Tiger- Crusade

by David Smith

  Dave struggled to even understand the number. ‘WHAAATT???’

  She gave in and grinned broadly. ‘Yes, nearly three hundred thousand charges; that’s a departmental record, you know. By a huge margin.’

  Unable to contain herself she giggled out loud. She composed herself and tried to maintain a professional air as tears of laughter formed in the corners of her eyes.

  ‘It would [chuckle] have been [sniff] much worse . . . but the computer had to cut short the investigation [snort] . . . because it ran out of MEMORY SPACE!!!

  She dissolved into convulsive, disabling, uncontrollable howls of laughter, her whole body shaking, slapping the desk with her hands and stamping her feet in delight as tears streamed from her eyes.

  Dave sat stunned and silent as the Captain roared with laughter for a full five minutes.

  As she finally regained a small measure of her self-control, she straightened herself, wiped away her streaming tears of laughter and in between gasps for breath concluded ‘You are so . . . utterly . . . completely screwed! You . . . are going to the brig . . . FOREVER!!!

  She dissolved into a convulsing, howling, irrepressible mass once more.

  Dave was devastated. As the Captain’s howls subsided into whimpers, Dave asked ‘Would it be possible to plead diminished responsibility for the whole crew?’

  The Captain collapsed in another bout of uncontrollable laughter, which Dave took as a negative answer. He took the pad, stood up and left the room in silence. Two hundred and thirteen prosecutions. At least he wouldn’t be lonely in prison . . .

  --------------------

  Dave was awakened by a yellow alert signal from the ship’s computer.

  ‘Disturbance on Deck 5, Security team to attend immediately.’

  Rubbing sleep from his eyes, Dave could see it was six in the morning ship’s time and he called the Bridge to find out what was going on.

  ‘What’s happening on Deck 5?’ he asked groggily.

  Lieutenant Janus was the current Duty Officer. ‘There’s been an altercation on Deck 5, sir, haven’t got all the details, but it seems weapons have been drawn in the corridor serving the guest quarters.’

  Oh crap, thought Dave. Right on top of the JAG team and the Feds. They were in enough trouble as it was without the crew getting out of hand.

  ‘I’m on my way. Is Security in attendance?’

  ‘Yes sir, Chief Belle responded herself’ answered the young Deputy Tactical Officer.

  OH DOUBLE CRAP!!! thought Dave. While Belle was an excellent Security Chief she had a tendency to resort to unreasonable force with far too little reasonable justification. Dave prayed she hadn’t killed anyone.

  Seconds later Dave sprinted out of his quarters and headed along the corridor and down one deck to the area where the ship’s guest suites were gathered.

  As soon as he’d stepped out onto Deck 5 he could hear raised voices and as he jogged down the corridor, they got louder and louder. He turned a corner to see utter pandemonium outside the main group of guest suites.

  Tiger’s security team were holding both the FLEA and JAG security personal at phaser point, while PO Sorenson and Crewman Hoffman were trying to separate Commander Ruiz and Agent Orange who were shouting very loudly and very imaginatively at each other.

  Captain B’Stard stood quietly fuming just beyond them but it took a while for Dave to spot Agent Field: He was prostrate on the deck, out cold and bleeding profusely from his nose and mouth. As he got closer Dave could see shards of black plastic and glass that he assumed had once been a pair of sun-glasses. The shards were scattered on the deck around the unconscious Agent although several fragments appeared to be embedded quite deeply in his face.

  Miss Rice was crouched over the unconscious agent, and Dave thought she was attempting to offer first-aid, but as he looked closer he saw her slip her business card into the top pocket of the Agent’s jacket.

  Shouting above the din, Dave said ‘WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON???’

  A furious Agent Orange screamed ‘Assaulting a Federal Agent is a felony! You’ll pay for this!!’

  Dave was going to ask who had assaulted whom, but Chief Belle clarified this by striding over to the livid federal agent and snarling in his face ‘Anyone who sticks a finger in my face is likely to lose it or suffer collateral damage. I suggest you wind it in Agent, or you’ll be taking a trip the land of nod too!’

  Federal Agents were superbly trained and reputed to be as hard as nails, but Dave could see a moment of near panic flash through Agent Orange’s eyes. He’d evidently borne witness to what the Chief had done to his partner.

