Chapter 57

During a quiet moment at Sloane Square on endweek furlough from the hustle and bustle of the upgrade in combat capabilities, Clare and TJ were chatting about the changes and TJ pointed out that manning could be a problem if extended operations were envisaged; present establishment was twenty including the Daughters. While six at an absolute minimum could fight "Sundowner" from the bridge, a full complement of HACs in space required sixteen not forgetting 737 with its four. The numbers did not 'pute even without taking into consideration crew fatigue resulting from extended operations. Elle brought in the requested coffee at that point, smiled at the two, answered several offhand questions about her job at the hotel, and departed. Clare and TJ continued to superficially discuss the new capabilities and implications establishing scenarios for closer examination in the simulator and by the main 'puter.

While her staff were occupied with the upgrades, Clare worked on the scenarios with the manning problem constantly niggling in the background. No matter which way she looked with it, even with the Daughters included, twenty four hours of continuous operations was the limit at present establishment, and even then performance degradation would be raising its ugly head.

"We might have a solution to the manning problem."

Clare had been nursing her caffeine restoration dosage while disinterestedly watching the news faxes in "Sundowner's" lounge as she was joined by the Daughters. (Isolation of the Captain was not a feature of "Sundowner's" command structure.)

"We have a manning problem?" Clare temporised.

That comment was treated with "ignore".

"There are a lot of issues which will need to be discussed, though," Allie said.

"Who they owe their loyalty to for one," Bet observed.

"That will be the most important, but pay and conditions will be there," Cat hinted.

"And so will be rank and advanced training," Dell pointed out.

"Advanced training?" Clare queried.

"Well, they have had basic ship board training," Dell explained.

Clare's brain waves responded to the caffeine stimulus and kicked into gear. Her companion began making the noise Chosen had come to recognise as arthropod chuckling. But she did not enlighten Clare allowing the Daughters their enjoyment.

"Elle Stanton cornered us last end week after Morg went to the MUGC maths department for some discussion or other" Allie proceeded. "She had picked up on the odd comment she had heard and put it together with what Tim Haventer had told her about the MDMs and the HACs' hulls."

"Tim works in the scout / UVA manufactory and got roped in to store the MDMs in the large warehouse and then to load the transports to "Sundowner"" Bet went on.

"Add to that, George Manning and Helen Kimner, who got jobs in GmBH, putting in the "gen" about the HAC hulls" continued Cat.

Dell finished,

"Tim called a meet of Trainees and the discussion came up with the idea that someone, probably TJ or Cedric, is going to power the HACs with Podmounts, fit upgraded 'puter and coms and replace the one eighty with a two fifty centimetre graser; add in the extra hands for the missiles and they estimate "Sundowner" could do with an additional fifty hands."

"They are volunteering?" demanded Clare.

"In a heartbeat" confirmed Bet.

"Amazing how rumours get around; we're keeping the one eighty."

There were forty one ex Trainees gathered on the upper floor of Dancer Street to hear the offer from Clare; six women and three men had not accepted the invitation — for various reasons. The Widows were also present — the group would still need logistical support, wouldn't they?

The new crew would sign articles similar to those of other merchantmen with curly bits added.

"Sundowner" would not be carrying cargo and would be seeking information.

Not spying; certainly not!

"Sundowner" would openly space as an armed merchant cruiser carrying letters of marque from the United Solarian Worlds' Senate visiting planets in the Galaxy on a mission to show the USW's flag — similar to the privateers in the wet navy sailing days of middle ages of Old Earth without the state of undeclared war - hopefully. Or better yet during the twentieth century "Cold War", an intelligence trawler in every sense of the word.

There would be the risk of a system taking umbrage and taking direct rather than diplomatic action — the Senate was so far away and protests could take years pass back and forth.

