty.
“Lt. Dawes, sir,” O’Brien finally answered.
Nelson’s voice turned deadly
soft, and both O’Brien and Bryson turned a pasty shade of white. “And just what did Lt. Dawes say?”
O’Brien opened his mouth but
nothing came out. He gulped, and tried
again. “He told me that the Skipper was
going to ask you to fire Mr. Morton. For
insubordination, he said, but none of us could figure out who was involved,” he
added quickly, trying to get it out before Nelson keelhauled him, as he seemed
ready to do. “He told several others,
including Bryson, that Mr. Morton was going to resign his commission and join
him in setting up a computer consulting firm.
That Mr. Morton couldn’t stand working with the Skipper any
longer.” He nearly held his breath,
waiting for the explosion he felt sure was coming.
It didn’t come. Nelson held their gazes a bit longer before
finally taking his own huge breath.
“Dismissed,” he told them. “And,”
he added before the two could do more than nod, “not a word more – to anyone. Is that understood?” he added with the power
of four stars behind it.
“Yes, sir,” both men hurried
to affirm, and quickly got the heck away from Nelson before he had the
opportunity to change his mind.
So that’s the game, Nelson muttered, took a deep breath, and finally entered the
Wardroom. There wasn’t anyone else
there, but Cookie was hovering in the Galley near the serving counter between
there and the Wardroom. Nelson was sure
that he’d heard pretty much the whole conversation. And probably a good deal more, now that
Nelson thought about it. Nelson sent him
some of the glare he’d sent the two lieutenants. “And if he’s been telling lies to the JOs,
what has he been telling Chip and Lee?”
He said it mostly to himself but wasn’t surprised when Cookie answered.
“A lot more lies about how
the XO shouldn’t be wasting his time playing second fiddle to a jerk like the
Skipper.” Cookie’s voice was fairly
respectful. “And telling the Skipper
that he shouldn’t feel bad about not understanding anything about computers. That Mr. Morton understood he wasn’t that
smart about those kinds of things and had his back covered.” He snorted indelicately and turned back to a
pot on the stove.
Nelson almost smiled. Cookie was known for speaking his mind. Like the rest of the crew he wasn’t about to
spread scuttlebutt. But Nelson had asked
– sort of, anyway. He shook his
head. No wonder the boat was a powder
keg. But
why in blazes did it get this bad? He
thought back on the conversation in his office before the cruise started. There had been a bit of tension between Lee
and Chip over their perception of Dawes.
Apparently, for whatever reason, Dawes had managed to use that against
the two. He could have picked up
‘something’ from Chip during the classes they’d taken together. Chip was a gregarious person who was
comfortable enough in his friendship with Lee that he wasn’t afraid to take the
occasional potshot – all in a teasing, non-serious way. But Dawes had, apparently, found ways to take
Chip’s teasing and use it to turn the two against each other. That it had gotten this far out of hand
attested to Dawes’ deviousness. Well, it ends now, Nelson muttered to
himself. Or rather, when today’s tests are over and Lee returns, he
admitted. Now that he knew who’s head
needed to be dislocated from his body he could afford to spend the next couple
hours plotting just how to manage it.
* * * *
Will was starting to be a bit
concerned. Lee was a master at masking
signs of illness or injury, but once they’d dropped off the jeep and started
walking back to the dock there was an ever so slight tendency on Lee’s part to
protect what were apparently some tender ribs.
Will considered his options as they neared the dock. There was no way, even if Lee told him
exactly where FS1 was and how to get past the locks, that Will could pilot the
little craft back to pick up Lee.
“Skipper, how deep did you park the Flying Sub?”
Lee sent him a curious glance
but answered easily enough. “Not that
far,” he told Will. “About twenty
feet. I just wanted her deep enough that
she wasn’t easy to see from the surface.”
His expression added a definite, ‘why did you ask.’
Will shrugged. He knew Lee wouldn’t like being told that he
was acting a bit too tender to be diving.
