by David Smith
‘Yeah, shame about that’ nodded the Chief, before adding ‘Of course, if someone had had the foresight to back up the personality matrix when the computer was first installed, that would make the process infinitely easier. Almost like a factory reset . . . ‘
Park stiffened. ’You told me we’d ditched that back-up when Hollins first arrived.’
The Chief couldn’t hide a slight grin. ‘I might have been wrong. Do you think such a thing might be of use to you?’
Park was not impressed. ‘You know very well it would be. It would save weeks of trying to recreate the old personality profile from fragments.’
‘Hmm. I’ll have to take a little look see. While you’re waiting for it you’ll probably need something to keep you occupied . . . ‘
The familiar worried look returned to Parks face. ‘What do you want?’
The Chief smiled warmly. ‘Oh, nothing much. I was chatting to a colleague the other day and they expressed an interest in the field dynamics of the interaction between Federation and Tana warp-drive coils. They were wondering how they’d get hold of a copy of the engineers data set.’
‘The computer’s off-line, Chief.’
‘Yes I gather that, but my limited understanding of the way these new fangled computers work is that you can use the BIOS to access any files stored in the computer core’ stated the Chief while trying to look inquisitive.
Park knew that the Chief was actually very knowledgable about computers, but rarely found it advantageous to admit to it. ‘Yes, that is true, and as you also know, using the BIOS to access data files in the core means the computer won’t log the data transfer.’
‘Really?? How . . . convenient.’
Park ruminated. What was the Chief up to? There had to be an angle? Maybe selling the secret on to a third party?’
The Chief could obviously read his mind. ‘Don’t look so worried Park! If you check the files, you’ll find that there are no security tags on them other than usual Fleet restrictions. It’s only what we’ve done a thousand times before.’
Park looked even more worried. ‘Chief, there’s a lot of potential mischief that could go on with that drive system.’
‘You worry too much, Park. Whoever had the data would still need a Federation ship and an equivalent Tana ship to make any use of the drive system. And the Federal Government is taking steps to control trade and data transfer between us and the Tana, so they’ll never let that happen, will they?’
Park considered this. He hadn’t had much in the way of dealings with Captain Anastasia B’Stard, but he was aware of her reputation. If she was in charge of control of the transfer of information across the border, nothing would get past her.
The Chief could see Park wavering and moved to seal the deal. ‘Park, I’ll give you my personal word that this data will go no further than the people on this ship.’
Park hesitated. However, he knew that the Chief rarely gave his word and when he did, he kept it. ‘Ok, it’ll take me a couple of hours to locate the files. I’ll down load them to a data-slug with a password.’
The Chief smiled. ‘Suits me! If there is a back-up, I’ve no doubt it’ll be on a data-slug lying around somewhere: If I should happen to come across it, I’ll bring it up in two hours time.’
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Chief Money missed having Park around, but he still had Petty Officer Okocha on his team and he was no slouch around computers either. Prince Okocha had made a good living with a Nigerian cyber-crime syndicate before a sting operation by the Federal authorities had closed them down.
The retired scammer was busily poring over data showing on a bank of screens, but turned as the Chief entered the compartment. ‘I’ve had a look at Parks data-slug Chief, there’s huge amounts of data on there, but I think I’ve found the files you need. The Engineers were really thorough with the changes. They’ve made drawings of the coil positions and alignment, preliminary field calculations and there’s dozens data-log files of the first time we used the Tana coils; it looks like the engineers recorded pretty much everything that was happening with the drive the first time we used it.‘
The Chief smiled. ‘Perfect. Get those files copied to a non-fleet PAD as quick as you can.’
It sounded too good to be true. With that amount of data Vitalli should be able to work out how many Tana coils they’d need, how to fix them into the shuttle’s warp engines and then the only limit was his own ingenuity.
He waited patiently and took the PAD from Okocha down to Crewman Vitalli. They found a quiet space and Vitalli cast an eye over the data.
‘Ok Chief, I think I’ve got all the data I need, but having seen the specs for the tug and the Tana coils there are a couple of things we’ll need to sort out.’
‘Like what?’
Vitalli scratched his head. ‘Well, the Tana coils are much higher powered than the existing ones on the tug so we’ll need to uprate the power relays that serve the coils.’
The Chief nodded. ‘No problem, there are stacks of high-power Tana relays stored all over the ship. I’m sure no-one will miss a couple.’
‘We’ll also need to run the warp-coil output values past a mathematician: the different coil outputs are not in the same proportions as they were for Tiger, and it’ll need a mathematician to make sure the field will balance.’
The Chief nodded, but said nothing. His options were limited in that respect, but he could still make that happen.
Vitalli had kept the worst until last. ‘Once we’ve got the coils in, I can’t give any guarantee how the drive will work. We know nothing about the tugs systems, and I’ve got no idea how any power fluctuations and the like will affect the performance of the engines.’
This worried the Chief. ‘What are you telling me Joey?’
Vitalli looked uncomfortable. ‘I can’t guarantee anything, Chief. The drive will work, but for how long, and exactly how it behaves is beyond me. We’re in unknown territory here.’
