He chose to downplay his suspicion for the moment. “I suppose that is a possibility, but I think it’s more likely a simple oversight or seemingly minor accident—a dropped screwdriver that damaged a relay, absentmindedly reinstalling an old part instead of the new one, or overlooking a step that seemed unimportant. O’Neal, you have the records there. Which of the torpedo mates signed off on the regular maintenance?”
The young crewman checked his dataslate. “Torpedo Mate Second Class Harris, sir.”
Sikander looked back to Larkin. “Let’s have Petty Officer Harris crack open the practice torpedo we did recover, and demonstrate the maintenance procedures for everything he’s done in the last few months. Chief Maroth should watch, too. We can make sure the maintenance was done properly.”
“That would be a waste of time,” Larkin said. Sikander shot her a stern look—after the unpleasant conversation he’d just had with the XO, he was in no mood to have one of his own subordinates speak sharply to him—but Larkin did not notice. She continued. “The maintenance procedures haven’t changed in two years, and no one in the fleet has had a problem like this. It’s got to be a hardware defect in the missing weapon. They sent us a bad torpedo.”
“Humor me, Ms. Larkin. Harris may have made a mistake, or perhaps he’ll be reminded of something that did not go right. I want to verify the maintenance procedures.”
Larkin looked dubious. “All right. I’ll have Harris and Chief Maroth go over the procedures as soon as they can find the time.”
“Immediately,” Sikander told her. “I will be in the torpedo room in half an hour, and I expect them both there. In fact, I would like you to join us. If someone is on watch, pull them off and send a substitute. It’s time to solve this riddle if we can.”
The torpedo officer stared at Sikander for a moment before remembering her basic military courtesy. “Yes, sir,” she said. “Immediately.”
* * *
Sikander spent most of the next two days in the torpedo room at Hector’s bow. As it turned out, Petty Officer Harris knew his duties well. The two officers and Chief Torpedo Mate Maroth had Harris walk them through the normal maintenance procedures on the Phantom Type 12-P torpedo, and nothing struck them as particularly out of place. Harris had a couple of shortcuts that weren’t strictly by the book, but Chief Maroth pointed out that every torpedo mate in the fleet had been using those same shortcuts for years, and they had nothing to do with the drive anyway. Larkin had the good sense not to tell Sikander “I told you so” to his face, but after two long days in the confines of the torpedo room, she didn’t have to say it to let him know what she was thinking. Sikander grudgingly admitted defeat, and withdrew to wrestle with the problem privately.
For a few miserable days, no new possibilities came to him. But during casualty simulations on a bridge watch an idea occurred to him, and after the watch section finished up their drills, he gave it quite a bit of thought. By the time he was relieved, Sikander determined to put it into action. After a quick review of the personnel files, he summoned Ensign Girard and Sublieutenant Larkin to the Gunnery Department office. When both officers arrived, Sikander invited them to sit at the small conference table.
“What’s up, sir?” Girard asked as he sat down.
“I took a look at your service jacket, Mr. Girard,” Sikander said. “You graduated from the Academy with degrees in data architecture and information science?”
“Yes, sir,” Girard replied. “I haven’t used them much on board Hector, but I have a few pet projects I like to tinker with to keep my hand in things.”
“Such as?”
“Well—games, sir.” Girard offered an embarrassed shrug. “I like taking apart entertainment software and fixing the parts that annoy me.”
“Excellent,” Sikander said. “In that case, I have a special assignment for you. As you know, Ms. Larkin and her torpedo mates have been tearing down every line of code and reviewing every step of maintenance procedures for our missing torpedo. I think we need some fresh eyes on the problem.”
“Sir, I don’t know anything about torpedoes, really.”
“In this case, I don’t think that will be a hindrance,” Sikander told him. “I have a new line of inquiry I want to try out, and I need a topflight software tech for the job. I think that might be you.”
Larkin frowned. “Sir, we’ve done everything we can without the actual torpedo to examine. You saw us take the other torpedo apart and put it back together again a dozen times, and you watched us crawl through the code. There is nothing more we can do.”
“I want to try something new,” Sikander told her. He looked back to Girard. “Mr. Girard, I want you to make a copy of the torpedo-control software and set up an emulation program that verifies each command input or output during weapon flight. Then I want you to run combinations of events that cause the torpedo to launch normally but fail to return to normal space. Since we’re getting nowhere by retracing the steps we thought we took, let’s figure out what would have to happen to make the torpedo fail in exactly the right way. Find ways to break torpedoes, Mr. Girard. Can you do that?”
Girard nodded slowly, his eyes distant as he thought it over. “I think so, sir. Cloning the software and setting up an emulation system shouldn’t be too hard.”
“What’s the point?” Larkin said. “The software was identical for both torpedoes. The only cause that makes sense is a hardware failure on the missing torpedo, and we’ll never know what that might be, because it’s missing!”
Sikander bit back his own response, and studied the angry young woman for a long moment before he trusted himself enough to speak. “Ms. Larkin, tell me this: If, God forbid, we have to launch a torpedo in anger when we get to Gadira, will it hit or will it disappear?”
“We’ve had no problems with the war shots,” Larkin countered.
“We’ve never launched one of the war shots. I checked the ship’s records. It’s been three years since any ship in the entire fleet fired off a Phantom Type 12 that wasn’t a practice torp. So at this moment, I have no confidence that the problem we encountered is limited to our inventory of 12-Ps, and I can’t honestly tell Captain Markham that if she orders me to fire a torpedo, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that it will actually reach the target. Or am I missing something about the significance of this problem?”
Larkin stared at him. “That’s insane. Our battle sims haven’t shown any hint of a problem like that with the 12-Js on board.” Those torpedoes carried real warheads.
Sikander counted silently to ten, then looked at Girard. “Mr. Girard, would you excuse us? I think you have enough to get started on.”
“Uh, yes, sir,” the young officer said. He stood up, gathered up his dataslate and notes, and hurried out of the department office.
Sikander stood up as well and saw him to the hatch. He waited for the hatch to seal shut behind Girard before rounding on Larkin. “On your feet, Sublieutenant!” he barked.
Larkin stared at him for a moment, and slowly got to her feet. “What are you—” she began to say, but he cut her off immediately.
“Enough is enough, Sublieutenant Larkin. I have been on this ship for six weeks now, and it has not escaped my notice that you have yet to show me the respect expected from a subordinate officer. You are free to think of me whatever you like, but in front of others you will maintain a professional bearing. Do I make myself clear?”
Larkin’s eyes blazed. “Yes, sir.”
“Do you know why I dismissed Girard? It wasn’t to spare your feelings. I sent him off because junior officers don’t need to see higher-ranking superiors arguing. This discussion is between you and me, and no one else needs to hear what I have to say to you, or you have to say to me. I don’t reprimand you in public, so you refrain from showing me disrespect in front of others. Is that understood?”