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Cap Mandrake -> Streamer Trunk (12/22/2005 8:54:08 PM)
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As was his habit in times of distress, Lt. Col Imagawa poured another two fingers worth of rum and put it to his lips. He felt the familiar burn in his mouth and a warm flush as the elxir began to work it's magic on his troubled brain. He looked a the bottle given him at his recent retirement party by the Royal Australian Navy liason to SWPac. It was a brand that was new to him, M & M Enterprises. Still, it felt good. It gave him the courage to open the old steamer trunk he kept in his quarters. He depressed two brass rivets and opened a hidden panel. A metalic ring of exactly one cubit's diameter rose slowly to a vertical position on viscous-damped hydraulics. Three gyroscopes began to spin up and the face of the ring assumed a perfect North/South orientation. A pale green light seemed to be emitted directly through the metal and the face of the ring began to look like a pool of Mercury suspended unnaturally in the vertical plane.
Imagwa had grown to admire the crew of the Astoria and he truly loved the ship. He could picture every railing, every step, even the worn spots on the captain's chair on the bridge. The US navy had been very good to him. There were, of course, very few Lt. Colonels commanding a ship in the US Navy. Still, he had a higher duty. He took another sip of fortifier and scribbled a message in uncoded Japanese on a slip of paper:
"American crusier Astoria has 6 compartments flooded but making 20 kts. Now leaving Noumea with one escort Destination Aukland. Six DD operating as ASW force out of Noumea. In port, Lousiville,
Salt Lake City, Detroit, Perth, Honolulu and 2 DD"
There was no need for cyphers or codebooks for the paper was
about to leave Noumea in the most secure fashion possible. He began to feed the paper into the ring. It disappeared with a afaint oscillating hum. He felt a transitory tingling in the hand that had held the message. He rubbed away the numbness with the opposite hand, refelexivley fingering his UCLA 1924 class ring.
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