NEW MIS: Fame (1/1) PG [USS Bohr]
Title: Fame
Author: Dave Rogers
Email Address: daverogers@geocities.com
Series: MIS
Rating: PG
Codes: USS Bohr
Part: 1/1
Date Posted:
Summary: The USS Bohr achieves fame throughout Starfleet.
Disclaimer: The Star Trek universe is the property of Paramount. The
rest is my own invention.
Acknowledgement: Thanks to Jenn for beta reading.
Fame
Lieutenant-Commander Culbertson was not an ambitious man, but like
any captain he loved his ship. It was the cause of continual pain
to him, however, that the USS Bohr possessed a reputation in keeping
with her somewhat inauspicious-sounding name. Oldest and slowest of
the Einstein class science vessels, a class modified one time too
many in the design stage, she was slower than the light, daring
Peregrine class attack ships, far smaller than the Nova class vessels
that did all the important scientific work, and rumoured to have less
comfortable quarters than the new Defiant class battlewagons. Only
sheer insignificance prevented her from being the laughing-stock of
Starfleet; and, little though he cared for glory or excitement,
Lieutenant-Commander Culbertson had a morbid fear of being laughed at.
Lieutenant Nasir, in contrast, was a very ambitious young man, and
found it hard to love his ship. An initially promising career seemed
now to be heading into ignominy, and the chances of being noticed by
the great and the good in Starfleet were increasingly remote. The last
straw, for Lieutenant Nasir, was the news that, in the approaching set
of Starfleet manoeuvres, the Bohr had been assigned a task consistent
with the scope of her capabilities and the glamour of her reputation.
Ships that excelled in manoeuvres tended to have their best officers
transferred to better posts; ships that escaped the eye of officialdom,
as he pointed out forcefully, tended to remain a little more stable.
"Sensor picket in sector seventeen." He managed, somehow, to avoid
banging his fist on Culbertson's desk in emphasis. "Then, after the
first four hours of the exercise, a roving commission - no orders to
follow, no task assigned."
"So we would be free to play any part we wished, Lieutenant," mused
Culbertson. "Some Captains would kill for a chance like that."
"Play any part we could find to play, light years from the action,"
replied Nasir. "At Warp Six - if we can even manage Warp Six - we
should reach the main theatre of operations in time for next year's
manoeuvres."
"Not necessarily," said Culbertson, with a rare smile. "I hear two of
the crew have a suggestion to boost the efficiency of the warp
engines - for a short time, at least."
Crewmen Adrian Martelli and Janell Andri didn't exactly love their
ship; but it was a home to them both, a quiet job in a service that
could at times be uncomfortably loud, and an agreeable place to while
away the days amongst relaxed friends. Of late, though, their peace
and solitude had been troubled by the rumour that the Einstein class
ships were to be retired, their crews disbanded and the comforting
network of friendships and acquaintances scattered to the four
quadrants. Any means of attracting a little attention, of giving the
impression that these aged, undersized vessels were of some use - a
use, however, whose exact nature could preferably remain vague, to
minimise the danger of receiving any actual employment - would be of
inestimable value in preserving the comforts of home.
So it was that four diverse and different members of an easy-going
crew found themselves, for a surprising variety of reasons, working
towards a common goal. The Bohr had to become famous for something.
A brief, fleeting fame would suffice; but they had, for once, to make
themselves noticed.
Janell Andri was in many ways a far more capable individual than her
lowly rank suggested. For some reason, never too clearly specified, she
had needed to leave her native Betazed in something of a hurry, and the
four years of relative traceability involved in attending Starfleet
Academy had been an excessive inconvenience. However, her engineering
experience would easily have gained her a place, and the schematics she
and Martelli had produced looked workable even to Nasir's expert and
highly critical eye. The Bohr, it seemed, would be capable of a short
burst of speed up to Warp Eight; for the sake of the ship's continued
structural integrity, it would be best not to prolong it, but it would
be enough to reach the main operational area of the manoeuvres. As for
her actions once there, between the four of them, they produced a plan.
"The red fleet flagship will be stationed here." Culbertson indicated
a vaguely defined yellow region on a star map. "However, her
communications are usually re-routed via a courier ship, to disguise
her real position. And that ship should be stationed," he moved his
finger to a smaller red spot, "about here."
