Chapter 12 - The Truth Beneath the DeckChief Engineer Mercer sat in a secured interview room with a lawyer on the way from headquarters.
He looked exhausted.
For the first time since I had met him, his carefully maintained composure had disappeared.
I sat across from him.
"Chief Engineer, did Adrian Cole order you to compromise the Vanguard's safety systems?"
Mercer stared at the table.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Why?"
"Because the company couldn't deliver the components listed in the contract. The original equipment had been condemned months earlier, but the replacement order had already been paid."
"So you installed nothing."
"We installed salvaged parts from another vessel."
"Were those parts certified for use?"
"No."
"Did you tell Captain Miller?"
Mercer nodded.
"What did he say?"
"That the ship only needed to remain operational long enough to complete a scheduled inspection. After that, the parts would be replaced."
I leaned forward.
"Who authorized the schedule?"
"Admiral Cole."
"Did you understand the risks?"
Mercer closed his eyes.
"I understood that the equipment might fail under stress."
"Yet you signed the maintenance records."
"Yes."
"Three people reported the defect before the ceremony. Why were their reports removed?"
"Voss altered the records."
"On whose instructions?"
"Mine, after Miller told me the reports would create an operational delay."
I studied him.
"Did you know someone would be injured?"
His eyes filled with tears.
"No, ma'am."
"That doesn't absolve you."
"I know."
He swallowed.
"I told myself the parts would hold. I told myself we'd replace them before anything happened. Then Hale found the original invoices, and everything started unraveling."
"Who assaulted Hale?"
"I don't know."
"Who triggered the electrical failure?"
"I didn't. I swear to you."
I believed that he believed his own answer.
That was not the same as knowing it was true.
I ordered the interview recorded, then asked Mercer about the scheduled data transfer.
He explained that Northstar had requested access to the navigation system under the pretext of validating new equipment. The request had been rejected twice.
Then Cole had intervened.
A new authorization appeared, bearing the signatures of senior officers.
The transfer was scheduled to complete at 1800 hours, with the ship's internal systems temporarily entering diagnostic mode.
"Could somebody manipulate navigation through that access?" I asked.
Mercer hesitated.
"Yes, ma'am."
"How?"
"If the diagnostic sequence uses an unauthorized reference file, it could introduce errors into the system's position calculations. The navigation display might appear normal while the underlying data becomes unreliable."
"Could that cause a collision?"
"Under the wrong conditions."
"Could it be corrected?"
"Yes, but only if someone identifies the corruption and isolates the affected inputs."
I rose slowly.
"Then we have less than two hours to stop it."
As I left the room, Reeves approached with a new report.
The technical team had discovered that the scheduled transfer was connected to an upcoming multinational naval exercise. The Vanguard was due to participate alongside several allied vessels.
The data package contained operational routes, communications protocols, and equipment status information.
If transferred, that information could expose weaknesses across the participating task group.
The exercise was not merely a training event.
It was a security test involving several nations.
Someone wanted the information before the exercise began.
"Has the fleet commander been notified?" I asked.
"Yes, ma'am. He's ordering an immediate suspension of the Vanguard's participation."
"Good. What about Cole?"
"Security found an unregistered access badge in an abandoned maintenance compartment."
"Where did the badge lead?"
Reeves handed me a photograph.
The badge opened a restricted communications room below the main operations center.
The room had been sealed after a renovation three years earlier.
According to the maintenance records, no one had entered it since.
Except the access logs showed a door opening at 0247 that morning.
Several hours before I boarded.
"Who entered?"
"The system identifies the visitor as Samuel Ortiz."
I stared at the photograph.
Ortiz had been hiding in the engineering section. He claimed he had been investigating Northstar for years.
But the badge record suggested he had access to a room connected to the current data breach.
I returned to the compartment where Ortiz was being protected.
He was standing beside a narrow table, studying the recovered ledger.
When I showed him the badge record, he went very still.
"I didn't enter that room."
"Your access credential says otherwise."
"Then somebody copied my identification."
"Why would they do that?"
"To make me look responsible."
"Or because you know something about the room that you haven't told us."
His face tightened.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he removed a folded document from his jacket.
"I found this in the archive two days ago."
It was a diagram of the sealed communications room.
A handwritten note appeared beneath the diagram.
Emergency relay. External control. Last resort.
I looked at him.
"Why didn't you show me this earlier?"
"Because I didn't know whether the system was still active."
"And now?"
He met my eyes.
"Now I believe somebody inside the Vanguard is preparing to use it."
I unfolded the document completely.
A second notation had been written in red ink.
It listed the system's original authorization code.
May you like
The code belonged to an officer whose personnel record carried a single status.
Deceased.
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