//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 
// Story: Traveler 
// by totallynotabrony 
//------------------------------//

	After a day or two of paperwork to cover our lost passports, we arrived back in Norfolk, Virginia.  Andy and I had been born and raised in the area.
We headed for the shipyard.  It was a very good thing that the boat sinking happened so close to the time when our new ship was almost ready.  We could practically move in right away.
The replacement vessel had come to us in a rather convoluted manner.  The company that had commissioned it to be built at our shipyard declared bankruptcy and canceled the order.  The ship was very nearly completed when this happened, though, so the Chinese bank that had financed the construction tried to sell it and recoup its losses.
This proved nearly impossible, however, because while the vessel had been built with bulk cargo in mind, it was of a rather impractical design and nobody wanted it.  One company did finally step in and take it off the bank’s hands, albeit at a significantly reduced price.
If anyone found out that I owned both companies and had used the ploy to get a significantly reduced price at the expense of a foreign bank, I would be up on charges of fraud.  Perhaps even worse than that if the Chinese figured it out.  Luckily, David was excellent at what he did.
Another part of the tactic was to muddy the waters of ownership.  I could be traced as being involved with the ship, but it would be much more difficult now.
Building a ship is no cheap thing, and even while the bank footed a significant portion of the bill, it was still hefty.  The CIA had paid a chunk, as had the Navy.  Ultimately, I ended up paying a lot of the cost myself.  The old boat getting sunk had pushed my finances a little harder than I was comfortable.
The ship was being held in a covered dry dock at the shipyard.  This allowed us to work on it in all weather, but also to keep prying eyes out.  What was going on inside was not for the public to see.
The ship was supported over the floor of the dry dock.  Strong steel doors kept the water out until we were ready.  Most of the heavy work was out of the way, and workers were scattered around putting the finishing touches on things.
Andy had been involved with making sure all the electronics aboard played nice with each other.  He knew his computers.
Hawker had been helpful to him, but had mostly been working on getting the cabins outfitted.  She was no interior designer, but was the most qualified.  I’d noticed how often tasks in our group fell to whoever knew just a little more about something than everyone else.
We started making a list of things that we would need to replace because they were lost on the other boat.  Since I’d sold my house and begun spending my time almost exclusively at sea, it was almost everything that I’d owned.
We got settled in on the ship.  It was noisy from the work going on round the clock, but earplugs helped.
There were two visitors the next morning.  They Admiral Benjamin Nevis, USN and Carl Hanley, CIA.  The two of them had played a large part in creating my current employment.
Both of them were as unlikeable as snakes, but the three of us had established a working relationship.  I did things for them, and they gave me money and equipment.
We sat down in the still unfinished galley and discussed the sinking in detail.  There was no evidence as to who was behind the attack, but the obvious choice was still China.
“You’re damn lucky that everyone is alive,” said Nevis.  “I’ve seen weapons tests of torpedoes crack a destroyer in half.  Your little boat could have been vaporized.”
He was exaggerating, but not by much.  “Luck shot, I guess.”
Hanley looked annoyed.  “We really needed you out there.  We were just about to reassign you to cover Korea.”
“What’s going on?”  I had briefly seen something about it on the news at the airport, but hadn’t followed up.
“We’re told that a small group of North Korean soldiers were caught sneaking into South Korea and there was a shootout.”
“That happens once every few years, doesn’t it?”
“Well, yes.”
“Not anything unexpected from them.”
“Well, there did seem to be something a little strange about it.”
“So what does that mean?” I asked.
“It means we really need someone there to collect intelligence,” said Hanley sounding a little indignant that I had the nerve to get shipwrecked and ruin his operation.
“This thing will be ready to sail in two weeks,” I said, gesturing to the bulkheads around us.
Hanley nodded.  “I can live with that.”  He got up to leave.
“Go on,” said Nevis.  “I want to take a look around.”  When Hanley had left, I walked with Nevis around the ship.  It gave us time to talk alone, which had been his plan.
“Is there anything you need?” he asked.  His position as head of the Navy Procurement Committee let him move things around in the Navy’s inventory.
“Ordinance.  Maybe some small arms,” I told him.
“Speaking of small arms, I heard that shipment of HK416s was lost on the way to Texas.”  He gave me a knowing look.
The Navy had supplied us with a few assault rifles, supposedly for Canvas Shipbuilding to conduct hot weather testing.  In reality, I faked their disappearance and was carrying them on the boat at the time of the sinking.  On David’s advice, I had actually purchased a piece of land in west Texas, so anyone who went looking for a listing of our test facility would see that we did indeed own property in that area.
Changing the subject, Nevis said, “What all do you have aboard this thing, anyway?”
