Chapter 27

The black computers and every scrap of information about the project were removed initially to the Purser's secure room on the "Trader" and Denny rigged an alarm in addition to the security in the Yard Office. In response to an FTL com to Silas, two men had arrived from Naval security. They had arrived at night entering by the boat bay which was secured behind them. For the next couple of days they roamed the "Trader" living areas and engine room. They altered the programmes on the semi public doors to photo-code entry and to the non public doors to retinal scan and code. The A hold hatch was made semi public and from there into B non public. Tween deck access was only from the passages from officer country with retina scan and code into the passages. The tween – main hatches could only be manually operated from the tween hold. After dark they went into the Yard, office and the Nos 1, 2, and 3 hatches. External activation of boat bay was by transponder code but boat bay into the accomodation area was retinal scan and code. The officer of the watch's bunk and the control area was set up in the Purser's anteroom. Hidden in a secure closet was a small armoury and a weapon safe was located in each suite and Captain's cabin for personal weapons which came with the men. The yard and the "Trader" were electronically swept and a scanner was left in the armoury for routine sweeps by Denny and Slow. Slow was disgusted at having to sign for a personal weapon again,

"I'm a clean hands sailor. I manoeuvre them in and someone else does the killing."

Denny agreed.

Cowboy and Polack on the other hand wanted to put in a pistol range. McCock stopped that idea but had his own,

"An hour a day for each of us in the gym. We get fit and we start sparring." The Flock was ambivalent about that one.

McCock had grabbed Polack much to his expressed disgust to work on the Architect's programme and between them established that courier, modified to take the increased power of a freighter main engines, as the basic design. They had looked at the inventory and called up an assault shuttle's generators for auxiliaries for the project. The material for the whole ship was to be Armoralloy to keep it simple with the one material. Word had come back from Silas that Renmark's impellors and inertial compensators were 'good'.

Cowboy had put in his bid for main armament for which the hull had to be slightly reshaped and strengthened. It was decided to use the harness runs already existing for the new PD pods.

Denny and Slow were satisfied with the plan's provisions for EW and Tac Nav Com – well not really but accepted the restrictions of available space; they were soothed by the fact that the courier plan had already made the compromises for them.

The programme was required to make the list of materials required for the vessel's construction. The parts list was drawn up for the 'early frozen' design; this design had to be built and the processes assessed whether suitable for mass production. Then space tests had to prove the effectiveness of that design. The Flock were quietly relaxed at the future need of changes to the design before it was finally frozen. The courier's harness and cable runs had been built in as construction of the hull progressed. Most warships were constructed this way but the Flock were wary of this method because of their wide ranging exposure to warships' repairs made impossible because access could not be obtained to what, as a result of a breakdown, became a vital area. They had begun regarding the end product from the user's side. Being a smaller ship, they thought they could get away with this rather than have to fight the bean counters over any additional predicted construction expense.

Priorities were allocated for the ordering and the paper work dispatched.

"Now," smiled McCock at Polack after an exhausting week sweating with the 'puter, "we can relax and get some experience with hand jigging on that yacht."

"Hey, that's my toy" groused Polack.

"Not anymore, my lad. Your bank account has just been replenished by GmBH. Under the deck, the Crown has nationalized your vessel for training purposes of the detachment."

McCock looked smug as he and Polack made their way to B lower to play with the new toy. It did freshen up their ideas, reinforcing their training experiences.

McCock wouldn't have been quite so smug had he been aware of two events which would happen in Settlement in the next month.