by David Smith
The system the Arcturus Ranges were situated in had been picked largely because it was a navigator’s nightmare. Arcturus Delta was a variable star prone to sudden bursts of solar hyper-activity which meant the orbiting planets were completely free of life, being regularly sterilised by their parent star’s capricious radiation.
In addition to a number of very varied planets, there were multiple asteroid belts and one of the most extensive Oort clouds the Federation had ever found. Two of the planets were super-massive gas giant planets, each with their own system of attendant moons and rings. There were several other smaller gas giants, and closer to the star, nearly a dozen small rocky worlds orbited. The nearest of these were so close to the star that they were little more than scorched cinders.
Nestling in orbit around one of the outermost gas giants was Arcturus Station, a huge space-station where the Range Warden and his team resided and worked. The station was not only the operations centre for the Range, it included significant repair and maintenance facilities. As missions on the Range might well result in damage to the participating vessels, Starfleet had deemed it appropriate to have facilities available in the event of any accidents.
There were also storage facilities and other training facilities too. Many shuttle pilots undertook their training at the Ranges, and at least once a year the Ranges played host to fleet war-games, where dozens of starships participated in exercises intended to develop combat techniques and train officers in how to command their ships when part of a fleet.
And then there were the service craft. Arcturus Station was home to a large number of older vessels whose role was to simulate enemy craft during exercises and war-games. There were also shuttles, repair craft, tenders, tugs ..... a whole fleet of minor vessels, there to make the tests as realistic and demanding as possible. It was a thriving hub of activity.
Dave rubbed his eyes and sighed. They were a good few weeks away from Arcturus yet, and he was very glad of Chief Money's diversions for the crew. The journey would be long and boring, although the operations crews and engineers would be fully employed now.
Tiger had behaved herself impeccably since leaving Hole, the journey to date being marked by a noticeable absence of disasters and malfunctions.
There'd been another incident in the toilets on Deck 6, where the flush systems had suddenly and unexpectedly gone through an evacuation cycle while still draining the pans. The ships sullage system jettisoned the waste in the sewage tanks before isolating the waste system inboard.
One crewman suddenly found himself glued to the toilet pan by suction and two other crewmen were pulled into the urinals they were standing by. The two at the urinals were just mentally scarred, and a couple of sessions with the ship's counsellor had quickly convinced both that there were experiences a lot more dangerous than going to the lavatory. However, the poor unfortunate in the WC very nearly had his intestines sucked out, and suffered a nasty prolapsed anus.
After the incident, the services engineer, Lieutenant Ezquerra, had felt the need to post a warning sign for crewmen stating that the crew used the toilets at their own risk, and the crew learned to treat the toilets with respect.
He’d visited the Sick-bay shortly after, and had found Commander Mengele coming out of one of the isolation rooms at the rear of the bay. Looking through the door he’d been slightly worried to spot one of the injured crewmen suspended from the deck-head by his ankles, completely naked. A slightly breathless Commander Mengele assured him that this was the best way to minimise the strain on his prolapsed anus. She didn’t explain why the unfortunate crewman’s buttocks were very bright red, but she had reminded Dave that she was the Ship’s Doctor when he queried this.
By the standards he’d got used to aboard Tiger this incident was hardly noteworthy, although his encounter with the Doctor had brought an involuntary tensing of his own buttocks for some reason.
Strangely the (relative) lack of mishaps just made Dave even more nervous. He could have taken the lack of issues as a sign that the crew were on top of the repairs and everything was running smoothly, but his experiences aboard the ship since his arrival left a nagging doubt in the back of his mind. Were the problems still there? Waiting until a critical moment to unleash themselves in a torrent of "Oh shit!" moments? Were there already things going wrong that hadn't manifested themselves visibly yet? Building up a tidal wave of disaster? A Poo-nami?
