An eagle coasted on the wind and Jack watched, fascinated by the massive bird as it effortlessly navigated the sky.  It circled twice then swooped down, its razor sharp talons barely dipping into the frigid water to emerge triumphantly clutching a hapless fish. "If only it were so easy," Jack muttered, indulging in a few more seconds of observing the bald eagle's flight back to its nest and family before he turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

"Murray, that bait may be frozen but we won't catch many crab without it!" he called out as the boat's engineer sent block after block of frozen herring down a slide that ended at a freezer unit used to keep the frozen bait usable until the boat got out to the grounds.

Murray waved and went back to his job, tossing the ten pound blocks of frozen fish like they were light as a feather. "Hey!" Jack said, walking over to the massive man. "Who's down below?"

"Jackson's stacking the freezer," Murray reported.

Jack nodded. "Where's the greenhorn?"

Murray grinned. "Someone has to load the cod."

Jack chuckled and grinned. "You're heartless, man," he said, slapping Murray on the arm.

"We only have another thousand pounds of herring. Then I'll go and check on Quinn. He can't screw the cod up too much," Murray said, referring to the hundreds of pounds of relatively fresh cod the Stargazer also used as bait.  The cod didn't need to be kept frozen, in fact, their quarry, Alaskan King Crab, seemed to prefer it on the moderately rotten side.

Jack nodded. "I’m gonna go check with the old man and make sure, but I bet he wants to get going before midnight."

"We'll make it," Murray promised.

Jack left his friend and made his way across the deck of the Stargazer until he came to the ship's greenhorn. The man was loading gutted but smelly codfish into one of the ship's many bait bins. "Quinn!" he called out.

"Hey Boss," Jonas Quinn answered, grinning despite being surrounded by stinking bait.

"Hey." He looked over the bins of bait, doing a mental calculation of how long it should take the rookie to finish his task. "Skipper's gonna want to head out in a few hours. You gonna be done?"

Jonas frowned. "I didn't know we had a deadline. I thought if it got too late we'd just leave in the morning" he said.

Jack sighed. "Tomorrow's Friday."

"Yeah."

"We don't go out on a Friday."

Jonas frowned. "Is that some kind of law or…"

"It's bad juju if you set out on a Friday," Jack explained. "We can cast off at 11:59 tonight, or 12:01 am Saturday, but we can't set out on a Friday."

Jonas blinked. "Okay," he said slowly. "I'll do my best," he promised.

"Murray and Jackson will be over to help as soon as they have the herring loaded."
Jack left the rookie and made his way up to the wheel house.

The Stargazer wasn't the biggest boat in the fleet, but she was a respectable 100 feet long. A size that gave her a bit of stability in the Bering Sea's infamous storms while also allowing the crew a little room to spread out. She was an older ship, in fact, the captain was the second generation of Hammonds to work on her deck and in her wheelhouse.

"Cap," Jack greeted, stepping into the wheelhouse.

"Jack, how's it going?" Captain Hammond greeted, looking up from the paperwork spread out on the console.

"We should make the cast off," Jack reported, leaning against the wooden counter.

"How's the greenhorn?"

Jack shrugged. "He's still enthusiastic. Smiles too much. Course, we haven't left the dock yet and he hasn't spent twenty-four hours puking his guts out, so we'll see."

Hammond shook his head and chuckled. "Don't forget, Jack, I recall you puking on deck for the first two weeks of your greenhorn cruise."

"Yeah, but I don't grin like a sock monkey," Jack retorted.

"If you did, you'd scare the crew," Hammond retorted.

Jack shrugged.  "I think he'll work out."

"If he doesn't, well if we hit the same honey hole we did last year then we'll have our quota in a week," Hammond said.

"That would not break my heart," Jack agreed.

Technically, they had three months to catch their quota, but the sooner they caught it, the sooner they could all go home. And the more money they made. The full share deckhands, Jackson and Murray, all got a percentage of the profit as their pay. The sooner they caught their quota, the less money they'd spend on fuel and food, the less time they'd invest, so the more money they'd be paid for that time. And, for some of them, if they got done before other crews, there was always the possibility that they could pick up a cruise with another boat and make a few more bucks.

Hammond looked at his watch. "The Coast Guard should be here for their inspection soon."

