Chapter 59

"Sundowner" had cleared Amaranti space the previous day for Paracelsus and Cedric assisted by the Cat and Dell was spending the watch reviewing the tapes from New Breslau when Clare ambled onto the bridge where the trio were gathered about the nav-com station. Eva Porter and Colin Bolem had the seats — Colin, begrudgingly, because he preferred the hydroponics unit but both Clare and Orville insisted (ordered?) he work the seats.

Cedric looked up at Clare and asked,

"Considering your closing statement t'other day, do you want us to adjust any of this?"

"Definitely not, Cedric. All we have is in the public domain anyway and in the latest editions of the Space Pilot. What the USN wants is our post visit reports on port activity and general standards of the authorities' handling of movements. Plus comments on Naval readiness and handiness and we have sent the gathered information back through diplomatic channels. So far that has been easy and speedy but as we get out into Paracelsus and Harbouria, channels are commercial with all the lack of security implied.

The broad outline of the Mounty home space battle will get back to Old Earth via USW's Ambassador in Settlement long before we get back.

Hmmm. There's something tugging at my neurones. Cat, stop smirking! It's not my hormones! Deity save me, I do think about other things besides sex — well sometimes (equal smirk). Get back to work you lot and let me think."

Clare settled into the command chair and, to distract herself, activated the screens and worked her way through the protocols and noted the reports. The pilot training was looking good and, even now, HACs were in orbit about "Sundowner" as TJ and Morg assisted Dusty Miller in hands on instruction of the advanced techniques required for warships rather than transport piloting. TJ and Morg's earlier instruction had established the ground work for the pilot skills which had to be learnt.

Clare immersed herself in the preliminary reports from the tactics group on the integration of the HACs as part of the combat capability of "Sundowner". The watch changed and changed again until Clare finally returned to her surrounds as a result of a full bladder.

Clare was in the mess, half heartedly sucking on her bulb just noticing the languid taste of the Jamaican Blue on her taste buds. A sweating Morg, in hard suit with helmet in hand, followed by TJ and Dusty Miller similarly garbed, clumped heavily into the mess, headed straight to the urn, extracted their bulbs, filled them and then collapsed onto the lift chairs drawing deeply on the fluid.

"Needed that," Dusty muttered "Good brew this ... Students can dry out the spit sometimes. That Stanton — scared a century's growth out of me; she was bringing one three into the boat bay and she opened the throttle instead of closing it. She reacted faster than I did though but I'll swear blind another layer of anechoic and we'd have scraped. She smiles sweetly at me, says "Sorry 'bout that" and takes us 'round again and does it perfectly while I'm wondering if I'll ever get my drawers clean again. Bloody students; they'll be the death of me."

"At least you got a chance to gauge her reaction time and how well she can recover" Morg groused; "it's the little Mr Perfects who worry me..."

"Haventer?" TJ enquired.

"Yah! The little sod doesn't make a mistake. Greases it in. Nearly a hundred percent hits when he uses the laser and multitasks brilliantly. Dusty, I want to run him through the simulator on E; but I want you to sabotage the ship itself so I can see if he can handle emergencies — as well as not make them."

"Can do. Tomorrow eight morning suit?"

"Suits! You know we are going to have a problem with manning when we have to roster the two man crews. Who can we put in the left seats when we roster the likes of Stanton and Haventer in the right as wep-offs?"

The three instructors sank deeper into thought.

" ... and we can't present the left seater as being as good as those two" Morg continued.

"That's it" Clare yelled, startling the three men who had been buried in their own concerns and had hardly noticed their Captain, "camouflage!"

and scurried back to her office — originally the Captain's Cabin but Clare shared a berth in TJ's cabin and otherwise with his other partners in the accommodation cabins.

"Why is it that I start wondering why I joined when the Captain starts screaming?" Dusty wondered aloud.

TJ and Morg exchanged glances, shrugged shoulders and Morg tried to sound reassuring,

"You get used to it ... Given time."

It was second dog two when Clare's voice came over the tannoy,

"D'ye hear there, d'ye hear there, this is the Captain. Stand fast duty crew. All other hands to New Harriers stat. All other hands to New Harriers stat."

And to the seaters, Wendy Masterton and Sandra Pendle,

"You can link on the ear bugs."

Clare stood on the after catwalk and addressed her crew,

"Master Chief Warrant Officer Miller will be the only one who won't know what this briefing entails so I'll ask the Widows to give him the background. The only people who are aware of our role as an armed merchant cruiser are the people in Settlement sector and Junction control plus a few in Amaranti. There might also be a few a few merchies who were on the net when we called in but it's not a subject that is really worthy of gossip.

We now have a complement which will attract attention as being a raider. Unless we can offer an alternative explanation; particularly one observers have seen before.

The centicredit is dropping, I can see.

