Tiger- These are the Voyages Read online

  Tiger

  These are the Voyages . . .

  By

  David P Smith

  This book is dedicated to my gorgeous wife, my family and my friends for their continuing support (and patience)

  It’s also dedicated to every wage-slave who’s capable of far more than they’re allowed to do.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: ’You Just Can’t Get the Staff . . . ‘

  Chapter 2:‘Cause and Effect’

  Chapter 3:‘Observations’

  Chapter 4:‘Conflict Messages’

  Chapter 5:‘The Trap’

  Chapter 6:‘Get Naked!’

  Chapter 7:‘Tomb Raiders’

  Chapter 8:‘It’s a Small World’

  Chapter 9:‘The Old Religion’

  Chapter 10:‘The Solace of a Quantum’

  Chapter 11:‘In Harm’s Way’

  Chapter 12:‘Send in the Clones’

  Chapter 13:‘The Hole’

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Captain’s Log: Captain David Hollins

  Stardate 9295.4

  We’re now in the latter stages of a comprehensive six month refit at Hole, and during the past few months there have been a lot of changes.

  Tiger is almost back to her intended condition, although there’s been considerable debate amongst the senior staff (not always in jest!) as to whether that’s a good thing.

  We’ve finally begun the replacement of the Tana warp-coils that we bodged into our drive system as an emergency repair some nine months back. We’ve also removed the bizarre black coating that was the remains of an unknown life-form found in what we still refer to as ‘Dark Space.’ That means Tiger is beginning to look like a ‘Constitution’ class cruiser again, and we won’t be breaking temporal regulations every time we travel above warp factor eight.

  After much debate, we’ve elected to keep the Tana power relays even though the experts at Starfleet Engineering advised against it. Both Commander Romanov and I have painful memories of how much we struggled with standard fleet relays and we’ve both been impressed with the extraordinary resilience the Tana units have demonstrated over the last year or so.

  I’ve also elected to keep the odd shuttle named ‘10%’, even though the hangar deck is getting a little crowded now. As part of our refit package Tiger has been given a second Mk.8 warp-capable shuttle, additional work-pods and utility vehicles, and we’ve also had to find room for a specialised assault shuttle for the contingent of Marines we’ll be carrying from now on.

  During the course of the refit we’ve been undertaking some significant upgrades too. Most of these alterations are essentially to improve our laboratory and scientific capabilities. The Stellar Cartography suite has been upgraded to the very latest standard and most of the A&A and E&E labs have been fitted with new equipment.

  Most obvious upgrade for myself and the senior staff is the replacement of the Bridge module. Tiger’s been using the original design even after a couple of significant refits, but this time we’ve been upgraded to the latest pattern for Constitution class vessels. The new Bridge is much larger and will improve situational awareness. The introduction of two fully-configurable mission operations stations means we can have mission specialists on the Bridge with us. For the complex scientific missions we’ll be undertaking, that’ll be a godsend.

  The mix of skill-sets amongst the crew has been adjusted to reflect our reassignment as an exploration vessel: We’ve increased the amount of scientific staff and to compensate, more of the porterage and cleaning tasks will be automated. There will be several new types of ‘scrubots’ on the ship, some of these being deployed for the first time.

  We’ll also be deploying the very latest Scout robots on high risk away missions and have been given staff for the technical support necessary to keep them operational: Scouts lead a tough life.

  Commander Ramon Ruiz has been assigned to Tiger as my First Officer and Lieutenant Maria Delgado will take on the Executive Officer role. After much discussion among the senior staff, we’ve elected to retain the Locally Recruited Enlisted Personnel, and also the excess Yeomen that Captain LaCroix had somehow accumulated.

  To our surprise, most of them have talents that we knew nothing about. Crewman Morgan Halfpenny (I’d previously referred to her by her enlisted name of ‘Myfanwy Swett’) is an exceptionally talented linguist, fluent in seven languages and familiar with over a dozen more. Claudia Heslin has a degree in Astrophysics. Sandra McQuarrie is a gifted engineer. Yeoman Mirella Verrechia qualified as a shuttle pilot before joining the fleet. Yeoman Sriwak still hasn’t mastered English, but is an exceptional cook. It’s quite a list of abilities, and it hasn’t been too difficult to find gainful employment for all of them. I’m delighted to report that they’ve all responded positively to their new roles.

  Without doubt though, the most important member of the crew we’ve managed to retain is Commander Aisling O’Mara. She’s been promoted to Commander in light of her sterling efforts over the last year and has recently been offered several postings. Our experience with the unique field generated by the combination of Federation and Tana warp-drive coils is the subject of huge interest and O’Mara has been in huge demand to pass on her knowledge of the dynamics involved.

  She gave serious consideration to accepting a position at the fleet’s Drive Development Facility. Fortunately for all of us, she found the opportunity to explore the exciting new frontier was too great to resist and she’ll lead our scientific contingent on this challenging mission.

  If our Science Officer is the most important retention, then the most important addition to the crew is Commander Isobel Grosvenor. After her exceptional work with the Tana and Sha T’Al she’s been asked to rejoin USS Tiger as a first contact specialist. I can’t express how glad I’ll be to have her back on the Bridge.

