by David Smith
Chapter 4
Dave couldn’t believe the difference. With the new relays operating at full power, the reaction drive and thrusters turned and accelerated the ship smoothly, and the structural integrity fields held the ship’s physical form in a vice-like grip. The creaks and groans from the straining hull and engines that had been so evident the last time Tiger left orbit were completely eliminated.
Dave reversed the view on the main screen and watched from the Captain’s chair as Hole, and then the star that Hole orbited, both dwindled to tiny pin-pricks of light. At a safe distance, Crash engaged the warp-drive and the ship leapt forward, exceeding the speed of light, then accelerating further still, up to her maximum safe cruising speed of Warp Factor 8, more than five hundred times the speed of light.
It felt good to be underway at last after three frustrating months in orbit, but there was still a huge amount to do and Dave reluctantly left the Bridge and headed back down to the Engineering Deck.
Although the drive systems were now working, there were still myriad other defects the engineers needed to fix en-route to Arcturus.
In normal circumstances, repairs would have been completed at a space-dock facility and only on completion of the repairs would the ship have moved off. A shake-down cruise would follow, allowing the crew to work any bugs out of the systems and allow operational familiarisation and a degree of training where necessary. Sadly they had no time for any such niceties, and everything would have to be done in transit.
In Engineering, Lieutenant Jonsen and Chief Deng were watching the drive systems, keen to head off any issues, before they became problems. In a side office, Dave was surprised to see a huge pile of what appeared to be Tana power relays. As he entered, PO Vijay Kandampully’s head popped up from behind the pile: “Morning sir!”
“Morning Kandampully” replied Dave “I know we wanted a few spares, but do we really need this many?”
“Ah, well, I was meaning to speak to you about that sir” said the Petty Officer, sounding a little nervous, “I’m not sure what you’ve heard about the Tana equipment, but Deng, Halifa and I think these Tana relays are brilliant, far tougher than Starfleet standard issue relays.”
“Is Halifa back there too?” asked Dave.
“No sir, he’s working at one of the other stock-piles.”
“OTHER stockpiles??”
“Yes sir, we couldn’t fit them all in here at engineering, so we’ve stored a few others here and there around the ship.”
“My understanding was that you’d already replaced the drive and nav-system relays and had replacements for all the other duff relays?”
“We have sir.”
“So all of these are spares??”
“Er …. In a manner of speaking sir, yes.”
“I’m sorry, I seem to have missed something here. Can you just explain what the hell is going on???”
“Well sir, these relays are so bloody good we figured we might be better off replacing a few more of our own relays, you know, just on the essential systems. Life support, and the like. Then we thought about all the circuits where we’ve had technical issues that might have been avoided if the power relays had been more reliable. Frankly, the list of circuits we weren’t thinking about was miniscule, so we decided we’d just change the lot.”
“All of the relays?? The whole ship??” Dave was astounded.
“Yes sir, every single one” smiled Kandampully “and as we won’t be able to get any spares from Starfleet we figured we’d best grab as many spares as we could.”
“So how many would that be?”
The engineer seemed a little embarrassed “Er ….. just shy of a thousand, sir”
“A thousand?!? Jeez, where did you put them all??”
“We do have space on the Engineering Deck for stocks of spare parts. That took care of the first hundred or so. We found some space on the other decks in the Secondary Hull, but it was Romanov that had the brainwave. I didn’t realise just how spacious Commander Cassini’s quarters were!”
Dave still wasn’t convinced: “And there’s no downside to using alien relays in our systems?”
“Not that we’ve found sir!” Kandampully stated boldly before ruining it by adding “Yet.”
Dave sighed “I suppose it’s too late to worry about it now.”
“Feel free to worry if it makes you feel better sir” said Kandampully cheerfully “but we’re convinced it’s a risk worth taking. We’ve all been on Tiger long enough to know how often things get broken. From our perspective in Engineering we couldn’t possibly be any worse off than we were!”
