Surface Warfare - 110

Mikey (Mk) was charged with mis-setting a CIWS gun (6,000 rounds/minute) and nearly hitting a boat of disembarking marines during a politically charged training exercise in Florida- all in the setting of two arrogant and abusive leaders. As fire control man aboard the USS Wake Island he took over control of shooting down a drone after the prime control center had a malfunction. The drone should have gone around again but Capt Lyle ordered Mk to go ahead when Marine Colonel Pergament said he didn't have time. Mk told the XO he "didn't do it," a "little too loud" so Lyle threw him in the brig on bread and water for 3 days; which is where Bud (B)found him. B begged Chegwidden (C) to let him go "assist" Mk (and C didn't send anyone else?) then began asking questions of the crew. Mk's apprentice, Harold Schofield, said he checked the "no-fire" settings and they were correct. The landing boatman said the marines had been off course and had corrected. Pergament took issue of B questions and sent him "unofficially" to the brig for 24-hours to question his own brother. C sent Mac (M) to straighten it out. B told her that she was a "marine and could break through their wall of silence." Pergament told her that she "was a marine and could break through the navy crap." The infighting continued between marines (who used all the water and took two pieces of pie each) and sailors and their leaders. When Mk got out his buddies told him he should have aimed higher to actually hit the "jarheads." Local environmentalists were trying to obstruct the navy's use of Florida land after a mishap in Puerto Rico had killed a civilian and the governor had kicked the navy off their routine practice site. When M asked Lyle why he didn't have the drone go around again he got angry with her. So C sent H down to settle things down. H saw the series of mishaps as a pattern. A protest rubber raft steered directly at the ship "looking for an incident which would make headlines." The protesters all jumped in the water then sent their boat into the ships hull. H spoke with a female protestor and found that she knew of the gun incident and Mk by name. Seeing their hurried, poor planning of the incident he realized it had been last minute because they thought the exercise would have already been canceled. She confessed that the group had "hacked into the navy computer and caused the gun accident." H recommended the exercise be cancelled which ticked off both Lyle and Pergament.

So C, the SECNAV and Webb (W), all came to make people play nice! (W ostensibly thought it might be a Cuban plot to get the navy back to Puerto Rico.) H conjectured that the protestors might not have hacked into the computer but had a spy instead. He suggested that Mk "walk them through it." Mk left the console for a 5 min head break and again afterwards to see what had happened. Both times he locked it but Schofield had access. H "chatted" Schofield into admitting that his girlfriend Jennifer had talked him into sabotaging the gun to fire close to the marines- but they really
C was receiving an award at a Surface Warfare Ball and B was assigned to write his speech. C panicked through episode as the speech wasn't written. Singer (S) was to have gone with a Lt Cdr assigned to the joint chiefs. H with Renee, C with Walden and M stag. S offered to get M a date which she declined. Walden wanted to meet all Cs friends. He asked H if they were friends if they called each other "sir." Harriet (Ht) worried she didn't fit in any dress and Renee offered to get a dress worn by Madonna when she was pregnant. When she told B he replied that she couldn't wear a dress stolen from Madonna. Gunny (G) found Tiner (Ti) with his feet up behind Cs desk and reprimanded him. Ss date was a no-show so she hooked up with doofus JAG lawyer "Alfred." Renee brought Madonna's dress for Ht but she refused until they got a "ruling" from S who said "it's Kosher." B "wow'd" at Ht in the dress. M was alone until Brumby magically appeared having, without telling M, "reserved" his commission and moved to DC to "be near the one he loved." H and M "looked" at each other as they went into the ball - (hence the season cliff hanger.)