McCORD
“You’re going to wear greens to McCord?” he said as she finished dressing.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said about how to present myself; arriving in greens would make the situation look less critical and make me look like someone that is ready to help. It should, also, add emphasis to my ‘mission’ at Westland being the major problem and the McCord thing is just a quick look-see.”
Josiah was intrigued, “I like it, very good.” He stuck his nose in the air and sniffed, “Ahh, waffles.”
#
Sam had the Falcon out of the hanger and the ground check complete. When Nora had completed her check, Josiah gave her his final pep-talk at the bottom of the steps, “On your way there, focus your mind on the job you’re heading for. Forget about the Falcon; forget about the red shoulder boards. Don’t point them out, don’t talk about them. Let everyone else do that. They are only tools and indicators of your current responsibilities.”
She kissed him, “Yes, sir.”
#
It was a small shock to realize that her request for an Admiral call sign was for her and her alone. There was apprehension, but there was excitement, too.
She had called Commander Ridge on Tuesday after she was nice and dirty and made sure that her visual background consisted of a Gardener undergoing extensive repairs and the edge of the easily identifiable logo of Westland Flight Systems. She still smiled at the memory of just how fast a dirty Lieutenant Junior Grade Staff Officer in that environment could get through to the facility commander.
Ridge had not heard of any inspection or unfavorable attention to his operation. That was not unusual; Admiral Jacks liked just “dropping in” to say “hello.” She had advised him of her ability to “fit” him in to her schedule on Thursday and attempted to calm his fears by pointing out that if there was really something wrong, a higher ranking staff officer would have been assigned; it seemed to help.
#
There were six people waiting for her when she put down at the end of the active flight line. No doubt about it, this parade is all mine. She did a complete system shutdown and used that time to center her mind. As a last thought, she activated the external recorders. Josey might want to see this.
She stepped off the bottom step and tapped the external lock plate to close the hatch. She turned to greet the approaching group and saluted Commander Ridge, “Commander, I’m Nora Parente.”
He returned her salute and shook her hand, “I am very pleased to meet you, Lieutenant. Allow me to present certain members of my organization that have never seen a staff officer before.”
He said that last with a strong note of resignation, and she had to smile. It’s already sounding like a typical transport unit.
MARTY
Lunch had ended; everyone else had gone back to work, leaving Josiah sitting at the picnic table under the apple tree across from Allea and his parents. It had been a long time since the four of them had gotten together to just sit and talk. Josiah thought that that alone made it odd, but his Father putting the small chip case in front him with the apparent understanding and approval of the other two pushed it right into the “strange” category.
“What’s this for?”
“I was showing Nora our small parts fabrication shop yesterday. I had her hold an emitter base in the 3D optical wave scanner; the file is on this chip”
Josiah shrugged his shoulders, “I’ve done that a thousand times. So?”
“You remember Marty Napoli?”
Josiah shrugged again, “Sure, the jeweler in town. How’s he doing?”
Paul leaned closer, “He’s doing very well, but you should go see him today, and take this to him; he has equipment that can read this file.”
Josiah was still far from enlightenment, “What does he need with a wave scan of an emitter base? I don’t think that Diamat sheathed emitter bases would be very cost effective.”
Allea and his Mother were smiling. Paul put his finger on the little case and lazily scooted it around, “This scan also gives an absolutely and stunningly accurate image of Nora’s left hand; an image that is more than enough to accurately make an engagement ring for her.”
Annnd there it was, right between the eyes.
His Mother reached over to put a hand on his, “This is our way of telling you that we really like her and want her in the family.”
Josiah saw that Allea had tears in her eyes but was smiling and nodding; she had always wanted a big sister.
His father grabbed his free hand, turned it over, and wrapped his fingers around the chip case, “It is, of course, your decision, but you’ll be twenty-nine soon, and I don’t ever want to admit that I have a fool for a son. That young woman is stunning and impressive. Put an image in your mind of her out of your life and into the life of another man.”
It took a moment, “Uhhh…well, what if she says ‘no’?”
Allea fell off the bench, shrieking with laughter interposed with that annoying snort of hers. His Mother buried her face in her hands and began crying…no, laughing. His father reached across the table, grabbed his uniform tie, and pulled until their noses touched, “Don’t be a total twit.”
Allea finally managed to regain her seat and leaned against her Mother, “They really are the last to know, aren’t they?” His Mother could only respond with a vigorous series of nods behind her hands.
His Father turned an exasperated expression toward his wife, “Gracie, I’m going to schedule a genetic scan; he can’t be mine.” Allea fell off the bench again.
It doesn’t matter how many medals I get, I’ll never have a problem getting my head through a door around here.
#
Marty Napoli clapped his hands together and rushed out from around the counter. The old Italian jeweler only came up to his chin but he managed to get his hands on Josiah’s shoulders and give him a good shake, “Josiah, my boy, I would never have forgiven you if you had not stopped by.” He let go of one shoulder and turned to call to the back room, “TINA, COME HERE.”
