When the Recovery arrived at New Atlantis, it did not quite look like
the pristine jewel it had last time they pulled into port here. There was
a considerable amount of oil in the water. Parts of the outer ring were missing.
One of the sea walks had come loose and hung limp and useless connecting
the outer ring to nothing at all. The seafloor was littered with boxes, pieces
of machinery and unused vehicles. One of the powerhouses had blown up. Only
emergency lighting was in evidence. The whole place looked eerie and deserted.
"No one is answering our hail, sir," Fredricks reported.
"Well, hopefully they are all in shelterpods," Hudson commented. "Alright,
people. We have work to do. Fred, you're in Transport 3. Take Katie with
you and show her what we do. Michaels take 2 and Mahoney take 4. We'll leave
1 in reserve. Morgan--" He turned around to a young man with almost shoulder
length blond hair. An unruly thatch of it was hanging in his face. He accompanied
Morgan's orders with signs. Everyone in submarine school had to learn signs
for silent running so it took Katie a minute to realize that Morgan was deaf.
"Hop on the HR probe and check out that outer ring. It looks real unstable
so I'm not sending anyone in there unless I know there are victims there."
Morgan scooted into the seat and donned the goggles and gloves with an ease
of familiarity.
"I thought you said no one in your crew could use this," Katie accused.
"I lied. Get going. Fredricks won't wait for you."
Katie ran after Fredricks. She followed her onto the largest of
Recovery's transports and up to the cockpit. "Is he always so
manipulative?" she asked sliding into the co-pilot's seat.
"Only when he wants something. Strap in." Fredricks turned her head and called
over her shoulder. "Ready med-team?"
"Go for it," came the reply. Katie noticed there was a decided lack of military
decorum on this boat despite Hudson's coming off like Joe Military. His crew
seemed to be made up of misfits.
Fredricks eased the transport away from Recovery.
Michaels' voice came over the intercom. "Mahoney, you take the outer ring.
There's less likely to be any women there. An ugly guy like yourself would
scare 'um to death. Women are more likely to be in the hub so I'll take that.
Fredricks you take the inner ring."
"Hub looks secure, Michaels. Don't you be rescuing anybody that doesn't need
it," Fredricks cautioned as she eased the large transport toward the inner
ring. "Only reason he's mission specialist is because he's old," Fredricks
told Katie.
"I heard that, Fred."
"Well, it's true. Michaels is retiring this month. I hope we get a young,
good looking
X O."
"Some things grow better with age, Fred," Micheals teased.
Katie could not believe that the X O and a subordinate were tossing banter
like this around on the radio. The sexual innuendo was obvious. Fredricks
was not angry or insulted.
"Only in your imagination, Michaels," Fredricks was undaunted.
"You two talkin or workin?" Mahoney piped up.
Katie just shook her head. She was sure this conversation could be monitored
on the Recovery. This sort of disrespect for superior officers and
for women would have warranted them both getting written up on
seaQuest. At least, she would have written them up. She had
to force herself to put these thoughts aside and listen to Fredricks as she
pointed to the shelterpods.
"These are the standard shelterpods. All the colonies use them, as do most
commercial endeavors. They can support life for up to 60 hours depending
on how many victims are inside. If that red light is on it means the hatch
door is closed at the other end and there's probably somebody inside. This
transport has a universal hatch like the shuttles on seaQuest so we
can dock with anything. The backs of those pods are actually docking ports.
Let's line up with this mama and see what's inside. You wanna go give 'um
a hand in the back. It's funny people can get this far and then lose it when
help's in sight. This is when they are most apt to panic."
"I'll go see what I can do." Katie unstrapped herself and went into the back
of the transport where two crewmen were securing the docking collar. When
the seal was tight they opened the hatch. An airlock was in place and they
broke the seal on the shelter pod. Katie pulled the pod hatch opened. "Everybody
alright in here?"
"Captain Hitchcock!"
"Penelope? Are you alright? Anybody hurt?"
"Nobody is hurt," a shopkeeper told her.
"Good. One at a time, crawl through here. That's right. Easy there." Katie
helped the survivors into the air lock and someone else helped them onto
the transport. She found she could easily commiserate with these people.
She had no trouble being patient and helpful with them. She remembered what
it had been like being stuck on that lifeboat.
Kristin Westphalen had done the unthinkable. She had given herself over
to the fury and fright and frustration that had washed over her and had become
hysterical. She now sat sobbing against Nathan Bridger's chest. He had his
arms around her and was trying to console her. She was calming now and beginning
to feel like a damn fool.
