by Clay Moore
“Under the Admiral, we had to learn the social graces including dancing. I think that the Vivana made me fail that class so that she could dance more often with me."
"I don't imagine that you are going to be with the upper crust. Most of what we will be dealing with is going to be the criminals. Things like pirates, smugglers, and other kinds of activities."
"I've always thought of us as being political. Some of us might get our hands dirty in the politics of that world. Perhaps we might investigate a corporation that suddenly looks like it's making a huge amount of money. We might want to know what they do. Are they taking any illegal shortcuts in their profits."
"Well, I thought I would inform you of the changes in the targets."
“John, you will save a lot of us trouble if Anton Hecton doesn't survive his meeting with you."
"Yes, sir. I understand that my license has been increased to include Anton Hecton. Z04 out." John turned off the Hypercom. He put that device into his briefcase. John also put his copy of the prospectus into the file section on the lid. He closed and latched the Attaché.
He picked up the communicator for his room made a call to Daniel. Daniel promptly answered his communicator.
“Kries residence. This is Daniel speaking. How may I help you?"
“You know the sound of my voice, Daniel?"
“Yes, I do know the sound of your voice-“
“Don't say my name."
“Something has changed?"
“Yes, something has changed. I can't say anything to you on the communicator. I need to tell you in person." "Okay, I'll wait till next time I meet you to find out. Is this the call where you want me to go get the explosives and bring them into your room."
"Yeah, you de finitely read my mind. Since I found much more interesting lights out clothing, I think I'm going to let them fall into your hands.”
“These are work style clothing?"
"Shirt and work pants. The color is flat black. Hence the term lights out."
"They probably issued you your size and nothing else." "One is a size larger than myself, the second is the size smaller than myself, and the last is my height. The Service thought I was going to need some hands. This is something that's to be done by me."
"okay, I'll go get your equipment." Daniel broke the connection. John knew that he could trust Daniel to get the material that he left with him. In fact, it would be a matter of a few minutes before John heard the awful squeaking of the golf club holder's wheels.
While he waited for Daniel to arrive with the equipment, John decided to shift into his evening clothes, which is what he was calling the Grav-rod gear. As he took off his suit, he put each piece into its appropriate location on a suit hanger. John also removed his shirt. He put the shirt also on a hanger. Before he left tonight, he was going to have to put his suit in the cleaners locker on his door.
He decided that he didn't want to walk around in his room naked anymore. It seemed that he was giving a peep show to the women around the hotel. So he started putting on his evening wear. He began with the black Tshirt. They put on the black work pants with the black chaps over the legs. He took out the black gloves from the pockets of the leather jacket. He put the gloves over the top of the tactical helmet. He did not put on the leather jacket. That meant that his sling holster was visible to anyone. He really didn't care about that, because he doubted if he would be arrested. If he was arrested, he was going to spend any time in jail. He was here to help Faraway deal with this sticky problem.
He had just finished putting on the boots when his door was knocked. John walked to the door and open it with his right hand on his blaster pistol.
Behind the door was Daniel. He had his golf club case trailing behind them like some dinosaur's tail. As soon John opened the door completely for him, he walked the golf club case into the room. John indicated a suitcase caddy to Daniel. Daniel nodded his head and moved the golf club case to the bag caddy. It took a little fine-tuning, but the golf club case was now balancing on the caddy with the locks facing towards the top.
* * *
John came over to the golf club case and opened it. What was inside made Daniel shake his head,
"I do construction, and sometimes we need to blow things up. I have never seen the designation of HDX." "HDX was born during the battle of Faraway. Apparently, planetary interests came up with this idea and mounted these warheads on to torpedoes. The result of these explosions could cause a melting of the armor plating on a battlecruiser. This is basically the most powerful plastic explosives that we have impregnated with Radamite."
"This is Radamite enhanced?"
“That is correct. The Radamite is expected to increase explosive yield by about five times." Daniel looked into the golf club case and counted the number of bars of HDX packages. He did a quick mental calculation. If John was expecting to destroy 40 mechanical wombs. That meant that he was going to divide those bars of HDX into four. He was staring at 10 bars of HDX. There were 40 detonator controllers and 40 detonators.
"So what is your opinion as to my plan?" “Have you gone mad? You don't have any extra." "Tonight, make sure that Danny does not come any closer than your backyard. The name of this operation is overkill. I'm actually going to destroy the building as well as the mechanical wombs. I want a visual that no one can misinterpret. All you guys have to do is make sure that nobody comes back. Or that anyone starts up the genetic robot stuff again."
Daniel started to back away from the golf club case. John came up to him and slapped him on the back. He just about jumped up through the roof.
"HDX is pretty stable. In my explosives class that I got in the Marines, we actually played a baseball game with a ball made out of HDX. That was the weirdest sporting event I had ever seen in my life. I thought that at one point there was actually going to be an explosion of HDX."