At best Lee would ignore him. At
worst he’d end up ticked. Picking the
lesser of two evils – as Lee would see it – he gave Lee another shrug and a
slight nod. “Just doing my job,” he told
him with a grin. He knew that his bright
young captain would easily understand.
From Lee’s instant frown Will
was right on track. But happily Lee
chose to tease Will a bit about it. “You
volunteering to go bring her to the dock, Jamie?” His smile wasn’t quite as bright as a couple
he’d given Will today, letting Will know who was still in charge. But it still made Will try to hide a grin in
response.
“Not hardly, Skipper,” he
muttered on general principles.
“I’ll be fine, that short a
swim,” Lee assured him.
“I’ll hold you to that,” Will
answered sternly.
The dock was somewhat busier
now in late afternoon than it had been when they arrived. Lee glanced around and then continued walking
a bit further north, away from town and to a slightly more secluded bit of
coastline. They still weren’t totally
alone but when he glanced at Will, Will nodded.
Lee slipped off his pack and sat down, removing his shoes and socks and finally
his jacket and shirt. He glanced at Will
again, who was doing a quick visual inspection.
Will suspected that Lee would have some lovely bruises from his slight
altercation with the rocks, but no skin was broken that he could see. When he made no comment, Lee tucked the
clothes into his pack, which he then handed to Will. “See you back at the dock in a few.”
Will shrugged. “I’ll wait here until I see you surface.”
Lee again sent him a quick
grin, but nodded and carefully entered the water. He swam easily on the surface to where Will
assumed that he’d parked the little sub, and then disappeared. Will didn’t worry when Lee’s head popped back
up long enough to take a deep breath of air and disappear again. However, Will then kept expecting the little
yellow sub to surface so wasn’t totally prepared when Lee’s head came back
up. He kept quiet as Lee swam back
toward him, no matter his nerves being a bit on edge, until Lee was easing
himself back to where Will was standing.
“Skipper?” came out in a worried tone.
Lee sent him a sheepish
look. “The only thing I can figure,” he
said as he ran his hands through his hair, stripping out as much water as
possible, “when I broke the unit FS1 translated the loss of contact as a threat
and went into Intruder-proof mode.” He
lowered his head and looked at Will practically through his wet lashes. “Even my override codes wouldn’t work.”
“Oops,” Will said
softly. Before he could say anything
else, Lee shivered ever so slightly in the beginning-to-cool-down breeze. “Put your clothes back on.” He was relieved when Lee chose to nod instead
of get angry at the order in his voice.
As Lee dug shirt, jacket, and shoes and socks back out of his pack, Will
continued in a lighter tone. “Now
what? Do we have a way to contact
Seaview?” Will had no idea if Lee had a
radio unit in his pack.
“Sort of,” Lee told him. “We walk back to town, find a phone, and call
NIMR to relay a message.”
“Wring your slacks out first
or you’ll just get your shoes full of water from the drip.”
Lee sent him a frown. But he looked around, found only a few locals
anywhere close by and, before putting his shoes and socks back on, stripped off
his slacks, wrung as much water out of them as he could, and quickly finished
dressing. He was a little bedraggled
looking, and the whole scene got curious glances from the few onlookers. Will was thankful that all of the locals were
men. He was sure that Lee would have
ignored the order if any of them had been women, and especially if the ladies
that they’d run into earlier were close enough to have watched. The thought made Will grin broadly, and Lee
sent him a small glare. Will had to
immediately come up with something to cover the grin – he knew Lee wouldn’t
appreciate knowing what he’d actually been thinking. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve had to
call the folks to come get me because my car broke down,” he came up with.
Lee snorted. “A story there, Jamie?”
Will sent him a stern
look. “You and Chip have your stories, I
have mine.” Lee chuckled, even with the
reference to his current battle with the blond, and he sent Will little
sideways glances as he finished getting dressed. The pair once more reversed direction and
headed back to town.
* * * *
“Sorry, sir. And no, no problem, unless you count still
not getting anything from FS1.”
