The Stones of Silence_Cochrane's Company_Book One

by Peter Grant

  “That’s coming fast,” Cochrane assured him, and told him about the corvettes that would be arriving over the next two years. Cousins’ eyes shone as he listened. “Our bigger warships are being designed right now. The prototype will be ready and tested in two years, then they’ll start building a squadron of them. Give us five years, and we’ll be stronger and better equipped than most minor planets.”

  “That’s great, sir! What about crews? We have enough spacers and NCO’s for now, but officers are still a real headache. I’ve had to fire a couple already, while we were working up the third and fourth patrol craft. They were all about their commissioned status, and less about getting their hands dirty, getting the job done, and leading by example.”

  “I’m glad you got rid of them. I know we’re going to have problems there. I’ve been thinking about something like the Lancastrian Commonwealth Fleet’s Warrant Officer and Limited Duty Officer programs. If we can find enough good NCO’s who are ready for more responsibility, we can give some of them warrant rank and make them department heads. On smaller warships like patrol craft and corvettes, that would work. That way, we might get away with only two commissioned officers on a patrol craft, and four on a corvette. The best warrant officers could be offered Limited Duty commissions on our bigger warships as they arrive.”

  “We’ve got nothing to lose by trying, sir. Have you talked to Sue McBride and Jock Murray about it?”

  “I have, but both say they aren’t qualified to comment. They got their warrant rank as technical specialists, rather than senior NCO’s.”

  “That’s true, I suppose. We really need one or two Lancastrian warrant officers to help us set up our own program.”

  “I’ve thought about that. There are brokers on Lancaster that offer the services of retired warrant and commissioned officers to those who can afford to hire them. They’re expensive, but if we want to do this right, I think we’ve no choice but to hire a couple. We’ll offer them a year’s contract, renewable for another year, and pick those with the right personalities and skills to help us select, train and form our own warrant and Limited Duty cadre. Effectively, we want them to work themselves out of a job.”

  “I understand, sir, but don’t tell them that!”

  “The right people will understand that at once,” Cochrane assured him. “How’s the makeshift depot ship settling down?”

  “She’s in orbit around Mycenae Primus Four, sir. Dr. Masters has got the hospital up and running, but she and her staff are complaining about being bored. There’s nothing for them to do. I’ve told them to lend a hand in other departments, as far as they can, but I don’t know about a long-term solution for that.”

  “Neither do I. We’ve got to have them out there – it’ll take far too long to get medical emergency cases to another system for treatment – but I can see their problem. I’ll talk to Elizabeth when I get there next month. Are you and she still an item?”

  “We are, sir, although it’s difficult at present, with her there and me here. With your permission, I’d like to see what I can do about that in due course.”

  “Do I hear wedding bells in your future?”

  “I reckon so, sir, if all goes well.”

  “I’m glad for you both. You can expect to move out to Mycenae in about four months, as soon as our last patrol craft is ready. You’ll command our squadron in that system, with Lieutenant-Commander Moffatt as your second-in-command. I’m going to leave it to you to set up patrol schedules and make sure we’re covering everything important. What’s the current resupply and crew relief position?”

  “Once a month, a freighter delivers supplies to the depot ship, and relief crews for two of the patrol craft, sir. She brings back two crews for extended liberty here, as well as part of the crew of the depot ship.”

  “That’s the same freighter you’ve been using to collect asteroids, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right. I’ll leave her on that run, but find another skipper for her. I’m going to give you my courier ship as your personal transport, so you can travel faster in an emergency. I’ve already chartered a replacement for myself from a Neue Helvetica company. It’ll be here next month. Initially, I’ve wet-leased it with its own crew, because we’re so short-staffed. As soon as we have enough personnel, I’ll change to a dry-lease and put our own people aboard.”

  “Thank you, sir. Your ship’s a good one. I’ll be glad to have her.”