"Are you going to light all of them off at the same time?" "Yes. These detonator controllers all work from a hand controller. As I place each bomb and turn on the detonator, it will attach itself to the list of weapons that this detonator will blow up. When I get to a relatively safe position, all I do is push that button. Then roughly at the same time, all 40 bombs will go walk. By placing them on the mechanical wombs, I guarantee myself destruction of the devices. But putting in more than is necessary of explosives I guarantee destruction of the building. That way even an idiot sitting on his ass on a starship orbiting the world will see that this complex is completely destroyed.”
Daniel started laughing. He turned to John and said, "could we charge orbital fees for the ship orbiting the world?”
"Certainly any ship that circles your world you have a right to tax. That includes military vessels. However, most military ships will not pay a fee unless you have something huge in orbit.”
"I wonder if the Eridani space Navy might like to get some hyperspace time on their ships. I think I read that there were four fleets, so that would be a fleet for every three months."
“Just how much are you going to charge these foreign nationals?”
“I was thinking maybe a thousand credits payable in either gold, silver, banknotes." John started laughing with Daniel. “That actually sounds like a pretty good mission. Go and put yourself into the defensive fleet formation. Most of the smaller worlds will realize that they cannot possibly defeat our fleet. You might actually get a chance to see Alphacent taking on Eridani."
"Wonder who would win that battle." "It all comes down to whether it is a fight or a war. A single battle would probably go the way of the Eridani High Guard. If it were a fight, then I would have to take the Alphacent fleet. They are built to project force at a distance for a longer time.
“What Eridani is going to have to do is pretty much change its strength mix. The Eridani High Guard was dependent on size and number of fighters. They were a latecomer to ships that carry Aerospace fighters. Altering my employment by the Eridani High Guard, I have noticed that they were trying to come up with the perfect carrier. Th
is was not a simple light carrier or a Battle cruiser. This was a designation of a ship all its own. They were trying to put together a ship that had pretty good guns, and also had a well diverse fighter group."
"What-what would something like that do?"
“What is the one thing that fighters do very well?"
“Move quickly?" "And in some peoples theory, you would be right. The one thing that fighters do very well is shoot and move. On my light freighter, there was a spot for a turret of some sort. You could actually fit any kind of guns on there. Instead what we chose was the 30 mm, antifighter blaster. Vivana got really good with the controls of that turret. All of the other guns have to be moved by electrical motors, and you can never get speed out of those large guns. So the gun mix on a ship that is supposed to repulse fighters includes quite a large number of antifighter blaster turrets.”
"I always thought that the planetary director had purchased bigger guns than was necessary. Now I understand what he did. Was trying to turn the world into a cruiser."
“And he would be correct to do so. You don't have the wherewithal to afford the construction, manning, and sailing of any kind of naval vessel. Put a few more blaster cannons on ground rigs than a cruiser needs, and you have a mighty planet."
"When should we start thinking of our own Navy." "When this world starts growing at a regular rate of over 20,000 people a year, then you might need a fleet of system defense boats. Some of the more useful ones have a cruiser blaster cannon on it, and that is the only weapon it has."
"When do we add fighters?"
"When you have enough pilots to mount a couple of squadrons."
"When do we add the larger ships?" "Again when you have enough people to maintain it. He also has to have a need to move your combat power to a different star system. If all this is his defense system, then you do not need ships capable of hyper. If you wanted to, you could get rid of the hyper for a cruiser and built the ship in your system. Gotta be able to do that. After all quite a bit of your GDP comes from repairing and refurbishing old ships."
"It looks like we have quite a ways to go."
"I know this is not what you want to hear, but Eridani feels a little proprietary when it comes to Faraway." "And am I glad for that. When we can defend ourselves completely, then we have come to that crisis point. Where do we go from here."
"I think that you want to help us make these bombs. You kept me yammering here for a little bit longer than I wanted to perform."
"And you call yourself not a detective. Let me school you on what your job is. You are pest control. When something or someone becomes too much of a pest, you will receive your mission briefing concerning them. Sometimes you will be asked to terminate them. Sometimes you might be asked to abduct them. Sometimes you might be asked to perform destruction of property. All and all you are a garbage cleaner. You sweep out the trash."
"Do you have anything else that you want to say to my superiors?" "Yes. I noticed that you use a gun that is rather small. I know it has a 9 mm caliber. I think you should push your superiors to let you carry your 11.5 mm, blaster. I know that you can conceal them a lot easier nowadays. I even think that there is a cut-down model which will fit a little easier under your arm."
"Have you bought a blaster pistol?" "Yeah. I bought an 11.5 mm blaster like yours. I learned to use it. I think I am fairly good with it, probably not the same as you."
John was immensely grati fied that Daniel would buy the same kind of blaster pistol as he did. One of the problems of his profession is that he did not get a chance to stick around. By coming to the same planet twice after a period of a year between each mission, John saw how much change John caused. The average growth he could not take credit for. Unusual stores or businesses he could take credit for.
The door opened to his hotel room. John looked at him I noticed that was Jeff. Jeff had a flat look like he was getting ready to do something dangerous, but he also had the nervous twitch with his hands that indicated he wanted to do something interesting. It still kind of perplexed him that people who were professionals with explosives were nervous around explosives. In the modern world of 2152, these kind of explosives were extremely safe until they were introduced to their detonators.
