Tiger- Crusade

by David Smith

  ‘Hollins, I come from a long line of people who’d rather so the right thing than the smart thing. So what can we do to help?’

  Dave had another more direct attempt to stop Chamberlain from doing something she’d regret later. ‘I’m not going to lie to you. As my dear old granny would say, we’re already up poo cove with no oar, or something like that. It really doesn’t matter if we break a load of regulations we’ve already broken, but you’re still clean at the moment. I really can’t recommend that you get involved with the shit-storm that’s about to unfold around us.’

  Chamberlain looked concerned. ‘Do you really think things are that bad?’

  ‘If we do nothing, the Tana and Sha T’Al will go to war and millions could die. We’ll slink back to Hole with our tail between our legs and JAG will put most of us in the brig for the rest of our lives. We can intervene, but it’s a real stretch to think we could prevent a war, and there’s a real possibility we could get ourselves killed trying. Even if we do somehow manage to stop the Tana and Sha T’Al from killing each other, we’ll still have to answer to JAG when we get back to Federation space. It’s an impossible position. We’re in a ‘no-win’ but ‘nothing-more-to-lose’ situation.’

  Chamberlain nodded. ‘I see that Hollins, but I’m not going to take that as an answer for two reasons: Firstly, one of the greatest Captains to ever sit in the Big Chair said “I don’t believe in no-win scenarios”. Secondly, and more importantly, I can see there’s more to this than “nothing left to lose” so quit flannelling and tell me why your sticking around.’

  Dave sat back in his chair. ‘It’s complicated. I suppose we’ve all seen the chaos and devastation humans have unleashed upon the Sha T’Al. Indiscriminate distribution of lethal drugs, biogenetic weapons, even damned zombies. And now they’re about to be plunged into the middle of a war.’

  ‘JAG may not see it, but there isn’t a person on this ship who doesn’t feel an urge to protect what few Sha T’Al there are left on worlds like Todot Hahn and Cho-dal-far. We’ve caused them so much pain, so much loss . . . we just can’t let it happen again.’

  Chamberlain nodded. ‘So what’s the plan?’

  Dave’s shoulders slumped. ‘Ah. Well. You seem to have uncovered the flaw in our strategy.’

  ‘You don’t have a plan??’

  Dave sighed. ‘We’re . . . working on it.’

  Chapter 11

  Dave sat in the Captains chair, ruminating on their next move. They’d already come to the conclusion that it was best to continue to mediate, but that was easier said than done. Ruiz had re-instated Izzy, and she had renewed her attempt to act as an intermediary. However, neither side had yet responded to her diplomatic overtures.

  They had to find some way to persuade or cajole or even bribe the Tana and Sha T’Al to come to the negotiating table. Everything depended on that.

  In the meantime they’d elected to play safe and retreat to a system unlikely to be a target for either the Sha T’Al or the Tana Empire.

  After speaking to the Elders on Todot Hahn, they had made their way to a system that had not been previously colonised as it lacked any significant resource worth exploiting.

  The system was located close to the border between Sha T’Al space and the Tana Empire, and was also the last system abandoned by the Sha T’Al leadership as one of the Independent Sha T’Al home-worlds.

  Before they left Todot Hahn a group of three Sha T’Al elders, including Councillor Tre Hal, had volunteered to leave with them to assist Izzy in trying to open diplomatic relations.

  The Sha T’Al hadn’t even bothered to name the insignificant red-dwarf star with its single habitable planet, but in particularly human fashion, the crew of Tiger had all felt the urge to give the unwanted planet a name.

  In view of its astrographic location (and their own current indecision) someone coined the name Cross-roads, which instantly stuck. Before long, even the Sha T’Al had started referring to it by that name.

  Tiger and Higgs had been in orbit for several days now, and had been joined by Santiago, Auckland and Paul Revere. Santiago’s skipper had persuaded the captains of the other two ships to stay close to Todot Hahn on the off chance they could render assistance to Tiger, and had been directed to Cross-roads by the Council there.

