Читать книгу The Crucible - Joaquin De Torres - Страница 10

Becca pressed the SAVE button for the research thesis she had completed after five weeks of work. She closed her laptop and switched off her two adjoining flat screens on either side. She sighed with relief and satisfaction. This thesis was a bitch! She sat back in her chair and popped another strawberry into her mouth.

“Oh well, she’ll probably tear it to shreds anyway,” she said as her cell phone chimed. She read the text and smiled.

“Right on time!” Suddenly rejuvenated, she stretched her back. Okay boys, here I come!

At a towering six-foot-two, with honey-blond hair and a stunning athletic body, Rebecca Raven leaving her glass-paneled office was always a treat for the men in the lab. She didn’t mind; she loved their attention and they loved her teasing. Throughout the relentless hours of computer simulations, physics calculations, and chemistry research models that dominated every facet of their lives, the office members needed someone to remind them that they were still human.

She slid a glistening track of gloss over her lips and slipped on her 2-inch black heels. She stood up, now six-foot- four, straightened her uniform, grabbed the cup of strawberries, and headed out the door amidst the stares of countless men who stopped work to look and pick their jaws up off the floor. Her long, confident strides and supermodel body only enhanced their fantasies, especially for the married men. But at the end of the day, which was normally at night, they all knew their places. As hot as she was, Becca was no typical morsel of office eye candy by any stretch. Intellectually, they couldn’t hold a candle to her, and this made their fantasies even more smoldering.

As one of over 385 military and civilian scientists, software engineers and program designers working throughout the WEPS-ONE complex, Raven was considered one of the most brilliant. She had been working for eight months as a software architect when she was reassigned to join the advanced production staff. This was no ordinary in-house transfer. She was promoted to the highest level of development responsibility within the WEPS-ONE universe, working side-by-side with someone who was considered a living legend in the field: Kristina Torres. Within 15 months, Raven had blossomed into Torres’ most prolific protégé.

The Naval Weapons Research Center managed twelve divisions, WEPS-ONE though WEPS-TWELVE. The purpose of the WEPS program was to upgrade the fleet with cutting edge warfare systems using the manpower and material help of only a few defense contractors, while capitalizing on the military’s own groups of designers, technicians and civil resources to make the final products.

Despite the rhetoric of critics in the industry, as well as the rancor of the politicians who no longer would get their cut from contractors, the Joint In-House Weapons Development Program (JWEPS) was born, ratified and financed by the DoD. It worked well for a decade as thousands of the best minds from all military services and ranks joined forces with government civil service engineers.

Ten years later, after the passage of the JWEPS bill, the site was repurchased by the Department of the Navy and WEPS was born. But shortly after celebrating its fifteenth anniversary, the roof suddenly caved in. With the retirements of nine senior developers, the luring away of eight software designers by outside competing contractors, and the untimely traffic death of the program’s most talented visionary, Mark Benjamin, the program found itself disintegrating from within. Nevertheless, the fleet’s demands for new systems continued.

The loss of Benjamin, the energetic founding father of the WEPS-ONE program, was a massive blow. WEPS-ONE, the department in charge of next generation weapons development, had lost its philosophical compass and its forward-looking vision. After two years of mediocre production efforts with no new weapons plans on the horizon, WEPS-ONE lost much of its funding. During its final 18 months of contractual existence, a brilliant young naval officer was assigned to WEPS-ONE as the new lead developer.

Kristina Torres was a valedictorian graduate from the Naval Academy with a Bachelor’s of Science in Advanced Software Architecture, and a Master’s in Advanced Mathematics from the Naval Post Graduate School. She would later finish two more Master's degrees in Aero-Ballistics and Applied Combat Physics from the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island while making several tours on various combatant ships and qualifying as a Surface Warfare and Tactical Weapons Officer. By the time she was promoted to Commander, she was already slated to become an executive officer of a combat ship until her father intervened to find her a position at the dying WEPS project. Despite her seafaring achievements, she was suddenly catapulted into the scientific and political realm of Washington, D.C.

Naturally the buzz of the Beltway was to see if this woman’s brilliance could change the sad state of affairs at White Oak. Admiral Ramon Torres pulled his strings to make sure that it happened. Yet, no one--not even her father--knew that it would be with this new assignment that WEPS-ONE would become a phoenix emerging from the ashes, and that Commander Kristina Torres would attain legendary status.

“What’cha doin’?” Becca asked playfully as she looked at the three flat monitors positioned in a semi-circle around their user.

“Just some last minute adjustments to the XR-1. I wasn’t satisfied with our last cold-start simulation.” Becca repositioned herself to look squarely into the person’s face.

“Ah, hellooo! We were 96 percent on mark for cold-start, honey! This is the mark you wanted.” Kristina Torres looked up at her and smiled.

“Yes, babe, but we simulated in a sea-state four at 30 degrees Fahrenheit. What if we were in sea-state five, typhoon or hurricane conditions, and the temperature dropped below 20 degrees? We would have a cold-start delay of .047 seconds. I’m reconfiguring the new algorithms to cover this just in case.”

“You’re worried about .047? That’s so less than a second! You’re such a geek! Where the hell do you get this stuff!? I mean, seriously.” Becca’s cynical grin displayed both amusement and awe.

“In my dreams, mostly. Like Nikola Tesla; they come in visions,” she chuckled.

“I’m curious. Am I ever in your dreams or visions?” Becca’s question prompted Kristina to smile salaciously.

“Of course you are, Becca. And in all of them,” she looked up. “You’re naked.”

