For Honor We Stand (27 page)

“Because,” Max said quietly, “when your congruence gets that low, you’re really, really screwed.” 

“Spot on.”  Brown said.  “
We’re
screwed, we should say.  Now, with most systems, it doesn’t matter if something is a little bit off.  Who cares if the air flow rate into the Wardroom varies by three percent because the system is coded for the wrong air impeller or if the temperature in Frozen Food Locker Number Two is two degrees colder than nominal because a heat exchanger is miscoded?”  Brown started to gesture emphatically with his index finger.  “But, small variations make a huge difference in certain other systems, especially in the compression drive, weapons fire control, point defense fire control, and a few other systems.  The value for the traverse speed of an aiming component is a little off?  The weapon misses its moving target by twenty meters.  We die.  The frequency bias of a point defense sensor receiver is off by one hundredth of a percent, the system reads the wrong frequency for a sensor beam return, gets the Doppler wrong, and miscalculates the velocity for an incoming Krag missile.  The system shoots ahead of the missile thereby missing the intercept.  We die.  The compression drive regulation is off by point one or point two Oppenheimers, we get major compression shear, the continuum density interface and the hull boundary intersect.  We die.”

“A consummation devoutly to be avoided.  I can see why that might cause substantial difficulty.”  The doctor nodded thoughtfully.  “What is to be done, then?  Clearly, it is not practical to reenter the numbers for every part on the ship and to check every setting and calibration.  There must be a few million.”

Max, DeCosta, Kraft, and Brown met each other’s eyes in open disbelief for an instant.  Max spoke with elaborate patience.  “Doctor, there are a few million parts in the point defense systems, a few million parts in the propulsion systems, a few million parts in the sensors.  The ship as a whole has just shy of
fifty-five
million parts.”

“Indeed.  I’m sure I had no idea.  Well, then, how can the problem be addressed?  Checking fifty-five million parts would take years.”

“Fortunately, the situation is not quite that dire,” said Brown.  “The only parts and components that are in question are the ones that have been the subject of replacement, maintenance, or calibration by members of the crew since the ship was put into service about a year and a half ago.  I don’t think we have anything to worry about from work done in a station, a yard, or by a tender, since everything those chaps do, including the calibration inputs, is checked by an inspector as they go.  We can identify what work has been done from the work orders and maintenance logs.  My first cut on a list contains about fifteen thousand items.  I think that there are some duplicates that didn’t get scrubbed out, plus what we call ‘inert items’ like pieces of deck, lengths of pipe, plate fasteners, and so forth.  Any variation from one to the other of those is going to be so small and so non-critical that we can get those corrected at our leisure.  That’s going to leave something like thirteen thousand by my estimate.  If each of these things takes twenty-five minutes to locate, check, and input, and if I put six men on the job, we are talking about just over nine hundred hours to get the job done.”

“That’s two weeks,” said Sahin.

“About fifteen days, if I have six men working on it without breaks twenty-four hours a day.  Obviously, my men aren’t going to work without breaks.  I may be able to juggle my crew shifts around so that I have six men from every shift.  The good part about this is that after about a day or so we will have most of the problem taken care of in terms of the components and systems that are most likely to cause trouble.  After that, we’re subject to the Law of Diminishing Returns.  We still need to get the data corrected, but it will make less and less of a short term difference.”

Max’s face took on a puzzled expression.  “What I don’t get is that if this problem has been going on for so long, why is it that it has manifested itself only now?” 

Brown gritted his teeth in anger.  “There, sir, is where we come to the real problem.”

“Which is?”

“As the old saying goes, skipper,” Brown answered, “it’s not the crime; it’s the coverup.” 

“Are you telling me that, not only have men on my ship been entering false data into the ship’s computer, but that they have been deliberately taking affirmative steps to conceal it?”  Max spoke slowly, deliberately, formally, his voice a study in cold rage.

“Yes, Captain.  That is exactly what I mean.”  The Engineer was just as formal. 

