Tiger- Crusade

by David Smith

  ‘Lieutenant-Commander Beauregard, will be at tactical, Lieutenant Delgado will take Helm, and Ensign Onohua will navigate. They’ll each bring a team of personnel to help operate Higgs for the duration of the mission. We’ll also have a couple of Lieutenant Selassie’s team aboard for cultural advice and an away-team of specialists for the extraction mission, which will be led by Lieutenant Delgado and Ensign Ben-David.

  ‘The security team led by Ensign Ben-David will secure and hold a landing area, while the infiltration team that will disable the shields and sensors and break-in to the First Minister’s quarters will be led by Lieutenant Delgado. We’ll aim to abduct the First Minister after the first day of the negotiations is completed, by which time we hope security will have relaxed a little. As soon as we have him we’ll make a break for it. We’ll head straight back to Cross-roads at high warp to rendezvous with Tiger.’

  Chamberlain expanded on her last statement. ‘We’ve elected to take the most experienced operations staff along with Higgs as our opinion is that she’s more likely to face issues with the Sha T’Al than Tiger will face from the Tana. Their previous experience of dealing with the Sha T’Al might be crucial.’ she explained.

  Dave took over again. ‘As soon as we make the rendezvous, we transfer the Sha T’Al First Minister over to Tiger and head straight back to the meeting place at Dau Ranhal. We’ll be moving at high-warp, and thus backwards in time. If all goes well, we’ll arrive almost as Higgs leaves and be able to drop the First Minister back before anyone notices he’s been abducted.’

  Dave sighed. The abduction aspect of the mission was the easy part. ‘The downside of that is that it means we’ll only have three days in which to get them to sort out their differences. During that time Commander Grosvenor will mediate between the two heads of state in an attempt to identify the key issues for both sides, find options for negotiation and arrive at a mutually acceptable solution that will avert interstellar war and millions of deaths, hopefully without casting the Federation as the villain of the piece.’

  Dave could see the smile on her face was a nervous one. ‘No pressure though, Izzy’ he added as an afterthought.

  ‘If anything goes wrong, both ships are to high-tail it back to Federation space at maximum warp. That’s more of a risk for Higgs because we can expect the Sha T’Al to have ships available that are faster than her, but by coating her with LOAVEs, she should still be able to avoid detection.‘

  ‘If either half of the mission goes wrong, that ship will launch a probe to race back along the other ship’s route to the meeting place to give the other ship as much warning as possible.’

  Many of the team looked concerned and Ruiz asked the obvious question. ‘If one half of the mission fails, what does the other half do with their kidnapped and justifiably disgruntled Head of State?’

  Dave had recognised the issue, but didn’t have a satisfactory answer. ‘I suppose an apology will only go so far. I would suggest putting them somewhere safe, getting the hell out of there and blaming it on pirates.’

  He could see that this only heightened everyone’s anxiety. ‘Realistically, that’s not an option. We have to get all of this right.’

  Nobody looked any happier, but it was clear from the grim look on their faces that at least they understood the situation.

  Chapter 14

  Ensign Ruth Ben-David sat on her temporary bunk aboard USS Higgs fondling her beloved Colt M1911A1 pistol.

  She knew it was an antique more than an actual weapon, but as she felt the weight of it in her hand and the smooth sliding action of the bolt mechanism she also recognised this as something more than just an antiquated weapon.

  She regularly carried a phaser, and was practiced enough that she could hit a moving wasp from twenty meters, but it wasn’t the same. When she held the old Colt .45” she could almost feel the weight of its history.

  Her research into this particular pistol had shown that it had been manufactured in 1936, just before the second phase of the first Terran global war. It had been assigned to a United States Marine Corps officer and had served through the entire Pacific campaign of that war.

  It had been refurbished post-war before going on to serve in Korea and Viet-Nam before leaving US military service. After a series of transactions it had disappeared, only to surface again during a civil war in Sudan in the early 21st century.