"You can't give up on your dream," he was saying. "New Atlantis was working.
Let it happen. Despite Rupert Channing's ulterior motives, what you built
and what it stood for can still work."
"It's over, Nathan. We don't even know if anything's left standing. Rupert
is surely dead. We don't know how many others."
"Rupert chose to die to save this place. It was worth that much to him. Everyone
that came here felt the same way. If you give up now they will all have died
in vain. What you built once can be rebuilt. Look at the seaQuest.
It's back and better than ever. You can do the same thing. The world needs
this place. We both know that."
Crocker had been listening at the door with his stethoscope-like device.
He was mainly doing it to give Bridger and Westphalen some privacy. He didn't
deal well with crying women. When she seemed calmer he turned around to them.
"I don't hear anything that sounds like water. Also I can still hear the
emergency announcements going so chances are life support is still intact.
You want me to chance opening the hatch and havin' a looksee?"
"Okay," Bridger concurred. "I'd better go help him in case he has to reseal
that hatch in a hurry," he told Kristin.
She nodded. Part of her was eager to see what was happening. Part of her
dreaded seeing what had happened to her pride and joy.
Crocker cracked the hatch. Neither water nor bad air flooded the chamber.
Indicators on the wall registered no difference in oxygen levels.
"So far so good," Crocker said hopefully and pulled the hatch all the way
open.
The three tentatively left the shelter pod and surveyed the damage.
"It doesn't look like any of this was caused by water," Crocker said. "I
don't smell any sea water."
There were a few signs knocked down. Some cracked and broken windows on a
few of the shops. Some of the displays were in a disarray. Benches and trash
cans were knocked over. There were some downed tree branches lying on the
street. It looked like the aftermath of a storm not the total destruction
Kristin had expected. Most of the damage looked cosmetic in nature. The structure
of New Atlantis had held!
They made their way into the residential section. They came to the shelter
there and released the occupants. It was the GELFs. They proved to be a great
help in clearing away debris and helping free other survivors.
Kristin and Anna treated the injured. All the injuries appeared minor.
Ortiz and Henderson exchanged curious glances and O'Neill worked furiously
on his note pad.
"Okay," O'Neill finally said. His voice did not sound like his own. It sounded
more like the narrator of a B movie. It made them think of Sam Spade. He
turned the pad around so they could see what he had drawn. It was a cartoon
of a manta ray wearing a fedora and smoking a cigar.
"Manta Mike's the name and cruisin' the seven seas is the game. I'd been
on the case for a few days now and not havin' any luck. I hadn't seen so
much as a flirtatious squid to say nothin' of a mermaid, in all that time.
I was beginning to get nervous. Wonder what it was all for. Thoughts of chuckin'
it all and beachin myself began to creep into my mind. Snap out of it, kid,
I tol' myself. Don't give up. Somethin'll come along. It always does. But
I gotta admit, I was losin' hope. Then - all at once. I seen her. The light
of my life! Jewel of the seven seas!"
He showed them another cartoon of Manta Mike with his fedora popped off his
head. His cigar was out of his mouth. His eyeballs were bugging out. His
heart pounded out of his chest. The words HUBBA HUBBA HUBBA were in front
of him. The next page revealed the cartoon of a WSKRS with lines radiating
from it to indicate it was shining.
"I knew I had to have her. Oh, she played hard to get at first, like any
dame. I followed her for a while. She zigged this way and then that. She
was drivin' me wild. Then finally, I couldn't wait another minute and I jumped
her bones!"
The next cartoon showed the manta and the WSKRS as one. Both Henderson and
Ortiz were laughing so hard tears were streaming down their cheeks but the
performance continued.
"Dis was da kinda dame dat comes along once in a lifetime. I didn't care
about anything in the world but her. Sure, I knew she might have some other
guy somewhere. But I knew she was just stringin' him alone. This doll was
mine."
He next showed them a cartoon of Ortiz sitting next to a console with stacks
of electronics parts all around him. His hair was a wild collection of springs
and he looked to be at a total loss.
"That's exactly what you looked like," Henderson giggled.
"Was not," Ortiz argued smoothing his hair down so it did not look like springs.
"The hot lovemaking lasted for days," Manta Mike continued, "and it ended
as it always inevitably does."
They had finally had to shut the WSKRS down to make the Manta lose interest.
"I was too much for her. I'd killed her. But hell, she'd died happy. So I
went back to doin what I do. Manta Mike cruisin' the seven seas - for babes."