It was nearly 1600
hours. The test had run long and Nelson
had just come down to the Control Room from his lab. He was caught up with the projects he was
working on and had given Chip a quick call to meet him there when he was
through. His first stop had been to see
if there was any word from Lee. He’d
told Will to stay away as long as possible, but he knew his workaholic captain
only too well and was surprised that the pair hadn’t called in by now. He sent Sparks a nod. “Well, don’t worry about it. I did tell them to make a day of it.” He sent his radioman a bit of a sheepish
look. “Although, I wasn’t actually
expecting miracles.” From the quick grin
Chip stepped through the aft
hatch just then. He apparently didn’t
notice Nelson when he looked around the room before walking forward to the
chart table. Nelson wanted to wait now
until Lee was back and he could get both of his command officers into the
relative soundproofing of his office before straightening out the mess that
Dawes had created. For the moment he
needed to explain why FS1 wasn’t talking before Chip blamed that, too, on
Lee. He followed Chip forward and heard
him query James. Before the lieutenant
could do more than start to open his mouth, Nelson cleared his throat and both
men turned around.
“Chip, will you join me in
the Nose, please?” he said amiably, and continued forward. He didn’t look back, but blew out a breath
when he heard quiet footsteps following him.
Once at the windows, Seaview’s most notably unique feature, he turned
and faced the blond. “One of the things
Lee was doing today was testing a new piece of equipment for me. Neither of us,” he hurried on as Chip
frowned, “put it in the trip parameters in the log because it wasn’t actually
an official test. I’ve been having some
problems, and I asked him to play with it to see what happened.” As he continued to talk Chip lost most of his
hard look – thankfully.
“May I ask, sir, what kind of
test and what kind of problems?” Nelson
grinned ever so slightly at Chip’s carefully correct question, but also at the
subtle note of concern in his voice.
Both Chip and Lee had had to deal with a few too many of Nelson’s
‘problems.’
“In this case I think I
unintentionally fouled communications with FS1.
I expect Lee to be able to fix it once he and Will return to her. But that could be a few hours yet. For now, even though we know where she was
headed and it’s not that far,
“And you’re not concerned
that something else could be wrong?”
Nelson frowned. Leave it to Chip to think of that. It hadn’t even crossed his mind. But he shook his head. “This is one of the problems that I’ve been
having,” he admitted. “And I’m not
really expecting them back for awhile yet.
For now we’ll assume that it’s my fault.
If Lee hasn’t reported in by 1900 hours, time enough to revise our
options.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How’d the test go today?”
Nelson changed the subject.
“Good,” Chip told him, and
held out the clipboard that he’d carried into the
Nelson noted that Chip’s
voice didn’t sound overly enthusiastic, but merely accepted the clipboard and
briefly scanned through the half dozen reports it held. He sent Chip a small grin. “At least something is going right.” He suspected that the double meaning he’d
intended went right over Chip’s head. On the other hand, he changed his mind, I’ve seen that look of …whatever… on Chip’s
face before. And it’s not always been a
good thing. But Chip only nodded,
not saying anything further. Nelson
decided that he’d surrender while he was ahead – sort of. He nodded an easy dismissal and let Chip go
back to the
He was still there about
forty-five minutes later when he heard a call come in from Lt. Dawes, asking
Chip to meet him in the computer lab; that he had a further report from today’s
tests that he needed to discuss. Before
Chip could acknowledge the call Nelson interrupted. “Why don’t you have him bring it up here,” he
suggested. “He should have his report
for me ready by now as well, and I can hear what he’s changed his mind
about.” He raised an eyebrow when Chip
gave him a look of puzzlement, but went back to reading the last report while
Chip relayed the message. He didn’t look
up again until he felt a presence next to him and discovered Chip standing at
his shoulder, looking at him with that same puzzlement easy to read on his
face. “Yes, Chip?” He had no idea what was causing his XO’s
unusual reaction to such an innocent request.
Well, at least Nelson thought that it was innocent. He raised an eyebrow of his own.
“Sir?” Chip started, but then
seemed unsure how to continue.
Nelson, realizing that his XO
was extremely nervous about something, sent the blond a small smile and relaxed
lazily back into his chair, trying to put the younger man more at ease. “Spit it out, Chip.” Nelson kept his voice casual and increased
the grin ever so slightly.
