He Who Dares: Book Two (The Gray Chronicals 2) (6 page)

“To tell you the truth, I never bothered to check, after you showed me your orders.”

“Oh my God!  But I have signed orders to finish the refit, or rebuild, or whatever you want to call it.”

“That may be so, but officially your ship isn’t on my list.”

“Shit!”  It exploded out before he could stop it.  “What the hell is going on?”

“Thought you might be able to answer that Mike.”

“I can’t, I have no idea why my ship isn’t on the list, why the hell was I sent here, if it's not!”

“Good, question.”

“Yes, but what the hell is the answer!”  Cynthia looked at him a moment, obviously thinking, then nodded.

“To get that ship completed.”

“What!  I don’t follow.”

“Someone at the Admiralty sent you and the other down here to take command of a ship that wasn’t even built, and your instructions were to take charge and get her ready to lift into space with all expediency, right?”

“Well, yes, I suppose you could read them that way.”

“Now it seems that there are some people who’ve got wind of it, and don’t want that ship built, the same as twenty years ago.”

“That about sums it up.”

“Yet you have no idea why.”

“Not a clue, I’m as much in the dark as you are.”  They stood there in the cold, looking out over the empty slipway, each deep in their own thought.

“I’m going to call a few people I know and ask  some pointed questions.”

“Be very careful who to talk to Mike.”

“I can trust these people, and get a few answered. What are you going to do?”

“Finish the damn ship, that’s what.”

“Even with the Chief Inspector breathing down your neck?”

“This base is so big, he’d never find your berth without help, especially after I move a few signs around and eliminated it from the ground plan I’ll give him.”

“What about the crews?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of them, and fill them in.”

“We still have the problem of the engines, weapons and equipment, but I think, like the man said, they will be here.”

“Hope so, we need all of them now.”

“It's still going to be tough completing her.”

“No, starting tomorrow, I’ll put three full shifts on, and doubling the work crews.”

“Cynthia, that’s sticking your neck out a long way.”  She reached over, patting him on the cheek, and smiled.

“Had a long chat with that nice Conner Blake, and he said you were worth it, didn’t you Conner?”  She leaned over and spoke a little louder, grinning as she did.

“Damn!  That’s one sharp lady, sir.”  Conner whispered in his ear bug.

“You’ve got that right, Conner.”

“So, Mike, get onto your people and tell them that we need everything last week, and that the bear poo is about to hit the air distribution system.”

“Will do, Cynthia.”

“Good, you take off, and I’ll wait a while.  I very much doubt that anyone saw me come here, but at this point, why take chances.”  On impulse, he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

“Thank you, Cynthia.”

“Oh, get out of here boy, you’ll have me crying next.”  Mike did, taking the scenic route back to the ship by going over the salt marshes and the Back Bay.  Conner met him back at the ship, and amid the hammer and screech, they talked over the short-range radio and a scrambled frequency.

“So, you and the lady have been cozening up, huh chief?”

“Just a little, someone had to keep her feet warm on these cold winter nights.”  He chuckled.

“Good for you, Chief, so what's your take on all this.”  He knew the Conner’s suspicious mind would see an angle that he couldn’t.

“It's simple sir, as you said, someone, or maybe more than just one someone doesn’t want this, or any new ships built.”

“But the yards on the Moon and in the Asteroid belt are building ship all the time!”

“True, sir, but old designs.  There hasn’t been a major design upgrade for sixty year, sir.”  That shocked Mike.

“But!  They must be working on new technology, and R&D work?”

“They are, sir, but none of it is getting passed the development and testing stage.”  He sighed heavily.  Clearly, Conner knew a lot more than he was telling, and poking his nose into a lot of dark corners.  “Every bit of new technology gets killed in appropriations.”  The Chief had obviously been digging deep.

“You get all this from Cynthia?”

“No, sir, only part of it, she gave me the initial lead and I did a little discrete digging of my own, but that’s not the worst of it.”

“Okay, Conner, drop the other shoe.”

“I can’t prove it, sir, but the word is that a lot of that technology is ending up in other hands.”

“That’s treason you are talking about, Conner.”

“Or some damn good spies, sir.”

“So, you think there are two groups involved here, one trying to get this ship built, the other trying to stop it.”

“Yes, sir, if we can get this ship into space and bring her to active duty, everyone would know.”

“That would set the cat among the pigeons.”

“In a big way, every Admiral from the First Lord down would be clamoring for a new ship with the latest modifications.”

“All right then, how soon can we get the Marines down to the slip and set up a security parameter?  Conner smiled at him.

“How soon do you want them, sir.”

“Right now, now I think about it!”  Mike chided himself for walking around in a dream, and not realizing what was going on, or taking adequate precautions sooner.