Nasir took up the briefing. "What we plan to do is locate the ship on
sensors, drop out of warp and attack. However, there will be one problem.
The courier is faster and more manoeuvrable than us, and if they see us
they can probably not only evade our attack, but register a kill on us.
So we need to be quick."
"How quick, sir?" Andri beat Martelli to the question.
"Two hundred milliseconds. We need to drop out of warp, fire on sensors
and go straight back to warp again. It will take close co-ordination
between helm and Tactical, so I want you two to practice thoroughly."
Martelli shook his head. "I've never heard of anyone doing that before,
sir."
"Then maybe when we do it, a few people will hear of us," replied
Culbertson. And there was a silence of a few seconds, while four smiles
slowly broadened.
The ability to record fleeting sensory impressions is one of the most
consistently underrated human attributes. So it was that, as the Bohr
dropped out of warp, the next three seconds imprinted themselves indelibly
on the memories of the four main protagonists, to be replayed endlessly
in stop frame motion for the rest of their lives.
Culbertson, from the Captain's chair, experienced only confusion at first.
There was a sudden slowing of the multicoloured streaks on the viewscreen,
the whine of phaser banks, a jump in the starfield, a crash from astern,
and then silence. And a motionless view ahead of them gave mute witness
to the fact that something had gone horribly wrong.
Nasir, manning the navigation station, had barely confirmed their position
for firing when the position was suddenly somewhere else, and likely to
remain so - if his instinctive feel for the state of the ship was any
guide - for a long time.
Andri, at the tactical console, had programmed the phasers to fire
automatically on the sensor lock. She had time to confirm the positive
identification on the sensor screen, time to look up at the main viewscreen
as phasers stabbed into empty space, time to see that space was in fact
empty, but no time to speak or act. Then there was time to see a brief
sensor echo, moments later, of a ship directly *behind* them, and her
sensors indocated phaser fire - and the ship was gone, and the Bohr reeled,
settled, and was going nowhere.
And Martelli, at the helm, could best be said to have been the sole moving
force behind the sequence of events, and his contribution consisted solely
of executing the command that commenced that sequence. Then he saw the warp
speed indicators flick to zero, flick back to Warp Eight, flick back to
zero and give every indication of staying there, as the crash of a phaser
hit rang through the ship and everything on his control panel died.
The four of them met again, in somewhat subdued spirits, when all the sensor
logs had been compiled, when Chief Engineer T'Kon had finished making some
surprisingly un-Vulcan comments on the state of her engines, and when the
Bohr had at last commenced her limping return to the nearest Starbase.
Andri and Martelli's modifications had failed badly enough, causing some
considerable damage to the engines, but a phaser hit directly aft - from an
as yet unknown assailant - had virtually finished off what was left.
"I believe the sensor logs have all been analysed now," commenced Culbertson.
"Your report, Lieutenant?"
"Sir," began Nasir, unusually nervous. "Analysis shows that there never was
a courier ship in the sector. The red fleet set up a projector in the area
to produce a false sensor reading. Unfortunately, they fooled us."
"Go on." Culbertson's hands were folded on the desk in front of him, and he
seemed to be studying his left thumbnail in considerable detail.
"Our warp engine modifications were a little less resilient than we thought."
Either side of Nasir, Andri and Martelli tried to look suitably contrite.
"The stress of giong from Warp Eight, to zero, to Warp Eight again, in point
two of a second, collapsed the warp field and caused serious damage to the
engines." T'Kon's comments had, of course, made all this painfully clear.
"And the other ship?"
Nasir gritted his teeth. "There was no other ship."
"But sir," Andri chipped in, "The sensors clearly showed..."
"Crewman," interrupted Nasir, silencing her with a furious glance.
"But how do you explain the sensor records, Lieutenant?" asked Culbertson
gently. "And the, er, additional damage to the warp nacelles?"
Nasir took a deep breath; there was no delaying the moment any more.
"Sir, I presume you have heard of the USS Trinidad?"
Culbertson shook his head. "As far as I know, Lieutenant, there never has
been a USS Trinidad."
"Not the ship, sir. The story."
