Critical Error: Book 3 of the Leaving Earth series

by Kaal Alexander Rosser

  One of the directors — while agreeing on most points — did not want to take Grum up on his offer of training. Instead he confessed that what he would most like to do would be to go back to a senior management position, and that he was especially excited about the Nevada spin-off. He wanted to know if Grum would support him in his application for CIO in that new company.

  Grum had to force himself not to laugh. He said that he had trained Ben to management, himself, but that having another experienced senior manager on the team would probably be welcome, and that he would talk to Ben personally about it.

  It would not immediately "fix" everything, but it would give everyone the room to reassess without being reactionary, which was an important start.

  After those meetings, Grum put some thought into how to alter the re-organisation proposal to address the board's corporate safety concerns. While he was reasonably sure that he would probably get the vote in his favour, it would reinforce his own image of working consideration if he did the work and gave it consideration.

  He began to realise that the board's governance concerns could be addressed if he set up — and here he sighed aloud in his office — management committees to handle the transition. At least that would allow the re-org to start. So he drew up a new plan with all the dotted lines you could possibly eat to indicate the indirect and transitional management structures. No big-bang change, no "right first time", just gradual change from bad to good. It was messy to his way of thinking, but probably the best way to handle the board's worries.

  He sent the revised proposal to the individual directors for perusal ahead of their next meeting, with a note saying that if there were any urgent issues, he would be happy to address them. Then he got on with trying to sort out the mess the business was in.

  USSMC's willingness to admit culpability and the immediate — in corporate terms — action in getting the best of all possible care for the victims — as well as paying for it — went quite a long way with the public. For that reason, it went quite a long way with the federal and state governments as well.

  Funding for anything non-nuclear was back on the table for discussion and Grum pointed a loaded Steve Branch at it. All the nuclear programmes were still off the table, though, pending the outcome of the court case, which meant that they were very effectively shut down from USSMC's perspective. All except UMBRA, which miraculously still had funding from all sources. The international programmes were back on track for all types of research, which gave at least some avenues for USSMC to explore.

  Somehow, someone had found out about the soon-to-be opening on the board of directors, because he had an email from a General he had never heard of about putting a name forward from one of their own governance teams, to be considered as a replacement. That made Grum nervous, but he agreed to discuss the idea with the board as a whole, and include it in the Agenda for the AGM, when the board member who was leaving would actually step down. He did not bother to ask how they knew. It was government. If they really wanted to know something, and they knew what they were looking for… They could find it.

  The last thing on his to-do list was something he had been avoiding, because it really did not sit right with him. Stew and Steve had been after him to address the increasing demands by the press, to know what and how much USSMC was doing in the particular case of Fey Sikes. The thirteen year-old girl who had nearly died in the disaster and had suffered horrific injuries.

  He did not want to put that poor girl centre-stage for the world to gawp at, and so he had ignored the demands. But now, the silence was turning to conspiracy theory. Everything from Fey actually being dead and USSMC covering it up, to insane suggestions of experimentation. So Grum was going to have to deal with it.

  Or rather… Within strict guidelines, Stew and Steve would have to deal with it. He authorised the release of the extent of USSMC's financial involvement in her care, high-level descriptions of the latest medical technology being used to help her recover, but with an injunction to remember that the parents must authorise everything and that the poor girl was still in a coma.

  Chapter 23

  THE board accepted the re-org proposal at the second reading. None of the directors had any particular recommendations or points of contention to raise before the meeting, although there were several suggestions to clarify one point or another.

  So now it was down to putting it into practice, which was where Grum took of his governance hat completely and put his management hat firmly on. He did not care a great deal about who exactly was on each transition committee, so long as one or two key members were there. In that respect, he decided to use the unfortunate committee situation as proving grounds for potential senior management positions. It slowed down the appointment process, but hopefully would speed up the interview process.

  Stew would be chairing the committee in charge of gathering together all the R&D resources into one new Division without disrupting any actual implementation programmes. There were a few problems with that. Such as the occasional team consisting of only a couple of people who did both jobs, but then there were teams who were overstaffed for what they were doing, so it balanced out. In any case, It was Stew's problem. The direction which Grum had given Stew was that each department had to divest themselves of R&D, but could have their own implementation teams, or hire the services through the expanded Professional Resources department which incorporated the old HR function as well as that of the internal professional services resource co-ordination which SyncDep had started.

  Given the hard choice he had forced on Hank, Grum went to talk to him directly about it.

