by David Smith
“That’s a surprise” said Dave, “If you’ll pardon the pun, I’d have thought it was a straight shoot-out put between ASBeau and Chief Belle?”
“That’s what we thought last year, until Jane Doe from Engineering banged her head on the last day of the competition. She developed a weird Russian accent and hit two hundred consecutive bulls-eyes. She would have won the competition outright, but the last part of the competition was a walk through the range where you had to eliminate the threat targets and leave the friendly targets intact. Chief Belle won by completing the course in four minutes twelve and bagging 50 out 50 threat targets. Jane did the course in sixty two seconds but shot fifty threat targets and also all fifty friendly targets. Every single one was a perfect head shot too. It was truly awesome to watch, but also very, very frightening.”
“Is there something about Crewman Doe I should know? I saw in her records that she was found on earth with no memory of a prior life, but I assumed she was just an amnesiac” said Dave with some concern.
“Beats us, sir. We thought she was American, but when she gets stressed she starts speaking Russian or Chinese, and if she does, you risk your life by talking to her. She was originally assigned to tactical ops but was too unpredictable. Couldn’t hit a cow’s ass with a banjo most days, but every so often ….. bang …. and someone else is in trouble. Either way, it’s really split the betting. ASBeau is taking it really seriously. I see him heading down to the range for a little meat-pigeon shooting on most days.”
“Meat-pigeon shooting?” asked Dave before it clicked into place. “Oh, is that like clay-pigeon shooting but with a haggis?”
“Oh you’ve tried it then sir? Yeah, ASBeau came up with the idea just after the replicators first went schizo, and it really caught on. I actually ran a one-off competition to see who could come up with the best idea for getting rid of eighteen thousand tons of haggis, but most of the answers were on the same theme and weren’t anatomically possible. Neither Chief Burns nor Chief Carstairs saw the funny side of that. ASBeau won the competition with his meat-pigeon shooting idea, and most of the crew have tried it or variations of the basic sport since. It’s quite therapeutic, actually.”
The Chief was on a roll now and carried on like an excited child “Our other big winner of the minute is broadcasting the Security Chief’s training schedule. I’m taking more bets on that than anything else.”
Dave had given permission for the Tactical Officer, Lieutenant-Commander Andre-Safrane Beauregard and Security Chief Barbie Belle to undertake a few combat simulations and training exercises in some of Hole’s deserted tunnels. “What on earth is there to bet on in a few training exercises?”
The Chief realised he may have overstepped the mark “Ah, well ….. just a few stats really sir, nothing exciting.”
Dave fixed him with a very hard stare, and sighing the Chief explained himself: “Chief Belle gets a little frustrated at times, and when she does she gets a little …… cranky. When the Chief gets cranky, people get hurt. We have a pool running on how many people she’ll hospitalise each day. Care to take a pop at tomorrow’s figure sir?”
Dave sighed. Well it wasn’t technically breaking any rules “Yeah, ok. I’ve seen the chief in action, put me down for three.”
The Chief paused and lowered his voice a little. “I’ll help you out here. That’s a touch on the light side. We haven’t had anything lower than four yet.”
Jeez, thought Dave, no wonder he hadn’t seen the ship’s doctor for a month: she was probably the busiest person on the ship “Thanks Chief, make it six.”
“Attaboy! Good call, six is the median number, and coincidently, Chief Belle’s lucky number!”
“You sound like a game-show host.”
“Sorry sir, I think I missed my true calling.”
Chapter 3
Dave didn’t win the pool. The Security Chief reached spectacular new heights, rendering six of the Tactical Officer’s team unconscious as well as three of her own, and coming very close to decapitating ASBeau when he remonstrated with her for her “over-exuberance.” Most of the injuries were minor enough that the crew could return for another beating the next day, but ASBeau was on the wrong end of one of Chief Belle’s trademark spinning aerial kicks, and suffered a dislocated jaw, concussion and whiplash injuries that laid him up for best part of a week.
On the positive side, Chief Money had caught all the action on a security camera, and the re-runs were the most popular thing on the ship’s entertainment channel for weeks to come.