  Having quelled one half of the insurrection, the Chief wheeled and faced Commander Ruiz. ‘Now are you going to play nice or are you going to the Brig?’

  Ruiz was clearly no push-over, but Captain B’Stard stepped forward and answered whilst silencing the Commander with an icy glare that would have snuffed a volcano. ‘The Commander will obey the rules.’

  There was a disconcerting silence and Dave eventually couldn’t wait any longer. ‘Would somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?’

  Belle calmly replied ‘There seems to have been a disagreement over jurisdiction, sir.’

  Both Orange and Ruiz began to talk but withering looks from Belle and B’Stard cut off both men before they could start another argument, and Captain B’Stard tried to explain the situation.

  ‘We seem to have a clash of schedules. Both FLEA and ourselves have a list of candidates against whom we intend to press charges, and it seems we’ve both elected to start early to ensure we can gain access to the personnel essential to our respective investigations. Unfortunately our respective lists are ostensibly the same list, and we’ve let ourselves become embroiled in some needless and pointless inter-judiciary rivalry.’

  Her last comment was clearly aimed at Ruiz, but he remained impassive, unlike Agent Orange.

  ‘There’s no rivalry’ he interjected bluntly. ‘This is a Federal matter, and Federal Law always takes precedence.’

  B’Stard raised an eyebrow, but replied calmly. ‘I believe that FLEA are outside their jurisdiction. Their claim that this ship is Federal property and therefore constitutes Federation space is clearly ridiculous.’

  Keeping a watchful eye on Chief Belle, Agent Orange replied ‘It’s not ridiculous. Just because the ship is outside Federation space does not mean the ship is not subject to Federal Law. Would it be acceptable for the crew to commit murder purely because they’re outside a line on a map?’

  ‘Of course not, Agent Orange’ the Captain replied smoothly ‘but by extension, you can’t expect every piece of ground stood on by a member of Starfleet to automatically become Federal Territory. How would that sit with any of the major powers? If your team arrived on their home planet and insisted that Federal Law applied?’

  ‘Your being ridiculous Captain. We’re merely applying Federal Law to Federal citizens’ retorted the Agent.

  ‘But as you know, these are not merely Federal citizens, they are military personnel and whilst serving the military outside Federal territory, martial law, not civil law, applies’ argued the Captain.

  ‘That’s true, Captain, but in this instance we’re investigating a breach of border protocol, specifically the Treaty of Par Van, which is wholly and solely a Federal issue, not a matter of the military code of conduct’ stated the agent through gritted teeth.

  Dave could feel his temples throbbing as if his head were about to explode, as the two spawns of Satan continued to argue over who would preside over the indictment of Tiger’s crew. Just as Captain B’Stard was about to continue the argument, they were interrupted by a call from Lieutenant Janus on the Bridge.

  Dave answered the call. ‘What’s occurring, Janus?’

  ‘We have inbound vessels, Commander.’

  Dave was exasperated ‘Christ who is it now? California Highway Patrol? Jehovah’s Witnesses? The frickin’ Spanish Inquisition?’

  ‘I
wish! It’s the Tana, sir. An entire battle-fleet of them.’

  Chapter 7

  Dave threw himself into the Captain’s chair. ‘Status?’

  Janus popped up a tactical display on the main view-screen. ‘Twenty-four vessels, varying types and sizes, mostly unknown classes. Starting from the top, four of them are battleship sized and seem to be of the same class that we encountered at Jal Doran.’

  ‘Oh crap! Four?!?’ groaned Dave.

  ‘Yeah, four. And there’re eight other vessels that out-mass Tiger. Looking at their warp signatures, I’m guessing they’ll be a lot more agile than the battleship. Maybe not in the same class as a ‘Constitution’ class ship, but Tiger isn’t in that class either at the moment . . . ‘

  ‘Our engines!’ Dave moaned.

  Janus nodded and answered very quietly. ‘Yep. If we have to run, we’ll have the choice of trying to limp away at warp eight, or running at higher than that and breaking every rule in the temporal book right under the nose of a very grumpy JAG representative.’

  This was bad. ‘What’s their heading, Lieutenant?’

