Dan and John just turned to look at each other. They knew that Bethany Anne loved fashion, but they hadn’t heard anything about it recently and had rather forgotten that side of her. Looked like it was coming back. Maybe that was a good thing?
“You realize that most navies use one-piece coveralls, right? You’ll need to get with the Captains to discuss what is practical and what is fashionable. Practical is going to win.”
Ecaterina was smiling in spite of Dan’s comment on practical considerations versus fashion. She loved working with fashion and since she would be wearing these uniforms while onboard, the ladies would have both practical and flattering versions. So, warm weather, cold weather, sport… the list could go on and on. She turned to Bethany Anne, “What’s the budget?”
“This is for camouflage as much as the other reasons. Let me know if it’s going to go over a million. Everyone who has joined will be completely fitted out and I want a fair amount of extras on board in case we bring in new employees. Oh, and add a pair of Christian Louboutins and a Birkin bag for each lady.”
Ecaterina looked at her. “Birkin?”
John and Dan just looked back and forth between the two.
“Yeah, by Hermès? We’ll want to contact them to get something special made for our team. Work with the designer to make sure they match, but give each woman the chance to choose something a little special. You need to budget $10,000 per bag and we will want the smaller 30 or 35 centimeter sizes probably. Certainly something they can carry their wallet and a pistol in. I know that Officer Dukes will appreciate that.”
There were chuckles around the table. Jean Dukes was still setting up offensive and defensive armament on the Polarus. The ship was becoming the Q-ship that Bethany Anne had asked for. “When the snobby bitches come on board, I want them to see that every one of my ladies are already sporting some of the best as their uniform. It will knock them for a loop and most of the gossip rags will focus on how our people are dressed considerably snazzier than other people, trust me.” She looked over at Dan and John. “Sorry guys, I’ll make sure you have some excellent footwear, but I don’t think you guys want man-purses, right?”
Dan shook his head while John admitted he didn’t want anything of the sort. But then he came back, “Well, if we can’t have any special bags, I sure would like a really nice sniper rifle.”
“I don’t think that’s considered a uniform accessory.”
“Depends on which uniform we’re wearing.” John smiled at his response.
Ecaterina piped up, “Oh! I want in on a sniper rifle, are we talking American or British?”
“Hold up.” Everyone turned back to Bethany Anne. “I’m good with sniper rifles, but you three talk about it. I need to go relieve Eric so he can sleep. I’ll be over in the craft, so you can sleep here on this boat tonight, John. Eric can bunk down over on the Aeternitatem. Just give me a change of Eric’s clothes to take with me.”
“Now?”
“Yeah, I’m behind a bit relieving him. He can relieve me in the morning and I’ll come back over here. Make sure everyone stays out of my suite until I get back.”
Ecaterina cut her off, “Actually, I had them modify your closet so you could lock it from the inside. You can leave and come back safely in there.”
“Really? Perfect. Ok, that solves that problem. Can you grab a small pack for Eric now?” John was already standing. “Dan, do you have anything for me before I go?”
“Yes, Frank has some information about Anton, but we haven’t had time to nail down where and even who we think he is for sure. Once Clarita’s kids are safe, I want to ask Stephen to reach out and talk with them to find out if they can give us any information. I’ve talked with Lance for just a minute and he thinks we might have the start of a team to help on TOM’s craft.”
“Really? That would be nice.”
“Ah, it comes with a catch.”
Her shoulders slumped, “Don’t they always? Can this wait until tomorrow? I don’t want to make Eric wait any longer if we don’t have to.”
“Yeah, it can. Actually, it probably should. Nathan is the best one to explain the situation so we’ll wait until he gets here.”
John came back in and handed Bethany Anne a small black backpack, “Everything in there for a night and a morning over there. How often can you move back and forth?
TOM?
Well, probably a handful of times but we haven’t done the first one yet. If you have blood, all day long.
