Chapter 10

-Daniel-

Waking up in a hospital isn't exactly new to me unfortunately but waking up in one with a dark-haired angel curled up by my side sure was. If you have to wake up in a place like that I heartily recommend it. I was flat on my stomach with Sumalee snuggled in next to me. They must have given me some pain meds because I didn't feel anything but if they'd laid me face down there was probably a reason so I wasn't about to roll over. However the fact that they let someone in here with me was a sign I wasn't at death's door anyway. Thinking if I was well enough to have a bunkmate I was well enough to move a little, I kind of rolled to my side and put my arm around her. She must have been just dozing because it was enough to wake her up. She sighed and looked up at me.

"Don't you ever do that again," she scolded with a fake pout. It would have worked better if she hadn't immediately pulled herself up and put a lip-lock on me that had to have every monitor they had attached jumping way off the scale.

"Sorry, baby," I said. "I sort of walked in on something. It wasn't my fault."

"I know," she signed again. "Saving the ship and all of us." Then she looked at me with narrowed eyes, "And another damsel in distress. Are you planning to make a habit of this? I understand she is very pretty."

"I don't remember a whole lot about it," I hedged. No sense in getting into the whole "connection" thing. Hell, I didn't even know her name and it was probably better if it stayed that way.

"Well, I have seniority," she said snuggling in again.

"There's only one name on the list," I chuckled, "and it's yours, baby." She made a pleased noise as she rubbed her face in my neck. So far that had to be my best wake-up in sickbay yet.

"Hey, Boss," I heard from behind me. "Alive yet?"

"You know I am, Mike," I sighed. "You've probably been hovering around outside that door just waiting for those tattle-tales to tell you I'm awake." She didn't even bother to deny it. "How'd it all go? Anybody else hurt? How's Weird?"

"He's fine," she said coming around to where I could see her. "Very sweet," she snorted. "Anyway, Weird was just knocked a little loopy and had his ears blown but they plugged them up just like yours. Tangos are down and it looks like we got 'em all. NIS is crawling all over the place and wants to see you as soon as you're able. Surprisingly the only deaders are the tangos and we even got one of them alive. A few of the diners got knocked down, hair mussed and that kind of shit but nothing serious. The place was a mess when we got there so I don't know how we got so lucky. Weird tried to tell me all about reflected blast and crap like that but I flat-lined on him when he started spouting the mathematical stuff so if you're really interested you'll have to ask him." She rolled her eyes and I could just see Weird drawing the equations for where the force of the blast went and how it didn't kill more people; I could also see Mike's eyes getting glassy after about two seconds of that; I know mine would have.

"Oh yeah," she added brightly. "I had a talk with your girlfriend here and apologized for my mouth overrunning my brain this morning." Wouldn't you know? We'd just saved our lives, the ship and taken down five terrorists and all she cared about was letting me know she had made goody-goody with my girlfriend. Girlfriend? I guess that was right; I certainly couldn't argue with it. I looked down at Sumalee.

"Michelle told me what she said," Sumalee nodded. "And while it was bit uncouth I can certainly understand the sentiment behind it. Of course I forgave her immediately."

"She's a good kid, Boss," Mike said looking embarrassed. "I shouldn't have said it and I know it. We had a good long talk while you were under sleepy-time. (That's sleep-inducement by the way. Knocks you out and helps accelerate the healing process. That's why my eardrums healed for all practical purposes overnight instead of weeks. I've never been a big fan of it since you're helpless as a baby while out but then I couldn't remember any of it and hadn't had a say in the matter so there's no sense in bitching about it.) I won't be making that mistake again so if you still want to kick my ass you're welcome to it." Another girlfriend, friend-girl, talking to Mike? As they say, nothing good could come of this.

"I was thinking more of spanking your ass rather than kicking it," I growled.

"Oww, kinky," Mike cooed. "And here I was thinking you wanted to punish me."

"You're incorrigible," I muttered disgustedly.

"Maybe," Mike responded thoughtfully. "But I'd have to look that up first to make sure. Does this mean you still want to spank me or not?"

"I'm afraid I'd cut my hand on your boney ass," I snapped.

"I am not too skinny," she huffed and glared at me with fists on her hips.

"Daniel," Sumalee chastised me, "Michelle is gorgeous. How can you say she is skinny? She is slim and perfectly formed. Thousands of women pay millions to look like her."

"See, boss," Mike smirked and preened. "Slim, not skinny. A svelte jungle cat. Remember?"