“
Fils de putain
,” he said, uttering the worst imprecation he ever let himself apply to someone else Who Wears the Blue.  He shook his head, as much in sadness and betrayal as in anger.

“I don’t know the procedures in your department, Lieutenant Brown,” said the doctor, “so I do not know exactly what would be involved in covering this kind of thing up.  What, exactly, must one do to prevent it from coming to light?”

“Quite a lot, actually,” Brown responded.  “When the computer detects that a part’s characteristics are too far off from the ones the REFSTAMAT is assuming it has, it spits out a check alert on the component and a technician from the General Maintenance department is supposed to go and find the cause.  That means laying eyes on the part, verifying that its SIN was correctly entered, and then performing whatever test, measurement, or observation necessary to determine that the component is functioning properly.  If there is a malfunction, either the component gets repaired and its modified performance parameters are incorporated in the REFSTAMAT or it gets replaced and a new SIN gets entered.  If the component is merely performing in a manner somewhat different from predictions, then the technician puts the appropriate kind of meter on it, tests its performance parameters, and inputs those as an observed divergence from the data associated with the SIM.  After that, the new data is part of the REFSTAMAT and Bob’s your uncle.

“When Bob is not your uncle, however, or even a relation of the most distant discernable degree, is when the aforementioned technician goes in and checks the aforementioned component, and determines that the SIN on the part and the SIN in the REFSTAMAT are not the same.  In that event, everything is supposed to come to a full stop.”  Brown stared bitterly into his coffee.  More and more, he saw the events in terms of disloyalty to him, personally.  “Again, there is a very clear procedure.  The REFSTAMAT is corrected on the spot.  The technician logs an MDR.  That’s a Major Discrepancy Report for your benefit, doctor.  The MDR is automatically routed to the Chief Engineer, the Executive Officer, and the Security Officer.” He leaned back in his seat, crossed his arms across his chest, and lapsed into silence, as though rendered mute by the enormity of the offense.

Major Kraft continued the explanation.  “We three officers, and recall, Doctor, that on a ship this small the Marine Detachment Commander doubles as the Security Officer, do not have the option of letting the report lie. 
Ach, nein.
 
Das is streng verboten. 
Rather, we are
required
to conduct a thorough investigation, documented by a detailed report filed with the Office of the Inspector General, the Deputy Chief Staff for Fleet Maintenance, and the Task Force Commander’s Flag Secretary, in which we determine the root cause of how such a deplorable state of affairs came into being.  Then, when we find the responsible party or parties, we are required,
required
mind you, to hold them for Court Martial.  Not put them on report.  Not issue a formal reprimand.  Not refer them to Captain’s Mast.  But a signed and sealed referral to a full blown, full dress, formal Court Martial.  And not a three-man panel, either, but the Five Man Full Monty, because it is at least theoretically possible to be sent to a penal asteroid at hard labor for thirty years.”

Brown reentered the conversation.  “This is no simple act of dereliction of duty by a single man.  Not only do we have the man who did not enter the data correctly in the first place, but some of these components, at least several dozen and maybe as many as a few hundred, would  have raised computer flags in the manner we just talked about, in which case a man would have gone to check them.  That man, or those men, had to have seen that the SINs didn’t match and then failed to report it.”

He sighed heavily.  “On top of that, my initial poking around shows signs of
ad hoc
tweaks to the REFSTAMAT of various systems by the dozens to zero out observed anomalies.  ‘Oh what a tangled web we weave,’ and all that.  Divergences start to crop up and someone gets into the REFSTAMAT and starts changing parameters by trial and error until the congruence numbers get back in the right range.  Of course, these
ad hoc
changes run the risk of making the situation worse under another set of operational conditions because it’s all educated guesswork, you see, and not very educated guesswork at that because the men doing it are fairly near the bottom of the ladder in engineering skill and experience.  The ‘fix’ that solves the problem today actually makes it worse tomorrow, requiring yet another
ad hoc
fix, and another, until the situation deteriorates to the point we reached today.  It looks as though at least three people were involved, but the best fit with the data is that it was six people.  Six of the eight in the maintenance section.  I find it difficult to imagine that they managed to get a deception of this magnitude past so many sets of eyes, two of which belong to me, unless these individuals worked together.  There is no getting around it.  This is a conspiracy.”  The word left a bad taste.  “They weren’t just deceiving us, they were working together to deceive us.”  He sighed in disgust.  “After what we’ve been through together, I expected better from these men.”

