Tiger: The Far Frontier

by David Smith

  Alone now, Dave looked around and took stock. He was finally here.

  --------------------

  Dave had been thinking about this moment since this posting was announced over three months ago. He’d envisaged many possible scenarios, but wasn’t really sure what to expect. What he hadn’t expected was to be stood in a dimly lit corridor that smelt slightly sweaty and damp, with no-one from the crew anywhere that he could see.

  “Hello? Anyone there?”

  Silence.

  He looked around and saw a comm station behind him serving the docking port he had just stepped through. Unsure who to speak to, he tapped the icon for the Bridge.

  “Bridge” came a curiously metallic reply.

  “Hi, this is Lieutenant-Commander Dave Hollins, new Executive Officer. I’m at the starboard docking port on the secondary hull. Who should I report to?”

  There was a lengthy pause before the metallic voice replied. “Please wait Lieutenant-Commander Hollins, a crew member will be …left? …. down to meet you.”

  Left down to meet you? An odd turn of phrase, but there had been so many odd things over the last few weeks this was just another oddity lost in an ocean of general weirdness. With no further instruction Dave sat down on one of the crates and waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  He’d lost track of time when a slightly unkempt crewman finally arrived. Dave stood up and saluted the new-comer “Ah, you must be here to take me to the Captain. I’m Lieutenant-Co……”

  The crewman cut him off abruptly “What?? No. I’m here for that lot” he said, gesturing over his shoulder to the untidy and hastily deposited pile of shipping crates that cluttered the deck. “I’ve got better things to do than run around after some lost bloody sheep.”

  He wandered off down the corridor with a few of the crates in tow on grav sleds, mumbling as he went “Bloody newbs, always getting in the way. Do this, I want that. It was different back in the good old days. I didn’t have to put up with……

  Watching him go, Dave didn’t notice the appearance of another crew member behind him, and had to have his attention drawn by a polite but exaggerated clearing of the throat.

  “Ahem! Lieutenant-Commander Hollins?”

  “That would be me…” Dave turned to see an immaculately turned out Chief facing him. Tall, suave, and bolt upright, he was much more the professional crewman that Dave had been expecting to meet on the Tiger “....and you are…?”

  “Chief Petty Officer Butler, sir, Steward of the Officer's Mess. Welcome aboard Lieutenant-Commander” he said, saluting smartly as he did. Still slightly bemused by the blunt antipathy of the other crewman Dave hastily returned the salute.

  "Thank you, Butler. I have new orders for the Captain" said Dave holding up a pad he'd brought with him from Command.

  Butler continued “The Captain is currently indisposed…..de-briefing his Yeoman. And First Officer Joynes is conducting an in-depth botanical experiment in his quarters. The Captain has requested that I show you to your quarters and ask you to report to the Bridge for duty at 0800 hours ships-time tomorrow. I'll pass those orders over to him sir, but he probably won't get around to reading them today.”

  Wow. Three months in transit and blown out by the skipper already. Not an auspicious start.

  Dave sighed and resigned himself to killing the best part of another day in a cabin and handed over the pad. Butler took it, then picked up some of Dave's bags and headed off down the passageway past the turbo-lift. Looking back over his shoulder and seeing Dave’s slightly bemused expression he said “This way, sir. I’m afraid the turbo-lifts are off-line at the moment so we’ll have to walk. At least you’ll get to see a bit of the ship this way.”

  A bit of the ship?? Dave was familiar with the Tiger’s deck plan and knew his cabin would be somewhere in the main hull, probably on Deck 4, a full fourteen decks above them. With the turbo-lifts off-line the only access would be by a series of vertical ladders. It was probably just as well he wasn’t on duty until 0800. He’d probably need the time to freshen up and recover…….

  --------------------

  Quite sensibly the Executive Officer’s quarters were on Deck 4, roughly below the Bridge. Butler had made light of the hike and had arrived at the ExO’s quarters looking as fresh as a daisy.

