Chapter 2: How A Boat That?

It was good that there were only seven days in a week, mused Captain Jonathan Percival Hoag, otherwise there would be yet another day in which to kick himself for accepting this deal. There were only two sure good things about it. He could bring along any family and friends who wished to come, and he could select and keep any of his crew along with their families. Otherwise, this assignment could end up a dead zero - a humongous pain in the sit-down-ski!

Before the landing of the Swarm on the North American continent, Captain Hoag, nicknamed ‘Hero’ behind his back, skippered the Summer Paradise, one of three large cruise liners belonging to the privately owned Paradise Line. He was still skipper, but it had become a far different job.

“Hero!” Hoag grimaced at the call from his company’s operations manager. He actually liked John Rico, but dammit -- knock off the name.

“Hero, we have an offer for you,” smirked Rico. “The company has leased Spring Paradise and Fall Paradise to the Feds to use as floating warehouses for ‘special’ refugees coming south ahead of the Sa’arm. In return, we have a free hand with your boat. You and the crew are exempt from call-up or draft; you can bring aboard family and friends <wink> and so can your crew.”

“What’s the catch?” Hoag demanded. “There has to be a big one.”

Rico explained that the Summer was to become the floating refuge of the company’s owners and friends. She would sail on a semi weekly circuit to restock and let peons ashore -- briefly or permanently as warranted. The upper echelon owners would helicopter off if they needed to be somewhere mid-cruise.

Seemingly against his better judgment, Hoag had accepted the offer. His missing lower left leg had booted him from the reserves, so he didn’t feel he was shirking. Nope, but his reservations had proved entirely justified, and the Summer Paradise became a bitch, moan, and complain hell.

He learned the rationale for the refuge to be a rumor from a ‘friend in high places.’ Supposedly, the Swarm was afraid of water. With replicators aboard (who knows how obtained), these prima donnas believed they could sail away from any trouble and live comfortably waited upon until such time (as their political friends assured them would happen) the alien monsters were defeated and they could return home. Aliens were always defeated in movies -- right? Right!

Were it not for his super competent staff captain, Jan Tormey, and her equally competent hotel director husband, Ian ‘It’ Tormey (Send for It! Now!), he thought he would probably have gone nuts and run the ‘boat’ aground.

Ringmistress of the four-alarm zoo (mixed metaphors -- but accurate) was Anita Davidson, seconded by her husband Brian. Anita was the company’s chief financial officer. She owned enough of the business that she could have been president, but it was said of her that she could only orgasm when profit was involved. She placed her husband, Brian, in the presidency and stayed where she could count the money rolling in and keep it from dripping out.

One of her very annoying quirks was her insistence that she hire and supervise the ships’ pursers. Over the years, this led to some very obnoxious individuals complicating Hoag’s life. However, if one is sufficiently obnoxious and hated, life aboard ship can become very unpleasant, and the worst appointees did not last long. Hoag’s current purser was the daughter of Anita’s long-time tennis partner and had been hired by Anita at her crony’s request.

Contrary to every expectation, Frederica (Ricky) Gentry was a gem in just about every way imaginable. She had sapphire-blue eyes framed by Scottish red hair on the lithe, athletic body of a swimmer. At five foot ten, with smallish breasts, she had no need for a bra, and her slightly jiggling headlights lit the way everywhere she went. Her personality lit up a room as well.

Ricky roomed, by choice, with the ship’s chopper pilot, Svitlana (Lana) Koval, great granddaughter of the world’s first woman fighter ace. Great granny, her namesake, was a Ukrainian WWII fighter pilot credited with twelve solo kills and four assists. Lana-the-first had been wing-woman to Russian ace, Andrei Mikkivich Usilov, and bore his child, conceived before his death. There was a lot from her ancestors’ personalities in Lana.

Ricky and Lana were not yet lovers but probably would be soon. Friendship and respect grew daily.

When Rico had made his proposal and offered the assignment, Captain Hoag thought of a cherished plan that he had not yet shared with anyone, not even Gillian, his wife. Having heard of small towns, large arenas, and even county fairs having been extracted, he asked himself, ‘why not a cruise ship?’ He could assemble a crew worthy of extraction, but the issue might be the passengers. Then came John Rico’s call, and the plan began to seem possible, even with the drone passengers he was sure to acquire.

Step one was to convince Rico that the crews of the leased-out ships should be reviewed and the best of them transferred to the Summer. Hoag made the two points that the ‘elite’ passengers would likely be happier overall with the ‘higher quality’ crew, and that retention would probably be better if the crew were busy. He didn’t mention the expected whining. Rico bit, and the process began.

Hoag routinely held weekly staff meetings the night before docking at his homeport, and this week was no different. He outlined his desire to ‘pirate’ the best employees from their sister ships and weed out the lower performers from the Summer. He did not speak of CAP scores, thinking that in a highly skilled and motivated group, there would naturally be both sponsor level CAPS and highly desirable concubine skills.

Over the next few days, his senior staff assembled a “desired list” and an “undesired list” from across the company. Hoag set Marjorie Baldwin, the ship’s human resources manager, to facilitating the swaps. The process wasn’t a hundred percent effective, but a surprising number of the less desirables viewed a docked ship as a good deal, and the better performers wanted to be busy. The other captains complained to Rico, but their complaints went nowhere.

Two weeks into the process, Marjorie cornered the captain in his office and closed the door. “Ever wonder what the average CAP is for our crew?” she began. “I did, and where I’ve been able to find out in confidence, we have a very high proportion of sponsors -- incredibly high. Even those not sponsor caliber have a higher than usual CAP. I’m beginning to smell something.” She crossed her arms, looked him in the eyes, and waited.

Hoag sighed, “No one, and I do mean no one, is to hear you speculate on this! This especially applies to anyone in the upper company hierarchy! You can talk to me, but not a hint anywhere else.” Her eyes widened as he began to outline his plan.

Having a confidential sounding board came as a huge relief for Hoag, though the risk of a breach always grew with the numbers ‘in the know.’ They plotted, and Marjorie became his ‘Girl Friday’ for anything remotely out of the ordinary. The two of them also had each other to vent exasperations caused by the unreasonable demands of their ‘passengers.’

It was fortunate that Anita Davidson and the other company ‘elite’ only wanted on-board suites; mere cabins were beneath them. Company friends occupied some suites and cabins, but Anita’s need for profit limited ‘friends’ to paying friends. There were actually three suites regularly left available for ‘normal’ passengers. The crew’s cabins became very ‘occupied’ with the extra crewmembers and crew’s guests.

Were it not for the semi-legitimate replicators, costs would have given away Hoag’s machinations. Hoag and Marjorie hid the extra bodies by shifting crew activities and meals to the late evening and early morning. Anita and Brian never suspected, thinking the extra attention to service was all for them. In a way, they were correct.

After the Swarm arrived, the ship’s itinerary changed with each cruise, giving Anita and her minions variety. It wasn’t necessary that they live on the Summer, but excepting brief excursions ashore, they tended to remain aboard, draining all joy from the crew. The random itinerary made docking availability more of a challenge, but had the benefit of deterring much of the increased piracy caused by the current uncertainties.

When the crewing was far enough along that Hoag was satisfied, and when he and Marjorie agreed their sanity and that of the crew was in grave jeopardy, Hoag went ashore. He bought a new laptop, established a new email account, and wrote to the Confederacy detailing his activities and suggesting a possible extraction. He cautioned that there would be some aboard who, while he thought not actively Earth First, were probably less than desirable candidates. He sent the email and returned to his ship.