In that event, "Sundowner's" velocity would allow escape. The only craft which might catch her were the HACs now in service with RMN and while that one point five laser was deserving of respect, it was not capable of penetrating the defensive shields. George Manning was not persuaded but was reassured when Cedric Cahlewis pointed out that a BC's missiles had failed to penetrate. Orville Jang fixed George with a jaundiced eye and asked what authority George was using to challenge the Sundowners. George stated that it was a combination of what he had picked up at GmBH and the entries in "Jane's" making allowances for known discrepancies in the entries. Here George frowned as if recollecting his memories and then admitted that "Jane's" entry on "Sundowner" was heavily qualified with regard to power plant and rather uninformative on the defensive shields drawing a derisory grunt from Orville and smirks from Clare and Cedric.

"Can you recall the assessment of the defensive shields?" Clare enquired.

"They were covered in detail about the generators but nothing about the capability as the generators had been abandoned as ineffective about a decade into service," George recalled "but that doesn't fit with coping with a BC missile, does it?"

"Cedric solved the problem and then tweaked them a bit", Clare advised the group. "Jane's" doesn't know the details of the Bhute episode. Since then Cedric and Morg have replaced the nose laser mount with four virtual rifle two fifty cee emm mounts on the hull and the point defence pods are still in place. That power plant was designed by Adama in the days when brute force was required to push space craft along and before fission plants became unfashionable. With impellors and sails, we are grossly over powered. Jane's estimate of our velocity is just a trifle out — by an order of magnitude - at our cruise and they have no idea of our max at full military power.

Stop waving at me, Orville; I know. We, none of us, know what "Sundowner" will actually do and I have a strong suspicion, she is only limited by the inertial compensators.

You all know about the additional MDMs we have on board. This makes us effectively a hollow-cored BC and we could take out an RMN "Nike" class or Harbourian "Battle" class, one on one.

If you sign on, we will train you in the new tactics although your main purpose will be HAC pilots in a two crew role — anti-missile defence and anti-shipping sorties.

Despite the fact that the Sundowners are and will be if you join, Mountserrat born, we have no loyalty to that Kingdom and no enmity to Harbouria. Your loyalty will be to the ship and only to the ship.

I will say that again — your loyalty is to the ship; and that means its command structure. The only change there from your earlier sojourn is that the Daughters are in our Chain of Command and will be in charge of the air wing. They along with the rest of the crew recently successfully completed a Command and Staff Course.

Lastly from me — again, we are strictly neutral and presently in the employ of the United Solarian Worlds. Cedric?..."

Cedric presented the pay scales. Base Grade USN spacer to which would be added space hardship allowance when out of Old Earth n space, half combat allowance because of the nature of "Sundowner's" role, full if ever engaged in combat and pilot's allowance where relevant. Watch officer allowance if rated for the Space Defence command centre.

...

The colony communed, considered and resolved.

Despite the capacity to interact with norms (who constituted about half of the newcomers) the colony decided not to accompany the new crew members. The major reason was numbers — the Sundowners now made up only a third of the ship's compliment and the companions would be severely stretched to cope. The second reason, admittedly minor, was pure snobbery — the Sundowners were the executive of the ship and the newcomers "just crew".

...

Apart from giving advice, TJ was not planning on becoming involved in the upgrading of "Sundowner". He had picked up on the new 'puters (weekly officer call was conducted to keep all involved up to date — each fourth call was a crew conference - and the Sloane Square olders were kept informed. (The olders had not put it together but briefing the olders meant the children were in the net — and they still used the FTL to chat with Nana Berryl.)

TJ had, since rejoining "Sundowner", set aside an hour a day for analysing his intake from the mutie net and just as scrupulously each week sent his appreciation summary of events. Included were the increase of signal activity about New Liege and the latest assassination and attempts.

His read of the assassination of Webster on Old Earth and the attempted assassinations of Cunningham and the Queen on Torch was that it screamed "Sema" and taking a calculated risk his net had not been compromised, he asked for information on programmable nannites. He had, reluctantly, not fielded the information regarding the spiders but had requested information on methods of control of the super-soldiers.

