The Cholmondely-Smythe Year

Based on ‘Death Count’ by L.A. Graf

Emotions were running high on the bridge of the USS Psycho-A. The jubilant atmosphere was brought about by the fact that they had just saved the latest Federation-Klingon peace talks from certain failure. Despite the crew being aware that it had been more luck than judgement, that was not going to prevent them from celebrating.

Currently, they were discussing what rewards they were likely to receive, although Commander Hill felt it was unlikely that Lieutenant-Commander Damerell’s suggestion that they would be given some extended shore leave on Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet would be carried out. Hill himself felt that some leave would be nice, but he would like a commendation on his file and a fancy medal.

The first officer had placed himself in the centre seat to wait for Captain Olding’s arrival back aboard from some enforced mingling with the dignitaries for PR purposes, willing to take any opportunity to sit in the command chair without having to worry about anything happening to spoil his fun, such as them being sent out on a mission. Smiling, he reached out to take a glass from the tray Fred had kindly brought to the bridge to aid celebrations. Under the bartender’s careful eye, everyone else on the bridge had quickly deteriorated into a state of happy alcoholism, except for Hill who had, up to this point, held off from joining in.

He lifted the glass to toast the ship and was about to drink when the ensign manning science spoke.

“Sir, a vessel’s just broken out of the planet’s atmosphere! I think it’s Admiral Forster’s personal launch!”

Hill slammed the drink down on the arm of his chair, accidentally opening a channel to the conference chamber on the planet below.

“Take us out of orbit!!” he shouted, trying to penetrate the haze of alcohol the rest of the senior crew were currently inhabiting. As Wall and Damerell attempted to comply, Olding’s voice boomed out of the bridge speakers.

“What’s going on up there?”

As Hill opened his mouth to reply, Wall unexpectedly banked right, pinning the commander in the chair as the gravity generators of the damaged ship failed to compensate.

“We’ve sighted Admiral Forster’s personal ship, sir!! Don’t worry, we’ll get him!!!” His voice sounded strained as he fought against the gravity, which eventually caught up. “Right,” he said, very much aware that Olding was listening in. “Take us in closer,” he ordered, watching the vessel on the viewscreen get larger as the Psycho closed down the distance. “Standby tractor beam.”

“Tractor beam standing by,” Damerell answered, peering closely at his controls. “I think.”

“Sir! They’ve raised shields!” the ensign at science reported.

“Damn!” Hill said for the benefit of those on the ground. “They’ve raised shields!! Okay,” he said, thinking hard. “Power up the phasers… Woah!!” He trailed off as a swirling blue object appeared directly in front of Admiral Forster’s ship. “What the hell is that?!!!!” he demanded.

“I’m not sure sir,” Damerell replied, slurring his words slightly. “But it’s very pretty.”

“Yes, I know it’s pretty Mr. Damerell, but what is it?!!”

“I think it’s some kind of temporal vortex sir,” the ever-helpful ensign at science replied.

“Ah.” Hill considered that. “Er, Mr Wall, perhaps we should avoid that,” he suggested. Wall, who was beginning to feel rather sleepy, leant on the console with his left elbow and rested his head on his hand as he tapped the controls with his right hand.

The ship lurched and turned to head directly towards the swirling blue temporal vortex.

“No,” Hill shouted, jumping out of his command chair and stepping forward, “I said avoid it, not fly straight into it!!!!” Admiral Forster’s ship vanished into the vortex, the Psycho approaching a short distance behind her. Hill stared at the viewscreen as Wall shifted on the controls. Without warning, the ship shifted up to full impulse and sped directly into the vortex. Hill summed up the general feeling on the bridge quite nicely, just before the world was plunged into darkness.

“Oh shit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

 

Hill woke to the sound of blaring klaxons and the shout of, “All systems off-line!” Not, in his opinion, a good start. He gradually became aware that the hard, uncomfortable surface pressing into his face was the carpet, so he picked himself up and sank into the command chair.

“Report,” he demanded.

“Engineering reports all engines dead sir, although we should have impulse back momentarily,” the ensign at science said. “Life-support working at minimum, shields inoperative, as are all weapons. It’s a miracle the gravity is still on.”

As he spoke, the lights dimmed briefly, and Hill found himself lifting gently out of the command chair.

“Oh, thank you very much ensign,” he snarled as he floated towards the dome at the top of the bridge.

“Commander,” Damerell called, “We have partial sensors back, and there appears to be something directly in front of us.”

“How close are we?” Hill called down, as the ship lurched and the collision alarms sounded. He struck his head against the surface of the dome and swore. Fortunately, the impact caused him to drift back down to the command chair.

“About that close, sir,” Damerell said.

“Yes, well done,” Hill said, rubbing his head with one hand and gripping the arm of the chair with the other. “How are those engines coming on?”

“We have minimal impulse power back now sir,” Wall reported. “Slowing us down.”

“Damerell,” Hill said, and then waited for a moment as Wall brought the ship to an immediate, violent stop. “Mr Damerell, where are we?” he finished as most of the crew picked themselves up off the deck. It appeared even the ship’s artificial gravity generators had a sense of comedy timing.

Damerell consulted his panel. “Umm… I think we’re still at Khitomer, sir.”

Hill stopped and frowned at the screen. Then a big smile broke his face and he punched the air. “That was Admiral Forster’s ship that we hit, wasn’t it?” he asked, knowing the answer.

“Configuration indicates you are correct, Commander,” the ensign at science affirmed.

“Then we’re heroes all over again!” Hill crowed. “We might even get another medal!”

“Sir!” the science ensign called.

“Please let it be good news,” Hill sank back into the central chair.

“We have full sensors back- Sir! Two vessels – big vessels, off our portside. I… from the markings, I’d say they were Klingons, but I’ve never seen anything like them before.”

“Shields!” Hill ordered.

“Still inoperative sir, as are all weapons.”

Hill sighed. “On screen.”

The viewscreen was filled with an image of the two vessels, with the planet in the background. Wall whistled under his breath as Damerell asked, “How big are they?”

“Scans indicate they are at least twice the length of the Psycho.”

Hill was staring at the screen. “Where are the delegates’ vessels?” he mused. “I’m getting a very bad feeling about this.”

“We’re being hailed,” the communications ensign called.

“Let’s have it.”

The image on the viewscreen was replaced with what was definitely a Klingon bridge. Sat in the captain’s chair was a very angry-looking Klingon. Then again, Hill thought, was there any other kind?

“Unidentified vessel, please, well, identify yourself,” the Klingon demanded.

“I am Commander Richard Hill of the Federation Starship Psycho,” Hill replied.

The Klingon stared through the screen at Hill for such a long time that the commander was just starting to fidget when the alien spoke.

“You mean the Psycho? SMC-1234?”

“Er… well, yeah, that’s right. How do you know?” Hill was suddenly on the offensive. Wall turned back to give him an odd look, but Hill ignored him.

“This is an historic occasion!” the Klingon declared. “You and your crew are heroes! Almost the stuff of legend!”

Hill began to preen. “Yes, well… what do you mean legend?”

