The Hand of Wrath, chapter 2 [PG-13, seaQuest, Bridger/Westphalen, WIP]
Chapter two is now available for your reading pleasure! :) As before, if you're just getting here, best to read the chapters in order:
index post containing chapter list
Chapter 2 ~ Deconstruct
"Charlotte Barrett." Ensign Keith Stayton read off the paperwork that was handed to him by the young, blond woman that had just stepped aboard seaQuest. He flipped through them one-handed, using the other to enter the necessary information into his console. "Majoring in marine chemistry and completing a thesis on glaciology. So you're a grad student, huh?"
"That's right."
"Hoo, I bet Doc Westphalen is chomping at the bit to get her hands on this one," snickered Seaman Dominic Balducci. "Even if it's just a student."
"I know, right?" Stayton replied.
"Excuse me? I am not an 'it'." Charlotte's eyes narrowed, and she looked prepared to say more when a new voice shouted over top of hers.
"Balducci! Stayton!" Both men snapped to attention as a scowling Chief Crocker came up behind them.
"Sir!" they chorused.
"Last time I checked, 'it' was used to refer to inanimate objects, not new crewmembers." Crocker came around the side of the table and stared both of the younger men down. "Now you apologize to this young lady immediately and finish processing for her. Understood?"
The two hurriedly finished checking the paperwork and mumbled their apologies after Balducci presented Charlotte with her new ID card.
"Damn ill-mannered pups," Crocker muttered under his breath. He looked to Charlotte, who was slinging her tote bag back over her shoulder. "Right sorry about that, miss. Some of these kids don't use the common sense God gave them. I'm Crocker, chief of security, and you are...?"
"Charlotte Barrett. But you can call me Charli." She offered him her hand, and he shook it.
"Charli, it is, then. Welcome aboard. If you need any help learning your way around, just ask." He gave her a last smile before turning back to supervise the check-ins.
Charli smiled faintly as she took the stairwell up to C deck. Finding her assigned quarters was easy and she was glad to see that she had been given a single occupancy. She valued her privacy, and it would be much easier to maintain that without a roommate in the way.
After unpacking, she sat down at her console, logged herself into the communications system and sent a quick message:
Cousin,
Got safely onboard the seaQuest. Met the security chief...a nice guy. Almost too nice, if you know what I mean. We're shipping out sometime tonight. I heard talk that we may be heading north, so if I'm nearby and we dock for a time, I'll let you know.
C
(*)
the next morning
Charli Barrett stepped through the entrance into sea deck and had her first good look around. It seemed to be a wide open space, with the entrance to the science labs on one side while the other was taken up by a good-sized pool. A thick metal door marked "Moon Pool" and imprinted with various warnings and instructions was on the far wall. Everyone knew about seaQuest's Navy-trained dolphin, and this was obviously his accommodations, along with the tubing she'd seen high up on the corridor walls that gave him shipwide access. As she watched, a sleek gray shape crossed the pool and came up to the edge, where Kristin Westphalen was waiting for him. Charli couldn't hear what she was saying to the animal, since the doctor's words mixed with the electronic-sounding chatter from the vocoder and the natural clicks and whistles.
"New person. Who is...new person?"
Charli's eyes widened a fraction when she realized that the dolphin was actually referring to her. The doctor looked up and their eyes met.
"Ah, you must be my grad student." Standing up straight, Kristin offered Charli a welcoming smile as she crossed the deck and met her halfway. "Charlotte, isn't it?"
Charli nodded. "Call me Charli, please. It's nice to meet you, Doctor."
"Oh, you can call me Kristin if you wish. We don't really stand on formality around here."
"That may take some getting used to, but all right," Charli smiled.
"Doctor Kristin...who is new person?"
"My, you are impatient this morning, Darwin." Kristin's dark eyes glimmered with amusement as she returned to sit on the edge of the pool. She rubbed Darwin's head gently, but his eye was fixed on the human he did not recognize. "Darwin, this is Charli."
Darwin whistled twice and bobbed his head. "Charli," the vocoder voice responded.
"It's nice to meet you too, Darwin. Can I pet him? I mean, is he okay with strangers doing that?" When Kristin nodded, Charli sat down on the edge and reached out. The dolphin butted the side of his head against the offered hand.
"Charli rub." The electronic voice sounded almost gleeful.
"You'll find out that Darwin doesn't consider anyone friendly a stranger," Kristin replied with a smile.
"Charli swim?"
"Maybe later." Charli sat up and got to her feet. "I have lots of work to do."
"Work."