  Mindful of what Commander Mengele had said about the increasing incidence of inebriation, Dave had taken the opportunity to stand everyone down after a couple of weeks of intense operations. He made sure that all crew had at least a couple of days to rest and relax even if it was only on board the ship, or going for a stroll down on the surface of Cross-roads.

  The only exception was Izzy Grosvenor, who stayed on the Bridge day after day with Lieutenant Shearer or Lieutenant Cavaleiro, sending message after message to both sides of the dispute, but getting nowhere.

  Dave hadn’t spoken to Izzy much over the last few weeks. Even when they were both suspended she’d seemed to avoid him, and now she was busy, she didn’t speak to him at all.

  On this day, her frustration got the better of her and she stormed off the Bridge, swearing imaginatively as she went.

  Dave went after her and found her in the Officer’s Mess chugging down a very, very large vodka.

  ‘Hey Izzy. Everything ok?‘ he asked quietly.

  She finished her drink and poured herself another eye-wateringly large measure. ‘What the hell do you care!!’ she growled, and sank the vodka in a long draught before hurling the tumbler at the bulkhead.

  Her shoulders slumped, and she seemed to take time to bring her emotions under control before turning to face Dave and apologise. ‘I’m sorry, Commander. I didn’t mean to snap, that was very unprofessional of me. It’s just so frustrating. I’m trying everything I can think of and I can’t even get a single word of response! How the hell am I supposed to get them to negotiate if no-one will bloody well talk??’

  Dave placed a hand on her shoulder and found she was so tense she was trembling. To his surprise, she pushed his hand away and increased the distance between them.

  Dave cleared his throat and tried to be supportive. ’You’re doing your best. All you can do is keep trying . . . ‘

  ‘I’ve been trying for months!!’ she yelled, and her eyes sparkled with tears of pure frustration. ‘I feel I could scream! I just want to get both leaders in a room, tie them to the bloody chair and scream and scream at them until they wake up and see sense!’

  ‘I know, I know, but kidnapping them isn’t an option . . . ‘

  He paused as he said it. It wasn’t an option, he repeated to himself in his head. It especially wasn’t an option when you were being investigated by your own regulators and the Federal authorities.

  No, no, no, no . . .

  He thought of Captain B’Stards findings. Two hundred and thirteen prosecutions against individuals, consisting of two hundred and eighty-nine thousand, seven hundred and twelve individual charges.

  What the hell. They couldn’t really be in any more trouble.

  Dave went to the comm-station set in the bulkhead, and pressed the general broadcast button. ‘Senior Officers to the Officer’s Mess please.’

  He closed the channel and said, ‘Izzy, I think we need a change of strategy.’

  --------------------

  Dave looked around the inquisitive faces. Immediately in front of him sat Commander Ramon Ruiz, second in command of the current investigation into Tiger’s recent behaviour.

  A couple of seats to his left sat Devon Chamberlain, who’d transported across from Higgs to find out what was going on.

  Dave began. ‘Thank you for coming ladies and gentlemen.’ He looked from Ruiz to Chamberlain making sure he made eye-contact and added ‘Before we begin, Commander Ruiz, Commander Chamberlain, I’m going to offer you the chance to leave. I’m about to make a proposal to the crew that will break . . . probably every rule you can think of.’

  Ruiz shifted in his seat, but his face remained unperturbed. ’Thank you Comman
der Hollins, but if you think you’ve found a solution to the current political situation, then I want in.’

  Dave offered again. ‘I’m not joking Commander. We’re not just skinning a few regulations here. We’ll be breaking Federal Laws by the dozen and tearing our own rule-book up for toilet paper.’

  Ruiz sighed. ‘I know what Captain B’Stard’s findings were, and I suspect that may have influenced your thinking. Suffice to say that I’ve worked with the Captain for three years now, and I’ve had my fill of rules and regulations. If I disagree with anything you say, I’ll tell you. But you have my word that whatever this group decides, I’ll abide by it and do my damnedest to make it happen.’

  Dave looked at Devon Chamberlain.

  She took a deep breath and replied. ‘Before I left, Admiral O’Connor told me he wasn’t sure what I’d find, so the only instruction he could give me was to follow my instincts. I’ve seen you guys working, and my instincts tell me to go along with you.’