"I'll get the survival suits rounded up and on deck," Jack said. He may have only been Hammond's deck boss for five years, but he'd been fishing the Bering Sea for almost twenty. So he knew the protocol as well as the captain. During his twenty years, he'd seen a lot of things change. Not just rules and regulations, but technology and safety regulations as well.

Every boat, before they were allowed to go out, had to pass the Coast Guard's safety courses. At least one member of the crew, usually the captain, had to have advanced medical training. And every member of the crew, from captain to greenhorn, had to prove that they could don the neoprene 'gumby suits' in sixty seconds or less.

The suits were necessary to their survival if the worst happened and they had to abandon ship. Even at the height of summer, the Bering Sea was cold, far too cold to swim. Now, with winter coming, the water was less than fifty degrees, and would only get colder. A person, any person, that went into the water without a survival suit to protect them from the cold would succumb to hypothermia and die in about fifteen minutes.

The suits weren't perfect however. Even with them a man could only last a few hours before the cold shut his body down.

"Double check the extinguishers and life rafts too," Hammond ordered.

"Right," Jack agreed.

He left the wheelhouse and made his way down to the deck. Most of the work space was gone, covered by a massive stack of eight hundred pound crab pots. The Stargazer carried a hundred pots, which added eighty thousand pounds to the boat's mass and turned the deck into a maze of walkways and corridors leaving only a small portion of it clear.
That would change, of course, once they got out to the crab grounds and dropped the pots.

It took Jack just a few minutes to check on the extinguishers and gather up the bulky survival suits. He dropped the bags on the deck, pleased to see that Jackson and Murray were helping Quinn with the last of the cod.

"Gumby time!" Murray called out as Jack verified the two life rafts that the boat carried.

"Soon as the Coast Guard gets here," Jack said.

"Coast Guard is here!" a female voice called out. "Permission to come aboard?"

"Granted!" Jack said, glancing up as Hammond joined them on deck.

The two Coast Guard officers boarded the ship. "Welcome on board the Stargazer," Hammond greeted.

"I'm Commander Carter, this is Commander Mitchell," the woman introduced.

"She just transferred here last week," Mitchell interjected.

"Captain Hammond. This is my deck boss, Jack O'Neill, deck hands Thomas Murray, Daniel Jackson and this is our greenhorn Jonas Quinn," he introduced as the men lined up.

"Right," Carter said. Carter smiled and pulled a stop watch out of her pocket. "We'll check the suits now. Who wants to go first?"

"I will," Jack volunteered, smiling at the woman. He picked up the bright orange duffle bag and looked to her, ready for her to signal him.

She held up her watch and nodded. "GO!"

He dumped the orange suit out of the bag and unrolled it on the deck. Just like he'd done dozens of times before, he sat down on the suit and slid his legs into the legs of the suit. He pulled to get his feet to the bottom and then stood up, pulling the suit up. He crammed his arms into the mitten hands of the suit and reached for the zipper, pulling the full length zipper up until it stopped, even with his nose. He held out his hands signaling that he was done. "Fifty-three seconds," she reported.

Jack smiled as best he could with half his face obscured. "I aim to please."

"Yeah, and he can get undressed just as fast," Murray teased.

Jack pulled down the zipper, tugging the suit off his shoulders.  "Just for that, smart ass, you go next."

"Whatever," Murray shrugged.

Carter looked at her co-worker. "Cam, you wanna go inspect the rafts and extinguishers?"

"Gotcha."

"I'll go with you," Jack volunteered, struggling out of his suit. Cam waited for him and the two of them walked through the maze of pots towards where the rafts were.

"Since when does a pilot do safety checks?" Jack asked. He'd seen the insignia on Carter's navy blue duty uniform. He didn't exactly have the Coast Guard ranks memorized, but wings were the universal symbol of a pilot.

Cam shrugged. "She's on TDY."

"Why?" Jack pressed. She was assigned to Sitka

"When your daddy's a rear admiral, you get some funky duty assignments," he said.

"Say what?"

Cam shook his head. "She's cool, seriously. I think daddy, Rear Admiral Carter, has plans for her, but she's honestly working her way through the duty stations. She pulls her weight."

"Still, dude, a pilot?"