  “You may need a fast ship like that to make a quick getaway. Say I have to send you to Rousay, and NOE suspects we’ve funded our operations using their illegally beaconed asteroids. They may try to have you arrested and questioned. If you get wind of anything like that, your ship’s faster than any of Rousay’s patrol craft, so you should be able to get out of the system if you have to.”

  “I see, sir. Uh… didn’t your contract with NOE specify that if Eufala Corporation returns their money, plus ten percent interest per year, NOE’s investment relationship with Eufala is terminated, and reverts to just a contract for security services?”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “Well, sir, we’ve got more than enough money coming in now. Why not refund their money, and go to a straight contract? That way, all our ships will be our own, with no lien on them, and NOE will no longer have any ownership interest in them. That also means they can’t complain you’ve taken their money under false pretenses, or anything like that, because you won’t have any of their money anymore. It makes it less likely for friction to develop between them and us.”

  Cochrane nodded, slowly at first, then more quickly. “Dave, you came up with an absolutely brilliant idea for our long-term business plan, and now you’ve done it again. That’s a real brainwave! If I return NOE’s money, and tell them they can have our security services for the rest of our three-year contract free of charge, with no further payment of even operating costs, they’re bound to jump at it. In fact, I’ll head for Rousay right away, before anything else happens that might complicate matters.”

  “If they ever find out what we’ve really been doing, sir, things may get sticky.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it. If that happens, I intend to blame everything on either the Callanish consortium, or those Albanian intruders, or both. After all, how is NOE going to prove that’s not what happened?”

  “And if they want to know where we got the money for our new ships, sir?”

  Cochrane shrugged. “Our contract specifically says we can keep any stolen materials we recapture, and use them for our support. They don’t have to know that most of them were illegally beaconed asteroids.”

  Laughing, they went their separate ways.

  ROUSAY

  Marwick stared at Cochrane in utter astonishment when he laid on his desk a bank draft for three hundred and seventy-five million francs, in full and final repayment of NOE’s ‘investment’ in Eufala Corporation, including interest, plus the first year’s operating expenses.

  “But – how – where did you get the money for this?”

  “Remember I told you we’d captured the ship that stole your satellites, sir, and tried to steal their replacements? She turned out to be Colomb, a repair ship from Callanish. She was worth a lot, being newly refurbished and modernized. What’s more, the consortium on Callanish used the money they got for your first satellites to buy other ships. We took the liberty of… ah… relieving them of their ill-gotten gains.”

  Marwick started to smile. “You did what? Are you serious?”

  “I won’t go into details, sir, for obvious reasons, but yes, I’m serious. You’ll recall our contract authorizes Eufala to use what we recover from criminals to support our work. We’re applying the proceeds from those ships for that purpose. There’s more than enough to refund your money, and still pay for our operations for the rest of this year. This way, we now own our ships and our company free and clear, and NOE gets its money back to use for more important things. I’m re
funding your first year’s operating expenses as well, and I won’t ask for more for the next year. That seems a fair way to handle this.”

  “Dammit, it’s more than fair! The Board will be very happy to hear this. We’re facing a lot of expenses in pushing colonization through the United Planets, so this money will be very welcome indeed. In fact, I daresay it’ll be more than enough to get the process finalized within the next few months – then we can start making money properly!” He looked at Cochrane with an almost paternal affection. “I suppose you’ll want to retain the two freighters, the courier ship, and the other gear we lent you, for the full term of the contract?”

  “Yes, Mr. Marwick. I presume that won’t be a problem?”

  “Not at all, particularly now we can afford to lease other ships to replace them, if necessary. I don’t mind telling you, Captain, this will do me personally a power of good with the Board. Several of my fellow directors questioned whether it was wise to hire your services, and whether we could afford them.” He picked up the bank draft and waved it in the air. “This will set their minds at rest, and no mistake! I think they’ll pay a lot more attention to my advice in future.”

  Marwick signed the documents to terminate NOE’s lien over Eufala’s assets, and handed them over with a smile. Cochrane took his leave with the director’s congratulations and expressions of goodwill ringing in his ears, accompanied by the firmest handshake he’d experienced in years. He couldn’t help wondering what his reception would have been if Marwick had suspected the truth. Grinning, he decided it would be better not to find out.