Damerell and Wall exchanged a worried look, as Jackson and Stark arrived on the bridge. Casualties had been minimal so the nursing staff had sent the doctor out of sickbay and Stark was probably of just as little use in engineering at this point.

“What’s going on?” Doctor Jackson asked. Hill sighed. The Klingon frowned.

“I see you are not aware of what has happened. I shall try to be delicate. To judge by the sensor readings we have just collected from a temporal vortex through which your ship just appeared it appears that instead of being destroyed as the Federation and Klingons all thought, the Psycho was hurled seventy-four years into the future. You have come forward in time nearly seven-and-a-half decades. All your friends and family are almost certainly dead.”

The crew of the Psycho stood stunned for a moment. Stark finally spoke.

“That was delicate?”

“For a Klingon, that was positively sensitive,” Hill replied. Trying to collect himself, he turned to the screen. It still unnerved him to see a Klingon on the screen and know that the shields were not raised. It went against everything he had been taught. Still, he could only feel that it had to be a good situation, given that at the moment the Psycho was less able to defend itself than a gherkin. “Thank you Captain,” he replied. “I would appreciate it if you could contact Starfleet for us while I talk to the crew.”

“It would be my honour, commander. Ka’Plah!” the Klingon saluted as he disappeared from the screen.

At the navigation console, Damerell started to cry. “I wish Captain Olding were here!!” he wailed.

“It’s worse than that,” Wall commented. “He’s not only not here, he’s probably dead.”

As Damerell wailed even louder, Hill sank white-faced into the command chair. Swallowing convulsively, he motioned to the ensign at communications.

“Put me on intraship,” he said, miserably. “I think I’d better let everyone know what’s happened.”

 

Two months later…

The shuttle bucked and rocked under Lieutenant-Commander Wall as it carved through the subspace interference generated by the trinary-sun system they were in. The alert siren went off as a particularly nasty wave of energy hit the vessel.

Hold her steady!” Lieutenant-Commander Damerell cried. “I’ve almost got a lock on the probe!”

“I’m doing the best I can!!” Wall shouted back, throwing the shuttle into a desperate roll to find the optimum path through the almost tidal patterns of the energy waves. “I’d like to see you do any better!” he added, as yet another system blew out in the back of the shuttle.

“Oh, wonderful!” Damerell exclaimed. “Now I’ve got to try and reconstruct the probable path of the probe because,” he paused to emphasise his words, “you’ve thrown me completely off again!”

“Can’t you use the positioning of the third star in the system? The white dwarf? Shouldn’t it be following a course approximating an orbit of that?”

“Well,” Damerell hedged warily, “in theory…”

“So why don’t you?”

“Umm,” Damerell had the good grace to look embarrassed. “I lost it.”

Wall froze at his controls and slowly looked up at Damerell. “You WHAT?!?!” he finally screamed.

“It’s a mistake anyone could have made,” Damerell protested, glancing at the controls. “I think-”

“How can you lose an entire sun?!!” Wall demanded.

“Look, I’d love to discuss it, but we’re about to crash into the third sun. Which, by the way, I’ve found again.”

Wall worked his controls. “We’re too deep into the gravity well, there’s no way we can pull out of it!”

As the shuttle began to overheat as it approached the star, Damerell pushed his chair back and put his feet up on the console.

“What are you doing?!!” Wall cried. “We can still- um…” he trailed off as he realised he could not think of anything to try.

“Why bother. Just relax, have a go at enjoying the sensation,” Damerell suggested. Wall stared at him and then watched as the sun grew larger on the viewscreen. Everything went white…

 

Chief Engineer Stark pushed himself upright from where he had been leaning on the wall as the simulator opened and his two crewmates clambered out. As all seven times previously, they were arguing as they stood up.

“I still can’t believe you lost an entire sun!”

“Well, if you’ve been paying proper attention, we’d never have ended up that deep in its gravity well!”

Stark sighed. “I take it you failed again?” Damerell and Wall nodded gloomily. They had been trying to get on the scoreboard on the simulator on the recreation deck of space station Simper One ever since they had noticed that the high score Sulu and Chekov of the Enterprise had set back in their own time was still unbroken.

“Come on,” Stark said, trying to break the mood, “there’s meant to be a great new eatery where the recycling plant used to be.” Wall and Damerell reluctantly followed the engineer as he moved off. As boring and frustrating as hanging out with these two was, it had to be better than what Commander Hill was going through, meeting the Psycho‘s new captain. Most of the crew were still annoyed with the helmsman and navigator as their seventy-four years worth of accumulated bonuses had been handed over to pay the descendants of some musicians in the twentieth century they had apparently ripped off.

In the two months since they had come out of the temporal vortex, a great deal had happened to the Psycho crew, not least of which was the time and money (what was left of it) they had put into trying to find out what had happened to Captain Olding. When they had eventually discovered the truth, they had reluctantly accepted that they would never see him again, and tried to begin settling down in this century.

“Hey! Don’t do that!” The cry came from one of the shopkeepers on this level, the owner of the pet shop the three Psycho officers were walking past. Wall immediately ran to the door to look.
Inside an Orion holding a gun of some sort was busy threatening the owner, who was cowering in a corner.

“Do something!” Wall hissed to Damerell, who had joined him in the doorway.

“Why me?” Damerell whispered back.

“Because,” Wall replied, pushing his comrade into the room. Damerell staggered forward, tripped on a bag of Grelnik food, trod on a squeaky toy and fell forward. The Orion turned just in time to see Damerell flying towards him. The Starfleet officer struck him directly in the midriff and hurled him from his feet, his head colliding with the edge of a counter as he fell. Damerell landed on top of the comatose Orion, scared out of his wits. When he realised that retribution would not be immediately forthcoming he jumped to his feet, snatching the gun from the Orion’s limp hand as he did so to ensure that he was not shot anytime in the near future.

Wall and Stark joined him in staring down at the body. “Since when were Orions allowed on a station like this?” Stark asked.

“I guess a lot has changed,” Wall replied.

The shopkeeper approached, smiling nervously. “Thank you for saving my life,” he said.

“What did he want?” Stark asked.

“I don’t know, but thanks to your friend here he didn’t get it.” He turned to Damerell, whose eyes were starting to glaze over. “If there’s anything I can do for you?”

Damerell blinked and looked up at him. “Well, I’ve always wanted some gerbils,” he muttered, still dazed.

“Then gerbils you shall have!” the shopkeeper declared. A few minutes later Damerell was laden down with everything he needed to keep gerbils, including a huge cage that the owner threw in as the base had a weird mark on it. The three officers left the shop, Stark holding the box with the gerbils in. He stopped abruptly outside, Wall beside him. Damerell, unable to see beyond the stuff piled in his arms, bumped into their backs and dropped it all.

“Hey! Watch-” he stopped as he saw the line of black uniformed Simper One security guards pointing phaser rifles at him and started whimpering.

“Nobody move,” a voice said. The speaker looked directly at Damerell. “You’re under arrest.”

