by Rob Buckman
“But, sir…” Just then, they hear someone pounding up the stair, and Adam came running through the door.
“Sorry, I’m late, sir, I was checking the power plant location on the ship.” He panted, forgetting to salute.
“No problem, pull up a chair and say hello to Gable Bushman, our Chief Power Officer.”
“Hello, I’m Kincaid, I mean Adams.” He held his hand out.” The bemused expression on Gable Bushman’s face deepened, as if he was out of his depth. “Glad you are here.”
“You might like to take a look at these, sir.” Conner Blake placed another copy of the specification data pad beside Leftenant Bushman, along with the coffee. Mike was beginning to have his doubt about this one. He looked at his orders and record while Gable flipped through the spec pad. It was even worse than Adam’s was.
His last posting was information officer in charge of base computer systems on Titan. His credentials didn’t seem that impressive, and he shot a quick look at Conner Blake. Conner just raised a questioning eyebrow at him and held up the coffee pot, ignoring the obvious question. That was two down, now all he had to do was divine what the Admiral was expecting from all this. Between the two of them, they did give him more time to work on the problem of hull number 696. He visited the fabrication shops, hull members, plate, environmental, electronics, and so on down the line.
Over the next few weeks, he visited them all, seeing the complexity of a modern warship first hand. Most of the shop did nothing but repair or fabricate damaged or inoperable units, but they did have the capacity to fabricate new ships, but rarely did. He found it was the same with all of them, as at one time they did in fact build warship of all sizes. They still had the capacity by the look of all the mothballed equipment. Conner watched his Captain and began worrying about him. He was sleeping less and less, eating less, and spending an increasing amount of time haunting the workshop. That wasn’t good. He was becoming obsessed with building the ship on the old slipway. He’d wake up in the middle of the night, or the early hours of the morning to find Mike up and working at his port-a-comp terminal or sketching on a bit of paper. Eventually, things had to come to a head or he’d collapse from exhaustion. Things did come to a head after he didn’t come back to quarters one night. Conner and Gable went looking for him, finally locating him in the frame fabrication shop. They found him sitting on a stool in the dimly lit shops, staring into space, an intense look on his face.
“Sir?” He didn’t answer, and Conner took him by the arm. “Time to get some sleep, sir.”
“What?” Mike asked absently.
“Time to go to bed, sir.”
“No time, I’ve almost got it.”
“Got what, sir.”
“The design.”
“Oh? The design for what, sir?”
“The ship, I can see it.”
“Of course you can sir, but a night’s sleep would help.”
“Yes, yes, a night’s sleep.” Conner and Gable took him back to his quarters, and Conner put him to bed.
“Is he all right, Chief?” Gable asked, a worried look on his face.
“Yes, Leftenant. He’s all right, just a little worried about getting a certain ship finished.”
“Which one, there are so many of them.” Conner chuckled.
“Oh, nothing, sir, just a little puzzled someone dumped in his lap is all. Something to do with HMS Kiss”
“I hope he’s all right. HMS Kiss?” Gable asked, getting a slight smile in return as an answer.
“Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t cure, sir.”
Another three days passed, and everything began settling down into a steady rhythm, until a battered old Land Rover came slipping and sliding down the road between the fabrication sheds. All four wheels spraying slushy mud all over the side. All four looked up as someone came clumping up the stairs.
“I’m looking for First Leftenant Gray.” A little portly man asked, coming in.
“I’m Gray, what can I do for you?” He asked, thinking this might be the man from the Ministry.
“Thank goodness for that. My name is Tottingham, and I’ve spent a whole morning driving about this base, getting completely lost so many times I’ve lost count.”
“And the point of your travels, Mr. Tottingham?” Mike prompted, expecting the worse. The man started looking through his pockets, muttering to himself.
“Let's see, I have it here somewhere, where did I put it... Oh yes, here it is.” Mike took a deep breath.
“I have a shipment for you, Leftenant.”
“A shipment!” He looked blank. “A shipment of what?”
“Data pads, specification manuals for your power plant, main engines, the Ag components, and your warp drive.” Mike breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thank God for that.”
“Oh, that's just part of the shipment.”
“What else do you have?”
“Your main and secondary armament, navigation’s equipment, radar and sensors and just about every other major component you need, Captain.”
“Good God! Are you an angle?”
“No, sir, hardly that. I’m just the shipping supervisor.”
“Long way from your office, I bet.”
“Yes, sir, on this one. These were specially ordered with instruction from the R&D lab manager to handle the delivery directly to you.” A grin spread across his cherub face.
