by David Smith
Dave was still considering what the possible causes for the comms failure were when Yeoman Julie Barnes arrived, bearing a pad with orders from the Captain. As always, Julie wore a fetching (and just slightly vacant) smile and as usual, she wore her boots on the wrong feet.
She handed the pad to Dave, who thumb-printed it to unlock a message in the Captain’s usual abrupt manner.
‘Who the fuck is Captain B’Stard and why is she on my ship?
Ps. Call me when we get to Arcturus.
Pps. Send more condoms.
Ppps. Ribbed ones.
Pppps. You have the bridge.’
Dave began to type an explanation of the JAG investigation, but didn’t have the time or the will-power to write out a full report that the skipper almost certainly wouldn’t read anyway.
He settled for:
‘Capt. B’Stard is the evil spawn of Satan, here to destroy all worlds starting with Todot Hahn. Other than that she’s ok.’
He passed the pad back to Barnes who said ‘Lovely!’ and toddled off back to the Captain making wet and worrying farting noises as she walked.
From the Skipper’s message it seemed likely that Captain B’Stard had tried and failed to get an interview with Captain LaCroix, which on reflection was probably just as well. Dave didn’t know Captain B’Stard that well, but he was fairly sure that having Captain LaCroix try to hump her would probably count against them in her investigation.
Chapter 4
Dave stayed up late into the night with Chief Money’s team, desperately trying to hide evidence and tweak records. He grabbed an hours sleep before getting up early, ready to try to fend off the JAG team.
After a shower and a shave, he headed for the galley. He toyed with the idea of getting breakfast from the replicator in his quarters, but couldn’t face the completely random results. Yesterdays poached egg on toast had been very close to being right, arriving as ‘prairie oyster’ in a Greek pitta bread, but Dave couldn’t face it and had stuffed it straight in the waste disposal.
Instead he headed to the Galley to see what was on offer. Chef Burns was actually working today, and as always the towering ginger Scot seemed to be wearing the day’s menu liberally splattered across his uniform.
After a short wait, Dave reached the front of the queue. ‘Morning Chef! What’s on the menu this morning?’
The Chef didn’t look up ‘Same as always dipshit: Fried egg, fried bread, fried black-pudding and haggis. With chips.’
Ever the optimist Dave replied ‘That’s a little bit heavy for breakfast for me Chef. Is there a choice?’
The Chef looked up, clearly taken aback by the notion of someone asking for something else. This didn’t make the slightest jot of difference to his attitude. ‘Of course there’s a choice: eat it or don’t bloody eat it.’
‘I think I’ll pass’ sighed Dave.
‘Good! Now sod off out the way: we’re trying to work here’ growled the Chef.
Dave put his empty tray back on the rack and was just wondering if there was any way he could double-bluff his replicator. As he never got what he wanted, what would happen if he ordered something he didn’t want? Something end of day-ish? The sort of thing that would sit in the stomach and take all night to digest?
He got back to his quarters and ordered a double fudge choc-chip brownie with custard, and waited to see what arrived. To his astonishment, what appeared looked remarkably like a double fudge choc-chip brownie with custard.
He took the tray out of the replicator and sat at his desk. He carefully looked it over for hidden surprises and cautiously sniffed it. Gently he probed the gooey looking dessert, wondering if there was, perhaps, a small hand-grenade in the centre. Nothing exploded, so Dave plucked up his courage and tried it.
To his surprise, it not only looked and smelt like a double fudge choc-chip brownie with custard, it actually tasted like a double fudge choc-chip brownie with custard. Only . . . better?
It was hot, and sweet, and warmed him all the way down to his stomach. It was astonishingly good, even though it was not the sort of thing he’d ever considered as a breakfast before.
He was troughing his way through the gorgeous dessert when he heard a call for himself on the ships general broadcast. Captain B’Stard had requested the presence of the Officer in Command at her quarters on Deck 5 for what she described as a procedural briefing.
