by Rob Buckman
“No, sir, I didn’t mean it like that. I was hoping we, the platoon, and I could get attached to your command on a permanent basis.
“Rice! I am definitely going to get you an appointment with the trick cyclist.” Conner growled.
“Oh good, I’ll be next in line after you.” He chuckled.
“I have to agree with the Chief. This could be a no where assignment, Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir, like a nice safe rescue mission, we were supposed to go on. Meaning no disrespect, sir.” Rice smiled.
“In a pig’s eye.”
“By the way, sir. In case anyone hasn’t congratulated you already, congratulation on those.” He nodded to the twin ribbons on Mike’s right breast.
“As I told this lump of granite here, one of these rightfully belongs to you and your squad.” Even before he’d finished, Rice was shaking his head.
“We’d be either dead, lost, or in a Sirrien prison camp by now without you, sir.”
“He’d got that right.”
“These will do me nicely, thank you.” He looked at the three stripes on his arm proudly.
“All right, you two, let’s get to work.” They saluted and broke up their little gathering.
Rice and his team did discover more bugs in his office, and carefully removed them, installing their own in their place. Mike left orders they weren’t to apprehend anyone sneaking into his office, just record the activities, and get a face shot of whoever it was. Once his office was clear, Mike went back to work, but it wasn’t long before he was reading the specifications again. Conner watched and worried as without warning, Mike would jump up and go running down the stairs heading for one workshop or another as something occurred to him. Gable and Adam couldn’t make head or tail of it, even going so far as to ask Conner Blake what was going on.
“Can’t really tell you, sir, it’s just that he’s got a bee in his bonnet about that damn ship.”
“What on Earth is he going to do without drawing and specifications?”
“Right,” Adam added, “there’s no way the yard can build a warship without them.” At last, Conner had to drag Mike home and force him to sit down and eat. Even so, he kept scribbling things on bits of paper, or checking one with another.”
“Damn it! I need...”
“Need what, sir?”
“What?” Mike asked, looking up.
“What do you need, sir?”
“Need? I need...“ He stopped and looked off into the distance. “Never mind, I’ll work it out.” He’d never accumulated so much data in his brain at one time, and his mind started going into overload as he tried to fit it all together.
There was a synergy here that he was only now beginning to see the outline. It wasn’t the ship they’d tried to build before, but something greater. A gestalt, a combination of all the new equipment and ship designs he’d ever looked at, where the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. Yet, no matter how hard he tried, it just wouldn’t come together. At three in the morning, Conner felt exhausted, and finally managed to convince Mike to go to bed. It was with a sigh of relief when he did at last. Not that it was any better the next day. In the morning, Conner found him missing, but a quick check with his data pad found he’d gone to the yard. Conner sighed and took off to find him. He met Cynthia at the gate, standing there with a worried look on her face.
“Morning, Conner,” she gave him a weak smile, “do you know what’s up with our young Leftenant Gray?”
“No, what’s he done now?”
“Oh, nothing much, just called my chief drafter an idiot and chucked him out of his office and locked the door.”
“What on Earth?”
“He’s in there at the CADD machine, going ninety to the dozen at something.” Conner wiped his hand across his battered face and shook his head.
“It's that bloody ship!”
“Which ship?” She asked, echoing Gable’s question.
“696, that’s what.”
“But we don’t have any specs on her.”
“That’s the point, he’s designing her... at least, I think that’s what he’s doing. Either that, or he’s gone mad.”
“Well, I’ve got one pissed off tech on my hands and a mountain of updates to completed.”
“I’m sure he’ll be finished soon.”
In all, Mike spent four days and night at the CADD machine, refusing to come out or unlock the door. Conner and Cynthia were loathed to break the door down, but in the end, they did. Cynthia got one of her crew to jimmy the door on the fourth day, only to find Mike fast asleep over the drafting machine. Around him, lay piles of drawing and written specifications, and one look brought a started shout from Cynthia.
“My God! He’s done it.”
“Done what?” Conner asked, lifting his Captain out of the seat.
“He’s designed the bloody thing from scratch, that’s what.”
“Thank God for that, now maybe he’ll get some sleep.” Conner grouched.
“You take sleeping beauty off to bed while I have a look at this lot.”
“See you later.”
Conner took Mike back to quarters and put him to bed again, this time staying awake and keeping an eye on him, and if necessary, he’d tie him to the bed. While he slept, Cynthia spent almost the day sorting out the drawing, at last, getting them into some sort of order. She also downloaded the data from the hard drive of the CADD machine, dividing them into their correct sections. The next morning she called a meeting in her office of the entire department head and crew chiefs. She also had two men she knew she could trust standing guard outside her door.