Kristin led the way into the lab area. "Your proposal says your thesis is about projecting future Ice Ages and the effects it may have on the ocean's chemistry, as well as overall effects. We're actually spending the next couple months up in the northern Pacific, though there're no plans to go any further north than the Bering Strait. At least, none that I know of. But you still might have the opportunity to study some of the underwater glacial movement." She slid onto a stool in front of her main console, tapping in her passcode with one hand while patting the stool next to her with the other in invitation. "We've a scheduled stop in Anchorage at Elmendorf-Richardson Base, and then we're heading southwest into Indo-Asian waters."
"How long will the ship be docked in Anchorage? I mean, will there be time for me to go ashore at all?" Accepting the invitation, Charli settled onto the offered stool.
"I'm not sure. But when I see Captain Bridger later, I'll ask him."
"Or you can ask him right now." Nathan's cheerful voice behind them startled both women, and they turned to see him stepping into the lab. "I'm sure you'll get the official inventory list from Lieutenant Krieg later, but I wanted to let you know that the supply officers at Pearl made sure to get everything on your part of the list."
"Good to know. Thank you. Oh, this is our new intern, Nathan. Charlotte Barrett, Captain Bridger."
The two shook hands. "So, what did you want to know about our route?"
"Just if we're going to be stopping in Anchorage for awhile, sir," Charli replied. "If we are, then I could plan in a day trip or two for work in the field."
"Unfortunately, we won't have time for that. We're only scheduled to be there about eighteen hours and we'll be leaving sometime around 0200." Leaning over Kristin's shoulder, Nathan tapped a couple commands into her console, bringing up a map of the Pacific that showed seaQuest's current location, as well as the planned route. "But barring any complications, once out of Anchorage, the intention is to sail due west and then turn south along the Russian coast for awhile on the way to Japan. No stops, but there might be time for taking out a seaCrab for a closer look at the subsurface glacial structure."
"That would be great! Thanks, Captain." Charli hopped off the footstool. "I guess I better get started so I'll be ready when that time comes." Once Kristin pointed out her assigned console, she was off like a shot.
"Oh, to be young again and have all that energy," Kristin remarked, watching the girl delve into her work. "I woke up this morning, wishing I could have slept in after last night's chaos."
"And when we were that age, we mocked our elders for taking their time," Nathan added, shaking his head.
Kristin rolled her eyes. "I know! What the hell were we thinking?"
Out of the corner of her eye, Charli watched the pair laugh together. The captain had taken the stool she'd vacated and soon, both of them were bent over the doctor's console. Their voices were low, so she couldn't make out the conversation. From all appearances, they were working. But their body language told an entirely different story.
It seemed she wasn't the only one who recognized that fact. Glancing around while the console uploaded her files, she saw a few different members of the science staff smile and nudge one another while gesturing in their superior's direction. So, it seemed to be common knowledge. I wonder if they really are together? That would certainly be very interesting if they were...
(*)
somewhere in the Aleutian Islands, three weeks later
Len looked around the room, watching the assistants setting up their equipment. They were talking in low voices, conferring that things were arranged properly as it was placed and secured. The ground briefly rumbled under their feet and everyone stopped, glancing around nervously until it passed.
"That's the tenth quake in as many minutes," muttered one of the assistants. He was dark-haired and stocky, and his hands trembled slightly as he pushed a computer tower into place and strapped it to the counter.
"Are we sure this is a good place to be setting up?" another assistant asked. He was younger than the first, whose straight black hair and high cheekbones proclaimed his Aleut heritage. He gestured out the nearby window at the distant volcanic peak on the horizon that jutted into the evening sky. "Just because she hasn't blown in a century doesn't mean she won't at some point while we're here."
Len gave the young man a skeptical look. "I wouldn't worry about it, Kamik. Besides, if there was any imminent danger, your relatives who still live on the other side of the island would have been 'encouraged' to evacuate long ago."
"True," Kamik shrugged. "But volcanoes aren't exactly all that predictable, even with modern observation methods. And neither this one, nor a few native villagers, are that much priority to the UEO scientists or their superiors. They have bigger prey to land."
"Which is why this location is ideal," a third man pointed out. He was short and about the same age as Kamik, with spiky light-brown hair and snapping blue eyes. "No one's gonna be looking for us here...and with my setup, no one will know we're here, either."
"We get it, Hack, you're a self-proclaimed genius." The dark-haired man rolled his eyes.
"You're just jealous, Walt."
"Hardly. You're going to be tied to that machine during this whole thing. I'm the one who gets to have all the fun later on."