Better still, Commander Romanov called Dave on the Bridge with good news. “PO Kandampully has just been to see me. The scheme for the Tana power relays has worked out even better than planned. PO Halifa has managed to re-configure the electronics to give an output within a tenth of a percent of nominal. We’re on a winner.”
“Excellent! Get Deng over to the Tana ship and strip enough relays for all our duff circuits. Make sure she grabs plenty of spares too.”
“Already done sir, she couldn’t wait to get over there”
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Chief Deng hadn’t been over to the Tana vessel before and she was trembling with excitement. Lieutenant “Stavros” Theodoupolopolis had taken them over in the shuttle they’d appropriated from Chief Money, which had been re-christened 10%. This shuttle was an alien design, and was more difficult to operate and maintain than standard Fleet units, but had enough room that Deng and her team could get far more relays in a single trip.
Stavros docked the shuttle on a port near the Tana battleship’s engineering section, and Deng led her team through the darkened vessel. It was icy cold, pitch dark and eerily silent. The Tana breathed an oxygen atmosphere very similar to Earth’s and Commander Mengele had confirmed the ship’s remaining air held no dangerous pathogens but there was still something deeply disconcerting about being aboard the dead vessel.
Deng opened the visor of her environmental suit and took a big breath of the freezing air. Her breath curled around her, brought into sharp relief by the harsh light of the teams torches. She held up her tricorder up and pulled up the diagram of the ship’s layout that she’d loaded for the mission. The relays they needed were marked in red and she transferred the data to her team’s tricorders and paired them off to seek out the relays. Left on her own, she allowed herself the luxury of a sight-seeing tour of the Tana vessel’s huge engineering spaces.
She wandered through the silent decks, wishing the power was on so she could crank up the mighty vessel and see what she was capable of. Her boots clanged on the bare metal of the deck, echoing around her in the otherwise perfect silence of this huge cathedral of engineering. She came across a small hatch and realised it was some sort of access way up to the warp engines.
She shimmied up the narrow tube, and peered along the nacelle that contained the warp-coils. She spotted the obvious difference immediately. The huge coils in Tiger’s engines that warped space to allow her to cover distances faster than light were perfectly circular, but here the coils were elongated with a pronounced twist in the middle. Fascinated, she opened her communicator “Chief Carstairs, I’m in the Tana vessel’s starboard engine nacelle. If I mark some items with my tricorder, can you lock on to them and beam them into Tiger’s Hangar Deck?”
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Dave was still on the Bridge when Lieutenant Shearer addressed him “Ah hava pryawritee cawl from Joran Dal ecksaw.” She visibly flushed and corrected herself “Sorry, pryawritee cawl Fers Offisah!”
Dave heard “Joran Dal” somewhere in the mix and realised Commander Isobelle Grosvenor might be trying to contact him. Izzy had been their Liaison Officer, but had been promoted and was now the Federation’s ambassador to the independent Sha T’Al worlds just across the border from Hole. “Thank you, Comms, put it through to me here.”
He pressed the button to accept the call, but was disappointed to find that it wasn’t Izzy who wanted to speak to him. “Yo Hollins!” came a bo
oming voice “Israel Joynes here, man!”
“Hello Commander, what can I do for you?” Dave asked politely. Joynes was Tiger’s previous First Officer, but had been reassigned to oversee Federation assistance to the Sha T’Al and was mostly involved with helping to rebuild shattered infrastructure and restart farming, trade and industry.
“Well, it’s like this, man. We’re starting farms up without many farmers, an’ we could do with a ‘lil help pickin’ crops that will be easy to grow an’ harvest. We also need a hand with soil an’ flora analyses, so I was wonderin’ if we could borrow young Skye L’Amour for a few weeks?”
It wasn’t an unreasonable request and Skye was at something of a loose end just at the moment. They wouldn’t really need her services until Tiger was back on patrol after she’d been cleared for service at Arcturus. If they were cleared at Arcturus.
