The BridgeChief Jason Hoyt had called up his entire engineering department who was on rest, bar for Second Engineer Einar Wojcik, who remained behind in the engine room, to assist with the fault finding mission upon the vessel's radar system, spread between the Bridge and the radar/antenna mast outside. None of the two engineers and three apprentices were qualified electrical engineers, but they had a rudimentary understanding of what they were looking for, under the guidance and mentorship of the Chief.
The team was working fast, as they understood the dangers of powering down the vessel's entire radar system, especially with darkness fast approaching. Without radar, the ship had to rely solely on the eyes of the navigation crew, keeping watch with binoculars. That and the crew did not enjoy working during their precious off time, or missing supper for that matter.
After a long arduous period of checking each and every component of the radar, inch for inch, Jason discovered the origin of the glitching radar: a worn segment on the main power cable. The particular piece was located just after the main radar power cable split from the main feeder cable. A few individual internal copper wires had worn out and broken off, thus providing inconsistent feed to the radar display, forcing it to glitch, but not enough to activate the safety trip. It was a subtle, well hidden problem, made even more frustrating by the fact that these were newly installed wires, which meant that faulty wires were installed.
Jason was constantly amazed by the large problems which the tiniest of faults could create.
Jason continued to cut out the problematic segment, and replaced this part by latching on a new piece of wire. This was a temporary fix at best, which would undoubtedly hold, but would not pass the next regulations inspection, and would thus need to be replaced with an entire new cable segment. However, that was a job to be solved in port, and not whilst at sea, where the radar had to be actually functioning at all times.
After replacing all the removed panels and covers, Jason switched the radar system's back on, which immediately sprang to life, like any young healthy radar should. He took up the seat behind the radar display, running a quick electronic diagnostic on all the radar systems.
He did not like what he discovered, and his navy instincts kicked in immediately.
Jason removed a small notebook and pen from his breast pocket, and wrote down a single word. He stood from his seat and approached the senior officer on watch, XO Lilja Astridsdottir, showing his notebook to her. The single word "Jammed" appeared on the paper.
She nodded, then glanced around. She motioned over to the little compartmentalized office on the Bridge that she shared with Captain Stan. When they were both in there, she closed the door.
“Thank you for following up on that, Mr. Hoyt. What makes you think so?”
Before he could respond, low-key rolling rumbling noises emanated from his stomach, reminding its owner that it was well past feeding time. Ignoring it, he replied,
"I just ran diagnostics on the radar system, and it indicates that several - a wide range of the bandwidth frequencies are blocked. This alone is evidence of jamming in my opinion. Luckily, our X Band is capable of hopping frequency, so we still have an operational scanning capability, for now. But there is more. None of the vessels which the radar detects are displaying their Automatic identification system info, indicating that the entire specific spectrum is blocked. So we know there are vessels out there, but we can't know who, or what they are. Going even further, the data connection with the harbour master in Juovor is down, coupled with our wifi and cellular reception."
Jason sighed deeply before continuing,
"Now one can be forgiven to blame these misfortunes on solar flares, thunderstorms or high sea states…" Jason pointed towards the door, presumably to the window which laid beyond the door, and thus the lake beyond that,
"Which is obviously not the case as it's a beautiful ocean out there. And even then, the magnitude of our problems are a lot more than what the Mother would cause."
Lilja shrugged.
“Lake...Ocean...what’s the difference? There is weather interference on the Lake, but...I do think you must be right, Mr. Hoyt. Not on any part of the Lake is there any major weather patterns at the moment. Not in the last report I got from Mr. Fortunado, anyway. Something is afoot and our interference must be man made.”
"Aye Ma'am. I can guarantee that observation. Perhaps the Comms Center can do a spectrum check, just to build on the evidence, but I do suggest that the Captain is hastily informed, Ma'am."
“I’m aware of my obligations to the Captain, Mr. Hoyt, as well as to the crew and passengers. But we will get this taken care of, rest assured. Well, at least we know our new equipment is not malfunctioning of its own accord.”
"Of course Ma'am. Ma'am before we continue, please know that I am not attempting to insult or insinuate that you don't understand your job, as in fact, the truth is that I respect your position and capabilities tremendously. I am aware that I sometimes come off as a bit brash, and please allow me to chalk it up to my years served within the Port Emberian Navy. There we learned to be ruthlessly efficient, and manners came last on the list of importance."
“Relax, Mr. Hoyt. I’m not offended, but I will not shy away from reminding you that I have earned my higher berth here for a reason. We will respect each other’s worth and berth here. That’s just one thing I have learned from Captain Stan. Your efficiency will suit you well. The Captain is very respectful of such a virtue.” She took a pause and stifled a yawn.