“Well...” Mike couldn’t think of anything to say for a moment. “We can definitely use whatever it is you have, I’m sure.”
“I can understand that, sir.”
“And the equipment itself?” Adam asked.
“Oh, I pick that up directly from the R&D facility for delivery the moment you give the word. A few of the items are still being complete when I left, but they should be ready in the very near future.” He chuckled.
“So you’re not from the Ministry of Supply then?” Conner asked.
“Good heavens no. I’m from Gravatronics, and I must say, you must have some friend in high places, sir, you literally have the latest designs.” He beamed, happily, thankful that he’d managed to find the Leftenant at last. “Can I get the help of a couple of people to unload?” Between the five of them, they ferried two large boxes up to the officer while he read and signed the requisition documents, in triplicate of course. Mr. Tottenham last act was to hand Mike a key chip before he waved happily, and thumped back down the stairs.
“I wonder what this is all about.” Gable mused.
“Something definitely odd, those are top secret security boxes.” Adam said, running his hand over the top of one.
“That’s what this is for, to unlock them.” Mike murmured, looking at the key chip in the palm of his hand.
“Yes, I wouldn’t try opening them without it.”
“How come, Adam?” Mike had never seen anything like this before.
“The lid has a very powerful electromagnet built into it, any attempt to open the box without the security key and it zaps the data pads. Either wipes them clean or garbles the data.”
“But why the secrecy?” Gable asked.
“That is something we are still trying to work out, Gable.” Mike carefully inserted the data key, hearing a faint humming sound as he did. Then he opened the box to reveal six data pads, nestling in foam cutouts.
Each box had three layers of pads, and six pads per layer. That was a lot of data, and after unpacking them, they laid them out on a worktable. None of them contained the long hoped for ship design, or drawing, just the design specification for all of their new equipment. Mike passed several of the pads to Gable and Adam and began reading. The pads were long on engineering specifications, and short on explanations, even so he waded through each of them in turn.
“Oh my lord!” Adam exclaimed. “Have to see these new power plants?” He looked up, excitement written all over his face. “No, no, of course you haven’t, silly of me.” He dived back into the data, laughing to himself.
Mike went through each of the data pads, committing the basic information to memory. For three days he didn’t nothing but read, driving Conner to distraction trying to get him to eat. He took the pads back to his digs, and it wasn’t unusual to find him still sitting at the table in the morning staring into space, or scribbling furiously in a note pad. On the third day, hollowed eyes and looking drained, he and Conner arrived at the office and Conner was thankful that at least he didn’t have his nose stuck in a data pad any more. Now he just looked distracted. They entered the office, and Conner immediately put the coffee on to brew, as he turned away from the machine, something caught his eye, and he stopped. All four of them made it a habit to kick off their overshoes when they came into the office, so as not to track snow and mud all over the place. This morning was no exception, so why were there wet footprints tracking across the office. His eye’s flicked around the room, his suspicion deepened when he saw a wet spot under Mike’s desk. He checked Mike’s shoes, and even in his present mood, he’d still kicked off his overshoes.
“Excuse me, sir, but I think we may have a problem.”
“What?” Mike looked up. “What problem?” In answer, he pointed to the wet spot under the desk, then at the other wet footprints around the office, but Mike was so distracted he failed to grasp their significance.
“I think we’ve had a visitor, sir.” He said, seeing Mike’s blank look.
“A visitor?”
“Yes, sir, someone was here last night.” Mike looked at the footprints again, his face brightening.
“Damn!”
“Coffee, sir?”
“What? Yes, of course, but...“
“I’m sure it was just the cleaning crew, sir, nothing to worry about.” Mike shot him a puzzled look as he sat down. “Oh, by the way, sir. We need to go and have a word with Mr. Harwood before we do anything else.” Even in his present distracted mood, Mike didn’t fail to pick up on the name.
“Yes, I agree, he should be in the shop by now, shall we go?”
“Yes, sir, the coffee should be ready by the time we get back.” Without another word, they left the office and went down into the workshop. There wasn’t much going on, but Conner headed for a hull plate polisher and walk around behind the massive machine.
“This should do, sir, what with the static and noise, we shouldn’t be overheard.”
“Your reference to our late departed spy, Harwood was a brilliant move, Chief.”
“Thank you, sir. I thought it might get your attention.”
“So what dark deeds do you see afoot this time?”
“We don’t have a cleaning crew, sir...”
“I’m aware of that, Conner.”
“So who was wandering around our office last night to leave the footprints, melted snow, I imagine.”
“Yes, there was a snow storm last night.” Mike muttered.
