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back to The Patrol Part 11
TIME
The Patrol had been back for some time.
Normal operations had once again become routine. Patrols, assistance to small space-going vessels that had gone a little too far between refueling stops, checking navigational aids and inspecting the odd bit of drifting space debris.
"Gamma patrol check in." Ensign Warren said to the comm.
"Patrol one, all clear, two in sight, nothing to report." Lieutenant Reigns replied.
"Two. OK." Wan said.
"Affirmative Gamma, continue patrol."
Commander Klastor nodded. "Very good, you've already gotten the hang of this."
Warren saluted her.
"I'll break you of that habit yet."
"Sorry, sir. I mean, ma'am.... Ahhh, I mean..."
"Relax." She said to the new ensign. "Are you sure this is your second assignment?"
"Yes, Commander. Well. Sort of."
The Klingon Commander furrowed her brow at him.
"I was assigned to Starbase Seven for a few months."
"You poor man."
Starbase Seven was the hub of Star Fleet's management activity. Not only did you salute everybody, most of them wore dress uniforms or approved national costume when on duty. Normal duty uniform was worn off duty, and only your quarters could you do anything remotely informal or relaxing.
Warren nodded, "It was like still being in the Academy."
"Ensign, you are now fifteen parsecs from nowhere. We have people around here who work their duty shift naked, or almost naked. Yours is the only salute I've seen in months. And the Colonel says you make him nervous you stand at attention so much when he's around."
"Sorry ma'am." He shuffled his feet.
She looked down. "Those are regulation inspection boots."
"Yes, ma'am. My duty boots got lost between here and the Starbase. I replicated a pair, but they didn't fit right."
Klastor looked at her own feet. Not at her shoes, at her feet, she was more comfortable barefoot most of the time.
"I'll take care of it." She grinned and walked to the lift.
Down in the recreation area she pulled up Warren's personnel file and got his shoe size. Then she replicated a pair of the exercise shoes many of the men wore on duty on the station. Then she looked around.
"Aahhh, just who I need." Klastor said.
"I hope so." The Colonel said.
Jeap laughed. Lieutenant Hies put her hand over her mouth and giggled. Marot smiled broadly.
She recruited several more people then called for the doctor to meet her on the command deck.
Warren snapped to attention when her and the Colonel stepped off the lift with the others.
"There he goes again." The Colonel said. The man sighed and tried, he really tried, to stand 'at ease'.
Commander Klastor handed the new shoes to the Doctor. "Doctor Harding, do you think these will help Ensign Warren relax a little?"
"Yes, Commander, I do." The Doctor smiled.
The Colonel turned to the troops behind them. "Ladies and Gentlemen, do your duty."
Jeap and Aashth picked the young man up. The others stripped the dress uniform boots off his feet and put the casual shoes on them. Then they stripped the casual shoes off, and put them on the correct feet.
"Better?" Klastor asked him.
"They are more comfortable ma'am. Thank you."
"No more salutes. OK?" The Colonel looked at him strongly.
"Yes, sir, Colonel. Sir!"
He sighed and looked at the Commander, "He may be hopeless."
"If you don't wear something a little better than that uniform, we'll repeat this operation with a swimsuit." Marot said to the nervous young man.
He looked at the dark woman with terror in his eyes.
She smiled at his eye contact.
He seemed to relax by several orders of magnitude.
"I wish I had that kind of beside manner." The Doctor said marveling at the exchange.
"Don't we all." The Colonel said with a knowing grin.
Ensign Warren blinked several times, then he turned back to the Commander. "Thank you for the shoes ma'am."
"Our pleasure. Carry on Ensign." She answered.
He turned back to his console and cleared the fighter patrol for their sweep of an asteroid field. As he did so he unfastened his uniform jacket and let it hang open a little.
"Better." The Doctor said. "OK, rec room, I'm buying the first round."
The Commander thanked them for their assistance, then her and the Colonel went to her office.
"We're planning on moving on in the next month or so." The Colonel said sitting in his chair in the corner. "But we'll stay in touch and come by pretty often."
"Did you find a new base?"
"Jot Ti has found an abandoned mine on an asteroid in the Rottal 3 system. We're going over there to check it out in a week or so."
