by David Smith
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Dave spent the next couple of weeks doing what he could to get the ship ready for her return to active duty. He accepted his crew-members back from the Station's Brig, but made a point of holding a disciplinary hearing for each, just to make sure they knew such behaviour wasn't acceptable, under any circumstances. He also managed to recover his crew from Arcturus Delta Four, where they'd had to subsist on ships rations and what they scavenged from the facility for two weeks after the Med Evac mission.
They made use of the Stations engineering facilities to tidy up many of the sticking plaster repairs the engineers had made to keep the ship running, although they left the new warp-core and power relays in situ. They landed their three new shuttles and also repaired many of the outstanding faults on Hawking, Faraday and Fer-God-Sake. Dave considered scrapping 10% but his conscience reminded him that she'd been a faithful performer as much as the crew had, and deserved her chance too. They kept her and listed her as the Commanding Officer's personal yacht.
Dave was still discussing the work needed to integrate the three new shuttles with the ships systems when he was hailed by Lieutenant Shearer on the Bridge.
"Incumin cawl from Chief Jackson doon the Tawpeda Ruum, sir"
"Thank you Lieutenant, I'll take it here."
Shearer opened the link and Dave said "Morning Pappy, how's the Torpedo Room looking?"
"Like a goddamn scrap yard, that's how its lookin'. Gonna have to scrap most of the frames and cradles an' requisition new ones. Damn shame an' all but they're jus' too far gone. Anyhow, that's not why I called, sir."
Dave noticed Pappy's voice had gone quieter, not in his usual mumbling, incomprehensible way, but as if he didn't want anyone to over-hear what he was saying. Concerned, Dave asked "What's up Pappy?"
"Well it's like this sir. We just got the report o' the last exercise and I skimmed through it. Have you had a chance to take a look?"
"I've got the report, but if I'm honest I had it pegged as a good job, well done and enough said. I opened it, but only read the exec summary."
Pappy snorted, "Ha! Me too! Right up ‘til the last line caught my eye. Y'see, when we launch live torpedoes, any that don't detonate go into a recovery mode where they shut the drive system down, disarm the warhead ‘n’ turn on a beacon, so they can be found. Hellish expensive bits o' kit are torpedoes."
"Well the last item of the report is a list o’ torpedoes recovered by the Range Wardens team ‘n’ taken off Tiger's charge and transferred back to Arcturus Station."
"I assume that's just normal operating procedure?" asked Dave, "What of it?"
Pappy's voice seemed to drop further still. "Well sir, that last exercise, we fired nineteen pairs of torpedoes, ‘n’ I know Lieutenant Janus bagged a target with his first shot ev’ry time. Now I ain't claimin' to be no mathematician, but it seems to me that Chief Cash shoulda recovered nineteen torpedoes."
Dave's voice inadvertently dropped too. "Did he not?"
"Well sir, 8/A/366/42 is still here in our Torpedo Room. It's one of the few torpedoes that weren't trashed when them damn fool Yeomen wrecked my Torpedo Room.
"Do you think Chief Cash's team made a mistake?"
"Uh-uh. Not a chance. That serial number is programmed into the torpedo's software, ‘n’ stamped on every major component. As soon as it was taken aboard the recovery tug it woulda interfaced with the ship's computer ‘n’ automatically logged its identity itself."
"So somebody must have tampered with the records?" asked Dave, his curiosity coming out now.
"Well, could be, but I spoke to Chief Cash and he tells me he was about to try fakin’ a number to try ‘n’ make sure we passed the test. But when he saw the serial number, he knew it was one of ours and realised he didn' need to do nuthin’. There's sump'n very screwy goin' on here" said the Chief, his voice now close to a whisper.
Dave sat back in his chair and thought about it. He came from a long line of pragmatists.
The last time he'd seen his old granny, it had been coming up to Christmas. She was convinced (as she had been as long as Dave could remember) that she was on her last legs and was about to expire imminently: "If you're getting me something for Christmas, make sure it's something you like, because as sure as eggs are eggs, you'll be having it back soon."
