Chapter 51

It was an odd collection of people waiting in the corridor outside the conference room of the First Space Lord. All were in mess dress uniform and were lined up with most senior nearest the door down to the most junior. Vice Admiral Milligan, RMN, Rear Admiral Rowan RMN, Lt Cdr McCock GDF, Chief Yeoman Writer McGraw, Petty Officer 1st Denholt., Petty Officer 1st Gort, Petty Officer 1st Indira and Petty Officer 1st Kowalski. Polack was feeling very exposed on the end of that line. He had been the first to see the PGS move down the corridor entering doors as they came, staying inside some rooms, coming out of others as if the inspection was satisfactory and moving down towards the group. The Lieutenant leading paused as he came up to them, looked deliberately at each of them and entered the conference room. After a short interval, another party approached. It was led by a very hard looking man wearing the uniform of a PGS Major. Milligan called his party to attention and the officers saluted, the RMN with palm downward and the GDF with palm forwards. The lady wearing the full dress uniform of an RMN Admiral of the Fleet, adorned with several stars of orders and a sash of another returned the salute, politely ordering,

"Thank you, carry on please," and then entered the conference room. The officers dropped the salute and the party watched as the Prime Minister, The Treasurer and The First Lord of the Admiralty passed by. When the door closed, Milligan's party visibly relaxed.

Each had their own thoughts.

McCock remembered his absolute astonishment as Diana Halliday had come through that air lock; he was almost as astonished when she purposely walked up to him with her hand outstretched saying,

"Aggy, I was very wrong. I apologise" and shook his hand. McCock accepted the apology in the gracious manner it had been extended. As they moved up to the bridge Diana explained what she intended to do.

"Hello Alan, you are a surprise. You are Coxswain? This is Captain Briscoe. BB, this is Alan Avers, late Elizabeth's coxswain. Alan, BB is a pilot for the yard, he'll take us into the covered yard."

The Solly began moving toward the Yard.

Turning to McCock, she asked,

"Who is she and what do we know about her?"

"She the "Bonaventura", two twenty kilotonnes out of New Amsterdam, Sol, making for Nouveau Liege, Harbouria. She has two tonnes of Iridium, five hundred tonnes of neodymium and fifty thousand tonnes of titanium, the other lower holds have power plants, ICs and nodes. To fill the lower holds right off there is electronic warfare equipment. The tween decks are literally packed tight with high end luxury goods. The cargo might be worth several hundred times more than the hull. Incidentally this is only her third voyage."

"Now", said Diana, "the vital question. How did you come by her. Exact details, mind! We will probably doctor it up later but we can only do that if we have the facts as the basis."

McCock dealt with events up to facing the heavy cruiser in a few quick sentences and then gave precise details of the events thereafter. BB was trying to listen and pilot the "Bonaventura" at the same time. Alan took pity on him,

"Have a listen, Sir. I can do this in my sleep!"

BB nodded his thanks and turned most of his mind to eavesdropping and what was left to looking over Alan's shoulder.

At the end of the story, Diana smiled at him ruefully,

"And this is another fine mess you landed us in, Stanley!"

The comment broke the seriousness of the moment. BB hesitantly asked

"Why did you open fire on the cruiser?"

"Reflex. Pure bloody reflex. We had been prancing around an enemy held planet and I know I was 'toey'. He dropped out of right in front of us. No where to go. It's the worst nightmare of every merchant captain even with approach and departure lanes. The old charts hadn't shown any direct approaches to the bunkerage which is never done in the commercial world in case some clown translates too late and drops in literally. Harbourites must have changed it for military but if they did that cruiser cut it a bit fine because we were only just off in spatial terms. We were moving out to the limit and BANG there he was. AI came up immediately while I was screaming mentally we were going to collide. As soon as she said "Harbouria" I opened fire; we had the weapons hot, and when he blew I'll swear I could reach out and touch him. It was all over in seconds, that graser ripped holes in her bow and the missiles went down the holes and the graser went deeper etcetera. I didn't have time to full my pants."

"I did", came in Alan with a laugh, "Sally responded magnificently and so did the rest of the Flock."

"Sally?" asked Diana of Rowan.

"Yeoman Writer. We sent her down as a Secretary for Aggy. Her second trade is coxswain and we thought she could run about fetching and carrying in the GmBH flivver."

"Interesting place this GmBH. You must tell me more about GmBH one day. But Flock?"

McCock explained the name change of Cockeral and his Flock.

"Flock plus one," reminded Alan laughingly, "She was added when you did the first sortie in the HCL. It was only on this last one, that we got added and wasn't there some nausea over that?"

"That was planned about Sally; but how did the Avers get involved?. On sorties I mean?" asked Rowan.

McCock explained,

"Manning; that's why the HCL is a dud, Silas. We didn't have enough power to put gravity on and we only had volume for five cubicles and five command chairs. We were exhausted and beginning to suffer from zero gravity. We're got a stop gap solution on that. We got over that and sortied some more and I was forming the opinion that an independent hypercapable would not be feasible because of not enough crew. I sort of allowed Hugh to persuade me to take on an additional five and hot bunk watch on watch off. I let the Avers decide who would go; I had taken supernumeries on some of the earlier sorties so they knews the story."