Adapt and Overcome (The Maxwell Saga) (3 page)

Steve
pulled on the gray utility coveralls he’d laid ready on the top bunk, fingers fumbling with the fasteners. He slipped his feet into the athletic shoes he’d worn after his shower the previous evening, then closed their hook-and-loop straps. His mind was racing.
Who the hell would be coming in here like this, particularly at this time of the morning? Only AIU is supposed to have access to this place, and that’s not one of our vehicles.

He eased open the door to his sleeping compartment, blessing the fact that the trailer had been parked against one wall of the warehouse, out of the way. Its doors faced the wall, allowing him to move undetected. He stepped down to the
plascrete floor and moved cautiously along the trailer until he could peer around the rear of the vehicle.

Three men were standing next to the van, with the fourth moving to join them from the security panel. Three wore Service Corps coveralls, but the fourth was in working uniform, silver officers’ insignia glittering on his collar. They were too far away for Steve to make out his rank, or hear what the men were saying. The officer was clearly giving instructions, pointing to various pieces of wreckage. The others were nodding as they listened. When he’d finished, each took a toolbox from inside the van and headed for a different item.

Steve’s mind raced.
They’ve got no right to be here, and even less right to do anything with the wreckage! I’d better get help, fast – but how? From whom?

He stepped back behind the trailer as a thought struck him, then climbed back into his compartment, moving as quietly as before, and closed the door behind him. Picking up his comm unit, he placed a call. The ringing tone went on for quite a while before a tired, irritated voice answered.

“Bullard here – and you’d better have a
real
good reason to be waking me at this ungodly hour of the morning!”

“Sir, Lieutenant Maxwell here.” Steve spoke in a muted whisper, urgently explaining where he was, why he’d stayed at the warehouse that night, and what had just woken him. He peered through the small window. “The three men in coveralls are wiping different bits of wreckage with what looks like pieces of cloth, then putting each one in some sort of container – they look like glass tubes. The officer is standing by the van watching them – no, one of them
has just raised his hand. He’s walking over to join him.”

Bullard had come fully awake as he listened. “Lieutenant, whoever they are, they’ve got no right to be there at all! Thank God you were there to detect them. If they have the code to the security system, they may also have shut off the sensor turrets, but you’re an eyewitness, so that won’t help them. I’ll call the compound’s front gate right away, and have them dispatch the internal security patrol to your location. I’ll also have Captain
Ratisbon alert the Bureau of Security. Heaven only knows what’s going on there, but I intend to find out! Terminate this call, but keep your comm unit on you. I’ll tell the front gate you’re in there. On my authority, if those four men try to leave you’re to do anything you can to keep them there until help arrives.”

“Aye
aye, Sir.”

Steve crept to the rear of the trailer again, peering around the corner. The men were still busy, but the officer suddenly raised his head, cocking it as if listening to a distant voice; then he whirled around.

“A security patrol’s on the way! Back to the van with your samples, quick as you can!”

His voice rang out loudly, clearly audible to Steve even at that distance.
They must have someone watching the compound
, he realized at once.
He must have radioed a warning that the guards were heading this way.

He watched in agonized frustration as the men in coveralls grabbed their toolboxes
and raced after the officer towards the van. Their attention was fixed on their vehicle. Steve came to a sudden decision. He broke from behind the trailer and ran along the wall towards the warehouse office. He tried to move quietly, knowing his gray coverall would blend with the lower light levels around the edge of the floor, making him harder to see.

He reached the office as the officer called, “Simmons, get those doors open!” A coverall-clad figure threw his toolbox into the van,
then sprinted for the security panel as the others piled into the vehicle. The driver began to reverse it, turning the van to face the center of the doors where a gap would open. From far in the distance came the faint wail of a siren.

Steve didn’t hesitate. He wrenched the
office door open. Its hinges squealed as badly as they had the first time he’d used it, and the officer, halfway into the front passenger seat of the van, heard them. He whipped his head around and gaped. Steve ignored him as he leapt for the control panel a couple of meters inside the door and stabbed at the ‘Emergency’ switch with his finger. A red light began to blink monotonously as a message flashed in a display above the switch, ‘EMERGENCY MODE – AUXILIARY PANELS LOCKED OUT’.

Steve whirled around and ran back to the door. As he got there, Simmons reached the security panel at the door
, frantically – and fruitlessly – trying to enter commands. He turned and yelled to the officer, “Sir, it’s not working!” Outside, the sound of the siren was drawing rapidly nearer.

The officer half-staggered, half-fell from the front door of the van, and hastily recovered his balance as he stared at Steve.
“
You!
Whoever you are! I’m a Commander, dammit!
Stand to attention when I talk to you!
What the
hell
d’you think you’re doing?”

Steve remained half-crouched in the doorway, ready for action. “Sir,” he called, “you can explain yourself to the security patrol, and to
BuSec when they get here. You’re in a restricted area without authorization. I’m Junior Lieutenant Maxwell of AIU, and I’m acting on the instructions of my superiors.”

“Like hell! I outrank you!
Stand down!
That’s an order!” As he spoke, the other two coverall-clad men hurriedly climbed out of the van, glancing towards their comrade by the security panel.

Steve shook his head.
“Sorry, Sir. Like I said, I’m acting under orders. You’ll have to explain yourself to the security people. My boss has already alerted them. I’m sure he, and they, will be very interested to hear what you have to say.”

The sirens wound down outside the doors, and Steve heard footsteps running towards the external control panel. He knew the security patrol would have an override
remote control unit, allowing them to use it even if the internal console had locked it out. He added, “The game’s up. You know you’ve got no right to be here, and you can’t fight your way clear. Give it up!”