As he was on the duty roster as Officer of the Day, he was obliged to comply, even though he was really enjoying his breakfast and was considering a second helping. He didn’t know what Lieutenant Taylor had done to the replicator circuits, but things seemed to be working out.
Dave would rather not have gone to meet the Captain, but there was no-one else available: Joynes wasn’t officially part of the ship’s crew, and Captain LaCroix was . . . well . . . a liability. He hastily shovelled down the rest of the dessert and headed out;
He reached the quarters that B’Stard had been given and paused outside for a second to compose himself before pressing the call button.
There was a brief pause before a terse reply crackled from the speaker alongside the door.
‘Come’ said a voice in a blunt and authoritarian manner, and the door swished open.
Dave entered a standard guest cabin. It was immaculately neat and there was no sign of occupancy apart from the tangle of arrogance and spite that was Captain Anastasia B’Stard, sitting imperiously behind the small desk at the front of the quarters.
She studiously ignored Dave as he stood in front of her like a naughty school-boy, reading a series of documents on a couple of PADs in front of her.
When she was happy that she’d made him thoroughly uncomfortable and was confident that he understood that she was very much in charge of the situation, she looked up, but didn’t ask him to sit down.
‘Welcome Commander Hollins’ she said without a trace of warmth. The greeting was scarily insincere, and Dave felt it was more of a threat than a welcome.
‘I’ve asked you here so I can explain the nature of the investigation and the process by which it will be conducted’ she said, still sounding like an echo in an ice-berg.
‘Initially, we’ll be conducting a check of the ships logs and records automatically and checking them against rules and regulations. At the same time I’ll start conducting one-to-one interviews. At this stage interviews will be informal and serve only to ascertain who will be formally interviewed and what nature those interviews will take.’
She leaned forward and her eyes narrowed ‘I have to say that there are so many avenues for me to investigate that I was close to skipping the preliminaries and just getting straight into the formal interviews’
She waited for the implication of those words to sink in before leaning back again and adding ‘Of course, that simply wouldn’t do: there is a protocol for these matters as there is for all things, and it would never do to break protocol!’
She nodded as if she was doing Dave and the crew some massive favour, but added insult to injury. ‘Our investigation normal encompasses a review of competence in addition to adherence to regulations, but on a ship with Tiger’s reputation, I think we’ll assume incompetence and just focus on regulatory issues.’
She paused and stared openly at him, trying to get his measure before finally saying ‘Please, take a seat.’
Dave breathed deeply and slowly as he sat, bracing himself for the ordeal to come.
The Captain checked some notes she’d made on a PAD before opening the discussion. ‘You are Commander David Hollins, assigned to USS Tiger on Star date 8687 as Executive Officer.’
‘That’s correct Ma’am, but I’ve since . . . ‘
She cut him off tersely: ‘I hadn’t finished’
She stared at him, her dislike poorly hidden behind the polished veneer of professionalism. ‘You were granted a field-promotion to the rank Commander by Admiral O’Connor and given the position of First Officer aboard USS Tiger after the incumbent was re-posted t
o a local diplomatic role by the Admiral.’
Dave was about to agree but shut his mouth, remembering how he’d been slapped down just a few seconds earlier.
She looked down at her PAD, checking more details and deliberately making him wait before continuing. ’Well Commander, I must say I’m very surprised that we’re having this conversation . . . ‘
She paused and looked up at him.
Dave assumed this was a cue that he should say something. ‘Obviously I’m duty bound to comply with the requirements of the Judge Advocate General’s Office, but I’d like to think that even if not, I’d make myself available to assist your investigation in any way I can, Captain.’
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk and clasping her hands together in front of her. She reminded Dave of some uniformed praying mantis. ‘That,’ she said calmly and ever so slightly smugly ‘is not what I meant.’
Dave wasn’t quite sure what to say, but she was clearly tired of toying with him and got to her point.
