by David Smith
“Chef has furnished us with “Intestine haché a la orange””, smiled the steward.
“Haggis in orange sauce!?!?” Dave felt quite queasy just thinking about it.
“So it would appear, sir. I could ask……..”
He was crudely barged aside by a smart uniform filled with a very bad attitude on a short fuse.
“So you’re the new ExO?” she demanded.
Caught unawares, Dave smiled, stood up and offered her his hand “Lieutenant-Commander Dave Hollins. You must be the Liaison Officer?”
There was an awkward moment while she surveyed Dave’s open hand as if he was offering her a long-dead trout.
She was quite short, and quite curvy, with immaculately groomed, bobbed brown hair and carefully applied make-up to show off elegant features that looked indefinably…..posh.
Not taking his hand she replied “Yes. Now we’re underway I should point out to you that in the event of contact with the Sha T’Al or Tana I am to be the Federation’s representative. There will be no communication without my explicit permission. Is that clear?” she added haughtily.
Collecting his thoughts after her verbal broadside, Dave replied “I’m not clear on your previous orders, but our current orders from Command have Alpha One priority. The Captain or his deputy will decide on whether or not communications will be opened and by whom”
“And by “Deputy”, you mean yourself.”
“Only if the Captain and First Officer aren’t present on the Bridge and the Captain hasn’t left instructions to the contrary” said Dave quite correctly.
Her already terse tone descended to a growl.
“Now listen here you snotty little jumped-up cadet; I’ve been stuck on this shit-bucket of a ship for fifteen months waiting for the operational staff to get their lazy, malingering fingers out of their bum-holes and get us underway. When we deal with the Sha T’Al, I WILL BE TAKING CHARGE!!”
She span and stormed off trailing a stream of invective behind her.
Very diplomatic, thought Dave.
The Steward brought over some coffee.
“Don’t worry too much about that, sir. Lieutenant-Commander Grosvenor can be a little abrupt, but she’s in a class of her own at diplomatic functions.”
“Really??” Dave couldn’t hide his surprise and certainly couldn’t picture anyone that uptight being diplomatic. Or even happy.
“Chief Burns has nick-named her FIFAA: “For Instant Fun, Add Alcohol”. When we first got stuck in orbit at Hole, our relationship with the locals was frosty to say the least. When she arrived a few months later, she took it upon herself to engender more harmonious relations.”
“She got PO Starr to organise a party of epic proportions. Our relationship with the civic officials really has been much easier having shared a common hang-over”
“I find it hard to believe she could lighten up enough to enjoy a party”
“Indeed, but she really is the life and soul of the party and sealed……cordial? ….. relations with several of Hole’s notables.”
Dave raised an eyebrow.
The Steward was about to explain, when Dave had a change of heart “Actually, it’s probably best if I don’t know about that.”
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As well as getting to know the crew, Dave spent a lot of time with the engineers. Cassini always had an excuse not to see him, but Romanov, Jonsen and Deng were gradually getting on top of things.
They were still repairing and replacing power relays for secondary systems and by day two of their patrol along the border they’d managed to get the last of the turbo-lifts back on-line.
A significant team were assigned to trying to get the ship’s shuttles operational, but this was a long term goal, and Dave persuaded them to concentrate their efforts on just two of the six shuttles. He was surprised that one of the six, Faraday, was a new Mk.8 warp-capable shuttle. Only the newest ships were normally equipped with them, but he supposed that Tiger’s remoteness might have necessitated its inclusion. It seemed obvious that this should take top priority.
The next problem for Dave was the replicators. Dave pushed hard to get them moved further up the schedule of repair tasks, but the engineers were curiously reluctant and Commander Cassini pointed out that standard operating procedures actually dictated that transporters should be accorded priority next.
Having dined at the galley on Haggis Provencal and Haggis en Croute recently, Dave was tempted to try involving the Captain, but he mused that the skipper probably only ate Yeomen.
Deciding to check on progress with the transporters, Dave went to the main transporter room to see if they’d managed to get one of the temperamental devices working yet.
He stepped in to find Chief Deng working a transporter alongside the Transporter Chief, Andy Carstairs. Lieutenant-Commander Romanov was watching a temporary diagnostic panel as the two Chiefs powered up the transporter.
Dave watched, fascinated, as coruscating energy patterns swirled, formed and reformed before condensing and finally coalescing into a small brown lump on the platform.
It had worked! He beamed “Well done team! Great work!”
Strangely, no-one else smiled. In fact, there were groans from everyone except him.
Dave stepped across to the platform and picked up the small haggis that had materialised.
“Why so glum? You’ve managed to get the transporter working and you’ve actually found a practical use for haggis” he quipped.
No-one laughed and Dave’s own smile disappeared when Deng took the haggis from him and added it to a considerable pile of absolutely identical haggises in the corner of the room.
“What the….”
There followed an awkward silence, with Romanov and Deng staring daggers at the Transporter Chief.
He looked from one to the other and finally gave in.
