Josiah West 1: Kaleidoscope (10 page)

KALEIDOSCOPE

Josiah pulled into a parking spot near the office door of hanger 4; he was yawning as he stepped out of the ground vehicle he had been assigned. Coincidentally, Nora had also been yawning when he dropped her off at the terminal building. Yesterday had been a tough day for both of them.

There was a heavy-set dark skinned Chief Petty Officer behind the counter in the small office when he entered, “I’m Josiah West, Chief; I’m supposed to meet Commander Phelps.”

The Chief broke into a big, white toothed grin and reached across the counter, “Lieutenant West, I’m Edward Jefferson, just call me Eddie.” His grip told Josiah that the bulk under those greens had little to do with fat. He pumped Josiah’s hand like he was operating a bilge pump on a sinking ship, “We have been hearing so much about you these last couple of months that we were considering naming the hanger after you. Commander Phelps isn’t here yet but come on out into the hanger and meet your ground crew.” He had to let go of Josiah’s hand to get out from around the counter and open the inner door; Josiah used the opportunity to check for damage.

It was a huge hanger with access doors at both ends; the front door--the one facing the main apron area--was open. Josiah came to a stop two steps into the hanger and, literally, ga
wked at the sight of a model D Panther assault boat taking up over half the space, “I haven’t seen one of those in... twelve years.”

Eddie was grinning hugely at Josiah’s surprise, “Commander Phelps was by yesterday afternoon and told us you actually had a civilian rating in one of these at sixteen. Man, you must be one kind of a pilot!” He then stepped past Josiah and let out an ear-splitting whistle to attract the attention of three people working on a Falcon shuttle on the far side of the hanger. As Eddie waved them over, the door to the office opened and Commander Phelps stepped through, “Ahh, West, there you are.” He came up beside Josiah and waved at the Panther, “How do you like our little barge?”

Josiah looked a little sideways at him, “Little? You actually use a D model Panther as personal transportation? If this is the result of some sort of Admiralty level pissing contest, I think you’ve won.” Eddie and Phelps both grinned at that. By then the other three members of the ground crew had arrived; they all had Petty Officer First-Class ratings.

Eddie presented them to Josiah. The first was a very petite blonde, “This is Francis Woleneski. She gets mad if you call her Francis so it’s just Fran or Shorty. We use her to repair the stuff in the tight corners.”

She gave Eddie an annoyed look and Josiah a big smile as she saluted him, “Just Fran, sir, I handle logic systems and integration problems.” As Josiah shook her hand he couldn’t help thinking,
she really has small hands; I’ll bet she could repair a micro circuit without tools.

Eddie pointed to the next in line; a slim, Hispanic looking man of medium height. “This is Jeremiah Cruz; he’s our environmental and life support systems tech. If your waste disposal unit backs up, blame him.” Cruz saluted
, stuck out his hand, and also gave Eddie an annoyed look, “My waste disposal units do not back up under normal circumstances, sir. If one does, I would determine who used it last.” He said that with a twitch of the eyes and a slight nod of the head in the general direction of Eddie, “Just holler for Cruz, sir.”

“And the last member of our group is Andrew Fremantle; he does power and drive systems. He’s a Brit that decided to go Yank
, so he’s in the Navy to cut the citizenship path down to a quick walk. We call him ‘sticks’.”

Fremantle was as tall as Josiah with dark blond wavy hair and was as thin as a broom. He saluted with perfect precision and Josiah couldn’t help but notice the perfect fit and sharp creases of his work greens. As they shook hands he waved his free left hand at the others and said in a perfect upper-class British accent, “Sir, I regret that our first meeting had to occur in such a low-class environment. I am, however, looking forward to the possibility of a sit-down with you over a pint of stout and hearing about your adventure on Mars. As for here, I require that the rest of these uncouth creatures call me Andrew; you may call me Andy.”

The huge grins and barely contained laughter from the rest of the group gave Josiah a hint that playing the stiff-upper-lipped Brit was some sort of affectation. He put on a questioning look and asked, generally, of them, “Do they sell stout around here?” It took a minute to recover from the laughter and everyone, finally, returned to their normal duties.

