As it turned out, Goudie had been given the very back conference room. Jack’s description of Goudie having ‘taken over the room’ was dead-on. It looked like a constructive cyclone had hit the place. There were papers taped up on the projection board, the walls, and one even hung from the ceiling. Another table had been shoved in to the far corner and it was buried in charred remains from the blast site. The conference table itself had more charred remains on it, although these were more spaced out and sat on white sheets of paper clearly labeled. Trying to preserve a chain of evidence?
The only clear space to be found was at the very head of the table, where Frank Goudie and Mike Yockey sat. Three plates rested in front of them, all covered in aluminum foil, and delightful scents wafted in the air, mixing with the smell of burned metal in a very interesting aromatic clash. At her entrance, both men looked up and smiled in greeting.
“Mr. Goudie,” she acknowledged, “Mike, how are you?”
“I’m well, thank you. Michelle asked me to tell you many, many thanks for wrapping her ribs. The doctor said she had a bruised lung and if we’d lifted her into the ambulance without it being wrapped, it would have done even worse damage.”
That thought made her a little queasy. “Very glad I wrapped them, then.”
Mike gestured her into the free chair at his elbow. “Come, join us. My wife, when she heard that I was coming here today, insisted that I bring something to thank all of you. She’s very glad that I was able to come home in one piece.”
“As to that, sir, we had little to do with it,” she observed, although she readily dug into the offerings. There were brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and lemon bars, which happened to be three of her favorite deserts. It was really hard to choose just one. “All we did was dig you free.”
Shaking his head, Mike denied, “I heard the doorway to the block house collapsed after we left. You got us out just in time.”
Noriko thought about explaining that the reason for the collapse was Cameron. Naw, probably best to not say that. It felt like a betrayal to her partner. “Either way, these are welcome. Mmm, and good! Thank your wife for me.”
“I will,” he promised. “I understand that this is only your first month of work?”
She had to chew and swallow before she could respond, “Yes, it is.”
“Your partner, Cameron’s, too? I never would have guessed that. You both were so calm while helping us.”
“Cameron’s always calm,” she responded with a slight shrug. “I’m actually a little afraid to know how bad a situation has to get before he panics. Mike, I’m happy you came in. I have a lot of questions about that site.”
Mike gave her a sad nod. “Yes, I thought you all would. I want to know the answer too. I’m willing to help any way I can. I had some of the plans to the test cell in my car, and with base’s permission, I’m cleared to give them to you. These are more up-to-date than the copies on file.”
Goudie handed her a stack of papers, most of them rather large in nature, big enough to be poster size. Noriko shoved the remains of the lemon bar in her mouth to free up her hands so she could hold them up and get a look. At a glance, she understood what Mike meant, as these plans had been red-lined with changes.
“I’ve already found these helpful,” Goudie informed her, “as it details pipes and wiring that I didn’t know existed from the original plans. Mike has helped me sort through the debris we bagged. Everything on the table is what was at the blasting point.”
Oh, hence the separation?
“I smell cookies.” Cameron waltzed into the room and zeroed in on the plates like a hound dog. “Oh, hey, Mike.”
“Hello, Cameron,” the engineer returned, standing and offering a hand. “The cookies are a thank you from my wife for getting me back home in one piece.”
“All in a day’s work,” Cameron returned with a grin, and took the hand with a firm grip. “It looks like you’ve been at the problem for a while. You turn up an answer yet?”
Mike silently encouraged him to take a cookie, which Cameron promptly did. “We know which fragments were on top of the blast site and which weren’t.”
“That’s a good start,” Cameron agreed easily even as he bent to look over Noriko’s shoulders at the plans. “Send my compliments to the cook, Mike.”
The man seemed pleased his gesture of thanks was so well received. “I will. Noriko, you had questions?”
“I did. First, with a blast of that size, was there anything on the Richter scale?”
Goudie leaned back in his swivel chair to point to the chart taped at the very top of the white board. “There was. Very local, in fact it didn’t spread much past the Lab area.”
“Was there any other sign of an earthquake?”
“I’ve found no evidence of such and no one’s reported anything,” Goudie denied. “If it was an earthquake, it was very localized, and it happened just at the time of the explosion.”
Cameron sank into the chair next to her, catching her eye as he did so. The odds of that happening were very, very slim.
The explosives analyst caught their reaction. “Neither of you believe it was an earthquake.”
“We don’t,” Noriko admitted, folding the papers back up with a snap of the wrist. “There just wasn’t enough power in the area to set off a quake, not even a minor one. It takes weeks to build up enough to cause an earthquake. Six days wouldn’t be sufficient enough time.” Unless it was an abnormal de-stabilization of a ley line. But that wouldn’t be something Goudie could figure out. That was on her own team’s head to solve.
“I’m also disinclined to think that it was an earthquake,” Mike concurred. “As I told you, Frank, we had our Dwolcræft and Mægencræft come in an hour before the test. Wesson and Landers confirmed that the area was stable enough for a test. I think Landers did stay for about thirty minutes, draining off some of the power to feed into the Base generator. He said something in passing about doing it because the coast was a little low on power at the moment.”
