Chapter 42

Sir Henry began again,

"Another thing while I've got you; the overheads of the 'Widow' show that there was a period of electronic interference broadcast about the time a 'tainer was discharged from the vessel out of usual hours. We got the feeds from the overheads and have identified the safe house being used. I put in some Ghorkhali teams to follow the people inside buildings and I am seeing an interesting mesh being made. Sidney has been most helpful, he has identified one of the agents and says the last he had seen of his friend he was in CI; so they are either reaching the bottom of the barrel for Mountserrat or they are looking for penetration of their network. The type of person being contacted does not suggest a field team but rather information gatherers. Now I know who to look for, I've done a review of the tapes and see that Sidney's safe house has been kept under surveillance. The attack upon the ladies was not widely covered in the media other than as a gangland shooting which does not make sense; this leads me to think there is some deep penetration of the media at some level to twist and play down the story. But why the effort in what is now a backwater of the Kingdom?"

Aggy looked at his friend,

"Henry, perhaps they haven't brought their departments into line with the new reality here since the Harbourian raid, whoever 'they' are."

"Oh, Sema, without a doubt" stated Sir Henry, "Chencon penetration here has never been more than Trade Attache visits and those rarely. No, its Sema who is interested. Probably since that raid and that brings it back to you again. I'll just have to keep looking" and, shaking his head, turned back to the CIC 'puter as McCock departed for the Admiral's Quarters to replenish his caffeine blood levels.

Slow knocked and entered the Conference Room which doubled as the office, looked at McCock as he waved his mug at the coffee supply and waited as she took the place on the other end of the small work table. Slow took a deep taste before starting,

""Vector" is ready for work up now and "Sprightly" sometime next week. Your deciding to re-engine the MCs has put them back three weeks and that only because Wayne has pulled all the crews to help. Changing ships' crew into yard hands and back doesn't help in the short term, either, but I admit it does in the long term by cross training. Your decision to put UVAs and Keys on the MCs, not that I can argue against it, mind, has meant an even greater demand upon experienced technicians and their training. I need to get my squadron together and training as a group and that was yesterday. Today, I am drawing to your attention that our manning levels are bordering on being inadequate. I've just got off the com to Harryfor and he is, if you'll pardon the pun, in the same boat; sustained action stations and we'll rapidly lose efficiency. He says that he will have problems deploying the cut..."; here she was interrupted by the persistent screech of her PDA. She extracted the offending instrument from her belt pouch (which did nothing for her silhouette) and muttered,

"An urgent from Harryfor? Excuse me, Aggie. Harryfor, I'm with Aggie. What's so important?"

Slow's eyes widened as she listened to the excited voice on the other end and her face broke into an ever widening grin and she started jiggling in her chair.

"I'll kiss you next time I see you ... well I'll kiss him too. Where are all of them? Wait. Aggy, don't ask now, but can we have the Barge to collect Harryfor and a few others for a conference here asap? Thank you. Harryfor, the Barge is on its way. Clear. Aggie, you are a sweetheart." And dashed out only to skid in the doorway to sheepishly ask,

"Ah, would you ask the Barge to wait for me? and where is she? In the lower hangar? Don't go away, we'll be back as quick as we can."

McCock shook his head and commed Alan to warn him of the descending hurricane heading his way and was told,

"Thought she'd want to come; I've advised fly-ops we are moving and I'm starting her up now; if you'll excuse me, Aggie?"

"McCock clear."

McCock's turning to his reports again was disturbed by the entry of Sally and Evan who smiled in greeting as they went into the Pantry to talk with Trojan who came to stand in his hatchway and ask behind him,

"How many?" to which there was an unintelligible reply and Trojan went on "have to be in ... Marines' Mess." And his head disappeared but not his voice and then the trio departed with the information from Trojan,

"Commodore, I'm going to make arrangements for the conference."

McCock's bewilderment must have showed because Sally reassured him,

"Just staff work, nothing for you to worry about; we'll handle it."

McCock reminded himself that 'action stations' had not sounded and turned to his reports which chips told him what Slow had imparted in two minutes without the urgency.

He turned to the intell reports and learned :

The Chencon battle fleet was continuing to grow and was dispersing to the smaller bases;

The Chencon supply fleet was assuming huge proportions including all their VLRCs (very large reactor-mass carriers) and it too was forming into groups and dispersing;

The Chencon courier had passed Mountserrat in hyper and was expected to reach Sol in the next ten days or so;

Nothing fron Chencon sigint, commercial or media;

Harbouria was positively boring — nothing; and

"Dowager Lady" was moving to the Ferguson's berth to top up scrap and Sir Henry had moved into Ferguson's control room and made a few additions.