  Dave nodded and continued. ‘Ok team, we’re all aware of the situation. We’ve tried everything we can to persuade the Tana and Sha T’Al to come to the table. We’ve tried, friendly persuasion, veiled threats and even good ol’ fashioned bribery, but got nowhere. Outright war is coming closer and closer, and unless we can bring them to the table, it seems unavoidable.’

  There were resigned looks around the table, but they quickly changed to astonishment as Dave made his proposal.

  ‘As we can’t persuade the Tana and Sha T’Al leaders to negotiate, I propose to force them to come to the table.’

  ‘And how do you suggest we do that?’ asked Ruiz.

  ‘We’re going to kidnap them.’

  Dave waited patiently for howls of rage and righteous indignation, but the room was eerily silent. As he looked around the table, he could see looks of astonishment being replaced by shrugs of shoulders and nods of acquiescence. Even Ruiz simply raised an eyebrow and nodded.

  After a seeming life-time, Aisling O’Mara broke the silence. ‘Well. I didn’t see that one coming!’ she giggled.

  ASBeau didn’t seem bothered by a few rules and regulations. ‘Interesting idea, sir. Execution will be . . . challenging?’

  ‘Yes, I don’t doubt it, but I believe we have the people for the job aboard this ship. I suggest we undertake two parallel . . . er . . . forcible extraction missions. Obviously this is new territory for all of us, so don’t be afraid to indulge in a little blue-sky thinking. I want first proposals by this time tomorrow.’

  --------------------

  Dave called the meeting to order. ‘Ok team what have we got?’

  Izzy spoke first. ‘I’ve broached the subject of abduction with Elder Tre Hal. To my surprise, he wasn’t even slightly surprised. He seemed to think that was quite in keeping with our nature.’

  She shrugged. ‘I’m not sure if he meant that as a good thing or a bad thing, but either way, he did mention something that might give us a chance. Apparently, it’s an ancient tradition that in times of dispute between the central government and an individual district, the Plaintiff has the right to meet the First Minister face to face.

  ‘How does that help us?’

  ‘Because tradition dictates that the meeting is held on neutral ground. It’s one of the few occasions the First Minister will be outside of the security of the Parliament buildings on the Home-worlds.’

  ‘Hmm, interesting. Who gets to nominate the meeting place?’

  ‘It’s always the First Ministers choice, but they’re scrupulous in selecting neutral ground, and it’s the responsibility of the plaintiff to arrange hospitality and security. That means the First Minister will only have a limited entourage and his own personal body-guards to protect him. I figure it’s far and away our best chance to get to him.’

  ‘That’s excellent work Izzy. If Tre Hal is willing to try that, find out where the meeting would be held and get ASBeau to despatch probes to assess the location.’ Dave turned to the rest of the team. ‘Any other ideas?’

  Lieutenant-Commander O’Mara was next up. ‘Well, I reckon all the hours watching Tana TV have been worth it. We’ve found out that there’s a sort of an Award ceremony at the end of the Tana year. As well as live entertainment, the winners of various talent and reality TV shows are presented to the Emperor himself. It’s about the only time of year we’ve identified that we know for sure that the Emperor will be in a location out in public’

  ‘Where would that be held?’

  ‘Ah well, it’ll be held at a new Imperial theatre they’re building in the capital. Security will still be strict, but we’ve had some thoughts on that, too.’ She looked at Commander Mengele.

  The tall, elegant doctor straightened herself and said ‘It’s clear from our previous dealings with the Tana that their technology is several steps behind our own. We believe that with certain genetic level treatments and implanted devices to fool scanners, we could easily disguise some members of our crew enough that they could pass for a Tana and enter the various Tana television reality shows.’

  ‘So we could fake the physical appearance and mannerisms of the Tana? mused Dave.

  ‘Hmm. Greyish complexion? Bloodshot eyes? Subdued nature? A couple of days of shore leave would probably suffice’ grumbled the Ship’s Doctor, ‘but I can alter someone temporarily at a genetic level to give that hue. They’ll have to sort out the mannerisms for themselves’ she added bluntly.

