Chapter 89

A bolt of royal blue silk arrived, special delivery, for House of Tulip addressed "Sundowner" at the London Orbital.

Orville, who commuted daily from the temporary ground accommodation when he wasn't assisting Cedric with the assembling of and modification of the scout assembly line, took delivery. Orville Jang was Black Gang from his oil stained boots* to his battered hard hat and had a good knowledge of codes from having to master 'puters in his Engine Room. Orville had also been involved in the making of a bolt width scanner to detect the patterns on a previous delivery of fabric from the same sender address. Orville thanked ABs Elizabeth and Cecily S.Downer who had the anchor watch at the airbridge and sauntered off carrying the bolt to the after A to the worktable and the scanner. He very carefully removed the outer wrapping placing it carefully under the worktable and then partially unrolled the fabric. The scanner was still on its frame at the table end and Orville activated it. The read out showed a machine language weave and Orville commed TJ and Cedric with the news.

Morg arrived first, having the least distance to travel from Folke. TJ had notified him as a courtesy – after all the fabric was addressed to House of Tulip – and Morg piously gave the excuse of needing to protect his material from the barbarians. Nothing as crass as a burning sense of curiosity mixed with a healthy dose of boredom tinged with withdrawal symptoms.

Dorothy, who was OW, ushered TJ and Cedric into A aft, having been advised by the S.Downers of the sudden influx of brass.

The bolt was completely scanned and the patterns transcribed to a chip.

Orville returned to his Engine Room to do whatever Chief Engineer's do in port.

Cedric went to the clean room to use the mini cadcam to produce scout motherboards without the FTL links.

Morg stayed in A aft visualising uses for the fabric.

Dorothy accompanied TJ to their cabin and while waiting for the standalone 'puter to decrypt the message took advantage of the situation. After all, she was never out of coms with her watch as the earbuds were part of the wearers and were never removed except in the freshers or when the wearer intended to sleep – and sleep was not on Dorothy's mind in that bed.

(* Modern engine rooms are just so clean that meals could metaphorically be eaten off the decks; unkind people claimed Orville kept a small bottle of vegetable oil – purloined from the galley – to maintain the boots' appearance.)

...

The message was the proceedings of the Chencon executive in emergency session called to discuss the destruction of their CL in light of the news of the expansions of the Norlant Alliance (actually a very informal alliance except when seen from the Chencon point of view).

Normally the loss of a CL in peacetime would end up before the ruling committee only as part of a report from the C-in-C.

This loss, however, was unique in that that CL had undertaken a successful secret mission for the executive and it had been picked off while in fleet manoeuvres - deliberately selected and destroyed – by an absolutely undetected source.

Added to this was the news that the expansions of the Norlant Alliance was to progress plus the Chencon C-in-C was finally forced to bring to the attention of the executive the disquiet of certain sections of his staff at the reports from the Nation's ambassadors in Settlement and New Liege concerning the capabilities of those navies. His navint was also reporting the relocation of SHOW to Enkland with a barest sniff concerning a weapons' test involving RN vessels. (An int sat had detected an acrimonious exchange between two RN ships in PRD 96 over a reconnaissance vehicle.)

The proceedings were not harmonious and the opinions ranged evenly between proceeding with the plan, obtaining more and fuller information about the Norlant's expansion and total recall of the Armada to defend the homeland – in varying combinations.

The discussions had ranged over several weeks as each protagonist evaluated and re-evaluated his position often swaying from one position to another.

As is so often the case, the decision was a compromise. As the C-in-C's evaluation was that the Armada could be safely reduced to about half its present size and continue its mission provided that part to physically occupy the star systems was put on hold, the final order was to be sent that just under half the Armada was to be returned to home space and the other half to hold on the Mountserrat Star's borders to await further orders. The orders to proceed any further were rescinded.

The special courier was to be dispatched in due course with amended final orders.

TJ reported an unconfirmed source (three out of ten) that a Chencon committee meeting had discussed the unexplained loss of a CL in the Sopac fleet and that part of the absent armada was to be recalled (draw your own conclusions).

...