John opened the golf club case. At the bottom of the golf club case was a roll of explosives paper. This was a paper that was used to work with plastic explosives all the time. The paper did not allow the explosive to stick to it. He took the role of paper and cover the tops of three of the tables in his room. He used his personal lock back knife. He did not collapse the knife because he was going to use it again. There was no need to collapse the knife and then open it up again. Jeff took out his knife that can work as a bayonet. The only one without a working knife was Daniel. Part of that reason was he was always moving between nonsecure areas and secure areas of the Starport.
"Okay guys," said John. "What we are going to do is create bombs. I have every belief that some bombs I'm going to make will actually take the building down. I think that is a better idea for you than to have a Starfleet in orbit over your world dropping weapons, and blasting everything in sight. That would mean the end of your world and your culture that's developing here."
"Do you mean the hotel, dining room, and the club?"
"That's just one factor of everything that makes Faraway worthwhile."
“Then how do we divide these bricks of HDX?” "Jeff, we are going to cut them into four equal pieces. When you do that you are going to put in a detonator and a detonator controller. You will make sure that the detonator controller is zero and off.”
* * *
"Zero and off ?" Asked Daniel. John was about to answer, but Jeff explained for him. "Remember the plastic explosive requires a detonation. This-" Jeff lifted the detonator which was a bit of metal with wires coming out of it. “-is a detonator. We could connect all the detonators to an electric source and rig up a button, and everybody goes the same. The problem John has is that he has got to place all of these, and then run like hell. At some distance from it, he could push a button, and they would explode. The controller though allows him to use several different ways. It's the only drivers I've seen have the ability to set up a timed explosion and also a pushbutton, or a dead man switch."
"Is there anything new in those controllers?" "Yes, Daniel. The controller now has the ability to fire off the bomb's when one of the bombs is fiddled with. When someone tries to safe the weapon, there are enough smarts in the controller to fire it. The fascinating thing is that all of these detonator controllers talk with one another. When one bomb is fiddled with the other weapons also fire off in sympathy."
John put in front of each of the other men one brick of HDX. Jeff was the first one to see that there was marketing on the wrapping. He uses those markings to slice through the plastic explosive.
John noticed that Daniel was having trouble trying to cut the explosive. The reason he was having the trouble was that he did not have a knife. John went to the suit coat and looked at the pocket sewn into the suit behind the head in that pocket with just a little bit above the inner seam was an anti-scanning knife. This was something he added to his own suits. He pushed the button, and the blade came straight out. Once it came all the way, it was locked down. The blade was sharp on both sides and came to a needle point. John walked over to where Daniel was and put the knife on the paper for him to use.
“I came through your security and had that on me. You can do the same thing. I want you to have that knife."
“What about you? Aren't you losing some of your firepowers."
"You forget I'm going to deploy 40 bombs. That's about all the firepower I think I need to have."
Daniel said: "okay I think I got these divided. How do I put in one of these detonators?" Jeff went over and helped Daniel understand how to insert the detonator into the newly formed explosives. Once Jeff showed Daniel how to add the detonator, Daniel was able to insert all of his bombs.
John init
ially set up a spot for him to do the weapon creation. When he found two people, who were willing to do with him that gave him a moment to use the remote device to determine if there was a problem with any of them. Only twice did the machine pick up that there was something wrong with the bombs. John came over and show them what was going on. Then he walked away, and there were no more errors.
John then oversaw the wrapping of each individual bomb in some of that bomb paper. Mostly the bomb paper did not adhere to the HDX itself. He then met and showed them how to wrap the paper around the weapon to protect the detonator and the detonator control. John went back to his golf club case and pulled out one huge duffel, and some smaller duffels in case he needed them. He pulled out the big duffel zipped it open. With John overseeing the work, Jeff and Daniel put the bonds in the big duffel. It worked out that the big duffel good hold all 40 of the bombs with a lot of room left over. John picked up the duffel and walked over to his closet. He opened the closet door and stuck the duffel inside the closet.
Daniel asked: "Will a blaster bolt because these explosives to explode?” "HDX is an explosive that has as one of its components Radamite. That's why it is called a Radamite enhanced explosive."
Jeff smilingly said: "would you like to try it out?"
"Jeff don't be an ass," said John
"That's okay. I can take it. I like to take it. It's just that I was wondering if you need to think about how you're going to place these." "Why is that a problem for you?” "Not really a problem. Just a matter of technique. Am I to assume that you want the synergistic effect of multiple explosions at nearly the same time?"
"Yes, I would like that to happen. Are you saying that if somebody were to shoot the bombs with a blaster that it might go off, but not set off all of them?"
Jeff remained silent pulling on his bottom lip trying to figure out if that might be true. John scratched his jaw as if he were in school trying to come up with the right answer for the pretty new teacher.
"Okay, we now have a legitimate problem. If I do the way Daniel suggests, I open myself up to a possible way to remove the bombs. On the detonator controller, there is an evident blinking red light. It is one of many deterrents built into the device. The problem I have is who is acting as security in the Genetics Robotics laboratory.
