Fleet Lark The Review

In common with every major organisation Star Fleet has meetings involving their senior leaders, it spells trouble for Tuttenbeck. Guest stars one Admiral Kathryn Janeway

I proudly present USS Tuttenbeck, the pride of Starfleet and the antithesis of boringly efficient Federation Starships.

The Startrek Universe is the property of Paramount, though they might not want this bit of it.

The stories are my own and any other sad but kind person that wishes to join in the fun.

Comments good, bad or indifferent always welcome at ray. K

Every organisation has a need for a periodic get together of its senior management to plan the future, Star Fleet is no exception. The senior members are ensconced in a board meeting, in as much as they are indeed meeting and they are bored.

"Well get on with it!" Admiral Mahoney, Admiral Commanding Star Fleet, president of the board, demanded, "I'll go boom if we don't get this over quick!"

"Yerrs! Yerrs! BOOOM they go! Bigg'ns best!" Admiral Dumart head of Science chuntered happily in agreement.

"What do?" A puzzled Admiral Can't (Accounts) asked. He was new to the post, only just promoted after the mysterious disappearance of the former (and Vulcan) Director of Accounts on a routine science mission. Suggestions of the term 'heroic' regarding the disappearance had been more than matched with ones of 'stupidity' for having gone at all.

"Black ones are best!" Dumart extolled enthusiastically ignoring the question. "White ones go too! But just not the same!"

"Can't we just get on!" Admiral Honda (Materiels) demanded.

"I'm trying to!"Can't protested. "Just want to know what goes boom?"

"You don't yet," Mahoney assured him. "Wait your turn!"

"No it isn't!" Admiral Wayte (Human Resources) protested.

"No point waiting," Dumart declared with conviction. "You can't get on them, or you'll go BOOOM too!"

"Hit him somebody!" Mahoney demanded. "Blasted fool has had too much excitement for the day. Can't?"

"I haven't had any excitement," Can't protested. "Certainly nothing that goes boom!"

Honda leaned forward and actioned his commanders order, smacking the Accounts officer with a sharp swing from the minutes PADD. Can't slumped on to the desk unconscious.

"Not that idiot. The other idiot!" Mahoney snapped.

"Sorry, Sir!" Honda apologised. "I'm afraid I haven't got another set of minutes to hit him with!" He added looking at the broken remains of his PADD.

"Use Can'ts?" Wayte suggested.

"Never mind," Mahoney sighed struggling to get the meeting on line again. "As the idiot is sleeping, I'll have to brief you. Everybody is on budget, with the exception of one ship. Some damned local barge called Tuttenbeck, which costs us as much in repairs as the rest of the fleet put together!"

"Why not just replace the ship?" Honda suggested innocently.

"Not the Tuttenbeck that we are repairing," Mahoney observed drily. "It is damned indestructible! Item finished. Now, last item, this confounded Janeway woman. Why can't I just give her to Dumart to go boom with?"

He immediately regretted it as Dumart took up the chant. "BOOM! Yers! Yers! Make her go boom with a big black 'un!"

"With respect, you can't do that, Sir!" Wayte protested.

"She's mine, I can do what I like with her!" Mahoney exclaimed petulantly.

"But there are still questions about Admiral Sharck," Admiral Wayte explained, "and Janeway is actually a public hero."

"Confounded woman gets lost swanning around with a bunch of foreigners for umpteen years and everybody thinks she is a hero," Mahoney ranted. "Should have been bunged in the brig for the rest of her natural."

"Why not give her Tuttenbeck to sort out?" Admiral Honda suggested thoughtfully.

"We can't do that, she's an Admiral and the Tuttenbeck is a barge!" Mahoney protested.

"But we could make her Admiral of the sector?" Wayte observed. "There is a vacancy and there is nobody stupid enough to take it?"

"And if she happened to go boom voluntarily?" Honda cajoled.

"Brilliant idea, that man. I'm glad I thought of it!" Mahoney roared. "Get the orders cut. Meeting finished, bar is open and Can't is paying. Teach him to go to sleep in my meeting. Besides he's got the credits."

"Chief! Chief! Where are you?" A breathless lieutenant Parbold demanded.

He was breathless because he had to run round three decks of the Tuttenbecks crooked corridors and a leaking docking pylon to get to the Chief Bosun Catchen's shore-side lair, or more correctly known as Stores USS Tuttenbeck. That it contained little to do with a star ship was no surprise, little of what was aboard Tuttenbeck had little to do with Tuttenbeck, other than the fact it was securely bolted down where something that should have belonged there wasn't. But the Chief's store was currently an alladins cave of wonders. Parbold did not dare to investigate too closely.

"Oh hello, Sir? Just doing some exercise are we?" Catchen greeted him cheerfully from behind. "Just so happens I've got an excellent device here that will get your muscles toned to perfection, but without the exertion." He waved at a crate that was adorned with a picture of a strange frame with swinging arms and weights.