“True. So what have you got Halifa doing?”
“He’s prepping the Tana relays prior to installation. He’s working on the one in the toilets on Deck 16. Actually that’s Engineering store number 16B now.”
“Because it’s full of relays?”
“Yes sir.”
“So why’s he up there? Wouldn’t it be easier for him to work down here?” asked Dave.
The engineer hesitated before saying “Have you met Omar sir?”
“Only briefly” admitted Dave, remembering an introduction to a swarthy, surly looking Iranian on one of his first visits to Engineering.
“Then you’ll probably know that he’s not the easiest person to get along with. Hates everyone who’s not Iranian. Hates women, Iranian or not. Generally doesn’t get on with Iranian men either. Handy with electronics though” Kandampully mused.
“So how long will all these changes take?”
“We’re nearly there sir. The smaller relays take a lot less fiddling around with to get them integrated, so the general power supply side of things is nearly one hundred percent” smiled Kandampully.
“Well, good news I suppose” conceded Dave “How are things going on the weapons and shields?”
“I haven’t really been involved on that side of things sir, I’ve just been up to my neck in the relays. I’ve scheduled the change-out of all the power relays for the Torpedo Bay and Phaser Banks, but you’ll have to speak to one of the weapon engineers for anything more. Lieutenant Ezquerra and Crewman Doe were on duty earlier, they’ve both been involved. Try speaking to them.”
“Thanks Vijay, I’ll check in with you again later.”
Kandampully sighed “I’ll still be here, sir” and he disappeared back under the pile of alien relays.
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Lieutenant Ezquerra was almost as completely buried as PO Kandampully. Dave found his feet hanging out of the plasma manifold panel that diverted power from the warp-core to the ship’s three phaser banks.
There was a bang and a flash from inside the console followed by muffled cursing in Spanish.
“Everything alright in there Lieutenant?” asked Dave.
The Lieutenant was caught by surprise and tried to sit up. This was not a reasonable course of action in a space only half a metre tall, and a loud thump was followed by further cursing, before the Lieutenant wiggled his way out of the console backwards.
A red mark on his forehead was already forming into a significant lump and the left side of his face was covered in black soot “Everything’s fine sir, got everything under control, thank you” he said smearing the soot into streaks with the back of his hand.
Dave wasn’t entirely convinced and asked “How are repairs to the weapons and shields coming along?”
“Err …… we’ll be ready sir.”
“We can’t afford to stuff this up Lieutenant” warned Dave.
“Yep, got that sir. By the time we get to Arcturus, all weapons and shields will be tip-top, A1, one-hundred and one percent sir. Depend on it!” said the Lieutenant proudly.
“I will be. We all will be.” Dave added seriously “How are the other ship’s systems coming along?”
“Lieutenant Sato is in charge of that, sir. She’s up in the main hull working on the sensor arrays. I gather that she’s got crews dotted around the ship making good progress. Ah, here
comes DuVall now. DuVall has been working on repair of lots of the minor defects and general repairs.”
Ezquerra called the crewman over, and Dave was worried to see that “Fingers” DuVall looked even more battered than the Lieutenant did.
“Morning DuVall” said Dave saluting the crewman. The engineer returned the salute, and Dave did a quick count of the digits on display. “Fingers” was a nickname he earned from his casual attitude to safety, or more specifically his habit of leaving his digits in harms way.
Still one thumb and three and a half fingers on his right hand. That was a good sign.
“Morning sir! What can I do for you?” smiled the engineer.
“I was just wondering how things were going with the general repairs?”
“Very well sir. More so if you consider we’re a couple o’ hands short. We’ve got all the comms systems on line. Lieutenant Sato and her team will have all the sensor repairs completed in about a week and me and my team will be moving onto more general repairs of battle-damage by then. We’ve been working hard with Andy Carstairs team and have almost completed the reconstruction of the inner hull. All the plating is back up to spec, which has allowed us to reset the structural integrity systems, too. Hopefully we’ll even have time to sort the replicators before we get to Arcturus” said the crewman in a broad Noo Yoik accent.
