Chapter 37

Charles decided to put two scouts out front and one trailing; the justification was that "Sundowner" was entering 'Indian Territory' and advanced warning was always helpful.

They were tracking directly for Comalee from Amaranti. Having learnt deviousness as a means of survival, Cedric, with Charles permission, fiddled with the transponder and entered the transponder code of a small Amaranti inter system freighter, named "Flying Fish", for transmission over the identification / code system. Cedric again had the overwatch and was on the bridge when the starboard scout reported it was being 'painted'; the source was localised but not identified. The scout tuned itself and its stealth shield to the probe and with the supplied information, Cedric tuned the other scouts but kept "Sundowner" as she was. Shortly afterwards, "Sundowner's" detectors reported the probe and then the reflected painting of numerous other ships. He threw the situational holo into the space forward of the bridge console, studied it and then called Charles.

It became clearer that "Sundowner" had stumbled into the assembling of a Raffles bound convoy. Further information became available that the convoy was escorted by HMSs "Vance" and "Washton" but neither was the source of the active probing. It seemed to be coming from an unidentifiable source between the two RMN DDs.

Things became even more complicated when reflections were detected from a CL which the 'puter said no longer existed — that piece of information extracted a most unladylike comment from Peggy Dare in the right seat.

Charles ordered the trailing scout to follow the track of the starboard forward scout and called the other officers; Percy sauntered in with Morg with whom he had been having a casual chat while they had a morning repast. Cedric briefed the newcomers. When the DDs were mentioned, Percy offered,

"They are part of the old 119 Squadron; I thought they were over in Erewhon. Or paid off — they must be the oldest ships in the RMN; V and W class destroyers built about a century ago."

TJ looked at Percy, cocked his head and you could almost see the gears meshing; he sat at the bridge EW console and started adjusting controls,

"Yesss!"

and a yellow point appeared in the holo.

"I heard that Denny and his friends were on 119. Denny developed that tuned shield we improved and there is a hole in the middle of that shambles so I got the 'puter to tag it yellow."

"If that's Denny" Percy interposed, "then McCock and his 'Flock' are on 119 and that is a powerful team..."

"Let's leave the explanation to later" Charles ordered "we have a situation here we need to watch."

The CL fired a missile salvo at "Washton" which was deflected by her shields

"They're modern at least" Percy observed.

"Why isn't that CL running?" Clare asked rhetorically "Surely it must know its being painted?"

The yellow spot accelerated to intercept the CL.

"That is a rather peculiar probe and perhaps he isn't picking it up" Morg opined "Oops — there goes one CL. Remind me not to brass off 119, will you?"

The holo had disappeared in a massive burst of light as a humungous energy source originated from the yellow tag and when the holo recovered the CL was replaced by a dying glow. The trailing scout was recalled to the tail position but TJ had another brainstorm and asked permission to bring it back in a sweep which might get a visual of the yellow tag. Charles approved after receiving an assurance the scout would not be detected,

" ... mainly because the thing is so small — well relatively speaking and besides its tuned to that probe frequency ... and its unique modulation..." TJ was muttering ... They watched as the convoy formed up and the yellow tag joined "Vance". The convoy continued on its way north and "Sundowner" south.

Charles saw TJ concentrating on the EW screen and Morg with Cedric on the navcom screen, assessed the situation and then ordered,

"Suit. When you lot finish whatever you are doing, give Clare and I a call and, in the lounge, you can explain what happened where we can all hear it"

TJ absentmindedly acknowledged the order; Morg and Cedric probably didn't even hear it because they were totally absorbed in their analysis. Percy joined TJ. He didn't offer much technically but he was the one who was able to piece the story fragments together.

The explanation was recorded so that Janice and Sandra who had the watch could catch up on it. Percy started;