“God, you always make me wet!” Becca leaned over and whispered. The two burst out in laughter.

With her unequalled knowledge of combat computer systems, quick wit and mesmerizing briefing skills, Kristina Torres transformed a fledging program in debt into one of great congressional attention. In less than three years, WEPS-ONE developed three fire control suites, two air defense radars, two laser-guided targeting systems, and numerous multi-platform electronic upgrades--all of them, designed by Torres herself.

The Navy then started doing something it could never do in the past when it was controlled by civilian defense contracting conglomerates: It started making money for itself.

WEPS was owned and operated by the Navy; therefore, it had no patent or royalty obligations. It kept and profited from its own trade secrets, making billions of dollars selling the systems and parts of these upgrades to allied navies.

During the last eight months alone, WEPS-ONE developed three new surface-to-surface missile systems, as well as the much anticipated TORRES XR-1 Tactical Response System (TRS)--Kristina’s most important game changing design to date. Her creation was set to come online for the first time aboard WEPS-ONE’s perennial testbed, the USS Gettysburg, an ancient, but still serviceable AEGIS Ticonderoga-class guided-missile frigate.

WEPS-ONE practically owned the vessel, affectionately referring to her as its own private yacht. The feeling of ownership was personal. All of Torres’ innovations had been tested aboard this platform before they were mass produced for fleet distribution.

“So, are you going to give me some of those strawberries, or what?” asked Kristina as she continued entering data.

“Of course, my queen,” Becca teased as she placed one strawberry into her mouth. Becca viewed the data over Kristina’s shoulder as she continued to feed her the strawberries.

“Have you finished the ballistics thesis?” Kristina asked.

“Yes, it’s in your inbox. Please be merciful. My drag coefficient and orthographic projection calculations may need some work.”

“Did you account for viscosity and vortex sheet?”

“Yeah, but I can’t seem to concentrate much on this thesis proposal when there’s so much to do around here. We’ve got so many irons in the fire, plus our trip.”

“Don’t worry about your thesis,” reassured Kristina. “I’ll fix all your calculations for you.” She looked at Becca and winked playfully. “As usual!”

“Why do you have to be such a bitch!” Becca gasped. “You’ve got three Masters and two pending Ph.D.s; and I’m struggling just to get out my second Master’s!” Neither held back the laughter.

Although she was only three years younger at thirty-one, Lieutenant Commander Raven looked up to Torres not just as her superior officer, but as a mentor and loving sister. The comfort and protection she felt within Torres’ realm was something she could never imagine with any other person. Kristina had made her intentions known to everyone from the first day that she was first and foremost a human being, colleague and friend, and then she was a naval officer.

During official meetings they were stern professionals; on the lab floor they were focused colleagues, but out of uniform they were just as mischievous, fun-loving and silly as teenagers. Most of their nights were spent together at the office going over schematics, rewriting programs, or creating proposals. Some of those nights, they stayed at each other’s homes, confessing their pasts and crying over personal traumas. In less than a year together, they had become soul mates.

“Hey Becca, how about lunch at the Bay Shore Lobster House after the briefing?”

“Don’t you have like 15 freakin’ meetings you have to attend?” Becca countered jovially. “And four freakin’ interviews and like a thousand freakin’ e-mails you have to answer?”

“You can say “fuck”, Becca! “Freakin’” is so ‘90s!”

“Not in uniform. That would be unprofessional,” Becca chided sarcastically.

“Yeah, whatever! That’s the most commonly used word in the Navy. Anyway, I told the senators, the brass and the suits that I had those appointments, but actually I’m free. Besides, Verdasco is the new face of WEPS. I told him to handle it. So, I’m taking you to lunch.”

“Oh my! Rick Verdasco,” Becca breathed, rolling her eyes and fanning her neck with her hand. “He’s so hot!”

“Yes, he is. But he’s our partner on the civilian side, so no sleeping with him!” Kristina smiled as she wagged her finger. Becca curled her lips into a pout and folded her arms.

“Look, there he is.” Kristina nodded to a well-dressed Latino man in his mid-‘30s, walking with several associates towards his office. Becca snapped her neck in that direction.

“Fucking hot,” she whispered lustfully. “Oh well, another one gets away due to the office fraternization rules. It’s depressing. We’ll never have sex in this place!”

“We can’t, Becca. We’re too important and too visible,” countered Kristina as she began shutting down her computers.

“I know. But look at us! We’re fucking hot, and all these guys are tripping over their tongues whenever one of us walks by! And we can’t touch ‘em.”

“Nope. We can’t.” Becca looked at her with an expression of disbelief.

“And that’s okay with you?”

“Becca, come on. This work is my pleasure. What we do is massively important. Plus, I just don’t need sex right now.”

“That’s crap and you know it.” Becca scoffed. “You don’t want a relationship because you know your father will try to shut it down.”

“Becca, please. I’m a grown girl, and I make my own decisions. And I will sleep with whomever, wherever and whenever I please.”

“I love when you talk slutty! All right, I’ll let you go this time. But I’m telling you, if we’re ever drinking at your place and Verdasco shows up at our door, I swear--within five minutes--we’re all getting naked!” They laughed again.

They gathered their files, memory sticks, and notes and headed out the door. Down the stairs and through two long corridors, they reached the doors of Conference Room Two. Before entering Kristina took a deep breath and delivered her trademark wink and smile.

“Let’s go have some fun, girl.”

“You’re so the bomb.” Becca answered. They entered the conference room to a thunderous round of applause.