Title: Flying Away 13: Ship of Fools
Author: Anne Taul, anne_taul@gowebway.com

Summary: Harm and Mac are cut off from each other by a disease plaguing his ship.

Disclaimer: JAG, its characters, premise, etc, are the sole and exclusive property of CBS, Paramount and Bellasarius productions. No profit is being made or sought from this purely recreational endeavor. No infringement of copyright is intended.

 

Flying Away 13: Ship of Fools

Sarah MacKenzie exited the elevator and walked slowly into the JAG work area. No one seemed to be around. Looking to her left, she saw the entire staff gathered around a television monitor intently watching a ZNN newscast. If everyone was so interested, this must be important. She joined the crowd, only to learn that the report was about the crisis aboard the USS Coral Sea, now in the Persian Gulf. Just the name of the ship brought her to full alert.

"The information officer on the Coral Sea could not be reached for comment, but it is now estimated that up to 60% of the men and women serving on the vessel have been incapacitated by the unidentified virus. The symptoms of the illness are reported to be fevers and hallucinations, with signs of madness often accompanied by violent behavior. The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta has its labs and infectious disease experts working around the clock to try to isolate a specific cause and treatment for this disease. We go now live to our crew in Atlanta for an update on the progress there."

Mac sighed. There was no new news.

Bud Roberts glanced at her and asked, "Isn't that the ship that Commander Rabb is on?"

"Yes." She said softly.

"Have you heard from him? Is he okay?"

"No, I haven't heard a word."

It was true that she hadn't heard from the man who had been her best friend for over three years, and her lover for the past 14 months. She didn't want to make a big deal of it in front of the others, because, so far she and Harm had been able to keep their relationship secret. It was best if the others didn't realize how often she usually heard from him. However, it had been a week now since her last letter and there hadn't even been a phone call since this disease broke out on his ship. It was possible that mail wasn't being picked up due to the quarantine, but he could surely have called.

Frankly, she was worried. If so many of the crew were ill, was Harm among them? Mac didn't like to think of Harm being sick, but it was a real possibility.

Some of the early reports had described sailors attacking each other and even killing each other. Apparently the virus was highly contagious, so the ship and its crew were being carefully isolated. Mac just didn't like this whole turn of events, especially since she hadn't heard from Harm. Normally they talked on the phone at least once or twice a week, and the letters were usually very frequent as well. No, something was not boding well for this situation.

Mac took out the files pertaining to the case she was investigating and tried to read through them, but it was hard to concentrate. Before long the phone rang. She leaped at it, praying she would hear Harm's voice on the other end.

It was not Harm. Instead , it was Trish Burnett, Harm's mother, calling from California. Mac was a little disappointed, but still it was good to talk to her.

"Mac, Darling, have you heard from Harm?"

"No, Ma'am. Have you?"

"Not a word, but he wouldn't call me, he'd call you, Darling."

"I'm not sure about that."

"Well, I am. Sweetheart, do you have any idea how much that boy loves you?"

"I love him." She responded.

"I know you do. And you must be terribly worried."

"Yes, I am. It's not like Harm not to call. Mrs. Burnett, you don't suppose...?" she couldn't finish the sentence.

"That he might be sick?" Trish completed the thought. "No, Dear, I don't think so. If he were in bad health, I think we would have heard, the Navy's pretty good about that."

"Even from a quarantined ship?" Mac was doubtful.

"Mrs. Burnett, nothing can happen to him."

"It won't." Trish predicted. "Oh, and don't call me Mrs. Burnett. Call me Trish, or call me Mom. After all, you are the girl who loves my son."

"Yes, I do."

The remainder of the conversation was unremarkable. The two women provided support for each other. They exchanged various reassurances.

Finally, Mac got back to work on her case, feeling much better. She hoped that keeping busy would help her not to think so much about how frightened she was.

THREE HOURS LATER


Lt. Commander Mic Brumby stuck his head into Mac's office. His tone belied a bit of concern when he asked, "You're not going to stay here all night, are you, Mac?

Mac looked up, confused. "Did you say something?"

Brumby came into her office and sat down across from her, "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing." She answered just as quickly.

"Then why are you here 2 hours past quitting time?"

She looked at her watch, then moved to straighten the folders on her desk. "I guess I just got going and couldn't stop."

"It's Harm, isn't it?" The Austrailian officer guessed. "You're worried about him?"

"Why would you say that?"

"Well, I know the two of you were always good friends before he ever left JAG, so I figured that you'd naturally be concerned about his safety."

