by David Smith
Seconds later, she straightened up and said ‘Phew. That was close!’
Everyone on the Bridge was staring at her blankly and her face flushed yet again.
‘What was all that about Aisling?’
She seemed desperately uncomfortable and eventually asked ‘Is it acceptable to plead the fifth amendment when it comes to breaking federal law and fleet regulations concerning temporal impropriety?’
Dave had the light-bulb moment too. ‘You just sent that formula to yourself?’
‘Might have’ she said non-committally.
Dave was about to suggest that he’d overlook the breach of temporal regulations when a thought occurred to him. ‘Hang on. You sent the correct formula to yourself. But you only know the formula because you received it from your future self. Where did the information for the formula come from in the first place?’
Blushing vivid red, O’Mara replied ‘I’m not saying that I did in actual fact breach temporal regulations in any way, but even if I did, frankly I’m buggered if I know how that worked.’ She paused and a frown wrinkled her brow. ‘And I also don’t have a clue what would have happened if I’d forgotten to send that message.’
She shook her head. ‘Wow. That’s really going to do my swede in now I think about it.’
Dave shook his own head, took his seat and tried not to have nightmare thoughts starting with the phrase “What if . . . ‘ He was glad of the distraction when the comm-station on the arm of his chair beeped. He answered a call from Doctor Mengele.
‘Hi Katrin. How are we doing?’’
‘We believe we have the infection under control. My team have inoculated everyone who has been reported as being infected. ‘
A thought occurred to Dave ‘Does that include Commander Grosvenor?’
‘We did check all people who were known to have come into contact with the virus, but Commander Grosvenor was clear.’
‘Are you sure?? She got all . . . um . . . ‘ Dave shut up. He hadn’t expected that. What Izzy had wanted to tell him, probably still needed to be said, but the moment had passed, at least for now.
‘Thanks, Katrin. Please keep me up to date on the recovery of the victims. Hollins out.’ He cut the link and his mind ran back through his conversation with Izzy.
He was still thinking about it a few minutes later when his attention was taken by a flash of light within the debris field. There, a ship unleashed a warp-field controlled by an intermix formula with no explainable origin. Dave watched his own ship disappear and reflected on a day that had been so disastrous they’d needed twenty-five hours in it to accommodate all the sub-disasters. This exploration lark was more difficult than he’d ever dreamed it would be.
Chapter 7: ‘Tomb Raiders’
Captain’s Log Captain David Hollins
Star Date 9433.3
Today marks something of a watershed for USS Tiger. After a couple of months of exploring Treaty Exploration Space, we’re getting down to one of the most complex tasks we’ll face as an explorer.
We’ve just settled into a high orbit around a Class M planet, identified in our catalogue as Sigma Epsilon Alpha Four. It’s an unremarkable world, but it’s home to a pre-industrial society that refers to their world as Sayalli
We’ve been asked to observe and assess the indigenous people at close-quarters, which is a huge challenge and a huge honour.
We’ll file the first detailed reports on this race, but it’s imperative that we don’t interfere with the development of their society. Who knows what damage a piece of lost technology, or even knowledge of the existence of aliens might have on their nascent social structure? That’s the reason the Prime Directive exists: to give them the chance to develop naturally at their own pace with no interference from more advanced species.
We will need to observe all Starfleet’s study protocols, remaining completely anonymous and undetected during our observations in order to comply with the Prime Directive.
I can’t begin to describe how excited the crew are, particularly the science team, who have recently blotted their copy book with the incident concerning the Jekylls. Aisling O’Mara broke too many regulations to list whilst still being on probation at her new rank, so I had no choice but to bust her back down to Lieutenant-Commander, but she’s taken that well and it hasn’t affected her performance.
For her, this is a chance to redeem herself and for many of her team this could a career defining moment.
This is why we all signed up.
Captain David Hollins
Commanding Officer, USS Tiger
--------------------
The ship’s Helmsman, Lieutenant Jim Bob ‘Crash’ Stallworth read out the data of Tiger’s approach to the planet known to its inhabitants as Sayalli. ‘Orbital insertion in three, two, one . . . Touchdown! Crowd goes wild!’
Hollins sat in the Captain’s chair watching the images on the main view-screen and also on the smaller screens on the arm of his chair. With no small sense of occasion, he addressed the ship’s Science Officer: ‘Lieutenant-Commander O’Mara, please begin scans.’
‘Aye, Sir!’
There was a palpable air of excitement across the Bridge as the tousle-haired Science Officer brought all of the ship’s extraordinary array of sensors to bear.
The First Officer, Executive Officer, Navigator and Comms Officer all assisted in guiding the sensor systems, as did the entire Science Team, spread throughout a dozen different laboratories and offices throughout the ship. Nobody wanted to miss out on this moment.
Even Commander Grosvenor was on the Bridge observing although she had no defined role in such matters. She manned a station and assisted the science team where she could, whilst managing to avoid any direct contact with the Captain. Neither of them had spoken much to the other since the ship had left Sigma Epsilon Iota Eight D.