  ‘So how does that help us?’ asked Dave.

  O’Mara looked genuinely excited ‘Because the Tana don’t have transporter technology!’

  Everyone else looked blank and she realised she’d skipped a couple of steps ahead in her excitement. She gave herself a mental shake and forced herself to calm down.

  ‘We get one of our people close to the Emperor, put a tracker on him and we can beam him straight onto the ship. The Tana can’t protect him with any kind of inhibitor because they don’t understand how transporters work.’

  Dave voiced his immediate concerns. ‘Will that work? Surely they’ll have some kind of planetary defence screen? Or even a localised defence shield in the Emperors vicinity?’

  O’Mara nodded, but answered with no-less enthusiasm. ‘Yep, they’re bound to have something like that, but that’s not a show-stopper. We can either stage a commando raid to take down their planetary defence shields, or we could modify the transporter to work through it.’

  Dave didn’t realise that was even possible. ‘How would that work?’

  O’Mara smiled. ‘We’ve had first-hand experience of their cutting edge technology when we examined their battleship. Tana shields work on a single frequency, unlike our own. All we have to do is to take a look at the frequency of the local shield and adjust the transporter to avoid operations in that frequency and its harmonics. The transporter will be able to operate right through the shield although someone will have to either place a marker on the Emperor or carry one themselves and get physically in contact with him: with the shields still up, we may struggle to lock the transporter beam onto the Emperor. So all we have to do is win a contest, get someone close to the Emperor, and make sure they shake his hand.’

  ‘Oh. Is that all?’ said Dave, sounding more sarcastic than he intended.

  O’Mara blushed. ‘Well, yes, I know that I may be making it sound simple . . . ‘

  ‘You got that right’ murmured Ruiz.

  ‘ . . . but don’t forget that Tiger is still effectively invisible to their sensors, and in terms of winning a reality TV show, they seem to be having difficulty in finding contestants. It seems being entertaining or lively isn’t something that comes naturally to the Tana.’

  Many people around the table didn’t look any more convinced, and O’Mara threw her hands up in the air. ‘We’re humans for god’s sake! We invented all that shite they’re broadcasting!’

  Dave shrugged and nodded ‘Unless anyone else comes up with something better, we’ll have to go with it. O’Mara, you and I will work o
n the plan for that mission; co-opt a couple of your people to help us, please.’

  Dave paused and then addressed the group. ‘Ok team, we have the beginnings of two workable plans. How we execute is the difficult bit. We’ll have to split our forces, which worries me. I know Tiger isn’t at full strength in crew terms, which makes me nervous running a mission deep in hostile territory. How’s Higgs looking Commander?’

  Chamberlain shook her head. ‘Probably worse than Tiger. We left in a hurry with only a minimal crew. We’re seriously short of operational staff.’

  Dave rubbed his chin. ‘Well, we can only work with what we have to hand: Tiger will undertake one mission, Higgs will have to undertake the other. I suggest we divvy up what crew we have between the two ships: This whole idea will only work if both missions are successful.

  Chamberlain looked uncertain. ‘I’m not sure Higgs is the ship for this sort of job. She’s not as powerful as Tiger and we’ve already found ourselves cornered by superior Sha T’Al ships once.’

  Aisling O’Mara piped up. ‘Ah! Well, me and the team have had an idea about that too.’

  All eyes swivelled towards her. ‘It seems that for these sort of missions, a degree of stealth is sure to be an asset. Obviously Tiger is much more stealthy than Higgs by accident more than design. I was thinking we could probably recreate the circumstances that coated Tiger in LOAVES and coat Higgs in them to make her stealthy.’

  Chamberlain shifted uncomfortably in her chair. ‘Commander Hollins explained that Tiger’s stealth coating is a thin layer of the remains of a viral energy-vampire infestation. How on earth would you recreate that?’

  O’Mara blushed bright red ‘Ah well, we sort of . . . kept . . . samples.’

  There were horrified looks all around the room. They all had nightmares of how close the energy-absorbing critters had come to turning them all into frozen corpses.