‘You see, I have here the flight control data from the Arcturus Ranges, which shows that you left the ranges just three days ago.’
She drew herself up straight before continuing. ‘Now I wouldn’t consider myself to be any great navigator, but I do know that the Arcturus Ranges are over a hundred light years from here, but according to your ship’s log you arrived here three days ago. That indicates that you covered the hundred or so light years between the two points in . . . hang on, let me do the maths . . . yes . . . zero days. That’s quite spectacular progress, wouldn’t you say?’
Dave shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘Ah. Yes. We do seem to have a slight discrepancy in temporal terms . . . ‘
She interrupted him as if he hadn’t spoken at all. ‘And from what Auckland’s Navigator and Helmsman tell me, it’s remarkable that we could get close enough for me to transport across, as Tiger seems to have become invisible?’
Dave braced himself for what was clearly going to be an onslaught of sarcasm, scepticism and downright vitriol. ‘It’s a very long story, Captain . . . ‘
‘Well you’ll be pleased to know that I have nothing more pressing in my calendar than getting to the bottom of this matter, so feel free to take as long as you want explaining it all.’
She visibly simmered as Dave sweated in his seat ‘I’m really, really looking forward to hearing your explanation.’
Dave was poorly prepared for this. Tiger and her crew had probably broken the majority of the Fleet’s regulations in her recent misadventures and Dave hadn’t had time to consider what explanation / excuse / lie would be most plausible, or more objectively, would be least likely to land them all with lengthy prison sentences.
He hedged his bets and started with a vague explanation that was largely an excuse and included some elements of questionable truth.
‘We’ve had a number of . . . er . . . issues. We’ve only done what we had to in order to survive. And everything we’ve done has been done in good faith, albeit not necessarily strictly in accordance with regulations. But we could argue that we’ve been in places where the jurisdiction of Federal Law and Fleet regulations might . . . er . . . not apply?’ he waffled.
‘Ah.’ said the Captain. ‘I assume that might explain why there are eight Starfleet transport vessels and a Tana battleship in orbit here, even though they don’t seem to be missing from anywhere else?’
‘Er . . . yes, essentially. But . . . ‘
‘And also why there are a group of thirty human nuns on Todot Hahn from a religious order no-one has ever heard of, although all of the nuns seem to have identical genetic data and iris patterns to women elsewhere in the Federation?’
She smiled sarcastically. ‘But then, this is a strange part of space isn’t it? From the viewing port of my cabin the first thing I noticed is that Todot Hahn seems to have an asteroid belt composed entirely of sex-toys. That’s odd, isn’t it?’
Dave paused waiting to see what else was coming his way. As the Captain seemed to have stopped, he cautiously said ‘It would probably best if I started from the beginning . . . ‘
Again, the Captain tersely cut him off. ‘That won’t be necessary. At this stage we’re only considering what regulations are likely to have been breached and how we take the investigation forward. From what you’ve said so far, it seems it may be easier to work out which regulations haven’t been breached, so I don’t see there’s any particular rush.’
‘But there were mitigating circumstances! We’ve really . . . ‘
The Captain held up her hand and raised her voice as she cut him off yet again: ‘There’s no such thing as a “mitigating circumstance”! You’ve either broken regulations or you haven’t. It’s that simple.’
‘That’s hardly fair, Captain, we . . . ‘
She raised her voice further still. ‘Fair?!?! I don’t do fair Commander: I do my job! You can shilly-shally all you want, but the regulations are laid out before us in black and white. I don’t care what you’ve been up to, or where you’ve been, there is no excuse for indiscipline!’
She sat bolt-upright and fixed him with a beady-eyed stare. ‘Do I have to remind you that Starfleet regulations have evolved over decades to give us a framework to support our missions and protect us all from the sort of mistakes that have proved fatal to dozens of ships and crews in the past?’
‘No, Captain’ said Dave meekly.