 

Commander Hill sat nursing his second drink in one of the swanky restaurants littering the station. Admiral Richardson had informed him that, instead of promoting him to captain they were going to assign the Psycho a new captain, as well as counsellor, whatever that was all about. It was unfair, Hill thought, that he had waited so patiently for command of the Psycho only to find, when Olding finally went and bought it, that he was going to be overlooked yet again.

Downing the remains of his drink and motioning for the barman to bring another one, he glanced around just in time to see the door open and three people walk in. The first was Admiral Richardson, followed by a pompous-looking man who looked vaguely familiar for some reason and a woman who also looked oddly familiar. Hill knew that was impossible, and came to the conclusion that the drinks had been stronger than he had thought. All three were in uniform, the mostly black number with the colour indicating department on the shoulders. Personally, Hill much preferred the old-style uniforms. He felt a little underdressed in his civilian clothes, but this was the last day of his shore leave, and he was going to make the most of it, once this meeting was out of the way. He stood as they reached the table and the Admiral acknowledged him with a nod.

“Commander Hill,” Richardson greeted him. “I’m afraid I can’t stay, but this should give you an opportunity to get to know each other. May I introduce your new commanding officer, Captain Hubert Cholmondely-Smythe and your new counsellor, Lieutenant-Commander Deborah Hill.”

Hill’s mind briefly shut down before going into overload. “Cholmondely-Smythe?!” he stared disbelievingly at the captain, who smiled back blankly. “Hill!?!!” Counsellor Hill grinned back.

“Hi Commander Unk!” she said, slipping into one of the chairs at the table. Hill slumped back into his as Cholmondely-Smythe primly seated himself beside him.

“Good,” Richardson beamed. “Captain, I’ll leave it to you to explain your orders to Commander Hill.” With that, he walked off, leave the table in awkward silence.

When the waiter arrived with his drink, Hill downed it in one and ignored the burning as it slid down his throat. Cholmondely-Smythe looked on disapprovingly as he and the Counsellor ordered drinks of their own.

“Is there something wrong Number One?” he asked. Hill winced. He had heard that it had become fashionable for captains to call their first officers that in the past seventy-four years, and frankly he thought it was terrible. It sounded altogether too… lavatorial.

“I- you- do you-” Hill took a deep breath, calming himself. “I’m afraid the Psycho crew hasn’t had particularly good experiences with Cholmondely-Smythes in the past, Captain,” Hill finally said. “One of them, another captain in Starfleet, tried to sabotage the Second Khitomer Conference. Then, back in the twentieth-century one of them nearly managed to stop us saving the world when the probe came to talk to the salmon, and then, when Captain Olding, Doctor Jackson and I were on shore leave, a certain Ensign Cholmondely-Smythe came along and stole our tents and camping equipment!!!!!” Hill had become more and more irate as he had been speaking, until finally he was stood up and shouting.

“Sit down Commander Unk,” Counsellor Hill told him as Cholmondely-Smythe stared at him in astonishment. Hill stopped and stared at her.

“That’s the second time you’ve called me that. What’s going on?” he wailed plaintively.

“Oh, that’s easy,” she smiled sweetly. “You see Nathaniel Hill, your half-brother, had kids, and I’m descended from them. And my mother was a Betazoid, so I can sense emotions as well. I really think you should calm down before you explode.”

Hill again downed the next drink to arrive, which happened to be Cholmondely-Smythe’s, and demanded the bottle be brought to the table.

“Well, if we’ve got all that out of the way, I think we should move on,” Cholmondely-Smythe suggested. The Counsellor agreed and Hill grunted noncommittally. “Jolly good.” Hill shuddered and took another drink as the captain continued. “Unfortunately, hostilities have been flaring up along the Andorian-Orion border recently, and Starfleet feels that a presence is needed, so they’re going to send the Psycho as they feel that such a high profile vessel, having just appeared after surviving whatever it is it’s been through should be worth some weight.”

Hill snorted disbelievingly, thinking it far more likely that Starfleet command was sending them in the hope that they would be destroyed, saving them the effort of trying to get rid of them.

Cholmondely-Smythe went on. “Also, we’re going to have a team of inspectors on board to make sure the Psycho crew and systems are up to scratch. It’s a frightful nuisance, but there it is.” Cholmondely-Smythe paused briefly to see if anyone had anything to say. The Counsellor was sat idly tapping her nails against the tabletop in a staccato, random pattern, watching the other customers in the restaurant, while Hill had started banging his head against the table repeatedly. Assuming all was well, he went on.

“Now, Number One, that brings me to another point.” Hill wearily raised his head. “It appears that you are listed as both the ship’s first officer and science officer. Now, obviously there’s been some mistake, so…”

Hill jumped to his feet. “If you dare take that position away from me, I’ll… I’ll…” he stopped, unable to think up an appropriate threat. “Just don’t okay?” he finished, rather weakly. Sinking back into his chair, he gripped the neck of the bottle and swallowed a large mouthful. The Counsellor watched him for a moment, then pulled out a PADD and started making notes.

“If that’s all, we’d better get to the Psycho and prepare for immediate departure.”

Hill’s head came up again. “But we’re on shore leave!” he protested.

“Not anymore, I’m afraid,” Cholmondely-Smythe told him. “Most of the rest of the crew has already been recalled. There are just ourselves and a few of the other senior officers left on the station. Shall we go?”

Hill clambered unsteadily to his feet, debating whether or not the knife lying on the table in front of him would be long enough to kill Cholmondely-Smythe if he stuck it in his back. The Counsellor quickly moved it out of his reach, and smiled sweetly at him when he glowered at her. She fell into step beside him as they followed Cholmondely-Smythe out of the room.

“Sorry Commander Unk, but it’d look bad on your record if you killed him so soon.”

 

Damerell was sat unhappily in one of the holding cells in the Simper One security office. After giving the gerbil stuff to Wall and extracting the promise that he would look after them, he had meekly followed the security team as they led him to the cells. On the way, listening to their idle gossip, he had picked up that an Orion ship had docked at the station and as they had not caught it doing anything illegal the station’s commander had been forced to allow its men onto the station. One of them had witnessed the fight, and now Damerell had been arrested for inflicting Grievous Bodily Harm on an Orion officer.

To begin with, they had mocked him as another ‘superhero civilian’ for trying to take on an Orion. Then they had run a retina scan and fingerprint ID.

“Oh my god,” on of the guards had said as he read the screen. “He’s Starfleet!”

After that, they had treated him like a caged wildcat, pointing phaser rifles at him as they had stripped him of anything they thought could be used as a weapon. As a result, he was sat shivering in just his Thundercats boxer shorts and socks pulled up nearly to his knees. He looked up as the hatch at the door opened.

“You’ve still got one call you can make,” he was informed.

“Can… can I call my cap- my commanding officer on the Psycho?” he quavered.

“No, sorry. It’s got to be somewhere on the station.”

Damerell sighed as the hatch closed, having cried himself out some time ago. However, this time it was only a few minutes later when he heard the bolts being slipped back on the door and it swung open. He got to his feet as the doorway was filled – literally – with the silhouette of a man in Starfleet uniform. The really astonishingly large man held out a hand and introduced himself.

