Chapter One
Stardate 4402.71
17th July 2268, 1400 hours
Bridge, USS Kusanagi NCC-1481
Mikasa-class frigate on interior space lane patrol, Sector 19-L“Mr. Brown, how are we doing?”
“Almost there, Captain. Another five minutes or so,” I reply.
The captain grumbles. “We’re an hour behind already.”
I bob my head and smile slightly. “The joys of Deep Space Tech Support, sir. Considering what was wrong with it I’m relieved we’re only going to be that late.”
The captain shrugs and sighs. “Admittedly,” she agrees, then orders, “Ensign Salok, plot a course for rendezvous with convoy PK-1579 and calculate arrival time at warp five.”
“Affirmative, Captain,” our Vulcan navigator replies, and moments later adds, “Course plotted and transferred to Helm. Time to rendezvous is one day, eleven hours, two minutes.”
It sounded like he was about to give the seconds of travel time as well, but restrained himself. It looks like he is finally starting to learn that too much precision is irritating to lesser beings. I allow myself a smile at this thought, my expression safely hidden in facing the Navigation Databanks, starboard side aft of the captain’s chair and next to the science station.
“Very good,” Lieutenant Commander Karen McCafferty replies before addressing our comm. officer. “Lieutenant Lathena, contact the convoy commander and let them know our ETA will be around stardate 4410.21 as expected.”
“Aye sir,” the lithe Andorian woman responds, turning back to face her console and setting about her task.
A light starts flashing on my console, bringing my attention back to our mission. “Captain,” I state to gain her attention, and getting it I continue, “the upload to the buoy and checks out as a clean install. The onboard computer is reinitialising now, test cycle in another ten seconds…”
“Thank you, Mr. Brown,” McCafferty responds with an annoyed sigh. “I don’t need the entire readout from the diagnostic. Just let me know when the buoy is operational again.”
“Ah, yes sir,” I reply, slightly put out.
You’d think I’d have learned not to do that by now. The captain had explicitly stated a preference for short, to-the-point round-ups rather than running commentaries, feeling that the unnecessary chatter is distracting. However, my own need to explain everything I do sometimes resurfaces, much to McCafferty’s irritation. “Mr. Enax. It’s your show again,” I tell our triped science officer. He’ll be the one to check out the buoy’s status now that the upload from our navigational databanks is complete.
“Aye sir,” the Edoan responds and begins using his console to interrogate the buoy’s systems. A few minutes later and he addresses McCafferty. “Captain, the buoy checks out. Internal computer operations 100% stable again, all tests and diagnostics passed. The transmitter is working at full strength on the correct frequencies and broadcasting the correct information. No unauthorised signals or anomalous computer activity detected. We’re done here, sir.”
“Excellent,” she replies, and opens a channel to engineering from her chair. “Mr. Trey`gar, you can bring your crewman home, we’re finished here.”
“Aye, Captain, I’ll let her know. She’ll be pleased to get out of that spacesuit,” our Centauran chief engineer responds.
“No doubt,” McCafferty acknowledges. Opening an intra-ship com channel, she congratulates our crew. “This is the Captain. Our first mission for Starbase 23 has been successfully completed. Good work everyone, that was a job well done. We may not have saved the Federation on this mission,” she states with dry humour, “but we have ensured that it won’t fall apart piece by piece over the next few decades.”
I notice lots of smiles and a few grins around the bridge at that comment, myself included. The captain knows this is dry duty, and knows the crew knows it too. Knowing that your boss cares what you think and actually agrees with you does wonders for your morale.
“Secure your departments and prepare for warp speed once our crewman is back aboard,” she orders down the intercom. Closing off the all-call but keeping open her link to Engineering, she instructs, “ChEng, let me know when that happens.”
One of the upgrades our ship got during her brief layover at Starbase 23 was new software that allowed for the station-to-station intercom links that we didn’t have previously. It has helped reduce our comm. officer’s workload and increased crew efficiency measurably, so Starfleet no doubt thinks the time and effort was worthwhile.
“Ayesha is back aboard now, Captain,” Trey`gar informs us,
“with all her tools. Ready for warp speed at your order.” “Thank you, Mr. Trey`gar. Tell Ms. Khalid ‘good job’ from me.”
“Will do.” While this little by-play was going on, I circle the bridge and confirm all departments were secured and in order. Turning to the captain, I announce, “All departments report ready for warp speed, Sir.”
