by David Smith
She’d already found that one of the ship’s climate control modules had been converted into a still, and many of Tiger’s crew had . . . unorthodox methods for completing their tasks.
For all that, they were barely keeping the ship moving at all. The warp drive was functioning, but shields were off-line, and phasers were marginal. Worse still, they had no torpedoes. Even if they’d loaded a complement of the weapons, the equipment to handle and launch torpedoes was completely inoperative.
The sensors were continually breaking down or drifting out of calibration, and even the reaction drives and thrusters were regularly off-line. The ship’s replicators and transporters were all non-functional, and as they didn’t have any catering staff, they were living off ration packs. Their only respite from the nearly inedible rations came when someone could find the time to use one of the few working appliances in the galley and actually cook a meal the hard way.
They’d found out why communications had been lost with Sector 244. The string of sub-space relay stations that provided the spine of the communications network had been severed in several places. All of the stations closest to Sha T’Al and Tana space had been attacked and destroyed.
Even with only partially functioning sensors it was clear that this was no coincidence. Someone had clinically severed this vital line of communication.
This was where Chamberlain’s problems had really begun. Here, right on the border between Federation and Sha T’Al space, they’d established that the network had been deliberately disrupted, but she had no specific instruction as to what to do next. She couldn’t even report the issue and ask for guidance: there were no relay stations nearby.
More importantly she hadn’t yet ascertained the situation within the Independent Sha T’Al home-worlds. There was a contingent of Starfleet personnel on Todot Hahn, and her heart told her that she should be on her way there to ensure their safety.
Her head was altogether more pragmatic. The ship was unreliable, the crew a liability. It would be vastly irresponsible to go any further. But her old friend and colleague Izzy Grosvenor was stranded on Todot Hahn, along with a dozen of her ship mates. More importantly, Izzy’s last communication made it clear that the political situation was rapidly destabilising and that war was a real possibility. She made her mind up: She’d just have to fix the ship and sort out the crew along the way.
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Although he was officially suspended, Dave wasn’t childish enough to sit around idly. He carried on with his day to day routine, but did it quietly.
It seemed most of Tiger’s officers and crew were more than happy to continue accepting his ‘recommendations’ in much the same way they’d previously accepted his orders, and the ship ran as normally as could be expected.
Dave would stop by the Bridge occasionally and usually found Commander Ruiz in the Captain’s chair as Captain B’Stard was, apparently, still fulfilling her role as a representative of JAG and ‘continuing her investigations’ by interviewing the living daylights out of Israel Joynes.
To his surprise, Ruiz seemed to be of a very different mould to Captain B’Stard. He seemed to be an intensely pragmatic man, with a dry, laconic wit.
Dave was also pleased to see that Ruiz knew the seriousness of their situation, and recognised his own short-comings. He was quite happy to discuss the day to day running of Tiger and took Dave’s comments on board.
Dave had looked up his service record and had found that Commander Ramon Ruiz had served with distinction on several vessels before transferring to JAG. It seemed he’d blotted his copy-book with his last Captain in refusing to comply with a direct, but questionable order.
He’d found himself surplus to requirements and eventually been posted to JAG. In view of his misdemeanour it was surprising that he hadn’t already been assigned to USS Tiger.
A few days after ceding command of the ship to Captain B’Stard, Dave was in the A&A offices on Deck 3 discreetly discussing the clash between Tana and Sha T’Al cultures and psyche with Lieutenant-Commander O’Mara, Lieutenant Skye L’Amour and Lieutenant Verity Selassie.
O’Mara ran her fingers through her long tousled red hair, getting them stuck as usual and having to disentangle them as she spoke. ‘We reckon there’s something funny going on. It’s easy enough to see why the Sha T’Al have taken exception to the Tana broadcasts. We already know how seriously they take their art, and we now know how appallingly bad Tana TV shows are. What has surprised us is the aggression of the Sha T’Al’s response. It’s just not in their nature to be like that.’
Dave nodded. ‘In confidence one of the Sha T’Al elders has voiced suspicions that the new leader may be in the early stages of the degenerative disease we’re familiar with.’