The Chief squirmed uneasily. He planned to make the trip himself, but wasn’t comfortable with physical risks to his person. He didn’t want to send someone else in his place, but was he willing to put his neck on the line?
If he wasn’t willing to take the risk, was it right to order one of his team to go? He sighed. Maybe he was getting soft in his old age.
‘I got that Joey. We accept the risk in the anticipation of the reward.’
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It was 0230 ship’s time when the Chief’s operative transported them across to SS Pacifica. Chief Money took Okocha with him as well as ‘Arry Winston. Manny Vainatolo was already on board with Vitalli, who had called on some friends to help him complete the modifications to the old tugs engines. These helpers transported back to Tiger, but Vitalli had stayed on board: Chief Money had persuaded him that doing so might be good for his health.
On the cramped and untidy Bridge of the tatty old tug, Vainatolo sat in the Helmsman’s seat: there was no room for luxuries such as a Captain’s chair on such a small vessel.
Chief Money took a seat at the Navigation console and Vainatolo looked across to him. ‘Ok Chief, where are we going?’
The Chief smiled. ‘Not “where”, Manny, it’s “when”.’
‘Sorry, Chief?’
‘When, Manny. Just take us out of orbit and follow a circular flight-path with a diameter of half a light year at the engine power levels you would normally use for warp factor four. The interaction of the Tana and Federation coils will actually drive us backwards through time.’
Manny didn’t move, and his brow furrowed as he searched the Chiefs face for a sign that this was some kind of joke.
The Chief’s slight smile never slipped. ‘No, it’s not a wind-up. It’s real. You fly at that power setting and you’ll find that you’re actually travelling faster than you ever have before. And the really weird bit is that as we travel forward through space, we’ll be going backwards in time.’
Manny still didn’t l
ook certain, but the Chief’s smile was constant and unchanging.
‘Don’t worry yourself about the detail. Just fly the circuit, and earn your twenty thousand credits. I’ll worry about the calendar and what happens at the end.’
Manny shrugged. He had nothing to lose. ‘You’re the boss.’
He pressed the comm button and spoke to Vitalli down in the ship’s engine room. ‘We ready to rock, man?’
Vitalli didn’t answer immediately. When he did, he sounded far from certain. ‘Uh, I guess. Just go easy on the transition to warp. If anything goes wrong, we’ll need to kill the power to the warp coils real quick.’
Manny looked at the Chief who could only shrug and reply ‘He’s the engineer. It would be sensible to follow his suggestions.’
Manny sighed, turned off his ship’s transponders and opened up the thrusters, pushing Pacifica away from Tiger. Her reaction drives were very old and very worn. The old tug vibrated and shook as she accelerated, her engines rumbling as her hull groaned with the strain.
The Chief was sweating and gripping the arms of his seat so hard his knuckles were white. He tried to look calm, but Manny could feel his nervousness and struggled to suppress a smile.
They moved further away from Tiger, and as they did Manny opened up the throttle, pushing the ship hard. As they passed outside Hole’s gravitational influence, Manny asked the Chief ‘You sure ‘bout this?’
The Chief nodded, his smile fixed firmly but unconvincingly.
Manny shrugged, checked the readouts from the engines and said quietly to himself ‘Here goes nothing . . . ‘ as he engaged the Pacifica’s warp drive.
The stars seemed to part before them and they all felt a sudden and acute disorientation, as if their bodies accelerated so fast they left their consciousness trailing behind their physical selves.
It was only an instant, but it was enough to shock them all.
Manny was rocked but hastily leaned forward to check if everything was ok. The ship seemed fine, but he was uneasy. He called the engine room where Vitalli was also hastily checking that everything was normal.
‘Yeah I felt it too’ admitted the engineer ‘but I don’t know what caused it. I reckon we felt the interaction of the two warp fields purely because this ship’s inertial dampers aren’t as good as Tiger’s’
Manny looked at the Chief who could only shrug. He closed the channel to the engine room and checked his heading and progress. The readings didn’t seem to make sense. To his amazement they were travelling far, far faster than he’d have thought possible.
The Chief checked the readings too and his smile seemed a little more genuine as he said ‘Ok, skipper, just follow the course and we’ll reach our destination in about three and a half days.’
--------------------
The Chief sat in his cramped cabin, ruminating. He’d had very little else to do on this trip, as they were literally flying in circles just outside the reach of Tiger’s sensors.
He’d not had as much time as he’d have liked to do his research before this test run. With the Engineers getting on with the repairs Tiger might be in a position to set sail soon, and then he’d have to do that “work” stuff that the whole of Starfleet seemed to be fixated on.
He‘d decided to make sure his scheme worked before Tiger set out, which meant that he’d had to go with some simple options for this first run. Figuring it would be best to start with something that had happened in the fairly recent past, he’d been lucky enough to find a couple of events that had fallen his way.
Firstly there’d been a major, major upset in the hover-ball league play-offs back on Earth. The New York Astros were already under-dogs before their star player had been injured in the semi-final. Without her their odds had lengthened dramatically, with some bookies offering 20/1 for them to win.
