Chapter 15

"The Green Man" proved pleasant enough, catering as it did for the middle level at the yards and occasional residents of itinerant ships' officers. It was within walking distance of the shuttle ramps to both yards hovering in near orbit and to the city dirt side. The hotel had a well stocked bar and kept a good board for the steady flow of diners; you didn't dine out there, you 'ate', - a dockside café rather than an up town restaurant. Mine Host ran his establishment well and pardoned no nonsense; his memory of faces, in all variations of disrepair, meant here were no second offenders.

The Flock did later retain a suite there. The yard was the easiest to find, the accommodation being necessarily linked to its position. A somewhat ambitious money manipulator from Sol made a moderate sized investment setting up a small ship repair and construction yard. She had expected a war based boom in construction in this sector. She was a decade or so premature but after a decade of just not breaking even, she cut her losses. She had planned her retreat well; disposing quietly of all the near new machinery but in cover replacing it with much older machines thus not alerting her financiers. She had however totally stripped the command electronic equipment from the less open spaces. All that was left of the company was not enough to cover the debts so the yard went into trustee – in - bankruptcy hands.

Polack and Cowboy were hopelessly out of their depth once the yard was located and found to be available; Aggy wasn't much more experienced even with his shipping experience which had been more on decks than in offices. The Crown Agents in Gorgipest, Mantly, Ferguson, Hunt, (MFH) were a commercial financial management company; they believed they were acting for the McCock family and its shipping interests.

MFH made the purchase and everybody was happy. MFH, because it made a good fee. The Administrator, having sold the lemon, got higher fees. The banks, because the loss was significantly less than anticipated – with the interest payments, they just broke even. The Kingdom, although only a very few were aware of it, because it acquired a nearly new yard at considerably less than it would have cost to construct and emplace.

The Flock were ambivalent. Happy because they could now get on with "it"; unhappy because "it" looked overwhelming and seemed beyond their combined skills.

Rowan however had nicely judged the situation, although even he was not quite sure. Despite the significant funding involved, most of which was recoverable e.g. the yard and machinery, Rowan speculated that there was a quantum leap forward available. He assessed that a tremendous amount of knowledge to which the Crypt had been exposed during the near decade of automation, miniaturisation and de-manning, had rubbed off onto five highly capable people. His initial plans to send the Crypt to the Academy got scuttled by Aggy's blotted copy book, 'Teeth, rather drowned under a barge load of excreta'. Rowan couldn't even get Warrants for them let alone to Officer Training because even those would have to go up to Diana's desk.

The Flock took some three months to get the yard fitted out with the new machinery. They used the offices in the yard for temporary accommodation whilst working on the site. The services of consulting engineers and numerous contractors were utilized to get the yard running.

Finally after all the sweat, the Yard opened literally with a bang.