“Yes, sir, I’ll have Sergeant Rice relocate his men out to the slipway.  He should have them in place by this afternoon.

“Have him assign some of the men to different parts of the environmental shelter and tell them to watch for anything unusual or suspicious.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I know that’s going to be a tall order, as work crews will be working around the clock.”

“We can handle it, sir.”

“It will mean his people will have to get to know who’s who very fast, and what they are supposed to be doing.”

“Yes, sir, we can spot hidden cameras around the inside of the ship, and the hanger and monitor them from the shuttle.”

“I’ll arrange it with the Yard Foreman for each crew chief to monitor his own people, and report any new faces, or sudden changes.”

“Can we get a list of names and picture of all the work crew, sir.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem, I’ll talk to Cynthia about it and have her get back with you.”

“Very good, sir, I’ll get onto re-deploying the men now.”

If anything, the din inside the hanger got worse as the work crews finished disassembling the remainder of the hull.  One by one, the main frame members were maneuvered out the hanger, and sent off to the frame shop for reforming into their new shape.  Mike checked with the shop Foreman and got the day and time they’d start the reforming, getting permission to be there to watch the first one being reshaped.  For some odd reason, Cynthia scheduled the event for after midnight, guessing the reason had more to do with security.  At that time, few, if any, of the regular crew would be in the yard, leaving just a few shops working around the clock to fabricate the parts and equipment for his ship. The forming shop turned out to be located in a huge underground chamber, the refractory brick line walls scorched in places from the forming process.  Even standing in the air conditioned control room, it was going to get hot for a while, and as Mike walked in, the Foreman handed him a pair of dark goggles.

“You’ll need these if you are going to watch.  It gets a little bright in here, even with the polarized windows and monitors.”

He was right.  The first frame member hung in midair, suspended in an anti-gravity field.  The crew remotely position the induction-heating coil into position, each crew chief crosschecking with the other to double check that the alignment was correct. Each crew chief reported back to the shop Foreman that everything was ready to start the process.  After one last check, he pressed a button on his panel and immediately, a horn sounded and the red warning lights in the chamber started flashing.  This was the last step to ensure the forming chamber was clear of all personnel.  Thirty seconds later the power bar on the screen started to rise as more and more amps were pumped into the heating coil.  For a while, nothing happened, but after a few minutes, the frame member started to glow.  First orange, then cherry red as the power input slowly climbed until it started the glow light.  It didn’t take long before had to pull his goggles down, but a quick look at the temperature gage before he did showed it passing two thousand degrees.   At two thousand eight hundred degrees, the frame member began to flex in the anti-gravity field.

“That will do it.”  The Foreman announced. 

The coils retracted and once clear, the frame member was lowered into the new jig where it slowly conformed to the new shape and began to cool.   Before the glow started to fade, the Ag plates under the floor came on, pulling the glowing frame down into the jig under six gravities, making the frame member start to glow white-hot again.  Then the jig was flooded with coolant, instantly boiling as it met the glowing metal, quenching and hardening the member.  For a moment, it was difficult to see through the cloud of white steam, but the blowers soon cleared it out and Mike could see the finished frame member again.  Between the heading, compression and quenching it was hard to guess just how strong they were, something even beyond the armored plates used in the hull.

“That went well, Leftenant.  Once we’re moved this one out to the shop for polishing we’ll start on the next one.

“Thanks for letting me watch, it was very educational.”  The Foreman laughed.

“Not very often one of you naval officers comes down here to see this, so it was a pleasure having you.”

“Maybe more of them should.  They’d learn a hell of a lot more about their ship if they watched it being built.” They shook hands and Mike went off back to his rooms to get some sleep.

  With double work crews, and a constant flow of material through the double door it was difficult to keep the place warm, but within three days, everything began settling down into a steady rhythm, that was until the same old battered Land Rover came slipping and sliding down the road in a spray of slushy mud.  He passed through the Marine checkpoint, and after a short delay, a yard dog escorted Mr. Tottenham into the shelter.

“Nice to see you again, Leftenant Mike Gray.”  A little portly man smiled as he shook hands.

“I have your first shipment, Leftenant.”

“Thank God for that, what do you have?”

“Your power plant, main engines, the AG components and your warp drive.”  Mike breathed a sigh of relief.

“It’s a pity you aren’t female, I’d kiss you otherwise.”

“Oh, that’s really not necessary.”  He chuckled.  “If I get a kiss for the first shipment, I wonder what I get for your second one.”

“What else do you have?”

“Your main and secondary armament, navigation’s equipment, radar and sensors and just about every other major component you need, Captain.”