“Thank you, Mr. Brown,” she replies, then addresses our Centauran helmsman. “You heard the Lieutenant, Mr. Maknal. Warp five to the convoy.”
“Warp five, aye Sir,” Urrih Maknal acknowledges and eases the
Kusanagi into Cochrane’s universe. A few moments later he reports, “On course at warp five as ordered, Captain. We’re on our way.”
“Very good, Lieutenant. Lathena, inform Captain Fitzgerald that all her buoys are behaving themselves once again.”
This brought yet more smiles to many Earth-Human faces—mine included—as Karen used the Irish pronunciation “b-hois”. Since most of the senior staff had met the dumpy, matronly figure of Base Station G-7’s CO, they knew that Siobhan (pronounced Shi-vawn) Fitzgerald was an almost rabid fan of Celtic Football Club, whose players were known as “bhoys” even though the team was Scottish.
“Aye, Captain,” Lathena responds, smiling slightly.
“Yeoman David,” the captain instructs next, pronouncing it “Dah-veed” in the proper Israeli fashion, “do you have those updated requisitions yet?”
The dark-haired, intense looking Petty Officer Second Class nods seriously. “Just uploading them now, Captain. I’ll be right there.”
“Good enough,” she acknowledges. “Mr. Brown, I’ve been thinking about those personnel matters you mentioned earlier, and I think I’ve found a way to make everyone happy. I have a couple of things I want to do first, but could you schedule a meeting for us at around 1600 hours to go over them?”
I quickly run through my own itinerary for today as Avi finally brings over the requisition data slate to review and sign. I had wanted to take care of something immediately after my shift, but it’s nothing that can’t wait. “No problem, Captain,” I reply. “Briefing Room One okay?”
A slightly distracted nod as she scans the slate is my answer.
“Very well. I’ll set it up now.”
“Carry on, Mr. Brown.”
1610 hours
Briefing Room One, USS Kusanagi I check my chronometer for the twentieth time since arriving in the briefing room, impatiently waiting for McCafferty to show up. Karen is late—again—for a meeting she specifically asked me for, and I’m starting to consider my giving her the benefit of the doubt is the wrong approach to take. This might be a calculated insult on her part, and if so, so far it seems to be working for her. I shift in my chair and glare irritably at the doors.
Typically, and just as Fate would have it, she chooses that exact moment to make her entrance and walks into my glare. Her neutral expression crumples into frown, and I curse myself for likely creating another instance of tension between us. We’ve been making progress in our interpersonal relationships and are not only courteous to one another but oftentimes downright cordial.
I hurriedly clear my face of its scowl and stoically accept hers in its place. I feel compelled to make the effort to defuse the artificial tension. “Ah, sorry, Captain,” I tell her apologetically. “Staring into space and thinking about something unpleasant.”
“Uh huh,” she responds sceptically. “What?”
Mind blank for a moment, inspiration strikes me in time to prevent the obvious answer of “You standing me up on a meeting
you requested” reverberating unspoken off the walls.
“The missing buoys, Captain,” I tell her slowly, trying to suggest I’d been thinking of it. “We’ll have to keep an eye out for them reappearing. The pirates could cause some mischief with them, or even sell them on to our serious enemies for greater mischief. I wish I knew what they had in mind for them.”
My answer is so smooth and extensive that she apparently takes me at my word. Her frown evaporates completely and she nods in agreement. “Knowing
is half the battle, but for all we do know, they could just need them to mark a clear lane into one of their bases through a very dense asteroid field.”
She moves in and sits at the head of the table as I nod thoughtfully. “I’ll make up a report for your approval on this. I’ll talk to our tactical, science, engineering, and communications people to put together an extensive list of what they could be used for. They may even just be grabbing the whole thing to cannibalise it for parts in a less exposed area of space.”
“That’s fine Mr. Brown,” she says, obviously relegating it to the background. I hide a grin, which she also misses as she reads from her data slate. “So, you were concerned about our tactical staff not having enough experience for our current mission?” she asks, an eyebrow raised. “I have some solutions but I want to hear your reasoning for thinking that. We are just out of a war, after all.”
“This is true, Captain,” I agree readily, “but our battles there were all-out combat affairs. As you know, there is quite the difference between being a soldier and being a policeman. Now that we are back in what passes for peace around these parts, we have to ensure our war experiences haven’t made us trigger-happy.”
“’Trigger-happy’, Lieutenant?” She looks at me askance and I see the beginnings of annoyance in her eyes, but she responds calmly enough. “If force needs to be used, then we’ll use it.”