“Lieutenant Linda Purveyance,” he said, his deep, basso voice reverberating through the deck plates so that Damerell felt as much as heard what he was saying.

“Lieutenant-Commander Philip Damerell,” he managed to gurgle out, praying that Purveyance would release his hand soon so that he would retain some use in at least two of his fingers.

“I’m on Admiral Richardson’s staff sir,” Purveyance told him. “And I’ve managed to convince these people to release you into my custody and leave the disciplining to your new captain.”
Damerell’s face must have conveyed some of his confusion, as Purveyance laughed.

“The Psycho‘s been assigned a new captain and sent out on a mission. The rest of the senior staff are on board, and I’ve been assigned as liaison to the inspection team.” He reached back to take the pile of clothes someone was handing in to him. “Here you go.”

“Wha- what inspection team?” Damerell asked, pulling on his trousers.

“I’ll explain as we walk,” Purveyance said, striding out of the cell. Damerell, pulling his anorak over his shoulders, ran after him.

He burst onto the bridge, having paused to change into his new uniform. Something told him he’d got it on the wrong way round again from the funny looks he got. Sat in the command chair was an unfamiliar man, but he definitely was the captain, if Damerell had remembered the way the rank pips worked correctly. The captain spun in the chair as he entered the bridge.

“Ah! You’d be Damerell, the navigator, am I correct?”

“Yes, sir,” Damerell said, slipping into the navigator’s chair.

“Well, as I’ve just told the rest of the crew, I’m Captain Cholmondely-Smythe and I’m here to make your life hell. Hawhawhaw!!!” he degenerated into a weird snorting laugh as Damerell turned back to his console, exchanging a worried look with Wall.

Recovering himself, Cholmondely-Smythe spoke to Bleep who, after considerable time and effort on the part of Starfleet’s technical division, had now been repaired and was working about as well as he ever did.

“Tell Simper One we’re ready to depart, there’s a good… err… thing.”

“Aye Captain.” Bleep worked the controls as the turbolift opened and deposited Purveyance and some of the inspection team on the bridge. Cholmondely-Smythe stood to greet them.

“Ah, Mr Purveyance, Mr Tinker, Ms Dendrite, it’s good to see you all again.” Purveyance stood to attention as the inspectors looked around. The woman began to move around the bridge, peering over people’s shoulders as Tinker, the chief inspector, sniffed and looked down his nose at Cholmondely-Smythe.

“Shouldn’t we be leaving?” he asked in a voice that, if possible, grated even more than Cholmondely-Smythe’s did.

“Absolutely,” the captain agreed. “Mr Bleep?”

The android bleeped. “Simper One reports we are clear for departure.”

“Jolly good. Mr Wall, fire thrusters, move us away from the station. Mr Damerell, lay in a course for the Orion-Andorian border. Mr Wall, as soon as we’re clear, warp speed at your discretion.”

Wall and Damerell froze for a moment, unused to the commands being issued so rapidly. Olding had always given them time to panic. Wall hit the thrusters and those stood at the back of the bridge fell to their knees. Hill sniggered as Tinker hit the floor, and watched in bemusement as Dendrite made notes on her padd from her prone position on the floor. Cholmondely-Smythe grabbed the rests on either side of the chair, suddenly realising what they were there for.

“Err… course laid in sir,” Damerell said.

“Wonderful. Mr Wall?”

“Going to warp,” Wall replied. He could get to like this, being allowed so much leeway in his orders. A few taps on his console and the ship lurched into low warp.

Cholmondely-Smythe turned back to the inspectors, who were back on their feet. “So, to what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?” he asked.

“Frankly Captain, it’s just not good enough! We’ve been shut out of engineering! Your Mr Stark refuses to open the doors!”

Cholmondely-Smythe sat back in his command chair and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. For some reason he was developing both a headache and an intense dislike of this over-officious, pompous, arrogant fool. His usually calm nature was being taxed, possibly by the invasion of his ship by a group of administrative know-it-alls.

“I’m sure he has his reasons,” he replied.

“He did rattle off some nonsense about the radiation levels being too high,” Tinker admitted. From the way engineering had looked the last time he had been down there, the captain had to admit that it was entirely possible. “Look Cholmondely-Smythe, Jackson has thrown us out of sickbay on pain of death, Hill’s ordered us out of science on pain of pain, and now Stark’s pushed us out on pain of…” he paused, frowning and trying to remember, “meringue.”

Purveyance stepped forward. “What about security?” he offered.

“Hm, yes, well.” Tinker cleared his throat. “That is somewhat hindered by the fact that you don’t have a security chief.”

“Don’t I?” Cholmondely-Smythe looked genuinely puzzled by the fact. “Number One, why don’t I have a security chief?”

“Because you’re not a starship, sir,” Hill replied without looking up.

“Ah! Yes! Exactly!” Cholmondely-Smythe beamed. “There you are inspector – wait a moment. Number One, that was-”

Whatever it was he never got to say, as every station on the bridge went wild with alarms and the viewscreen went blank.

Somewhat surprisingly, Cholmondely-Smythe took immediate control of the situation. “Number One,” he yelled, “report!”

“I think it’s some sort of subspace energy pulse,” Hill replied. “It’s disrupted all the major computer circuits!”

Wall glanced down at his panel. “Sir, I don’t have helm control!”

Cholmondely-Smythe acknowledged him with a nod. “What about the alarms? Have we taken that much damage?”

“Don’t think so,” Hill fiddled with his console. “They’re probably just reacting to the electromagnetic pulses within the consoles themselves rather than actual structural damage.”

“Then jolly well shut them off!”

“Sir, I have helm control back,” Wall reported as several of the alarms fell silent. “We’ve dropped out of warp

“The radiation pulse appears to be fading,” Hill added.

Cholmondely-Smythe relaxed slightly. “Spiffing. Can we carry on with our mission now? Mr Hill, I want you to look into whatever that was and prepare a report. Mr Wall, return us to our original course and prepare to go to warp.”

“Aye sir,” Wall said, tapping his controls. Beside him, Damerell was frowning at his board, uncertainly pushing buttons and flicking switches.

“Very well Mr Wall,” Cholmondely-Smythe said then. “Step up to warp three… n-”

“Wait!” Damerell suddenly howled, reaching over to knock Wall’s hand away from the controls.

“What is it Mr Damerell?” Cholmondely-Smythe asked irritably. “Speak up, there’s a good chap.”

“We’re off course,” Damerell told him. Wall looked down.

“No we’re not. Helm computer reports the correct heading.”

Cholmondely-Smythe sighed. “If this is wasting more of my time Mr Damerell, I’ll be jolly upset!”

“Nossir, it’s not time wasting. It’s just that I’m fairly certain that we should be facing away from Simper One.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Cholmondely-Smythe sounded impatient.

“Well, why is it right there in the centre of the screen then?” So saying, Damerell magnified a blob in the centre of the screen. Sure enough, there, directly in their path, was the station.