I smiled to myself.  The ship may have looked like it was built for cargo, but it would never turn a profit by carrying goods.  The truth was, there was more weaponry than the entirety of some third-world navies.  I said, “I’ll get you a list.”
The shipyard did a lot of business with the Navy, and we had the guns and missile launchers available in the warehouse, but the Navy had a little tighter control on the shells and missiles to arm them.  Getting my hooves on stuff like that required going through Nevis, who was perfectly willing to bend the rules if it would benefit him somehow.
Since I was in Norfolk, I decided to go see my therapist face-to-face.  I had a standing appointment with her once a week for the past couple of years, but since moving to my new line of work we usually had to have a phone conference.
Dr. Mind Games’ office was nicely furnished despite being in a strip mall.  She even had the stereotypical couch.  The sand-colored unicorn was elderly and spectacled with a brain for a cutie mark.
Depending on the situation, I had sometimes been unable to communicate at the regular time, so we had decided that it was better for me to call her. I found her sitting next to the phone.
“Sail, this is a surprise.”
“It sure is.  Let me tell you all about it.”
An hour later, I finished my summary of the past week.  I thought I had almost caught Dr. Games rolling her eyes at the unbelievability of it, but she was a professional and didn’t let it show.  I had to admit, on the scale of things I’d told her in the past, it was probably up there.  Honestly, I’d never told her a lie, although whether she believed that or not I didn’t know.
Since I rarely asked for any direct help and was content telling her how my life was going, she never attempted to do much more than listen and discuss my feelings.  If she thought it was easy money, fine.  I liked having a neutral observer to talk to that helped me organize my own thoughts.
“Do you believe you could have done things differently, such as taking the presence of the stealth ship as a warning?”
I didn’t tell Dr. Games any state secrets that were too big, particularly when we talked over the phone, but I thought a few little details helped.
“Maybe I could have, but who expects to be torpedoed during peacetime?”
“The important thing is that you all are safe.  How do you feel about it now that you’re back on land and have had time to reflect?”
I thought for a moment.  “Honestly, I feel like getting even.  If I could prove that the Chinese sank me on purpose, I might think about starting something.”
“Remember, you have the interests of others to think about.”
“Right, but they’re paid to work for me, so what does it matter?”
“Sail, we’re talking about decency here, not capitalism.”
“I guess you’re right.  I should increase wages.”
This time, she actually did roll her eyes.
Back at the shipyard, work was progressing a little faster than planned.  The novelty of a new ship hadn’t worn off yet.  I’d pretty much designed it myself.  Some compromises had been made in terms of budget and capability, but it was likely the finest private fighting ship in the world.
It was an even 470 feet long and 50 feet wide.  This was a little narrower length/width ratio than many cargo ships.  The superstructure was located a little aft of midships, with one cargo hold aft of it and three ahead.  The bow and stern were somewhat more pointed than usual, which decreased the drag of going through the water but reduced the space for carrying cargo.  There was an A-frame crane on the stern that could lean fore or aft to service the stern cargo hold or swing out over the stern of the ship.  Ahead of the superstructure, another crane was mounted on rails so it could move and take care of all three forward holds.  They were numbered one through four, fore to aft.
All in all, it looked like a regular cargo ship that had a grandparent that was a research vessel and another that was a speedboat.  That’s why nobody but me wanted to buy it—it wouldn’t have been great for actually carrying cargo.  I had had a fake company website with the name Roberts Corp. set up to extol all the drawbacks as actual virtues, so anyone who thought the ship looked strange would just chalk it up to an eccentric business model.
While not published to the false company website, the propulsion system was also unusual.  It was powered by four turbine generators positioned around the ship which sent electrical power anywhere it was needed.  The main use was for two azimuth thrusters mounted beneath the stern.  They used propellers to move the ship, and they could swivel in a 360 degree circle to direct thrust however it was needed.  It increased the ship’s agility and acceleration by a lot. 
All strangeness aside, what really counted was hidden.  The holds all had domed covers, and concealed within the number one and number four holds were weapons that would shame a frigate.
Each hold contained one 5”/54 naval gun.  Number four also had a Rolling Airframe Missile launcher and a set of Harpoon missile launchers, while number one used a Mk 29 box launcher.  All the weapons were mounted on platforms at the top of the hold to position them at the level of the deck, leaving the bottom of the hold occupied with the guns’ magazines and whatever we could fit.
The original plans had called for a vertical launch system to carry a couple dozen long range missiles.  That was just a little more than Nevis and Hanley were willing to commit to, and I had practically gotten in a shouting match with them over it.  Ultimately, they paid the bills so they got to say no. 
Work on the ship progressed steadily, and we put the final coat of paint on three days ahead of schedule.  The boat had a dark blue hull with white upper structures.  The Roberts Corp. logo was painted on either side of the superstructure.