“Adam told me that you didn’t
want anything from him until a final report when all of the tests were
done. I was just wondering why you’d
changed your mind.”
Nelson knew that his
expression went hard. “That man seems to
have all sorts of interesting interpretations of what he’s told,” he
muttered. He knew that it came out
harshly, but was interrupted from saying anything further by the intercom.
“Admiral,”
Nelson couldn’t help the soft
grin that crossed his face. He was
reminded of Chip’s nervousness as the blond frowned slightly and then ducked
his head. “Patch it up here,
“Aye, sir,” and Nelson was
connected with Jason Parquer in NIMR’s communications center.
“What have you got, Parquer?”
he asked, trying to convey a sense of calm to Chip at the same time.
“The Skipper sends his
regrets, sir, but he’s unable to return to Seaview as planned. He says that you’ll understand; to tell you
that not only did the program scramble communications again, but that he
accidentally broke the control unit and it put FS1 into total lockdown
mode. It won’t even let him back in.”
“Damn,” Nelson muttered
softly. “He called from Hanga Roa?”
“Yes, sir. He said that he and Doc would be waiting at
the dock…” There was a slight cough as
Parquer seemed to realize what he’d said.
Nelson grinned, noting that Chip did as well and sent him a nod. “Ah,” Parquer continued, “anyway, that they’d
be there whenever you could arrange to pick them up. He didn’t leave a call-back number.”
“Thank you, Parquer. We’ll take it from here.” He broke the connection and looked at
Chip. “I’m never going to hear the end
of this,” he admitted, and was glad to see Chip’s grin broaden slightly.
But steps on the spiral
stairs interrupted anything else he might have said, and Nelson immediately
switched gears. He abruptly stood up and
sent a glare at the lieutenant. Chip
took an unsure step backward, giving his suddenly ticked off boss a little more
room.
“Admiral, Chip.” Dawes said
as he stopped in front of them. He had
two sets of papers in his hand and he held one out to Nelson. “Your report, sir.”
“Thank you.” Nelson accepted the papers but never took his
hard look from Dawes’ face. While he
could have, at that moment, cheerfully tossed the man overboard and forgotten
where, he tried to keep himself under control.
Dawes apparently thought that
that was all Nelson wanted and turned to Chip.
“We can discuss this later,” he indicated the other set of papers, and
started to turn away.
“Lieutenant,” Nelson growled,
stopping Dawes. “You haven’t been dismissed.” Chip glanced between the two, puzzlement back
on his face. “I would very much like you
to explain why you told my XO that I’d said I didn’t need daily reports from you,
only a final report after all the tests were done.”
Nelson had to give the man an
A+ for coolness under pressure. He never
missed a beat. “I misunderstood that,”
he admitted, still a benign expression on his face.
Nelson’s voice got a little
softer. “And I suppose that you’re going
to say that Lt. O’Brien misunderstood when you told him that you heard Capt.
Crane say that he was going to ask me to fire Mr. Morton for undermining his
authority aboard Seaview.”
“What?” Chip yelled. He stiffened with rage, but a look from
Nelson made him hold his tongue.
“And Lt. Bryson misunderstood
when you told him that Mr. Morton was resigning his commission to join you in
setting up your own company.” There was
a sputter from Chip, and Dawes finally started to look uncertain. “And, of course,” Nelson’s voice turned
deadly soft, “you never would have told Capt. Crane that Mr. Morton said that
Lee’s computer skills were so limited that he couldn’t begin to understand the
tests, and not to pay any attention to him.”
He wasn’t sure what reaction
he was expecting from Dawes but he was totally unprepared for the one he got
from Chip. So fast that it was over
before he even realized what happened, Chip slugged Dawes in the face hard
enough to instantly collapse the trouble-making lieutenant in a pile on the
deck. There were sounds from the Control
Room but no one moved. Nelson saw Lt.
James send a look around the room, getting everyone focused back on their
equipment. But Nelson couldn’t quibble
about the continued little glances pointed forward. He reached for the mic as Chip seemed to realize
what he’d done.