"Yeah," Mac confirmed, "I guess maybe I am. Nobody's heard from him."

"I'm sure he's fine, Mac. You know, they have the ship quarantined and cut off from everything. He probably just can't get a message out."

"You're probably right." She agreed.

"It's late, and I know you haven't eaten. How about going out for a burger or something? It'll make you feel better."

"Okay." She said. It might make her feel better to talk to him. At any rate, she certainly couldn't bear to be alone right now.

Brumby took her to Beltway Burgers, saying it was a favorite place of his, when he needed to eat fast.

Of course, that was okay with her.

The conversation was nice and friendly, very pleasant. It was just what she needed. She knew that Harm didn't necessarily care much for Brumby, so she'd have to tell him about this. This would make him feel more kindly toward the man he often perceived as a rival.

When he asked the inevitable question about her relationship with Harm, and why she was feeling this so deeply, she easily distracted him. Mic Brumby might become a friend, but she wasn't yet ready to share that much with him.

When he dropped her off at home, he walked her to the door. It was clear that he was hoping for an invitation in, but Mac finally felt like she really needed to be alone for a while. To his credit, he didn't press the issue. He did leave her making the promise to call him if she needed to talk during the night.

Mac kicked off her shoes, then went back out into the hall to check her mailbox. She realized that she hadn't emptied it in a couple of days now, so there were several things accumulated. She hadn't been checking it regularly because it was no fun when she knew there would be no letter from Harm.

Several advertisements dropped to the floor. She removed a few bills from the stack and carefully laid then on the desk. Then she saw it. There was a small package wrapped in plain brown paper and addressed to her. It was postmarked from the Navy Shipyard in San Diego. Some of Harm's letters sometimes went through here, but since that wasn't what this was, she had no idea who would send her something from there. The address label had been printed on a computer, so that gave no clue.

Mac quickly opened the package to find a cassette tape. Wrapped around the tape with a rubber band, was a piece of white paper, bearing big block letters that said, "Play me."

She was puzzled. Turning on the stereo, she placed the tape into the player and started it. A smile crept slowly over her face.

She heard the familiar voice of Harmon Rabb speaking to her:

"Hi, Darling. I know you must be worried with all the media attention the Coral Sea is getting right now. So, I want to let you know that I'm okay. Some of the crew is pretty sick, but not me, I'm healthy as a horse."

Mac stopped the recording and breathed a sigh of relief. Restarting it, Harm continued,

"I miss you so badly. I think what I miss most is talking to you. I want to call you just to hear your voice. Unfortunately, they've closed all the phones down. They said something about it might be possible that if people breathed on them, the germ could be passed that way. I don't know if it's true, but this seems to be a terrible disease, so it's best not to take chances.

Our email system on the computers is down too, because we just don't have enough healthy personnel to run some of the relays. Don't think I haven't tried to reach you that way.

The mail, strangely enough, is still running. We leave a big bag of outgoing stuff on the chopper pad, with no one around. The helicopter lands, trades a bag of incoming for our outgoing and leaves without making contact with anyone. I guess we should be thankful we've got that.

I wrote you a couple of letters, but didn't send them. All I could think of was how much I wanted to hear your voice. So, I went down to the commissary and bought this hand-held tape recorder. I figured if I needed to hear you so much, maybe you needed to hear me too. I got the idea from all those letter tapes my dad used to send home when he was away. Anyway, Honey, I miss you so much that I had to try this. I hope you enjoy it some."

Mac stopped the tape and smiled. What a great idea! It was wonderful to hear his voice, but he sounded tired. She hoped he was okay.

Hitting the "play" button again, she heard, "Ben Morgan is...oh you remember my bunkmate, Ben Morgan, don't you? You met him in Hawaii that time we missed each other on the visits, and then met up in the LA airport...anyway, Morgan is making catcalls, and generally teasing me unmercifully. The only conclusion I can draw is that he must be jealous."

From the background, Mac heard, "Damn right I'm jealous! She's a helluva woman. Better than you deserve, Rabb!"

Mac smiled again.

"Let's go out on the deck so we can be alone, Mac."

The tape ended, then started again. "Okay, Darling, here we are. I don't know what you're hearing on the news reports, but whatever it is, I'm sure you're worried. This illness is really strange. When the fever comes, folks get pretty crazy, We've seen all kinds of strange things. People have been acting so comical that we've been called the "Ship of Fools." I guess the name fits, but I don't want to trivialize t he illness, because we've got some pretty sick sailors out here.