  After being recovered by UN peace-keepers, it had wound its way through various private collections, being refurbished again along the way before finally ending up with her, over two hundred and fifty years after its creation. And it still worked perfectly.

  She didn’t like to admit it, but the blast of sound, the smell of burnt cordite and the violence of the pistols recoil thrilled her more than just about anything other than sex. Possibly more than sex.

  It meant a lot to her that the First Officer had approached her and trusted her to be part of a team for a very high-risk mission. She was under no illusions about how dangerous it would be, but it had been made equally clear that casualties were to be avoided at all costs.

  She sighed and put her beloved Colt back into its velvet lined storage case: now was not the time for such a weapon. Instead she picked up her phaser and checked again that it was set to stun, then checked her taser and her dart-gun. They were better than nothing.

  --------------------

  The Harvazh and Harvazh Too were communing as usual. Being the only two colonies within light years, they were obliged to commune with each other and blended and cross-connected with each other as was the habit of their species in order to communicate.

  The ship’s First Officer had outlined the potential mission to them and they’d agreed to participate. They understood fully how difficult such a mission might be for their biologically more complex crew-mates, even though they still didn’t understand the mechanism that had led to those ship-mates evolving into such gigantic structures, with all the penalties that form created.

  Their present objective was to ensure the survival of the colony in the event of the mission going wrong. They would need to leave a small contingent of the colony behind, enough to carry the colonies collective memory and identity forward. If the main bodies of the colonies were lost in the mission, this contingent would eventually recover, although that might take several hundred thousand generations, a period their ship-mates would characterise as “a couple of years.”

  In the meantime they assimilated as much data about the Sha T’Al as they could and practiced creating the structures they’d need to blend in amongst them.

  --------------------

  Lana Modric took a break from her strenuous fitness routine and checked over the tools of her trade: a specially adapted PAD, a tool-kit and a universal interface. She hadn’t used them in anger for a couple of years now, but she’d kept in practice with little missions of her own, such as breaking into the ship’s armoury or Chief Money’s more secure areas.

  It seemed odd to be entrusted with such a mission: in general, her profession made people inherently wary of her. Although she’d quite enjoyed being aboard Tiger, there was always a nagging feeling that she should be making more use of her abilities. This was a chance to show what she could do. A chance to prove just how skilled she was.

  She couldn’t wait.

  --------------------

  PO Jeb Hogan looked around at his team. They weren’t known as the Suicide Squad for nothing. Even by the standards of Chief Belle’s Security Department, they were reckless with their own safety. And the word ‘motley’ didn’t even begin to describe them.

  Jean-Baptise Gois was a tall, thin Haitian who was absolutely convinced that he was already dead, but had been resurrected by a voodoo curse. He habitually painted a skull on his face before going on a mission and usually looked even taller than he actually was as he regularly partnered Seichi Kurita.

  Kurita was tiny even by Japanese standards, and was descended from the world’s least successful kamikaze pilo
t. In the second phase of the first Terran global war, Japanese males had deemed it the greatest possible honour to die in the service of their Emperor. As the war had progressed, the Japanese Air Force had taken increasingly desperate measures in battle, including deliberately flying their aircraft into enemy ships.

  Known as ‘Kamikazes’, these terrifying warriors had done little to alter the course of the war, but were still revered in Japan for their bravery and absolute devotion to the Emperor.

  Unfortunately for Kurita, his ancestor was famous in Japan for flying thirteen such suicide missions and managing to come back alive from every single one of them. His bravery was never in doubt, but his navigational skills and eye-sight were. He’d concluded his career as a kamikaze when having failed to locate his target yet again, he’d managed to land at an American air-base by mistake.

  Kurita and his ancestor had been the butt of many jokes as he grew up, which led to Kurita earning a reputation as a troublesome young man who was often involved in brawls. He’d eventually escaped the ridicule of his home town by joining the fleet, but still seemed to feel an urge to demonstrate conspicuous, often suicidal, bravery in an effort to atone for his ancestor’s unexpected survival.