“Who’s working on the replicator issue?”
“Well, we’re pretty certain it’s a computer problem, so we’re taking it on from that end and haven’t touched the replicators themselves. Ensign ARSE is looking into it and he’s being assisted by Crewman Ottershaw.” The crewman leaned forward conspiratorially and lowered his voice before continuing “Frankly sir, I’m not convinced that they’ll be able to sort it out. Billy Ottershaw is good, but he’s no expert on computers, and Ensign ARSE spends most of his time off line. The sooner we free up some of the more experienced engineers the better if you ask me”
“Thanks DuVall, I’ll bear that in mind” Dave replied, rubbing his chin. It was worrying that the computer was having issues. Having spent time with the ship’s computer before, he was concerned that the issue with the replicators may only be a symptom of a greater problem.
He headed further into the deck and found ARSE and Ottershaw by the computer’s main console. The PILOCC (Prototype Intrinsic Logic Organic Component Computer) had been polished up a little and the holes and dents from the crew’s previous dealings with the computer had largely been repaired.
However, even after the run-in with the computer on the Tana Battleship, the computer still insisted on being called Susan and was, frankly, flaky at the best of times.
To Dave’s surprise, Ensign ARSE was on-line. ARSE (Advanced Robotic Sentience Emulator) was an artificial life-form assigned to Tiger in an effort to try to iron out the problems with the experimental computer.
Brilliant bio-mechanical engineering enabled Ensign ARSE to be a fairly realistic humanoid, both in appearance and movement. Unfortunately, it was controlled by MS Doors, an artificial intelligence programme with a poor reputation that was entirely deserved. Dave’s limited familiarity with ARSE was essentially a result of the amount of time the Ensign spent off line, completely immobile with eyes glazed over blue.
“Good morning, Ensign. How are things going?”
As usual, the Ensign paused as his software analysed the question, related it to Dave’s personality profile, and then cross-referenced that against known colloquialisms, slang and accents to ensure that the Ensign gave a reply that would not only answer the Commander’s question, but anticipate any nuance or hidden sub-text within the original question and answer that too.
Three minutes and forty-eight seconds later, the Ensign replied “Good evening, Commander. We are currently on route to Arcturus on a bearing of three-four-four by zero-one-one against galactic grid, but haggis is not on the menu today and Real Madrid will most likely win the Copa Del Rey this year.”
By that time, Dave was already in the middle of a long-winded and extremely profane conversation with Crewman Ottershaw:
“So you think the PILOCC is missing keys sub-routines and personality engrams?”
“Nnnnn, Nuuhhhh, NUTSACK!!! Nutshell, in a nutshell, yes, sir.”
“But we don’t have the back-ups necessary to complete the personality matrix, and we haven’t worked out if it’s safe to try and re-boot the Tana battleship’s computer to see if we can recover the missing elements from there? And even if we did find some way to get those elements back into the PILOCC’s memory, we might only make Susan more ….. confused?” Dave clarified.
“Yuuuu, yyyyyy, yyuuu …… yes. Exactly sir. Piss-flaps.”
“But as long as we don’t over-load her with processing demands, she should be capable of operating all the ship’s systems?”
“Absssss ……. Absssssooo ……. D-D-Deffff …….. yes sir” sighed Ottershaw.
Dave scratched his head “Well if that’s the case, I guess we’re best off not meddling. We can’t risk Susan throwing a fit while we’re on a test.”
Realising that Ensign ARSE had re-joined them, he asked the next logical question: “We have an outstanding commitment to get the PILOCC fully operational, and it’s a massively important task. If we can make it …… her …… work, it’ll be a template for all future ships computers. So how can we get Susan up to scratch?”