HMS "Compass Rose" was forced to return the borrowed scout but not before the experts on board had electronically picked it apart. The experts also sent a report on ways that the vehicle could be improved. Admiralty sent a copy of the report for SHOW's comments. TJ and Cedric assessed the comments and as Cedric said,

"At least someone is thinking about using these things in anger. Hmm Let me work on this for a couple of days, TJ, and I'll see what I can come up with."

TJ did wonder what Cedric might be up to but agreed.

Cedric had much spare time once the assembly was in its hangar on Coltishawl and Art and its offsiders were doing the hard work. Cedric arrived at three morning to programme Art for the ongoing work, checked that the previous day's effort had been checked and quality assessed it and then dropped Mary and Jane off at their Baronial Offices and then reported to his at Favers where he consulted with his factors (who came with the title courtesy of Harold and who, Cedric suspected, also reported to Harold's factor) and then did his "rounds" lunching somewhere in his county with one group or another before having a final discussion with the Manor staff before picking up Mary and Jane in their aircar and returning to Bury or to "Sundowner" if they had the watch.

It could have been sheer coincidence but Dame Mary Fogg of Holt held the Manor about the northeast of Norch in which Coltishawl sat and Dame Mary held the Manor at the hands of her over-lord who just happened to be Malcolm Cedric Cahlewis, Vicount Favers, who held the north baronies with the exception of Sculthorpe which was held directly by Eva and Emily from the Marchioness. Cedric didn't believe in coincidences but was quite happy to accept the benefits.

One of the benefits was time during which he could research what EW equipment was being manufactured locally and how good it was.

He had done a copious amount of reading prior to the demonstration of the locally equipped scout and frames. He organised visits to both "Shropshire" and "Compass Rose" to pick the brains of the personnel who used the equipment and got their wish lists as well as pointers as to just what was available to fulfil those lists.

While visiting the ships, he got Clare's permission to use 737 to pay a visit to the ships and to a defence exposition in Eurocon (with a centuries long tradition broken from time to time by wars, revolution, financial downturns and similar occurrences).

Julie and Gabrielle, acting for SHOW, registered with the Exposition. This was not without difficulty as SHOW was almost an unknown entity in Sol. Julie had another of her little chats with Harold who had a word with the First Sea Lord (he was also the space force commander but tradition does die hard with some) and the Admiralty swung its weight behind the application informing the management that SHOW was a preferred contractor and was wishing to appraise the latest equipment and advise the Admiralty on what equipment to incorporate in the proposed new generation missiles. The representatives from SHOW would be ex-navy personnel from Mountserrat with experience in that conflict.

Whilst certain politicians, bureaucrats and service chiefs doubted the assessments made by their Ambassadorial staffs, the defence industry was under no illusions – industrial espionage was conducted by experts and was generally controlled by experts; whilst initial reports might be viewed with suspicion, confirmations were not as readily dismissed by hard headed people whose business was making money by producing weapons of war. However all efforts to actually breach the Mountserrat and Harbourian security to any significant extent had failed but now a company involved in Mountserrat's war effort was opening a branch in Enklan and they wanted to view the competition. Sol's EW manufacturer's knew about SHOW and swung their weight behind the application as they wanted a piece of any reconnaissance vehicle.

Cedric did not know about the behind the scenes machinations but was under no illusions about SHOW's being known to the "trade".

Lt Elle Stanton was detailed to ready 737 to be used as a base for a group to attend the Exposition. The stretchers were put in as bunks; the galley was replenished and a portable fresher unit installed and powered up.

Cedric and TJ were to be quartered in 737 and attend daily. The other officers and interested parties would use the shuttle bus to commute daily and the shuttle truck would be used for resupply. Elle and Dusty would pilot 737 and one of them would stay with her during the open hours of the Exposition.

Half the Trainees and half the Gennies would act as ground party for 737 allowing them to also attend and look around as well as act as guards for 737.

So it was that a Eurocon officer whose family had rendered honourable military service to their nation for nearly two millennia – this was not generally recognised as the changing status of states in Eurocon and its predecessors meant the continuity of the state was disrupted not the family's service – found himself in Franks' control tower as an observer awaiting the arrival of SHOW's assault shuttle. Prior arrangements had been made for a rather large parking area to be made available in a loop of road just outside the ground boundary of the airport but within the Control Zone.

"Frank's Tower this is 737, an assault shuttle, thirty miles to your south at two thousand feet, with India, requesting clearance to over fly and then land as per arrangement."

