Some notes from the author....
Yep, here it begins. The (chronologically) first chapter in the Tigermoth story arc as it stands now. The ISC haven't returned yet, the Tigermoth-A isn't yet the Tigermoth-A, and her predecessor stands ready to save Earth one last time. I scrapped some stuff that comes before this, as it got contradicted by later stuff - that's what comes of writing this **** over several years I guess. Christ, I was still in high school when I wrote "ROTISC"! Scary thought. At some point I probably will go back to events before this story but it's this one that I always meant to come back to. If I'm honest, I should have done this one before "ROTA". And I'm not that sure I ought to be doing them in parallel, given how different the character situations are. But a) I honestly need to get this one done and b) I got a bit stuck with "ROTA", so I started on this one again. What was going to be a simple tidy up and continuation turned into a full-blown re-write of everything I'd done so far - so no change to my
modus operandi whatsoever
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Prologue************
USS Tigermoth NCC 61843
November 3rd 2375
0605hrs Earth Standard Time
Engineering Level 3
Captain David Harriman stood, and peered into the tangle of equipment - some new, some old - in the middle of the room. The man who had faced the Dominion on many occasions, who had faced the Borg attack on Sector 001 and who had even survived six training cruises without losing his sanity steeled himself for an encounter he'd been dreading since last night. "How is she, then?" He braced himself.
"Bad." The reply sounded quite bright. Commander James Smith hauled his way upright from the position he'd been occupying on the floor next to the computer terminal that he'd been working on for the last six or seven hours. "Every damned time they refit this ship they bugger up the works." He stretched a few knots out of his body, grimacing as he did so. "On the plus side, as far as I can make out virtually everything actually works. Warp and impulse engines are fine, the weapons fit is excellent, the shields are a real improvement and the sensor grid has a much higher resolution than the old one."
"So, what's the problem?" Harriman hadn't expected this. The other man almost looked....content. This was a new experience.
"Well, in the 'negatives' column we have a rather large one - the computer, which is an absolute mess. So everything works, but we can't really control it. I've got that computer genius girl looking at it, I'll get a report from her in an hour or so. But until then,
my report is that this ship is in no condition to even go to full power-up never mind leave dock."
"Oh, outstanding. Then this might be a bit of a problem." Harriman handed the engineer a PADD. "Departure orders."
"
Now?! Mind, dunno why I should be surprised. I take it that they aren't kidding?"
"'fraid not." Harriman shook his head. "Went over it with Admiral Wallace, he was adamant that we had to take this class out. We've just got done with one war, and the new TacFleet command want to start practising for the next one already."
"Dave, we just got done with a three month crash refit. Some of this stuff hasn't even been tested in this application. I'm absolutely sure this computer core wasn't. We don't have reliable programming for warp entry because every time I try and transfer the old program in the damned thing locks up and turns all the screens on the ship
blue. We barely have control over
anything. If we take her out as matters stand we'll probably lose helm control, go plunging into the gravity well of some star and end up meeting our maker."
"We've flown her with no central computer control before."
"Yeah, with an experienced crew and a lot of luck. We've never done it with cadets. And yeah, what about that? We've got a bunch of kids on here. You don't send a battle frigate out on a post-refit cruise with a bunch of trainees flying her. It's madness!"
"Well, it'll be good practice for them."
Smithy frowned. "Dave, c'mon. I really am serious about this."
Harriman smiled back at him. "I know. Alright, look. We need to get this old girl back into space. And TacFleet is making no moves to take us back off training duties for the Academy. We've had a good couple of months with these kids, and they've been nothing short of brilliant so far. So seriously - how about we show TacFleet just how good we are and how good this class really is. Can she honestly be ready to leave dock in thirty hours?"
Smithy sighed. "Give me an hour. I need to talk to my people."
"Okay. I'll see you on the bridge."
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Main Engineering
0612hrs EST
"Orlatrel?"
Smithy glanced around. No sign of his trusted lieutenant down here.
How the hell can he be hiding? The guy's bloody enormous! He switched focus, looking for the girl. There she was, at the main access panel to the computer core memory. Ensign Lisa Fisher, cadet and A-11 certified computer genius. And devastatingly pretty in the TacFleet uniform that female personnel had been issued. Pretty didn't come close, in fact.
If you were a few years younger....meh. She's probably not interested in you anyway, Jimmy. Though she did seem awfully flustered when you helped her out of that tube the other day. And what a bloody view you got....been a long while since you saw owt like that. He shook his head, pushing the thought firmly to the back of his mind and tried again. "Orlatrel?"
"Sir?"
Smithy spun around. "Christ! Give me a bloody heart attack! How the hell does a six-foot-eleven green giant sneak up on folks like that?"
Lieutenant Commander Orlatrel gave him a toothy grin. "Would've thought by now that you'd have learned. You wanted to see me, sir?"
"Yeah. Take a look at this." Smithy handed over the PADD that Harriman had given him.
"Oh, come on....they serious?"
"Yep. They's serious." Smithy angled his head in Lisa's direction. "How's she getting on?"
