Chapter 20

The Windsor Women were extremely solicitous towards a very fragile looking TJ at breakfast next morning. Morg on the other hand was revoltingly cheerful as he listened to Pat's explanation to TJ. Morg had already heard it as pillow talk and the Windsor Women had set the whole thing up anyway.

"Officially I am Lady Alexandra Elizabeth Patricia Burgess. The family name is "Sweeney" thus 'Pat Sweeney'. I was a very junior Lady-in-waiting, disposed of by the family at an early age to Court where they hoped I would make an appropriate match. For us 'hangers on', court life bores you witless if you have any interest in life. I was always in trouble for being where I should not have been. I wanted to join the Navy but the Proctors wouldn't hear of it but I wore them down to agree to my undergoing recruit training probably in the hope I would give up. Sandhurst? No thank you! I saw what happened to Michael. After the Arsenal, I was kept in virtual isolation except I was able to, aahh, maintain my fitness at the Palace gym. Of course I just happened to know the times when the PGS would be using the facility and so I was kept up to date on you — I couldn't get details but at least I knew where you were. I heard the rumours the Heralds were expanding so I approached Austin Neville — he is really a 'sweetie' — who listened to what I had to say — those people are professional listeners, I suppose I am now too. He arranged for the 'King' to interview me. The 'King" made it quite plain that one of the points in my favour was that I was a peripheral Royal and the Office would have no qualms about exploiting that. If I didn't accept that please close the door on the way out — and I would still have to successfully complete the Herald's course. It was two years of constant hard work, the Arsenal was a walk in the park. I spent my first two years after the course in New Liege and then back to Settlement. After awhile the 'King' asked me to volunteer for the new Office in Gorgipest — it was proving to be a sensitive post because of the Office's involvement with the FTL. You know "Tangerine" is home ported here? Another little effort not to push the Office's image. Very low profile we keep. Met the LUST directors as part of my duties and we have been scheming ever since. Things have come together nicely"

Pat finished with a satisfied smile directed at Morg.

While TJ sat watching, Morg set up the desktop in the 'clean room'; periodically one of the Windsor Women would appear from one of the other rooms and enquire after TJ. Allie and Charley had come in together and stood gazing at TJ until Charley consideringly said,

"We can't do that again; well, not all at once; and Motthhheeerrrr? She's enough on her own".

The women exited with Allie offering

"Three groups? Mother? Bet and you? Dell and I?"

"Dell, who ever would have thought!" as they giggled out the door.

Morg had to sit down he was laughing so hard.

"There is nothing humorous in this" TJ accused him which only caused Morg to begin hiccoughing.

"Shall we postpone any discussion about this until we get this 'puter set up and then we can have a polite discussion?" TJ asked.

Morg got himself under control long enough to agree and then completed the hook ups. They had earlier agreed that there was to be no external links to this 'puter and it was not to be used for any purpose other than the planning of the Lone Ranger.

They used their PDAs to dredge the 'net for engineering tables, metallurgical tables and anything else useful eg manufacturers' advertising on current equipment in service. At Morg's suggestion, they examined the abilities of their PDAs and then ran this examination back to an unprogrammed model. The possibility of using one as the core of the LR loomed large and TJ agreed to further explore this possibility.

"Its poking its nose into things and CG is not a problem so rear engine mount?" Morg was muttering with TJ watching as Morg made shapes on the screen, "still leaves lots of room for side looking gear; never enough room for forward looking. Predominantly self protecting dectecting equipment in the nose with a scatter down the sides; perhaps along the edges with two seventy degree arc so only two rows needed. Circular shape needs three."

Preliminary outline was drawn in with the structural elements tight about the scaled power plant. Provisional conduits for thrusters and thruster locations were 'pencilled' in. Selection of detection modes with emphasis on the passives as detection of active searching was always easy — it just depended upon an unfriendly using that mode.

They were satisfied with the preliminary 'sketch' when they called it a day with agreement to indirectly run the concept by Joe Higgins.