“Admiral?”
Nelson merely held up a
hand. “We’ll get it all sorted out,” he
assured the blond. Into the mic he
called Chief Hauck. When the Master-At-Arms
answered he told him, “We’ve had a bit of an incident in the Observation Nose. I need Security to come forward,
please.” It couldn’t have been 30
seconds before Chief Hauck himself scurried through the aft hatch of the
“Chief,” Nelson addressed the
MAA as he came to a stop next to Chip, “Lt. Dawes will be spending the rest of
this cruise confined to his cabin. He
seems to be too unsteady on his feet to continue to roam the boat without the
threat of injuring himself further.”
Hauck glanced at Chip, who was holding his right hand cradled in his
left, and Nelson added, glaring at Dawes, “When the lieutenant stumbled, Mr.
Morton reached out a hand. It
unfortunately connected with Dawes’ chin.
If you need further witness statements for your report I’m sure that the
entire Duty Crew in the
Hauck kept a straight face
despite Chip’s snort. “Aye, aye,
sir. Should I have one of the corpsmen
certify that he’s safe to stay by himself?”
Even Nelson snorted. “By all means,” he told the Chief.
Hauck none too gently helped
Dawes to his feet, keeping a tight grip on the man’s upper arm. “Come along, sir,” he told the
lieutenant. His voice was deferential as
befitted addressing an officer, but there was no denying the determined
expression on his face “We’ll get you
all safely tucked into your cabin so nothing like this happens again.”
Once the two had disappeared
up the spiral stairs, Nelson turned to Chip.
“Do you need that looked at?” He
nodded to Chip’s hand.
The blond’s face turned a
couple of shades redder than it already was.
“No, sir.” He flexed the fingers
several times. Nelson could tell that it
hurt, but Chip didn’t seem to be in any great distress when he added, “its
fine, sir.”
He started to add something
else but Nelson raised a hand. He
suspected that Chip was going to try to apologize and Nelson had no intention
of letting him. In fact, Nelson had to
admit that Chip’s quick action had no doubt kept him from doing precisely the
same thing. “In that case,” he got back
to business, “I’d suggest that we do something about rescuing our stranded
CMO. He has, as you are well aware of,
spent the entire day with Lee. I suspect
that none of us will be hearing the end of that one for quite some time.” He chuckled softly and his eyes were
sparkling.
Chip didn’t smile but he did
nod rather enthusiastically. “Never have
liked Jamie’s retaliations,” he admitted.
Nelson shuddered somewhat
overdramatically and clapped a hand on Chip’s shoulder. “Good heavens, no,” he agreed, and they
headed for the chart table.
* * * *
Will glanced at Lee as the
pair sat on a somewhat flat rock near the pier.
Once they had returned from another trip into town Lee had gotten progressively
quieter. He’d tried to leave Will at the
dock while he went to make the call to NIMR, saying that Will had probably
walked enough for one day. But Will had
insisted that he was just fine, thank you, and returned Lee’s grin from the use
of that far too familiar line. “How long
do you think that we’ll have to wait?” he asked now. He really didn’t care but he decided that he
needed Lee to quit brooding and talk – about anything.
Lee shrugged. He’d drawn his legs up to his chest and had
his arms wrapped around them, his chin resting on one knee. “It’s too far to send a zodiac. They’ll have to come most of the way with
Seaview, and that means waiting until the tests are done for the day.” That said, he went back to staring out to
sea.
Will straightened ever so
slightly, and purposely put the lecturing tone in his voice that he knew would
grate on Lee’s nerves. “So, just what
are you blaming yourself for this time? The
Admiral already knew that his little experiment had problems. None of this is your fault.”
Lee sent him a look that
almost had a smile attached. “Depends on
which experiment you’re referring to – FS1, or sticking me with you for the
day.”