"Will you two shut up, please?" Len said tiredly. Walt and Hack had taken a dislike to one another upon first meeting and had spent most of the time sniping at one another when they were in the same room, which wore on everyone else's nerves.
Walt grumbled under his breath. Hack ignored him and, slapping down a keyboard, plugged it into the computer bank, along with a couple other items. Flicking the power button, he watched the monitor light up and the computer cycle through its start-up process. Punching in several commands, two other monitors on either side of him lit up as well. "And we're online." Punching in another set of commands, the lights came up to full brightness. "And we have power."
"Just make sure we're masked," Len reminded him. "We don't need any problems."
"You got it, boss."
Leaving Hack to his work and the others to finish setting up, Len wandered through their new home. The facility had originally been an emergency landing field briefly used by pilots during World War II. In the early 2000's, NORPAC had reopened it as an adjunct to a newer base on one of the larger islands, but the constant seismic activity soon made them decide to move the facilities completely to the new base. It had been abandoned ever since, and what was left had been completely ignored for nearly a decade.
The seismic activity and weather had taken its toll on some of the buildings, but the old science lab that had been chosen was stronger than the others. It was quite large and, as a bonus, there was a tunnel that turned out to be connected to an underground area. Or perhaps undersea would be the correct term, Len thought, studying the faded layout map on the wall. Observation chamber, isolation chambers, storage, and lastly, a center area marked with a large blue circle, whose label was so faded with time that it was unreadable.
A quick walk and check of each of the rooms proved that no leaks had developed in the undersea lab. Without the more modern, reinforced insulation and climate control installed, it was chilly and damp, the structure being fully embraced by the icy northern Pacific waters. Shivering, Len ignored the cold and stepped into the last room. Another faint seismic rumble rocked the floor momentarily. When it stilled, the faint but unmistakable sound of water lapping at rock was still audible.
Stepping fully inside the room, Len felt for the light panel. When the lights came up, they were a good deal dimmer than the rest of the lab. They flickered and almost went out, then brightened slightly. When the flickering finally stopped, Len's eyes focused in the dimness. What was first perceived as a darker, circular area took on the shape of a sunken pool in the center of the room. Stepping closer to look down into the water, Len guessed it was about ten feet deep at minimum and seemed to be cut directly from the seafloor. Faded signs on the far walls bore scientific instructions about water sampling and operating pumps to drain and refill the pool, but those went unnoticed. A sudden thought crossed Len's mind, and a cruel smile soon followed as the thought bloomed.
"Perfect."
index post containing chapter list
Chapter 2 ~ Deconstruct
"Charlotte Barrett." Ensign Keith Stayton read off the paperwork that was handed to him by the young, blond woman that had just stepped aboard seaQuest. He flipped through them one-handed, using the other to enter the necessary information into his console. "Majoring in marine chemistry and completing a thesis on glaciology. So you're a grad student, huh?"
"That's right."
"Hoo, I bet Doc Westphalen is chomping at the bit to get her hands on this one," snickered Seaman Dominic Balducci. "Even if it's just a student."
"I know, right?" Stayton replied.
"Excuse me? I am not an 'it'." Charlotte's eyes narrowed, and she looked prepared to say more when a new voice shouted over top of hers.
"Balducci! Stayton!" Both men snapped to attention as a scowling Chief Crocker came up behind them.
"Sir!" they chorused.
"Last time I checked, 'it' was used to refer to inanimate objects, not new crewmembers." Crocker came around the side of the table and stared both of the younger men down. "Now you apologize to this young lady immediately and finish processing for her. Understood?"
The two hurriedly finished checking the paperwork and mumbled their apologies after Balducci presented Charlotte with her new ID card.
"Damn ill-mannered pups," Crocker muttered under his breath. He looked to Charlotte, who was slinging her tote bag back over her shoulder. "Right sorry about that, miss. Some of these kids don't use the common sense God gave them. I'm Crocker, chief of security, and you are...?"
"Charlotte Barrett. But you can call me Charli." She offered him her hand, and he shook it.
"Charli, it is, then. Welcome aboard. If you need any help learning your way around, just ask." He gave her a last smile before turning back to supervise the check-ins.
Charli smiled faintly as she took the stairwell up to C deck. Finding her assigned quarters was easy and she was glad to see that she had been given a single occupancy. She valued her privacy, and it would be much easier to maintain that without a roommate in the way.
After unpacking, she sat down at her console, logged herself into the communications system and sent a quick message:
Cousin,
Got safely onboard the seaQuest. Met the security chief...a nice guy. Almost too nice, if you know what I mean. We're shipping out sometime tonight. I heard talk that we may be heading north, so if I'm nearby and we dock for a time, I'll let you know.