There was a certain degree of consternation at this announcement as there was no return on the radar control screens and tower had not been notified of the approach. In fact, 737 had crossed the mainland coast having traversed the Biscay Gulf in full stealth remaining outside all control zones at two thousand feet AGL (above ground level) avoiding the mountains as best she could and reaching the Rhine near Strassburgh and then following that watercourse north to Frank-am-rhine.

The Graf had heard second hand of 737's position and was scouring the horizon using a powered optic; he reported,

"There is a strobe on the horizon just west of south."

He was joined by a tower controller also using powered optics who advised

"737, we do not have you on radar, please switch on landing lights ... yes we have you visual; continue approach, decrease to minimum safe cruise and descend to fifteen hundred over the top, report overhead."

"Frank's, one twenty knots, fifteen hundred feet and report overhead."

"737"

"Frank's, 737 overhead at fifteen hundred."

"737, you are clear to land in the road loop."

"737".

"737, down and safe."

"737".

Elle had put the shuttle in the middle of the road loop just to the immediate north of the airfield and began shutting down except for the auxiliary power plant.

The Graf had watched as 737 had settled on the grass of the road loop recognising the hand of a professional. 737's ramp dropped and six marker cones exited and spread out to mark the landing area and be joined with luminous tape. He saw something moving beside each cone but could not identify the object; the tape magically appeared from cone to cone to mark out the area. As the "things" moved back to the shuttle the air about the shuttle began to shimmer and the Graf recognised a force field being established about the shuttle. The view of the shuttle was only slightly distorted by the field. The Graf watched as a group of soldiers carried a framework out of the shuttle and began unfolding and assembling it into a tunnel. This time he could see the figures as their heads were uncovered but he could still not make out the body outline – chameleon camouflage, probably powered armour. Then actual bodies clad in grey uniforms pushed two flivvers out of the shuttle and followed the tunnel to the edge of the force field. The Graf could identify four males and six females; the males wore forage caps in grey but the females wore similar headgear but in a deep green colour with two black ribbons hanging from the back – glengarries! He knew he had seen them before; they were worn by Scotch military in ceremonial dress.

Another puzzle to add to the list he was making. His superiors had an inordinate curiosity about SHOW and had established a (temporary) section in HQ Intel just to ascertain their interests at the exposition. The Graf had a good idea as to why his bosses were so curious but still asked the Committee "why?"

The Chairman, a Vize-Admiral, had considered the Graf for a very long moment and had then explained,

"Just to ensure we are all on the same page; you have all read the reports, nebulous as they are, about "Sundowner" and its connections to SHOW. SHOW collects royalties from Mountserrat for their space reconnaissance vehicles and it is a reasonable assumption that SHOW's people developed it. You've read the truly fascinating story behind the formation of the crew of "Sundowner" and, yes, the shuttle in which they will travel is the same one which was involved in the "Titan" rescue and the pilots are now senior officers in "Sundowner", one of them is known galaxy wide as a couturier and if you doubt me just ask your distaffs about House of Tulip and pray they never have the opportunity to visit as mine did while I was Attaché in Mountserrat; the other is a gatherer of galactic intelligence and we do not know his reasons or purposes. My reports while Attaché are disbelieved by our professional and political masters but that is no reason for us not to do our job. A friend of mine, Rear Admiral Dahlgren – we attended the Bismarck Staff College together – has a most interesting vid of the Battle of Home Space. What is not generally known is that vid was captured by "Sundowner" unbeknownst to either of the participants; also John Dahlgren was on board that ship when it was ambushed off Maureen's Moon and stayed on her during a subsequent upgrading / refit about which he does not talk at all. I find that little item a puzzle all by itself. The Mounties and the Peeps are so far ahead of Sol technically that our leaders find it impossible to accept. But I know – I've been there. The crew of "Sundowner" and SHOW are joined at the hip, "Sundowner" crew will be attending the Wiesbaden Defence Exposition as SHOW representatives. I want to know what they look at, everything they say and who they say it to. This could give us an idea of what they can do and hopefully we might, just might, be able to use the information to get our masters to engage SHOW in upgrading our navy before those benighted Chencons do a modern Mongol Horde."