Will snorted. He should have known better than to think he
could get that one past Lee. But at
least he had lightened Lee’s mood, if only marginally. Or thought he had. All of a sudden he wasn’t so sure. He needed to keep going, to see what Lee
would do. “Both,” Will finally settled
on. He wasn’t overly happy with Lee’s
response – or lack thereof. Will took a
deep breath and tried the direct approach.
It hadn’t worked with Chip. And
Will suspected that not only wouldn’t it work with Lee, but that he’d be stuck
with the ticked off version of his CO until their rescue. Oh
well, he told himself. It’s not like I haven’t ticked him off
before. A small smile touched his
mouth. And I seriously doubt that it
will be the last. “What’s going on,
Skipper?” Lee didn’t even grace him with
a glance so Will dug himself a little deeper into the hole he figured he was
making. “Chip has seriously yanked your
chain lots of times. What’s different
about this one?”
He thought for a bit that Lee
was going to just ignore him. On a scale
of one to ten it sure beat having Lee totally ticked. But there was finally an answer, almost too
soft for Will to hear. “He’s always done
it face to face.” Lee never turned,
saying it mostly to the expanse of ocean in front of him. “He’s never slammed me behind my back. At least,” Lee admitted miserably with a long
sigh, “not that I know of.”
Will pondered that one for
awhile. “And how do you know that he did
it this time?”
Again there was a long
pause. “Dawes told me.”
“Did you ask Chip about
it?” Lee shrugged, still not looking at
Will. “So, you believed Dawes, someone
you already didn’t like, and thought the worst about your best friend.” Will knew that it came out badly. He couldn’t quite believe what he’d just
heard.
And Lee took it just as
badly. “So I should ignore the fact that
the instant Dawes shows up Chip starts hanging around him every spare minute he
has,” came out in as deadly a voice as Will had ever heard Lee use.
“So, you’re jealous?” Will shook his head. This whole conversation wasn’t making much
sense. “Don’t hit?” he ordered, as Lee’s
hand closest to Will formed a fist and threatened to make a dent in the solid
rock under it. “And if Dawes was telling
you things, what do you suppose he was saying to Chip?”
At that Lee finally looked at
him. Will wasn’t overly thrilled with the
anger that he could so easily read on the younger man’s face. At least he could be pretty sure that it
wasn’t directed at him so he merely maintained a query on his own face, trying
to be as open with Lee as he could.
Lee eventually went back to
staring at the ocean but the fist he’d made never loosened. Finally there was a growl of something that
sounded like, “I’ll kill him.”
“Which one,” came out before
Will could stop it.
The glare Lee sent him would
have made one of Chip’s rather patented best pale by comparison. “He baited
us,” came out in the earlier hard, angry voice.
“And apparently did an
excellent job of it,” Will agreed. Will
was actually grateful when Lee chose not to respond, merely going back to his
original position of chin on knee. The
fist still didn’t relax but the tension in Lee’s shoulders did, if only
marginally.
Will had no idea of what was
going to happen once they returned to Seaview.
But anything had to be better than the last ten days. Well, he
admitted, sort of. Let’s just hope that it all gets sorted out
before anyone says something that they can’t take back. He thought that he knew both Lee and Chip
well enough that they could deal with matters and come out the stronger for
it. He hoped that he was right. Especially as he saw Lee sit up straight, and
looked where Lee was looking. Seaview
was slowly surfacing about five hundred yards off the coastline. The pair sat silently watching as crewmen
appeared on her deck and a zodiac was launched.
* * * *
Admiral Nelson sat quietly on
the open bench next to Chip while senior rating Kowalski piloted the zodiac
toward land. He’d considered leaving his
XO on board but decided that might not be the best way to handle things. The crew had already been privy to way too much
tension between the two senior officers and he was sure that word had spread
like wildfire – no matter how quietly it was done – about what had transpired
earlier in the Observation Nose. Best to
let Lee and Chip get things straightened out away from any more prying
eyes. Kowalski was chosen to handle the
zodiac duties precisely because he would keep his mouth shut.
