Diplomacy Snippet 4

Chapter 3

The regular convoy arrived at the south jump point of Tau-1929 like clockwork. Customs and BuLogistics were on the case, they already had the ship manifests courtesy of the ansible. Teams were shuttled over from the station at the jump point to ride into the orbital warehouses while doing the initial inspection.

The assign teams had to secure a sample of the goods before offloading to the navy's warehouses could commence. The ship owners hated that. They wanted to unload but it meant a slightly longer time off for the crew to enjoy their liberty before unloading commenced.

“~~^V^~~”

Every shipment into the star system had to go through customs as well as the IG inspection. The navy was a bit more thorough though; before they accepted a shipment, it had to go through their own IG inspection of the goods to make sure they passed muster.

An entire department had been set up to handle things. A lot of it was automated but there were still sailors responsible for the testing. They worked in several labs that were near the orbital warehouses that fed the factories.

“Uh-oh,” Petty Officer First Class Ted Watkins said as he sat back. He had been working as an inspector for the navy for decades. He'd seen it all in Bek. Usually it was just make-work; the manufacturers had their own quality control on their end. He was careful to do his own due diligence though; there was no telling when his boss or an A.I. would spot-check him.

Besides, no one wanted to be responsible for letting a bad shipment through and getting their people killed. His own life might be on the line sometime in the future. They needed quality products. Of which, this was not.

“What?” Lieutenant Commander Hera Petros asked, noting the expression on the PO's face. It couldn't be good. He was a character, but she knew he didn't exaggerate.

Ted flinched when he heard the familiar voice. It was the big boss; someone he hadn't expected. Hera was good though, a bit of a bitch but she'd back him. “I just ran five cases through the system, ma'am,” he said, still rubbing his back and rolling his shoulders.

She blinked. “Five cases? Of what?” That was definitely against procedure. He was bending over backwards to give someone the benefit of the doubt.

“Of pipe fittings in the latest shipment from Icaria,” he replied, rubbing his back still. He'd been hunched over a scope trying to make them fit. Nothing had.

“You are supposed to run random samples,” Hera said as she came up behind him. She wrinkled her nose. He smelled like he'd been sitting there for a long period of time. There was a case of samples by his stool and another on the counter nearby. Both were open.

“I did that. But none of them passed. So I ran five entire cases at random. Want to guess what happened?”

“Crap,” Hera breathed, coming over to look at the data. She scanned it. “All of them? You are sure you loaded the right spec file?” She looked at the T shape on the scope with the specs.

“Yeah. I triple checked when the first batch was rejected. It's not just that they are out of spec. I don't even know how they did that since they have the molds. It's the copper itself.”

Hera frowned and tapped at the keyboard and brought up a spectrograph. She overlaid it with the base sample, and it didn't match.

He then silently pulled up a file showing the test results of one fitting being tested to failure. It was way out of spec.

“Crap,” she breathed.

“Exactly my thinking.”

“Ah hell. Okay, well, we will have to reject the shipment. The admiral is going to have kittens.”

“Yeah. I'm not thrilled that I'm going to be called in on this either,” Ted muttered as he began the process of detailing his findings in a formal report.

“~~^V^~~”

Boni noted the report on the bad batch and ordered an independent review under her own authority. When it too came back as bad a shift later, she forwarded everything to the admiral.

Shelby rubbed her brow as she read the report. “Both tests failed?”

“Quality control was clear on that. Out of spec parts, bad material. It failed those and in destruction tests they all failed well below the minimums.”

“Frack,” Shelby snarled. “Who did it?”

“Bright Metalworks out of Icaria,” the A.I. replied instantly, putting up a spreadsheet and then a map.

Shelby frowned thoughtfully as she looked at Icaria. Icaria was in Tau-R75G24, a binary cul-de-sac star system three jumps away. They were a new supplier. Normally those things happen but this smelled bad.

“Reject the shipment. Return to sender at their expense,” she said flatly.

“Understood,” Boni said, fully expecting to deal with some irate people in the near future.

“~~^V^~~”

Boni fully expected to deal with more than her fair share of irate people as the news spread about the shipment. She had to bring various departments into the loop: let logistics know they wouldn't be getting the shipment so they could adjust, the DOJ to start a possible criminal investigation, JAG to do the same, NCIS, and then inform the manufacturer of the problem.

She made certain to pass on the IG inspection findings that stated the copper material was of a low grade and not thick enough in walls to match spec. Also, the parts were not to spec in size and shape even after extensive manual testing. She then ended the ansible email with a polite request for their quality control records.

She was immediately suspicious when she received a politely worded letter from the manufacturer's legal department within an hour sighting breach of contract. It had a threat of bringing Governor Fos involved so that meant she had to give a heads up to the State Department as well. Marcello, their A.I., took it with a thanks and a request for more input as soon as possible.

“~~^V^~~”