The only person on the Bridge not directly involved with the scientific aspects of the mission was the Tactical Officer, Lieutenant Andre-Safrane Beauregard. His role was to keep a wider view on the environment and identify anything that might pose a threat to the ship.
He expected no problems: there were few space-faring races in this area and no records of any other claims to this sector of treaty space. As the rest of the Bridge crew ‘Oooh’d and ‘Aaah’d over the reams of data streaming in, he put his feet up and had a little snooze.
He was therefore a little surprised to be roused by a bleep of alert from his console. He ignored it at first, but when it bleeped again, he opened one eye. On the screen of his console a little red dot flashed with annoying regularity.
He sat up and took a closer look. The ship’s tactical system had identified something untoward on the surface of the planet. Suddenly concerned, he brought the ship’s main tactical sensors on-line and investigated further before reporting. ‘Captain, I’m reading a ship on the surface.’
‘WHAT??’ Hollins was shocked. How could there be a ship on the surface? This planet should be off-limits to any Federation race. ‘Give me details, ASBeau.’
ASBeau interpreted the data as it came in. ‘Mass of around five hundred tonnes, probably a private yacht, energy signature looks like a Federation drive system . . . yep, we’ve got a transponder . . . it’s a yacht, registered as the SS Coraline.’
He put details of the vessel up on the Bridge’s main view-screen. An old, tired, battered yacht, hundreds of light-years from its home port.
ASBeau continued his record search. ‘It’s a privately owned vessel, registered to a home port in the Satranis system, Sector 113. That’s around a hundred and twenty light-years away. She’s a long, long way from home.’
‘ASBeau, do we have any indication of the crew, or what their mission is?’
‘Checking . . . uh, crew of one, no listing of current task. The ship’s owner and captain is one Professor Jacques Hubert.’
O’Mara squeaked again. ‘Hey! I know that name! I’m pretty certain Lieutenant Selassie studied xeno-archaeology under h
im at the Sorbonne in Paris.’
Hollins raised an eyebrow. ‘At the Sorbonne? That’s pretty elite. I wonder why he’s this far out?’
O’Mara lowered her voice as she tended to when indulging in gossip. ‘Well, rumour has it that he left the Sorbonne after several nasty disagreements over funding for research that he wanted to do. If he’s on a yacht this far out, I guess that confirms the rumours.’
That was weird, thought Hollins. It was one thing to look at alien cultures and learn about them, but the society on the planet below hadn’t advance as far as the bow and arrow yet. This was more like the province of anthropologists or perhaps sociologists, not a famous archaeologist. He looked at the known status of the yacht. It was an old vessel operating far outside its designed use. It was most likely to have suffered some kind of problem and been forced to make an emergency landing.
It sounded plausible, but didn’t alter the face value of the facts. The professor had landed on an inhabited world with an indigenous pre-industrial society in an uncloaked vessel. He had almost certainly breached the legislation that also drove the Fleet’s Prime Directive. He was still musing on what action to take when O’Mara piped up again.
‘Got some strange readings sir. Traces of radioactivity inconsistent with the technological level of the society. Also reading some structures that are anachronistic. I’m sure we’ve got things like concrete and steel structures that shouldn’t be an option for the locals for at least another thousand years.’
‘Is that the professor’s doing?’
O’Mara shook her head. ‘Uncertain at this stage, sir. The structures are hard to spot. It’s almost as if they’ve been located specifically to prevent them being spotted from orbit. I reckon there are probably more tucked away that we haven’t spotted yet, so bearing in mind that the professor is on his own, I’d guess the structures pre-date his arrival by quite a way.’
This was getting stranger by the minute.
Dave took a mental step back. The structures made no difference in the great scheme of things. Regardless of who built them, the professor had no right to be on the planet. And as an academic of some standing he should definitely know that he had no right to be there.
Dave checked the position of the yacht with respect to the planet’s day / night terminator and realised night would fall within the next three hours where Professor Hubert had landed.
‘Ok. Change of plan. O’Mara, I’m bringing forward the ground aspects of the mission. I want your team on the surface in four hours time. I want you to prioritise the assessment of how much the indigenous species know about that yacht and its skipper and what impact they’ve had. ASBeau, I want you to take a team too. Keep it small, keep it neat: I want Professor Hubert off that planet and I want him off it as soon as possible with the least possible fuss. Let’s shake it people, no time to waste now.’
--------------------
Four hours later the initial away team took their shuttle and guided it down to the planet’s surface.
Landing at night maximised their chances of success, but made finding the professor more of a challenge. The intruding yacht had landed on high ground overlooking a small village. ASBeau flew the shuttle in a wide arc to land in the valley on the far side of the high-ground, further away from the village.
He approached slowly and did a pass over a lightly wooded area surrounding a small river running through the bottom of the valley. As he did, Chief Belle spotted a small clearing. ‘There!’
ASBeau checked the co-ordinates she’d sent. ‘Yeah, I see it.’
He switched the display across the shuttle’s forward windows to a tactical mode that overlaid a ghostly representation of the landscape derived from the shuttle’s multi-frequency radar. The small clearing stood out in the darkness and ASBeau gently drifted the ship around to make a perfect landing in the open space.