  This worried Dave enormously: either the Steward was a hardened fitness fanatic, or the turbo-lifts were regularly off-line. Dave looked him up and down, desperately trying to find signs of too much leisure time spent in the gym, but in “seeing a bit of the ship” Dave had already resigned himself to climbing ladders for the foreseeable future.

  The Tiger was in a depressingly poor state of repair. Bulkhead and deck-head panels were laid aside everywhere, revealing the complex mesh of power conduits, signal fibres and fluid pipes that were the nerves, sinews and arteries of the vessel. Millions of meters of each ran throughout the ship to connect the items of machinery and equipment that made up the ships systems, and Dave would have sworn he could see about half of them.

  More worryingly, the complex mesh looked like it was largely held together with duct-tape and cable-ties where it was held together at all. In far too many places, loose wires, conduits, fibres and pipes seemed to spill out the ships structure like a multi-coloured waterfall. In other places there were dozens of patches and junctions where (most ominously of all) there were the signs and smells of burning.

  Butler made light of it all: “The Engineers are a very busy team, sir.”

  Despite his inexperience, Dave was smart enough to know there was a world of difference between being busy and being good at what you were doing.

  Butler led him into his quarters, and Dave felt a sense of relief that at least this part of the ship seemed to be up to spec. The front of the quarters doubled as a personal office and contained a desk and chairs as well as a couple of more comfortable arm-chairs. Beyond that Dave could see a small sitting area with a sofa, coffee table and an alcove in which a replicator was located. At the rear of the quarters were a small shower, a toilet facility, and his sleeping quarters. He called for lights, but there was a tweet from the ships computer “Lighting circuits are currently off-line.”

  Oh well, no big problem, he thought. He felt slightly less relaxed when the computer added “Please disregard any smells of burning, the engineering staff are in full control of the situation”.

  Butler put his bags down and bid him goodnight, leaving him alone in the dim emergency lighting. Oh well, home of sorts, Dave thought. With nothing else to do, he sat down in front of the computer terminal at his desk. He couldn’t find the pad he’d downloaded the Tiger’s data files to, so he entered the same query on the desk terminal and left it to run while he unpacked his belongings, showered and changed.

  He came back to find the query had been answered much more quickly than it had on the Santiago. At least something on the Tiger was working well. He had assumed accessing data through Sector 244’s limited chain of relay stations would take longer if anything, but the computer had retrieved everything he’d asked for in a fraction of the time. Maybe the new experimental computer made a difference? He started going through records but oddly, things seemed to be different now. 430 crew, all present and correct. A perfectly normal set of requisitions, regular to the point of being banal. What had changed since he’d transferred from the Santiago?

  Starting up the vocal interface he asked "Computer, how many crew members are currently active on USS Tiger?"

  There was a soft beep and the computer replied "There are currently 51 active crew members."

  "Fifty-one? The roster from fleet shows 450. Even local records show 430. How can there only be fifty-one active crew?"

  There was a pause and Dave could see the status indicator on his terminal showing a significant increase in resources allocated to his query as the computer analysed the discrepancy.

  Eventually, it came up with its explanation: "Please define the par
ameters of the word "active" as used in your query".

  He closed the link, rubbed his eyes and stretched, too tired to really dig into yet another oddity. It had been a long day and it occurred to him he hadn’t eaten since breakfast time. The ships clock was now showing 2215. He went to his sitting room, pressed the activation button on the replicator and requested a steak with side salad and coffee. Perhaps predictably the computer tweeted and said “Replicators are currently off-line. Food and beverages are available from the galley on Deck 8.”

  It was so easy to take modern technology for granted. In three years at the Academy and previously at University Dave had used replicators on a regular basis. The replicator was based on the same technology as transporters. They used energy fields to break down an object into sub-atomic particles and stored the resultant data pattern in a memory bank. Where transporters used sub-space technology to rebuild the same pattern identically elsewhere, replicators took a basic material, broke it down into subatomic particles and then re-built it into a completely different pattern stored previously.

