Chapter 50

"Room 3006, Admin wing, Shelly speaking, can I help you?"

The female voice came up,

"Shell! What are you doing there? Where's Marty? Doesn't matter! I'm on an open line here, is 'Scrooge' in his dungeon? I need to talk to him. We have had a very sloooow trip and he probably thinks we've gone missing."

Thoughts whirled about Shelly's head like a friendly hurricane. The bits came together in about the same time it would have taken in Silas's cortical processes; this blonde only looked like a 'ditz'.

'She's dead, no, believed lost, not dead. Yippee she's found! Yah!!'

Quickly squelching her raging curiosity, she replied in a neutral voice,

"No, he's out at present. In a conference, I think. He is in the building somewhere. Do you want me to contact him and get him to call you back? Is it urgent?"

Shelly was not telling the exact truth, she knews exactly where Silas was – to the metre, but she played along on the open line.

"Not really, but he might like to know we've just reached the southern outskirts of Settlement and we are going to be delayed by a nasty policeman who has just vectored himself onto us and he is asking all sorts of personal questions."

Shelly picked the slight emphasis on "vectored" not appreciating the significance but realized it was important.

"I'll pass the message on and get him to call you as soon as he can manage. When I see him I'll make sure he's commed you – he does tend to get distracted easily."

"Thank you Shell, hope your day doesn't go too slow"

The link was barely broken when she leapt to the intercom,

"Johnno, 3006, Stat!",

turned to the 'Dungeon's' door, got it open despite leaping around with excitement, hurtled through as Johnno came through the 3006 doorway, strode across to the desk, pulled out a draw, picked up a private com and raced back out, pausing only to say to Johnno,

"Cover for me. I'm going over to the Main Wing, Admiral's Office. Got a personal for the Boss."

Shelly had no intention of doing this by com. Her personal interest in this was her secret and she was going to get as far into this loop as she could get.

Silas was seated opposite Diana Halliday. They were enjoying a coffee pause and continuing to discus the estimates for the coming quarter. They heard raised voices in the outside office,

"That's Shell, what's she doing here? The office on fire?" identified Silas. He was out of his chair moving towards the door, to leap backwards as the double doors burst open and Shelly marched in, saw Silas and thrust his private com at him,

"Com Slow."

Silas was utterly confused. Shelly actually stamped her foot,

"Com Slow! She's on the southern outskirts of Settlement and says there's a big policeman vectored onto them."

Light seem to dawn over Silas as his consternation lifted. He booted up his com, scrolled through his menus, found the entry and started the link.

Diana's aide-de-camp, Captain Brian Briscoe, who, despite his unfortunate initials, was anything but slow and ponderous. He had been a junior commander when that tactical competition was held and he'd made it his job to identify the winners. When he became Diana's aide he was able to ferret out the Crypt had been exiled to Gorgipest. As a 'lifer' he had friends scattered throughout the Navy. One of them in the Gorgipest yards had mentioned a new company, GmBH, which was developing racing yachts. He had heard of, but no details of, a special unit down there on the HAC projects which were now in service in Q ships in Paracelsus. Then the notices that went to next of kin of the Crypt advising "overdue" which he had received from the Second Space Lord. The ends had come together at that point. Now Shelly, a ditzy blonde, but a long time hand in Rowan's office bursts through him to disturb Diana's meeting virtually ordering Rowan to 'com Slow' and talking about a 'policeman', 'outskirts' and 'vector'. As Diana's aide he made very sure that he knew everything about the Bureau, then the Yard and then the port. He knew that 119 DD Sqdn had picket duty and HMS "Vector" was part of 119.

Diana looked at Briscoe as he limped across to her desk, picking up the internal com and after referencing his PDA initiated a link. Diana raised her eyebrows at Shelly nodding at Briscoe. Shelly was standing tall looking, perhaps glaring, at Diana with an expression around her mouth which has been described as 'a cat's bum'.

"I kicked him. He wouldn't let me in so I kicked him on the shin."

Briscoe smiled embarrassedly at Diana and went back to his conversation. Diana didn't know whether to have apoplexy or hysterics.

"Slow, you should have been here days ago. Where are you now?"

"Hello, Uncle Silas. We are on the roads to Settlement just on the outskirts and there is this nasty policeman arguing about vehicle registration or something."

"Hold on someone's trying to catch my eye." He turned to Briscoe who had his com at standby.

"I've got Approach Control. HMS "Vector" has stopped a Solly who has what could be a warship as deck cargo. They are about twenty seven k clicks off, on the south eastern approach lane."

Even Shelly's eyebrows disappeared into her hair line at that information 'A 'Solly'! oooh! they do like stirring things up!', gave a nervous giggle and then remembering where she was, resumed glaring at Diana,

"Slow, I sincerely hope you will have a satisfactory explanation. No, not now. Tell your nasty policeman that someone will come over with the papers. We've just heard from the policeman. Aren't you fortunate your Uncle Silas is a traffic cop? Stay there by the roadside, we'll be out shortly. Silas clear."