Verity Selassie was an expert cultural anthropologist. The powerfully built Kenyan said ‘That would explain a lot. We’ve been examining Sha T’Al history, or at least what we know of it, and they seem to go to great lengths to reach negotiated solutions to every issue. One might even say unreasonable lengths. They’re inherently and obstinately peaceful and go out of their way to avoid conlict or confrontation. That also means that when someone is elected as their leader, they tend to follow that leader’s instructions without question.’
The facts sat well with Dave’s personal view of the Sha T’Al. They were admirably serene in all their dealings, and he’d only had one incident, many, many months ago . . .
The memory of an aspirin-crazed, slavering Sha T’Al bearing down on him brought an involuntary shiver. He pushed it to the back of his mind. ‘What about the Tana?’
Selassie sighed. ‘That’s even harder to understand. Every indication we have says that the Tana should actually be ignoring this border and heading in the opposite direction to continue the expansion of their Empire. There’s absolutely no reason for them to be getting into a war with the Sha T’Al, especially considering how limited their numbers are.’
Dave paused. ‘I’ve not seen much of Commander Grosvenor, but she tells me there’s still little communication from either side. Having said that, she did point out that the Tana are broadcasting an awful lot of news, documentaries and chat-shows as well as soaps and game-shows. She thinks we might be able to pick up clues from there?’
O’Mara looked at Selassie, whose shoulders slumped. ‘Really?? Do I have to?’
O’Mara adopted a conciliatory tone. ‘Look, I know it’s awful viewing, but Grosvenor is right; it’s current, it’s valid, and there’s a hell of a lot of it . . . ‘
Selassie sighed. ‘Yeah, she’s right. We’ll get on it, but there’s so much of it I’ll probably need some help.’
All eyes swivelled to L’Amour, who looked devastated.
‘Aww what? Do I have to?’ she moaned.
‘It’s only fair’ chided O’Mara.
L’Amour wasn’t impressed and glowered at Hollins. ‘It’s his stupid idea. And he’s not even on duty at the moment: he’s got plenty of time to help out.’
Dave was about to object, but having seen clips of Tana television, he knew what a big favour he was asking. ‘Oh alright. I’ll do some too’ he grumbled.
The tiny kiwi Lieutenant smiled at him and winked ‘Just do a couple of hours to start with Hollins. Then come down to my quarters. I’ll be off duty by then and I’ll find a way to take your mind off things.’
O’Mara and Selassie both rolled their eyes, and Dave decided that he’d decline politely. Skye had distracted him that way twice before, and although both were very pleasurable experiences, they had been a long and completely exhausting days.
He was just searching for a tactful way in which to turn her down when the red alert klaxon sounded and Commander Ruiz’ voice boomed over the ship’s broadcast. ‘Emergency! Captain B’Stard to the Bridge please!’
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Dave knew B’Stard wouldn’t welcome his presence, but he felt obliged to go to the Bridge all the same. She hadn’t acknowledged the fact, but h
e was still the most experienced ship commander aboard, and he was determined to give her the benefit of his experience even if it wasn’t wanted.
To his surprise, he arrived on the Bridge to find Commander Ruiz still in the Captain’s chair. ‘Where’s the Captain?’ he asked.
Ruiz looked around at him and shrugged ‘Beats me. No sign of Joynes either. If I had to hazard a guess I’d say she’s probably still de-briefing him. Again.’
An image flashed through Dave’s mind, unbidden and definitely unwanted. He shivered and said ‘What’s the situation?’
‘We’re still following the Captain’s orders and making for Hole at warp six. We’ve just crossed back into Sector 244 now and we’ve just found the reason why we can’t contact Command.’
Ruiz pulled up a camera view on the main screen. Ahead of them lay a cloud of expanding debris. ‘That’s what’s left of Sub-space Relay Station 244-8b.’
Dave looked over to the Science Station where O’Mara had taken a seat. Her fingers danced expertly over the console, bringing all the ship’s sensors to bear on the debris field. ‘Getting lots of residual ionised plasma and traces of x-ray radiation. I’m guessing the station was destroyed by a high-energy plasma weapon.’