“The question is, what were they doing there?”
“I take it, that the reason we are standing here having this conversation, it’s also a question of what they may have left behind.”
“Yes, sir, that thought did cross my mind.”
“We need a scanner.”
“Yes, sir, and I know just where we can get one, and solve another problem at the same time.”
“And that is?”
“Any Naval Command is entitled to have a security contingent on hand, isn’t it, sir?”
“Yes, depending on your definition of a command.”
“Do you think that Admiral might just consider this a command?”
“There is no harm in asking.”
“Nor telling him of our suspicions, sir.” Conner added. “A Sergeant and a couple of Marines should be sufficient, sir.”
“Yes, you go and waylay our Leftenant’s and bring them up to date, and I’ll put a call into the Admiral.
Conner saluted and took off to locate Gable and Adam while Mike keyed his comm unit. It took a while, but finally the Admiral’s aide called him back. The conversation was short and to the point, and surprisingly, his request was granted immediately. For most of the morning, they stayed out of the office as much as possible, but Mike did check the security boxes. He didn’t find any evidence of tampering, and all the data pads were there except the ones he’d taken with him. That wasn’t to say someone hadn’t got in and looked. Gable disagreed.
“It would take very special equipment to get into those boxes, and if I had an interface unit I could tell you if someone other than yourself tried to open them.”
“That’s not to say that whoever it was isn’t going to come back with the right equipment and try again.”
“That’s a point.”
“We could set up our own security camera and see who it is, if they come back.”
“I’m not sure how much good that will do us, as I doubt we, or anyone else would recognize them. Still, if might be a good idea.”
“I’ll take care of that as soon as the Marine detachment arrives. I scanned the office and found four bugs, sir.”
“Shit!”
“Not to worry, sir. I disabled them.”
“Well, at least the enemy knows we are onto them.”
“True, sir, but we won’t be leaving anything around for them to find, or look at, so all they have is a suspicion that we are up to something more than just inspecting repairs on ships.”
“The question is why would they even suspect we were doing anything else?” He raised one eyebrow at Conner. For a moment, Conner looked blank before nodding in reply. It was a very good question.
Just after lunch, a deep rumble sounded in the distance, like distant thunder. They all heard it and recognized the sound of an assault shuttle as it came in over the water in a typical Marine landing. It slowly moved up the estuary and settled gently on the dock/landing pad near where they were waiting, the hull still hissing as the cold rain hit the hot metal. That meant the pilot made a fast re-entry, and bent a few traffic rules to get here. The main ramp thumped down, and twenty-five fully equipment Marines disembarked a few moments later. Much to Mike’s surprise, Sergeant Rice led the way. He formed them up in two ranks, brought them to attention, then turned and saluted smartly, a broad smile on his face. Mike looked suspiciously at Conner, then returned the salute.
“Good to see you again, sir!” He snapped.
“Same here, Sergeant Rice.”
“Reporting for duty with detachment as ordered, Sir!”
“Stand your men easy, Sergeant, and a word in your ear.”
“Troop! Stand easy! Corporal Jerkins, you’re in charge.”
“Yes, Sergeant Rice!” There was crisp to the Marines now, and Mike couldn’t see a surly face in the bunch. Even Sergeant Rice seemed more alive.
“We have a situation here, Sergeant, but I’ll let CPO Blake fill you in on the details. Suffice to say, I want a twenty-four hour guard on this shipyard, and would prefer that it wasn’t obvious.”
“Do you want a parameter guard, sir.”
“In this weather, good God no, that would be asking too much even for Marines.”
“We are fully equipped with winter gear, sir.”
“No, assign your men to different parts of the yard and tell them to watch for anything unusual or suspicious.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I know that’s going to be a tall order, as work crews will be working around the clock.”
“We can handle it, sir.”
“It will mean your people will have to get to know who’s who very fast, and what they are supposed to be doing.”
“Yes, sir, we can spot pin cams around the place linked back to the shuttle and monitor them from there.”
“Good idea, also, change the shifts every hour, so the men don’t get sleepy.” Rice smiled, the Skipper wasn’t so green after all. Long watched make men tired, and that’s a fact. Tired men make mistakes, and miss things.
“I’ve arranged temporary quarter for you and your men in a hanger, but I wasn’t ex
pecting this many men.”
“We’ll make do with whatever you can provide us with.
“Good man. I’ll arrange for supplies and other amenities with the yard super, so you shouldn’t be too uncomfortable.”
“Any idea how long we will be here, sir?”
“Trust you to start complaining the moment you get here.” Conner laughed. Rice stood his head.