He tried to push the thought to the back of his mind. As his Science Officer Aisling O'Mara would tell him, "Worry about it when it happens." (She usually added something along the lines of “So what would you like to drink in the meantime?”)
He did have other genuine causes for concern that were much more tangible. A "Constitution" class heavy-cruiser like the Tiger would normally have a complement of around four-hundred and thirty. For reasons only Chief Money could adequately explain, there had been a complement of four-hundred and fifty when Dave had joined the ship six months ago, but numbers were dropping alarmingly.
Eight of the crew had been killed when Tiger had chased and caught a smuggler in Sha T'Al space. Being in such a remote sector of the Federation, replacement crew members had taken a while to arrange and were presumably still in transit to Hole. Dave would have liked to collect them en-route to Arcturus, but their tight time-schedule didn't leave enough time for such detours.
In the same incident, another two crew members had been critically injured and both were still off-duty undergoing therapy and rehabilitation with the medical team.
They'd had to leave some crew behind in Sha T'Al space on particular assignments dictated by the Commander in Chief of the Third Fleet, Admiral Henry O'Connor. Izzy and Commander Joynes were key Federal representatives in Sha T’Al space and Dave had needed to leave behind a flight-crew team of six personnel to assist the Sha T'Al in getting their ships, shuttles and shipping control systems operative. He’d left pair of Security personnel with them just in case things went south unexpectedly. He’d also left his A&A Officer there with a detachment of four science personnel to help her and Joynes sort out an agricultural system for the struggling Sha T’Al colonies.
At Hole he'd off-loaded seventeen of the "nurses" recruited by Chief Money, as well as PO Starr and Yeoman Viera. They'd also left behind eight crew members who'd finished their tour of duty with the Fleet and had decided to leave. They'd board USS Santiago on her next visit and begin the slow journey back to their home planets. Another four had left three months earlier, hitching a lift when the Third Fleet had left Joran Dal. Commander Cassini had also left with the Third Fleet, albeit in the Brig of the Flagship USS Nebula on his way to a court-martial for reckless endangerment of his ship.
That left a total ship’s complement of three-hundred and ninety-three. Of those, six were still in sick-bay recovering from training with the Security Chief and four were in the brig having committed more serious misdemeanors than “haggis-bashing” could account for. He could expect them to be back on the roster soon, but within the total of three hundred and ninety-three, there was still the matter of eighteen spare Yeomen who’s only useful function was to keep the Captain gainfully employed, and the Captain himself, who had so far failed to grace the Bridge with his presence in Dave’s entire time aboard Tiger. Lastly, and almost certainly least, there was Ensign ARSE, nominally an engineer, but in reality something of a spanner.
With only three hundred and sixty-three useful crew-members, Tiger was short of twenty-two personnel in the operations department and another nine or ten in engineering. Normal ship’s practice was to run the ship with a full crew of around two hundred and eighty personnel on duty from 0800 to 1800 ship’s time. The other one hundred and fifty would be split over three shifts to provide watch-keeping and primary response for emergencies.
This could potentially be a problem on the ranges, as some of the tests would last several days. It was his job as First Officer (ironically due to a lack of a replacement for him in his previous role of Executive Of
ficer) to roster the crew to ensure key positions were continuously manned. The usual fifty man watch-keeping team was already the bare minimum needed to monitor the ships functions, but reducing the main “day shift” numbers might put the completion of the forth-coming tests at risk.
He only had two options: He’d either have to ask members of engineering and operations to pull double duty, which would inevitably make them tired and reduce their effectiveness and efficiency, or alternatively try to bulk out their numbers with less-well trained staff from the science department or …… he gulped at the thought ….. the yeomanry.
The concept of letting someone like Yeoman Barnes, lovely as she was, anywhere near a phaser bank filled him with dread. It would be like asking a puppy to manage a nuclear reactor. He sighed. It looked like engineering and operations would just have to suck it up and split the additional duties out as best they could.