However, being aware of the Commander’s recreational habits there was a nagging doubt in the back of his mind that something less than regulation was in the offing. He was also pretty sure L’Amour and Joynes had traded recreational substances (and quite possibly body fluids) on at least one occasion.
“We can spare her if she’s willing to go. I’ll ask her tomorrow”
“No need, I got ahead o’ the game, man, she’s hot to trot! Just authorise the transfer an’ we’ll get her on the Faraday on her next run over.”
This sounded just a little too simple, but Dave had to give the big Jamaican the benefit of the doubt. “Fine, but I’d like to speak to her anyway. I believe Faraday is due to leave us in two days to bring over some more spares and tools. She’ll be with you in about eight days then.”
“Cool! I’m already lookin’ forward to seeing her again! You’re a real gent, man! Joynes out.”
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“So you and Joynes aren’t going to do anything daft?”
Skye L’Amour groaned and threw her hands in the air “Jeez, what’s your problem, Hollins?! Joynes isn’t an ecologist and he needs help setting up a stable arable system. That’s exactly the sort of thing I’m here for.”
“Actually, you’re here because you got busted for experimenting with genetic alterations to hemp-family plants while you were supposed to be breeding new strains of cereal crops.” Dave said softly “I do have access to all the crew’s disciplinary records you know.”
Skye was chastened, but still tried to be indignant “Are you checking up on me??”
“Yes. Not only is that incumbent on me as First Officer, I know that Joynes is an absolutely incorrigible stoner!” He sighed and tried a different tack “Look, Skye, the Sha T’Al have been through hell and lost millions of lives because humans have introduced them to recreational drug-abuse. The last thing anyone needs is any kind of stupid behaviour along those lines!”
“Just chill Hollins, I know what I’m doing. Joynes and I can really help the Sha T’Al. Worry about what you’ve got to do, and let us get on with doing what we need to do” she said.
Dave looked into her eyes and tried to gauge her intent. It was hard not to like the little kiwi, and he’d got to know her well over the last six months. If there was a wicked bone in her body, it wasn’t actually part of Skye’s anatomy. He decided to trust her: “Ok, I will. And I’ll get your crystal back to you somehow, I promise.”
“Go get ‘em Tiger! I’ll see you in about six months time” she gave him a hug, and squeezed his bottom “and you can help me put that crystal back where you got it from.”
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Over the next two weeks, the efforts of the previous month’s labours finally began to come together. Kamdampully and Halifa had teams of engineers working continuously on replacing Tiger’s fragile patched-up power relays with the more robust Tana built units. At the same time, Jonsen and Deng tested and retested the drive systems while Romanov oversaw a hundred other jobs that had been waiting weeks or months or even years to be done.
The scientists finished poring over the hulk of the Tana battleship and compiled a draft report for Command on its strengths and weaknesses, and more generally on the state of Tana technology.
Chief Belle scaled down her training exercises which also significantly lightened the work load of the Medical Department.
As the day for Tiger’s departure approached it occurred to Dave that he had no idea if the Captain actually knew what was going on.
When he’d first been promoted to First Officer, three months ago, he’d called the Captain at least once a day, only to be told the Captain would come to the Bridge later. As Tiger’s innumerable problems took up more and more of his time, he’d occasionally forgotten to contact the Captain and settled for posting a status report. Now, he’d got so used to the lack of feed-back from the Captain he couldn’t even remember when he’d last given him an update.
Deciding to bite the bullet, he headed down to the skipper’s Ready Room on Deck 2 to see if could speak to him in person. He stepped out of the turbo-lift and turned down the corridor towards the Ready Room just in time to see the door slide open and Yeoman Chantelle Viera storm out, stark naked, with her uniform in her hands, swearing and gesticulating wildly.
She saw Dave but didn’t even slow down as he said “You ……. er …… seem to be out of uniform, Yeoman Viera?”
The boyishly-slim brunette flounced past him to the turbo lift “And that porcine arrogante is out of his putain arbre if he thinks he’s ever doing that to me again!! J'ai arrêté!!!!”