  This extraordinary technology had revolutionised manufacturing, allowing many complex items to be constructed flawlessly time after time. More commonly, it offered the user the choice of almost every food and drink ever created, replicated from a perfect sample of the food turned into a data pattern years previously. The replicator offered gourmet dining and absolute consistency as the steak Dave had ordered would be completely identical to the steaks he’d eaten a dozen times before, right down to a sub-atomic level.

  It was expensive and energy intensive technology and one of the privileges of being an officer on a Starship was having access to a replicator in your own quarters. The junior ranks made do with more basic meals prepared in a large galley.

  Sadly, it wasn’t until the replicator wasn’t working that you really appreciated how fantastic the technology was. Sighing, Dave set out to see yet more of the ship.

  --------------------

  It took a while to reach the galley. Not only was it four decks down, several of the main passageway doors seemed to be off-line too, and Dave was forced to retrace his steps several times to make progress in the right direction.

  Despite the computers statement, the galley was closed when Dave finally got there. Hungry now, he pressed the call button next to the door expecting the duty staff to answer, but nothing happened. He tried again, but then remembered that as Executive Officer he was granted certain privileges. “Computer, Lieutenant-Commander Dave Hollins, Executive Officer, USS Tiger. Authorisation code Tiger Ops three epsilon. Open Galley door.”

  There was a slight pause and the door slid smoothly open. The lights came to full brightness as Dave entered the galley and he looked around himself. He’d raided the galley at the Academy many times during long nights of study and prided himself on a near sixth-sense when it came to finding food. He entered a world of comfortingly clean and sterile stainless steel and was drawn to the lockers behind the main servery. He stopped when he saw a huge ginger man casually draped over one of the food prep tables.

  He was dressed in a cook’s uniform which was stained far more liberally than could be considered hygienic, and one unconscious hand gripped the neck of a largely empty bottle of whisky.

  Dave cleared his throat, and then again more theatrically and noisily, but neither attempt elicited any response from the unconscious chef other than to bring on a more pronounced bout of snoring and occasional mumbling in a very broad Glaswegian accent. A gentle shake had no greater effect, and in desperation Dave took a large ladle from under the table and smashed it down onto the table next to the man’s head.

  It had the desired effect, but only after a fashion. The sleeping giant screamed and sat bolt upright, all wild hair, bad-breath and staring bleary eyes and punched Dave hard in his face.

  Stars of pain exploded in front of Dave’s eyes as his nose was smashed, and his ears rang from the screams of the crazed chef: “YOU TWAT!!!! You know better than to try and wake me up when I’m off the clock, you dopey fucking half-wit!! Get the fuck out of my galley, you stupid toss-pot!!”

  Dave still had his eyes firmly closed but could feel blood pouring down his face and arms in the pause that followed as the Chef came to his senses: “Er….. who the fuck are you?”

  Dave tried to open his eyes, but still couldn’t see properly. He managed to straighten himself up a little and introduced himself “Dabe Hollins, doo ekso”. Almost plaintively he added “ Yoo boke my vucking dose!!!”

  “Oh. Aye. Er… sorry mate… Sir.”

  Dave’s head was still spinning and he collapsed into a chair next to the table, tipping his head back to try and stem the flow of blood. “I didut mea to starta yoo. By reblicator is ov lie and ‘puta sed I cud get a beal here.”

  “Oh, aye, that explains it!” the chef interjected “That computer’s a fucking imbecile. Chief Burns, by the way”

  Through one half open eye, Dave managed to shake the proffered hand, barely registering as the chef grimaced and added the resulting smears of blood to the plethora of stains he’d already collected on his uniform.

  “Zo, doe food den??”

  “Ah. Well. Er….no. Sir. Tell you what, let’s get you up to sick bay to get that nose sorted and I’ll whip up something special and leave it in your quarters. And we’ll say no more about this little….incident, eh?”

  If Dave had been in slightly less pain, or was slightly less miserable he’d have probably found a dozen regulations that Chief Burns had broken along with his nose. Right then, he just wanted to get back to his quarters and sulk, but with a typical, genetically imposed Britishness he thanked his assailant for helping him up to the sick bay.