--------------------
The day before Tiger was due to reach the Ranges, Dave called the senior officers together for a final briefing in the Officer’s Mess. Each of the Department Heads gave a full status report, and Dave summarized them for his official log.
“Ok team, here’s the position. The engineers have completed all repairs, including replacement of the full suite of power relays with the more robust Tana equivalents. They’ve tuned the drives, weapons, sensors and shields as best they can without us stopping for proper tests, so Tiger is as capable as she’s ever been.”
“The PILOCC is missing some elements of programming that seems to limit certain functions, but this isn’t affecting combat capability or navigation, and we have no reason to believe the situation will get worse, providing we don’t over-load her with additional data-processing and retrieval requests.”
“The Medical Department have managed to clear the back-log created by Chief Belle’s training schedule and have made enough progress with our last two major injury cases to get them both back to light duties.”
“Operations Department have completed familiarisation drills with ship’s systems and controls, although we’ve not had time to push the envelope in that respect. We’ll pretty much have to do that on the fly during the tests at the Range, but everyone is reasonably comfortable and confident.”
“The Science Department are still compiling a definitive report on the Tana battleship we fought, but have gathered so much information this might take a while to finalise. Nonetheless, even the preliminary findings have proved enlightening and have been passed to Command for review.”
“Another long standing bug-bear has been cleared by punishment details: The last of the haggis has been removed from the outer hull. We are now officially a haggis-free vessel.”
That this comment brought a more positive response than anything else he’d said gave some indication of the depth of hatred that haggis inspired in his crew. There were cheers all around the table, but Dave held his hand up to silence the team and continued his summary.
“The bad news is that we’re going to the Ranges a little light on personnel. Science Department will back-fill the gaps where they can provide bodies with useful knowledge or experience, but the long and short of it is that we’re still a dozen bodies short of where we should be in the Operations Department. I hate to have to do it, but I’ll be restricting leisure periods and will personally review all requests for leave while we’re at Arcturus.”
“As we’re short of bodies, I can’t stress enough the importance of being slick and professional, and getting through the tests as quickly as we can. The tests will be tiring and stressful and the lack of bodies will serve to exacerbate the problem. The longer we’re there, the more we’ll feel the lack of bodies.”
“We reach Arcturus Station at 0940 ship’s time tomorrow, and I’m advised the Commodore himself will be there to greet us in person. I’ve informed the Captain, and he wants a full formal greeting party. I want all compartments ship-shape and shiny by 1800 this evening and I want Department heads to undertake inspections of their areas at close of play. All crew are to be in standard uniform and be on deck and ready in case the Commodore exercises his right to inspect the ship. Let’s do everything we can to make a good first impression. Dismissed.”
The officers filed out, more up-beat than Dave had seen them in quite some time. When they’d gone, Dave took a deep breath and composed himself. The moment of truth was upon them all.
Chapter 6
As instructed by Range Shipping Control, Tiger took a station five kilometers astern of Arcturus Station, and powered down.
Dave and the other senior officers gathered in the Main Transporter Room ready to greet the Commodore in full dress uniform, and perhaps predictably, at 0935 a rather bedraggled Yeoman Legg arrived and handed Dave a pad with orders from the Captain:
“I’m busy. Will be down later.
Ps. You have the Bridge.”
Oh terrific, thought Dave. He would have worried about it, but at that moment Chief Carstairs said. “Attention on the deck. Incoming transport, the Commodore of the Range and his team.”
With that, the Transporter system sprang into life, and the assembled officer’s shuffled themselves into line of seniority, ready to meet the Commodore.
They stood to attention, saluting, and waited as the platform filled with swirling energy patterns and humanoid shapes became apparent. Dave hoped nobody noticed that he had his fingers crossed, and all he could think as the Commodore was transported across was “please, not haggis …. please, not haggis …..”
After what seemed like an eternity, the patterns coalesced into six figures. The three nearest the front were very different, one being quite tall while another was quite portly and the other was quite petite. As the energy patterns faded and the figures became substantial, Dave was immediately struck by how short the Commodore was.