“Good spot that man,” Cholmondely-Smythe muttered. Damerell blushed and failed to mention that he had only noticed because he had been playing join-the-dots with the star patterns on the navigation console.

Bleep bleeped. “Sir, we’re receiving a message from Simper One. They want to know why we’ve changed course.”

“Inform them of the situation, if you would be so good,” Cholmondely-Smythe told the android.

“Sir!” Wall spoke then. Cholmondely-Smythe sighed. This was not a particularly auspicious start to his first mission, and he had a feeling that this was going to be less than good news.

“Yes Mr Wall?”

“The engines aren’t responding, and we’re still under full impulse.”

Cholmondely-Smythe frowned. “Return the screen to normal magnification.”

The viewscreen flickered and, sure enough, the blob was bigger. “Bugger,” Damerell commented.

“I’m not sure I could have put it any better,” Cholmondely-Smythe agreed as Dendrite made yet another note. “Although I don’t entirely approve of the language.”

“Message from Simper One,” Bleep said then, “If we continue at our present speed, we’ll collide with the station in two and a half minutes.” The android delivered the news of their impending death as only he knew how – with a total lack of emotion.

Cholmondely-Smythe sat in the command chair and flicked a switch on the arm. “Bridge to Engineering.”
“Stark here.”

“Jolly good. Umm, I don’t suppose you’ve got any ideas down there as to how to get us out of this do you?”

“You dragged me away from my schichttorte to talk about engineering!?” the chief engineer sounded rather aggrieved. Cholmondely-Smythe wasn’t entirely certain he hadn’t just been sworn at. “Hold on, I’ll get Barfoot.” There was the sound of someone stomping away from the intercom. A moment later the assistant engineer came on.

“I have got an idea,” the engineer said. “We could reverse the polarity of the impulse engines. It’d be shaky, but it should directly reverse our course. Only thing is, I’m not sure if the structural integrity field will hold.”

“Do we have any other choice?” Cholmondely-Smythe asked.

“Not that I can immediately see,” Hill said as Barfoot agreed over the intercom.

“Very well then Mr Barfoot, do be a good chap and get on with it. You’ve got two minutes.”

“What?!?! Of all the-” Barfoot cut the channel before he said anything he could be court-martialled for.

“Simper One still approaching,” Damerell reported, unnecessarily.

“Jolly good,” Cholmondely-Smythe sat back in the command chair, folded his hands in his lap and crossed his legs. At the back of the bridge, Tinker’s eyes began to bulge.

“Is that it?!?!” he finally demanded. “You’re just going to wait?!!”

“My crew is working on it,” Cholmondely-Smythe replied calmly. “I have the utmost confidence in them.” He ignored the glances exchanged by Wall and Damerell and the muffled snigger from Hill.

“One minute to impact,” Hill reported, then cleared his throat.

They sat and waited. Damerell began to take deep breaths to try to calm himself as Wall fiddled with the green fur trim.

“Thirty seconds.”

“Barfoot to Bridge.”

“Bridge here,” Cholmondely-Smythe answered the intercom through the palpable silence.

“Weell, it’s done. Frankly, it’s either going to do one of two things: either it’ll work or the ship’ll annihilate itself. Oh, scratch that. Either the ship’ll annihilate itself or it’ll work, but if it works, then it’ll either save us or kill us.” Damerell’s eyes crossed as he tried to follow that.

“Jolly good,” Cholmondely-Smythe replied as Hill called out, “Fifteen seconds!!!”

“Mr Wall,” the captain went on, “activate the changes.”

Wall frowned at his board, which now had an additional blinking light under one of the switches. Closing his eyes and praying, he flicked it.

He and Damerell were immediately thrown forwards onto their consoles, the wind driven out of them. Cholmondely-Smythe managed to keep his seat by dint of appropriate use of the handles, but almost everyone else hit the floor hard. Hill picked himself up.

“It worked!!” he shouted over the shriek of inertial dampeners gone mad. “But we need to stop before we fall apart.” He fiddled with his panel. “Try the engines now Mr Wall!”

Wall hit full stop and everyone was thrown back in the other direction.

Hill concentrated on his console as the others regained their footing. “We have full computer control back now Captain,” he reported.

“Can we go now?” Damerell asked.

Cholmondely-Smythe nodded. “Mr Wall, set course as before- what is that godawful noise?” he asked, glancing up at the ceiling where one light and klaxon was still blaring.

“It’s the intruder alert,” Hill replied. “It’s the only one that refuses to turn off.”

“Then perhaps,” Cholmondely-Smythe muttered, “it isn’t a false alarm. Number One, take a security team and investigate.”

Hill nodded and entered the turbolift.

 

Counsellor Hill had just finished picking herself up and dusting herself off from the pounding the ship had taken. Muttering to herself she started walking when she became aware of the alarm that was still ringing. She had made it a point to memorise all the varying alarm noises on the Psycho, although she was still uncertain as to why there were such specifics as ‘Chief engineer going homicidal again’. Stark seemed like a stable, if odd, person. This one, however, she knew. The intruder alert. Moving to an intercom, she hit the button.

“Computer, what is the location of the intruder alert?”

“Deck six, section thirty eight.”

She was only a couple of sections away, so she turned and sprinted down the corridor. As she rounded a corner, she saw a figure bent over one of the control panels. The figure looked up and started to run away when he saw the Counsellor bearing down on him, but she rugby tackled him from behind.

Even from behind she could tell that it was Eric Kennel, one of the inspectors. Judging by the amount of blood currently pouring onto the carpeting, she also guessed that the fall had probably broken his nose. Worriedly, she hoped that was all she had done.

Commander Hill chose that moment to jog unenthusiastically up to them, followed by a couple of security guards and Inspector Tinker.

“What’s going on?” Hill asked as the Counsellor dragged Kennel to his feet.

“I found this person fiddling with the ship’s systems, Unk,” she replied. “He set off the intruder alert.”

“He was only doing his job!” Tinker interrupted. “Assessing the effectiveness of the security team on the ship. But now that your Counsellor’s interfered, I suppose we’ll have to do it again!”

“I don’t think so,” Hill said quickly. The inspectors had only been on board a few hours, but they had already right royally pissed him off. He thought quickly. “The idea of the test was to see how the ship’s crew reacted if an intruder alert was set off, correct?” Inspector Tinker reluctantly nodded. “Then that’s what you got! The Counsellor reacted as any member of the crew would react in the situation. She saw that she was close to the disturbance and went to see if she could help.” Hill ignored the security guards behind him, who were trying not to laugh. Before Tinker could argue, Hill went on.

“Also, I find it hard to believe that part of your jobs while on board is to interfere with the efficient running of the vessel, which is exactly what you have done. This is not an emergency, and there are a number of places where I – and the counsellor – would be far more useful. As such, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to confine Mister Kennel to the brig for the moment.”

Tinker spluttered. “You can’t do that!!”

“Actually, I can,” Hill replied, not even caring whether that was true or not. “Guards, take him away.” He had wanted to say that for ages. Perhaps the day wasn’t going to be a complete loss after all.