Josiah and Phelps walked toward the Panther. “Just wait until you hear Andy do his
Liverpool and Cockney routines. He does a stand-up bit at the NCO club and the Officers club occasionally. It’s a scream. There is nothing like seeing yourself through the eyes of a foreigner.”

Josiah stopped a few meters in front of the Panther; he started noting the differences between his memories and what he was looking at. He waved a han
d across the entire ship, “You’ve made some changes.”

The D model Panther was the biggest assault boat ever built at 45 meters in length and 8 meters across the fuselage. It had carried forty armored Marines that were ejected from rotating ports--twenty down each side--and a variety of ground and air vehicles that launched out of the rear hatch. The boat itself normally bristled with offensive and defensive weaponry. All of that was gone. The sides of the hull were glass smooth without the slightest trace of the eject ports; the stutter-gun housing above and behind the command deck as well as the rows of missile attach points along the top of the stub wings no longer existed. Even the nose had a different shape and the drive coils were….

Phelps turned to Josiah with a strange look on his face, “You know, I really envy you. You got to fly a D in its original form and there aren’t too many people left that can say that.” His expression relaxed into a smile, “Still, I think you are going to be impressed with what we’ve done with this old dog.”

It was then that Josiah noticed the word painted at eye level just forward of the command deck - “Kaleidoscope.” He pointed, “What’s that about?”

This time, it was a definite grin that covered Phelps’ face, “It was the only thing that adequately described the ever-changing nature of the boat.”

The day was spent crawling through the highly modified systems of the Panther. Several exclamations of “Holy Crap” were heard coming out of open hatches that led into the machine area bowels. Josiah requested a group lunch session and used it to question the ground crew members.

“Andy, what was the idea of hanging those,” he waved a shaking finger toward the Panther, “ridiculous drive coils on that boat. You can’t even walk under them and they could lift the entire headquarters building into orbit if they didn’t pull the boat apart first.”

Andy was matter-of-fact about it, “Well, sir, they were installed before I got here but you have to remember that there are no specific replacement parts for a D model available and there have been none for a very long time. The original coils needed replacing and these were available. The same situation holds for most everything in the machine section.” He waved a hand toward Fran who was sitting next to him, “Fran has fine-tuned every limiter and guard routine to make sure that it is not possible to accidentally destroy the boat.”

Fran picked up the conversation there, “I have programmed the master control system with limiters specifically matched to any new equipment that could exceed design and structural limits if operated to their full potential. The drive coils are the primary example of that possibility. Even with the structural improvements made to the hull and stubs,” she got a tight, almost worried look around her eyes, “those coils are capable of ripping K
aleidoscope to bits if they are operated beyond limiter boundaries and there is the slightest synchronization failure.” Something was bothering her and she looked down at her half-eaten sandwich for a moment before looking back at him, “I guess I have to tell you that you can order the master control system to override the limiters, and I wish I didn’t have to include that capability, but I was ordered to do it.”

There was real worry on her face, and
Josiah tried to lighten her mood with a smile and sincere assurances, “Fran, I believe Kaleidoscope’s combat days are over and that incident on Mars still gives me bad dreams. I have no intention or desire to look over that cliff again. My impression today is that I now have power, strength and a margin of safety wider than anything I have ever had before. I get a vibe from all of you that I will be safe and well taken care of when I fly in what you have given me. Your limiters are safe with me.”

That helped a lot; she relaxed and smiled. Phelps grinned broadly, “West, you really know how to stroke your ground crew. I just send them a card on their birthdays.”

When the laughter had died down, Josiah waved a hand at Kaleidoscope, “No, I mean it, that thing is impressive; I have never seen such…such…rightness. Crazy as that thing is, it looks and feels right. I am itching to fly it.” Turning to Phelps, he asked, “When will that be?”

“Well, we’ll spend the rest of the day going over systems and procedures and take it up tomorrow; how’s that?”

“Great!” And then Josiah remembered something, “Oops, I’m supposed to check in about now. Excuse me.”

He walked toward the back of the hanger as he got out his pad and called Molly.

“Ah, there you are, I was beginning to think you had forgotten.”