By this time Henderson and Ortiz were falling over each other with laughter.
"I didn't know you were a closet cartoonist," Ortiz said when he was able
to speak.
"I didn't know you were so raunchy." Henderson looked more interested than
turned off by this development.
"Can I see that?" Ortiz pointed to the notebook.
"You can have it, kid," Manta Mike told him. "Go ahead, knock yerself out."
"Thanks," Ortiz seemed delighted by the gift and flipped through the pages
of drawings.
"You did it!" Henderson said quietly to O'Neill. "You got him out of his
funk."
"Yeah, well, " Manta Mike said. "Communications is my game, Sweetheart."
Henderson gave him a kiss. The kind of kiss Manta Mike would have appreciated.
Apparently O'Neill appreciated it also. Neither one of them heard any activity
at the rear hatch or saw Hitchcock poke her head in and gape at them.
"Katie!" Ortiz greeted happily. "Oh, don't mind them. They do that all the
time when they think no one is looking."
Only then did the two jr. officers seem to come to.
"They sure look cute when they blush, don't they?" Ortiz continued to tease
his friends.
"I hate to break anything up," Katie tried not to smile. O'Neill was not
the one of these two guys she would have expected to catch in a liplock.
"But we do have other pods to check. Unless you'd like us to come back for
you," she teased.
"No, uh we'll go now," O'Neill fumbled for words.
"You sure? Because I could go now and ...." Ortiz offered "innocently",
really enjoying seeing them on the spot.
O'Neill and Henderson looked at each other.
"Okay," they both said in unison and pushed Ortiz into the airlock.
"Knock before you open this again," Henderson warned pulling the hatch closed.
Fredricks got word that the inner ring had been declared safe and the pods
would be released from the inside. The inner ring did not have docking facilities
for anything as big as the seaQuest or the Recovery but shuttles
and transports could dock there. Fredricks discharged her passengers and
Katie at the docking bay and returned to Recovery.
Captain Bridger and Dr. Westphalen were in this area. The doctor was busy
with the injured. Bridger felt like a fifth wheel. He wandered over to the
people that got off the transport. Ortiz and Dagwood approached him.
"Captain," Ortiz said, "if you don't mind, I think I'll just take my home
leave when it comes up in normal rotation."
"I don't mind. Are you sure you are feeling alright?"
"Yes sir. I know where I belong," he said quietly.
Bridger understood. He'd come to have the very same feeling.
"Captain," Dagwood began miserably.
"What's the matter, Dagwood?" Bridger turned his attention to Dagwood who
seemed to be very upset.
"I want to
apologize," Dagwood kept his eyes lowered.
"What for?"
"This is all my fault."
"What is?"
"All this. I did it."
"How did you do it?"
"Well, Lucas and Tony said that when you kiss a girl the Earth moves and
well I did and I promise I'll never do it again." Dagwood was completely
sincere. It was a monumental effort on the parts of both Bridger and Ortiz
not to laugh at him.
"You didn't cause this, Dagwood," Bridger was finally able to say. "It was
some explosives and an illegal oil drilling operation. It had nothing to
do with - anything you did."
"Really!!" Dagwood's face lit up. "Then I don't have to give up kissing?!
Because I really like it!"
"As long as you're on leave, go ahead," Bridger could hardly say with a straight
face.
"Thank you, Captain!" Dagwood hugged him then ran off to find Penelope. The
GELFs were going to meet with Captain Hitchcock but he was pretty sure that
Penelope would rather kiss too.
"Must have been some kiss," Bridger commented to Ortiz who was busy wondering
what kind of natural disaster O'Neill and Henderson might be causing.
Kreig and Tyler arrived hand in hand looking like they had been imbibing
in some wine and a little Earth moving of their own.
Bridger looked out as the seaQuest pulled into view. Her beauty took
his breath away as it always did. She looked completely unharmed. Ford had
gotten her away in time. His eyes fell on the rubble that had been the docking
area of the outer ring. No boat that had been tethered there could have escaped
extensive damage.
"Where's Junior?" Ortiz demanded.
Bridger strained to see through the merky oil filled water. Sure enough,
only two WSKRS bobbed along with the boat. "You can tell them apart from
this distance?"
"Of course." Ortiz seemed to think it odd that he couldn't.
As they watched a shuttle left seaQuest and came and docked here.
Lt Shan and CC disembarked and disappeared into the crowd. A very disturbed
Lucas looked around and when he spotted them came up at a run.