Cam stopped and looked at Jack. He glanced over his shoulder, as if to make sure that they were alone. "You remember that chopper last year? The one that went down in the storm."

Jack stared at him. "The one that crashed on the island? Where the crew had to survive for forty-eight hours until they could be rescued?" he asked. They'd all heard about the story. It wasn't often that the Coast Guard got in trouble. They had safety protocols and procedures that usually afforded them some protection. Still, Mother Nature in Alaska was law unto herself. And all the preparations in the world could only go so far. So the story of the chopper that crashed, how the crew had to survive the bitter cold, the violence of the storm, and the tragedy of the one that didn't make it, had been a staple of the bar talk and radio chatter for days.

For some, it brought home the tightrope they all walked. If their perennial rescuers – the Coast Guard – could fall victim to the ravages of an Alaskan storm, anyone could.

"Yeah. That was her bird."

"Wow," Jack said, glancing towards the deck where the woman was continuing the safety checks.

Alaska, and the Bering Sea were dangerous places. And the tales of tragedies were all too common. Just as the tales of the survivors were, often, all too rare.

"Officially, she's on some sort of medical light duty. The story that didn't make it through the rumor mill is that she almost lost her foot to frostbite. But, scuttlebutt is, daddy has her here, hoping that she'll hang up her wings and go for cutter duty," Cam said, verifying the location of one life raft and following Jack as he led him to the second one.

"Something tells me, 'daddy' is going to be up for a rude awakening," Jack said. He may have just met the woman, and certainly hadn't spoken to her, but he had a feeling that she didn't tend to just do as she was told.

Cam laughed. "Oh, yeah. If she has her way, she'll be back at Kodiak by New Years."  Cameron checked the second raft and the fire extinguishers before he and Jack made their way back to the deck.  "How'd they do?" Cam asked.

"Everyone passed," Carter said. "Some better than others."

"Long as they passed," Mitchell said. "Every thing's good inside."

"Then I would say our work here is done. Have a good trip, gentlemen."

"Nothing personal, Commanders, but I kinda hope I don't have to see you guys for a few months," Hammond said.

"Same here," Mitchell replied.

The two officers left the boat and Jack looked to Hammond, the stocky man still in his survival suit. "Supplies?"

"All loaded," Jack replied.

"So's the bait," Jackson said.

Hammond tried to look at his watch and stopped, realizing that his arms were still trapped in the survival suit. "You guys have until 1900 to finish up anything you need. 1930 we'll go and get the fuel tanks topped off and we'll head out."

"And your business better not be in the bar," Jack said, looking at Jonas.

The younger man held up his hands. "Not a problem, boss, I don't drink."

Jack nodded. "Go. Be back by 1830, we're gonna cast off at 1900." The men scattered, waddling a bit in their suits. "Roll those suits up and put them back where they belong!" Jack called out.


SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS


Sam sat in the chair, watching as the cutter sliced through the waves, some of the icy water occasionally breaking over the bow. The ship rocked and bucked as she reached for her travel mug of coffee – the lidded container a must on the ship.

The storm was impressive with thirty foot waves and sustained fifty mile per hour winds and she knew it was going to be a tough watch. And it hadn't been the only one in the last three weeks. Old timers often referred to the Bering Sea in winter as 'frozen hell', and it was certainly living up to its nick name.

Sam didn't think the description was exaggerated by too much. It was cold and wet and rough and tiring and their biggest distractions – beyond endless drills – had been spot checks of the fishing fleet, making sure that the mariners all possessed the appropriate permits and licenses for whatever they were fishing.

She sipped her coffee, bracing herself as the waves buffeted the boat. "Mayday, mayday, mayday."

The staticky radio transmission caught her attention in an instant. She slid out of the seat and moved to stand behind the radio man. "This is the fishing vessel Stargazer. We have lost all power and steering and are declaring an emergency."

"Fishing vessel Stargazer, this is the Coast Guard cutter Denali. What's your position?"

"Fifty-two degrees north by one hundred and sixty easy. That's five two north, one, six zero east. We have five, I repeat five crew on board."

"Get the captain up here," Sam called over her shoulder. "Stargazer, this is the Denali, I estimate that we're about thirty miles away and we'll start towards your location. What's the stability of your boat?"