 

Now at the end of their shift, Damerell and Wall entered the turbolift and headed for their quarters. They stood in silence as the lift descended, Damerell nervously waiting, as he always did, for the next thing to go wrong. He was so jumpy that he slammed into the wall to his left as Wall, who had been trying to examine the tip of his own nose and had lost his balance, fell to the floor. Grinning sheepishly, but avoiding the glare Damerell shot him, he exited when the lift stopped on deck six and Damerell continued on to deck seven, where his quarters were located.

Reaching his quarters, he reached out to tap the panel to unlock the door, when he noticed that the ‘unlocked’ light was active. Looking up and down the corridor, but seeing no-one, he stepped forward nervously causing the doors to open.

His quarters were in utter chaos. Not, he immediately noticed, the chaos that he usually inhabited, but a completely different one. Nothing was where it should be on the floor, the wrong drawers were left open and he was pretty certain that a soup stain on one of the patches of visible carpet had been cleared up. The last thing he noticed was that his gerbils, which he had thought Wall had placed in here, were missing, cage and all. He backed out of the room and hurried away to find someone to report the incident to.

 

“Captain!”

Cholmondely-Smythe looked up from the records of the Psycho crew he had been reading over his morning coffee in the mess room. Some of them had been rather disturbing, and he was certain that some of the entries had to have been mistakes. Still, he would do well to have the Counsellor look into some of the anomalies. No crew could actually be quite that bad, could they?

The person who had called his name was Dr. Jackson, as usual wearing his stained (with what the Captain dreaded to think) white coat.

“Yes Doctor, old bean, how may I be of service?”

“Apparently my nursing staff say you’re due in for a medical, so I thought I’d come and collect you myself.” Jackson glanced around the room, and spotted another victim. “Counsellor!”

Counsellor Hill looked up with a panicked expression, which was gone so quickly it was hard to be sure it was there at all.

“You can come with us, can’t you? Both you and the Captain are due for physical examinations.”

“Yes Counsellor,” Cholmondely-Smythe said then. “Do come. In fact, I insist!”

The Counsellor shot Cholmondely-Smythe an evil look but agreed, thinking that it was better to get it out of the way than prolong the agony… although Jackson was likely to do that without meaning to anyway.

The three of them headed down the corridors to sickbay, and they had not gone far when they met Lieutenant-Commander Damerell.

“Sir!” the navigator gasped, out of breath, “My quarters, a mess, not normal… someone’s been in there!”

“Now, now,” Cholmondely-Smythe tried to reassure him, “Calm down. Why don’t you walk with us and catch your breath, and you can tell me all about it.”

Damerell nodded and fell into step behind them. Their next encounter was with an ensign who was hurrying along with an armful of padds.

“Ensign,” Cholmondely-Smythe greeted him. “Where are you jolly well off to in such a hurry? There’s no need to run you know, more haste less speed, that’s the ticket!”

The ensign looked thoroughly confused, but answered the bits he understood.

“I was showing the auditors the transporter room sir! They asked me to go and get these, and since Lieutenant Purveyance was with them I thought it would be okay!”

“I see,” Cholmondely-Smythe said. “Very good. Is this the transporter room?” He trailed off as they turned a corner and saw the door to the transporter room. There was a red liquid seeping from under it, and a smell in the air that immediately identified it as blood. Unable to help himself, Damerell vomited over Jackson’s shoes.

“I was only gone for a minute, I don’t-” the transporter ensign was stammering as the Counsellor and the captain moved to open the door.

The room beyond was red, bits and pieces of what had once been people spread all over the walls. Damerell threw up again, scoring a hit once again on Jackson’s shoes with pinpoint accuracy.

 

“Well Doctor, Commander? What can you tell me? What caused this… catastrophe on my ship!”
Jackson and Stark, who were both dressed in sterilised suits and covered in blood, exchanged glances before replying. The Counsellor had no idea how either of them could stand it in that room for more and a few seconds.

Current estimates show that there is enough… matter… to account for up to three people, and scans so far have identified the DNA of the two auditors, Ms Mcbeal and Mr Khayj, as well as that of Lieutenant Purveyance,” Jackson reported, reading the notes off a padd one of his nurses had just given him.

“Why? Why did this happen?” Cholmondely-Smythe demanded of Stark.

“Barfoot thinks that they tried to beam through the deflectors.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Cholmondely-Smythe pointed out, frowning. “We’re at warp, there’s nowhere to beam to.”

“No sir,” Stark agreed. “The thing is, well, there’s no way this could have been an accident. It’s physically impossible to stand on the platform and operate it at the same time, and according to Barfoot there’s no evidence that the panel was pre-programmed.”

“So there’s a gosh-darned murderer on board my ship?!” Cholmondely-Smythe exclaimed.

“Only, the other thing is that the only DNA in the room is that of the three deceased and the ensign manning this station, who was absent at the time of the… occurrence.” Stark shrugged.

“Cholmondely-Smythe!” The angry shout was from Chief Inspector Tinker, who was striding up the corridor towards them.

“Oh marvellous,” Cholmondely-Smythe rolled his eyes.

“This is monstrous!” Tinker bellowed as he strode up. “I demand to know who is responsible for the deaths of my team!”

“Believe me Mr. Tinker, I share your desire. I suggest you allow us to get on with our investigation,” Cholmondely-Smythe said mildly.

“You don’t even have a security chief!” Tinker yelled, his face bright red and his eyes bulging. “How are you going to investigate?”

“Ah, well…”

“I’m going to do it!” the Counsellor interjected. This would be the perfect opportunity to relieve some of her boredom.

“Yes,” Cholmondely-Smythe said, slightly surprised. “The Counsellor’s going to investigate.”
Further argument was avoided by the timely interruption of the comm system.

“Bridge to Cholmondely-Smythe.”

“Cholmondely-Smythe here,” the Captain reached over and tapped a panel.

“We’re picking up a distress call, from an Orion freighter.”

“Very well, change course to render assistance.”

 

The Psycho came out of warp and slowed to a stop.

“Orion freighter two thousand kilometres off the port bow,” Commander Hill reported.

“Full stop,” Cholmondely-Smythe ordered, “On screen.” He examined the image of the vessel as it appeared on the viewscreen. “Open a channel.”

“Channel open,” Bleep said a moment later.

“This is the USS Psycho to Orion Freighter Sfhagheti, how can we be of assistance?”

“Psycho, thank goodness you’re here our matter inducers have malfunctioned, if we attempt to start our engines we’re liable to be blown to smithereens!”

“Sir,” Hill called, and Cholmondely-Smythe slashed a hand across his throat to indicate he wanted the channel muted.

“Yes Number One?”

“If their matter inducers really were malfunctioning, there would be high levels of Omicron radiation surrounding them, with a sort of tidal pattern to its flow. I’m picking up the radiation, but the flow is inconsistent.” Hill shrugged.

“I didn’t realise you knew so much about this, Number One,” Cholmondely-Smythe commented.

Hill nodded. “Our own inducers used to be in a constant state of near-malfunction, and the former chief engineer refused to do anything about it.”