He smiled a bit, “I would never forget to call you, especially after making such a cryptic request. So, what is it today?”

She looked away from the pickup, checking her immediate surroundings before looking back at Josiah. That smile was back, “How did things go with the Lady Parente last night?”

A sudden urge to check his immediate vicinity swept through him, but he managed, just barely, to suppress it, “What?”

She leaned a bit closer to her pickup--with that smile, “Come now, Lieutenant, even over a vid channel it was obvious that she was interested in you. I really hope that you had what it takes to do something about it. I checked; Bax did not drive her to her quarters after dropping the two of you off at the BOQ. And…,” she pointed a finger to the side of his field of view. He knew she was looking at another display on her screen, “here it shows that your assigned vehicle did not leave its charging station until 0837 this morning.” Her smile filled his stunned mind. “Tell Mom all about it.”

Panic, confusion, surprise, embarrassment, wonder and an urge to hide in the washroom lined up to take their shots at him. Finally, it was surrender that won. His shoulders slumped, “You don’t have pickups in my bedroom, do you?”

She eased back from her pickup and laughed, “No, no, I’m not that much of a voyeur.” Suddenly, she was all business, “The Admiral invests a great deal of trust and responsibility in the people he hires.” Her face took on a level of seriousness that Josiah had not yet seen, “He has to know something of your private life and the people you associate with. You are unaware of it, but the Navy Security Service did a check on you a month ago and the Admiral ordered one started on Parente when I told him of my impression of her. The preliminary report on her looks good; the Admiral likes her and I like her.” A softer look crossed her face, “Do you like her?”

That question caught him totally flatfooted. He knew at what level of “like” she was talking about; it was the point where the barriers came down and another person moves into your life. Confronting that question put his mind in a jumble. Molly waited patiently while he ran his memories of Nora through his mind and realized that there was a new, warm feeling that was growing next to the ones that kept his family alive in his life. He blinked and refocused on Molly’s face, “Yes…I do like her…a lot.”

Molly was all business again but with a happy smile, “Good, when you return to the BOQ, there will be a special package waiting for you at the front desk. It will have precise instructions that you are to read before opening it. Oh, one more thing,” the smile intensified, “you were sixth in your class of one hundred and eighty-seven at the Academy; Parente was fourth in a class of two hundred and six.” Then, she cut the connection.

Ouch!

The rest of the day ran smoothly only due to Josiah’s long experience in forcing a focus in spite of fatigue or multiple demands. That call had been a kicker. Phelps had noticed but refrained from prying when he saw it was a happy thing and Josiah chose not to elaborate.

It was past 1700 when they left the hanger. Phelps stopped at Josiah’s vehicle, “Say, West, I noticed in your record that you haven’t been home in three years. We will be tooling around in a boat capable of going anywhere in the Solar System tomorrow, so a quick hop to California for a couple of hours would be a nice way to get some flight time.” Phelps got a questioning expression on his face, “Have you even called and told your folks about what happened yesterday?”

Again, Josiah was caught flatfooted. He leaned his back against the door of his vehicle, “Oh…no, I haven’t. Everything happened so fast and was so crowded that it never occurred to me.” He looked at Phelps with a touch of embarrassment, “I guess, to be honest, I was a bit ashamed to go home and stick the fact that I was still an ensign in my Parent’s faces. It was bad enough that I was never able to tell
them about any promotion when I called home. I called them right after the Mars Thing. I played down the part about how close I came to getting killed; I tried to give them the idea that the good things I did would be enough to keep me from facing a Judicial Inquiry. The news reports were a bit confused so I think I calmed their nerves on that one. Since then, the last time I called was a month ago to assure them that nothing had come of it except for the usual debriefing sessions.”

Phelps got a big grin on his face and slapped Josiah’s shoulder, “Ok, West, if you have no objections, we are going to
California tomorrow. Wear your whites with all the buttons and bows and we will impress the hell out of your folks. I want to see your Father’s jaw hit the deck.”

Josiah brightened as that image formed. He smiled at Phelps, “Alright, I like that. 0900?”

“0900 it is,” said Phelps as he headed for his vehicle.