“If he did, then there really couldn’t have been enough power.” Cameron eyed the plates as if he really wanted another cookie but was trying to restrain himself.
Noriko sat up a little straighter at this information. She had not known that the team had gone in that close to the test. She’d assumed, for whatever reason, that they had either looked at the area the day before or maybe that morning. Why the pairing had gone in a mere hour before the test was an interesting question, as they could usually do it a day in advance, but in this case she was relieved to hear it. The odds of an unstable ley line being the cause for the explosion just became practically nonexistent.
“So if not an earthquake,” Goudie’s tone suggested this was more a rhetorical question than anything, “then it was the explosion registering as a seismic event?”
Cameron gave a one shouldered shrug. “That’s the most likely explanation.”
“For a minor quake, say a 2.0 on the Richter scale, it would only take 800 KMs,” Noriko confirmed for him. “The printout above your head is about twice that size. It would take an explosion like this to register on that level.”
“I’m switching the question. I know that unstable ley lines lead to earthquakes. Something of this size, this intensity,” Frank gestured to the two of them. “Power-wise, is it something that the two of you can handle?”
“We’re Level 4, sir,” Cameron denied. “It would take a Level 3 to do that.”
“Not necessarily,” Noriko objected, turning to her partner. “It’s not like you have to drain all of the power out of that area in order to make it stable again. You could do half of that and get the same outcome.”
Cameron gave a slow, thoughtful nod. “She’s got a point. In that case, yes, someone on our level could handle it. Assuming we have time to bleed it off slowly. Jerking all of that power out at once would set off an earthquake for sure.”
“Mike, I believe that your Dwol/Mægen team are Level 5?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Would they still have the necessary power to diffuse an earthquake of this level?” Goudie asked the pair.
“Still would,” Noriko assured them. “They can handle up to 69 KMs at a time, after all. Even if they took half of that, it would still prevent an earthquake.”
“So even if Landers drained just 300 KMs from the area, feeding it to the Base generator, it should have been sufficient to prevent an earthquake,” Mike summarized. “Do we have a report from him yet on how much power he pulled?”
“Not yet, no, although I understand he’s writing one for me now. He did give me a preliminary report over the phone, but he didn’t tell me exactly what he pulled, just that he had.” Goudie puffed his cheeks out in a frustrated breath. “So the earthquake was caused by the explosion and what the Dwol/Mægen pairing did would have mitigated any chance for it to be an earthquake. I was hoping for a more clear-cut finding but I’m not getting it.”
Confused, Noriko asked him, “Why were you hoping for that?”
“Because I can’t find any evidence of an IED. There’s no trace of an incendiary device to be found. Mike recognized every piece on this table as belonging to either the engine or the test cell itself. Nothing is out of place here.”
“It’s still very possible that it was the engine itself that blew,” Mike assured Goudie.
Cameron leaned forward to brace his forearms against the table, making his chair squeak slightly. “How often does that happen?”
“In the thirty years that I’ve been doing this, I’ve only seen an engine fail on its own about six times.” Mike paused, seemingly gathering his thoughts, before continuing his answer. “Sometimes it’s a design fail, something that wasn’t made right before the engine was even put together. I had one experience about four years ago where an engine would just go into meltdown for no explainable reason. It would run for five minutes and then it would tear itself apart. Never did figure that one out.”
Goudie was especially interested in this. “But don’t you test rocket engines in these test cells? I thought part of the standard testing included putting in airborne debris. Like the chicken gun.”
The…what now?
Seeing their confusion, Mike explained, “One of our tests for engines and windows is to fire chickens at it, to make sure it can withstand the force. Not live ones, of course. We have a specially designed gun to fire them for us.”
There was a five-year-old’s type of smile on Cameron’s face. “And what are the odds, Mike, that we can fire that gun?”
“Dismal. We haven’t used it in about two years.” Mike had a small grin on his face even as he said this. “Sorry to burst your bubble.”
Deflated, Cameron sank back into his chair.
“To answer your question, Frank,” Mike stated in a more serious vain, “while we do test for that kind of thing, it’s not done in 2A. To begin with, we only test rocket engines in that test cell. Also, we are actually very careful to make sure there’s nothing in the test cell when we fire the engine. We don’t want even a loose screw out there. These engines are still in the preliminary stages of testing. We don’t want outside forces factoring in when something goes wrong. Makes it harder to hunt for the problem. There’s also the factor that we keep very little fuel in the engine itself. We have a run line hooked up from the engine and to a storage tank nearby. Actually, there are two of them, one larger than the other. We do it that way to prevent explosions like this. There are four different fail-safes on that line, and at the least sign of something going wrong, they cut off all fuel supply instantly.”
Goudie’s mouth screwed up to the side, peeved at this answer, but he didn’t argue the point. “So really, I’m down to one of two choices: either something went seriously wrong with the engine, or this is sabotage and I just haven’t found the evidence to show how they’ve done it yet.”
12th Merlin
Any hope that Noriko had of getting an answer before her shift started was axed by her meeting with the men. She had to report to Banderas that she was on duty, and by the time that she got back, Mike had left. Understandable; it was already past four. He probably had dinner waiting for him.