"Yeah, well, you should have seen her when she was, ah, younger."

"Younger!" she shrieked. "Oh, you are going to pay for that, Boss, big time." She stopped and suddenly smiled rather nastily, never a good sign. "In fact right now's a good time to start paying for it. Those dick-heads from the NIS are outside drooling all over the deck wanting to talk to you. How about I let them in so they can rake your flabby old ass over the coals?"

"You'd let them at me while I'm convalescing?" I asked in a hurt voice. She just smirked so I guess she would. "Fine Miss Crabby-pants go ahead and show the agents in. By the way do I need a lawyer?"

"They didn't say anything when they were talking to us," she shrugged. "Why? You know any?"

"I could probably kick over a few rocks," I answered noncommittally. I turned to Sumalee. "Honey, I don't care if you stay but you may hear a few things that you may want to talk to me about later. I've never lied to you but there are a few things about me you don't know."

"How can anyone really know everything about someone else," she asked rhetorically. "I promise I will reserve judgment and we will talk later."

"Thanks, Baby," I said giving her a squeeze. "All right, you grinning banshee, show them in." Mike winked at Sumalee and left returning only seconds later with two stuffed suits in tow.

"Good morning, Captain Mayhem," said the first one sticking his hand out, I took it. "My name is Special Agent Smith, you can call me Joe, and this is Agent Jones." Agent Jones looked like someone had stuck a pineapple up his ass; he didn't offer me his hand. Either Jones was naturally an asshole or they were going to play good-cop bad-cop with me. I had the feeling it wasn't an act. By the way, I knew their real names weren't Smith and Jones. NIS was big on anonymity for it's agents for some reason and provided all of them cover identities.

"Back at ya, Joe," I said. "I kind of figured somebody might be coming round to ask some questions. The NIS seems as good as any. You guys got jurisdiction out here?"

"We have jurisdiction wherever the hell we want it," Jones barked. Like I said: an asshole. "We want to talk to you, privately."

"If you're trying to piss me off you still have a ways to go," I said mildly. "But you're headed in the right direction. This is private enough. Miss Nakpradith is a friend of mine and I don't have anything to say about this that I can't say in front of her. Miss Darlington there knows as much as I do, probably more actually since I was flat on my back and out cold for a part of it."

Smith cleared his throat and rolled his eyes at his partner. "First," he began, "I'd like to personally thank you and your friends for what you did. You put yourself in grave danger and without any doubt saved thousands of lives along with a very valuable ship.

"Now as far a jurisdiction: this is a US-flagged vessel so we do have jurisdiction regarding criminal matters that occur onboard here regardless of her present location. Is that satisfactory?"

Jones snorted disgustedly.

"Sounds reasonable to me," I shrugged. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything," he smiled. "Starting from the beginning."

"Well, okay. I was born a small child in..." this time he rolled his eyes at me. "Hey, the straight line was just too perfect," I said. Getting that out of my system I proceeded to give them the redacted version of what occurred leaving out only the small things like Weird hacking the ships AI and the extent of our involvement with the Brotherhood years earlier. I had a pretty good idea what the others would have told them so my version was probably close enough to make it sound like the truth. After all there were bound to be some differences. Ask ten witnesses about what they'd seen of a common incident and you're probably going to get ten slightly different versions. If you get ten identical versions then you know the story was rehearsed. We were pretty good at making our stories sound just different enough to be believable; we'd done it enough times with our own investigators. I was hoping he wouldn't ask how we knew about the Brotherhood; unfortunately they weren't that stupid. The NIS may be assholes, at least most of them, but they aren't stupid. That was the next question he asked.

"Yeah, I've heard of them before," I sighed. "They blew up a ferry my wife was on a few years ago. I spent a long time looking for those shitheads and gathering information on them. That fucking tattoo is indelibly etched on my brain; there's no God-damned way I could forget it."

"Did you ever find them?" he asked. He didn't seem surprised at the revelation about my wife.

"I found out a lot about them," I admitted. "But until yesterday morning it was like they were all dead or ghosts." I don't think that was a blatant lie but I'd hate to have to answer that question under a truth-drug; not that the military would let anyone within ten meters of me with babble-juice. Heaven only knows what would start to come out if that happened!