"Well Chief, thanks for letting me know, but I'm going to have to take a pragmatic view of this. Everybody is happy and we've officially passed the test so I'd prefer to let sleeping dogs lie. I won't tell anyone about this if you don't"
"Yeah, makes sense to me. Jus' thought it's real odd. Sump'n ain't right sir."
Dave tried to relax, but the thought of a mystery black ship, cavorting around the range with a doppelganger of Tiger's torpedo set the hairs on the back of his neck on end.
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The whole crew made best use of their time, and even the engineers managed to get a little R&R on board Arcturus Station.
The numbers of crew were still less than he'd have liked, even with the mass escape from the stations brig, but the replacement crew were scattered across the entire distance from Arcturus Station to Sector 244.
As the state of the ship materially improved Dave took the opportunity to correct one last fault that he’d overcome with ingenuity and a little help from Lieutenant L’Amour.
He drew a full set of dilithium crystals, together with spares (lots of them!) so Skye could get her beloved gem back.
When they arrived on Board, Dave had them sent down to the main Engineering Deck and went down to discuss them with the Chief Engineer, Commander Olga Romanov.
“Good Morning, Commander, I believe we are now the proud owners of a full set of regulation dilithium crystals?” he smiled. Lack of crystals had been an albatross around their neck ever since he’d joined the ship.
“Indeed we have sir” agreed the tiny Ukrainian, “but Deng and I are reluctant to install them.”
Dave was surprised: Tiger’s Chief Engineer was normally well ahead of the game and he’d expected her and Deng to have installed them already. “What’s the problem Commander?”
“It’s not a problem per se, it’s just that the crystal we have is the most perfect specimen any of us have ever seen. When we replace it, the new crystals will be flawed and we’ll need to create complex inter-mix calculations to ensure the drive systems will provide a stable warp-field. That’s Big Science and will need input from O’Mara, Dolplop and also the computer.”
She looked uneasy “They’re brilliant and all but the drive ……. well, it’s just running absolutely, totally, completely perfectly, better than any drive I’ve ever seen. I’m just loathe to give up perfection.”
Dave apologised. “I do appreciate that Commander, and I hate to have to ask, but I made a promise that I’d get the crystal back to Lieutenant L’Amour, and that was always the basis by which we got it in the first place. We’ll have to change the crystal at some stage between now and reaching Hole. All I can do is leave it to your discretion as to when we change it.”
Romanov shrugged “I figured that would be the answer, but I had to ask. It’s just sooooo perfect” she sighed. “We’ll get it done, but we need to tread carefully. I’ve done this before and a dodgy calculation can be disastrous: we may not be able to create a warp-field at all, or wrap it too tight around the ship and create an uncontrolled worm-hole that could drop us anywhere.”
“Well, we’ll just take our time, take baby-steps and get it right. We’ve been given the time, we’ll make sure everything is on the money before we go.”
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A day later, Dave was considering an old adage about the best laid plans of mice and men.
He couldn't think of many circumstances where a mouse would be making plans other than trying to get hold of some cheese, and from his time at school and the Academy the best laid plans of men invariably seemed to revolve around trying to get ….. well ….. laid?
Vastly
different, and neither was truly relevant to his situation aboard USS Tiger.
In the last seven months, since his arrival at Tiger, his "best laid plans" were usually desperate attempts to fend off a problem and had just as usually ended in near disaster. Frankly, nothing ever seemed to turn out how he'd originally planned.
He was beginning to wonder about the benefits of planning at all. As he spent a lot of time planning, which never actually worked out, perhaps he could save time and effort by just reacting? Was this an extension of O'Mara's concept of doing what you could and worrying about the rest later?
His philosophical musings had been prompted by a single call that he'd initially been quite pleased to receive: Commander Isobelle Grosvenor made an audio call from her office on Todot Hahn, nominal capital of the state they now described as the Independent Sha T'Al worlds:
The Ensign at the Comm Station on the Bridge put the call through to his quarters. Dave was still half asleep, but woke up when he heard the cut-glass accent of Tiger’s ex-Liaison Officer.