“Oh, for sure, Captain. If there’s one thing we’ve been taught about Orion Pirates is that they’ll not hesitate to use force themselves, and usually—but not always—even when force isn’t needed,” I tell her in a relaxed tone. I know what I’m about to say is going to strike too close to home, but I want to know that a repeat of that situation isn’t going to happen before we actually get into another one just like it. “However, as our encounter with that Orion slaver that was ‘salvaging’ the
Borok showed us, we screamed in there loaded for bear and they weren’t even running with hot weapons.”
The annoyance that Karen looked like she was trying to keep under wraps now spills out as cold anger. Even so, she manages to keep the hostility from her tone and merely sounds challenging. “Mr. Brown, as far as I’m concerned, that incident was handled properly.”
Ignoring—but not dismissing—her anger, I push on firmly. “Not to belabour the point, Captain, but it could have been handled better. We made an enemy when we could have made an ally of convenience.”
“Mr. Brown—”
“Sir, please,” I interrupt, standing firm. She doesn’t like it, but she gives be a sharp nod and holds her peace. “What I want to ensure is that if a similar situation presents itself, we take advantage of it. While we
know that most of these purportedly legal ‘shipping’ and ‘merchant’ cartels are pure fronts for pirating activity, as are a lot of the ‘independent traders’, they are still innocent until caught in the act. If we go in every time as overbearing authoritarians, we’re going to hack them off so much so that they will actively start gunning for us. I don’t want us isolated and caught alone by a cartel’s heavy cruiser ‘enforcer’ ship, or a squadron of smaller ships.”
Karen’s anger dissipates slightly as she considers this.
“I know that it’s not all that likely, but it is still within the realm of possibility. Heck, this may happen anyway if we are too efficient in our duties and severely hamper them, but attacking a Starfleet ship to destroy her is not something cartel leaderships decide on lightly. There is too much opportunity for an undeclared feud that has Starfleet actively seeking them out and that will put a huge crimp in their operations. But if we start actively harassing their ships with no proof of their wrongdoing, they may be more likely to take that risk.”
The captain digests this and I see the far-away look in her eyes that means she’s truly considering the probabilities and not just chewing it over from a “he’s out to nark me off” perspective. It looks like her anger was another knee-jerk reaction rather than real. We do still have our sore points between us, buttons that, had anyone else pushed them, would have gotten no reaction. However, they are still rough edges and the only way to get them smooth is to abrade them.
I’m dreading her own return to the nightmares I still occasionally get from the loss of my arm.
After a few moments, she responds. Her tone is still a little irritated but she’s lost most of her anger. “You do, unfortunately, have a point, Mr. Brown. I don’t see it is being likely, especially as we still have all these ships in the area on crackdown duties anyway. It would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Plus,” she adds with an edge in her voice, “the slaver’s captain was a Klingon, and a Klingon that had been forced into a pirate’s life at that. They only respect strength at the best of times and the opportunity you say we lost there was in all likelihood just self-serving, face-saving bluster for the benefit of his crew. It’s highly probable that they were just empty words.”
I mull that one over as she stares at me before finally nodding. “Agreed, Captain,” I tell her thoughtfully. “That is highly probable. However, I still believe the basic principle holds, as not all pirate—ah,
independent captains have Klingon dispositions. Now, I’m not saying that we take them at their word and let them warp off with their ‘salvage’ in tow just to be nice. That
would be stupid,” I tell her, and a flicker of an ironic smile crosses her face. My lips twitch in an answering almost-smile, and I go on, “In a similar circumstance we would escort them in to make sure they behave and not run off with it. But if such an offer of assistance is made, in future I’d like to accept it. Promoting goodwill is worth the extra effort, I think, especially as we’re not the biggest kid in the playground.”
Karen rubs her chin speculatively. “Very well, Mr. Brown. Show me what you’ve got.”
*****
My meeting with the captain over, I retreat to my quarters and decide to make a log entry. Throwing myself on my bed I lie there for a few minutes just luxuriating in the feeling of doing nothing for a while. Executive Officers have quite the workload. All the minutiae of ensuring the smooth functioning of a starship is their—my—responsibility, making sure that the captain has a content, efficient crew and a ship in good condition. If the workload is this big for a crew of only 160, I’m glad I’m not the exec of a larger ship. Admittedly, though, I am still just a lieutenant, and one without much seniority. I wouldn’t be given the exec position on even a destroyer, and it would be criminally irresponsible to have such a junior officer in charge of a heavy cruiser’s wellbeing.