The tribal mutie knowledge was that controls were in place but were usually chemical; programmed nannites had been used in the earliest days of cancer therapy but had been displaced by genetic alterations to white cells.

An entry from local net caught his eye. Someone would contact Harriers and a message would be left on his PDA. Someone was a bit conversant with com security and didn't trust the security on the mutie net. Voice PDA could be specifically encrypted and burst transmitted: it could be recorded and with time broken open — unless Soyn to Soyn. Text transmission was faster and less predictable as to time of transmission.

TJ duly extracted his PDA and found the message.

TJ did a double take, sat back in his lift chair, took a deep breath, scanned the menu and made a link.

"Décor."

"TJ Hobson. Scramble as per direction."

"Done."

"We somehow have a friend in common?"

"Alastair Wollaston and his past boss."

"Ah."

"I was Alastair's tutor at Oxbridge and we've kept in contact ever since — by surface chip would you believe? Long winded but very secure. We scroll in Ancient Egyptian and speak obscurely and indirectly. We realised we were of mutie heritage; he's Argyll, as you know, but I'm from another line ... Hmmm. I think we had best have a meet. You are free now?"

"Yah."

"I'll flivver up — where are you?"

"Ah, that's a bit difficult. I can use Bulb, our flivver, and pick you up..."

"Too open. I can flivver up to the asteroid and meet you there?"

"Suits. I'll be ninety minutes."

"Suits. Décor clear."

After informing Clare of the sortie, but not of the reason, TJ and Morg spaced 737 to the asteroid which was on their side of the planet — Prof had a rough idea where "Sundowner" was in stealth having been put onto the problem(?) by Alastair (and so did the Flock using the same method of observing where the various craft disappeared — Clare et al were not concerned that "Sundowner" was known to be in Gorgipest space).

Prof Décor transferred into 737 via the airlock and was introduced to Morg. The trio relaxed in the forward cargo compartment — more to be close to the galley than otherwise. They collected bulbs and drew on the brew which had been percolating.

"Fresh?" Prof enquired.

"Yah" explained Morg, "last clean up job is preparing the coffee for the next sortie. The compartment is left with no enviro so the grounds survive well. So, you two, what gives?"

TJ explained the message on the mutie net and the contact indirectly through Alistair Wollaston.

"And how is the friendly ape, these days?" Morg enquired, and in reply to the Prof's raised eyebrows, "he knows my opinion of him — I've told him often enough."

"That's right, you spent about four years on Old Earth until a year or so ago" Prof recollected, "and you were seeing him regularly. He's got the Regiment now at Sculthorpe..."

"So that was why he was so pushy getting those old TA units reformed," TJ muttered.

" ... and speaking of old acquaintances, Dusty Miller wishes to be remembered — in every possible way."

"How come, Prof?" from Morg.

"He was injured when Higgins blew Search and Rescue and got put into the local hospital here; then, probably as an administrative expedient, was medically discharged. He is thoroughly brassed because he claims he's fully recovered. Higgins says there's no place for Dusty as both Rescue and "Cornwallis" have been relocated to Settlement."

"What's he been doing with himself, then?"

"He got in the Atmospheric Flight Club as an instructor in powered and soaring flight; that's where I met him."

TJ interposed,

"Enough. What's with the message, Prof. I'll accept the access to the net on your say so as I didn't look far in the kingdom for muties."

"A bit of past history, TJ. I am a genetic construct from the Geatland Laboratories. I was constructed as a prototype to hold codes for the destruction of supersoldiers who got out of control or were no longer needed. But as the demands for more genetic combat variants grew, my further development was put to one side — fortunately one of my developers used me to assist him and had to enhance my intellect and memory considerably. The holders of the codes never did get around to passing the codes and they were wiped out with the Lab at the end of the wars. The Deputy and the Assistant Directors were down in the village with me when the labs went and they abandoned me to my own devices as the Specials came in; they got off the planet and last I heard they were the bigwigs on Sema.