"We're going to try and stay on as long as we can. And we're working on restarting the engines, but we've already taken two swamping waves." She could hear a slight note of – not quite panic, but certainly anxiety in the man's voice. She felt her boat spin as they changed course, making their way towards the imperiled vessel as quickly as they could. But, given the distances, 'quick' was relative. At best it'd be an hour before they could get there. And a lot could happen in an hour.

"Affirmative, Stargazer. Let us know if anything changes," she instructed.

"We will if we can," he said, a bit fatalistically and broke off conversation.

Sam turned to the radio officer. "Put out a call, let's see if anyone else is closer."

"Yes, ma'am."


SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS


Jack struggled down the passageway, needing to brace himself with both hands to keep from getting thrown to the deck as the boat heaved and rolled in the waves.

"MURRAY!" he shouted, struggling to be heard over the noise and alarms. His feet sloshed through a few inches of water.

"They won't restart!" the large black man yelled, his upper body hidden by the massive engine.

"Fuel line?" Jack asked, more out of the need to try to help than really thinking the man hadn't already checked that. Murray was an excellent engineer, one of the best Jack had ever seen.

"Fuel line, fuel filter, we've checked it all," Daniel said. "They should be running."

"But they're not," Jack said pointedly.

Murray looked up. "Boss, I—"

"We're taking water," Jack said. "And without the pumps or steering we're going to take more."

"You better not be saying what I think you're saying," Daniel said.

"I ain't going in the water," Murray said.

"Hey," Jack said, grabbing the man's arm. "You'll be fine. And we probably won't have to. Coast Guard's on their way." He looked at the two men. "Murray, you keep working on the engines, Daniel, get Jonas and the two of you get the life rafts out and ready. And all of you get your suits handy. If we have it, we won't need it."

His orders given, Jack made his way back above deck, with one detour to pick up his own survival suit. He got to the wheel house just as Daniel and Jonas left, presumably to ready the life rafts.

"Where's your suit, Cap?" Jack asked.

"I'm not going to need it," George said doggedly, struggling to steady himself as the boat continued to rock.  Jack looked out the windows and could see wave after wave break across the bow. As he watched the water turned the boat and the waves started to come form the side, each one making the boat roll a bit more.

Jack looked at the older man, his jaw set in denial. "George," he said. "We're gonna lose her."

George shook his head. "No. She's a tough lady, she'll come back. Murray probably isn't doing it right." He moved to go down below.

 Jack reached out and grabbed the man's arm. "Murray's done everything he can."

"I’m not leaving this boat!" George declared.

"And I'm not letting her take you down!" Jack yelled back. He bent over and picked up the duffle containing George's suit. "You need to put this on."

"Jack, I am not leaving this boat," George said.  "Maggie and I spent our honeymoon on this boat. I….I scattered her ashes from the stern. I will NOT leave it!"

"And she would not want you to die here!" Jack said. "Do not make me smack you upside the head. Cause if I have to I'll get Murray up here to shove your ass into the suit," Jack threatened. "I don't wanna call your kids and tell them you're fish food."

"Jack—"

"Put it on. Because the guys won't do it without you, and I need them in their suits." His shoulders slumped and he took the duffle from Jack. The ship rolled violently, almost tipping over ninety degrees before it righted itself.

"Get them on a raft," George said, all his fear gone. "I'll call the Coast Guard and let them know we're going in the water."

Jack nodded and hurried down to the deck.

"Boss?" Jonas asked. All three of them were halfway into their suits, the heavy neoprene bunched around their waists.

"We're going," Jack said.

"I said—"

"Murray. I need you to get Jonas and Daniel into the raft. It's gonna be a bitch to launch it the way this boat is rolling. But I want you guys in there and away before we totally lose it." Jack knew what Murray's fear was. It wasn't swimming per se, but he knew that Murray, like most big guys, didn't do well in the water. The muscle that was such an advantage on deck was a definite disadvantage in the water. It weighed him down and meant that he had to work even harder to stay afloat. Jack could only hope that the task of being in charge of the other two would help Murray deal.

"What about the captain?" Jonas asked.

"As soon as I get you guys off, he and I will get in the other raft. He's up talking to the Coast Guard right now."