‘The Sha T’Al!’ murmured Ruiz.
‘Looks that way’ murmured Dave. ‘Where the hell is the Captain? She needs to see this.’
Ruiz pressed a button on the arm of the chair, and called her again.
At last, the Captain responded, choosing to take the call from where she was, rather than coming to the Bridge.
Her image appeared on the Bridge’s main view-screen, although it was immediately obvious that she’d only intended to open an audio channel.
There were hushed gasps all around the Bridge.
She was clearly in Joynes’ cabin, although it was darkened a little, and the air was thick with suspicious looking wisps of smoke.
Her face loomed close to the camera at the side of Joynes’ bed, eyes closed, sweating and racked with exertion. She was completely naked, on all fours, grunting and groaning as an equally naked Israel Joynes knelt behind her, thrusting his hips against her buttocks so hard that her whole body shook from his efforts.
Her eyes stayed closed and she could barely distract herself long enough to ask ‘What is it Ruiz?’
Dave quietly sniggered ‘Somebody please tell me we’re recording this!!’
Susan replied in a whisper. ‘All Bridge communications are monitored and recorded for safety and operational reasons, Commander. Just by the by, I’m also making back-up copies and recording this in maximum fidelity: it’s too good an opportunity to miss.’
Ruiz cleared his throat and tried to continue as if nothing was amiss. ‘Captain, we’ve crossed the border into Federation space. One of our Relay Stations appears . . . ‘
On the screen, Captain B’Stard’s body tensed, she screwed her face up and gasped softly as she reached a very obvious climax. There was an extended pause as Captain B’Stard was extremely, obliviously distracted, but even before her orgasm had subsided, Joynes withdrew from her, exposing his gigantic penis.
‘What the f . . . ‘ gasped Ruiz.
Joynes pulled B’Stard’s legs back down the bed, laying her out flat on her front. He then manfully flipped the slim Captain over onto her back, knelt back behind her hips, lifted her calves up onto his shoulders and pushed his manhood back into her. B’Stard squealed in pain and delight, and as Joynes leaned forward over her, nearly bending her in half, he began to thrust himself into her even harder and faster.
The Bridge crew could only watch open mouthed as Joynes did his level best to pound the ecstatic Captain through the mattress, shaking the bed, and the camera on the comms panel beside it.
Dave was sure he could feel the whole ship shaking, and although everybody on the Bridge looked shocked and embarrassed, no-one took their eyes off the view-screen for even a millisecond.
B’Stard was grunting in ecstasy now and her hand waved in front of the camera, desperately trying to find the cut-off button on the comm-set. In amongst her groans of exertion and pleasure she whimpered ‘V-very g-good! Oh, that’s so, so good! Carry on Commander! Yes! Yes! Yes! CARRY ON!! YES! YES! YYESSSSS!!!!!’
More to himself than anyone else Ruiz muttered ‘I’ll send you a damned status report.’
He finally did the decent thing and cut the connection. He cleared his throat again and said calmly, ‘It would seem that the Captain is delegating authority to me at the moment. Any suggestions?’
Crash could barely contain a snigger. ‘She seems fairly flexible: she could try the Mexican Cartwheel position.’
Ruiz scowled at him ‘I meant about our next move.’
Dave had nothing to lose by speaking his mind. ‘We should never have left Todot Hahn. We can’t do anything to head off the problem from this side of the border.’
To his amazement, Ruiz agreed. ‘I concur. Lieutenant Dolplop, please plot a course back to Todot Hahn.’
He turned and addressed Dave directly. ‘So Hollins, what’s this I hear about your warp-drive system?’
‘Ah. You’ve heard about that then?’
‘I’m not an idiot Hollins. It didn’t take five minutes to run through the logs and spot the date discrepancies. It also didn’t take long to find the records that you haven’t been screwing around with. Like the Engineering Department data of the drive’s performance. And the Science Department’s numerous investigations into n-dimensional warp-field responses?’
‘Ah’ said Dave eloquently.