  The Japanese cultural preference for death before dishonour might also having been a contributing factor for the Japanese nation contributing two of the suicide squad’s six members.

  In truth nobody knew much about Keiko Watanabe. The tiny woman rarely spoke, and her intensity made everyone uneasy if they tried to talk to her. Rumour had it that she was a clinical nymphomaniac and that her tendency towards extreme violence was the ultimate result of the frustration caused by the fact that everyone was too scared to risk having sex with her.

  Nonetheless, she was a valued member of the Security Team, mostly on account of her extraordinary range of unarmed combat skills. She’d taken up martial arts at the age of four and had accumulated numerous black-belts in Karate, Judo, Tae-Kwando and many other disciplines. She was the only person on Tiger who could hold her own in hand-to-hand combat training with Chief Belle, despite a massive size disadvantage.

  If she wasn’t truly suicidal, then Charles Ogunleye probably was. Charles hailed from Zimbabwe, and viewed himself as the last of the great tribal warriors of that country.

  He was perhaps more aware of his own mortality than anyone else in the crew, and was terrified that he would die an ordinary, mediocre death unbefitting a warrior. Like the Japanese, he seemed to view death as a possible minor inconvenience in his goal to find eternal glory, and the more dangerous the mission, the quicker he was to volunteer for it.

  The last member of the squad was Raya Zin Jumah, a Syrian. Raya was the most worrying member of the team as he was literally suicidal. He was a native of Syria and his family had provided suicide bombers for a variety of Islamic Jihads over the centuries. Raya had been caught trying to get through spaceport security at Tel-Aviv with several sticks of Hi-Ex carried inside his body (although he’d never admitted exactly where he’d hidden the explosives)

  He’d been identified and stunned before he could detonate the explosives and had then spent two years undergoing ‘de-radicalisation’ before being released.

  Jeb wasn’t sure how the ‘de-radicalisation’ thing worked, but Raya was pretty spaced-out most of the time, and still had no hesitation in placing himself in harm’s way.

  In truth, Jeb hated leading the squad, and was terrified of losing any of them. He was an ex-Marine with an impeccable service record apart from one thing: On his last mission as a Marine Corps Sergeant, he’d managed to get his entire squad killed.

  Everyone told him that it wasn’t his fault, but the nightmares had never stopped. The shrinks had told him he was suffering from a post-traumatic stress disorder with suicidal tendencies.

  Obviously this was rubbish, but Jeb had been unable to convince his superiors otherwise. He’d been forcibly retired from the Marine Corps on medical / psychological grounds, and had joined the fleet shortly after as an escape route from a life of sitting on his front porch and re-living That Mission.

  His new goal in life was to keep his crazy squad alive, even if he had to die doing it. He knew they’d be up against it trying to abduct the Sha T’Al First Minister, but if someone had to take on such a dangerous mission, it was best that it was him and his team. He sat down and began cleaning his weapons again.

  --------------------

  Ezekiel Moss walked out of the Tactical Officer’s cabin and headed back to his own. He wasn’t superstitious in any way, but even he could almost feel fate moving in mysterious ways around him.

  He’d been asked to partake in a potentially dangerous mission to kidnap the leader of the Sha T’Al, and ASBeau had just briefed him on the specifics of his role.

  He hadn’t realised that all scores on Tiger’s shooting range were recorded automatically and that his proficiency had been noted. That was careless, and in his business carelessness was often a pre-cursor to death or capture.

  Despite that, he’d accepted the mission. He’d blurted out a reply even though he knew the smart thing to do would be to feign fear or uncertainty and reject it.

  He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps he missed the excitement of the hunt, the cold satisfaction in the successful execution of his mission. Another part of him thought it might be because he’d been told Marianne Delgado would be leading the team.

