by David Smith
“Ok. Priority goes to the neodymium wire. Five kilos of that should get at least a twenty relays sorted. After that, we take the niobium, and dysprosium. I figure that should give us about thirty usable relays. Enough to get the deflector grid, and navigational deflector working, sort the turbo-lifts and probably the transporters. Phasers would be next, but I’m not sure we’ll have enough for all the relays associated with three phaser-banks” said the PO, scratching his head.
“Ok Vijay, just do your best” said Dave and pressed a button on his pad that transmitted the shopping list of materials to Kennickie.
Dave had assigned Stavros to repairing the other shuttles, so it was left to Crash to take PO Kandampully and himself down to meet with Kennickie a few hours later.
They boarded the shuttle, strapped themselves in tightly and Crash flew the battered bird out of the hangar and back down to the landing terminal.
As Crash engaged the impulse drive, a strange wailing sound filled the shuttle and for a moment Dave thought something important had failed. “What the hell is that noise??”
Crash looked over at him ruefully.
“That’s Cassie Jones, sir, 21st century country and western mega-star.”
“She sounds like she’s in pain!”
“Well sir, it is a song about how she loves her husband, even though he’s always drunk and beats her and the eight kids”
“And you like this stuff?”
“Yes sir! This is a classic, although personally I prefer “My Husbands in Love with the Slut Next Door” and “Daddy Shot my Boyfriend. Again”. Oh, and “My man likes me, but loves sheep”. That’s a real tear-jerker”
“None of it sounds exactly joyful.”
“No Sireee!!! If you want happy, country and western ain’t your thing!”
Dave thought he preferred the alarms and tried to shut the tortured wailing out of his head.
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Kennickie was nowhere to be seen. 10.25 kilos of assorted raw materials lay waiting for them in an unmarked box in the empty corridor outside the flight control room. They took it and left the 10.25 kilos of aspirin and went on their way.
Back at the ship, Kandampully took the materials off to his workshop and Dave hobbled to the Engineering Deck to find out how crewman Billy Ottershaw was getting on with the Tricorder. Dave found Chief Deng on duty and she took him to a small workshop tucked away at one side of the main deck.
Inside, Billy Ottershaw was seemingly buried in an avalanche of wire, circuit boards and bits of machinery. As they came in he stood, turned and saluted smartly “Afternoon Chief, ExO. Ooooohhhh FUCK!!!!”
Dave was in the middle of returning the salute, when the out-burst stopped him. He froze, unsure what to say, but Ottershaw carried on as if nothing had happened. “I’ve quadrupled the memory capacity……fucking nnnn----nuu-----KNOB JOCKEY!!.... and I’ve put in a much faster processor from the main computer. Twat.”
“Uh….Thanks?” said Dave uncertainly.
“My pleasure sir….. Wuuu…..wahey!! COCK!!”
Deng saw Dave’s confusion: “Ottershaw is an excellent electronics engineer, but Commander Mengele is still looking for a way to control his very severe case of Tourettes’ Syndrome.”
Ottershaw smiled at her and nodded enthusiastically “Nice tits. Yeah, sorry sir. Pppp----puuuuhhhh-----PISS-FLAPS!!.”
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Red Alert warnings flashed on every bulkhead and the strident klaxon was only interrupted by the repeating warning from the computerised address system. “Radiation Alert! All personnel evacuate Deck 10 immediately!”
The door to Chief Money’s stores complex opened and panicked crew members poured out through the single door between the complex and the rest of the ship. A security crewman urged them on, directing them all to a hatch to an access ladder while his colleague scanned them for radioactive contamination one-by-one, shouting above the cacophony of warning klaxons and panicked voices:
“Crewman Stiles, Clean!”
“PO Starr, Clean!”
“Crewman Nowacki, Clean!”
“Crewman Nakajima, Clean!”
“Err……”
The tricorder was beeping as the security man waved it over a small oriental Petty Officer, who waited, terrified, and expecting to hear the worst.
Dave stepped forward “PO Park Si Yung, I presume?” The poor man seemed about to faint. “Well, Petty Officer Park Si Yung, you and I are going to have a long, long chat about computer programmes, fraud and what happens to little guys in prison.”
Chapter 7
Dave almost felt sorry for the worried looking Petty Officer. He felt even worse about playing the bad guy and intimidating him as brutally as he had, but this was serious stuff now. He knew he’d got the right guy as soon as they’d got him to the brig and Chief Money himself had turned up panting and sweating after chasing Dave, the security team and their catch through the ship to Deck 22 where the secure brig was.
The conversation with the Chief had been short. Reuben Money insisted that they release his subordinate for him to interview in the event of any breach of regulations. Dave had calmly pointed out that if this crew-member had indeed been a member of the Chief’s department, his name didn’t appear on any rosters or duty charts the Chief had prepared. This was absolute proof that the Chief had deliberately falsified official documents, which was a corporal offence with a potential five year penal sentence. The Chief suddenly had no recollection of ever seeing PO Park before, but was happy to take him aside and interrogate him to save the security team the bother.