"Sounds lonely." The Commander said to him. Her gaze could have melted the shield door of the fighter bay.
His return look was no less powerful.
She smiled.
"I refuse to fall in love with you, you know."
"I could never fall in love with someone like you. You're not Klingon."
He reached across the desk and gripped her arm, twisting it painfully up and out, then he pulled her to him for a violent kiss.
Her nails dug into his shoulder.
He squeezed her back with his other arm until her spine popped.
When he relaxed his grip on her arm a little he smiled into her eyes, "Nobody's perfect."
She smiled back at him.
ADMIRAL RICKETT
"Do you deny any knowledge of this Patrol?"
Admiral Rickett bit the inside of his lip, but his eyes were hard. "No, sir."
The review board mumbled to each other. The questioning Admiral spoke again. "What can you tell me about them."
"Nothing, sir."
"They carry out secret missions in the name of Star Fleet and the Federation do they not?"
"No, sir."
A Commodore spoke next. "But they were involved in that ugliness with the Forseesians and their unfortunate fascination with human women."
"I don't know that for a fact sir."
"And they overthrew half the government of Walie some time ago."
"If they did sir, it was the known criminal half of the government."
"Several Starship crews have talked of being involved in encounters with unknown ships that hail them on Star Fleet channels using Star Fleet protocols and key words."
"Sir, hailing someone on a Star Fleet channel is not a crime."
The Commodore sat back silently.
"It has been claimed that this Patrol operates with the blessing of the Federation Security Counsel and through various offices at Star Fleet Command, with no official warrant or capacity."
Rickett sat without saying anything.
"Have you ever met a gentleman of unknown species that calls himself the Commander, Baron Romack, or any of a number of other titles."
"I've met a lot of people with titles, some of them call themselves Admiral."
"Do you deny knowing Mr. Romack?"
"I neither deny nor admit it sir. If I do, I do. What of it?"
The board whispered at each other for a minute. Admiral Rickett took a sip from a cup sitting nearby.
"What, exactly, is the purpose of this inquiry?" Rickett asked them.
"We are just attempting to learn the facts in this matter."
"Ask Security."
"We did." The lead Admiral said.
"And?"
"We got just about as much information from them as we did from you."
"Perhaps there is no information to glean."
"Who performed that miracle of protecting Ma'dam Supreme Justice during the Carvas ruling?"
"I thought it was Star Fleet Security." Rickett said.
A female Admiral cleared her throat. "Sir. Have you ever known of a Star Fleet ship with coaxial warp, a cloaking device, and an external holographic projector?"
"I've seen a few experimental craft with things like that, but coaxial warp is still an experimental technology."
She stared at him.
"Cloaking devices are forbidden by treaty. If it was a Star Fleet ship, it would be in violation of treaty."
"What if it was a privately owned ship?" She said slowly.
"It would cost a fortune to install and maintain. Their energy consumption alone would make it prohibitive."
"You are saying with enough money it could be done though."
"Just getting the technology, and the ship to support it, would draw attention to yourself."
"Something this Patrol seems to avoid."
"If I were them, I would stay as far out of the limelight at possible."
The lead Admiral spoke again. "So their base of operations would be off the beaten track. Far from shipping lanes and the populated heart of the Federation."
"Sounds like someplace I would like to go." Rickett said staring at the man.
"Would you know where to look to find such a place?"
"Perhaps the Fordash planetoids. Or someplace like the Cocheran Void." Rickett looked at them. "Perhaps some of our smaller deep space bases."
"The Patrol, on a Star Fleet deep space station?" The Admiral laughed. "I don't think so. My bet is in a moon mine someplace."
Rickett nodded. "Makes sense."
"Look at this." Commander Klastor said holding out a data pad to the Colonel.
He read the communique out loud. "Admiralty Oversight Committee request for information. If any Star Fleet Command Officer has any information on one Commander Baron Romack they are to forward all said information to this office." He looked at the picture on the pad. "They could have used a better picture."
She tapped the pad. "It's got Rickett's name as part of the Committee."
"They've called him up before them before. One of our friends will let it go on awhile, then they'll reassign the committee somebody else's nose to pick for awhile."