  He was far too old and too clever to be smitten, but Delgado was as close to his ideal woman as it was possible to be. She was beautiful, athletic, and intelligent. While working with her in the Helm team he’d also found that she was a warm and funny person too.

  He remembered uncomfortably how his heart seemed skip a beat when he heard that against all odds, she’d returned to Tiger two years after disappearing in mysterious circumstances.

  Of course a person like him could never seriously consider having any kind of partner, or lover. That was an unnecessary complication or distraction, and he’d studiously avoided such things for most of his professional life.

  He gave himself a mental ticking off. Obviously he’d gone soft in the head in his old age. He must be thinking that some kind of karma was at work. With FLEA appearing out of nowhere, apparently looking for someone who’d have good reason to kill him, he was letting fanciful notions of fate override his usual sense of self-preservation.

  It had nothing to do with Marianne Delgado at all.

  Chapter 15

  There was an air of nervous excitement in the Officer’s Mess as Dave called the meeting to order. It was odd not having ASBeau there, but Dave was aware he’d be an integral part of the briefing Devin Chamberlain was carrying out at this moment aboard Higgs. She was now as stealthy as Tiger, and if she didn’t transmit, they would never have known she was still only fifty klicks astern of them.

  ‘Ok team, here’s how it stands: Tiger and Higgs will get underway immediately after this briefing. Tiger will head into Tana space to extract the Tana Emperor. Higgs will head to the Sha T’Al meeting point with their contingent of Tiger’s crew to extract the Sha T’Al First Minister.’

  ‘Due to the issues with our drive system, Tiger will reach the Tana home-world approximately twelve days ago. We’ll drop the ship into a low orbit and after a suitable reconnaissance effort, we’ll transport our operatives to the surface and retire to a higher orbit to reduce the risk of us being discovered by accident.’

  ‘Our operatives have one of two roles. The primary operatives will attempt to win one of the major Tana talent shows; the secondary operatives will be there to provide support in maintaining the deception, a discreet communication route and also emergency extraction if things go south. All operatives will be given suitable treatment by Dr Mengele’s staff to enable them to pass for Tana. By the time we reach the Tana home-world, Lieutenant-Commander O’Mara’s Anthropology and Archaeology specialists will have briefed them on Tana society and attitudes, and also have finalised the game strategy that will maximis
e our operative’s chances of winning their respective contests.’

  ‘Once on the ground our operatives will split up and go to addresses that we’ll have arranged from orbit. They’ll need to blend in with Tana society at large and carry on practicing Tana mannerisms and affectations while polishing their act. Each will take part in a particular show, and while the main operative is doing that, the other operatives will provide help with coaching and feedback for the act and also on being a Tana. Where necessary the secondary operative will also add depth to the personal stories we concoct around each primary operative, playing the role of partner, relative etc.’

  Commander Mengele said ‘I’ve begun the process of altering our operatives DNA. It will take several weeks for the results to become apparent, and we’re altering a significant number of additional personnel in case there are complications with key personnel. We’re also working on cranial implants to overcome the translation problem, as the operatives won’t have time to become fully fluent in the Tana language amongst all their other coaching sessions.’

  Dave nodded. ‘Thank you Commander. Steward, how are the contestants coming along?’

  The Steward had become the central focus of the effort to prepare the operatives for the ground-mission and was fully focused on his task. ‘All of the key operatives have agreed to undertaken the mission, sir. In fact, I’m proud to say that none of them hesitated. The only downside is that we are going to have to rule Decarvalho out, sir. His burns aren’t responding as quickly as we’d like and we don’t think he’ll regain the flexibility of his left leg soon enough.’

  ‘So we’re going with Nyambayo’s tap-dancing?’

  ‘It would appear so sir. We’ve already re-arranged rosters to relieve all the away-team operatives of their usual duties and give us maximum time to prepare them for the mission. We’re splitting the coaching sessions between myself and the A&A team, where I’ll undertake performance coaching and Petrakova and Panesar will focus on enabling them to blend in with the Tana.’