Dave had clearly touched a nerve and the Captain was in full spate on a subject about which she was passionate. ‘Every mistake the Fleet has ever made has been reviewed and analysed in microscopic detail. Some of the finest analytical minds in the Fleet have toiled to create the regulations, processes and procedures that stop subsequent vessels making the same mistake again. Without the regulations, we descend into anarchy, and I can tell you right here, right now, that won’t be happening on my watch!’
She sat back, clearly trying to calm herself before continuing. ‘Do I have to remind you that Starfleet General Order 4-4-1b requires that you comply with all further instructions from the representatives of the Judge Advocate General?’
‘No Captain’ Dave sighed.
‘Then stop moaning! Consider yourself and your crew under the full scrutiny of the Office of the Judge Advocate General.’
She glared at him venomously: ‘I know your sort, Hollins. You think rules are stupid and your way is better. Well I’m going to have to burst your little bubble: Nobody gets one over on JAG. Ever.’
The mask of professionalism had slipped and Dave could see that the ire and venom came from a source other than possible infringements of Fleet regulations.
‘I believe you’re letting your personal issues cloud your judgement, Captain.’
She seemed oddly proud of that. ‘I often get accused of that, but let me tell you it’s nothing that complicated. That’s the wonderful thing about the regulations: everything is black or white. There’s no grey, no ifs, buts or maybes, no personal agenda. It’s just us against you, and every time you’ve stepped a millimetre over the mark, I’ll be there to tell you which regulation you’ve broken, how badly and what the sanction will be. I’m going to be all over you like a rash, and one way or another the truth will make itself known.’
She smiled, which looked oddly out of place on her stern face ‘The only personal aspect of this whole business, is that in this instance, I’m going to enjoy every last minute of it.’
--------------------
Dave left the Captain’s guest cabin with a sinking heart. There was absolutely no doubt about it. She was out to get them. After concluding the meeting, Captain B’Stard had given Dave a timetable denoting who would be interviewed by whom, when and where.
Worryingly the schedule went weeks into the future, and after nearly two weeks of names and dates, there were weeks and weeks of further appointments marked simply with things like ‘2nd interview, major suspects’
It seemed that Captain B’Stard had already decided they were a
ll guilty.
--------------------
An element of Captain B’Stard’s timetable that slipped by Dave almost unnoticed was an entry that ran in parallel with the interviews for several days.
This was marked ‘Professional Standards Audit: Commander Cannon and Lieutenant-Commander Ruell.
After studying the interface protocols for the Tiger’s Prototype Intrinsic Logic Organic Component Computer (or the PILOCC, as Tiger’s crew referred to her), the two JAG Auditors gathered up their PADs and the clunky metal suitcase they’d brought with them and headed down to the Engineering Deck.
They strolled in, unannounced, flanked by the two burly security men they’d brought with them.
If they were challenged by Tiger’s engineers, one of the minders would simply bark ‘Business of the Office of the Judge Advocate General. Stand aside!’ in a tone that added a distinct, but non-verbal ‘or else.’
They reached the main control panel of Tiger’s unpredictable computer and Lieutenant-Commander Ruell noisily dumped the heavy silver case on the computer’s console.
‘Ouch!’ said Susan (as the PILOCC preferred to be addressed.)
A terrified PO Park looked up from his endeavours to find himself face to face with the larger part of JAG’s team.
Ignoring Susan’s interjection, Commander Cannon stated his intent. ‘By the power invested in me by the Judge Advocate General, I am hereby sequestering this computer to support a Professional Standards Audit.’
‘I said “Ouch!”’ repeated Susan.
Addressing PO Park directly, Cannon said ‘I don’t know what you’re doing, but whatever it is, stop it now. For the duration of the audit, this computer will be exclusively at the disposal of my team. Where are the interface points?’
Park gulped as the last of a stream of incriminating records was expunged, and he pointed mutely to the rear of the panel.
‘I have a name you know!’ huffed Susan, ‘And if you ask me nicely I’ll open a wireless link and complete an interface for you.’