‘B’Stard’s never served on a ship before, but I have, and I know when I’m being bull-shitted. So what’s the deal with the warp-drive?’
Dave knew they were rumbled and threw himself on the mercy of the court. ‘When we left the Arcturus ranges we suffered a drive malfunction which threw us into an unstable worm-hole. We lost three warp-coils in each nacelle and were stranded god knows where. As luck would have it, Chief Deng had salvaged some coils from a Tana battleship we’d run up against previously and in desperation we bodged them into our nacelles. It got the ship underway, but we didn’t have any navigational data, so it wasn’t until later we realised that the two sets of drive coils weren’t compatible. We were moving through space at enormous relative velocities, but backwards in time.’
Ruiz nodded. ‘So that’s how you got to Todot Hahn immediately after leaving Arcturus.’
Dave thought he might have blushed. ‘Er . . . actually we were . . . distracted . . . for a couple of months along the way. For every day the drive runs at maximum cruising speed we travel over eleven light years, but go backwards in time nearly a day and a half.’
Ruiz considered this. ‘Well, I think this is important. We need to get back to Todot Hahn as soon as we can. Lieutenant Dolplop, when you lay in the course for Todot Hahn, adjust our speed so we arrive there immediately after we left.’
Dave was impressed. Ruiz had already spotted the potential of the drive system and decided to make use of its ability whilst trying to avoid obvious breaches of temporal etiquette.
Ruiz punched a button on the console on the arm of the Captain’s chair. ‘All senior staff to the Officer’s Mess immediately please.’
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The senior officers assembled around the briefing table in the Mess. Ruiz asked them to sit down and began.
‘I see that the Captain and First Officer are otherwise engaged again. In my capacity as third in command and officer currently in charge, I’m taking the ship back to Todot Hahn.’
He waited for the gasps and whispers to subside before continuing. ‘I’ll be honest: I’m not sure what our best course of action is. Having said that, I can’t see any way that being in Sector 244 can be helpful, so I believe we should go back to Todot Hahn and take things from there.’
ASBeau added a word of caution. ‘We still have the rest of your JAG team aboard as well as the Feds, the FRS and Union reps. I can’t imagine they’l
l be happy about heading back into a potential war zone.’
Ruiz nodded. ‘I appreciate that, but I don’t believe we can spare the time to drop them off. We don’t actually have to tell them we’ve changed course, and it’s unlikely they’ll notice the change of their own accord. We’ll just have to find some way to keep them occupied.’
Commander Mengele nodded. ‘That won’t be an issue with the Federal Agents; Both are currently unconscious following medical procedures to repair the damage inflicted by Chief Belle; should . . . complications . . . arise, it will be necessary to keep them sedated for a longer period.’
Ruiz looked at Dave who could only shrug. ‘Thank you Doctor, I’m sure the damage inflicted by Chief Belle is sufficient to warrant extensive sedation.’
‘It normally is’ grumbled ASBeau, who’d been on the wrong end of one of Chief Belle’s legendary spin-kicks before.
Ruiz shrugged too. ‘I can keep the JAG team in line: none of them are great fans of Captain B’Stard so I should be able to get them to play along. I guess we don’t have to worry too much about the FRS either. They decided to start their investigation by talking to the crewmen who’d spent most time on the ground at Hole . . . ‘
‘Our Locally Recruited Enlisted Persons??’ asked Dave.
Ruiz shrugged. ‘Apparently so. They started interviewing them three days ago and I’ve not heard a peep from them since.’
‘I have!’ grumbled a very tired looking Aisling O’Mara. ‘My cabin is right above the guest quarters the Steward put the FRS Officers in. I’ve been hearing them “interview” the LREPs all bloody day and night. I’m not sure what Chief Money’s special recruits have got them doing, but I swear it’s shaking the floor of my cabin.’
There was an embarrassed silence which Commander Olga Romanov broke. ‘Well that only leaves the Union Reps to worry about. I suppose it should be relatively easy for me to keep them occupied: If I make sure I upset Sylvain Voltaire a couple of times a day, he’ll keep them so occupied their ears will bleed.’