  13

  A Miner, Mined

  CONSTANTA

  Hui returned from Qianjin a few weeks later. Their reunion was bittersweet.

  “I just don’t know how to cope with intimacy without a future,” she told him frankly. “I’ve had time to think about us a lot on the journey from here to Qianjin and back again. Yes, I’m attracted to you, and I know you feel the same way about me; but I don’t see how we can build a future together. You can’t move to my planet, even if you wanted to. I’m honor-bound to serve my Fleet, and therefore can’t move to wherever you are.”

  He sighed, in both frustration and sadness. “I see where you’re coming from. I’d say let’s go ahead and see where things go from here, and make our decisions based on that; but I suppose part of that’s the difference between men and women. For all the talk about equality, we still approach relationships differently, at gut level.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right. Can we shelve things for now, and work together professionally? Will that be too difficult for you?”

  “All I can promise is that I’ll do my best. If that doesn’t work, I suppose we’ll have to limit how much time we spend together. One thing, though – no recriminations. Neither of us have done anything unprofessional, or anything we need to be ashamed of, so there’s no point in blaming each other. We’ll just have to learn to live with this.”

  Her face softened. “You’re right. This isn’t your fault, and it isn’t mine. It’s just… life.”

  The new corvette was well into her working-up period. Cochrane had appointed Lieutenant-Commander Darroch as her commanding officer. He’d served under Cochrane as an Ensign and Sub-Lieutenant. Since then he’d commanded a patrol craft as a Lieutenant, and served as Executive Officer of a fleet transport as a Lieutenant-Commander. He’d jumped at the chance to join Eufala when Cochrane had approached him.

  Darroch helped to come up with names for the new corvettes. “Sir, you named the patrol craft after carnivorous fish,” he pointed out. “Continuing the theme of names from Earth, why not name the corvettes after poisonous plants? We hope they’ll give our enemies indigestion, after all!”

  Laughing, Cochrane agreed, and he and Darroch spent an enjoyable hour researching the subject. They came up with a dozen names, listing them in alphabetical order. Amanita was the first, and the new corvette was christened accordingly. Her ship’s crest, painted by an enthusiastic local artist on the bulkhead of her docking bay, copied an illustration of the poisonous mushroom from an ancient encyclopedia. Obtaining an actual specimen had, of course, been out of the question, so far away from Earth.

  Hui laughed when Cochrane told her how the names of the corvettes had been selected. “You’re certainly picking the more dangerous aspects of life on Earth. What are you going to name the frigates?”

  “When the time comes, we’re thinking of smaller cat predators – wildcat, bobcat and so on. Earth had lots of them. We should be able to come up with enough names.”

  Cochrane warned Darroch, “You’ll have to put up with not just one, but two Captains as passengers aboard Amanita for her maiden patrol.” He explained about Hui’s presence.

  Darroch looked worried. “What about cabins, sir? We only have one spare in Officers Row, because we’re carrying two extra junior officers under training.”

  “Give it to Captain Lu. There’s an empty berth in the NCO’s quarters. I’ll use that.”

  Horrified, Darroch refused point-blank. A luckless Ensign was swiftly banished to NCO territory, and Cochrane was invited to use his cabin for the trip. Grinning, he accepted. “Sorry, Ensign,” he apologized. “It’ll only be for a few weeks.”

  “That’s all right, sir,” the young man retorted with an impudent grin. “If I can survive a few weeks in the company of senior NCO’s, I reckon I’ll be able to survive anything!”

  “Be careful how you conduct yourself, then. At this stage of your career, you’ll learn a hell of a lot more from NCO’s than you will from textbooks or training aids. Take advantage of your time among them to ask lots of questions. You’ll be glad you did.”