Sarah, why don't you go buy yourself one of these little handheld machines so you can send me tapes too. I'd really love to hear your voice. I'd like to hear you. I'd also like to taste you and touch you. I can't wait to hold you in my arms. I love that contented little look you get on your face when you fall asleep after we make love. More than anything, though, I miss talking to you. Get you a tape recorder, and talk to me. One other thing, Honey, please call Mom and tell her I'm okay. I'm sure she's worried too.

Next time, we'll take a walk around the ship together, but for now I need to end so I can get this in the mailbag and get down to work my shift in the kitchen. Yes, that's right, the kitchen. I can hear you laughing now. Your flyboy has been reduced to a cook. Times are hard here, we've all had to pitch in working the essential duty stations. I'm cooking. Morgan's pumping sewer water in the water treatment plant.

I hope to see you soon. For now, know that I love you. Harm."

Mac turned off the machine. She was glad that his dad had made all those letter tapes, so that he had gotten this idea. She felt so much better just hearing him like this. She'd wait until morning to call Trish, but for now, she'd do something else. She opened the drawer of her desk and pulled out a handheld tape recorder. She often used this to help her practice her closing arguments for court. Now, she used it for something infinitely more important.

"Most dear Harm, You're pretty smart for a sailor. It really helped me to hear your voice. I hope you get the same reaction from this."

She told him that little AJ was walking so well now that Bud and Harriet could barely keep up with him. Things at the office were pretty much status quo. She told about going to dinner with Brumby and how sweet he'd been.

There were other sundry pieces of news before she ended with, "I miss you so much, Harm. I'm glad you're not sick (and please stay healthy), but I really need to see you, hold you, kiss you and wake up in your arms. Take good care of yourself in the kitchen, and be careful. I love you. Sarah."

A WEEK LATER


Mac had checked the mail everyday, praying for a tape to hear her sailor's voice. But since that first one, nothing had come. Then, on the day she had spent almost her entire eight hours in court arguing for leniency toward a young corporal who had found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, a small package appeared in the mailbox. She could hardly wait to get into the apartment before she tore it open. Popping it into the machine, she sat back and closed her eyes.

"Well, hello, Beautiful! God, I wish I could see you right now. It's almost dark, and I'm standing out on the carrier deck, looking at the stars and thinking about you. The sky is so clear; I don't think I've ever seen the constellations so bright, except maybe in your eyes."

Mac smiled. How did he always know exactly the right thing to say?

"Baby, things are getting worse here. We did get a shipment of supplies the other day, food and stuff like that, but we don't have enough medicine anymore to keep all the sick guys calm. Some of them are becoming violent again. But wait, you don't have to worry about me; I'm still in the kitchen. Only the corpmen are really in danger. Ben Morgan's RIO, Lt Shepherd, got sick. He held a couple of com officers at knife point until the security people could subdue him. Ben was pretty glad that they weren't in a flight meeting or something when the hallucinations started. Of course, there aren't too many flight meetings happening around here. We're grounded. It's too risky to take a chance on a pilot developing symptoms of this disease while he's air born. I'm beginning to miss the smell of jet fuel around here.

"C'mon, Mac, let's go inside the hangar. Here we are. All these Tomcats are just sitting around empty, gathering dust. It's kind of sad to look at them this way. The maintenance crews are getting some work done that they couldn't do with them flying all the time, but still it's sad to see them this way. I'd love to be walking along here with you. I'd hold your hand, and every so often, I'd lean over and try to steal a kiss. I guess you'd let me, sometimes, but if I know you, you'd probably make me work for some of them.

Now, we're moving into the engineering area. Normally it would be full of activity 24 hours a day, but while we're on skeleton crew, it's mostly shut down at night. It's very quiet in here. If you were here with me, I'd be able to hear your heart beat. I love to feel your heart beat when you're lying beside me, wrapped in my arms. I miss you, Sarah. I never realized how much until now. It's been a long time, but I can still feel how your hand feels in mine and I can hear your laugh or see your beautiful smile.

It's my turn to stand sentry duty, so I'm going to mail this. I love you, Darling, more and more each day."

Mac smiled and switched off the tape machine. She picked up her own recorder and talked back to him:

"Hey, Sailor! It's always so good to spend time with you. If it weren't for getting this tape today, I think I'd have gone crazy myself."