“It’s my fault sir. I’d never seen a Haggis before I was transferred to Tiger. I actually thought haggis was some kind of punishment. Turns out it’s an ancient Scottish delicacy, although I still think the punishment idea is probably more accurate. Anyway, to make haggis you take all the very best cuts of meat from a sheep, throw them away and mince up all the crap that’s left over. It’s boiled and served up with mashed vegetables and no small degree of malice. It’s traditionally accompanied by whisky, but I guess that’s just to help you get over the taste.”
“I lost a bet with the Galley Chief and he made me eat a whole haggis. When I got out of sick-bay I got the chem lab guys to run an analysis of my vomit. They reported me to the skipper for breaching bio-genetic weapon treaties.”
“I thought it would be funny to get my own back on Chief Burns. I stole a haggis he’d brought aboard for a Burns night celebration he was planning, put it through the transporter and stored its pattern in the back-up buffers. I built a computer virus that locked out the Chiefs personal transport requests, and substituted the pattern in the buffer. Everything he transported aboard that day was converted into haggis.”
“He’d ordered steaks, tinned goods, cleaning chemicals, fresh fruit and veg, the works. It all arrived as the equivalent mass of haggis. It was brilliant if I say so myself.”
“Unfortunately, for some reason, we can’t clear the system buffers. The virus found its way into other systems, and every time we clear it out, it finds a way back into the transporter system. For the last eight months, everything that’s been transported to the ship has arrived as haggis.”
“That’s why we couldn’t replace the power relays. The day after I planted the virus, we transported a batch of twenty-five brand new power relays from a courier and ended up with 850 kilos of haggis.”
Dave could only stare in amazement. He remembered Chief Carstairs now. The ships resident prankster, transferred after a stunt he’d pulled on USS Tesla. He’d rigged the computer so it confused port with starboard and up with down.
Hilarious. The Galley Chief’s food supplies were transported into the e
ngine room and spares for the ship’s shuttles materialised in the Officer’s Mess. Sadly the programme also worked when the Captain had tried to transport direct onto the Bridge, the highest point on the ship. Instead he arrived at the lowest point of the ship, the bilges. Or more specifically he materialised in the main waste sullage tank that stored all the waste from the galley, toilets etc.
Chief Carstairs was off the ship and on his way to Tiger two hours later.
“So it’s your fault we have an endless menu of haggis derived foods being served to us?”
“Errr….. yes, sir. Sorry sir”
“Don’t you think it be a great idea to get the replicators fixed, so we don’t have to eat any more haggis then?”
Andy shifted uncomfortably, and Deng and Romanov tried not to make eye-contact with Dave.
“What?” said Dave already expecting the worst.
“The replicators and transporter use pretty much the same technology, so they share many components on board ship to reduce mass. The virus transferred across to the replicator circuits a day or so later and now the only thing any of the replicators will make is a plateful of misery Chief Burns calls “Haggis, neeps and tatties””
“We deliberately took all replicators off-line as a safety precaution, as you need a pretty robust digestive system to handle a haggis diet.”
“Forcing everyone to eat at the galley. How’s that safer??”
“Well the haggis comes out of the replicators and transporters pretty much raw. If it goes to the chef he’ll sterilise it either by burning it to a crisp or finding some way to add alcohol to the recipe.”
Dave shuddered at the memory of Glenfiddich Haggis Tartare. Then he shuddered again at the thought of BBQ haggis. He then felt physically queasy as he remembered haggis roulade. The Transporter Chief had a lot to answer for.
“In the chef’s defence, haggis poisoning cases have dropped off sharply this last month or so. And the crew are much slimmer now, too. Actually, now I think about it, those two points may be related” mused Carstairs.
“Ok. We have an excess of haggis and limited dietary choices. What’s the way forward?” asked Dave.
“We need to eat out more often?” suggested Deng.
Chapter 9
Crew probe 1467/2 returned at 1440 on the third day, followed fourteen hours later by 1449/3. Lieutenant-Commander O’Mara landed the probes and began to download their data (after a brief negotiation over an additional leave gratuity as 1467/2 had elected to take its twelve hour rest and recreation period immediately upon its return.)
With LaCroix and Joynes still absent, Dave contacted O’Mara:
“We need a full analysis of everything the probes have found as soon as possible. How many staff work in Anthropology and Archaeology?”
“About a third of them” replied O’Mara absently.
“Not quite what I meant, Aisling. I want everyone on this. We need to extract every possible bit of useful intelligence we have from the raw data. I want first thoughts by 0800 tomorrow.”
Dave called the Captain, who sounded breathless when he finally answered. “Why are you calling me again?” he demanded.
“Sir, it’s been 78 hours since I last spoke to you!” said an exasperated Dave.”The probes have returned, sir. The Science Officer has the whole of A&A working on the data. First findings will be presented 0800 ship’s time tomorrow.”
“And?”
“Er….I thought you may want to review the findings and discuss them with the senior staff, sir.”
“I’m busy.” The line went dead.
About an hour later a bedraggled male Yeoman stumbled out of the turbo-lift and approached Dave. “Captain’s compliments sir” he said and passed Dave a small pad.
“Thank you, Yeoman…..”
“Henry, sir. Yeoman Giles Henry”
Dave took the pad and thumb printed it.