C
(*)
the next morning
Charli Barrett stepped through the entrance into sea deck and had her first good look around. It seemed to be a wide open space, with the entrance to the science labs on one side while the other was taken up by a good-sized pool. A thick metal door marked "Moon Pool" and imprinted with various warnings and instructions was on the far wall. Everyone knew about seaQuest's Navy-trained dolphin, and this was obviously his accommodations, along with the tubing she'd seen high up on the corridor walls that gave him shipwide access. As she watched, a sleek gray shape crossed the pool and came up to the edge, where Kristin Westphalen was waiting for him. Charli couldn't hear what she was saying to the animal, since the doctor's words mixed with the electronic-sounding chatter from the vocoder and the natural clicks and whistles.
"New person. Who is...new person?"
Charli's eyes widened a fraction when she realized that the dolphin was actually referring to her. The doctor looked up and their eyes met.
"Ah, you must be my grad student." Standing up straight, Kristin offered Charli a welcoming smile as she crossed the deck and met her halfway. "Charlotte, isn't it?"
Charli nodded. "Call me Charli, please. It's nice to meet you, Doctor."
"Oh, you can call me Kristin if you wish. We don't really stand on formality around here."
"That may take some getting used to, but all right," Charli smiled.
"Doctor Kristin...who is new person?"
"My, you are impatient this morning, Darwin." Kristin's dark eyes glimmered with amusement as she returned to sit on the edge of the pool. She rubbed Darwin's head gently, but his eye was fixed on the human he did not recognize. "Darwin, this is Charli."
Darwin whistled twice and bobbed his head. "Charli," the vocoder voice responded.
"It's nice to meet you too, Darwin. Can I pet him? I mean, is he okay with strangers doing that?" When Kristin nodded, Charli sat down on the edge and reached out. The dolphin butted the side of his head against the offered hand.
"Charli rub." The electronic voice sounded almost gleeful.
"You'll find out that Darwin doesn't consider anyone friendly a stranger," Kristin replied with a smile.
"Charli swim?"
"Maybe later." Charli sat up and got to her feet. "I have lots of work to do."
"Work."
Kristin led the way into the lab area. "Your proposal says your thesis is about projecting future Ice Ages and the effects it may have on the ocean's chemistry, as well as overall effects. We're actually spending the next couple months up in the northern Pacific, though there're no plans to go any further north than the Bering Strait. At least, none that I know of. But you still might have the opportunity to study some of the underwater glacial movement." She slid onto a stool in front of her main console, tapping in her passcode with one hand while patting the stool next to her with the other in invitation. "We've a scheduled stop in Anchorage at Elmendorf-Richardson Base, and then we're heading southwest into Indo-Asian waters."
"How long will the ship be docked in Anchorage? I mean, will there be time for me to go ashore at all?" Accepting the invitation, Charli settled onto the offered stool.
"I'm not sure. But when I see Captain Bridger later, I'll ask him."
"Or you can ask him right now." Nathan's cheerful voice behind them startled both women, and they turned to see him stepping into the lab. "I'm sure you'll get the official inventory list from Lieutenant Krieg later, but I wanted to let you know that the supply officers at Pearl made sure to get everything on your part of the list."
"Good to know. Thank you. Oh, this is our new intern, Nathan. Charlotte Barrett, Captain Bridger."
The two shook hands. "So, what did you want to know about our route?"
"Just if we're going to be stopping in Anchorage for awhile, sir," Charli replied. "If we are, then I could plan in a day trip or two for work in the field."
"Unfortunately, we won't have time for that. We're only scheduled to be there about eighteen hours and we'll be leaving sometime around 0200." Leaning over Kristin's shoulder, Nathan tapped a couple commands into her console, bringing up a map of the Pacific that showed seaQuest's current location, as well as the planned route. "But barring any complications, once out of Anchorage, the intention is to sail due west and then turn south along the Russian coast for awhile on the way to Japan. No stops, but there might be time for taking out a seaCrab for a closer look at the subsurface glacial structure."
"That would be great! Thanks, Captain." Charli hopped off the footstool. "I guess I better get started so I'll be ready when that time comes." Once Kristin pointed out her assigned console, she was off like a shot.
"Oh, to be young again and have all that energy," Kristin remarked, watching the girl delve into her work. "I woke up this morning, wishing I could have slept in after last night's chaos."
"And when we were that age, we mocked our elders for taking their time," Nathan added, shaking his head.
Kristin rolled her eyes. "I know! What the hell were we thinking?"