Thankfully, Tina Napoli was a centimeter taller than her husband so bending over to give her a kiss wasn’t too difficult. They both stood back and admired the change in his uniform, “Oh, my, you look so grand, dear.”
Marty was grinning from ear to ear and shaking his hand, “He does, he does.” He looked around the shop where the four customers and the sales people had stopped what they were doing to look at them, “Let’s go in the back.”
The Napoli family was well known in the jewelry industry for the quality of their work; Marty and Tina’s Son, Kenneth and his wife, Angela, were both working in the shop behind the salesroom. Angela was of Irish decent but looked just as Italian as Kenny did. They both stopped what they were doing to greet Josiah. They all gathered at the back table, and it was an hour of intense catching up before he pulled out the chip case.
“Marty, there is a wave scanner file on this chip that has a rather sneakily obtained image of a hand that I was wondering if you could make an engagement ring for.”
That, also, took a moment to sink in. When it did, the back pounding and happy tears began. The Napoli’s were family friends from way back, and they had always thought of Josiah as Son Number Two. When Marty finally got one of his logic pads and read the chip, the first question was, “Do you have a picture of her?”
Josiah pulled up an image on his pad and turned it so they could see it. Kenny was first with, “Wow!”
Tina was next, “Where do her people come from? She looks Italian.”
“Close, she’s Portuguese and Spanish with a distant touch of French.”
Marty started to look thoughtful, “It would have to be something special. Do you have anything in mind?”
Josiah put a hand on Marty’s arm, “I am a complete dunce when it comes to jewelry and what women like. That’s why I come to you and Momma for this one.”
Kenny reached over and took the chip from the logic pad, “Let me check
something first.” He took the chip to a work station and ran it through a full evaluator program. He came back with a data printout while the replicator was building a model, “I make it a forty-eight. Poppa, what about that Spectrum design you always wanted to make?” Kenny smiled knowingly, “Josey can afford it.”
Marty’s eyes wandered while he thought of something. He looked back at the logic pad and started tapping. He turned the pad to face Josiah. The image was of a ring, of course, that was slowly rotating, “Josiah, you know that I do not like to make stupid stuff for people that have more money than brains. I like to make special things that have meaning for people and that they can wear without making some part of their body useless. This is a ring that a woman can wear all the time without concern. The stones are small, but they are all perfect. All of the gold and other metals and half of the colored stones come from Earth; the rest of the stones come from Mars, various moons and a couple of asteroids. It has taken me thirty-two years and two hundred thousand credits to assemble them. You may have this ring for the cost of the materials.”
Marty reached over and tapped a key; the image changed and the ring started going through a cycle where it separated into three parts, then the two outer rings came together without the center ring, and then it cycled back to the three ring assembly.
“The two outer rings run through the spectrum from red to blue and back to red as you go around the rings. The center, all white section, is the wedding ring and is all of the whitest diamonds ever found. Luckily, they were so small they were considered scraps when the main deposit was found. The big stones are in museums.”
Josiah knew he had a stunned look on his face. Being in the Navy and buried in his work had separated him from the reality of the wealth of his family. Besides, being on a ship doesn’t allow you the room to park fancy ground vehicles. Two hundred…well, it’s not like I can’t afford it. He pulled his pad back from the center of the table and called Shelly Black back at the plant, “Josey, how you doing and to what do I owe the pleasure of this call? Are you at Marty’s shop?”
Holy crap, it’s a conspiracy! The thin, blonde, mother of three that headed the financial section was always bubbly--who wouldn’t be if they were handling the money for a company like Westland--but she was practically in a state now.
“Show it to me, show it to me. How much is it? Come on,” she grinned closer to the pickup, “you can tell me. Hey, you gotta tell me if I have to write the check.”
There are so many other places I could be right now…standing on the lip of an active volcano…. “Marty, what would be your price for a normal, good customer.”
“But…Josiah, for you…”
Josiah held up his hand to accompany the strong, exasperated look on his face, “Your normal price. That is an order.” Finally!
Marty looked dismayed but managed to mumble, “Two hundred and fifty thousand.”
Josiah turned back to the nearly drooling accountant, “Two hundred and fifty thousand credits and you do not get to see it.” He raised a finger and swept it across the faces with him at the table, “I claim the right of full confidentiality. The next person in this universe that gets to see it is Lady Nora Parente. That is an order, understood?” So, this is what it feels like! They all smiled and nodded in unison. He looked back at the screen, “Got it?”
She looked very disappointed, “Alright, it’ll be in Marty’s account in a couple of minutes. You’re mean.”
He closed the pad and turned back to Marty, “When will it be ready?”
“Well…how long will you be here?”
“We were planning on leaving Sunday.”
Marty smiled and looked relieved, “Good, we can have it ready Saturday,” he looked around the table, “can’t we?”