"Oh. That." Culbertson nodded, confirming to Nasir that he'd heard of
Starfleet's most enduring urban legend. The story was that the USS Trinidad,
on convoy escort duty, had fired on a Klingon raider - or Romulan, or Vegan,
the details depended on who was talking - but a faulty guidance mechanism
had resulted in the photon torpedo describing a full circle and hitting the
ship that had fired it. Plausible, if unlikely, the story had been told and
retold for generations, and seemed unlikely ever to die - until, perhaps, now.
"It appears, sir, that we out-Trinidaded the Trinidad. Look at the timings."
He passed a padd across the table. "We dropped out of warp and fired. We then
went to warp again. Forty-seven milliseconds later, the warp field collapsed,
leaving us three light seconds ahead of our firing point. As the warp field
collapsed, our shields went offline, and three seconds later, we were hit
astern by light phaser fire, causing heavy damage to our unshielded warp and
impulse engines."
"So the ship behind..." began Andri.
"Was us. We executed an inadvertant Picard manoeuvre, with a slight
modification. We jumped ahead of our own phaser bolt. I believe, Captain,
that the Bohr has become the first ever Starfleet vessel to disable herself
with her own phaser fire."
Culbertson's head was down on his folded hands by now, and at first he
could only manage a wordless groan. Then, finally, he looked up and said,
"This must never be known, do you understand? It never happened. We spent
the last twelve hours - Nasir, come up with a story to explain how we
spent the last twelve hours. Andri, Martelli, not a word. This must never,
never be known."
Nasir, with typical thoroughness and ingenuity, produced an explanation
which, without even the aid of diagrams, gave an utterly convincing
explanation of how the Bohr, alone in a peaceful area of space, had managed
to sustain damage which both temporarily disabled the warp engines and gave
external damage identical, to the untrained eye, to that produced by a
Federation phaser array. But rumour spreads like wildfire in the bars of
the average Starbase, and before the Bohr had been docked for long, the
story of the USS Trinidad was told in Starfleet no more. Nasir's first hint
of trouble was an overheard remark, a little ahead of him, around the curve
of the USS Bohr's main corridor.
"I don't understand. They never seem to hit you." The voice sounded like
Martelli's, and Nasir followed its sound.
"Being an empath helps. You can tell when someone's about to throw a punch."
"Damn. I thought you had an unfair advantage."
"At least I sensed the shore patrol before they got there."
"True. At least we... Sir!"
Nasir rounded the corner to see Janell Andri supporting a rather battered
Martelli. Both snapped to attention as they saw him, though Martelli looked
unlikely to hold the pose for long.
"Crewman Martelli, you appear to have been injured. Please tell me this will
not appear in an official communique."
"It's okay, sir," answered Martelli. "We picked them up on sensors. For a
change," he added under his breath.
"Honour of the ship, sir," added Andri, as if it excused everything.
For a man who spent most of his life in his ready room, Captain Culbertson
had a talent for being in the right place at the wrong time, which he now
proceeded to exercise. Andri spun round in surprise, sensing some feelings
she would rather not have felt.
"Honour of the ship. crewman? Am I to understand that the ship's honour is
in question?"
"Well, Captain," began Andri nervously, "there have been rumours..."
"I see."
"And someone made some bad jokes, and..." Martelli's voice trailed away to
nothing as he saw the pain on Culbertson's face.
As Culbertson walked dejectedly away, Andri turned back to Nasir, a little
brighter.
"Sir, we heard some good news too. Starfleet's keeping the Einsteins in
commission, so it looks like we'll all be staying together."
"Really, Crewman?" Nasir was too professional an officer to show his true
feelings about such a subject, but Andri was in no doubt that an extended
stay aboard the Bohr was far from his wildest dream. "Well, we had better
justify their decision, had we not? We shall have to work on improving
our efficiency in several areas."
Andri and Martelli exchanged worried looks as Nasir, too, walked away.
Both had been in Starfleet too long not to know what improvements in
efficiency involved. It looked like their quiet ship was about to become
a good deal less restful.
And so the tale of the Bohr, the ship who fired on herself, became a
favourite anecdote to pass back and forth over a glass of synthale, and
the fame of the Bohr eventually spread throughout Starfleet. But such is
the fickleness of human - and Betazoid - nature, that the four who had
worked so hard to attain fame, were never able to appreciate it when at
last they had it.
THE END
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