Out of the corner of her eye, Charli watched the pair laugh together. The captain had taken the stool she'd vacated and soon, both of them were bent over the doctor's console. Their voices were low, so she couldn't make out the conversation. From all appearances, they were working. But their body language told an entirely different story.
It seemed she wasn't the only one who recognized that fact. Glancing around while the console uploaded her files, she saw a few different members of the science staff smile and nudge one another while gesturing in their superior's direction. So, it seemed to be common knowledge. I wonder if they really are together? That would certainly be very interesting if they were...
(*)
somewhere in the Aleutian Islands, three weeks later
Len looked around the room, watching the assistants setting up their equipment. They were talking in low voices, conferring that things were arranged properly as it was placed and secured. The ground briefly rumbled under their feet and everyone stopped, glancing around nervously until it passed.
"That's the tenth quake in as many minutes," muttered one of the assistants. He was dark-haired and stocky, and his hands trembled slightly as he pushed a computer tower into place and strapped it to the counter.
"Are we sure this is a good place to be setting up?" another assistant asked. He was younger than the first, whose straight black hair and high cheekbones proclaimed his Aleut heritage. He gestured out the nearby window at the distant volcanic peak on the horizon that jutted into the evening sky. "Just because she hasn't blown in a century doesn't mean she won't at some point while we're here."
Len gave the young man a skeptical look. "I wouldn't worry about it, Kamik. Besides, if there was any imminent danger, your relatives who still live on the other side of the island would have been 'encouraged' to evacuate long ago."
"True," Kamik shrugged. "But volcanoes aren't exactly all that predictable, even with modern observation methods. And neither this one, nor a few native villagers, are that much priority to the UEO scientists or their superiors. They have bigger prey to land."
"Which is why this location is ideal," a third man pointed out. He was short and about the same age as Kamik, with spiky light-brown hair and snapping blue eyes. "No one's gonna be looking for us here...and with my setup, no one will know we're here, either."
"We get it, Hack, you're a self-proclaimed genius." The dark-haired man rolled his eyes.
"You're just jealous, Walt."
"Hardly. You're going to be tied to that machine during this whole thing. I'm the one who gets to have all the fun later on."
"Will you two shut up, please?" Len said tiredly. Walt and Hack had taken a dislike to one another upon first meeting and had spent most of the time sniping at one another when they were in the same room, which wore on everyone else's nerves.
Walt grumbled under his breath. Hack ignored him and, slapping down a keyboard, plugged it into the computer bank, along with a couple other items. Flicking the power button, he watched the monitor light up and the computer cycle through its start-up process. Punching in several commands, two other monitors on either side of him lit up as well. "And we're online." Punching in another set of commands, the lights came up to full brightness. "And we have power."
"Just make sure we're masked," Len reminded him. "We don't need any problems."
"You got it, boss."
Leaving Hack to his work and the others to finish setting up, Len wandered through their new home. The facility had originally been an emergency landing field briefly used by pilots during World War II. In the early 2000's, NORPAC had reopened it as an adjunct to a newer base on one of the larger islands, but the constant seismic activity soon made them decide to move the facilities completely to the new base. It had been abandoned ever since, and what was left had been completely ignored for nearly a decade.
The seismic activity and weather had taken its toll on some of the buildings, but the old science lab that had been chosen was stronger than the others. It was quite large and, as a bonus, there was a tunnel that turned out to be connected to an underground area. Or perhaps undersea would be the correct term, Len thought, studying the faded layout map on the wall. Observation chamber, isolation chambers, storage, and lastly, a center area marked with a large blue circle, whose label was so faded with time that it was unreadable.
A quick walk and check of each of the rooms proved that no leaks had developed in the undersea lab. Without the more modern, reinforced insulation and climate control installed, it was chilly and damp, the structure being fully embraced by the icy northern Pacific waters. Shivering, Len ignored the cold and stepped into the last room. Another faint seismic rumble rocked the floor momentarily. When it stilled, the faint but unmistakable sound of water lapping at rock was still audible.
Stepping fully inside the room, Len felt for the light panel. When the lights came up, they were a good deal dimmer than the rest of the lab. They flickered and almost went out, then brightened slightly. When the flickering finally stopped, Len's eyes focused in the dimness. What was first perceived as a darker, circular area took on the shape of a sunken pool in the center of the room. Stepping closer to look down into the water, Len guessed it was about ten feet deep at minimum and seemed to be cut directly from the seafloor. Faded signs on the far walls bore scientific instructions about water sampling and operating pumps to drain and refill the pool, but those went unnoticed. A sudden thought crossed Len's mind, and a cruel smile soon followed as the thought bloomed.
"Perfect."