Goudie was still there, and when he saw Banderas in her wake, he gestured for the man to come in. “Have a cookie. Mike’s wife baked them, they’re quite good.”
“It’s always nice when we get a thank you from people.” A wide smile on his face, Banderas grabbed up a brownie and bit into it. “Woman’s got good skills. Well, Mr. Goudie, any findings for us?”
“Too early at this stage for that, I’m afraid. What I need now is more information. Nothing I have on hand is giving me answers. Captain, I wonder, if there was a quake, then would the area around the Lab show signs of it?”
Banderas gave him a slow blink. “There should be. But I thought you had this confirmed for you already?”
“The reports I’m getting from the Lab Dwol/Mægen pairing, plus Mike’s account, isn’t adding up. I believe they’re telling me the truth, but if they are, then why was there a localized quake? You see my confusion.”
“I do, and share it.” Banderas licked his lips free of any crumbs, thinking. “Tell you what, Mr. Goudie, let me pass along a request to the other teams in the area. We’ll all investigate and see what traces of the quake we can see.”
Noriko had had no idea that earthquakes left traces behind, aside from the obvious physical ones. This should prove to be interesting to learn.
“If you’ll do that, Captain, I’ll go back to the site tomorrow and comb through it again. It was very dark out there. Maybe I missed something.”
“Should we go with you, sir?”
“I might need your help, yes, but the higher priority for you is to examine the area and figure out if there was a quake there. And if there was one, what caused it. I truly need that confirmed one way or another before I can get much further.”
Banderas gave a grunt of understanding. “Then that’s what we’ll do. Noriko, pass word to the rest of the team that we leave for the Lab in an hour. I want to call people and get them searching as well before we go.”
“Yes, Cap.” She gave Goudie a quick duck of the head as a goodbye before leaving the room and retreating toward their team office. When she entered, she found that all except Jack were there. “Captain says that we’ll leave for the Lab in about an hour,” she announced to the room in general. “Mr. Goudie has requested that we search for any signs of the earthquake around the Lab and confirm how extensive it was and what caused it.”
“An hour? Why the wait?” Charlotte asked.
“He’s calling the other teams to examine their own areas before we leave,” Noriko explained.
“Ah, gotcha. Pass that along to Jack. He’ll want to know.”
Noriko had every intention of doing just that. She lifted her radio band to her mouth and relayed the message to their coordinator. As she did, most of the team chose to leave the room on some quick errand, leaving just her and Cameron behind.
Their desks were right next to each other and she had to scoot a little around him in order to reach her chair. She perched on the edge of it, trying to claim her gear out from underneath the desk and talk to Cameron at the same time. “Did you know that you can see the traces of an earthquake even if it’s very minor?”
“Only in theory. Never had a chance to do it in person.” Cameron had a perkiness to him that suggested he looked forward to learning something new. “All of this going back and forth makes me wonder, though. I know they said we can study here at the station if nothing’s going on, but can we do that while we’re traveling too?”
It was a good question. Noriko had wondered the same. She had not been able to study much since Cameron’s arrival. At the rate they were going, it would take them ten years to get a Bachelor’s. “Let’s ask Cap or Jack when they get back. I would think it would be fine?”
“I hope so. A degree is going to take forever otherwise.�
��
“Yeah. I know they said we don’t have to finish in four years, but—”
An emergency siren blared from the main screen on the wall. All around the screen scrolled the words “Protocol Delta – Mojave.” Swearing, Noriko dove over her desk and slapped her hand against the screen, letting it scan her palm print. She still didn’t have a voice activation code yet and had to do things the physical way. “This is Noriko Arashi, Team Pathmaker. What is the emergency?”
The woman that blipped onto the screen had honey colored hair twisted into a wild knot on the top of her head, skin unnaturally pale, dark eyes wide with terror. “We’ve got a ley line here that’s dangerously unstable. My team is off shift and not answering, I can’t get through to them. You’re the closest station. I’m just past the mountains, near the weigh station.”
“Send me coordinates, my team is moving,” Noriko promised her. “Our radio channel is 3.”
“I’ll switch to the radio band then.”
Whirling, Noriko found that Cameron was already on the team’s radio band and relaying everything they were saying. Assured the alert had been spread, Noriko snatched up both of their bags and raced for the side door. By the time she made it out to the parking lot, half the team was there, pouring in from different angles, and Jack was disappearing into the van.
She hopped in, scooting over to make room for Cameron, and listened as Jack took over coordinating where they needed to go and how much help he should be bringing. Listening to him calmly asking questions and relaying orders soothed her fraying nerves. If he wasn’t panicking, then she had no call to be.
Banderas was the last person in and he slammed the door behind him. “Go, go, go!”
Jack slapped the van’s engage button and it tore out of the parking lot. How had they programmed the AI to respond like this, anyway? Noriko knew that most police cars were still driven manually because they couldn’t be pre-programmed for most of the situations policemen encountered, but how did they get an AI to break the speed limits like this?
Call to Quarters (A Gaeldorcraeft Forces Novel Book 1) Page 12