Cholmondely-Smythe frowned at the viewscreen, examining the ship. “Magnify the vessel twenty times,” he ordered. The image filled the screen. “Now speculate design of ship if aft cargo bays were removed, and the upper pod was replaced with a gun port, and the upper rear cargo bay was replaced with heavier engines. Hill frowned intently, adjusting the image to match the captain’s changes. “Now overlay schematics for an Orion Pashta-class Destroyer from our database.” A moment, and it was done.

The two images matched almost exactly.

“Hmm. Intriguing, what?”

“Sir,” Bleep said then, “the Orion captain is becoming quite irate.”

“Put the old chap on then.”

“Psycho, I demand that you help us! The crew is falling sick due to the radiation!!”

Cholmondely-Smythe raised an eyebrow. “I find that rather hard to believe, old bean, given that there’s nothing wrong with your ship and you are, in fact, an Orion Destroyer in disguise!” The Captain paused, and the silence from the other end was evidence enough of their guilt. He was about to give the order to leave the system when Hill called out from his station.

“Sir, there’s another vessel approaching along the course we took into the system. I’m pretty sure it’s the Mahkarowni, the Orion vessel that was docked at Simper One with us. The commander is hailing us.”

“How terribly bothersome,” Cholmondely-Smythe sighed. “I suppose we’d better have a little chat. On screen.”

The image of the bridge of an Orion vessel filled the viewscreen, in the centre of which sat the green-skinned Orion commander.

“I am Commander Shitake of the Orion Syndicate, and I demand that you turn over the prisoner immediately,” he declared, glaring out of the screen.

“Erm,” Cholmondely-Smythe said eloquently, for a moment completely lost for words, “exactly which prisoner is that, old fruit?”

“Him!” Shitake pointed directly at Damerell, who fell out of his chair and curled up into a whimpering ball in an attempt to escape the accusing finger. “He assaulted an Orion officer unprovoked and I insist he be brought to justice!”

“The other bloke started it!” Wall exclaimed. “You lying green bugger!”

“Mr Wall, that is quite enough!” Cholmondely-Smythe snapped. Composing himself he gave the Orion what he thought was a piercing glare, but in fact made him look like a short-sighted stoat. “Now then, Shitake old thing, the thing is, you see, that, I’m afraid, the alleged assault was perpetrated on a Federation station and the matter of discipline was turned over to my own good self, so you do not in actuality have jurisdiction in the matter.” He paused for breath. “Terribly sorry,” he added, not sounding particularly sincere.

On the screen, Shitake was about to explode, but Cholmondely-Smythe motioned for the sound to be cut a moment before the torrent of abuse began. The Orion looked quite comical bellowing and gesturing at the screen rather rudely.

“Number One,” Cholmondely-Smythe said musingly then. Hill hurriedly closed the top panel of his console, which he had just popped open to fiddle inside to prevent himself getting too bored.

“Yes sir?”

“Just out of curiosity, what’s the maximum speed of both those vessels?”

“Our records indicate the Sfhagheti has a maximum speed of warp 5.6, the Mahkarowni 5.8,” Hill reported after a couple of seconds.

Cholmondely-Smythe smiled a beatific smile, causing the incensed Shitake, who was now practically foaming at the mouth, to pause. Cholmondely-Smythe gave him a small wave and cut the channel. “Set course for Andorian-Orion border,” he ordered. “Warp seven.”

 

“Coming up on Andorian-Orion border,” Damerell announced some time later after they had left the Orions a fair distance behind.

“Spiffing. Be so good as to come about to these coordinates, there’s a good chap,” Cholmondely-Smythe said, leaning over and tapping a few buttons on Damerell’s console.

“Um, okay,” the navigator frowned at his board and by a small miracle managed to set the course. Wall eagerly hammered at his own console and, one very jerky manoeuvre and a certain amount of cursing later they were at the coordinates.

“Now what sir?” Hill asked.

“Now we wait,” the captain responded. Hill shrugged and popped the top of his console once again. He had barely managed to extract the primary tetragraphic control module when something beeped.

Hurriedly he stood up, brushing himself off, and glanced at a screen. His eyes widened.

“Red alert!!” he shouted. The lights went very red. “Sir, Klingon Bird of Prey decloaking five hundred meters off the starboard bow!!!”

“Yes Number One,” Cholmondely-Smythe said calmly. “I know. I’ve been expecting them, and they’re jolly late!” He looked up at the red flashing lights. “Stand down from red alert, thanks muchly.” He gestured to Bleep, who opened a channel. The Klingon bridge appeared.

“Nuq’neh, Federation vessel,” the Klingon captain grunted.

“Indeed,” Cholmondely-Smythe replied pleasantly. “Is your chap ready for the jolly old beam over?”

The Klingon looked at him with a disgusted expression. “He is ready.”

“Splendid. Transporter room,” Cholmondely-Smythe flicked a switch, “beam the Klingon Liaison Officer over and escort him to guest quarters on level eight, if you would be so kind.”

With a sharp nod of his head, the Klingon captain disappeared from the viewscreen, and the bird of Prey turned and vanished.

“Sir,” Hill said then in a slightly confused tone, “What-”

“What the bloody hell is going on!?!” Wall exclaimed, interrupting.

“Yeah,” Hill nodded. “What he said!”

“It’s simple really,” Cholmondely-Smythe assured them. “Starfleet feels you would benefit from spending time with a Klingon Liaison Officer since you’ve missed the past seventy-five years when Federation-Klingon relations have been improving. So we’ve got one!”

“And you couldn’t tell us this before because?” Hill asked weakly.

“Because then I wouldn’t have got to see the expressions on your faces right now!” Cholmondely-Smythe began to snort and chuckle in the same weird way he had when they were leaving Simper One. Hill exchanged a glance with Wall as Cholmondely-Smythe recovered himself.

“Oh yes, Mr Damerell, I’d like you to help Colonel Klumpf familiarise himself with the ship, there’s a good chap,” the captain added. Damerell’s eyes crossed and he fell of his chair.

 

Having recovered himself and been relieved by a relief navigator, Damerell travelled the distance to Klumpf’s quarters and rang the bell with no little trepidation. The door whooshed open and he was dragged into the room by a huge leather gloved hand that gripped the shoulder of his uniform.

“Identify yourself!” a gruff voice demanded while a second hand held a d’k tahg to his throat from behind.

“L- Lieutenant-Commander Philip Damerell,” he squeaked, fighting his bladder’s urge to loosen. He was released and nervously turned to view his attacker.

The Klingon was seven feet tall, wearing a typical Klingon uniform composed of areas of both metal and leather. His hair was black and long, tied in a ponytail behind him.

“Colonel Klumpf,” the Klingon declared, gripping Damerell’s upper arm in a gesture of greeting. Damerell did his best to reciprocate while gradually losing feeling in that hand.

“Come, sit, tell me of your warrior’s exploits!” Klumpf gestured for the navigator to sit. Damerell cautiously took a seat. “Blood wine?” Klumpf enquired, then laughed. “My apologies for asking! Of course a warrior such as yourself would drink nothing but blood wine!”