  We’ve also been assigned a squad of twelve Marines that will give us extra fire-power on the ground for difficult situations. They’ll be commanded by a Lieutenant who will become one of my senior staff, and I’ll be looking to find gainful employment for them during all phases of the mission: bored Marines are dangerous Marines.

  Finally, more crewmen have also been assigned to back-fill the shortage that’s been with us for quite some time now, which is essential given our new role. Exploring is dangerous work and the ship will need to be fully manned and kept in full working order to perform properly.

  The Marines and some of the new assignees haven’t arrived yet, but most of our crew are on board now.

  We’ve lost a few familiar faces too, but overall our numbers have increased significantly and before we set out we’ll back up to strength. In fact with the Marines we’ll have a crew of four hundred and thirty-eight, which is a little higher than normal.

  Sadly, having cadets aboard the ship isn’t an option as Command thinks we’re too far out. It’d take the cadets at least three months each way to make the trip and that’s too much time missed from their training programme.

  Instead we’ve been given a number of adult trainees, who will be assigned to the ship permanently, assuming they complete their training satisfactorily. That might not be a given thing: the trainees come from a wide variety of backgrounds and have only done basic training at the Academy before being shipped out to us. Being as isolated as we are could be quite a culture shock for them.

  I hope they won’t have time to dwell on this too much: Tiger will be a busy ship when we set out. Our mission objectives for the next four years have been received and we’re all very excited and eager to press on with our new role as a fully-fledged exploration vessel.

  We have hundreds of listed object
ives, although we’re given almost complete autonomy with regard to the order in which we approach them. As we have freedom to undertake other tasks at our own discretion, it’s more of a ‘wish list’ than a set of orders but our main objectives boil down to six things;

  To explore the sectors within Federation Treaty Exploration Space. To catalogue as many star systems as we can, undertaking preliminary surveys of key planets and make recommendations for potential future colony worlds

  Where appropriate we are permitted to make first contact with the indigenous warp-capable races of the area.

  To identify, investigate and catalogue spatial anomalies and other potential hazards to future interstellar traffic in the area

  As part of the first two objectives, we are to attempt to establish why the races within the space seem to have stagnated or collapsed over the last thousand years.

  As we go, we’re to deploy a number of small temporary sub-space relays at key locations. These will be replaced in the long term with larger permanent units by USS Rickover which will be assigned to provide engineering support to our mission once we’ve completed our refit. These relays are not dissimilar to ours probes although without the same AI issues. They’re only low-powered and short-lived, but they will at least allow us to connect to the wider federal sub-space communications network.

  The last objective is only briefly covered in Command’s orders but is important to the whole crew. We’re to attempt to discover the fate of USS Magellan. She was the first and so far only Federation vessel to explore any of the FTES, carrying out a basic survey of over sixty star systems nearly twenty years ago. She was an old ‘Baton Rouge’ class cruiser and it took her over a year just to reach the area. Sadly, she disappeared after approximately 15 months of the mission, but during that time she performed admirably: The vast majority of what we know of this area comes from her work. Several of the crew had relatives and colleagues who were lost with that vessel and I’d like to find out what happened to her for their sake if nothing else.

  There’s still a lot of work to be done and sadly we haven’t had the time or resources to do everything. We have to recognise that the Tiger is an old lady these days, and the whole ship is showing its age. No amount of work will ever make her perfect.

  The toilet facilities on Deck 6 still seem to have a mind of their own, and some of the doors and turbolifts throw us unexpected problems. The replicators still aren’t optimal either: we still get an occasional nasty surprise, but the engineers insist there are no faults in the system. We’ve taken the precaution of segregating the transport and replication systems to try to protect the former while the Engineers work on the latter when time permits.

  In the same vein, we’ve been asked to persevere with the PILOCC to see if we can iron out it’s quirks for once and for all. Headquarters still believe it has potential, but I’m not entirely convinced. They’ve given us an upgrade package which includes a holographic interface, but sadly doesn’t include attitude adjustment.

  The computer experts are trying to install additional personality profiles in an effort to try to bring some kind of balance to Susan’s gestalt persona. They’ve come up with the idea of selecting people with traits other than pure scientific or academic abilities in the hope these will have a mediating effect on the existing profiles of diametrically opposed scientists.

  On the positive side, PO Park has caved into pressure from all and sundry and agreed to stay on for the mission. I suspect it’ll take all the expertise him and Lieutenant Sato can muster to keep Susan in line.

  When we complete the refit I intend to undertake a brief shake-down cruise before beginning our mission. If everything goes according to plan we’ll spend four to five years exploring the new sectors, many of which are completely uncharted.

  It seems odd looking back to my arrival aboard Tiger, that the ship was home to many of the fleet’s unwanted or undesirable personnel. Here we are, two years down the line and I can say with pride and integrity that the crew have achieved things most of them would never have believed themselves capable of. We’re entrusted with an important mission, the sort normally assigned to the very best and brightest the Fleet has to offer, and I can honestly say that it doesn’t concern me in the slightest.