Orlatrel shrugged. "Beats me how she does it, but she's got that Error 434 ironed out now. Marvick and Keeley spent five days trying to sort that one out, and Fisher got it done and dusted in a few hours yesterday morning. She's currently working on that problem that locks the core up whenever you try and switch it into Mode 4 for uploading warp program data."
"Right, right." Smithy headed over to the access panel. "Hey kiddo. How do we stand?"
Lisa fought down the usual cadet urge to jump to attention. She'd learned on her first day in a class with the Commander not to do that. Commander Smith wasn't exactly big on protocol. "Believe if I....if I can just nail this particular problem down....the rest will sort itself out, sir." She looked up from the board. "The same issue preventing you from putting in the warp entry program obviously affects all data going into that block, and since you have to get that in first due to the way the memory addressing works...."
"Yep, got you. Stick at it, Ensign. But quickly. Our timing got moved up a bit, we leave in less than twenty hours." He quickly silenced Orlatrel with a wave that Lisa missed.
"Sir, I'm not sure I....I mean, this system...." She paused a moment.
Oh, to hell with it. Any other officer might not like it, but this is Commander Smith. "it's just a complete mess! I'm really not sure we can sort it in that time, sir."
"Too late, I already promised the Captain. Get it done, kid."
Lisa brushed a couple of strands of hair out of her face, mumbled a quick "Aye, sir" and returned all her attention to the panel.
Twenty hours to leave dock. Gives me....eight, maybe, to get this done. Come on girl, you know you'd rather go through the Kobayashi Maru again than disappoint this guy. She stole a quick glance as he walked back over to Orlatrel.
Hell, you'd even rather go through desert world training again. Smithy grabbed Orlatrel by the elbow and lead him away. "Not a word."
Orlatrel sighed. "Aye, Commander."
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0630hrs EST
Bridge
Smithy stepped out of the port side turbolift. "Morning, Dev. Got your TAS programming ready to go in once Ensign Fisher has got us a working computer."
Lieutenant Mike Devereaux waved an acknowledgement from his Tactical console. "Thanks, Commander. Be nice once everything up here works again."
Harriman got up to join Smithy at the rail around the lower section of the bridge. "So, what's the word? Can we make mid-day tomorrow?"
"I think so. Maybe even earlier. Fisher's doing a grand job."
The captain shook his head. "I know they said she was young, but...."
"Yeah, I know. Still, she's brilliant. She outpaced everyone in her class. And the year above. Besides.....it's nice having someone who looks
that good on my engineering decks. Makes a change from looking at Orlatrel. The lad's a great engineer, but he'll never win a beauty contest anywhere except on Qu'Onos."
Harriman grinned at that. "I may have to write a letter of thanks to the guy who designed these TacFleet uniforms. They're doing wonders for your moods." He sobered up a bit as he regarded his chief engineer. "Speaking of which...."
"Hmm?"
"Well, normally the Engineering Corps leaving the ship in this condition would set you in a rage. And then TacFleet moving up our departure orders. I know for a fact you still aren't getting much sleep, and you're drinking just as much as you always have. It can't just be having a beautiful young woman in Main Engineering. What's changed?"
"Well....we aren't at war any more for one thing."
"You've been an irritable grouch for as long as you've been my chief engineer. The Federation hasn't been at war all that time, so it isn't that. What is it?"
Smithy sighed, leaning on the rail. "Bob Metcalf made Admiral a couple of months back."
"
Robert Metcalf?" Harrimans eyes widened in horror. "What the hell possessed Starfleet Command to do a stupid thing like that?"
"No idea. Anyway, I saw him the other day. I'd been called up to Spacedock to take a look at something that Starfleet had been working on, something related to plans that the Omega Yards had cooked up. I'd tell you, but the classification is at least six levels above mine, which still makes it a good four above
yours. And I really think I should respect that for once. They only called me up out of desperation."
"I get you. So, you were on the station....and?"
"I was in the bar that evening. You know, the one where we celebrated your last birthday? And in comes Bob, swaggering like a bloody good 'un and bragging about his promotion. He'd been drinking, so he was even more obnoxious than usual. Honestly, he was completely
wasted. He took a swing at me and missed. Took four security guards to pull me off him." Smithy shrugged his shoulders. "I've waited years for him to give me the excuse to beat nine bells o' something out of him. If I'd known that all it would take was him getting promoted and drunk I'd have asked Command to give him his stars a long time ago."
Harriman burst out laughing. "So that's it. Your new, sunnier disposition is simply down to having punched your former commanding officer. Maybe they should make it an approved counselling technique." He wiped the tears from his eyes, giving his friend a rueful look. "One of these days, they'll kick you out of this fleet. I take it he's trying to press charges?"
"Already dismissed. The security guards reckon they saw nothing, and there was no camera in there due to a 'malfunction'." Smithy shrugged again. "And hey, they can't kick me out of the fleet. The public loves me. Besides, I
am good at my job."
"The best, if you ask me."
"Well....you said it, not me." Smithy glanced at the bridge chrono. "I'd better get back below. I'll keep you informed on progress."
"Alright. Don't work the kids too hard."
Smithy put on his 'perfectly innocent' look. "Would I?"
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Topic: ST: Tigermoth - Vengeance (Read 3913 times)