Reboot

Sark, William, Nicks, Dutch, Chenoweh and I sat around a table in the mess. We met to discuss how to proceed when we got home.

William started, “one thing is obvious; we have to tell everyone.”

“For what reason? I mean what are we saying here? That we want to overthrow our government? Start a civil war? I think we have to be absolutely clear on what we’re going to try to accomplish,” said Dutch.

Sark weighed in, “It has to be done. We have to get the word out and hopefully through political pressure, people will get a new leadership. Mooney is a war criminal and a traitor. He needs to be brought to justice.”

“He won’t go quietly,” said William morosely.

Dutch continued: “Mooney sent a team to kill everyone who’d been in contact with Mr. Morgan here. He is almost certainly responsible for sinking a cruiser with two hundred people on board just because someone on there probably had incriminating knowledge like our friend Robert here. I don’t think they’ll go peacefully. We’ll end up in a fight. People will die. We have to be clear on that before we start this.”

“So be it,” said William. He was visibly angry about that two hundred people remark. “No matter what, people have to know.”

I frowned. I felt like I was in the middle of a storm. I was the eye. Nicks was looking at me with a mixture of pity and worry, pinching her eyes as if in pain. Like she was concerned about me.

“And where are we going by the way?” asked William. “We haven’t discussed that at all. Dutch, you said it was safe in the North West. Is that where we’re headed? And what do we do with this pretty boat after?”

“We dump it.” said Dutch. “We have to. It’s too easy to recognize and to find and pretty soon there won’t be any way to power it anyway. We’re running out of fuel everywhere. And let’s not forget that we’ve abandoned the mission, they’ll find out soon enough and come straight for us. There’s no other option, we leave the boat, trash it, quit the navy and go into hiding. We start slow and build up a grass roots thing. Make sure everyone back home knows what happened. Try to avoid as much bloodshed as possible.”

“Well, we’ll see. Let’s think about it for a while. They can’t come after us. They don’t have the manpower or the ships. All submarines and most ships are destroyed because of search and destroy smart sonar torpedoes. Most other ships are gone too. They just weren’t compatible with this kind of warfare,” said Chenoweh. “You’ll need us. The Independence is a nice toy to have in your backyard.”

It was quiet for a while. It was dawning on everyone how serious this was.

“Militias.”

Everyone looked at me. Eyebrows up. As in: “What are you talking about?”

“Survivalist groups,” I repeated. “Second place to go. They’ll be interested in what we have to say.” I pointed to my computer. “This is information we can use to get in with them, and frankly, it’s what they live for isn’t it? Their whole reason for being, you know, second amendment stuff? Fight a rogue government? We’ll give ’em what they want and in return, they’ll take us in.”

“Ok”, said William after looking at the sky for a few seconds. “Makes sense to me”. They’ll be organized, prepared, armed and itchy.” He looked at Dutch who nodded grimly.

“But we need to choose the right one, there are many crazies in those groups, some will be really out there, so not too gung ho, well organized, people who’ll listen to reason. How do we get info on these people?”

“We’ll head to one of the coastal towns first. There we’ll get some intel and maybe start chatting with people, see how that goes,” I said.

“And then we have to be able to get there,” I added. “We can’t drive? There’s no transportation is there? So that’s something else to think about. We’ll have to walk so let’s try to find one as close as possible to the beach. Oregon?”

“Don’t forget the helo. We have enough fuel for a few rides,” Dutch added.

“Did you say second place Robert?” asked Johanna. “What’s the first?” She looked at me with those green eyes and I almost forgot what i was talking about. Everyone just stopped what they were doing and stared at her, then at me.

I looked at them all one after the other grimly and said: “Pirates.”

“Aah of course, so that was it,” said William.

“If we leave them alone, they’ll eventually hit our island. We have a job to do.”

Everyone nodded. Tight smiles all around.

The rest of the crew was jittery. They didn’t like this new organization. I’m sure they didn’t like civilians wandering around on their boat. But they took comfort in seeing Dutch and Nicks working with Chenoweh to determine the truth. They were trusted.

“Maybe I should go see her, you know, make sure she’s ok,” I said while sitting alone with Dutch and William. We were having lunch on deck.

“I believe our boy is smitten Lieutenant,” said Dutch.

“I think maybe you’re correct Dutch. Only one thing to do.” They looked at each other and smiled.

No- nonononono….

I backed up away from them…

Then they both came at me. Dutch was giggling the whole way. Shit!