“Good Morning Commander Hollins, I believe congratulations are in order?”
“Good Morning Commander Grosvenor, we have been most fortunate in successfully completing our revalidation tests” he said with completely transparent false modesty.
Izzy chuckled, “I happen to know Commander Chamberlain, and she tells me you bent a few of the Ranges rules ….. and completely ignored all the rest of them.”
Dave had a go at feigned indignation “Why Commander! I resent that insinuation! I don’t think we actually broke any rules ….. we just seem to have interpreted them a little differently from the Range Warden’s team.”
She laughed this time, but then lowered her voice as if someone might be eaves-dropping: “And how are relations with Commander Chamberlain? Bloody sexy isn’t she?”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed” Dave replied, going for faked surprise this time.
Izzy laughed out loud again “Yeah, right!! If she wasn’t a friend I’d hate her for just being that bloody gorgeous.”
Dave laughed too, and owned up “Ok, I may have noticed that she’s beautiful. And that she’s incredibly intelligent. And she has fantastic legs. Well actually her whole figure is stunning really. And her ass is just ….. “
“OK!!! Enough!” cried Izzy “You don’t need to tell me about the effect she has on men, I spent a year at the Academy with her when I was a Freshman. She was a Senior and they put me with her as a guide, as I was very much an “odd-one-out” being a late entry to the Academy.”
“Poor dear had to fight the boys off with a baseball bat. If I’m honest it was a bit intimidating for a plain-Jane like me, but she was so sweet, and really mothered me even though she’s a few years younger than I am. And by the way Hollins, that’s the bit where you’re supposed to chip in and say “You, Plain? Never!!!” You’ve failed miserably, and I may never speak to you again.”
Dave laughed out loud: ”I’ve not seen any obvious mental scars from your year of living in her shadow! Other than a marked reluctance to fight anyone off, baseball bat or not!”
She gasped with far more successful mock-indignation than Dave had managed: “Why, you cheeky devil!! I’ll have you know I’m being so well behaved I may need surgery in the future to get my knees apart!”
Dave knew her well enough that he could tell she was smiling broadly as she spoke. “Actually, and much to my shame, although Commander Chamberlain is undoubtedly a hell of a woman, I’ve been so completely obsessed with trying to pass the tests, she’s been well and truly off my radar.”
“Hmmm, I’m not sure I believe that: I’ve seen the effect she has on the male of the species. Anyway, enough of the shameless flirting, I actually called to congratulate you and the crew and let you know how things are going back here.”
“Thank you Commander, it means a lot to hear that from you” smiled Dave. "How are things on Todot Hanh?"
"Oh fine, fine." she replied completely unconvincingly. "No problems really. Well nothing that's a real problem. Just a couple of teeny issues with Joynes again. He's been experimenting with exotic plants again, and roped Lieutenant L'Amour and PO Esther Milano in. They've come up with some quite extraordinary genetic variations of hemp that seem to thrive in this environment. It's nice they've found some common ground, but if I'm honest, it's causing the odd little niggle.”
“One of the plants they created seems to be compatible with the cereal plant they took its chlorophyll DNA from and it's pretty much supplanted it in whole crops. We're trying to grow staple food stuffs and have ended up like the bloody golden triangle." She managed what sounded like a very strained laugh.
"Of course, Joynes is delighted and has been sharing his ...... success ...... around liberally. Nobody seems to be getting much done around here at the moment. I'm not complaining about that of course, because it’s not really causing a problem, just slowing things up a little. Well quite a lot if I’m honest, but I suppose it’s not much of a problem relatively speaking.”
“We've hit a bit more of a problem on Cho-dal-far, as a part of the infected population seems to have a resistance to the effects of alcohol. The Sha T'Al are really struggling to re-colonise the mainland and there have been a couple of nasty incidents."