"About twelve or so years ago, Admiral Halliday realised that Mountserrat would have a major manning problem if war broke out with Harbouria. RMN could probably build enough hulls but couldn't man them — at then levels. So, when he graduated as a brand new Ensign she grabbed the author of a paper presented at Sandhurst by a cadet on the very subject. There were a few hiccoughs because McCock was a Grenoble officer attached to RMN and the Grenoble Defence Force no longer existed but Dame Diana just disregarded them. She has Silas Rowan in Weapons' Development recruit a team of rankers to assist McCock and he got the four apprentices who in fact rebuilt 737 and my reports of them were that they were brilliant. For in house reasons that team was known as "The Crypt" and they were given the task of investigating the manning level and report back where 'safe' decreases could be made. The rankers had no space time but McCock who is the heir to Bollard Shipping Line did — actually he holds an all space all tonnage master's ticket. Apparently just to relax, McCock and his team took part in the tactical competition Third Space Lord runs to keep tactical teams, whose vessels are in refit, up to scratch. The Crypt destroyed all opposition — it was more fightening than amazing because it threw large doubts about RMN's capabilities if five green kids could do that. After much soul searching and analysis, the kid's abilities were recognised but by that time it was too late. Before that though, "Naseby" got hold of a gadget which PO2 Erich B Denholt, aka Denny, had developed which tuned a ship to its shields making the ship disappear and that is almost certainly what you saw today with the yellow tag. TJ and Morg got an explanation from Denny when he fitted the gadget to "Naseby" — TJ and Morg were crewing 737 aka "Tangerine" then and they did Denny's transport.

Shortly after this McCock wrote another paper tearing apart one of Halliday's pet ideas. She went ballistic and basically kicked the Crypt out of the Navy. Rowan, who, IMHO, is the most underrated and underappreciated officer in RMN, arranged things to have them on the reserve and secretly tasked with the development of an armed cutter with some heavy weapons.

This is where TJ and Morg became aware of them — they were in Gorgipest shortly after McCock and the Flock arrived and over the next several years kept an eye on the Flock as TJ assessed GmBH, the Flock's company, as being probable business competitors and directed SHOW's efforts elsewhere. Some retired Avers joined GmBH (Most of the Sundowners sat up and took note at that gem.) yeh, TJ and Morg had the same reaction, and then Sally McGraw joins the firm and that settled it beyond doubt for SHOW — Sally was personally known to them and she is solid 'Navy'. GmBH is a secret RMN research facility and that yellow tag is probably the last of their work. Some time ago, the Flock went missing. Somehow they returned and are now the watch officers on "Vance". Morg has identified Denny's voice on the yellow tag and I think I heard Gold Roper out there too and he commands 119. TJ definitely 'made' McCock personally on "Vance" — you can't mistake that Grenoble accent. Aaannnddd, TJ got a visual on the yellow tag and enhanced it on the 'puter. TJ?"

TJ threw a three dee holo of a vessel.

"About two thousand tonnes" TJ briefed them "Probably hypercapable looking at those nodes, two PD pods, a bunch of missile in that bow sitting under what I think is a one point five metre laser — Morg once described something like that as a mobile DN turret. All in all, a very nasty piece of kit if you run into it because I think also that it is very fast — we might be able to outrun her but not too many others. We have developed Denny's original idea but with what he has on the dot, he's certainly improved on his original. We have gone off on a slightly different angle to develop something which I think is as good as their improved version. Clare, why didn't that CL run? It didn't know it was acquired. Morg?"

Morg stood and shook himself,

"I'll try to keep this not too technical. Cedric and I analysed that probe..." here Morg waved TJ to drop his holo and replaced it with another showing a graph with several lines "the top two are the wavelengths of the standard actives of RMN and USN and the next is our active and you can see how crisp and clear they are — that's why we can easily tune our shields to them. The bottom one is that probe. The wavelength is nearly out of the usable range and it is fuzzy. Cedric and I ran it through the 'puter and played with it. Denny and his friends have come up with a new probe which can't be detected. How did we detect it? Pure chance, pure chance. Murphy decided against them. The active probe detectors on the scout didn't alarm as they didn't detect the active probe. But we have a rather unique com set in the scout — I wont bore you with details about it — and its 'puter was able to record the probe but it pulled the signal down in inverted commas into our transmission range and we, back here picked it up; the scout didn't, so didn't sound an alarm. However our com 'tuner' is of necessity a rather coarse instrument and simply adjusted the detected signal and tuned it to something our com set receives. We picked up the active probe on our com station and from its rhythmicity realised we, the scout really, were being painted. The 'puter in the scout then tuned the scout's shields to the new probe and by the time it got into return signal range it was undetectable again. Can we get an undetectable active. We already have it but didn't realise it. That com set. Having Denny's work in front of us, Cedric and I are sure we can knock up an undetectable active in a couple of days and we can retrofit it to the scouts but we'll need new antennae for sets on "Sundowner" herself.

Charles? Sundowners? Goodoh!

Orville, TJ, Cedric, lets adjoin to the clean room for a conference — not that we want this tweak to be a secret from you but the conversation is going to be just a bit technical."

That proved to be a masterful understatement. Orville's task was the simplest — just construct two antennae to these specifications please, and Orville happily did just that; and then TJ wanted a third to a different set of (similar) specs.