"The man you murdered in the bar," Jones snapped right after I finished with my fable. "Why didn't you just subdue him? If you're this big-shot super-solider like Agent Smith thinks you are, you should have been able to do that rather than kill him. I'm not convinced your military record is very accurate; it's kind of skimpy for someone who's supposed to have been fighting for ten years and I'm going to be looking into it. I'm thinking you're probably some kind of pansy deserter who bought himself a pardon and had his records falsified. You bet when I find out who did it I'm going to have their ass!"

He was partly correct. My service record, the one he would have access to, was complete, official and pure fantasy. If he'd had access to my real record he'd still been reading it even after a day or two. With everything digitalized I'd never seen it but I'm guessing if it were all printed out it'd probably stack up to be over a meter thick. I'd been a busy boy.

"Oh, I think that sounds like a wise use of your time," I said with a grin. This talk of desertion didn't bother me all that much but I could tell Mike wasn't all that happy and that's not a good thing. "By all means, follow it right up to the very top! That'll learn 'em. Oh by the way, use the word 'murdered' again and we're done here. You won't be talking to anyone but my lawyer. That was purely self-defense and if the vids didn't convince you of that then you're dumber than a fucking rock. So, either place me under arrest or shut the hell up."

"Maybe I'll do just that," he fumed.

"No you won't, Sam," Smith frowned shaking his head. So the asshole had a name, Sam. "For one thing there is no evidence that Captain Mayhem did anything other than what was necessary and prudent under the circumstances. That's my judgment and you know damn well any judge would say the same thing.

"Secondly, I know you weren't in the military but I was and I can tell you with a fair amount of certainty that looking into his service record would not be a good career move. I'd bet a year's pay you're right; his service record is bogus from the beginning to the end but it's that way for a reason and the people who made it that way aren't going to like you poking into it. Am I right, Captain?"

"I can't say anything about that, Special Agent Smith," I smiled. "And I mean that; I can't say anything about that."

"Yeah, I thought so," he nodded. "Spent some time in MI (That's Military Intelligence. See, I can be nice. I'll bet you were expecting me to say something to the effect that MI isn't an acronym, it's an oxymoron.) I'm guessing the only truth in the whole record is your name and the fact you were assigned to UN SpecFor." Close enough; I think my height, weight and blood type were also correct.

"But that's not the issue here. May I paraphrase your statement? Correct me if I'm wrong, please. You and three of your friends, all ex-SpecFor team members, were on vacation; you by coincidence came into contact with a member of a terrorist group planning to destroy this ship. During a fight you did not initiate you subdued and killed this man. You did not know who he was or that he was a member of said group at the time. One of your team members recognized a tattoo on the dead man that to your knowledge corresponded to a design unique to an organization that had been involved or responsible for the attack that resulted in the death of your wife. You informed the ship's captain of this and by using your military training and the ship's AI were able to identify, track, pursue and neutralize the remaining terrorists. You personally were present when one of these terrorists detonated a bomb in a suicide attack in the dining area becoming injured in the process. Have I got the gist of it?"

"Almost dead on," I nodded. "Except the jerk didn't light off the bomb himself; someone else did it for him. We heard the remote detonator activating which is about the only thing that saved our asses."

"Is that so?" he said making notes on his portable comp. "That's interesting but I'm not sure if it's important. Anything else?"

"Yeah. Have you figured out how they got the stuff onboard?"

"Hmm, that's still under investigation but I suppose it wouldn't hurt if I gave you my opinion of how they did it," he mused. "Nothing official and not for public dissemination of course, but it looks like they brought the explosives onboard as base chemicals in the lining of their luggage. Once they were ready, all they had to do was mix them and let them cure for about twelve hours or so. The detonators we're not absolutely sure about yet but I wouldn't be surprised if we find a number of their electronic gadgets were merely shells."

"What about the pieces?" I asked.

"Pre-positioned in the walls of certain cabins during construction," he frowned. "We've got some work to do on that yet, but we'll find out who, when and how soon enough."

"Doesn't sound like it was a spur of the moment thing then," I said stating the obvious. "Looks like we were lucky all around."

"I don't believe in luck," he said somberly. "Or coincidences. But I'm also not particularly religious so I'm going to go with lucky coincidence for now. Is there anything else you can tell us? No? Good. Will you be available if we need to talk to you again?"

"I'm not going anywhere until they kick me off this tub," I grinned.

"Good. Then we'll leave you to yourself for now." He shook my hand again — I didn't even bother to look at Jones — and started to turn.

"Ah, Agent Smith," I said.

"Yes?" He turned back to me. I took my wallet from where it was lying on the table next to the bed, drew a card out and handed it to him.