“I thank all of you for making it clear how this situation has come into being,” said the doctor.  “Your patience with my lack of naval knowledge is quite gratifying.  But I am still confused as to why we are having this problem now.  I thought that the change in command philosophy, elimination of the burdensome and irrational procedures imposed by the former Captain, removing the illegal drugs from the ship, improving the men’s combat effectiveness, and winning a series of truly impressive victories in battle, had all given the men pride in themselves, pride in their ship, and loyalty to their officers.  Why has this kind of problem not become impossible?  When these men demonstrated how they felt about each other and about their vessel by finally designing a ship’s emblem—and a noble emblem it is, too—I was certain that it would be smooth sailing from that point on.”

“If only it were that easy,” Max said.  “The pride, the confidence, the loyalty, all those things are important, sure.  Nothing, and I do mean nothing, is more important.  You can’t have a good ship without them.  They are the basis of everything you do.  Whatever you hope to build in a command, these things are the foundation. 
But they are not the building.
  A dedicated and committed will, a confident and optimistic spirit, a loyal and stalwart heart—that is where you start.  But there is so much, so very much, that has to come after. 

“Remember, it wasn’t too long ago that this ship’s performance was so poor that she was known throughout the fleet as the ‘
Cumberland
Gap.’  You don’t overcome a thing like that in couple of months.  There are more than two hundred men on this ship, and most of them learned at least a hundred bad habits under Captain Oscar.  Of those, they’ve unlearned maybe five under Captain Robichaux, and have ninety-five to go.  There are things that have been done going back to when they were on the
Seine
together, and that the men are still doing wrong, and that we may never see until they bite us in the ass.  We’ve rebuilt the foundation, and it’s good and solid.  And, with the new skills we are putting in place in critical positions throughout the ship we’ve got a good roof on top.  But in the middle, there is still a lot of termites, rot, bad wiring, and leaky plumbing.”

He stood up, and stepped over near the forward bulkhead.  Hanging there was a painting of the ship, measuring roughly three meters by one, a gift to the
Cumberland
by the Pfelung Commissariat for the Harmonious Swimming Together of the Warriors, their equivalent of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in gratitude for the
Cumberland
’s
role at the battle that saved their race from virtual annihilation.  The Pfelung were far and away the best visual artists in Known Space and the painting was a masterpiece, even for them.  It depicted the Destroyer under full acceleration bearing down on an unseen enemy vessel, her pulse cannons spitting brilliant daggers of death like Zeus hurling lightning bolts at the wicked, Talon missiles blasting out of their launch tubes looking like deadly black spear points at the end of long shafts of blue-white drive plasma, enemy weapons fire being bravely shouldered aside by her deflectors.  The impression was of speed, courage, and power, of a deadly weapon manned by a crew of heroes.  No ship of equivalent force could stand against her.  It was impossible for anyone who cared about the ship to look at the image and not be moved. 

But the ship in the painting was an image, an idealization, a goal.  The spirit was willing, but so many other things, so many people, so many skills, were so very, very weak.  Not as weak as they were two months ago, but weak nonetheless.  Maybe, someday, the
Cumberland
would be that ship.

No.  Max shook his head at the thought.  No “maybe” about it.  A hot rush of determination filled him.  The
Cumberland
, his ship,
would
be that ship
.  Soon.  Max would make sure of that.  Whatever it took.  But, she was not there yet.