“A couple of times easily, beyond that I have to start drinking the red medicine.” She made a disgusted face. “So, if we don’t have to do that I’m happier. If you need him here, he can come over on the smaller boat, or Chris can bring him over if Shelly isn’t up top.”
She stood up. “Are we all good?” Everyone agreed that they were. “Ok, I’ll be back in the morning. You guys take care.” She walked into her suite and shut the door. She grabbed a pillow off of her bed on the way to her large closet. Sure enough, her closet door had a substantial lock and the door was made of metal. Nothing much would be getting into that door quickly. With the pack in one hand and her pillow in the other she slipped through the Etheric into TOM’s cabin on his ship. She tossed the pillow on TOM’s bed and walked out to find Eric resting on the floor near the door to the medical room. Eric’s head lifted up when he heard her walking up.
“Hey boss, how did everything go?”
She reached down and gave him a hand to pull him up. “Good enough. I need you to stay here tonight, so John tossed some stuff into this backpack. You’ll have to get with the captain to find yourself a bunk, but I know they have one for you. Come get me after a really good rest tonight. You might need to bring something to keep you entertained as well.”
“How do I get your attention in the craft?”
TOM?
We will set up a program to listen for your name, or some phrase to play a chime in here.
“Ok, just say, ‘Bethany Anne, it’s Eric, I’m ready to come back in.’ When you say that, the ship will notify me someone has just said the super secret code phrase and wake me up. You just better make sure that you don’t wake me early or your ass is grass, understand?”
“Sure, what’s early?”
“At least eight hours after you lay down to go to sleep.”
Eric then understood it was for him to sleep a minimum of eight hours, not her sleep she was worried about. “I got the message, I’ll get a good night in.”
They walked over to the exit and Bethany Anne punched in the code. The door opened, surprising Todd and Chet who were just outside the ship. They both did a double take to see Bethany Anne when they knew she had left on the helicopter a few hours before. Eric stepped off the ship and she winked at the guys and then closed the door. She went into the pod room and checked the information. TOM was able to confirm everything was working appropriately. It was possible she might get out in as few as three and a half more days. That was good news.
She swung by the pilot’s area to set the alarm and then went back into TOM’s cabin and lay down on the rather short bed. She fluffed her pillow and closed her eyes. She was asleep in seconds.
12
The Queen Bitch's Ship Polarus, 10 Miles North of Nassau
The meeting room was pretty crowded. Lance, Nathan, Dan, Bobcat, Ecaterina, Frank, Todd Jenkins and Captains Thomas and Wagner were sitting around the table eating finger foods with John and Pete inside the door. Darryl and Scott were standing outside.
Lance, Nathan, Ecaterina and Frank were on the left side, Dan, Bobcat, Todd and the captains were sitting down the right.
Bethany Anne came in a moment later, wearing a pair of J Brand high rise Marie skinny jeans in black and a pair of Christian Louboutin pumps and a green Ramy Brook high neck top. She had spent a couple of extra minutes relaxing in the bath this morning after Eric came back on board to watch over Gabrielle. If anything went wrong, the pod was set up to emit an ear piercing sound inside and
after sixty seconds, outside the ship. She was biting on an apple as she set her tablet down on the table.
“Good afternoon, everyone. I apologize for being a few minutes late.” She looked down the table. “I would like to say it was because I was held up talking with the president of somewhere, but the reality was my bath wouldn’t let me go. TOM’s ship might be the ticket to help us understand their technology, but their beds are little better than lying on the ground.” She took another bite of her apple. “We have a few things to go through, some of them taking longer than others, so let’s go with the two ships first and if the captains need to leave after that they have the option. Captains you are invited to stay if you desire to listen to the rest.”
Everyone either grabbed their pens if they preferred writing or made sure their laptops weren’t in sleep mode.