The Commander’s shoulders slumped, but he made a last
attempt. “W – we just entered the wrong warehouse, that’s all! We were on our way to another one, and came in here by mistake!”

“Nice try, Sir, but
in that case, how did you know our security code? Our sensor records will show you arriving, and I witnessed what you did after that. If this was the ‘wrong warehouse’, you sure had a funny way of showing that by checking out what was inside the way you did.”

The doors began to slide open. Two men were silhouetted in the widening gap, carbines pointed into the interior. More spread out behind them. One called, “Everyone
stand still! This is Security. You’re all under arrest!”

Steve raised his voice. “Come ahead, Security! I’m Junior Lieutenant Maxwell. You should have been informed about me. These four men are to be taken into custody pending the arrival of senior officers from AIU and
BuSec. There may be another observer somewhere nearby – they were warned when you left the guardhouse on your way here.”

“Aye
aye, Sir! Commander Bullard told us about you when he called the main gate. Stand fast, please, while we secure them. I’ll have the guardhouse activate our perimeter hoversats to scan the area for any others.”

~ ~ ~

Lieutenant-Commander Bullard reached for the coffee Steve had brewed in the accommodation trailer’s galley. Despite it being only five-thirty in the morning, his eyes gleamed with alertness.

“
That was good work, Lieutenant. Your eyewitness testimony, plus the sensor readings before they shut them down and the samples taken by those techs, will give us more than enough evidence to bring charges against them all.”

“Thank you, Sir. Do we know who they were, and who sent them?”

“We know some of it – enough to worry me. Commander Buchanan works for the Small Craft Directorate of the Bureau of Ships. It’s responsible for designing and testing all the Fleet’s small craft, including assault shuttles for the Marine Corps.” Steve’s eyes widened in astonishment.

“
SCD was involved in the design of both the Mark XVIIA and the competing Mark XVIIB prototype from Orion Industries, but not their initial testing – the manufacturers handle that. SCD only comes into the picture after the initial problems have been ironed out, when pre-production models are being tested under service and operational conditions. They aren’t involved in our investigation in any way, so what the hell was Buchanan doing here? He hasn’t explained that yet. The three men with him, and the two others they found operating a hoversat outside the perimeter to keep watch on the guardhouse, are Service Corps technicians. They claim they were acting under his orders. BuSec will be asking them precisely what those orders were.”

“But, Sir, I don’t understand
,” Steve protested. “We fall under BuShips too. Why would another BuShips department be interfering with our work like this?”

“That
’s what worries me. I expect it’ll cause all sorts of bureaucratic inter-departmental fuss and bother.” The older man looked at him quizzically. “Given your junior rank, you’ve probably never been involved in a first-class turf war between Fleet departments, have you?”

“Only a small one, Sir
, on Midrash, over a year ago. The Bureau of Intelligence roped me into an operation to identify and detain a group of criminals. During the operation, responsibility for security was divided between BuIntel, which handled the interior: a local police department, which dealt with the area immediately surrounding it; and BuSec, which was responsible for the outer perimeter. BuSec fumbled the ball, allowing the criminals to take a shot at me. Fortunately they missed, but there were lots of recriminations over that, with memos flying around like confetti.”

“Ha!
I’m not surprised. BuIntel and BuSec are legendary for their turf wars. I suppose that’s inevitable, because their responsibilities overlap to some extent. If only their people spent as much time co-operating as they do arguing with each other, we’d have better intelligence
and
better security!”

“Yes, Sir.
Actually, it was because of that incident that I landed up here. Commander Wu, OC of BuIntel in the Midrash Sector, offered me an assignment to BuIntel when I reach O-3 or higher grade. As an interim step, he arranged for me to come to AIU after my shipborne assignment ended. He said your investigations were as detailed and complex as those done by BuIntel, so I’d learn a lot here.”

His boss nodded thoughtfully.
“He was right about that. You must have impressed him – BuIntel mostly fills its positions internally. They don’t offer many two-year assignments to general service officers, and they hand-pick those who fill them. Anyway, back to our little problem. Even if this Commander had no right to be here, I’m willing to bet his department will back him up on principle. He’s senior enough that he’s bound to have what sounds like a reasonable excuse for his actions. It may not stand up to scrutiny, but taking it further may prove complicated if he has friends in high places.” Bullard couldn’t help but notice the sour expression that appeared on Steve’s face. “What – you expected something different?”

“Sir, I come from Old Home Earth, where everything was run by bureaucrats and administrative departments. They were always fighting with each other. Getting anything done depended on who you knew, and how much influence you could bribe them to exert on your behalf,
and whether the department and officials handling your case could pull enough strings to get you what you wanted. The ordinary man in the street was just someone to be used, then discarded. My primary reason for coming to the Commonwealth was to get away from that, to a place where the individual is emphasized above the group; but from what you just said, it looks like I’ve landed up in the same old mess I hated so much back on Earth.”

The older man sighed. “You’re relatively young, right?”

“I’m twenty-nine in Galactic Standard years, Sir.”

“That’s still young enough to be idealistic
, I suppose, although I’d grown out of it by that age. Do yourself a favor. Read up about something called ‘Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy’. He articulated it early in the Space Age, and it’s been proven accurate time and time again. Briefly, it says that any organization has two sorts of people: those devoted to the purpose for which it was formed, and those dedicated to the organization itself. The second sort will always end up running it for their own benefit.”

“Then how has the Fleet avoided that for two centuries, Sir?”