The House of Tulip with New Harriers in support is reformed as of now. We are going to space into harbours over Paracelsus, Habouria, and the south west just as we did last time through, doing the same old thing.

We do have some added external armament but that can be explained away easily enough; we can admit to upgrading the fore and aft cones but they don't look all that different.

We will have to be more alert in case of persons who might think evil of us and try to do something about it; and, I think to be on the safe side, we'll continue cruising watches even when in harbour. We'll have to work something out for the HAC flight when it comes into service but meantime you Trainees have the cover of New Harriers.

Morg, get House of Tulip organised.

Daughters, New Harriers.

Trainees, this is going to play havoc with your training but the camouflage will make us safer from detection so your combat services will not be needed, hopefully.

TJ, Cedric, you cover for the Windsors, please.

Thank you. Dismiss to quarters."

Later in the mess, Clare murmured to Morg,

"Put Haventer through the simulator before you inspect the machinery in E. We need to know."

Dusty Miller had smiled benignly at Cadet Haventer as he strapped into the Link Trainer connected to the combat simulator on E. Second Officer Windsor strapped in, waved at a now broadly grinning MCWO at the control table with the holo hovering over it, sealed the hood and began the check list with his student in command under supervision.

Tim Haventer smelt trouble and knew he was in the middle of it.

"Take us out, Mr Haventer and try not to bend the ship please."

As this was Morg's usual admonition to all students, Tim was almost lulled but that was just before the 'ship' took off at full power and the 'puter monitor began to intone "engine runaway..." He had a "bolter" and to make it worse, a tightening roll began (straining the external hydraulics and gyros to their limits under Dusty's close monitoring). Tim tried to counter the roll as he went through the immediate actions, which didn't correct either problem, so onto plan B. Going steadily through the scans as his stomach contents sloshed about, he found the steady red light on the flight control panel amid the flashing ambers.

Trying to keep his voice steady, he ordered

"Co-pilot, hit the red on the flight control panel."

Morg played fair and did as he was told; Tim then had the reminder that disabling the control assist put them into manual and it was hard work to manually return the thrusters back to neutral and then correct the roll. As the warning lights settled, Tim pulled the throttle breaker to cut power from the engines, turned the 'ship' over and then deliberately re-engaged the breaker to take the momentum off. As his instruments told him his acceleration had bled off and he was beginning to power into the return trek, he disengaged the breaker again and the 'ship' began a gentle return to the base. He went through the menus manually correcting the settings. He got things under control and turned his attention to the buzzing from beside his right hip on the central console to observe the "nav-overload" lit up like a festival tree.

He knew he was in a link trainer on E deck of "Sundowner" but that wasn't what his senses were telling him; he was somewhere in space eleven minutes redline power distance from base and he had only the vaguest idea of direction. He rebooted the nav 'puter and found that it had failed seven minutes into his ride so he had a reference point closer to him. He extrapolated the mean track of the seven minutes but found there was an inbuilt curve which he remembered had tightened as it progressed. He took a deep breath and selected a sector of space he calculated he should be at least near. A glance at Morg's face showed only curiosity — most unhelpful. As he zoomed the chart, he heard the ping of a match and, as he thought, he had almost gone three quarter circle and was now heading away from the estimated position of "Sundowner". Activating the finder loop got a result for "Sundowner". Before powering up, he checked his fuel status to find he was on the absolute limits — safety margin had burnt off during the wild ride.

Setting the gravities, he turned and began accelerating back to home. As the power increased, the stern began rotating in a wild circle and the audible "port nozzle malfunction" began repeating. Power down and use the vid to inspect the nozzle — half the control rods were bent and malfunctioning — 'mal' not 'non'- and that meant dysfunctional control was also erratic; the port pod was hanging by the proverbial string. Smelling deceased rodents, Tim took a close look at the starboard pod and didn't like what he saw. He pulled the breaker for the port pod and then gently moved his controls. They moved but the starboard pod didn't — it was jammed offset fifteen or so degrees.

The galactic disc (n space) was not anywhere as dense as atmosphere let alone terrestrial liquid but n space is an atmosphere and over galactic distances the resistance of those sparse particles would have an effect upon a ship's hull trying to crab along a track.

Tim no longer trusted the 'ship's' 'puters. He extracted his Soyn and did the calculations on it before entering the results into the controls and power menus of the 'puter. The 'ship' was offset with counter controlled thrusters and power applied until momentum established. Then power was cut allowing ballistic approach with, hopefully, enough fuel for thrusters' control of berthing. Things went well until Tim had to use his thrusters. Port forward went berserk, violently tumbling the 'ship' into "Sundowner". Tim immediately pulled the thrusters' breaker, disabling the lot, hoping, as he said at the later debrief that they'd miss the hull and he'd have time to boot up the thruster's menu and specifically disable port forward and bring the others on line.