"We've got an Admiral arriving to do an inspection," Parbold gasped, explaining the reason for his unaccustomed exercise. "She's arriving in two days."

"I've known all about that for three weeks," Catchen admitted. "Nothing to worry about. They take a swift tour around the ship, the Captain gets 'em drunk, they go home promising a new ship, then forget they were ever here when the hangover goes."

"How do you know about it?" Parbold demanded in horror. "It was a captain's only secure cypher!"

"Well it just so happens." Catchen explained, "that a cousin of mine works in Star Fleet Headquarters and he was just passing the door of the boardroom and sort of over heard when they decided. But it was another cousin at Resources had to create the order to send Admiral Janeway here." He beamed at the incredulous lieutenant.

"The one we have to worry about is the other visitor," Catchen confided.

"What other visitor?"

"Mrs Geroff, Sir! I've got Williams straightening out Mr Corbetts pad for her now."

"The Captain isn't married!" Parbold exclaimed in confusion.

"He has a very happy marriage," Catchen assured him. "She lives on Earth and the Captain is happy."

"So what is wrong with her?" Parbold asked with a resigned sigh.

The chief pulled his ear thoughtfully. "Well it's like this, Sir," he said, "You know how wives assume their husbands rank plus one?"

Parbold hadn't, but wasn't going to admit to it. "Yes?"

"And the Captain has been passed over for promotion at least six times?"

That at least was reasonable, Geroff was old to be a lieutenant commander, "Yes?"

"Mrs Geroff hasn't." The Chief finished.

Admiral Janeway shrugged at her dress jacket persuading it to fit just that little bit better and show off her Admiral insignia and headed for the passenger pontoon. For the life of her she could not envisage the reason why the captain of her Star Fleet transport had refused to seek out her new charge. The result was that the Star Fleet transport ship was docked with a range of civilian cruise ships and Ferrengi traders, about as far from the Star Fleet births as it could get without leaving the station. It also meant that she had not seen the object of her visit. Nor had the subject appeared at meal times, after the crew had discovered she was supposed to be taking control of the sector. She had been in Star Fleet as something other than Admiral long enough to know this behaviour was probably not a good thing. But meant she was no wiser than the basic Star Fleet briefing: She was assuming control of a sector containing some fifty mainly farming and trading colonies on the outer most edge of Federation influence. Bordered by a magnetic field known as the Boundary that nobody had yet managed to breach. The sector was broadly divided into three by various anomalies, each was patrolled by a single ship. Of these the area patrolled by the Tuttenbeck was the largest, containing some thirty of colonies and furthest out; which was why there was a functional, if old, starship as opposed to the simpler patrol vessels used elsewhere. That few larger Federation vessels ever visited was put down to the area being largely dull.

"Good day, Admiral." She was greeted cheerily at the foot of the passenger disembarkation companionway by two men; one a middle-aged, balding tramp in a second-hand uniform that claimed him to be a lieutenant-commander. The other was a much younger and immaculately dressed lieutenant..

"I am commander Geroff, this is my second in command, Lieutenant Parbold," the voice continued without pause. With some distress she realised the voice belonged to the tramp.

"You didn't see a woman wearing half tonne of filler, voice that breaks glass and an attitude that suggests park warden while aboard there did you? Just that I understand my wife is aboard?"

Caught off guard and rendered speechless all Janeway could say was, "No?"

"You sailor type!" A strident command came from the top of the companionway. It wasn't a voice that would break glass directly, Parbold decided, seeing his Captain look up the companionway expectantly. But they might do so at command.

"Ah! There she is!" Geroff declared happily. "I'll just go and rescue her. Don't worry about your clobber, Admiral. A Mayak will collect and deliver it for you. Mr Parbold, take the Admiral to the Wardroom and answer her questions."

It was not a voice that needed rescuing either.

A speechless Admiral Janeway allowing herself to be guided away by the lieutenant had barely walked fifty metres when she faced her second surprise. A black coffin with yellow stripe, ridden by a small green imp variously cackling and screaming 'faster, faster, left, faster, faster' rocketed past, less than 500mm above her head. The deepest source of self-preservation she possessed had her diving for the floor.

She looked up accusingly at the strangely unperturbed lieutenant.

"What was that?" She demanded, finally finding her voice.

"I think it was My'Kys," Parbold tried to explain, "One of the Mayak couriers. Surprisingly they don't maim or kill anybody and they are the fastest way to move heavy things around the station. He'll have your things aboard Tuttenbeck before we get there."

"What are Mayaks?" Janeway demanded. "I've never heard of them!"

"Smelly," Parbold admitted. "Small and green too, but mostly smelly. They don't appear in the 'Fleet references."