“Send Science Officer’s findings onto myself and Commander Joynes computer accounts. Await further instruction.”
“Ps. You have the Bridge”
Dave sighed. This was getting predictable.
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At 0800 the next day the ships senior staff gathered in the Officer's Mess, with the exception of the Captain, the First Officer and the Engineering Officer.
The Captain was busy, the Engineering Officer had sent a terse message that running the fastest ship in the fleet was a full time job, and no-one had seen or heard from the First Officer in three days.
Lieutenant-Commander O’Mara presented her team’s preliminary assessment of the data returned by the probes:
“Probe 1467/2 undertook a detailed examination of the known colonies in star system L4426-2110, approximately 1.1 light years inside the border. Previous data had indicated a population of around twenty million spread across three planets. Each planet showed significant primary industry, food production, mining and the like, and also secondary and tertiary industries to support this. Our assessment was that much of the product was shipped off-world and throughout Sha T’Al space.”
“Probe 1467/2 observed a population of approximately five hundred thousand, mostly in isolated pockets. The only populations to survive relatively intact seem to be on a couple of offshore islands and in colonies on the less developed worlds within the star system. Aside from these isolated areas there was no significant sign of organised food production, and industry seemed to be at a standstill. Cities appeared to be abandoned and/or in ruins.”
“Probe 1449/3 undertook a high-speed fly-past reconnaissance of the border region between Sha T’Al space and the Tana Empire. There was no evidence of Sha T’Al commercial or military traffic, and border patrol units seemed to be intact but inactive, presumably abandoned. What detection and tracking systems the probe did encounter seemed to be automated.”
“Worryingly, 1449/3 tracked plasma trails across the border that were consistent with the less advanced drive systems employed by the Tana. The flight path of the probe took it past three systems that we believed to be inhabited, but recorded very low levels of activity consistent with the degree of social disintegration observed by 1467/2.”
“The mission was conducted wholly within the parameters defined by the Captain, but one anomaly was detected by accident. The sensors used to identify friend-or-foe detected several plasma trails apparently of Sha T’Al origin, but also came across one trail it identified as friendly. The only conclusion we can draw from that is someone in a Federation ship has already crossed the border.”
Dave dutifully forwarded the report to the Captain, the First Officer and the Engineering Officer, then asked the senior staff present for their thoughts.
O’Mara spoke first. “Realistically, this only confirms what we already suspected. The Sha T’Al have suffered some kind of catastrophe and their society has collapsed, at least in this region.”
ASBeau spoke next “Agreed. It tells us nothing of any real value other than confirming that the Tana have already started to cross the border.”
O’Mara continued “If we need to know more, we need to put an away team on the ground, which I believe would be permissible within the mission parameters set by Command.”
Commander Mengele joined in “If we are to help the Sha T’Al, or even to get a better understanding for Command, we need to be there, not here patrolling an abandoned border.”
ASBeau chipped in again “And if the Tana think they have an open border they’ll already be planning an invasion. If we’re going to play border patrol we should consider patrolling that border instead of this one. We need to at least slow them down and give Command the chance to send reinforcements.”
Dave ruminated.
“Ok. We need to move fast. We need to appraise Command of the situation, offer assistance to the Sha T’Al if we can, and most importantly, we have to let the Tana know we’re on the case. I’ll put those recommendations forward to the Captain and First Officer immediately.”
There was
a collective groan, which Dave stoically ignored as he pressed the call button to the Captain. There was no answer. Dave tried again to no avail, and he eventually settled for leaving an audio message.
The First Officer answered his call, but sounded sleepy and generally out of it: “Ask the Captain and let me know what’s happening tomorrow.”
“But it can’t wait ‘til tomorrow!” Dave argued.
Dave was about to protest further, but he was abruptly cut off.
Still simmering on the Bridge five hours later, yet another bedraggled Yeoman stumbled onto the Bridge with a pad for Dave. A female brunette this time, quite short and very buxom.
“Thanks Yeoman….?”
“Fielding sir! Yeoman Sandra Fielding” she said brightly.
Dave was distracted by a worrying looking white fluid that was dripping down the side of her neck. Well, well he thought, at least one of the Yeomen was showing a bit of spunk. Sighing, he thumb printed the pad and read the orders inside.
“Tiger is to patrol the border from the Federation side only. We will return to Hole in six weeks and from there we’ll transmit our findings to Command”
“Ps. You have the Bridge”
Dave relayed the orders to the ship on a general broadcast and slumped back into the Captain’s chair, completely deflated.
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Over the next few days, Dave became aware that the crew weren’t any happier than he was. As Executive Officer he saw all disciplinary reports and where necessary sat on the review boards that passed judgement on the more serious infringements.
As they ploughed a lonely furrow along the border the crew grew ever more restless. Each day there were more reports of scuffles and arguments, and after a week, it felt like he was a magistrate rather than a ship’s Executive Officer.
Things came to a head with a near riot in the Galley. Facing yet another haggis-based dish (Haggis Madras, yum!), Ensign David had thrown the offending meal at the duty cook. Others took up the challenge and a fully fledged food fight had broken out in seconds.