“We have more work to do. Why don’t you take care of your crew and give those who need it rest? If you can rest up yourself and have your second in engineering take over, please do. Tomorrow is another day and we need to face it fresh. I have calls to make.”
"Aye ma'am, gratitude. Im taking the lads down to the galley now, as I have requested the crew down there to package up our grub. Anyway, Second Engineer Wojcik has the current watch, but I am available at all hours should the need arise. With that, smooth sailing, XO." He nodded deeply towards Lilja as a form of goodbye and respect as he and his crew filed out of the bridge.
As Hoyt left, she got on the hotphone to try to reach both Mr. Fortunado and Mr. Ryker with little success. They were on the move as far as their covering crew could say. Where, no one could say, but she had her suspicions. It seemed that everyone was quickly coming to the same conclusion as to their circumstances.
Next, she sent two Bridge crew out with two-way radios to man each side of the bow and radio in if the ship was getting close to anything. They did actually have NVG to wear, in just this eventuality. They pulled them out of a storage chest, tested them, and then dashed for the bow as quickly as possible. All she told them was that the radar was continuing to have technical difficulties which may only clear up with time. They would have to dim down some lights on the bow, but to not panic the passengers in the process. It was for ‘atmosphere’.
She was torn if she should wait for the Captain, and Markus and Pedro, or try to seek one of them out. She finally decided to stay put for a few more minutes and wait for call backs, which ended up being the wisest decision, after all.
The Captain’s CabinStan checked in with Lilja on the Bridge before heading back to his cabin for the evening. He needed to lay his head down after feeling he had to be ‘on’ for their guests at his Table. It was draining. The Captain met the Second Officer near the small office off the Bridge.
She seemed to be calm, but not quite level.
“Smooth sailing and clear skies out there, Sir. Minor issue with radar technical difficulties that Mr. Hoyt worked on, but that turned up some other issues.”
“Oh?”
Lilja was relieved that Stan’s visit had saved her the effort of having to track him down in the Dining Room or his cabin.
“He believes we’re getting some interference. Not the typical weather interference. As I said, clear skies. All the way across the Lake, from the last report from Pedro.”
“Interference?”
“Jamming...I guess? I never served in the Navy, Captain. I have never been on a ship that has been targeted like this. But we’re getting sustained and pinpointed electrical interference that’s causing issues with our radar. We’re not getting proper read backs. Our chief engineer believes this isn’t a fluke or mundane malfunction. Everything I know tells me this has to be jamming.”
“It sounds about right. I was not in the Navy either, but the Merchant Marine, as you know. We got hit with their jamming often enough.”
“So, that’s bad. It means they’re going to do something to us?”
He kept his voice low
“Not necessarily. You aren’t military, but you are Glisandian, Lilja. You know how much they like to mess with us. How bitterness still drives them. I don’t think it amounts to stepping up to violent aggression, but if they can get their kicks from messing with a passenger ship, then so be it. You can’t be the least surprised that they would try to trip us a little for the laughs...”
“But it
is aggression, Sir. It puts our safety in jeopardy. Blanking out our radar could cause us to crash! Into another boat...into the shore…”
“Keep your voice down. Let’s not put the crew into a panic. You need to put some crew on the bow to keep watch. Give them radios…”
“Already done, Sir. I did that right after we found out we were getting bad returns from the radar system, before Mr. Hoyt and his team even started working on it.”
“Good. I need to rest a bit after this dinner. But just a cat nap. I will be back here two hours earlier than my normal time to relieve you. We should meet then with Mr. Fortunado and Mr. Ryker, as both our Communications department and Security department should know this is going on.”
“Shouldn’t we tell them now?”
“Call them up here. I think both of them should still be on duty. They need to know what’s going on. But as far as us getting a solid plan together on how to deal with this, it can wait until morning, unless things begin to escalate. See if you can reach back home to tell them what’s going on. If they hit us on comms too, that might be the final warning. If Pedro tells you that, come get me. If anything else starts going wrong, send someone to get me.”
XO Astridsdottir didn’t say anything for a moment, but she was highly skeptical that the Captain should go off to sleep with everything going on. Without radar, they could be vulnerable to a crash, as she had said. She also didn’t trust that the situation would
not escalate. It was hard to trust anything with Yellowsians and their attitudes toward their neighbors. These people had been bred for generations to be xenophobic and calculatingly disruptive.
“Do you think it’s wise to leave this to simmer, Sir?”