Since Captain Thomas was the senior officer, he went first. “We are fairly prepared for a small skirmish with any navy. We can take any non-navy ship that I am aware of and we would probably surprise a larger navy vessel right now. We have some missile defense and even some ability to send charges down below if we need to. As a Q-Ship, this vessel is pretty competent. Jean is waiting for another delivery that will expand our sig-ops abilities a notch.”
Bethany Anne interrupted him. “What would happen if we were attacked by non-military efforts? Say something like Greenpeace?” Captain Thomas seemed perplexed by the question. “Think of it this way, if I wanted to place something aboard this ship, I might decide to make a PR spectacle of a bunch of people working to do a peaceful demonstration against the ship in an effort to move someone or something aboard. How would you repel these types of invaders?”
“I suppose you want this without lots of loud booms?” Bethany Anne nodded and bit into the apple again. “I imagine we would use the fire hoses to repel invaders in a method that seems as peaceful as possible. However, that doesn’t guarantee no one would be hurt. We would be throwing water instead of lead, so that’s a plus. We do exercise the scenario of boats approaching under false pretenses, but since the USS Cole incident it’s generally regarded that the chance of a bomb on board outweighs the bad press from killing them if they disobey all warnings. The Navy makes their warnings very clear, and since everyone knows lethal force could be employed against them, you can't get in too much trouble if they’re stupid enough to disregard the guns aimed at them. But I can see how this might be more of a concern for us since we’re not on a commissioned government warship and don't have government protection. If a government was able to coordinate the press to put pressure on us, we would be in a bad position if we shot people. I would suggest we don’t anchor too long in one place. If we allow ourselves to stay in one place then our adversaries can plan for multiple boats to arrive at the same location in a way that you might explain away otherwise. By staying under sail, we will modify our direction and force others to adjust their courses to stay after us and give us more warning prior to an attack.”
Todd spoke up, “What about sonic defenses?”
Captain Thomas looked over at him. “What, like the sonic cannons used inside cities?”
“Yes, something like that.”
Captain Thomas rubbed his jaw. “Well, I don’t know much about the effective range or how it works if they get behind their own walls. We can look into it. We need to add the idea of repelling non-violent boarders to our exercises from now on. And eventually, we’ll need some laid down Rules of Engagement. Not only will that give us a framework for how we respond to incidents, but something we can point at if we have to excuse the use of lethal force in the future.”
Bethany Anne turned and tossed the apple into the trash. “We'll have to consider that further later. The exercises should be enough for now. I don’t know that this will happen, but in the future I can imagine a time when we have those who are trying to force us to release emergency medical technology and believe by taking over this ship, or yours Captain Wagner, they might force our hand. Unfortunately, getting on the Ad Aeternitatem might just sign their death warrant. I know that constantly moving will be a little expensive, but please put that into effect immediately. Even if we look like a Lloyds looper, it will help our team identify possible enemies quicker.”
Ecaterina interrupted, “What is a Lloyds looper?”
Captain Thomas took the question. “A lot of cargo ships are insured by Lloyds of London. For them to be tied up in port is more expensive due to the increase in insurance costs than just sitting out in the ocean doing a figure eight until they get their next destination to pick up cargo. Now, lots of companies are in the business of insuring ships but the name has stuck. In our case, whether we are at the pier or anchored, our risk is higher than if we move around. The only issue with moving around is it’ll decrease chances for shore leave, so we might need more personnel rotation to avoid long-term fatigue and burnout.”
John spoke up, “What about issuing pistols with the ‘sleepy’ rounds?” He was referring to the special darts made with Bethany Anne’s blood that put almost any person to sleep within two seconds.
They now had TOM’s ship, so maybe it was possible to change the chemicals in the darts without forcing Bethany Anne to bleed a drop of blood into every dart. Bethany Anne answered, “That’s a good idea. I need to talk with TOM about using the medical capabilities onboard his ship to change the dart chemicals without me having to bleed all over them to make it work.” She paused for a minute. “Or Gabrielle I suppose. I’m sure she wasn’t thinking she would become a blood cow in the future.”