Admiral Janeway said nothing more and made no signs of recognising the Tuttenbeck until after her third mug of extra strong recuperative coffee in the wardroom, when she suddenly demanded. "How long have you been here Lieutenant?"

"Fourteen months, one week, three days and nine hours," Parbold, who still kept careful and optimistic note of such pointless trivia, recited immediately.

"And you do not consider this place strange or unusual?"

There were a great many things that Parbold considered both strange and unusual, but in deference to his Captain's wishes he sought a specific question. "Anything in particular, Ma'am?"

"This ship?" Janeway demanded. "The saucer is not supposed to be shaped like a boomerang and although I am not totally familiar with this model, I am sure there are turbo lifts to transport you from deck to deck. It shouldn't need three laps of the ship to get from the entrance to the wardroom?"

Parbold thought about this. He guessed that Star Fleet had briefed Admiral Janeway in the same way he had, but the old woman was not as completely out of things as she had appeared on first contact. "It is an unusual design," he admitted carefully.

"And the lifts?"

"We have some," he agreed equally carefully.

"And I suppose people riding on the back of torpedoes is normal too?"

"Pardon, Ma'am?" Parbold asked innocently.

"I was run down by a Federation Mark 4 photon torpedo within 30 minutes of getting off the transport," Janeway snapped. "I saw the part number when it flew overhead. Somebody from this ship must have given it to him. It must be from this ship, because no self-respecting starship comes within twenty light years of here. So you must have done it!"

"Uh! I don't think it is a case of approving, Ma'am," Parbold squirmed. "It is a racial thing."

"A racial thing?" Janeway pounced on him like a hawk.

"It says in the Prime Directive that we are not to interfere with what differing races consider natural, but to encourage the differences. The Mayak's racial past-time is to try and kill themselves?"

"That is not what it means!" Janeway back-pedalled.

To forestall any further awkward questions in the silence that followed, Parbold placed his own. "I'd like to volunteer," he began.

"Oh? What for?"

"I've got this plan to prevent the Borg from entering the Alpha Quadrant by blowing up their Transwarp network," Parbold explained. "Chief says the Federation has a new secret armour design that is almost impervious to Borg weapons..."

"I have not heard of it?" Janeway interrupted.

"Of course not. It's a secret, Ma'am!" Parbold placated quickly. "Only the people who invented it and the Chief know. And the Quirl has told us about a secret drive attachment that can create a wormhole the Klingons have. I plan to use those..."

Janeway looked at him strangely. "Are you related to the green imps?"

After her fourth coffee, Janeway began to feel more composed and eased to her feet. "I am not waiting for Commander Geroff to return with his wife. He should have put her off when he heard of my inspection. I'm starting now. Your Ship's Engineer is in Engineering?"

Parbold, who had been drifting off with the thought that he had not seen coffee like the admiral's since the replicators had been replaced, came back to reality with a start. "I, I, guess so," he stammered.

"I'll start there."

Janeway headed for the door, then her shaken confidence had better thoughts. "You had better escort me."

"Is it that crack there, Lieutenant?" Crewman Williams, hanging head first over an array of power conduits, welding torch in hand, gazed back past his feet towards the engineering officer.

Gorsh, for his part, peering down from the engineering balcony, grunted approval. On cue there was a flash, bang and scream as Parbold and Admiral Janeway appeared from the turbolift.

"You are having a problem?" Admiral Janeway demanded in concern, the smell of scorched flesh quite prevalent.

Gorsh nodded dangerously. "There is a crack in a main power line. It arcs when the door opens. It is being repaired."

"Is he injured?" Janeway asked in dread. She watched the Klingon engineer's oversized head with as much concern. It was at least fifteen times too large for the body and when it moved it set off a sort of sympathetic action within the rest of him.

Gorsh looked down at the unfortunate crewman, "No, he is used to it," he said dismissively, then bellowed. "Now you are down there, you can free the power relay for phasor bank two."

"Repairs like those are supposed to be done in a yard," Janeway rallied, "No, don't nod. I think your head will fall off if you do!"

Gorsh shrugged an acknowledgement instead, which set the head wobbling dangerously.

Rather than comment further, Janeway began to prowl the engine room, her actions followed by the engineers head revolving on its narrow shoulders. She found watching it follow her became an object of morbid fascination, completing three laps of the room to see if he actually turned to prevent his head unscrewing. It meant she almost missed the sections obvious feature.

"Warp field generators are supposed to be pairs," she said.

"There are two of them," Gorsh observed. "Two is a pair."

"But they are different sizes!" she protested gesticulating at the larger unit. "That is from a Galaxy. I don't know where the other one is from."

"A Ferrengi," Gorsh affirmed.

"How do you maintain a balanced warp bubble?"

"That is for the Bridge to arrange," Gorsh opined. "As a warrior I am reduced to ensuring there is power."

