Sherlock: Lover Mine [Book II]

The Mad Crewman

Susanna had moved the two unconscious officers into recovery positions and was gleaning preliminary information from them by the time Sherlock arrived. The galley was splattered with blood and thick bile, and reeked of the bodily fluids. She looked up as he entered and puffed, "Two U.S. Marines and a British Sailor. No open wounds. The blood was vomited up." He nodded passed her a mask and two pairs of gloves, taking the precaution to slip on a second pair himself.

He moved to the dead marine and crouched, "Still warm. Died recently."

"These two might expire too before we can get any more information from them," Susanna sighed, "Either they were poisoned or exposed to a pathogen. Either way, there's at least one other crewman aboard with a vendetta."

The breathing marine, a young woman, groaned and lurched forward, suddenly waking as she emptied her stomach's contents. Susanna bounced over and balanced on her heels as the marine coughed, "W-Who are you!?" Susanna's accent changed, transitioning from Londoner to Southern U.S.

"I'm Susanna Markwardt and that is Sherlock Holmes. We're here because your boat did not make schedule at port and lost contact with headquarters after reporting three crew dead," The marine dry heaved and Susanna placed a gentle hand on her back, "Easy, Marine."

"What transpired before you were knocked out?" Sherlock enquired. The marine calmed down and Susanna helped her to sit up. Susanna put one hand up, telling him to wait. She looked at the woman's insignia and imhaled.

"Sergeant Popovitz, can you stand?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Take it slow. We need to get you and the sailor down to the lab, Sergeant." Susanna tutted and helped Sgt. Popovitz to her feet.

"What'd you say your name was, Ma'am?"

"Susanna Markwardt." Her face contorted in recognition.

"You wouldn't be General Markwardt's daughter, would you?" Susanna nodded with a sly smile.

"Yes, but let's keep that secret." This garnered a small bout laughter from both. The sailor, a bulky man, stirred awake and the group allowed him to clear out his system before introducing themselves again. Then the four hobbled back to the lab, where Sgt. Popovitz and Lt. Overstreet used the lab's emergency showers to clean up. Susanna sent Sherlock back to get samples from the galley and sickbay, and he was quick to finish the job. He spared a few minutes at each scene, deducing scenarios and theorizing, before hurrying back to start some tests.

Susanna was working on setting up the livestream back to Mycroft and Niles, wiring the laptop into the main monitor and TV screens when he got back. Their two survivors were dressed in blue coveralls and sitting close to the sinks, composing themselves, "I have the samples."

"Excellent," Susanna hummed as the video stream came online. In seconds they were viewing a darkened chamber with Niles and Mycroft standing in the center. Their faces were illuminated with light from the panel in front of them, and they both looked impatient and worried, on Niles' part.

"We were wondering if you'd jumped off the Leonidas and started swimming back, brother mine."

"Never, Mycroft. We were busy examining the boat and locking down the main lab," Susanna answered and cleared her throat, "We can confirm the deaths of the three crewmen in the report. However, we have discovered another death and currently have two sick officers in the lab with us."

"All of the lifeboats except for one have been taken by the rest of the crew. The ship was abandoned and the communications equipment was sabotaged." Sherlock added.

"Have you figured anything else out yet?" Niles asked. Susanna clicked.

"Not at the moment. We're starting to run analyses on some samples and we're going to talk to the survivors shortly. I have reason to believe that there is one other person aboard who deliberately poisoned or exposed the officers to a pathogen."

"Keep us apprised. Out." Mycroft cut off the video feed and they were left with a color blocked screen.

"I will start running tests." Sherlock stated, propelling Susanna towards their company. She nodded and approached the officers.

"Tell me everything, from start to finish."

Popovitz spoke first, "Around a week ago, there was some scuttlebutt floating around."

"About?" The sailor snorted.

"One of the other navy officers. He'd been seen poking around the radio room. The bloke was assigned to the engine room and shouldn't have been up there anyhow, but when the Captain confronted him about it they had a domestic. Some of the crew said the guy had been looking to see if he could secretly contact some friends of his. Thing is, that's not allowed on board without express permission and we have to censor everything we do say."

"So the crewmen were thinking he was either homesick or up to no good. He only joined the crew a couple months ago, so we thought he was just anxious to get to port and have some air."

"He started hanging out around the lab and sickbay, and in the galley too. Then a few days ago, three of the others got sick. All of them started seizing and vomiting in the galley around lunchtime. The food on board isn't gourmet, but the ship's cook is decent and she never prepares unclean or unhealthy food. Not once. So it wasn't hard to suspect the crewman."

"When the three who'd gotten sick died, Overstreet and I cornered the crewman since we worked with them here in the lab. Commander Powell was with us to detain him because the radios had been vandalized. That was earlier today."

"The man went mad, and set off the contamination alarms. People began abandoning ship, per procedure, and he cornered us in the galley. I don't remember much after that."

Susanna and Sherlock exchanged looks as a million thoughts ran through their minds. He cleared his throat, "Well this is a fine problem you've gotten us into, Love."

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