"The Tana have been behaving themselves too. In fact, they're being very sociable. They've taken to producing their own soap operas, reality TV and game-shows, bless them! They've got a bit obsessive about it in fact, and have taken to broadcasting their shows across subspace communication frequencies, which has upset the Sha T'Al a little, who seem to consider it as a deliberate attempt to undermine their social structure.”
“Everyone is getting a bit teasey about it. Did you know that the Sha T'Al have battleships too? I was really surprised when a fleet of them lined up across the border and started issuing demands to the Tana about their broadcasts. Obviously the Tana were curious about the Sha T'Al ships too, because they sent a HUUUUUUGE fleet to check them out from their side of the border........"
She paused.
Very quietly she added "It's not as bad as it sounds."
Dave, trying to sound unconcerned said "Of course not Izzy, I never said it was. Have you discussed this with Admiral O’Connor?"
“I’ve posted it in several status reports, and I may have mentioned it in a couple of conversations we’ve had. Well, every conversation we’ve had, if I’m honest. Sadly the Admiral has bigger concerns for the Third Fleet. It appears there’s a major rebellion threatening the stability of Sector 193. He’s deployed most of the Fleet there to try and prevent smugglers providing weapons to insurgents. He can’t spare us much help at the moment” she said wistfully.
Clearly trying to sound casual and unworried, Izzy continued "So ...... about how long do you think it will be until Tiger is back on station?”
"I'll have Tiger on station just as soon as I can" he said with his head very firmly in his hands "It'll be good to get back. Hollins out."
Best laid plans my arse, he thought.
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Dave went to the Engineering Deck and stepped cautiously through the door. Previous visits had been painful. He headed up the Engineers Office on the upper level, pressed the call button and entered when Romanov replied. “Good morning Commander. How’s the replacement of the dilithium coming along?”
Commander Romanov froze, her senses acutely honed by three years of serving aboard Tiger: “What’s gone wrong??”
Dave considered trying to butter her up a little, or breaking the news gently, but realised he wouldn’t be doing anyone any favours in doing so.
“Well ….. Pretty much everything. The Sha T’Al and the Tana are facing off, the cure for the Sha T’Al’s aspirin induced illness isn’t working as completely as we’d hoped, Joynes is getting everyone stoned, and the rest of the Third Fleet is tied up trying to prevent a civil war in Sector 193.”
He could only watch as her face fell and her shoulders slumped.
“I’m sorry …… “ he started.
“Yes, I know, we need to move out as soon as possible” she finished with a sigh.
Looking thoroughly dejected, she handed him a small plain bag. Inside was a single perfect dilithium crystal.
“We’ve already installed the new dilithium crystals, complete with a new cradle. While we’ve had the chance we’ve also replaced the old plasma manifolds and the injector systems, and tidied up the installations of most of the Tana power relays. O’Mara, ASBeau, Jonsen and Dolplop are doing the preliminary inter-mix calculations for the warp-drive, and Deng and I are in the middle of refurbishing the coolant systems. We’ll be ready to power up the whole system tomorrow. I’m sorry sir, but after that comes the slow bit” she shrugged.
“We power up all the systems, interface it all so it’s running together, take measurements and run simulations, then power it down, check it against our calculations and make corrections. Then we do it all again and again until we think we’ve got a system that’s stable and controllable enough to risk taking the ship out for a trial run. Then we come back and do more calculation checks and amendments.”
“It’s not like it was when we left Hole. There, we just had to correct for the new dilithium crystal. And we got lucky there: Because it had absolutely no flaws in it, it generated a perfect warp-field. Here and now almost everything in the system is new. It all needs very careful testing and balancing to see how each part of the system performs with the rest of the components. My best guess is that it’ll be three to four weeks before we can risk taking Tiger back to Hole” she said apologetically.
“Isn’t there anything we can do to speed the process up?” Dave pleaded.
“Not without a warp-field dynamics expert and a couple of top-notch mathematicians. They might reduce the number of iterations of the tuning process, but they’re thin on the ground. There’s certainly no-one of the caliber we need in this sector, unless ….. “ she winced.