For a two-horse race, those odds were extraordinary enough, but knowing that the game had finished 3-2 allowed the Chief to put a bet at even longer odds. He could get 150/1 if he bet on that actual score rather than just the result.
Sadly there were limitations with betting. Any bookie would limit how much he could bet on a single event, so if he wanted to make serious money he’d have to resort to putting money into a far shadier arena: the stock market.
He smiled to himself. How ironic that in this enlightened society, betting was seen as the province of rogues and rascals, yet the Federation still allowed near-uncontrolled speculation on the stock of companies.
Supposedly regulated, the stock-market was still the hunting ground of vicious, hardened gamblers, who would use any trick to win and cared nothing for their victims. And victims there were. Everybody always conveniently over-looked the fact that for anyone to make money, somebody somewhere had to lose money, just like at the book-makers.
He sighed. Maybe it was time to get out of this game: he was dangerously close to developing a conscience.
He gave himself a mental shake and focused on the task at hand. He needed to go back in time a week, place a bet with a bookie on Earth where his credit was good and then use the winnings to buy into a company he’d spotted called Wagner Industries.
The Chief didn’t really know (or for that matter care) what Wagner Industries did, what mattered was that their share price would collapse dramatically the week before the hover-ball Championship was played, but would recover equally dramatically over the week after the game.
The rate of gain wasn’t as dramatic as for the sports event, but unlike the sports event, his starting stake was unlimited. The ten thousand credits he’d spot on the Astros to win at 150/1 would win him a tidy 1,500,000 credits, but that was only the beginning.
He’d pour those winnings into the stock of Wagner Industries, which would buy him just shy of three million shares in the wounded company. Over the next week, those shares would recover as spectacularly as they’d collapsed. The shares had still been rising when they’d left, and he figured that they’d likely top-out just shy of where they’d been before the collapse, somewhere in the region of six credits and twenty.
After commission and fees, he’d bank something in the region of fifteen million credits.
Fifteen MILLION credits.
He’d made a lot of money in his time. A lot. But never anything like that sum. And in one week! It had taken him literally years of sweat to make his first million, but here was a not-so-small fortune falling into his lap in just seven days.
His imagination began to run away with him, dreaming of schemes to net not just millions, but billions or even trillions of credits. He’d be the richest man alive. The richest man who’d ever lived.
He pictured himself lounging by the pool of the ultra-expensive La Corbier hotel (which he would own) on the leisure world Araxis 4 (which he would also own) thinking about his days in Starfleet (and if there was any way he could swing it, he’d own the Fleet too.)
Now that was how you made the most of an opportunity!
--------------------
Manny got back to the Bridge and slumped into his seat. He’d been down in the engine room talking to Vitalli. The Starfleet engineer didn’t fill him with confidence: they were all clearly in unknown territory.
Despite that, Manny had found himself chatting quite amicably to the engineer, and also the Chief’s two helpers. ‘Arry Winston was a bit of a character, and his tales of past misadventures had definitely lightened the last few days.
The Chief was a different matter. Manny hadn’t seen much of him, and even when he had, the Chief had seemed distracted, as if he was constantly running over the objectives of their little jaunt.
He sighed.
He hated to admit it, but he’d been lonely these last few months. As he sat in the chair he looked up to see the only photo he had of his beautiful wife, pinned to the console overhead.
He’d been out here scraping a living in no-man’s space ever since she’d died in an accident, and looking back now he realised he’d actively sought the solitude. He’d run
away from the pain and the sympathy it brought, losing himself in three years of drifting from day to day.
Three years of living by his wits. Three years of struggling to raise enough cash to buy fuel, or spares or food. Three years of never knowing if the next thing to fail on Pacifica would kill him, or if the next deal would go wrong and see him dying in a ditch on some god-forsaken alien world.
The Chief had been the first person to set foot on Pacifica in all that time, and Manny had been surprised to find that he’d enjoyed the company he’d had this last week. Even the Chief’s.
Maybe it was time to give up the ghost. Time to get a life instead of just existing.
He ruminated. Twenty thousand credits. Enough to pass a formal Masters qualification, maybe use that qualification to get a job with one of the big shipping lines?
He looked at the picture of his wife, smiling down at him eternally. It was time to move on.
--------------------
The Chief checked the navigation console. They were coming around to Hole again and would soon pass within a few light-seconds of the sub-space relay station that allowed communication across hundreds of light years of Federation space.
There, they would drop out of warp and the Chief would contact his man on Earth to get him to place the wager on his behalf. The winnings from the wager would buy the shares in Wagner Industries and then they just had to wait the seven days it would take for the rest of the universe to catch up with them.
They would then wait in radio silence, before heading back to Tiger, getting there a split second after their old selves had left. Nobody would be any the wiser, although certain people were obviously going to be very much wealthier.
He could almost smell the money. Fifteen million. It even sounded amazing.
It was awesomely easy.
The Chiefs reverie was broken by Manny.
‘You ready for this Chief?’
‘Ready for what? This is going to be a walk in the park!’ smiled the Chief.