All of us had debated the name for quite a while.  A pirate theme seemed favorable, but it didn’t fit with the cargo ship disguise.  We eventually resorted to combing lists of ship registries for something likeable but nicely inconspicuous.  The vote was eventually cast and we settled on one.  
In the short time since I’d started my little private military company, it had already developed far past my expectations.  The name of the ship may have meant something different to the rest of the crew, but to me it spoke of how far we’d come and how far we might go.  
We called the ship Traveler.
There were no problems flooding the drydock and proceeding with launching ceremony.  It’s always interesting getting to know a new ship.  At some point, you begin to understand its personality and stop thinking of it as “it” and switch to “she.”  Nika used the masculine pronoun, though.  Russians are funny that way.
We had some time for testing Traveler’s capabilities.  With the azimuth main propulsion and a bow thruster, it maneuvered like a much smaller vessel.  We could shut down one or even a couple of the four turbine engines to save fuel, but if all of them were online, they could put out a tremendous amount of horsepower.  Combined with a light load to decrease the drag of the water, the ship could make nearly 35 knots, unheard of for a cargo ship of that size.  The streamlined bow and stern helped, but we could never go that fast if the ship had a deeper draft.
If speed wasn’t a concern, we could let water into a row of ballast tanks inside the hull to add weight.  It simulated a load of cargo, and it made handling the ship in heavy seas easier.  Not only that, it made us a smaller target by sitting lower in the water.
A definite advantage of the larger ship was bigger fuel tanks for increased range.  Not that we were burning much by running back and forth off the coast, but it was nice to know.
I didn’t particularly crave combat, but I was interested to see how well the ship would fare.  We’d selected the 5”/54 guns based on their availability and atributes.  There was a newer model with a longer barrel, but the older ones were easier to get and not as difficult to conceal.  Still, they were deadly enough.  Each gun had a maximum effective range of a little over eight nautical miles, and the five inch-diameter shell would make an impression on anything it hit.  The two guns could each fire twenty times per minute.
The box launcher on the foredeck was loaded with Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles that could reach almost thirty miles at Mach 4.  It was designed to defend the ship.  The launcher carried eight of them.
The Rolling Airframe Missile, so called because it spiraled like a football, was fired from a 21-cell launcher located aft.  It was intended as a short range last resort defensive weapon against incoming missiles.  In a pinch, it could also engage aircraft and small boats.
Tucked in with the RAM and the aft gun were two sets of four-tube launchers for the Harpoon missiles.  They hunted ships, and could travel more than seventy miles.
Of course, I hadn’t gotten everything I wanted.  It would have been nice to simply lift the entire Aegis system from a Ticonderoga-class cruiser, but I didn’t have that much money or political influence.  Actually, money and political influence were the same thing.
We had been out a couple of days and hadn’t yet discovered any significant problems.  None on our ship, anyway.  One night the maritime radio began reporting a surprise tsunami striking the east coast of Japan.  This was quickly retracted and changed to an “unexpected disaster.”  
I asked Andy to check news websites to see what was going on.  There seemed to be a general sense of confusion among the media.  Something had happened, but nobody was quite sure what.
Only a few minutes had passed when reports began coming in about something else, this time in Hawaii.  That did it.  I decided to call Nevis.
“What’s going on?” I asked when he picked up his cell phone.
He didn’t have to ask what I meant.  “I haven’t been told anything official, but it’s big.”  His tone of voice changed.  “I know someone out in Nebraska at Offutt who told me that a Constant Phoenix bird just took off.”
It took me a moment to realize what he meant.  The WC-135 Constant Phoenix airplanes were based at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.  Those aircraft had a very specific purpose.
“Yeah, that’s bad,” I said.
“If I was a betting man, I’d say your phone is about to start ringing off the hook."
I got off the phone with Nevis and punched the button for the ship-wide intercom.  “If any of you haven’t heard yet, something big just happened in the Pacific.  Nobody has officially said what happened yet, but an Air Force plane specialized in atmosphere testing after nuclear incidents was just mobilized.  Get a good night’s sleep, because tomorrow is probably going to be a bitch.”
A few minutes passed, and we recieved an encrypted call.  It was not a protocol I had used before.  The Navy had their own method of secure communication, and so did the CIA.
We got the signal unscrambled and I answered.  The voice on the other end was female.  “Mr. Canvas, I would like to inquire about your services.  There’s just been an event we’d like you to look into.  It happened in Earth’s Pacific Ocean.”
“Yeah, I heard,” I said.  “Although I don’t really think I want go poking around with anything nuclear.  Also, I know which planet the Pacific is on.  I might be a pony, but I was born here, thank you very much.”
“Well, that explains why you don’t recognize my voice,” she said.  “This is Princess Celestia.”