  'So you're taking R&D back off me? That's great! I could use a tonne more generators!' said Hank.

  Grum laughed. 'You don't get to keep all the R&D budget, Hank! If all the Divisions with R&D kept the budget they had, there would be no money left to fund R&D! That was part of the problem. R&D was being funded inconsistently, so now it's going to be in its own Division with its own budgetary responsibilities.'

  'So, no extra money?'

  'Not this time, Hank. You already have the lion's share of the company's budget, now that Nevada is being hived off.'

  'How's that going?'

  'Ben reckons he'll be ready for IPO proposal come the AGM.'

  'That's not far off!'

  'No, indeed.'

  'You know I'm a fan of Ben's he'll do the right thing by us. How much control are we keeping?' asked Hank.

  'Haven't decided exactly, yet. We might keep an absolute controlling interest, or just a large stake. We'll see how the beancounters reckon it.'

  'Now, what is this I saw at the last board meeting? You had everybody onside, to some degree or other. No obvious antagonists.'

  'I just found the right way to deal with them rather than threatening and yelling at them all the time. You know that most of the board — the old board, that is — was made up from senior managers from the various companies. Well, no one had thought to give them governance training.'

  'You offered them a training package?!'

  'Not quite. I offered to take them along and pay, personally, when I go for my governance training.'

  'Oh, that is well done. I'm impressed. I did see one guy who wasn't really involved, though. Not anti or anything, just seemed like he didn't care. Was that a failure?'

  'No. He's resigning from the board.'

  'What?!'

  'That's strictly on the QT, mind.'

  'Oh sure'n for sure. What made him do that?'

  'He wanted to go back to senior management. So Ben's taken him on at Nevada.'

  'And how's that working out?'

  'Ben says the he is doing really well a CIO. The soon-to-be-ex director only flies back for board meetings, now.'

  'Lot of things going on at the AGM.'

  'It's a crunch time, for sure. Which is another reason I wanted to talk to you, Hank. I think that's a good time to have the decision made about your role.'

  Hank
stiffened, then relaxed again.' Already made it, Grum. I'm staying on the board.'

  'Chosen your candidate for here?'

  'Followed your lead, once again. I put the four most likely candidates on the transition committee with Vann to chair. Grum made to speak, but Hank held his hand up to stop him. 'I promised her it was only temporary, but that I wanted her to watch the other members for signs of possible VP-hood. She's cool with that.'

  'Works for me. How are they going with implementation teams?'

  'Well, we were a little top-heavy on that score, as it turned out. I've got too many implementers who want to hang around in Space, as it were.'

  'You know that I'm giving Professional resources the ability to create "bench resources"? You could either let the extras hire out to them as T&M, or let them go there permanently. Or negotiate for somewhere in between. Up to you. Or your replacement.'

  'I think I might give that one to the committee and see who comes up with the best solution.'

  'Good plan. And speaking of plans. It's time I went and got on with everybody else's.'

  'Hah! OK, Grum. See you again soon. We'll have to go for another game of pool soon, so long as you promise not to give me a heart attack, this time!'

  'It's a promise on the pool, at least!' Grum yelled over his shoulder as he left Hank's office.

  Promises, promises, thought Grum, as he headed to look over the construction work which was still ongoing for the observation deck. Made a lot of promises.

  He had promised something to almost everyone in some form or another.

  It would not be easy to deliver on most of them, but he would do it. That was the point of a promise, after all. No point in promising something easy. If it was easy, you just did it, no need to promise anything. It was the hard stuff you needed promises for. Which was why they got broken. Sometimes they were too hard to keep. But you had to try.

  He was keeping his promises to the board, so far. Both the spoken and unspoken ones. One of the unspoken ones was "I am not like Kelvin Goldstein", and so far he had kept it, but that was surprisingly hard. So many times he was confronted by board-level ignorance which left him very close to just trying to enforce his ideas rather than persuade. That was why he wanted people on the board who were experienced in this kind of company. When someone on the board said something like "but why have an R&D Division at all?", it rocked him. He felt like shouting at them: "WHERE DO YOU THINK THE BLOODY PRODUCTS AND PROGRAMMES COME FROM IN THE FIRST PLACE, YOU IDIOT". But he could not do that. That would be counter-productive. It would also be breaking his promise.