A glass was forced into Damerell’s unwilling hand.

“Umm,” he stammered, “what makes you think I’m a warrior?”

“I have heard all about your exploits on board the Federation station, single-handedly and unarmed defeating an Orion warrior armed with a disruptor. The transporter operator who escorted me here took great delight in regaling me with the story!”

“I bet he did,” Damerell muttered.

“Drink!” Klumpf urged, and threw his head back, emptying his own glass. Damerell eyed his glass suspiciously and copied the gesture. He gasped and coughed as the liquid burned the back of his throat. Klumpf clapped him on the back and laughed heartily.

“Another?” he suggested, taking the glass from Damerell’s unresisting hand.

Just a few minutes later, the two of them were staggering down the corridors of the ship, arms around each other’s shoulders singing a Klingon opera. That is, Klumpf was singing while Damerell ‘La-la-la’d loudly. Fortunately Klumpf, who while he would never admit it was a lightweight in the Klingon world, was too drunk to tell.

“La la LAA laaaa LAAAA!” Damerell shouted, his voice burned into a good approximation of a Klingon woman by the blood wine. He stopped and stared blearily at a sign on the wall.

“We’re on deck seven,” he said in the tone of wonder only achievable by those numbed beyond simple inebriation. Klumpf broke off.

“And?” he hiccupped loudly.

“Did I say something?” Damerell asked.

“Don’t know.”

The two of them stared at each other in total bewilderment for a moment before breaking into song once more.

 

Hill thumped his board for the third time.

“Really Commander,” Cholmondely-Smythe chided. “There’s no need for violence.”

“Violence is the only thing this ship understands,” Hill retorted angrily, then glanced up as Cholmondely-Smythe frowned at him. “Sorry sir,” he apologised unconvincingly.

Cholmondely-Smythe turned his back to begin yet another stroll around the bridge ‘putting the crew at ease’. Wall breathed a sigh of relief as alarms began to ring and the lights went to red alert.

“Good grief,” Cholmondely-Smythe exclaimed, “what is it now? You see Number One,” he added, “you shouldn’t have hit it.”

Hill pointedly ignored that and worked his controls. “The computer is reporting a hull breach on deck seven,” he reported, “but there are no physical indications of it. No debris, no howling wind down the corridors,” his voice became strangely hollow, “no people being dragged out into the vast emptiness of space to be explosively decompressed…” he trailed off as he realised everyone on the bridge was staring at him. “What? I happen to have a small problem with that. Anyone want to make something of it?!”

“Ah, perhaps the Counsellor will later,” Cholmondely-Smythe suggested tactfully. “In the meantime, better follow protocol. Please order an ordered evacuation of deck seven, Bleep there’s a good chap.”

 

Klumpf and Damerell began to head for the turbolift as the evacuation warning began, slowly beginning to lose the effects of the blood wine.

“I think I’m going to die,” Damerell moaned, clutching his head as they headed down the corridor.

“Today is a good day to die!” Klumpf pointed out, moderately enthusiastically.

“No it bloody well isn’t,” Damerell told him. “Don’t be so bloody stupid.” Inside his brain a part of him told him to shut up and mind his manners around a seven-foot Klingon, but the majority of him was far too hung over to listen. Klumpf stopped abruptly.

“Do not call me stupid, human!” he bellowed.

“Oh shut up you overgrown bag of wind,” Damerell said scornfully, pushing past him, “and don’t shout.”

Klumpf stared after him in disbelief. “Why aren’t you cowering in fear?” he practically pleaded.

“Frankly,” Damerell replied, “I’ve got other things to worry about.” Klumpf ran to catch up.

“Such as the hull breach?” he asked, subdued. Actually, Damerell had been thinking about getting back to his quarters to have a nice glass of water and a lie down, but any excuse would do right now.

“Yeah, if you want.”

They rounded a corner and Damerell paused. They were outside the auditors’ quarters, and he noticed that the little panel beside the door was showing that the room was still locked from the inside.

“We’d better get them out,” he said, still in his current brave state brought on by his delicate balance between drunkenness and being violently ill. He knocked on the door. “Hello? Anyone home? We have to leave,” he said, banging again. There was no answer. Klumpf examined the control panel beside the door. He grunted.

“Simple enough,” he muttered, ripping it from the wall and dragging out two wires. He touched them together and there was a brief spark, followed by the doors swooshing open. Damerell shuffled nervously in, Klumpf behind him. They began to examine the rooms. Beyond the partition they found Chief Inspector Tinker, sprawled on the bed. He was without a doubt dead. No-one alive had that much blood outside their body. For the most part, they tended to have their heads still attached as well. A brief inspection revealed the body of Ms Dendrite in the bath, also definitely dead.

Damerell took several deep breaths to try not to vomit in front of the Klingon.

“D- Damerell to the bridge,” he managed.

“What is it, Lieutenant?” Cholmondely-Smythe replied.

“I’m on deck seven with Commander Klumpf,” he said. “We’ve- they- it’s the auditors, sir, Tinker and Dendrite. They’re both very dead, sir.” There was a silence from the other end.

“I see,” Cholmondely-Smythe said grimly. “Very well Lieutenant, you’d better make tracks.”

The channel closed and Damerell was about to leave when Klumpf glanced across the room at a box that appeared to contain the belongings of the auditors who had died in the transporter accident.

“Can you hear that, Warrior Philip?” he asked.

“Wh- what?” Damerell asked, confused.

“A beeping.”

The Klingon crossed the room in two strides and dumped the contents of the box out onto the floor. There, in the middle of the pile, was a small bundle of equipment attached to some cylinders containing some kind of liquid. A bomb. They stared at it. The reading gave just two minutes until it exploded. Klumpf looked around.

“It is too complicated to defuse. Is there a security kit of some kind around?” he demanded. Damerell, who had rapidly sobered up in the past few minutes, dashed out into the corridor to a storage locker. Opening it, he dug out a kit and ran back into the room. Klumpf opened it and found a small can containing a substance that would form a hard casing around the bomb. At the moment, it was the best they could hope for. Klumpf emptied the first can and started the second, which Damerell had run out to get for him. As the countdown timer reached thirty seconds, the reality of the situation pierced Damerell’s brain and he looked up at the door. Klumpf also looked up.

“Go,” the Klingon said. “I will finish this layer.”

Not needing to be told a second time, Damerell sprinted out of the door. Unfortunately he was still hung over and his progress along the corridor was rather unsteady. He careered off one wall and into the other.

 

Back in the cabin, Klumpf finished the second can and jumped to his feet. Leaving the room, he saw Damerell running for the turbolift. Glancing across, he saw the Jeffries tube opposite him. Damerell must have left it clear for him, knowing that he would need the shorter escape route after finishing the casing. He was indeed a fine warrior to serve with. To call out to him now would only distract him, so Klumpf popped the cover and dived into the tube, locking it behind him.

Damerell was just approaching the lift when the bomb exploded behind him.

Everything went white…

To Be Continued