  --------------------

  Strangely the door to the sick bay didn’t open either. Fortunately the call button beside the door did draw a response: the computer probably wouldn’t have recognised Dave’s voice if he’d tried his ExO’s privilege code again.

  After a brief pause the door swished aside to reveal a tall, severe looking blonde woman in a simple doctor’s house coat. If he’d been able to focus, Dave would probably have appreciated her blue-eyed blonde looks, but it was all he could do to open his eyes at all. He would definitely have appreciated her firm bosom, which heaved enticingly and barely restrained beneath the thin cotton cover-all. He would also have been fascinated by her enormously long legs, which were encased in a pair of very tight and very shiny (but completely non-regulation) PVC boots that reached up past her knees and an unspecified distance under her coat too.

  Overall, and being a Brit, he’d probably just have been massively intimidated by the statuesque valkyrie, who’d have been as tall as Dave even without the scary stiletto heels.

  Her icy-blue eyes flicked across the wavering Scotsman and his even less steady charge with obvious distaste: “What do you want?”

  Being neither intimidated, impressed or sober enough to care, Chief Burns was in no mood for niceties either: “Is this not the ships gay disco? Have I got the wrong place again?”

  For a fraction of a second the doctor nearly rose to the bait, but the Chief saved her the trouble by continuing, “He needs attention you stupid tart. You know, medical attention? I hear that once in a while the staff here pull the butt-plugs out of their arses and do that sort of stuff??”

  Dave didn’t need to open his eyes to judge the doctors response. He would later swear that the air-temperature physically dropped ten degrees in that instant as the Doctor glared at them, but she seemed to recover herself, tapped an icon on a panel inside the door and directed the two orderlies that arrived quickly to relieve the Chief of his burden.

  The Chief didn’t manage to turn away quickly enough to deny her the small victory of shutting the door in his face.

  Dave managed to open his eyes enough to see that the sick bay at least was clean, tidy and well-lit. He suspected that it might be because the maintenance teams were scared of upsetting the doctor, but as he was r
esigned to her tender ministrations, he thought it best not to pursue that line of thought.

  He was helped onto an examination couch and the doctor did a preliminary scan and called up his medical files. ”Ah, you are the new Executive Officer. Welcome. I am Commander Katrin Mengele, ships Doctor. I take it no-one warned you not to disturb Chief Burns when he’s off-duty?”

  Dave tried to shake his head, but it hurt too much. The Doctor pushed him back onto the couch and did a more detailed scan. “Hmm. Your nose is broken.”

  No shit Sherlock, thought Dave.

  “This might be a little uncomfortable” she said.

  He felt her fingers gently examine the sides of his nose and Dave was vaguely aware that she seemed to be wearing black PVC rather than the more usual clear latex examination gloves, but this thought was pushed aside as she abruptly squeezed the cartilage of his nose back into its usual place.

  He screamed and tears rolled from his eyes, but they drew no sympathy from the doctor.

  “There. Good as new. Take these pain-killers and go away.”

  By the time he managed to look up through more sparkling stars of agony, the Valkyrie had already turned and marched off to the operating theatre at the rear of the sick-bay. Through the rapidly closing doors (and tear-filled eyes), Dave was sure he caught a glimpse of a naked man chained face-down on an operating table.

  Dave followed the trail of his own blood back through to the galley, which was closed again. Deciding not to risk waking Chief Burns a second time, he re-traced his steps from there to his quarters. His appetite had diminished somewhat, but he saw on his desk a small plate and a note from Chief Burns.

  “ExO, here’s a variation of a classic dish that I’ve been working on. I call it Glenfiddich Haggis Tartare. Enjoy!”

  “Ps. Sorry about the nose”

  The dish was presented on a plate with what appeared to be mashed vegetables, and to one side was a large beaker filled to the brim with a clear golden fluid. Even with a shattered and battered nose, Dave could smell the whisky.