“Time for a special training session kid.” They smiled.

“Crap! I don’t like it when you both smile at me. It’s never good and it always ends up … Goddamn it.”

They took positions at 2 and 10 o’clock...

Damn it.

“And don’t call me kid”!

Damn, damn, damn….

Bravado didn’t help. Those two believed in reality training.

“Ok, fine.” I got ready too. What else was I supposed to do? “You boys have disability insurance? Next of kin stuff all taken care of?”

They smirked. Oh man…

William nodded at Dutch, sneered and lunged. I expected that, I twisted on myself and slapped his hand as it was going by my face, I took a step forward, slammed him with my shoulder into his belly, turned and faced Dutch who didn’t have time to move. I gave him a flat palm on the chest, full strength.

I surprised them. I surprised myself. They hadn’t expected that kind of speed from me. No, that’s not exactly true. They knew I had the speed, but not the confidence to use it. Anyway, they were surprised. The smiles tapered down. They both moved back a step and it was back to square one. I took a breath.

“What the hell was that?” asked Dutch looking at William.

“I taught the boy everything I know, so be careful, he’s coming for you.” William smiled and moved away from Dutch again and I followed him. I faked a swing with my left expecting the inevitable quick return from William’s right hook, which I grabbed while pushing up his elbow with my other hand, but this time I didn’t leave him an out, I just kept him going, following his swing all the way around me, keeping him unbalanced while putting pressure on his elbow. I put him down rather easily, then I turned around and got the slap of my life full on in the face. Left cheek. PAF!

Tears came to my eyes from the force of the blow. Jesus! That hurt. I almost went at Dutch, which would have been a huge mistake. Never attack angry. So I stepped back, took a few breaths, one deeper one, and then took my stance again. Dutch giggled and said: “You’re too nice. You took an extra second putting William down cute and cuddly and that gave me time to hit you. Then he growled, “Don’t waste our time. There isn’t much of it. Do that again and I’ll kick your ass.” He was shaking a finger at me. Then he started bouncing around, like a boxer. Ready for round two.

William stood up, smiled. “Want some ice for that?”

“For what”? I boasted.

“Oh, he wants more,” said Dutch. “Mikey, he likes it.” I crinkled my eyes at him. I set myself up. I zoned. Forgot my aching face. Time seemed to stand still. I could see the sweat dripping from their brows in slow motion. I could see small movements in their faces telling me what they were about to do. They were both smiling, but you could tell there was an inkling of doubt.

I was no longer afraid.

This time William attacked me with a straightforward kick. I backed off, but he kept coming. I saw Dutch coming at me form the side. I grabbed William’s leg during his third kick and used it as a lever. So now William was useless and his leg was between me and Dutch while he was hopping on one leg. Dutch readjusted his attack. William tried swinging at me with his long arms, but I knew that it was his only option so they were easily avoided. I just kept him off balance, moving all the time, back and forth. Dutch was my main concern now.

Dutch struck out at me with a left, trying to go around William’s horizontal appendage. It gave me an idea. I waited for the next punch. When it came, it was a right cross. I raised the leg, Dutch hit it, William fell down with a moan grabbing his leg, I squatted and spun before William had even hit the ground, leg out, tripping Dutch so he fell on top of William. It all happened very quickly.

Everyone clapped as I stood smiling over the heap of embarrassed soldiers. The crew had been creeping up on us as our training session got more serious.

I helped them up, and then I bowed to the crowd. That did wonders for morale I think. I especially noticed Nicks looking at me with a new look. She’d popped up from her comm center to see what was going on. She was smiling and clapping heartily. I looked at her and blew her an exaggerated kiss as if I were a toreador. The boys stood up, shook it off, and patted me on the back. Then Nicks headed off back to work. She looked back once. I couldn’t believe it. She looked back.

William and I walked off together to get a drink, the crew congratulating me along the way and we sat on the edge of the boat staring out at the waves. William was quiet.

“OK, let’s hear it, what’s going on.” I asked him.

“Sorry about that.” He said. “I suppose we could have warned you, but this was more fun. He smiled. I smiled back.

“Frankly, I’ve never had more fun in my life,” I said. ”I want to thank you, you’ve been good to me and I appreciate it, William. Can I call you Bill? Less syllables.”

“Sure, do you mind if I call you fuckface, Bob?

“Fuckface Bob, or just plain Fuckface?” He thought that was pretty funny.