“What's this all about, Cynthia?” Someone asked.
“It's about hull number 696, that’s what.”
“Not that pile of rust again.”
“Shut up and listen!” She snapped, cutting off the chatter. “I’ve just seen a young Naval Officer do the impossible.”
“That’s not hard.” One wag put in.
“This is. He designed a warship from scratch in less than four days.”
“He what?”
“That’s takes a whole design team and a super computer...”
“Exactly. This young man did it in four days, and nights I might add, and it’s all here.”
“You have to be kidding, right?”
“No, I’m not. He’s got it all, and my God, what a ship, she is.”
“So?”
“So, Alf Higgins, we are going to build her!”
“You have to be kidding. We’ll never get approval from his nips to do that.”
“Who said anything about asking permission?” That brought a stunned silence to the room. “That’s why I only want crews we know and trust. Any new people, get put on the regular work.”
“Struth, don’t want much do you, Cyth!”
“No, not much, but I’ll tell you this, I want to finish that damn ship.”
“That good is she?” The chief of environmental asked.
“She is.”
“So, how do we go about doing this then?”
“A lot of the parts we can fabricate here in the yards.”
“Yes, but what about a power plant, weapon, and electronics?”
“Not to mention how we are going to cover up the expense...” Cynthia held her hand up for silence.
“I know all that, but I know we can do it. As to the major components, I have it on good authority that we’ll have everything we need when we need it. In the meantime, we’ll work on what we can fab.” She turned her chair, creaking, and protesting and picked up a stack of data pads she’d downloaded from the CADD machine.
“Here, pass these around.” Some switched them on and began looking through the data, while other plugged them into their VR displays. She watched for a while as they absorbed the data, hearing muttered comments as they talked to each other.
“My lord, don’t want much, does he!”
“It will work.”
“I know, b
ut it will mean we’ll need to take those hull members back to the shop and repress them.”
“So?”
“That’s not a problem, its resetting the jig.”
“So, reset it.”
“But we’ve never gravity forged a hull member this shape before.”
“So, get with your staff and have them redesign the jig.” The man in question looked up from the pad and gave her a sharp look.
“There’ll be hell to pay if someone figures out what we're up to.”
“I’ll handle that. But, listen up people,” she got their attention, “this is one of those times when we not only do it right, we make it perfect. No mistakes, no errors, no hold ups, is that clear.” They all nodded. “We’ll probably only get one chance to do this, one chance only, so we’d better get it right the first time.”
“That’s going to take a bit of schedule juggling to get our best people working.”
“That’s right. The best and most experienced people only.”
“Any time frame on this, Cynthia?”
“Open ended at the moment, but ASAP would be the operable word.”
“I hope the hell you can come up with the power plants, and what have you very quickly.”
From Cynthia’s account, it was a stormy meeting from then on, with her acting as arbitrator. She finally managed to calm them down to a point where they started talking to each other, instead of shouting, and she had to chuckle. Mike had succeeded in doing things most would have said were impossible. He’d not only designed the ship, but many of the subsystems as well to the point where he had the department head tearing their hair out. Yet, when all the shouting died down, they all admitted he’d come up with elegant solutions to many problems. It would mean they’d have to build some units from scratch to a particular shape or size, but as most of the pieces were made up of standard components, it meant they just have to put them together a different way.
The one good thing about all this was, all too often her people were forced to put something in, even knowing it was wrong, because the spec said it had to go in that way. With Mike’s design, they didn’t have to, there were no specs per say. Cynthia gave them the latitude to improvise and change the design if they thought of a better way of doing it, as long as they recorded it and passed it by Mike first. After that, the yard chiefs looked happier and they departed to get to work. After sixteen hours sleep, Mike woke, refreshed, and ready to go to work, even over Conner’s protest. For once, he looked bleary eyed from lack of sleep and it was Mike’s turn to chuckle. After a quick meeting with Cynthia where she brought them up to date, they headed for the slip. Mike still looked a little stunned as he got out of the vehicle, finding it hard to accept the speed things were happening. Even as they walked up over the rise, a giant hover crane arrived, and he watched in amazement at the yard dogs erected an environmental enclosure over the whole slipway. The cover made sense, with winter closing in the work would get harder and harder.