  Janus changed the scale of the tactical display, zooming out to show the position of the Tana fleet relative to Tiger and Todot Hahn.

  A line projected from the fleet showed the Tana ships were heading directly towards Todot Hahn and more worryingly, directly towards Tiger.

  ‘Any comms?’

  Lieutenant Pepe Cavaleiro was on duty: ‘Hailing on all frequencies but no response yet, sir.’

  Dave shifted uncomfortably in the chair. There was no state of war between the Federation and the Tana Empire, or even between the Tana and the Sha T’Al, but he couldn’t just let the Tana vessels approach and do nothing.

  ‘Red Alert! Janus, raise shields, standby on weapons, but do not arm and do not lock on. Kill our transponders: best if we don’t advertise our presence.’ Dave pressed a button on the arm of the chair to call Engineering, where Lieutenant ‘Jon’ Jonsen answered.

  ‘Jonsen, power up the drives, get ready to break orbit. We may need to bug out at any time. It’s the Tana, so we should be ok to run without using the Tana coils, but prep them just to be on the safe side.’

  Dave considered their position. The Tiger was capable of looking after herself, being well-armed and protected. She also had the advantage of still being coated in the remains of the bizarre energy absorbing life-form they’d encountered in dark space. She was close to invisible and would be beyond the capability of Tana tactical sensors.

  However, the skies above Todot Hahn were now crowded with less well-endowed ships. The various Federation ships that had arrived over the last few days weren’t equipped for combat, and there was the flotilla of Imperial transports and the Tana battleship they’d brought with them from the mirror universe to be considered as well.

  He still had engineering crews on these ships to train the Sha T’Al in their operation, and he couldn’t risk them.

  ‘Comms, warn the Hoover, Auckland, Santiago and Paul Revere. Tell them to prepare to move out. Contact the other ships in orbit and tell them to stand down. All our crew are to transport back to Tiger immediately and I would strongly recommend to the Sha T’Al that they evacuate their personnel from the ships too.’

  Dave cast a nervous eye back to the main view-screen where the red dots that represented the Tana vessels moved ominously closer to the gaggle of blue dots of their own ships.

  The doors to the Bridge turbo-lift opened. Dave turned to see Izzy stride out, fastening her jacket as she came, but still managing to look immaculate despite that. For an instant he wondered how she kept her hair and make-up intact while she slept, but he gave himself a shake and got his mind back on task.

  ‘Glad you’ve joined us Commander Grosvenor.’ Dave pointed to the view-screen. ‘We have unexpected company. Would you please attempt to contact them to find out what they want?’

  Izzy slipped into a seat next to the Comms Station and without a word began trying to start dialogue with the Tana.

  Dave was still wondering what their next step should be when Cavaliero spoke ‘Commander, the Hoover advises her drive system is off-line.’

  Dave knew they couldn’t abandon the FLEA personnel if they needed to leave. ‘What’s wrong with it? How soon can they get it up and running?’

  ‘The drive is fine sir, but they closed it down in accordance with their standard operating procedures. I doubt they’ll be able to get it running before the Tana intercept us.’

  ‘Tell them we believe the Tana may be hostile and they need to transport across to Tiger immediately.’

  Cavaleiro shook his head. ‘Already tried, sir, they aren’t willing to leave their vessel and are trying to contact the Tana themselves’

  ‘Tell them we can’t protect them if they can’t move. They have to transport now.’

  ‘I have tried sir, but they have specific orders from Agent Orange to maintain orbit and they won’t move without further orders from him or Agent Field.’

  Dave cursed under his breath. Field would be sedated in sick-bay by now. He pressed a general broadcast button, ‘Agent Orange, please contact the Bridge immediately.’

  Dave waited impatiently, keeping a worried eye in the main view-screen. The scale of the plot had dropped as the Tana vessels approached. ‘What’s the time to arrival, Dolplop?

  The Vosgeann’s tendrils flicked over the nav console and he replied in his electronically generated voice. ‘At current velocity the Tana will be within weapons range approximately eleven minutes ago.’

  Dave knew that the Vosgeann’s maths was better than his use of tenses, and realised that there was no way that the Hoover would be in a position to move within that time.

  ‘Where the hell is Orange?’ he asked impatiently.

