Chapter 14

Rowan had been absolutely truthful.

In compliance with Admiral Halliday's orders, McCock was out of the base. However as it wasn't possible to remove him from 'the Navy', neither hers nor his, that little bit of her orders was conveniently forgotten. What had happened the day before Rowan saw his Admiral was that Sir Laurence's office itself – not his minions – had transferred McCock to HMSS Gorgipest on detached service reporting directly back to Captain Rowan. No mention had been made of the fate of the Crypt and as Rowan wanted a 'good team' for his project so the Crypt were posted as a team whose OC was McCock for project "Crawler" – the development of a ship borne heavily weaponed armed cutter. As Rowan very carefully said he did have a good team for the project and totally separate from Gorgipest resources.

Sir Laurence just forgot to tell Gorgipest about their most recent personnel acquisition.

The Cockerel and his Flock were en route to their new post when the first little bombshell disturbed their tranquility. The decision had been made to send them by commercial freighter. Slow had been bored out of her mind. The men had managed to hook their PDA's up to the freighter's power. Initially not compatible, the power had been transformed through a home made contraption constructed, if that word could be applied, from salvaged 'ware from the engine room and electronics from the radio shack which were superseded parts – but still worked so 'we can't throw them away'. McCock had produced his 'All Space All Tonnage' ticket and was promptly employed as a supernumary – at pitiful wages – by the Master who had sailed minus one watch keeper who had not reported back on board by departure time out of Mountserrat.

Slow's enraged scream had shattered the quiet,

"We've got to find our own quarters", drew the attention of her work mates.

Wrenched back to reality from "Marine Recapture of Sol's Moon Mkv", one of the older games for purists in the virtual reality world,

"What?", "How's that", "Read it again" came across muffled by helmets as they were removed and the eyes turned to Slow.

"Our orders say we get our own accommodation and we get LOB allowance. My chip doesn't tell me where or when I report for duty."

There were scrambles as the others located their chips. Polack complained

"Mine only says I'm posted to Gorgipest for Project Crawler; hey that's the date we left Mountserrat. Yeh, not to base, LOB. That's strange; this chip is classified secret."

He looked at the others,

"Orders are usually marked confidential".

The second was delivered by Aggy who just then came through the hatch. He brought them up to date.