With the addition of a climate control unit attached to the end, it kept the inside of the construction hanger at a constant temperature. It made sense from a construction standpoint, as all the structural members and hull plates remained at a relatively constant temperature and humidity. As the reformed members came in through the giant airlock, they’d be left for twenty-four hour to come up to the ambient temperature before they were fitted or fusion welded into place. This relieved much of the related stress, and helped the ship settled down into a whole quicker. Even with all this activity, Mike was becoming increasingly worried about the major equipment items, as some of them could only be installed before they attached the hull plating. Cynthia was smart enough to know that, and scheduled the plates to arrive in the correct order from the forming shed, concentrating on the lower hull first. She was as good as her word, as the hull plates he saw were three times the normal thickness for a Corvette. With the anti-gravity system, weight was not a real factor, other than the increased power output for each Ag unit. However, this was only of concern during landing and takeoff’s, as in space only mass and inertia matter. The inertia dampening system handled most of that, again related to the AG system and power output.
“What’s the problem with the power plant, Adam?” Gable asked at one impromptu meeting in Mike’s quarter.
“No problem, I just hope it's not a standard size unit, otherwise we are going to be seriously under powered.”
“Let me see that.”
“Here, look at these figures.” He pushed a pad over and switched it on. Gable sat in silence for a moment, nodding occasional and doodling numbers on a notepad he pulled out of his pocket.
“Where did you get the figures from for hull displacement, these are way off for a Corvette.”
“It isn’t a Corvette, Gable.”
“Then what is she?”
“We aren’t sure yet, something between a destroyer and a light Cruiser.”
“But if you take the mass time's load and add...” At that point, Mike tuned them out as they launched into a technical question and answer session that left him standing in the dust. Mike stood up, seeing a smile spread across Gable’s face and left them to it. They didn’t even realize he’d gone.
“What do you think, Conner?”
“They’ll do, sir.”
He arranged with the landlord to rent two more apartments, much to the man’s relief. Three of his tenants had already left, due to the constant coming and going, and the sound of people talking all night long. Thankfully, the next person to turn up was his XO, and Mike could unload much of the work onto him. At first glance, he seemed an unlikely candidate for the position, and in many ways reminded Mike of Seaford. First Leftenant Standish-Owen had that sleepy eyed, lazy look of many upper class officers, but as he’d found out with Seaford, looks can be deceptive.
“We work on a much more informal basis on this duty, Mr. Standish.”
“So I have been informed by Mr. Adams and Mr. Bushman, sir.”
“You had the chance to talk to them then?”
“Yes, sir, my first stop was in the yard and your office, and I met them.”
“Good, so you can see the problems we face.”
“Indeed, sir. Having Mr. Kincaid to get a haircut would be the one of the first things on my list.”
“Pull up a chair, and grab yourself something to drink.”
“A Whisky would be great. If I might venture that?”
“You may, but I’m sorry to say, my stock doesn’t expend to that yet, coffee and Brandy mostly.”
“Then, if I may be permitted, I’ll like to add to your inventory.” He reached down into his ditty bag and pulled out three dark bottles of something.
“Highland Whisky, sir, a present from my paternal Grandfather, Lord Philip Duncan of Glen Ross, on my last visit.”
“Thank you Leftenant,” Mike paused as he accepted a bottle, “you wouldn’t be related to a Leftenant Ross by any chance?”
“Good heavens, yes, my cousin.” That made Mike smile. “This your first command, Leftenant Gray?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Correction, sir, this is your second command.” Conner Blake murmured as he accepted the two bottles.
“What was your first, sir.”
“By misfortune, I took charge of a, um, a sort of rescue mission.” Hearing that Standish snapped his finger.
“Of course, Mike Gray, double VC gong, the young Ensign that took over command after his Captain was unfortunately killed.” He grinned. “Brilliant piece of work, sir, if I may say so, but why the boneheads at the Admiralty would send a rust bucket of an assault shuttle to do the job is beyond me.”
“Thank you Mr. Standish.” He was sure that Conner would fill him in on the details later. We have pressing business to take care of first.”
“Please call me Peter, sir.”
“Very good, now to business.” For an hour, he went over the problems they faced, filling in the gaps where he could. Standish sipped
his drink and nodded occasionally, but didn’t take any notes. He nodded as Mike made a point about something, committing it to memory.
“So, chasing down the equipment would be the item of top priority,”
“No, I’ve been repeated told that they would be here when needed.”
“But that was last week.”
“Not quite, but critically close.”
“It's more a question of rounding up all the necessary supplies and ancillary equipment that worried me more. I’ve been around the Ministry of Supply three times, but it's like shouting down a dark well, all you get back is an echo.”