"Come on, Murray," Daniel said. "Help me with that damn raft."

Jack helped the three men get the raft into the water and watched as the three men struggled over board and into the raft. Assured that they were as safe as they could be, Jack made his way back up to the wheel house.

George was dressed in his suit, like the others, he had it bunched around his waist to leave his hands free. "They're coming but they won't make it in time," he reported.

Jack nodded. "We need to get the other raft ready."

George turned away, taking one long last look around the wheelhouse. He reached out and pulled a small framed photo of him and Margaret off the wall and tucked it into the top of his survival suit. "Let's go," he said, his voice determined.

Jack pulled his suit up and zipped it most of the way up before he and George struggled out onto the deck. She ship was rolling even more now, almost capsizing with each wave.  "Come on!" Jack yelled over the roar of the wind and waves.

He tugged the life raft out of where Daniel had tied it. Both he and George fought the raft, the high wind turning it into more of a sail than a boat. A fierce gust caught the boat just as they reached the rail and blew it so forcefully that it pulled the two of them off the boat.

Jack landed in the frigid water, gasping in shock as water poured in the open neck of his suit. Instinctively, he reached down and yanked the zipper up so that only the front of his face was exposed. He awkwardly looked around, searching for George.

The man was floundering a few yards off to his left and Jack swam that way, the churning waves making those few yards seem like acres. He finally reached the man's side.

"Where's the raft?" he shouted.

"I lost it!"

Jack tried to turn around, searching for the life raft, but the waves made it impossible to see more than a few feet. "We'll be fine," he said, latching onto the man and pulling him close. He refused to acknowledge the fact that, if they'd kept the raft, their odds would be double or triple what they now were. True, the Coast Guard knew where they were and were on their way. But a ten foot raft was a hell of a lot easier to see than two men, bobbing in the waves. "We gotta stay together!"

George nodded grimly and pulled out a length of rope. They tied themselves to each other and waited. They were now at Mother Nature's mercy. And, if she was at her worst, the most they could hope for was that their bodies would be recovered so that their families would have something to bury.


SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS



"I'm getting an EPIRB," Lt. Johnson called out.

"I think I can see them," Sam said, handing the binoculars off to the captain.

"I have the captain of the Time Bandit on the radio, sir. He reports taking on a raft of three survivors."

"Any word on the other two?" the captain asked, not taking his eyes off the floundering boat. The Stargazer was on her side, her hydraulic crane sticking awkwardly up into the air.

"I'm checking."

"We'll never get this boat close enough, sir," Sam said.

"The chopper?"

"They wouldn't be able to get here until morning," Sam said.

"We can get to them with the zodiak," Cameron said. Her friend wasn't on watch right now, but in the middle of a rescue, saving lives was more important than logging some rack time.

"Mitchell?"

"Sir, Sam's right, this boat can't safely get close enough without risking colliding with the Stargazer. The zodiak is more maneuverable. If those other two are in the water, we'll have a hard time seeing them."

"Agreed. Get a crew and launch the boat. Carter, you go with him." She looked over at him. "You're good at pulling people out of the water without getting your feet wet, you can see how the other half lives."

"Yes, sir."

The pair of them quickly geared up and went out onto deck where a crew of five was awaiting them. Despite the storm, within a few minutes they were away from the cutter and skimming the waves, heading towards the doomed vessel.

Sam knew that the zodiak was far from the safest vessel to be in in a storm, but their smaller bulk did have one advantage over the cutter, they were able to skim over waves instead of plowing through them.

Of course, being so low to the water did give them a massive disadvantage. Their visibility was limited to just a few dozen yards.

"The current will take them that way!" Cameron yelled, pointing off to their left. The crewman at the rudder followed his order and the craft turned.

"If three of them got into their suits and the raft, the other two should have as well," Sam said.

"Maybe. Then again, I don't see Captain Hammond leaving his boat without a fight."

The zodiak bounced and slammed over the water, the rough ride forcing all of them to hand on tight lest they be tossed overboard.

"THERE!" one man called out. Sam craned her neck and she could see the shape of two orange bodies bobbing in the water.

The zodiak turned and maneuvered closer to the men. "I hope they're still conscious," Cameron said. "It's a bitch to pull them in when they're dead weight."