"Mam claims that she never had sex with anybody and I believe her. There has never been any boyfriends or 'uncles' around. I'm told it only takes seven minutes (primly) but I don't think mam has ever been that long without one of her children tagging on her skirts. I used to roam but the girls didn't; mam took us to the park to play and until Del was born we lived in a shed over on Devon Street. Certainly after Allie and Bet were born, she was never alone and she was always busy looking after us. The girls obviously come from the one stock. Mam doesn't know how she conceived and I believe her — not just emotionally but logically."

"She is inexperienced;" TJ confirmed "but how?"

"Mam had no memory before waking up in Gorgipest until I wakened her. However if you ask her she can remember a tremendous lot later. The only thing she had then of her pre Gorgipest years was that scar alongside her belly button- it was raw when she first saw it. Someone 'got at her' but how and what was done I don't know and I have scoured the 'net looking for information. She doesn't know either."

"Pat?"

"No experience at all" Morg stated flatly, permanently closing that subject.

Julie was hosting a lunch for the Higgins at "Harriers" and because the girls had heard that TJ and Morg were to recount their adventures, they were acting as waitresses and participants. It was a happy gathering.

Over coffee, TJ was recounting the acquisition of 737,

"You know Tom Wilberforce got Lieutenant Commander in 'Logistics'. The entry was in the Gazette that came down with you."

Morg and TJ exchanged looks, nodded and smiled; TJ continued the tale. The 'suite' caused Higgins to snort but he made no direct comment; he did note the four girls cock their heads and exchange glances without comment and recalled a little excerpt from the depths of his cortex. Higgins did laugh at how 'Red' Milligan had handled the affair. He asked very pointed questions about 737's use in merchant inspections. The listeners were spellbound when Morg began the description of the "Titan" rescue and the 'discovery' of the truant heir caused a laugh. The activities of Percy Gantry were given the broad brush treatment — very broad. The female listeners had started to look dubious and TJ moved the tale to the arrival home and the meeting with his father. The news of the Strathlawn marriage was no surprise to the Naval couple who exchanged smiles and nods of approval. Every detail of the investiture was probed.

It was Mrs Higgins who opened the box.

"As the Admiral's wife, I get involved in the social side of the Service. "Naseby" was down here in my husband's bailiwick for four years and in that time she had the lowest number of 'incompatability' transfers, gender problems for the uninitiated, dears, in the fleet, about three a year. I looked into it but couldn't get an answer. I followed "Naseby" in the Admiralty reports and during her time at Maureen's Moon, that is the three years while you were on her, she had one. One in three years! Truly remarkable. What can you tell me about it?"

Mrs Higgin's face reflected only intense curiosity. After watching TJ and Morg go po-faced, the eyes of the Windsor Women became like xrays burning into their deepest vitals. Julie, ably assisted by her daughters, dragged the story of the 'store room' out of the men (to say they were reluctant would be like saying that extracting their back teeth without an anaesthetic would be easy). Mrs Higgins pressed them about the dramatic improvement while at Maureen's Moon but was faced with total obduracy. Mrs Higgins had learnt and observed a lot as a senior officer's wife and she asked what proved to be the last question on the matter,

"If I said that your departure from "Naseby" means that those particular circumstances are unlikely to be repeated, would you contradict me?"

TJ and Morg exchanged looks and then shook their heads in unison.

Mrs Higgin's smiled ever so slightly and rose,

"Ladies, I think it is time for us to retire" and led the ladies out.

"I would love to be an insectoid on that wall" Higgins looked hard at his juniors who busied themselves freshening up the coffee.

TJ and Morg then started a discussion about an unmanned reconnaissance vehicle and the Admiral's thoughts.

"Of fixed installations or space in general?" asked Higgins.