"I know what Geroff is up to," Admiral Janeway muttered defiantly to Parbold as he tactfully ushered her into the second turbo lift. "I won't break!"

They were met by Geroff himself in the wardroom.

"Ah there you are," he beamed at them cheerfully. "Everything to your satisfaction Admiral?"

"No they are not," she snapped. "I watched an incompetent crewmen fall into the power duct trough carrying out a repair that should only be done in the most controlled circumstances. Your engineer is top heavy and I doubt if he knows the principles of how engines work, merely you need two of them!"

"Ah yes! Williams and Lieutenant Gorsh," Geroff accepted happily. "They are rather unique in their own ways."

"Now," he continued remorselessly. "I've gathered the troops on the Bridge and my wife is busy having the Chief re-arrange the furniture in the cabin, so I thought you might like to see the ship put through her paces?"

"Paces?" Janeway queried doubtfully, then shrieked. "Paces? Paces! This ship is dangerous docked. In space it must be lethal!"

Geroff looked both disappointed and hurt. "Sshh! She'll hear you! Besides nothing major has broken off for at least 5 years!" he protested. "Better than some newer ships I can mention. Look. I know the ship is a bit old and shabby, but they were so looking forward to showing you what we can do? Still... Mr Parbold, you had better give Corbett and T'Rizz the bad news."

Janeway knew moral blackmail when she met it. Not everybody could be as bad as the two she had met in Engineering, she reasoned, Parbold seemed almost intelligent, if shifty. But it did not stop her falling for it. "Very well," she accepted in resignation.

Apart from the usual twang as Tuttenbeck released her moorings, the ship and Corbett performed faultlessly during the short trial flight. Even T'Rizz's short navigation course appeared to proceed without a hitch. It was as if the ship was saving it all up for some future point.

Admiral Janeway, sat in the Captain's armchair Geroff standing dutifully beside her, said nothing during the whole flight, just stared at the floral wallpaper and assorted furniture.

The future point, Parbold realised in horror, was the return.

Flushed by the unusual success, Corbett offered Janeway the opportunity to test for herself how well the Tuttenbeck performed.

If in her whole career she had ever made a mistake, accepting this was Admiral Janeway's biggest.

After a few moments confusion, looking at the unusual control panel, she made a few experimental prods at likely looking buttons in what would normally be the right places and the ship drifted daintily towards the dock. "Nothing could be easier," she declared confidently, impressed by the sensitivity of the controls. "The ship actually seems to work!" She gently thumbed the button that would bring the whole ship to a halt as it came into range of the docks magnetic grabs.

Tuttenbeck leapt forward, smashing through the pylon.

In desperation, Janeway, tried to reverse away, to find Tuttenbeck surging sideways and into the station concourse, sticking fast and refusing any other command. Only Hammit's yards years of patient reinforcing of the station structure against the Tuttenbeck's wayward habits prevented something far worse.

"What happened?" She quavered, face as white as a sheet.

"Some of the manoeuvring jets are a little sticky at times," Geroff explained helpfully. "Something to do with the ship being a little old. I'll enter that in the accident report. In the mean time you appear to have knocked our mooring off and we will have to wait for Hammit and Nuncy to free us, so we might as well adjourn."

Shaking visibly, Admiral Janeway rose and staggered toward the lift. The Bridge crew watched and waited in silence as she chose the same lift as she had arrived on, then listened to the thin wail as it plunged to the bottom of its shaft.

"You should have warned her about the lifts, Lieutenant," Geroff commented reproachfully.

There was a new face in the Wardroom that evening. Parbold guessed it was Mrs Geroff.

She possessed, Parbold decided charitably over his second drink, a classic beauty, he had seen pictures of women such as her in some art galleries. Not tall or fat, but big boned and endowed with a heavily whale bone reinforced bosom that creaked like a galleon under full sail when ever she moved.

"And what do you do?" Mrs Geroff demanded, regally eyeing him.

Parbold, overwhelmed by the desire to touch his forehead, stammered, "I, I'm the ships communications officer."

"Is it interesting?" She boomed with the feigned interest of those that know it isn't, but wish to suggest they are interested anyhow.

"I suppose so," Parbold admitted, touching his forehead again. He was forever grateful to Commander Geroff when he appeared, a pale looking Admiral Janeway appeared to distract Mrs Geroff.

"And you are another one of Charles' little space friends?" Mrs Geroff was bearing down on Admiral Janeway with the inevitability of a landslide.

Admiral Janeway, who had travelled the width and breadth of the galaxy, faced terrors, problems, friendly and unfriendly natives in profusion, faced down and defeated the Borg with barely a quiver of her lip, broke in the face of the overriding superiority complex. "I am Admiral of the fleet in this sector," she managed to mutter before turning on her heel and marching towards Parbold.

"That plan you have?" she demanded. "I want to see it."

She did not wait for a reply, turning on her heel and marching out.