Chief Money would probably have carried the argument on if Security Chief Belle hadn’t intervened, gleefully pointing her phaser straight at his face and asking for permission to shoot him. Not that she needed the phaser: 1.8m tall and built like a line-backer, Chief Barbie Belle wore mirror sun-glasses day and night, could bench press a hundred kilos and scared the bejesus out of everyone.
It hadn’t taken long to crack Park. Deliberately left to stew in the interrogation room for thirty minutes, Dave and Chief Belle watched as sensors in the room monitored his physical condition.
The room was absolutely bare, with plain grey walls, deck and deck-head. Two small and very uncomfortable chairs were placed either side of a tiny table. The only feature of the room was the small but very obvious camera through which Hollins and the Security Chief watched him as he paced up and down.
His heart rate, blood pressure and neural activity were all elevated, and seemed to have settled at a value far higher than could be considered healthy when the Chief suggested “I think he’s cooked sir.”
They entered the room in silence, Dave taking one seat at the table and silently motioning for Park to take the other while Chief Belle stood feet apart and hands behind her back directly in front of the door.
The interrogation was a complete anticlimax and turned into something of a confessional. It seemed that Park was a very reluctant acolyte of the Chiefs, and oddly several requests he’d made for transfer to another ship or department had gone missing or been denied (at least that was what Chief Money had told him).
He did indeed run the Chiefs accounts, but the real reason the Chief had kept him on the leash (as Dave had suspected) was the computer.
The whole sorry story poured out of Park in a torrent.
The Chief had recognised many years ago the potential of a place like Sector 244. With only a single chain of sub-space relay stations, communications in and out were slow and limited. He’d planned to plant a computer virus on the relay station at the start of the chain allowing him to intercept data transmissions so he could purge any “awkward” data before Command got it.
The difficulty had been arranging a circumstance whereby he could get his pet geek aboard the relay station. He’d had Park working on a virus that they could encode and transmit to the relay station via a comm signal when a dozen Starfleet scientists had turned up on the Tiger with an experimental computer. It q
uickly became apparent that no-one could understand or was able to operate the new computer and the Chief had seized his chance.
Park referred to it as Chief’s Money’s Uncertainty Principle: Any uncertainty is directly proportional to the opportunity it presents.
Money stole the basic programming, copied it and got Park to insert sub-routines that gave him a back door to control the whole of the operating system’s software and interfaces. He then overlaid this new software which split the computer in two, locking the original functionality in a secure area only he could access and creating an identical but entirely fake interface which the rest of the crew could access for the day to day running of the ship.
Any data coming into the ship was routed to the old system, which the Chief and Park vetted before letting it flow into the fake computer interface the crew could see. As far as Command were concerned the skipper had requested 20 additional crew for a variety of reasons, but the fake interface still showed only 430 crew. The Captain had never queried anything, because he didn’t realise anything was going on.
It was brilliant. The Chief administered everything in and out of the ship and had a completely free hand as long as no-one realised there was a problem. And by quirk of fate (or careful planning by Command) he’d been surrounded with a crew that had so many problems they’d never have spotted anything.
He’d carefully failed to obtain the spares that would allow Tiger to leave orbit and had replaced many legitimate requests with requests for items that he could sell on Hole, or trade for some of the valuable minerals they extracted. Dave wasn’t as worried by the volume of the fraud committed so much as the nature of it, but Park hinted that Chief Money was a spectacularly wealthy individual.
The fake interface also probably explained why the computer appeared schizophrenic: All its down-stream communications were with an exact replica of itself, controlled by Chief Money.
Having discovered where the problem lay, two questions were immediately apparent:
Firstly, how did they put it right?
And secondly, whose ass was he going to nail to the wall for this?
The first question answered itself far more easily than he had expected: PO Park was the only person who knew where the back-door into the original software was (he hadn’t trusted Chief Money enough to impart that information) and with a single word command, the entire fake interface disappeared to be replaced seconds later by the identical real interface.
Chief Deng ran a comprehensive series of diagnostics and confirmed the computer was indeed back on-line. Dave allowed himself a little one-legged dance of celebration in the privacy of his own quarters.
The second question resolved itself an hour or so after Parks’ incarceration. Chief Belle’s predatory instincts told her that the rat would desert a sinking ship and she’d posted teams to discretely watch the airlocks dotted around the ships. Her Deputy, PO Jan Sorenson, apprehended Chief Money trying to escape via one of the more remote airlocks, with an unmarked private shuttle waiting alongside. It seemed Chief Money was going on the run on his own, which indicated that he was the sole mastermind of the whole affair.
Chief Belle had taken great delight in apprehending him, and had also impounded the shuttle which was full of all manner of bizarre goods. The Supply Chief wouldn’t say where the shuttle had come from, and with no recognisable registration they couldn’t return it to an owner even if they wanted to.
Reuben Money followed Park into the brig while Dave tried to work out how many regulations he’d broken, how often he’d done it and whether sentences should run concurrently or consecutively. He was interrupted in this train of thought by an incoming call from Commander Cassini.
“I have managed to get my team to fix the computer. I have successfully re-initialised the warp core and drive systems. We can get underway when you’re ready”
Dave didn’t have time to come up with a sarcastic reply before Cassini terminated the connection. On the positive side, the Commanders call had reminded him that he had yet to produce a mission plan for the orders that had come from Command.