TJ and Cedric had the more demanding technical task of designing the new board for the FTL; they finally decided that a dedicated piece of equipment was necessary dismissing the easier option of piggy backing the two activities — probe and com — as being impractical. Morg happily did the EVA to fit and fix 737's antenna and connect it internally to the cockpit controls. He discussed positioning with TJ and they came to the conclusion that the sets for tuned screens, defensive shields and both FTL and active probes would be placed on 737's central console. Anyone knowing anything about spacing would expect such controls to be fitted to a warship (well, technically, an assault shuttle is a warship) and so the controls were hidden in plain sight. These same observers would not be allowed to pull the sets even though externally the sets didn't appear special but an expert would immediately be struck by the oddities on the boards if the covers were removed.

The external fit on "Sundowner" was resolved by Charles pointing out that the 'third' probe was in the starboard boatbay whenever 737 was at home and the hull fittings were 'top' and 'bottom. And with some skulduggery, that was done — the skulduggery? Orville arranged(?) for a power failure to the exhibitors master panel again — really a safety measure but the exhibitors didn't get any indication of new equipment being retrofitted — while TJ and Morg fitted the externals.

It goes without saying Ted Exter and Dennis Purleigh were not appraised of the modifications and indeed they had no reason to know as their interest was the podmounts.

"Sundowner" spaced into Comalee harbour and was berthed at their very underutilised passenger berth to everybody's joy. Air bridges were available in plenty and thus, for a change, viewers of the exhibits were able to move relatively freely between decks. A viewing bridge was used for those interested in 737's podmounts — TJ and Morg adamantly refused to have 737 in a warehouse open for general inspection. Special tours by persons approved by the Commodore and accompanied by exhibitor's salesmen and a USN representative could inspect the interior to examine the retrofitted (donated) equipment in situ.

During the four weeks in Comalee, the Commodore's visitor's book showed representatives from every government in the Paracelcus region attend the exposition — accompanied by their wives or significant others.

It is an almost universal fact of bureaucracy that there ain't really no such thing as a private fact finding tour — the distaff side always accompany the official (the relationship between the prime and the distaff is often the private part). Sometimes, the distaff pays her own way — sometimes! The spouses, partners, lovers, mistresses, masters, friends etcetera were looking at a holiday in a bigger pond than that at 'home'. Shortly after arrival — hours in fact — there was an expanding network of distaffs spreading news of what just had to be seen, bought, experienced or just plain 'you have to be seen there'.

Out of curiosity, a small group of visitors wandered onto middle deck wondering what was there of interest. They found some quite lovely talent, local and foreign, garbed superbly in creations they might just allow their wives to wear to a very private party but they would ground their daughters for life if ever they were caught wearing such things. One of the visitors who had enjoyed the hospitality a little too thoroughly, let slip the existence of what was on middle deck.

(The group in a slightly intoxicated state had seriously discussed the existence of middle deck and decided that it should not, definitely not, be disclosed — while still reasonably cogent, the males had appreciated the probable damage to bank balances let alone pocket books.)

At eight bells morning watch, when the 'doors opened' on middle deck to allow the local hire to board, a large party of ladies arrived to investigate. They were extremely courteous but very inquisitive and wandered everywhere in the Club and the House — they did respect the privacy of the accommodation after 'Nita James 'stood four of them up' and was quite firm with them. Morg was later to observe, the four were more likely distracted by 'Nita's control of her attributes because 'Nita had been almost dragged to a dressing room and stripped to show the anti-grav system ('Nita was not able to escape until six afternoon and only because Clare exchanged and allowed the poor girl a rest. Clare didn't quite regret the gesture but after that they established a definite rostering of show times for the antigrav.) Each lady just had to let her friends know about the House and of course while you are here making up your mind what to purchase you must just sample the Club's hospitality.

Nothing like New Harriers existed in Paracelcus and there were none to match the House of Tulip. The forward middle deck boomed. Julie was forced to make daily trips to food markets to replenish stores and ensure the quality. TJ, half asleep, had to scour the planet for fabrics to make the casual garb for the clients; the Windsor Women had the first day decided to multiply their profit margins on the off world fabric which was reserved for 'the creations'. TJ was half asleep because Cedric and he were constructing anti grav systems most of the nights. Orville and Colin weren't let off either. Charles escaped by claiming that as Master he was required to circulate and the ladies of the crew put the unanswerable argument that, with their varied sizes, they had to demonstrate just what the House could produce in the way of 'little black things' for any female.