  Then there were the promises to the various committee members that their voices would be heard, no matter how inexperienced they were at this sort of thing to start with. For that purpose he had formed — of all horrors — a steering committee, with himself as chair and the chairs of each of the other committees as members. So far that was working to make sure that any conflicts were resolved and that all the committees were heading in the same direction for the same purpose. It also reinforced his authority over the other committee members, while giving them a voice. Keeping the promise.

  He was desperately trying to keep his own promise — again, unspoken — to Fey and her parents that she would survive and live a healthy, happy life. In his own mind, the most injured of everyone was a symbol of success in whether he was keeping his promise to the rest of the survivors or not.

  He had kept his promise to the government or military, or whomever, about putting forward the name of the Major they wanted on the board, and the board had agreed to interview them with a view to adding to the complement, rather than replacing a member, but that a final decision would not be taken until the AGM.

  But now the AGM had happened, and he was even managing to keep his promise to Stew, that the whole CEO and Chair thing would only be temporary. Or rather, the board and the shareholders were keeping it for him.

  Grum was confirmed as CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors for USSMC, until such time as the present extraordinary circumstance were resolved. At which time, or in the AGM immediately following the resolution, they would seek a replacement for one or both of the roles and Grum would be asked to step down from one of them. Then they asked if he agreed.

  Of course he agreed. That was exactly the point of it all. He had a year, maybe two at the outside to get the framework in place so that USSMC was not so haphazardly lethal, then he could jack it in.

  Because the one promise he was not keeping was the one to himself. The one he had told Ben to make sure he did at all costs, no matter what role he was in. He had even reminded Ben of it when Grum had gone to Nevada for the meeting about how the spin-off and IPO would pan out. The promise to himself that regardless of whatever else he was doing, he would always keep some science in his work day. But that was not happening and it probably was not going to happen until he was clear of this bloody job he had landed himself in. Until then?

  No science for you, m'laddo. Just politics and subterfuge.

  Chapter 24

  GRUM did not like the hesitancy with which the board were currently backing the care and after-care packages for the disaster survivors. It was to whimsical. Constant reviews and keeping the best interests of USSMC at heart.

  Screw that! USSMC had killed people. Children! And damaged several more severely. There was no way he was going to skimp on their care, nor allow others to do so. That would be breaking a promise.

  As far as he knew, though, he only had one tool with which to ensure that outcome, and he had to be damned careful using it.

  The archive had contained the information for getting hold of Mr Grey.

  Now Grum and Mr Grey were sat in a bar which Grum did not particularly like, drinking sub-standard coffee.

  'There is a job I wish for you to do, Mr Grey.'

  'Yes, sir. Who is the obstacle to your happiness, sir?'

  The whole of goddamned USSMC, thought Grum, but he said: 'There is no obstacle, Mr Grey. I wish you to be a preventer of obstacles for another.'

  'Sir?'

  'One of the victims of the explosion at the tech centre was particularly badly injured. I understand that due to major intervention, which I am happy we provided, she has survived and yet remains in a coma.'

  'Does this young person present an obstacle, sir?'

  'Damnit, no!' Grum hissed through gritted teeth. 'I want you to ensure her survival, safety, and continued health to the best of your ability.'

  'Are you sure, sir? She seems to be causing you some distress.'

  'She is not causing me distress, Mr Grey!' You are, though. Which presents an intriguing situation. What if you are an obstacle to my happiness, Mr Grey? What would you do then? 'You are to keep Fey Sikes from any and all harm. Do you understand?'

  'Just as you say, sir. What means should I employ, sir?'

  'To the best of your ability, I said. And, yes, I am aware of what I am saying, as well as to whom I am saying it, Mr Grey. By any means necessary.'

  'Certainly, sir. It may be necessary…'

  Grum cut him off, knowing it to be cowardice as he did so. Or at the very least squeamishness. 'I don't need to know how, Mr Grey. Only that it is being done, and continues to be done, no matter what.'

  'As you say, sir. I shall attend to it, directly. Good day, sir.'

  He had crossed a line, there, he knew. A big, fat line marked "danger, do not cross". But he would be damned if he would let some beancounters skimp on Fey's health and well-being, just because their laurels looked so comfy right about now.

  Grum headed back to the office, the job, and the complete lack of either science or moral certitude in his life.

  Books by Kaal Alexander Rosser

  Leaving Earth

  1. Directed Energy

  2. Power Base

  3. Critical Error

  Cyborg

  1. Survivor

  Non-fiction (as Kaal Rosser)

  1. Avoiding Advertising... Like a Ninja
/>   2. How 2 Fact Check

  Author's Note

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  Take care, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the books.