On Nelson’s lap he held a
small box with several electronic devises in it. He was hoping that one of them would trigger
FS1’s internal security system into normal mode so that they could get back
in. He wasn’t sure that he could get
Seaview close enough to allow the Magnetic Retrieval System to reach her. Always
assuming that that would even work, as badly as I’ve apparently scrambled
things. He half-grinned to – and at -
himself. He was perfectly happy taking
the blame for the problems. It wouldn’t
be the first time. An open smile
appeared as he admitted, And it probably
won’t be the last. Chip noticed the
smile and sent him a raised eyebrow.
Nelson indicated the box. “Wish
me luck,” he told his XO.
Chip cringed. “Sorry, but I’m more worried about what I say to him.” He nodded toward the shoreline, where they could see that both Lee and Will had stood up and were moving down to the dock.
“We’ll get it sorted out,”
Nelson assured him.
“Before or after he beheads
me,” Chip muttered miserably.
Nelson couldn’t help the soft
chuckle that escaped. “I’m more
concerned about keeping him from beheading Lt. Dawes on the trip home.” His voice got firm. “Or who’s going to keep me from doing it,” he
added with a growl. It finally caused
Chip to send him a short smile.
Nothing more was said until
they nosed into the dock. Chip tossed
the tether rope to a waiting Lee, and he and Nelson quickly jumped out right
behind. All four men started to talk at
the same time, each voice gradually getting louder as the other three refused
to quit, until a sharp whistle pierced the cacophony. “Ten-hut,” Nelson ordered firmly, glaring at
the others. “As ranking officer here I
get first crack.” There was a snort from
Will but both Chip and Lee straightened up, squared their shoulders, and faced
him. “Thank you,” Nelson’s voice
softened. As he started to explain he
saw small nods from both Lee and Will as Chip’s expression went hard
again. “You knew?” Nelson asked Lee.
“Finally started putting the
pieces together a little while ago,” Lee admitted, and turned to Chip. “Should have figured it out long before
that,” he told his friend miserably. “Sorry.”
“You’re sorry,” Chip’s voice
was also filled with regret. “I feel
like the lowest form of scum that I actually believed what he was saying.”
“When I get my hands on
that…” Lee started to growl.
“Already did,” Chip
interrupted and held up his right hand, which was starting to sport some lovely
bruises.
“You hit him?” Lee was incredulous. “Striking a fellow officer, no matter the
provocation…”
Once more he was cut off,
this time by Nelson. “Dawes slipped and
Chip’s fist just happened to catch him rather forcefully on the jaw. Everyone in the
Lee sent Chip a raised
eyebrow and the blond shrugged, a suddenly impish grin on his face. “It was an accident,” he said softly, the old
line causing snorted smiles from the others.
Will walked the couple steps
needed to stand next to Chip. “I hope
that you had that looked at,” he tried to growl. But it didn’t quite come out that way around
the slight smirk on his face.
They got back to business as
steps behind them turned out to belong to the same local police officer that
had greeted Lee and Will that morning.
The man checked both Chip’s and Nelson’s I.D.’s – he wasn’t overly happy
that Kowalski had nothing on him, but accepted Nelson’s smiled comment of,
“Well, he actually hasn’t set foot on the island,” as the seaman had stayed in
the zodiac. He did keep a quiet watch from
a few feet off the dock as Nelson puttered with his collection of gadgets.
Chip cut off a sound of some
sort as Lee once more stripped down to his slacks in preparation to go check
FS1 again to see if he could now get in.
“That’s sort of how the original control unit got broken,” Lee explained
the bruising on his stomach and side. He
shot a look at Will, practically defying the doctor to explain exactly what had
happened. Will’s smirk grew but he
nodded and kept quiet. Lee dove into the
water while the others waited.
Thankfully, FS1 bobbed up not long after Lee went under the surface.
Nelson untied the zodiac and
sent Kowalski back to Seaview. He let
out a huge breath of air as Lee nosed the little yellow craft up to the place
Kowalski had just vacated. He sent Will
a look and got a nod in return. It was
going to be so nice to have everything back under control. Or, he admitted silently, as much
as it ever is. Rarely a dull
moment. He buried a grin as he
climbed aboard FS1. It sure keeps
life interesting.