Chapter 1

The alarm buzzed twice. I rolled out of bed and went into the head for my morning routine. As I shaved I mentally went over the plan for the day and could not think of anything we had missed. The maiden cruise of the Sansibelle was set to leave port today at 4:00 PM and everything on all the checklists had been checked and rechecked. I am still amazed that I had been selected to help design and head security. With over 1700 people on board I had a lot of responsibility for a 28 year old. Most men would give their left nut for this job.

Over five years of planning, design, construction, training and a multitude of other tasks led to this day. The Sansibelle has two dedicated ports of call, each on an island owned by Best, Inc. acquired and developed as part of a twenty year plan. The islands are about 2000 miles apart and the ship will sail between the two on a weekly basis. At each port most of the 286 guests would disembark to be replaced with guests who had been flown to that island. At $20,000 per person for a week, the ship catered only to a very exclusive group of people and as of yesterday had full bookings for next 16 months.

I was part of what had become known as the "S" crew of about 550 more or less permanent support staff and crew, made up of entertainers, medical and lab techs, cooks, cabin stewards, ships officers, security and numerous other assignments. The "E" crew of almost 900 primarily young women had been on board for over a week going through their final training and orientation to the ship. This constant exposure to the mass of sexy babes is what made the job so attractive to any single male, hell any male and a lot of females as well. Everyone on both crews had been implanted with a microchip which allowed my staff to monitor the whereabouts of anyone at anytime. The Security Control Center (SCC) had screens that could instantly bring up a video camera view of almost any area of the ship with the exception of the crew and guest cabins. Anyone on the crew could call for help at anytime by simply tapping a certain number of times and a screen would instantly appear showing that person or the passageway outside of the cabin they were in. The microchip was primarily to provide safety for the E-crew but also had a lot of uses for the S-crew as well.

Once I finished my morning routine I exited my cabin and walked next door to the SCC. "Morning Bill, Alice" I said to Bill Needledike and Alice Jones who were staffing the SCC. "Are all systems Go?" "Yes boss" Bill replied and waved toward the primary console with the row of green indicators along the right side of the screen. "Greg is down at the gang plank and Lorenzo is on roving patrol and currently on E Deck." My 16 member security crew are all military and in most cases ex Navy Seals or Special Ops members. The primary SCC lead on all shifts is either in a wheel chair or fairly severely disabled in some manner but are quite capable of operating the SCC and taking charge and coordinating all the other on duty security crew. All are very experienced combat veterans and could be counted on to remain cool and make good logical decisions in case of emergency.

"Well, I'm headed down for breakfast and then will be roaming, call me if you need me."