Rolling over on my bed and resisting the urge to groan as I do, I flop a hand out to the computer controls beside my bed.
Flipping on the voice circuit, I state, “Computer, begin recording.”
“Affirmative,” it obeys.
“First Officer’s Log, stardate 4403.6. It looks like we’re finally curbing the activities of the pirates in this sector, now that Starfleet has scraped together enough ships for standard patrols. The losses sustained in the war have been plugged with front line ships moved from interior patrol, and the interior patrols have been boosted with refitted ships from mothball depots like Qualor II.
“Starfleet wasn’t kidding when they said the Penzance Cartel were hauling themselves up the pirate hierarchy. Ten ships went missing in the month when we were rescuing war survivors alone, and in the months since then a further twenty-two ships were seized before Starfleet could muster enough of a deterrent to ward off the pirate raiders.
“As one of the last ships to arrive the situation was already well in hand in bringing the pirates to heel, so we were assigned to consolidation duty. The bigger, faster, better armed ships were busy chasing down the pirates and showing the flag to rattled freighter and liner crews. We got to do housekeeping. What we were doing needed to be done, and we’ve done it quickly and diligently, but it was still dry duty. I think the whole crew is looking forward to our next assignment.
“With our repair of the last of the malfunctioning space lane marker buoys comes the successful end of our first official mission for Starbase 23. The last month of dashing around the space lanes of this sector repairing or replacing the damaged or missing buoys has been much like our previous mission of search and rescue on the Klingon border, though without the accompanying emotional highs and lows of finding survivors or bodies.
“So far, we’ve had to use four of the six replacement buoys loaded aboard at Station G-7, and the ship’s handling has become progressively better each time we deployed one of the shuttle-sized hunks of almost-solid circuitry—or so our helmsman says. I’m sure that an additional two hundred tons of mass couldn’t be noticeable on a ship that weighs in at around sixty-three
thousand tons, but Lieutenant Maknal is the one flying her. Because of the size of these buoys—which filled our shuttle bay and both cargo bays with two each—we had to leave one of our two shuttlecraft and our travel pod at Station G-7, and we’ll pick them up again after we’ve escorted the freighter convoy into the base. We are expected to rendezvous with the convoy in under 32 hours, and then spend another week escorting them in.
“The penultimate tally of buoy casualties clocks in at seven buoys physically damaged and in need of repair—mainly due to weapons fire—eleven buoys with either software corruption or having been reprogrammed with pirate-friendly parameters that lured many ships into ambushes, and four buoys completely missing.
“The missing ones left no trace, be it debris or radiation, so it looks as if they may have been stolen. We’ll have to keep an eye out for them in the future. Who knows what nefarious uses the Penzance Cartel will have for them.
“Ship’s status is fully operational and crew efficiency is at 96%. The ship’s new routine has been firmly established and is the better for it, and I’m totally confident of this crew’s ability to handle any task set before us.”
The mention of the missing buoys reminds me of my meeting with the captain, and I gather some additional thoughts for a personal log entry, reflecting on how far we’ve come—physically and emotionally—from our last mission for Starbase 22.
“First Officer’s Personal Log, stardate 4403.6. In the six months since our dressing down by Commodore Tandara, McCafferty and I have come a long way. As previously noted we found our groove surprisingly quickly, but it was our own personal revelations more than the punishments we earned that brought on our newfound spirit of cooperation. Or at least, I like to think so,” I add as an afterthought.
“A couple of… ‘policy disagreements’ between us has kept relations cool, but I no longer see outright hatred in her eyes, and even her residual anger towards me is only evident when I actually do something that annoys her. There still is the anger of the moment and I catch a glimpse of that banked resentment, but we now get along in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance.
“Admittedly, tolerance is a two-edged blade. On one side, it means someone else is willing to put up with the things about you that they find disagreeable for a more peaceful day-to-day existence. On the other side, however, who wants to be merely tolerated, living at the sufferance of another?
“Almost everyone feels the need to be accepted, have their life and decisions validated even if it is only by one other person in existence, and I am no different. I look forward to our eventual reconciliation, as I am now betting better than 50-50 odds that it
will happen.
“Computer, end log entry and save file,” I instruct.
“Affirmative,” is its short reply.
Having now taken care of this morning’s paperwork, I decide to hit the mess hall for some refuelling and company.
Topic: Kusanagi: Episode Three - Raider (Read 2495 times)