By the time Dave got to the Ready Room, the door had shut, and there was no response when he pressed the call button. He tried again, knowing the Captain was in there, but again there was no reply. He was just about to give up when there was a crackle and Captains voice floated out from the tiny speaker by the door: “What?”
“It’s Commander Hollins, sir….” Dave thought about it and then added “…… your First Officer?” just in case the skipper didn’t recognise the name.
Dave had been on board over six months now and had only met the Captain face-to-face once during that time. According to the rest of the Bridge crew that qualified as frequent and regular when referring to Captain Emmanuel LaCroix.
The Captain rarely ventured far from his Ready Room, or more accurately, he never ventured far from the duty Yeoman who was naked on the large vibrating water bed in his Ready Room.
There was a pause before the Captain replied “What do you want?”
Clearing his throat, Dave gave the Captain the good news. “The Engineers have nearly finished the repairs sir. We’ll be able to move out in a few days time, and I’m confident we can make the slot allocated to us on the Arcturus Test Ranges.”
There was another pause, and this time, the door to the Ready Room slid open. Taking this as an invitation Dave stepped through.
The Captain was sprawled on the bed, apparently naked, and even in the dim light Dave could see a suspiciously hand-shaped red mark on the side of his face. He was still breathing quite hard and sounding very confused. “Why the hell are we going to Arcturus??”
“Admiral O’Connor ordered us to prove the ship at the Ranges if she wasn’t to be scrapped, sir. It was in my status report sir. It was in all of my status reports sir” Dave replied.
“Why does the Admiral want to scrap my ship??”
“He believed she was beyond economical repair, sir. That was in my reports too.” explained Dave patiently.
“Did the ship get damaged??”
“Yes sir. We suffered many, many instances of damage in the course of our intervention in the Tana invasion of Sha T’Al space. It’s all in my status reports sir.”
“Who the hell are the Tana??”
Sighing, Dave gave in to the inevitable “I’ll send a Yeoman to explain it all, sir. If you’d excuse me, I believe I have the Bridge?”
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The next day, Dave set a date for the trip to Arcturus and made the final arrangements.
He decided to ship out sevent
een of the eighteen “nurses” that Chief Money had recruited locally to assist at Hole with PO Rick Starr nominally in charge of them. The local civic dignitaries (certainly the male ones) were happy with this arrangement.
The last of the nurses, Pui Xiao had previously been promoted to Yeoman for “strategic” reasons. Dave knew the Captain was very impressed with her capabilities and with Viera having quit, he figured it would be best to keep her on board to keep the roster of Yeomen up to strength.
Staying at Hole, PO Starr would be in a position to receive the various spares and stores they’d ordered over the last three months but which hadn’t arrived at Hole as yet. Starr would arrange safe storage and take care of any checks and maintenance the spares needed until Tiger returned from the Ranges. Dave had also managed to persuade Yeoman Chantelle Viera to transfer to the Supply Department and join Starr as his assistant, as Dave had to presume she’d be something of a spare wheel if she wasn’t servicing the Captain’s needs.
As they weren’t essential to the repair of the ship or her re-commissioning and testing at the Arcturus Test Ranges, he took the chance to re-assign a few of the Science Department too. He picked out staff with useful agricultural and civil engineering backgrounds and despatched them with Lieutenant L’Amour aboard Tiger’s warp-capable shuttle, Faraday, to assist the Sha T’Al in their efforts to rebuild their crippled society.
On the day of departure, Dave addressed the whole crew.
“Today we take our ship to the Test Ranges at Arcturus. We still have much to do before we arrive, and when we do get there, you can be sure the Range Wardens will make the tests as tough as they possibly can. I believe Tiger will pass those tests, because I believe in you.”
“Your efforts have been exemplary, and I could not have asked any of you to do more than you have done. I’m certain I speak for the Captain as well as myself when I tell you it has been a privilege and an honour to have served with you all these last six months.”
“For too long the Tiger has been on the margins of the Fleet. I believe in her as I believe in you, and I believe together, we will make Tiger a legend. Hollins out.”