“I think it’s less wise for me to try to deal with it in my current state. I implicitly trust you to handle this in my brief absence, Lilja. That’s why you’re my second in command. We would not have left home port if I had any doubts in your ability.”
“Understood, Sir.”
“Now, I’m heading to bed. Or to nap. Whichever.”
He headed on down two decks to his cabin. He took his jacket off and hung it up, looking it over once to see if he had spilled anything on it that he hadn’t noticed while sitting down. It looked clean enough.
Then he eyed a certain cabinet. He stood still, contemplating then moved towards it.
“What the hell, I...No. No. I need to clear up my head.”
Instead of pulling out the bottle of bourbon in the cabinet, he reached to the mini-fridge and pulled out a seltzer water. He uncapped it, taking a long pull.
There was a knock at the door. He put down the drink and went to it.
He looked out the peep hole first to see Pedro Fortunado and Markus Ryker standing in the passageway. Had it been anyone else, like a passenger just trying to chat him up, he would have ignored them and pretended he was asleep. He opened the door hesitantly, dreading what this could be about.
“Yes?”
As the door opened, Markus cleared his throat before speaking,
“Good evening Captain, I dislike having to come to you this late but Pedro and I thought this would best be brought to your attention now instead of tomorrow.”
“Si, Capitan.” Pedro looked sheepish.
“Just now, Pedro swung by my office and we spoke about the communications interference that has been occurring. He did a very fine job analyzing it with myself and offering his thoughts as to the origin of the interference. However, I have not ruled out the possibility of a third party potentially being involved in an attempt to cause a crisis between neighbors… As a nonnative of the region, I wanted to run our thoughts by you.”
Stan poked his head further out into the passageway, looking left and right beyond Pedro and Markus. Then he focused on them.
“Come in. I was just getting ready to retire for a couple hours to refresh myself. Can I offer you gentlemen a drink? Water...or, I think I have bourbon or even some schnapps?”
Fortunado shook his head, glancing at Ryker.
“No thank you, Captain. I feel I need to keep my head clear with all that is going on. Gracias, though.”
Also shaking his head, Markus politely smiled.
“Also no thank you, Captain. However, drinks are on me once we’re back in home port.”
Stan closed the door behind them.
“Oh no, I insist they will be on me.”
He walked over to the side table where he’d left his drink. He took another big gulp of the water.
“So, until we can narrow this down, I’d like to keep some discretion, gentlemen. Hence a conversation out in the passageway isn’t the best idea. What kind of interference are we talking about now?” Of course, from what Lilja had told him earlier, he had a good idea what they were about to tell him. He had hoped it wasn’t that pervasive to all their equipment, but now it looked like his worst fear was bearing out.
“Pedro? This is your area of expertise.” Looking over at his fellow officer, Markus silently kicked himself for opening his mouth too wide in the hallway.
“Si, uh...so...it is definitely happening across multiple bandwidths and channels. If it was just a channel or two, I wouldn’t think much of it, pero...but...it’s all of them. I do not have a clear channel out, back to home port especially, or to Kvarljeg, which is the closest Glisandian port…” He said that more for the benefit of Ryker than the Captain, although the Security chief might be familiar with the geography of the Lake region by now.
“...I just think that this is deliberate, to have so many channels blanketed with white noise or just dead. Some interference due to the screwy Lake weather is to be expected, but... It’s not even the same effect on all of them, which is a clue in itself. I think this is deliberate jamming, Capitan.”
Stan walked over to his little portal window to look out on the water, seltzer bottle in hand, while he contemplated what he was hearing. It was really like the worst possible scenario of what they had discussed back during their emergency preparedness meeting.
He took another sip.
“Can you rewire something to get a clear channel? What about cellular waves? Can we reach a tower?”
Pedro held up his cell.
“No signal...And my display keeps blanking or getting pixelated in an odd manner. It is why I think
they are hitting multiple bandwidths, not just UHF/VHF frequencies. No civilians have the capacity to do that. Yes, I can try to focus on one channel and get a clear space, but it would take some time.”
“By ‘
they’, you mean them?” Stan pointed out the direction of the YSR coast. He sipped again.
“Si.”
“They’re jamming radar, too. Mr. Hoyt discovered that just earlier. It’s why I haven’t been able to sleep. Mr. Ryker, what are your thoughts? What if this escalates, what can we do?”
Both Ryker and Fortunado took in the news that they weren’t the first to raise the alarm. The radar, too? This was serious.