O’Mara had been monitoring the environment and briefed the team on what to expect. ‘Gravity is nought point eight nine gees, atmosphere is thin, but oxygen content is a little higher as a percentage so breathing shouldn’t be difficult. There aren’t any significant nocturnal predators around, although there’re a few small warm-blooded flying beasties out there. I assume that’s the local equivalent of Terran bats. The local climate is temperate, currently dry, with light winds and a little mist. Air temperature is cold at around three degrees Celsius, but there are no toxins, no obvious bacterial or viral issues, so we’re good to go. The length of day is around twenty-six hours, so at this latitude we’ve only got about five hours of night left to play with.’
While ASBeau, Chief Belle and the security detachment apprehended the professor, the science team would set up a proper screen system to hide the shuttle and also choose a location for a “duck-blind” from which to study the indigenous species.
ASBeau stood up and checked the strapping on his back-pack and belt. His team were wearing the same adaptive-camouflage suits that the science team would use to observe the indigenous population, but wouldn’t be using them unless they had to.
The suits would make them incredibly difficult to spot, although they wouldn’t be completely invisible unless they stood still. However, being invisible made movement of groups of people difficult, and for that reason they settled for allowing the dark fabric of the suits to act as their camouflage. ASBeau powered up his suit just to check it, becoming nothing more than a blur in the air before turning it off and saying ‘Ok, let’s move out, standard formation.’
Each of the team put on their tactical visors, which looked like a chunky pair of skiing-goggles, and tested their own suits before following him. The visors were fitted with image intensifiers and also sensors that worked in the ultraviolet and infrared spectrum. As well as that they were fitted with in internal laser that would feed tactical information directly onto the wearer’s retina. Although it was a cloudless night, they would need the visors to see their way properly.
Chief Belle led the team out. She’d brought three of her best people and put Running Deer on point. Behind the native American was crewman Ga’Zhar, one of Tiger’s small non-human complement.
Ga’Zhar (or Wolfie, as he was better known) was a Carcaran, a member of an ancient predatory species. Over two meters tall and with fangs and claws like daggers, Wolfie brought to mind the human myth of the werewolf, but the Carcaran species had mellowed over time and were far less fierce than their appearance would suggest.
ASBeau and Chief Belle came next and bringing up the rear was crewman Kareena Chowdhury, a beautiful and striking Indian who was an acknowledged expert in a dozen martial arts.
Running Deer led them forward, her excellent navigational skills meaning that she needed no map. From his position in the centre of the line, ASBeau quietly gave his instructions through a microphone linked to ear-pieces that all of the other away-team members were wearing.
‘The professor’s ship is three hundred and fifty metres south-west of us in an open pasture. We’ll approach through the woods and try to apprehend the professor immediately. As soon as we have him, we transport out and leave the science team behind with the shuttle.’
He felt something whistle past his ear, rustling the fabric of the hood of his suit, and instinctively ducked. ‘What the hell was that?’
Ga’Zhar still had the senses evolved through millions of years of hunting for prey and said quietly ‘That was a local equivalent of a bat, sir. I guess like most bats, they hunt at night.’
‘How the hell can the damned thing see?’ grumbled ASBeau.
Ga’Zhar’s superior hearing gave the answer. ‘They probably can’t sir, but I can just about hear a buzzing sound. Very high frequency. I think they’re using a type of echo navigation. What the old wet-navy used to call sonar.’
That did nothing ease ASBeau’s nerves. ‘Can’t be that good if the damned thing nearly ran into something the size of me.’
Ga’Zhar would’ve smiled if his ferocious teeth would allow it. ‘It was probably
chasing an insect less than a centimetre long sir. The sonar organs these creatures use are amazing.’
ASBeau huffed and puffed, and carried on. They walked silently in single file, ten metres apart, until Deer gave the signal to stop. ASBeau joined her, and she silently pointed through the trees to a small clearing. Sat in the centre of the clearing was a small, tatty looking spaceship. There were no lights visible and no sign of life.
ASBeau made use of the advanced capabilities of his visor, winding up the gain on the image intensifiers to pick out more detail on the ship. He guessed that at one stage, she’d been an elegant vessel. The hull was long and tapered, with a rounded forward end where windows that would look out from the ship’s bridge were visible.
Where the hull began to narrow, an engine projected from each side of the hull on a short stanchion. It was here that the most visible sign of the ship’s nature was apparent.
Each engine was a stubby tube, and it appeared quite different in style from the main hull, looking far squarer and more industrial. He guessed that the yacht had started life as a cruiser, a rich person’s plaything, before being refitted as a working explorer. The engines for an explorer needed to be robust, reliable and efficient, and these engines were clearly not designed for good looks.
Looking further forward, he could see where sensor arrays had been added to the elegant hull, sticking out like warts on the otherwise smooth surface.
Even in the very low light he could judge the poor condition of the vessel. There were signs of repairs to the hull, carried out haphazardly, and several hull plates were simply missing. Worrying scorched patches looked like the results of energy weapon impacts, and there were even a couple of large dents in the hull.
Most worryingly, the panels on one engine had been removed to reveal signs of extensive damage to the warp coils: The ship wasn’t going anywhere without major repairs.