"Probably fixed primarily with hunting about space as a secondary function" answered Morg. Higgins considered for a moment or two,

"That becomes a lot harder as the information you could gather and a commander would want ... Let's take our harbour here and consider ourselves enemies gathering intelligence. What could we acquire? Topography, dirt and space. Details of wharves, slips and anchorage points. Manufacturing areas as distinct from the Naval base. Navaids, radars, civilian and naval. Other EW modalities. Defences fixed and mobile. Bunkering, doesn't matter if civilian or naval. Shipping particularly naval and their state of readiness. Coms of all types, I'm sure we can think of others. It will almost certainly be the case that the constraints overall will force compromises in just what will be picked up but if the idea is to attack harbours and bases, then probably the constraints might have to be eased because it the thing you don't know about that will bite you on the bum."

"We'd like to get some information on what the Navy has for this sort of work and we are hoping you can help us" TJ requested.

"You have a major problem there. Most if not all of out stuff is designed to be hung off the outside of a hull in space and so size or weight have never been a consideration; should have been because big means it will be more easily wiped off by an enemy blast. Still if anything gets through the shield the ship is going to have other things to worry about. The Navy never has been into miniaturisation. I wonder ... I'll find out what the Army has, they are big on miniaturisation because of size limits. I'll get back at you on this. Because you are asking, I'm going to jump to a conclusion and presume you are working on it. Damn, why can't I talk you out of couriers and onto my staff? Don't answer that. I know — you'd be lost in the system. I have to agree you do better as independents. There is the lady, we are out of here. I'll speak with you about this later when I have more information for you."

Higgins shook hands and was making a PDA entry as he left.

The Windsor Women saw the Higgins off and then turned their attention to their menfolk — 'the rest room? we want to know just so we know what happened and so we wont be surprised in the future'. They meant it — there were no recriminations. Surprise?!

Pat Sweeney virtually moved into Sloan Square; she kept her unit as her official home for appearances sake. The 'King' was told of the change and could see no immediate conflict of interest — she had become the partner of a serving officer of the Queen.

Admiral Higgins sent them official publications of current army and marine equipment. Morg and TJ closely examined the specifications of army ground to space detection equipment but put them to one side as not being powerful enough. They found a line of ground to ground detection equipment designed for use in armoured ground gun vehicles including a few sets for ground to ground missile detection which could be useful. Some infra red equipment both active and passive was available.

Following a hunch, Morg looked at the historical archives of prediaspora space vehicles and found a line of equipment for detection of radiation from ground or space which however used large complex antennae. He drew TJ's attention to his problem and together they found that the antennae were all 'real' and not the 'virtual' tuneable antennae now available. Further intense study (it was coming close to reporting time at "Cornwall") and they found the core of the equipment sets was adaptable to the use of focusable tuned antennae.

It was a scramble but TJ was able to complete the mother boards they wanted and Morg the plans for the antennae. The girls were put to work producing the boards and designing their outer covers and Julie started the jig-saw of fitting them into the proposed body. Just prior to reporting to "Cornwall", the full team took two days to go over the whole project with the view of proceeding to building a prototype — less power plant initially (replaced by a full scale mock-up). Julie solved the problem of where to build it — the problem (or one of them) was how to remove the rather large structure from its dirtside building site wherever that was to be located to an orbital platform. Julie removed the furniture pieces from the front entrance hall; had Morg lay down metal sheeting to protect the walls and flooring and put a large ornamental bamboo privacy screen to block the view of the few callers they had.

Morg then upset his mother badly — for structural reasons he discarded the skeleton and replaced it with a central hollow core spine through which would run the wiring and conduits with the thruster's plumbing acting as an outer frame along the edges. TJ had placed fore and aft sensors to give stereoscopic 'visualisations' of any target from the side mounted equipment and by using a stately rotation about the long axis a wider range of detection equipment could be used.

Duplication of electronic data recording was not considered necessary as any enemy caused damage to the vehicle would probably result in its destruction. However, the self-protection detection equipment was to be handled by a stand alone 'puter with authority to over ride the mission and navigational programmes. The SP 'puter was also responsible for EW.

Mission programming was to be done from the carrying vessel's nav 'puter and entered into the LR's nav section of its on board 'puter for each mission. (It did come as a pleasant surprise to TJ and Morg to find they could access "Cornwall's" simulators on endweeks and they used this to prove the basic programmes.)