The others thought for a moment. Kenny pointed at his Father and Angela, “You two get started on the foundation work, and I’ll finish the stone work.” He looked back at Josiah, “And you give us a call Saturday morning.”
CHECK RIDES
“It was so easy.” Nora was practically bouncing around their room.
It’s a good thing she’s not a coffee freak.
She finally dropped into the other chair, “They’re, basically, a good group with a couple of organizational and procedural mistakes, but as I suspected from reading the file, they need higher rated pilots.” She smiled and pushed a data pad along the desk, “Here are the files and log entries on four people there that look like candidates for an upgrade. I told them we would be there at 0700 tomorrow and to have these people ready for your gentle touch. You will wear your whites with all of your medals and ratings to properly impress them and I will wear greens because I will be working in the trenches again.” She had a smug smile.
“And just how easy did they think it was to get a staff officer and CI to come when you wagged your little finger?”
She still kept the smug expression, “Oh, they have no idea who’s coming. I just wandered out on the flight line and called Ally to see how things were going and show off my staff officer shoulder boards. I took my time, and then I sternly advised them that I had managed to divert an instructor from his current assignment for one day of training and check rides. I ordered these four to hit the books tonight. How am I doing?”
She had what he could only think of as a happy puppy smile on her face. Josiah’s expression was not so happy, “Depressingly well, it seems, 0700, huh?”
“I told Sam that we would need the Falcon ready by 0615. Oh, I have something for you.” She pulled a chip case out of her pad pouch and inserted it into the desk work station. A video and audio recording from the Falcon’s two, port side, external pickups started playing.
He switched from one to the other and zoomed in for a close look at the expressions on the faces of the six people that met her at McCord. By the time he had finished a detailed study, he had an approving smile on his face, “Perfect, absolutely perfect!” he froze the image from the bow pickup and pointed along the tops of their heads, “It looks like you might have been close to the tallest one there, and it’s really easy to see from their expressions that they just saw a Goddess grace their presence. You know, your greens aren’t anywhere near skintight, but it’s more than obvious that you’re not one of the boys. I hope you kept up the intensity and mystery all day.”
“Oh, yes! I just made glancing references to my ‘special’ assignment whenever the subject came up. I went so far as to let slip that the head of Westland Flight Systems had personally called Admiral Jacks and requested my presence.”
Josiah’s mouth fell open, “You didn’t!”
Nora got defensive, “I did, and it wasn’t like I was lying.”
“I know it wasn’t, strictly speaking, a lie; I’m just shocked at your ability to convert the truth into such a staggering whopper.”
Josiah reached and took both of her hands in his, “Have I mentioned that I love you?”
She sat up straighter and got a wide-eyed, blank expression on her face. She managed to whisper, “No.”
“Well, I do; get used to it.” He stuck his nose up and sniffed, “Dinner’s ready.”
Nora was quiet on the way down stairs and still had that soft, wide-eyed expression every time she looked at him over the dinner table.
#
Sam always looked the same no matter how long he had been working or what infernal hour it was, “Hi, kid!” He held out the ground inspection release data pad for Josiah to sign off on.
Josiah just waved him away, “Get away from me; she’s PIC.”
He had been getting used to not having to report for duty until 0900. Looking at a sun that was only a little above the horizon was annoying. Still, it beat shipboard duty where there were no cool morning breezes and the sunlight was artificial.
Sam handed the pad to Nora as Josiah entered the Falcon, “You shouldn’t keep him up so late.”
She signed the pad and gave him a slightly embarrassed smile, “It wasn’t, entirely, my
idea.”
#
There were ten people waiting when they touched down, “I get a bigger crowd; I must be more important than you.”
“The four on the left are yours; the other six are mine.” She stuck her tongue out at him.
Josiah stopped at the hatch before opening it, “I have been advised by more than one person that our interaction comes across as being on a somewhat intimate level. Let’s do our best to keep it official and sterile.”
“Oh, they’ve noticed, huh? Ok, sir, open the hatch.”
It was pretty obvious that he was well beyond what they had expected. After returning the surprised salutes he shook Ridge’s hand, “Commander Ridge, I’m Josiah West; I’m Admiral Jacks’ personal shuttle pilot. It appears that,” he cast a slightly annoyed glance at Nora who, pointedly, did not see it, “Lieutenant Parente has managed to find something for me to do while the Admiral recovers from his latest regen session and my duties are lighter than normal. To be honest, it has been awhile since I have had the opportunity to do some training and check rides, so it wasn’t really too hard to get me here.”
Ridge’s smile had a tinge of relief in it, “I think it’s easy to see that we weren’t expecting anyone like you, but we are pleased beyond words to have you here.” Ridge turned and waved a hand at the four people standing at the side of the group, “Let me introduce you to your class.”
#
It was 2320 as Nora eased the Falcon into the hanger. Sam was still there and closed the door behind them; he was waiting at the steps when they exited, “Hi, kids, how’d it go?”
Josiah West 1: Kaleidoscope Page 13