He left Chief Belle with instructions to oversee the further interrogation of Chief Money, and to keep digging away at Park to get a list of all the things he could extract from what remained of the fake computer interface. He added that they were to remain under lock and key and were to see no-one without explicit permission from himself. Most importantly, under no circumstances were they to be allowed to communicate with each other.
Chief Belle acknowledged with a smart salute “Aye, Sir. I’ll personally continue Chief Money’s interrogation and I won’t leave any scars. Not physical ones, anyway”
With her sunglasses on, Dave couldn’t tell if she winked. He hoped she was joking, but after a moments internal conflict he comforted himself with the thought that whatever happened, Chief Money probably deserved it.
Either way, this was not the time to be worrying about it. Returning to his quarters he finally opened the sealed orders Yeoman Viera had given him more than two days previously.
He viewed the synopsis. Starfleet Command and the Federation Council were concerned by a lack of activity in Sha T’Al space, and had received no response to recent diplomatic overtures. Tiger was to cross the border, attempt to re-establish communications with the leadership of the Sha T’Al and investigate the status of known Sha T’Al colonies in the area. In doing this she was to travel through Sha T’Al space and approach the border between Sha T’Al space and the Tana Empire and look for evidence of military action or simple encroachment by the Tana in Sha T’Al space.
Full mission parameters were appended but Dave didn’t need to read them to understand what was required. Whilst the Sha T’Al were aloof, the Tana were aggressive. Command were obviously concerned that the Tana Empire might annexe part or all of Sha T’Al space and instantly gain a huge border with the Federation.
Tiger was ordered to get underway immediately, and the urgency of the situation was not lost on Dave.
However, the orders were quite specific that Tiger was not to attempt to contact the Tana or engage any alien vessel. In the event of the mission becoming untenable, Tiger was to retreat to Federation space and request fleet support or further instructions.
Great, thought Dave. Sneak a peak, but if anyone comes, run away and find an adult. He didn’t doubt that if there was another Starship within a dozen sectors, Command would’ve ignored the Tiger all together.
He sighed. It was only reasonable. Command must know better than anyone how unreliable the crew of Tiger were, but thanks to Chief Money’s meddling, even they didn’t know how poor a condition the ship was in. This posed an obvious question. Should they contact Command and declare the real state of the ship? It wasn’t his call to make. He needed to speak to the Captain.
Getting his ideas in order, he contacted Romanov and Deng to find out how their efforts to repair the power relay network were going. Deng answered.
“Kandampully has started manufacturing the parts we need from the raw materials. It’ll be a another two days before any of the relays are ready, but other engineers will prep the stations so we’ll only have to slot them in and configure them.”
Dave had previously asked how so many relays had been damaged, only to be met with awkward silences and mumbled comments about “stupid speed records” and “half-assed ego trips”, but mostly with blunt comments that Commander Cassini would need to explain that.
Deciding it wasn’t relevant and that he didn’t have the time or will-power to argue with the Commander, Dave dropped it. He pressed on with more important concerns, such as how delicate the repaired power relays would be, if the dilithium crystal focussing system would hold up, and if the computer was likely to suffer a relapse.
Romanov told him she could get drive systems operational in about two days which, after being immobile for an entire year, was something of a miracle. He took that as a personal triumph.
With the two day period o
f grace, he delegated many of his duties and focussed on formulating a plan of action around the earliest possible start. By late afternoon he’d finalised and checked his plan and called the Captain.
“I told you I would be up to the Bridge later” came the terse reply.
Dave was momentarily put out of his stride. That had been well over a week ago?? Before he could recover, the connection was terminated but a few moments later, a Yeoman came panting to the Bridge. Legg, Barnes and Viera must have all been off-duty as the Yeoman who arrived was a tall elegant African. If anything she was even more dishevelled than her colleagues, and Dave couldn’t help but notice that her dress wasn’t zipped up properly.
She was also breathing a lot harder than the short trip from the Captains ready room would seem to require.
“The Captain asked if you would down-load your mission plan to his account, he’ll read it later.”
“Thank you Yeoman…..”
“Akinwade, Sir.”
“…..Akinwade. Please advise the Captain that Command has requested that we depart immediately, and the Engineering Officer tells me we’ll be able to leave orbit around 1300 tomorrow.”
“Of course, sir.”
Dave copied the plan to the senior officers as well as the Captain, hoping they’d be more proactive and at least make sure their respective departments were ready.
And then he waited.
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Dave wasn’t surprised that the Captain didn’t respond immediately, but by 2300 he was still on the Bridge, waiting, with just Dolplop for company. Most of the senior staff had acknowledged that they’d read and understood the plan, but only Cassini had done more, calling Dave on the Bridge after reading the plan.
“Lieutenant-Commander Hollins, I’ve reviewed your mission plan. The ship is not currently ready for an incursion into alien territory. I need to prepare the ship for another speed record attempt. I recommend we stay at Hole until full repairs are completed. Say, another six months?”
Dave could only be honest “It’s not my call Commander. The Captain is aware of the situation”.