Ensign ARSE’s software was fully loaded and operational now, allowing him to smoothly and seamlessly produce a normal human-to-human interaction: “Indeed sir, salmon en croute would be an excellent choice, although the volatility of the Vegan stock-market means rubber underwear may become a must-have commodity.”
Billy Ottershaw was more pragmatic “Fffff ……. Fuuuu ….. Fuhuhu …… don’t know sir. NIPPLES!! You’d be better off talking to PO Park.”
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“So PO Park, I know you were planning to leave the fleet on completion of your contracted term, but I was wondering if I could persuade you to …… well …… not leave?”
The little Korean stared blankly at Dave. “What?? I thought we were clear on this? I complete my service in a week’s time and you drop me off on the way to Arcturus. I get as far away as I can from the fleet, from Chief Money and from loony-tune computers and start a small farm.”
“I know, I know! But this is a chance to do something special, something no-one else has done. Maybe something no-else can do. This could make the difference between the PILOCC becoming an omni-present design that’s the basis of all future Federation computing power, or a footnote of failure in computing history.”
The little Petty Officer looked worried.
Dave sensed he was starting to weaken and pressed home his advantage “I can make it an immediate transfer. You won’t be working for Chief Money, you’ll be working for Commander Romanov ….. “
Dave saw the fear in Park’s eyes.
“….. although not directly. You’ll be reporting to ….. someone else. A computer specialist? Definitely not Romanov. In fact she’ll probably never have reason to speak to you at all.”
Park seemed to slump in his chair and Dave went for the kill “Of course, as a mission specialist, you’d be entitled to a significant pay increase and would be able to dictate the period you sign on for. You can go when you want, regardless of where we are with the project. I’m sure that would help you when it comes to the expensive business of setting up a farmstead for the first time?”
“Ok,” Park sighed, “I’m in.”
Chapter 5
The Arcturus Test Ranges weren’t actually in the Arcturus system, but were situated in an uninhabited system a few light years away. Starfleet had long had ownership of the entire Arcturus Delta system, and for some fifty years now, the vast majority of ships in the fleet had been tested there.
In essence it was a huge playground where the Range Warden would set each ship a series of missions to fulfil that would test all of that ship’s capabilities eithe
r separately or in parallel. The position of Warden was normally given over to a very senior officer whose long experience would allow him to tailor the missions to test the particular characteristics of individual vessels.
With the repairs going as well as could be expected, Dave found himself with some free time on his hands, and checked the biography of the current holder of the post.
Commodore Anthony Thomas B’Stard was an officer with an engineering background who’d swapped to operations later in his long career. He’d served on many, many vessels in relatively junior posts before becoming the Captain of a series of relatively small and unimportant vessels. It seemed to Dave to be a relatively mediocre career on which to have attained the rank of Commodore (in essence a junior Admiral) but then, the guy had been serving the fleet for fifty years.
His Adjutant for the facility was Commander Devon Chamberlain. The Adjutant was responsible for implementing the Wardens decisions with regard to mission content and would brief each ship on what was expected of them. As such, Chamberlain would be their main point of contact and was probably more important than the Commodore in that respect.
Her record was much more interesting. She was still very young, and like himself had left the Academy as a Lieutenant-Commander, a sign of an exceptional performance during her time there. Also, like Dave, she’d already been promoted to Commander, and her short service biography to date was liberally scattered with commendations and awards. Dave was actually looking forward to meeting her.
The other key member of the Range team was the Quartermaster, Chief Cash. The Quartermaster’s role was to ensure that the ships at the Range were furnished with everything they needed to undertake the missions set for them. He’d also re-supply the ship before she left to go back to her duty station, and for that reason, Dave was keen to make sure he stayed in Chief Cash’s good-books.
There was surprisingly little available data about the Chief, just a few brief service records, and a single picture of a short, rotund, balding man, with neat round spectacles and an immaculately pressed uniform.