  Before leaving, Cochrane took the time to assess the company’s ships, and streamline their operations. One of the freighters borrowed from NOE was now serving as depot ship in the Mycenae system. The other was making monthly supply runs on the triangular route between Constanta, Rousay and Mycenae. The leased freighter was still on hand, not in regular use except for the shipments of asteroids to Barjah. He would have preferred to end her lease and hand her back, but if even one of the other freighters were unavailable for some reason, he would have to delay an asteroid shipment. With payments to Kang Industries rising steeply over the next few years, a delay might be unacceptable. Sighing, he kept her on the books for now.

  He appointed a passage crew for one of the two fast freighters for which he’d swapped at Medusa, and sent it to Goheung for Kang Industries to convert into a training ship. There weren’t sufficient spacers available to form a crew for the second, so he designated it as a temporary local warehouse ship. The New Westray depot ship still held its own machinery, the equipment taken off Colomb, and the asteroids gathered in the Mycenae system. Cochrane ordered everything transferred to the new warehouse ship, and the unserviceable depot ship scrapped, to get it out of the way. Sue McBride protested the delay this imposed on refitting her new repair ship, but he was unrepentant.

  “I’m sorry, Sue, but we’ve got to avoid getting bogged down in unproductive work. Useless ships are part of that. They take time and attention that we can’t afford.”

  “Och, I suppose you’re right, sir. What about the three derelict patrol craft?”

  “They’re our only source of spare parts. We’ll keep them for now.”

  Dave Cousins came up with another good idea. “NOE had a lien on our patrol craft, sir,” he pointed out. “That’s been lifted now that you’ve repaid their loan, but what if questions are raised in future? What if they come after us alleging we stole ‘their’ asteroids? What if they try to seize our ships as compensation?”

  Cochrane shrugged. “We’ll have to deal with that if it happens.”

  “But what if we can deal with it now, sir? The only ships registered in Eufala Corporation’s name, so far, are the patrol craft at Mycenae. You haven’t yet registered any of our other vessels – you’ve been too busy. Why not register them in the name of a different compan
y, independent of both NOE and Eufala? That way, if there are any legal complications, they’ll never have been Eufala assets as far as the law is concerned. NOE won’t be able to touch them.”

  Cochrane began to smile. “That’s a good idea. What’s more, I’ll change our Constanta operating license to reflect the name of the new company. If Rousay pulls our license in the Cluster, we’ll still be able to operate legally here. What do you think of ‘Hawkwood Corporation’?”

  “Hawkwood, sir?”

  “Yes. Sir John Hawkwood was a mercenary captain in Italy on Earth during the fourteenth century. He was a ruthless, cunning son-of-a-bitch, by all accounts, but one of the most successful of his kind.”

  “I guess we’re mercenaries too, sir, at least of a sort, so I don’t see why not. Where will you register it?”

  “I think Neue Helvetica again. If it’s set up there, we can easily transfer funds between Eufala and Hawkwood via a cut-out account. It makes administration easier, and it’s not subject to the authority of Constanta or New Orkney Cluster courts. That gives us another layer of protection.”

  “That ought to do it. What about the patrol craft at Mycenae, sir? Will you leave them in Eufala’s name?”

  “Yes. We only need them for the next couple of years, until enough of our corvettes are operational. As soon as they are, I’ll retire the patrol craft. Even refurbished, they’re so old that they’re poor excuses for warships.”

  “You haven’t thought of sending them to Goheung, to be modernized from the hull outward?”

  “I decided against it, at least for now. Patrol craft can’t hyper-jump. They have to be ferried aboard another vessel for interstellar travel. That’s all very well when you aren’t in a hurry, but what if an urgent need arises somewhere? We may not have time to get a transport to wherever they are, load them up, take them where they’re needed, and unload them there. What’s more, any fighting will make it too risky to load or unload them – they’ll be too vulnerable. On the other hand, corvettes are interstellar ships. They carry at least twice as many missiles as a patrol craft, and they have longer endurance on patrol. We need that flexibility and speed of deployment right now.”