  I have faith in my ship and my crew.

  Captain David Hollins

  Commanding Officer, USS Tiger

  Chapter 1: ’You Just Can’t Get the Staff . . . ‘

  Science Officers Log: Commander Aisling O’Mara

  Star Date 9298.4

  The Science Department is getting more and more frustrated. While the Engineers are more busy than they’d like and the Operations staff are keeping busy, my team are at a loose end.

  We’re stuck in orbit around Hole and there’s absolutely nothing for us to do.

  The Engineers and Ops staff are fully occupied with refitting the ship, but my team have integrated all of our new equipment, tested, calibrated it, trained on it, calibrated it again, retrained on it, broken it, bodged it, broken it again, repaired it properly, recalibrated, retrained etc, etc.

  From a scientific point of view, Hole is probably the least exciting system in the whole of the Federation, with only small rocky planetoids, orbiting around an unremarkable white dwarf, without any indigenous life forms.

  The A&A team are currently undertaking an in-depth study of the miners on Hole and the effect of living in such a complete and utter dump has upon their society, but they’re only doing the study because they’re bored shitless themselves.

  Some of the team are going so stir-crazy they’ve even volunteered to help the engineers, which really goes against the grain.

  It’s a well known fact that scientists and engineers are completely different species, and less understanding scientists than myself would say that engineers are just scientists that didn’t make the grade.

  Whilst I wouldn’t say that myself, it did get me thinking. I’ve concluded it would be in the best interests of my team and the wider crew if we could find some way to assist our less-endowed shipmates and accelerate the refit process. And by that I don’t mean breaking out a spanner and a hammer, I mean finding a proper, scientific way to move things along.

  --------------------

  She found Captain Hollins in the Ward Room, grabbing some breakfast before starting another day of trying to get USS Tiger back into a fit state to sail. ‘Morning, Sir, how’s the refit programme going?’

  The recently promoted skipper looked up. He already looked tired, and O’Mara guessed that he’d had another late night wrestling with the thousand and one issues all over the ageing cruiser.

  ‘Oh, hi Aisling. Not so good I’m afraid. I spoke to Command yesterday, but they don’t think they’ll be able to get any more trained crew out to us any time soon. We’re still short of Engineering staff, and back-filling with Ops Staff and the trainees that have arrived recently isn’t moving things along anything like as fast as I’d hoped.’

  O’Mara tried her best to look both sympathetic and thoughtful, but struggled to suppress the smile that was always present on her face when she’d had an idea.

  Hollins could see the smile, and knew the Science Officer well enough to know she was about to throw him a curve-ball.

  ‘Ok, spit it. What’s on your mind?’

  O’Mara’s grin grew wide. ‘Ah. Well, it’s like this you see . . . I was talking to some of my team that have friends among the engineering staff and I hear that they’ve got a lot on their plate.’

  Hollins nodded warily. ‘The ship’s a wreck. Certainly since I’ve been aboard we’ve been playing catch-up trying to get the ship fully operational. There are so many legacy issues it’s hardly surprising the engineers are still struggling.’

  ‘Ah, that’s what I was thinking too, and I was wondering if the Science Team could help them out with a few things.’

  Hollins raised an eyebrow. Some of the ship’s complement of scientists were truly brilliant, but they w
eren’t what you’d call ‘practical’. He remembered the injuries Crewman DeMarcus Jones had sustained whilst demonstrating a 20th Century device called a ‘tin-opener’, and that Crewman Sarah Cumbers had recently managed to fracture an arm while trying to open a reluctant door.

  His view of their practicality was considerably less harsh than that of his Engineering Officer, Commander Olga Romanov. The tiny Ukrainian was scathing of their abilities and held the view that “Scientists are only engineers who can’t concentrate”. She certainly wouldn’t welcome their help.

  Hollins tried to be diplomatic. ‘Thanks for the offer, Aisling, but I’d have to clear it with Commander Romanov first and you know that she prefers to, um, work things out for herself.’

  O’Mara knew what Romanov’s reply would be ‘Well don’t write us off just yet sir, I’m sure we can help in ways that the Engineers won’t have even considered yet.’

  ‘Ok Aisling, I’ll bear that in mind. If you want to discuss some ideas with your team and come up with a proposal, I’d be happy to take it forward to Commander Romanov.

  O’Mara saluted and turned away. There were some good people amongst the engineers, but they all lacked imagination. They were too blinkered. She’d show them how easy fixing things was if you used your brain instead of brawn.

  --------------------

  ‘Ok team, it’s like this. The engineers are struggling, bless ‘em, and I thought it might be a good idea if we pointed them in the right direction. Now I don’t want to be stepping on their toes, but let’s remember that they are only engineers, and can’t be expected to think of innovative ways to fix things. That’s where we come in. In order to move things along I suggest we bite the bullet and take on the things that they aren’t capable of sorting out. Anyone know what they’re struggling with?’

  There were some surprised looks around the room: it was rare that the science team were asked to assist with routine engineering problems.