"We're forming a little group of veterans that you may be interested in joining."

"Veterans Benevolent Society," he said reading the card with a smile. "I've heard something about this. And you think your little group would be happy about having an NIS agent as a member?"

"I figure it won't be long before we have any number of NIS agents as members," I laughed. "Might as well have one openly. We're not too picky; hell, they let me in!"

"I'll think about it," he said sticking the card in a suit pocket. "Good day, Captain Mayhem, Ma'am, Sergeant."

"Well, that was fun," I sighed after they'd left. "So what's on the agenda for today? If it has anything to do with shooting, stabbing, fighting or being blown up I think I'll pass this time."

"Doc says you can go anytime after you wake up," Mike "It's almost noon so I'm thinking a bite to eat and then the pool. Maybe even a bite to eat at the pool."

"Sounds relaxing to me," I said standing up. "You interested, Sumalee? I forgot to ask: are you even available? I don't want you to miss any sleep time if you have to work at 1600."

"Captain Stubing has informed me that I am on detached duty for the remainder of your voyage, "She said with a smile. "You and your friends are considered Xanadu VIPs and I am to be your personal concièrge. I can, and will, go with you anywhere you will allow me."

"Then the pool it is." I had a feeling this wasn't the time or place to argue with Sumalee whether or not she had to be with me at all, let alone all the time. I certainly enjoyed her company but I'll be damned if I was going to let Stubing or anybody else force her to be there.

"Fine," Mike said. "I'll meet you kids out there."

"Yes, Momma."

"You're going to pay for that too, Boss," she said looking daggers at me.

"Hey, you called us 'kids'," I reminded her.

"Yeah, well she is a kid and you're just a dirty old man," she fired back then turned to Sumalee. "Don't let those puppy-dog eyes and pouty lips fool you, sweetie. He'll take advantage of you quicker than the taxman grabbing your paycheck. It's been hell keeping his hands off my backsides for the past eighteen years; don't be afraid to smack him upside the head if he starts getting ideas." The lie was so outrageous I couldn't do anything except sit there with my mouth hanging open.

"That is good to know," Sumalee said looking thoughtful. "But since it is I who am taking advantage of him, I do not think I will worry about it overly much."

"Oh, that's okay," Mike answered. "Use up the old fart and spit him out when you're done don't let him start thinking he's in charge. Damn, next thing you know you'll be waiting on him hand and foot and he'll start thinking he deserves it. Remember, you're not his play toy; you're his concièrge."

"But I am his play toy," Sumalee said seductively and scratched her fingernails softly on my upper arm causing me to shiver.

"Pardon me while I puke," Mike gagged. "There'll be no living with him now. Fine, spoil him rotten, see if I care. See ya by the pool."

"Sumalee, you don't have..." I started to say after Mike left but she stopped me by pressing her fingers over my lips.

"I know what you are going to say so don't," she warned.

"But..." More fingers this time pinching my lips together.

"Captain Stubing offered to release me and the other girls from our contract due to our traumatic experience and send us home," she said without releasing me. "But I refused. I asked him to assign me to you. Concièrge was what he called it." She paused for a moment, ginned, and then continued, "Sex toy was not in the description of duties; I added that."

"You are a pushy little thing," I said breaking her hold and gathering her up in my arms.

"Pushy bitch is what I said," she mumbled into my chest. Leaning back she looked up and me and smiled. "We must pick up my swimming attire and then yours. We will go to the pool until we are thoroughly exhausted by lying around in the sun and then retire to your cabin for a nap."

"I'm not very sleepy," I warned her.

"And I am still sore," she laughed. "You will have to take a nap because you will be taking me out to dinner and then dancing after which I will be healed enough to ravage you all night long."

"You are a pushy..." I started to say, following her as she pulled me along behind her.

" ... Bitch." she finished without looking back.

Lounging around in the sun poolside is pretty exhausting but its nice work if you can get it. We'd stopped by her cabin first to pick up her things where I got to meet her roommate, Teresa, who was between rehearsals. She was a pretty little redhead and I have to admit I blushed when she raised her eyebrows and grinned at Sumalee. She didn't seem to be jealous at all.

After that we popped up to my cabin where we changed. "Unless you would rather have me naked," she said. I might have said yes but given the miniscule proportions of the alleged swim suit she put on I doubt I would have noticed the difference. I've seen Band-Aids cover more but I wasn't going to complain. From there it was down to the pool.