Miraculously, one of the men raised his arms, waving to them. The zodiak slowed down, the rudder man doing his best to steer close to them without risking ripping them to shreds with the propeller. He eased the craft along side the men and Sam reached over, helping the crew pull both men into the zodiak. Once they were secure, Cameron ordered the craft back to the cutter and they were once again bouncing over the waves. Sam could see that both men were barely conscious so she and another man nearly laid across the two survivors, using their own body weight to help hold them in the lurching craft. They needed to get warmed up and medical attention, but there was nothing they could do for them right now.

They finally reached the cutter and were soon back aboard the vessel where the two survivors were hustled off to the medical bay for treatment. Her adrenaline still pumping, Sam stood on the deck a second, oblivious to the roaring wind and surging waves. "Pretty cool, huh?" Cam asked, standing beside her.

"Yeah," Sam said, grinning.

He nodded. "It's harder when they don't make it," he said grimly. Sam simply looked at him. "I think we caught our limit of crabbers for this watch. Let's go get dried off and cleaned up. Then we can go and inspect your catch."


SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS


Jack sat on the bench, his hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. Even though he'd had a hot shower and was dressed in warm, dry clothes, he still felt chilled. There were a few crew members in the mess but they all seemed to be giving him a wide berth.

"Orange definitely was not your color." He heard a voice say.

He looked up, frowning for a moment until he recognized the person standing over him. "Carter, right?"

"Yeah. But Sam is fine. Mind if I join you?" He shook his head and she sat down. "How's your friend doing?" she asked, taking a sip of her own coffee.

"Okay, I guess," Jack said. Jack looked at her. "That ship was his life."

"It's still afloat," she said. "It might make it."

"I don't know if it's good or bad if it survives," he said. "Losing it is hard. Wondering if you could have saved it is even harder."

She shook her head. "There's no way you could have stayed on her. You guys made the right choice."

He nodded, in no mood to argue with her. It didn't matter what any of them thought, what was done was done. "How about my men?"

"They're all fine," she reassured him. "The Time Bandit picked them up and Captain Hilstrand says they're just cold and bruised."

"Are we going to go and pick them up?"

She shook her head. "The Time Bandit almost has its quota, and they have a deadline. Your men agreed, the boat's going to finish fishing and then it'll drop them off in St. Paul in a few days."

"Good."

They sat in silence for a few seconds and, surprisingly, it didn't seem awkward to Jack. "What are you going to do now?" she asked.

Jack shrugged. "I've definitely got the rest of king season off," he said. "I dunno."

"There's probably a few boats out there that could use a good deck boss," she suggested.

"Might be a boat that needs a captain," he said, voicing a thought that he'd had for a while now.

She raised her eyebrows. "You're thinking about getting your own boat?"

Jack shrugged again. "Eh, I've already done the sinking thing so I got that out of the way."

She laughed. "I can see you captaining a boat. Let's say you got a new one, what would you call her?"

"Mmhm." Jack stared into his coffee as he thought about it. "Homer? Marge? Jack's Folly?"

She laughed. "Irish Eyes?" she suggested.

"Rub My Thighs?" She burst out laughing, her face coloring.  

"Dinner First," she countered.

"Pick a day," he said, going from teasing to serious in an instant.

She stared at him a second. "Jack?"



"Jack?" A hand shook his shoulder and Jack opened bleary eyes to see his wife standing over him. "I said you didn't have to wait up."

She smiled and leaned over to give him a peck on the cheek. "What time is it?" he asked, stretching with a yawn.

"Twenty three hundred," she said. She turned to look at the TV, frowning as she registered what he was watching. "I don't know what you see in that show," she said, plopping down beside him on the couch. "I don't get what's so interesting about a bunch of grown men catching crabs."

"If I gotta explain…" he teased as she slapped his arm in mock outrage."You look tired," he said, sliding his arm behind her shoulders.

"Mmhm, long day." She leaned into his side and sighed with contentment.

"We need to get you to bed," he said, ignoring her moan of protest.

"I bet you say that to all the girls," she responded, letting him pull her up from the couch.

"Only the ones that matter," he said, taking a moment to lock the door and turn out the lights before leading her into the bedroom.

She was the catch of a lifetime, and one he planned to cherish forever.

~Fin~