Ryker went forward,
“I checked the emergency flares and we have a number of 1,000 foot flares. If I remember correctly from my time on merchant vessels, they can be spotted some 35 miles away in good conditions. Right now this seems like our primary method for long range communications in the event of an emergency. As for the current possible signal jamming, I already have one of the security staff assigned to assist Pedro with operating the comms room and hopefully getting our signals restored.”
Shifting on his feet a bit, Markus looked over at Pedro and then back at Captain Stan. Clearing his throat, he continued.
“In addition to this information, I already have drafted a plan for if the utmost worst situation occurs. There are enough secure spaces around the ship to safely harbor all passengers and a number of crew members. However, it appears that there are not enough reinforced areas for a small handful of crew… In the event of such a situation, it is my duty to remain in the line of danger and ensure the safety of the passengers. As such, none of the security crew will take up space in the safe areas if such an event occurs…”
“Dammit! Dammit! I told them we needed a bigger fortress room! They said the space was needed for cabins and passenger comfort. Damn corporate hacks!”
Stan blew out a breath, then continued on more calmly.
“Mr. Ryker, I want to make this very clear. If we are boarded, none of your staff, nor any of the crew should resist the boarders. All that will result in is unnecessary harm and possibly death. We just can’t have that.”
Pedro stood stock still. The outburst from the Captain had surprised him, and he didn’t know quite where to look or how to respond, but his response wasn’t called for right now. He looked at Ryker again, which seemed safest.
Bracing himself as Captain Stan expressed his displeasure, Markus continued to speak. “Of course, Captain. I already have it planned that in a worst case scenario, the security team will assist the passengers to safety before taking up positions on the bridge to ensure that any hostile forces do not attempt to sabotage the ship in such a way to capsize it. We will not resist reasonable demands but at the same time, the safety of the passengers comes before all else… Though… This may best be left for later but are there any sensitive equipment or documents I should be aware of that may require destruction in such an event?”
“Yes, of course, if it looks like the passengers will come to harm, then we need to step in. I will not be one of those to go in the safe areas in this possible scenario of a boarding. Sensitive equipment? Not that I’m aware of, no. Sunrise HQ back in Hjamokjim might feel differently, but all the Bridge, Engineering, and radio room equipment is insured...Really the whole boat is insured. There’s no secrets, not from a political standpoint, although, maybe from a corporate consideration. None of it matters if we lose a single crew or passenger, however.”
He finished off his bottled water to punctuate that statement. He thought back to what Lilja had said about the radar. Could this be related? Possibly, but he wasn’t going to throw in more conjecture until he had Jason Hoyt’s final report.
“In addition to the current maritime laws pertaining to safe passage, are there any Lake specific laws or agreements that I should know about in case I need to make a polite stand against an illicit boarding?”
Stan waved generally to the air.
“We have agreements with all the governments and all the ports. For months now, and this goes for future voyages, too. We were given specific permission to dock in Wjol, not to mention every other port on our itinerary. For anyone to seize us and board us would be in flagrant violation of those agreements, not to mention WA maritime law. Not only would it be an affront to Glisandia, but to any and every other nation on the Lake. Absolute piracy. Not to say that everyone is happy with that. I would imagine there’s still quite a few Yellowsian military that are quite butthurt about how they lost the War.”
Nodding, Markus cracked a wry smile. “Excellent… At prior postings I took an interest in international relations and World Assembly affairs. This provides a strong basis against any issues we may experience. I’ve taken a few World Assembly sponsored courses through the International Transport Safety Committee. If need be, I’ll politely and professionally explain to any boarding parties how they violate international standards and as to why it is in their best interest to get off this vessel.
Stan nodded.
“I hope that works, but...again. Yellowsians. They aren’t ones to pay heed to international laws. I guess they’re trying to change their tune, but they have a bad track record.”
“Of course. Anyways Captain, I do believe that covers what I wanted to discuss with you at this ungodly hour. Pedro, did you have anything to add?”
“No, Sir. I will do my part.” Fortunado stood tall, calling on his past naval experience in his stance.
Stan nodded again.
“Good. Let’s keep this between us all, but also talk to Mr. Hoyt as you will need his assistance. Second Officer Astridsdottir is also aware, of course. Keep up your preparations. We should reconvene tomorrow morning early, but for the rest of tonight, I need my sleep to be sharp...for anything. That is all, gentlemen.”
He saw his two crew officers out the door into the passageway, again glancing about to see if anyone was observing. The coast was clear. It was mostly crew cabins at this end, anyway, so he wasn’t too concerned about an interloper.
After they left, he got ready for bed, and tucked in. It took him a few minutes to push the anxiousness to the back of his mind and drift off. The experience of being a merchant marine captain during wartime had helped him in being able to do that.