Chapter Eight;
(Wo)Man On The Inside

Estimated time of arrival at 157'4 ºE, 14'9 ºS: 23 minutes

The Kanimbla was a magnificent sight, one that people should get a chance to see at least once in their lives, especially as she cut through the waters of the Coral Sea. A Landing Platform Amphibious, or what they just called a Kanimbla class, she was built for the exact purpose she was about to serve. Getting troops from the water to the land and back again. In and out as quickly as possible. For that reason many of the crew had nicknamed her the 'Player'. But she never played games and to serve anywhere near the Kanimbla was a real tribute. She was a fighter and had fought more battles than her tough outer skin showed. From the distance she was a marvel. Close up she caught your breath and stole it from your lungs. Travelling at 22 knots/h at full speed, her 51 bright and shining on her sides, she was 8534 tons of pure power. 159.2 metres long, carrying 3 Sea Kings and 4 Blackhawks, and armed to the teeth with one 20mm Phalanx MK 15 and six 12.7mm Machine guns. But below the surface was where she struck the blow. Propelled by 2 ALCO V16 diesel engines working at 2750 horsepower, she usually carried a small army of 23 naval officers and 2 army officers as well as 197 sailors and 18 soldiers but now she carried a lot more. Capable of carrying another 400 personnel, she was just under half full. 130 soldiers and two SAS groups comprising of 10 men each. She powered forward to her destination with her motto on her lungs. In short it was 'Cry Havoc'. In full it was William Shakespeare's best…

"And Caesar's spirit ranging for revenge, with 'ate by his side come hot from hell, shall in these confines with a monarch's voice, cry "Havoc!" and let slip the Dogs of War."

Below the surface a pretty brunette Seaman by the name of Emma was on the phone to her father. Behind her, watching her every move, was the ship's radio operator, Herbie. It was standard on a naval ship to have all calls monitored so as to quash any attempts at an internal coup. Of course, if the radio operator was in on it, then there was a problem. But Emma wasn't attempting a coup. She was just helping her father.

"More than I could've imagined daddy." She shot Herbie a smile and he returned it quickly. At 22 Emma should've been well past calling her father 'daddy' but she'd been doing it for so long it had seemed unnatural to ever stop. Now people were used to it. Everyone knew Emma's father anyway, many having already accused Emma of only making it on the Kanimbla because of her father, but they knew better than to question the old Lieutenant himself. In fact Emma was a smart girl, a communication systems sailor for the Kanimbla, but a bit of a wild child when she wanted to be. For this reason she'd long ago inherited the name Scruffy. But she had a good heart and made friends easily. Probably one of the reasons so many had put up their hands to help her and her father. "Even the Colonel. Says he'll give anything to help you."

"I'm proud of you sweetheart. Your brothers send their love and the best of luck. They hope they can join you soon enough but I'm not sure that will happen." The old man relayed in the information and support Emma had recieved from her brothers Troy and Dylan. 26 and 28 respectively, they were both Leading Seamen serving on patrol boats. The chance they'd get caught up in Libertile was low, but then with patrol boats you could never be sure. As was why Emma was here in the first place. "I've given the Hammersley's RO the information they need to scramble the information. By the time the Hammersley gets on the Kanimbla's radar it will be too late for them to do anything." Emma grinned. One thing she had mastered, outside the Navy of course, was the bouncing of radio and radar signals. She knew exactly what to do, what to mask, to make a ship virtually untouchable, even by ships of it's own fleet. Naturally a ship the size of a patrol boat would always be visible by the human eye, but there were things one could do to make the ship electronically invisible. In all senses it was as if the Hammersley were never there. It helped that Emma had instructed they tell their Commander that they were leaving, bound for another disturbance on an island 90 kilometres south. Whether Marshall had believed them or not remained to be seen.

"We'll be there in about 25 minutes but being that it's about 1am I don't think we'll be out for a while." She gave a tinkering laugh that bounced off every wall in the room. It was the kind of laugh that made people look up with a smile and say 'there's Emma'. "But Herbie's giving me the evil eye so I better run. I'll be in contact, or someone else will okay daddy."

Rembrandt Murphy smiled. "Of course sweetheart. Have a good night." Emma hung up and turned to Herbie with a grin.

"And now, I'm going to bed!" She grinned and almost skipped from the room. Herbie just shook his head and went back to his paperwork.


Emma awoke at her assigned time of 4:50 am for her routine inspection of the helicopters with the other communications crewmembers. Since 2005 it had become practically a rule for the communications and flight deck members of the Kanimbla to check the helicopters before daybreak, before operations and after they returned. To prevent tampering, unexpected faults and anything else they couldn't take into account until everything went wrong. They were split into two groups, those who checked the Sea Kings and those who checked the Blackhawks. Emma was part of the Sea King group who had been nicknamed 'Sharkers' after the Shark 2 that had crashed in Nias in July 2005 taking with it 9 dedicated and brave ADF personnel. The group who checked the Blackhawks were affectionately known as 'Porters' after Joshua Porter, the Corporal who'd lost his life on the Fiji mission alongside Captain Bingley. To this day the safety of the Blackhawks were in question, but maybe in tribute or desire to never have it repeated, the 'Porters' took their jobs very seriously. It was their little bit of a tribute to the 11 brave men and women who had died in the Kanimbla's choppers.

As Emma walked towards the first Sea King with two of her fellow communications crewmembers she gave a big yawn. The 4 hours of sleep was getting to her and she quickly regretted staying up so late to talk to her father. As she rubbed her eyes they finally fell on the island before her. Libertile, from the massive ship, was little more than an oversized clump of trees. But Emma knew there was more to it than that. Somewhere beneath the surface was a force to be reckoned with. And evidently the Australian government knew that to send the Kanimbla. But what that was Emma didn't know and neither did her father. There was something else going on here that no one seemed to be happy to share. Emma gave a small smile. It was big. Really big.

"Murphy, back to work." A voice called from behind her. She didn't know who it was but quickly went back to it. Her father had already warned her not to draw attention to herself that day. No one needed to suspect she'd planned something. It was just a normal day for the Seaman. For now…


A/N: Yeah, it's Scruffy with a slight name change. Lol. Guess what, i can put myself in this if i wish and there's nothing you can do about it.
On another note; all history and facts here about the Kanimbla are true. The deaths of these men are not used lightly and maybe as my tribute to them. Hopefully it will be seen that way anyway.

Disclaimer: As before, no characters belong to me. All views expressed here are not echoed by the sites they are published on.