Frank looked down at his phone, then interrupted them. “Excuse me, I need to follow up on this.” He grabbed his unique laptop and stepped out of the room. Frank’s hair had been growing back in darker with his grey hair on the ends. He needed to either get hair dye or cut it off close to the skull. He looked weird, like he had bleached the ends of his hair.
They talked a little while on the needs of both of the ships related to crew and updates. The Ad Aeternitatem would hire a couple more crew to start modifying the internal compartments to remove some of the storage space and make more berthing in there. Both captains had things they wanted to implement and Max wanted to get underway as soon as possible.
Bethany Anne raised an eyebrow to Bobcat. “He’s got the boat. So I don’t need to ferry him over.”
That caused them to discuss the two helicopters and the G550's status. Bethany Anne brought up something she had been thinking, “Bobcat, do you remember when I asked if you would consider learning new craft and perhaps teaching others once you’ve learned enough?”
Bobcat smiled, “You bet, are you going to let me learn how to fly your new ride over there?” Bobcat had been itching to see inside the ship, but it was off limits until Bethany Anne permitted anyone to touch it.
She grinned at the audacious pilot. “Hell no!” His smile turned into a frown, “I’m expecting you to help design small three person vessels we can launch off of either of our ships. With vessels that can go straight up, we don’t need to have an aircraft carrier.”
Bobcats’ smile went from large to just about splitting his face. “Hell yeah! That would be fun-fucking-tastic. What are the specifications?”
“One pilot, a two ops team plus their equipment. Needs to be quiet and as undetectable as we can make it. I want them as stupid-proof as possible.”
“Outer space?”
“No, TOM tells me that requires a significant jump in complexity I’m not willing to wait for right now. But these things will be able to push Mach 4, so almost faster than anything the militaries have except the theoretical scramjet. Our stuff will be smaller, faster, and won’t require major training for blackouts as the insides will, according to TOM, stay at less than 1.25 gs during any and all maneuvers.”
“Seriously?”
“Yup.”
“Tell TOM I’m his newest fan!”
Well, I’ve never had a fan before.
Wait until we provide more of you
r technology. Unfortunately for you, some people will want to call you a God.
Why is that unfortunate?
Because you're stuck in me and there is no way I can stand the idea of your ego getting too big for my body.
Yes, well, there is that little inconvenience.
Sucks to be you.
“Yes, I’m sure he’ll be excited to learn that. But this means you need to find a primary for Shelly.” Bobcat’s face lost a lot of its enthusiasm. Shelly, his Black Hawk, had been the craft that had helped him keep his sanity between leaving the service and finally joining Bethany Anne’s group. “I thought you might take it a little hard. Just remember this won’t happen for a while, so don’t make plans to stop flying Shelly for a few months, but you will need to consider passing the torch.”
Bobcat just shook his head. With everything good, a little bad must happen.
Bethany Anne continued, “Besides, just think what these little ships will do when you come out with version 2.0.” That was sufficient to pull Bobcat out of the worst of the punch to his ego Bethany Anne had delivered.
She turned to Nathan and her dad. “Ok, Dan told me last night that you two might have some people for reviewing the ship and helping figure it out, but it came with a catch. What is the catch before we go much further?”
Lance looked over at Nathan to let him know he had the floor. Nathan started. “What do you know about strong AI?”
“Not a lot related to earth stuff, a little related to Kurtherian.”
Nathan opened his mouth, he wanted to ask about the Kurtherian comment but they couldn’t get derailed on that subject right then. “Well, we don’t so much want to bring people to look at the ship. Well, not totally true. We do, but our real problem and opportunity is one of the companies in TQB Enterprises is Patriarch Research out of Las Vegas. It looks like they have potentially created the software to bring about the Technology Singularity.”
Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set One: Books 1-7, Death Becomes Her, Queen Bitch, Love Lost, Bite This, Never Forsaken, Under My Heel, Kneel or Die (Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Sets) Page 73