  Lieutenant Janus was doing his own calculations. ‘Recommend we move to a higher orbit, sir. The LOAVES on the hull will make us invisible to their tactical sensors, but this low down we’ll be visible to incoming ships as a black dot against the background of the planet: At close range they’ll be able to target us visually.’

  Dave was aware of this too, but stood his ground. ‘We can’t go higher yet. Not until Hoover is safe.’

  There was a beep from the console of the chair and Dave stabbed at the button ‘Orange?’

  ‘No, it’s Chief Belle.’

  Dave had a sinking feeling in his stomach. ‘Where’s Agent Orange?’

  Chief Belle paused before replying ‘Er, here. Sort of.’

  Dave glanced nervously at the screen, where the Dolplop had added proximity lines to the display to show the range of the Tana fleet’s weapons and a worrying count-down clock.

  The clock was down below ten minutes now, but Dave spoke very slowly and deliberately in an effort to make sure everyone knew what the situation was. ‘Chief Belle, I need Agent Field or Agent Orange to order the crew of USS Hoover to transport across to us urgently as there is a large and unresponsive Tana fleet approaching our position.’

  ‘Ah. How urgent is urgent?’ asked the Chief.

  ‘Urgent is in the next two minutes’ said Dave through gritted teeth.

  ‘I doubt Commander Mengele will be able to fix Orange’s broken jaw in that time, sir. Do we have a contingency plan?’

  Dave cut the comm-line. Ignoring the urge to get into a discussion about how Agent Orange’s jaw had become broken and also the throbbing in his temples, he thumped the Red Alert button and shouted ‘Battle-stations!!’

  Flashing red light flooded the Bridge, and a siren blared.

  ‘Cavaleiro, instruct Santiago, Paul Revere and Auckland to leave orbit now, maximum delta. What’s the status of the transports and Rhino?’

  Chief Obote was at the science station, and replied ‘All Tiger personnel back on board. Sha T’Al flight control confirm that all their personnel are back on the ground or in transit.’

  Dave nodded as the three small courier vessels accelerated out of orbit and their blue dots on the tac
tical display disappeared. At least that had gone to plan. ‘Commander Grosvenor, any response from the Tana?’

  Izzy looked bemused. ‘Not what I was expecting. They keep asking if we’ve seen episode six through twelve of “The Young and the Interesting”.’

  Dave felt he needed clarification as to what that meant, but he struggled to formulate a sensible question. ‘Is that good or bad?’

  Izzy sighed. ‘I can only speculate, but I speculate that it’s bad. The inference is that the Sha T’Al have started actively trying to stop the Tana broadcasts.’

  ‘So the Tana are here to reinforce their right to broadcast??’

  ‘Well either that or they’re here to sell subscriptions . . . ‘

  The discussion was interrupted by Janus ‘They’re charging weapons!’

  ‘Damn! Arm weapons, but do not fire unless fired upon. What’s Hoover’s status?’

  Janus groaned ‘She’s a sitting duck, sir. Engines are still cold, shields are still down.’

  Dave turned to his Helmsman. ‘Lyle, can you get us between Hoover and the Tana?’

  ‘Oooohhh Yeeeaaaahhh!!!’ groaned the young Lieutenant as she was struck by a spontaneous orgasm. It didn’t stop her from firing the Tiger’s thrusters and throwing the huge starship into an elegant barrel-roll to position the cruiser between the FLEA vessel and the Tana battle fleet.

  Lyle had barely got Tiger into position before the Tana opened fire. Dave held his breath as immensely powerful microwave lasers lanced through the void, narrowly missing Tiger.

  For an instant, Dave thought the Tana were firing a warning shot, but then the lasers struck a Sha T’Al satellite in orbit just below them.

  He breathed a sigh of relief, but before he’d completely exhaled, Janus squeaked in alarm. ‘Sir!! Hoover is arming weapons!! They must think we’re being fired on!’

  ‘OH CRAP!!!! Order them to stand down, do not fire under any circum . . . ‘

  ‘TOO LATE! They’ve opened fire on the Tana vessels.’

  Dave frantically stabbed buttons on arm of his chair. ‘Transporter room, can you lock onto the personnel aboard the Hoover?’