"Captain,"
he choked. Tears burned at his eyes but he fought to control his voice. "I've
checked all the New Atlantis survivor check-in lists. I looked all over the
boat. No one knows where Tony is. I can't find Darwin either."
"Maybe they were out swimming," Bridger suggested hopefully. Their eyes were
suddenly drawn to the newly silt covered debris field that was strewn across
the ocean floor. Any one of those lumps could be a body.
"I can search for them with the WSKRS," Ortiz volunteered.
"Good idea," Bridger said looking around. "Where's Shan gotten to?"
"Need a pilot?" Katie asked.
"You're on," Bridger told her and the four of them ran to the shuttle.
Soon they were bursting onto the bridge of seaQuest. Their attention
was grabbed by Ford who was slouched in the Captain's chair. His medication
had worn off. Lt. Albright stood over him.
"Commander, you have GOT to come to med bay for treatment." She was exasperated.
"Not till I'm relieved," Ford mumbled.
"You're relieved," Bridger told him. "What's wrong?"
"He appears to have a broken wrist, a mild concussion and a very thick skull."
"That last one is a prerequisite for command," Bridger admitted.
Ortiz walked up to Brody who was wearing med bay pajamas. "You're out of
uniform," he teased.
"Well, you know what it's like when you're suddenly dragged out of bed for
some fool reason or other," Brody laughed.
Then Ortiz' eyes fell on Lucas. He went over to his sensor station. After
a quick check he asked, "Why is Junior on the surface?"
"I couldn't get it down," Ford admitted miserably. "I keyed the recall codes
but it didn't respond."
"He didn't hear you. When they are on the surface, you have to piggy back
the signal off the transponders of one of the others."
"It doesn't say that in the manual." Ford had checked.
"Well, I sorta made a few adjustments to get more distance outta them," Ortiz
admitted somewhat sheepishly. He was about to begin a lengthy explanation
but while he had been talking he was reviewing the data the WSKRS were feeding
to the boat. "Hey look!" He put Junior's feed up on the main vidscreen.
Darwin was at the surface. Tony was with him but he was draped over the dolphin
as if unable to stay afloat on his own. Both were covered with oil.
"He looks hurt," Lucas stated.
"Call over to the Recovery and get them to send someone after him,"
Katie suggested. "Their transports are much faster than your shuttles."
"Not faster than the Stinger," Bridger reminded her.
Lucas and Katie looked at each other. "Come on," Lucas called. "You can drive.
I'm gonna get a tank and a spare aqualung for Darwin." They both took off
at a run for sea deck.
Ortiz sent Loner to the surface to let them know help was on the way.
The Stinger broke the surface six feet from the two WSKRS. Lucas had already
donned the scuba tank. He slipped the vocorder strap onto his wrist and jumped
into the water. He reached them in three strokes. Tony appeared to be dozing.
"Tony sick," Darwin told him. "Sticky black water bad."
"Yes, Darwin, it's very bad."
Tony stirred at the sound of his voice. "Luke?"
"It's me, Tony," Lucas said kindly. "You sure are a mess." He gently tried
to wash some of the oil away.
"What can I say? I always did have a problem with oily skin," Tony quipped.
"You should
see a dermatologist," Lucas advised. "How about a lift back to
seaQuest?"
"In your hot rod? Sure, why not?"
Lucas carefully towed him over to the Stinger. Katie leaned out to help get
him onboard.
"Lucas, you didn't tell me that ride included a beautiful woman," Tony flirted.
"Captain Hitchcock, I'd like you to meet Seaman Tony Piccolo."
"Captain?! I see the brig in my future," Tony noted glumly.
"I think we can overlook it this time," Katie said. "Since you are obviously
delirious."
"He's always delirious," Lucas told her as he grabbed the spare aqualung
for Darwin. He put it on him and washed off as much of the oil as he could.
"Lucas play?" Darwin asked hopefully.
"Right after we get back to seaQuest and get Tony to med bay," he
promised.
"Okey dokey," Darwin said and dove beneath the waves.
Lucas swam back to the Stinger and climbed in. "We'll have ya back in no
time," he told Tony
"No need to hurry on my account. I was on my way to a date when all this
happened. Now I've gone and stood up a redhead. It doesn't do to stand up
redheads," Tony remarked.
"I think under the circumstances she'll understand," Katie told him.
"Tell me her name. I'll go explain for you," Lucas offered.
"Fat chance," Tony spat. "I saw her first. You go find your own girl!"
To be continued......
Screen captures courtesy Patt. Be sure to check out her great website seaQuest screen captures & sound files