Chapter 31: Re-Certification and The Best Laid Plans Hose Up.

Spring turned to summer, and then to fall, I was alerted by the black gang that we were coming up on ten thousand hours on our engines, and we needed a partial refit. I thought about where I felt comfortable being laid up. It boiled down to two sites: South Africa or Australia. We needed a secure environment at a NATO member port.

I researched how to disable our CICS and found that one EPROM board would do the most damage. I bought a secure anti-static carrier and opened negotiations with the FORGACS group out of Sydney for a refit and re-certification. I also contacted the Australian Defense Force offices in Canberra to provide an armed guard over our munitions while undergoing refit. They were glad to do it—for a price. I didn't mind. It was a business, after all. Just before we left the ship to let bedlam take over I removed the CIC core, locked it into its carrier with "Top Secret" markings all over it, and placed it into my briefcase along with my papers, a loaded Glock and a hand grenade, which I attached to the board carrier with duct tape.

We took up a group of suites in the Hyatt. Even though it was on the wrong continent, as promised, I rented a Dojo and hired an instructor to give the crew access to bo staff instruction. I demonstrated, before the class, a slow-speed set of katas. Then I brought it up to mid-speed and showed them again.

"To go faster is to invite loss of control and damage, not only to myself but those around me. To go faster requires full focus. It is for combat. Learn the katas and learn the moves. As you deconstruct them, and reconstruct the sequences into various attacks and defenses, you will learn to think with your body. Combining schools will throw off most adversaries, like so..."

I demonstrated a combination of Tai'Chi, Wushu and Kumdo forms.

"Stay balanced, stay aware and stay in motion. You will not fail." I concluded.

I bowed and sat at the rear of the hall to observe. The instructor had a couple of the crew demonstrate what they knew. Regrettably, one of those was Andrei.

After his singlestick exhibition, the instructor said, "This is going to be a more challenging class than I thought."

The rest of the crew burst into laughter, and let the poor man know how he'd set himself up with our 'ringer'.

Sydney remains a great city in which to vacation. We had a few problems with intoxicated locals that took offense with the girl's skin color. Since we always went in threes or more, little came of it ... except for said locals waking up wondering how the hell they ended up in a dumpster, again. How's the saying go, "No Problems"?

The engines were torn down, the cylinder compression tested, the seals were replaced. The fuel tanks were steam cleaned and inspected viaremote fiber-optic microscopes. Our hull was well within its last inspection cycle so no problem there. All the electronics and gauges were inspected and calibrated. All consoles were opened, the wiring inspected and inspection tags were installed as well as secured via safety wire.

The inspectors were not allowed to even approach the CIC. It was beyond the purview of their responsibilities, and expertise. The Marine guards enforced that restriction. We passed our certifications with no issues.

Just before shipping out, a Naval electronics tech came aboard to witness the re-integration of our CIC. I opened the cabinet and secured the compression fittings, checked the integrity of all the connectors in the back then used a key and threw the master power switch. For only the second time I watched the status board light u and display the loading sequences. Soon the screen sat at an authentication prompt. I took the copy of the challenge/response details from my briefcase and began typing.

Soon we were up and running, radar integration having passed, thruster control verified, and weapons servos checked. The screen display built in slow passes, and showed our slice of the harbor. We were back in business.

The tech nodded and smiled, stating, "Well done. That can be a twitchy bit. Most don't take the time to check the connectors even though they're mechanically locked on."

I looked at him, grinned, and sai, "You should have seen us debugging that first goddamned S.A. Emitter/receiver unit. I'll never take anything with 'Navy' markings on it for granted, again."