She told him general news about what was going on in her life, and in the lives of their friends. Since he was so far away and it didn't matter, she even told him about the case she was working on. She highlighted the now daily conversations she was having with his mother. There was a pause, then a hesitation in her voice before she told him the details of a recurrent dream she was having about waking up with him. "Don't you dare let anybody else listen to this tape, Harm!" she warned him.

Mac knew he'd smile when he heard that.

Several more weeks passed. Mac's tapes came, now, almost daily. Harm missed her, and she got the impression that he was just a little scared by what was happening aboard his ship. Every time she received a tape, she recorded one and sent it right back. Her messages got longer and longer, often including graphic descriptions of her dreams and fantasies. Sometimes she included music that made her think of him - songs she'd like for them to dance to. The one thing that Mac put off telling Harm through several of her tapes was about her promotion. Finally, though, she did mention it, but tried not to make a big deal out of it. She knew that now she would outrank him, but she didn't want it to effect their relationship.

One morning, Mac exited her office at JAG on her way to a client meeting only to hear pieces of a ZNN report:

"Just in: sources at Naval Intelligence now confirm that the USS Coral Sea has changed positions. The "Ship of Fools," so called because of the viral illness plaguing it which produces bizarre behavior and insanity, has moved out of its designated quarantine area. Apparently some of the over 75% of its crew now afflicted with the disease have seized control of the ship's operations. There have been reports of gunfire and blazing lights, as of a fire from the deck. So far we can only speculate exactly what might be going on. One report indicates that quite a few persons or bodies have been thrown overboard. Initial attempts to contact anyone aboard ship have been unsuccessful. Stay tuned to ZNN for all the late breaking news."

Mac's heart was literally in her throat. Were the sick sailors randomly executing each other? Where was Harm? Was he okay?

She fretted in her office for a awhile, then, telling the admiral she wasn't feeling well (which was actually true), she went home early.

Just as there had been every day recently, there was a tape in the mailbox.

It said:

"Honey, I'm sorry, but this one's going to be real short. There's a lot going on here and they need my help. I just wanted to say that I can't believe you hesitated to tell me about your promotion. I'm happy for you, really I am. You work hard, and I know your career is important, so I think it's great! There's no way I would let something like that change our relationship. Actually, I'm looking more forward than ever to seeing you. I've never kissed a Colonel before, let alone made love to one. I can't wait. More later. I love you, Colonel MacKenzie. Take care of yourself, Sarah. I'll be home soon.

She took the tape out of the machine and hugged it tightly to her. Then, she turned on ZNN while she changed clothes. A new story about the Coral sea was just starting:

"It is now confirmed, the quarantined ship, the USS Coral Sea has just launched an armed missile headed toward the coast of Iraq. The Navy, as well as the White House, denies any knowledge of this maneuver. We can only assume at this point that it may be the result of the serious hallucinogenic illness that plagues the crew. We knew the situation with the disease was grave, but it looks like, now, that it could start a war. ZNN trackers have predicted that at its present course and speed, the missile will detonate in a densely populated area of a major coastal city. Millions of lives could be lost, if something isn't done quickly. We are told that the Navy has launched several intercept planes, but the likelihood of them getting to the site before the impact is not high. Wait a minute...it seems that an aircraft has just been launched from the Coral Sea itself. This plane is much closer and stands a better chance of making it to the scene in time.

Harm hadn't thought, he'd just reacted. When the missile had been launched by the captain, who was in the throws of fever and illness, he had raced to the Tomcat. With the help of the last healthy plane crew captain on board, he had launched. As he sped toward the deadly missile, all he could think about was the need to see his Sarah.

He over took the missile, fired on it and destroyed it, just as it began its trajectory arc toward the city. As it exploded in the air, he breathed a heavy sigh of relief. This would be something he and Mac could tell their children about.

When he landed the Tomcat back on the deck of the Coral Sea, two other ships were making contact. The CDC had finally figured out a way to contain the spread of the virus. They still couldn't identify a clear causative agents, but they could isolate the human host in a way that the person wouldn't present a danger while the illness ran out its course. Sick sailors were being transferred to a hospital ship. The "Ship of Fools" was no more.

Mac watched the heroic Tomcat rescue live on television. ZNN never identified the pilot of the rescue plane, but somehow she knew that it must be her Flyboy - always the hero.

Just as the story ended, her telephone rang. The familiar voice said: "They want to reward me with a three day liberty in San Diego. Can you meet me there?"

She immediately phoned the admiral. He gave his approval, so she called the airline. It was going to be so good to see her hero, if only for a couple of days.