Stood front and centre of the platform, Commodore Anthony Thomas B’Stard was less than 1.6m tall. What he lacked in height, he made up for in gold braid, and his full-dress uniform seemed to be embellished with gold braid in a manner Dave had never seen outside of fancy-dress parties. He stood, feet slightly apart, hands behind his back and chest thrust manfully forward, with a silver-capped black cane tucked under his right arm, like a caricature of some long-forgotten Napoleonic ego-maniac.
To his right, and towering above him, Commander Devon Chamberlain was dark skinned, elegant and beautiful. Long, straight, jet-black hair framed a finely sculpted face that could have been created to be an icon of African feminine beauty. To the Commodore’s left stood a rotund, balding bespectacled Chief who was immaculately turned out, but somehow looked just ever so slightly greasy.
As an Ensign from Operations piped the Commodore aboard, Commander Chamberlain’s light-brown almond-shaped eyes quickly swept the room and settled on Dave. She smiled warmly, stepped off the transporter platform and headed toward him “You must be Commander Hollins. She gestured to the tiny man still waiting on the platform and said, “This is Commodore Anthony Thomas B’Stard, Range Warden of the Arcturus Proving Facility.”
It was clear that the Commodore wasn’t going to move, so Dave followed Chamberlain back across the room to offer his hand to the Commodore.
With the Commodore still standing on the transporter platform they were nearly eye-to-eye, but as Dave held out his hand and said “Commander David Hollins, First Officer, USS Tiger. Welcome aboard Commodore” he was immediately cut down a little. The Commodore didn’t move shake his hand or even look him in the eye. Quite abruptly he said “Where’s LaCroix?”
Dave had a sinking feeling, and dropped his hand and returned to an at ease position before replying “The Captain is in his ready room sir…” he paused and crossed his fingers behind his back before adding “he’ll be down to meet us shortly.”
The Commodore was still staring off in to the distance, as if trying to look through the bulkheads to see if he could spot the Tiger’s absent Captain. Dave saw Chamberlain roll her eyes, and looking over t
o Tiger’s line of senior officers, still dutifully stood to attention and saluting, she quietly said “At ease.”
After a pause that seemed to last a life time, the Commodore suddenly sprang forward, ignoring the Tiger’s officers, muttering as he went “How bloody ignorant! He’ll be sorry!” Not even looking back, he barked “Take me to engineering. Chamberlain, make a note. I’m not happy!”
Completely thrown, Dave motioned to Olga Romanov “Commander, if you would accompany us please” and chased after the Commodore, remembering as he left the Transporter Room to look back at his bemused crew and say “Dismissed!”
As they ran out of the Transporter Room, the rest of the Commodore’s entourage began to follow, except for the Chief at the front who stood still, smiling, and simply said, “I’ll catch up with you guys later: I have some business to attend to.”
Commander Chamberlain fell in step with Dave as he left and smiled at him again as she told him very quietly, “Don’t worry, he’s a little prickly at times, but he does this to pretty much everyone.”
Twenty meters down the corridor the Commodore was still stomping off in completely the wrong direction muttering as he went “I run a tight bloody ship. Is it too much to expect the same from others?? Standards are so low these days ….. how dare that jumped up little snot ignore me like that. I’d have the bleeder keel-hauled if I had my way….”
Both Hollins and Chamberlain had considerably longer strides than the Commodore and quickly caught up, but stayed one pace behind him. The remainder of the Commodore’s entourage had also followed them, and having caught up, dutifully stayed a further pace behind the two Commanders.
Olga Romanov was even smaller than the Commodore and after failing to catch up by walking faster than him, she was forced to break into an unseemly trot just to try to stay in contact. They’d galloped past two turbolift stations before Dave decided he’d best try to rein the Commodore in before they completed an entire circuit of Deck 7.