"What is the committee supposed to be doing?"
"Nothing. It just gives flag officers they can't trust out in the field something to do that sounds important."
"They requested a reply confirming or denying knowledge of this individual."
He grinned. "I'll reply for you."
"Sir, we got an interesting answer from a space lane station." An aid to the lead Admiral reported.
"Let me see it."
The aid spoke to the monitor and stepped back to allow the Admiral full view.
"To Admiralty Oversight Committee. Commander Romack was at this station investigating the Romulin Science Ship Parta, which had Star Fleet clearance to conduct science surveys in Federation Space. However, the Romulins were actually laying subspace benchmarks which could only be seen by their own ships. This was quite possibly a prelude to a military action against the Federation. Commander Romack most likely prevented a war. However, once he tracked and destroyed a probe launched by the Parta in our area, he vanished and has not made contact with us since." The Commander's face was replaced by the coat of arms of the station.
The Admiral nodded as the screen went dark. "I had forgotten about that little embarrassment. There's no need to enter that reply into the record of this inquiry." He shut off his monitor. "I wish to contact Captain Durnis about that scuffle he had with a Ferringi trader near Tulin Four. We'll look into that today."
THE HOLE
"I hate this place." Rontel said walking through the old mine.
"It does lack a few things." The Colonel replied through the comm.
Jot Ti turned around, blinding them with the spotlights from his environmental suit. "What's it lack?" He said
Kavel tapped his own helmet. "Air for one."
"That can be taken care of." Jot Ti said. "It fits your requirements. And I can get it cheap."
"They had better pay you to take it." Rontel said.
Jot Ti ignored her and led them deeper into the mine.
The mine was dilapidated, full of broken and forgotten equipment, and even a couple of bodies mummified by the thin toxic gas that hadn't bled into space.
"Charming." Rontel said looking at the long dead miner.
Jot Ti kept walking.
Kavel examined a machine. "This was last used about a hundred years ago."
The Colonel nodded. "So they're not likely to come back looking for it."
"That's right, and it is well documented that the mine here is played out, there's nothing left worth digging for. So no prospectors are going to come calling."
Rontel huffed at him. "If it's so fantastic, you move in."
"I don't need a base. I work just fine from my shuttle." Jot Ti stepped over a ruined container and kept walking toward the center of the mine.
The main room and operations center of the mine was in the same shape as the rest of it. A cave in had demolished one of the self-contained living units. Exposure and neglect had taken their toll on the rest of its furnishings.
"This power supply is shot." Kavel said inspecting the reactor.
"My contact said it still works. Although he hadn't been out here for awhile." He saw Kavel's look, "Well, about sixty years."
"Oh, it'll work. If I fire it up it'll flood the whole mine with radiation and blow out its coolant system, but it'll work." Kavel put his tricorder away, "If you like fusion explosions, it's perfect."
Jot Ti made a face and turned to the Colonel. "You want me to keep looking."
"I want you to keep looking."
"It's getting harder to find someplace that's ice cold. There's active contracts out looking for you, some of them are serious about getting to you. That bunch from Walie for instance. The Liet Cartel has one, and it's very attractive."
The Colonel smiled inside his helmet. "It's nice to be wanted."
Jot Ti shook his head and started back up the shaft.
Back on the black ship Jot Ti told them about another place he had in mind. "The planet is inhabited. A pre-industrial race. But, several of their outlying islands are clear."
The Colonel frowned. "Those are usually under surveillance by some anthropological outfit. I don't want somebody sneaking into our base wanting to measure my head or something."
"There's the old space cabin route. I've got one in storage. You could use it."
Wan laughed his creaking grinding laugh. "How small?"
Jot Ti frowned, "It's a little bigger than my shuttle."
Marot killed that idea right there. "No. I'll stay on the ship first."
"You ever thought about renting a place on Dave's World or something? They don't meddle in other people's business. If the price is right."
The Colonel ignored him. "Seems the Galaxy is getting crowded."
Aashth laughed at Jot Ti. "There has to be something out there we can use."
"Not right now. The last few places I checked out were used by either pirates or the Marquis."
"So we'll have to stay on the station." Kavel said.
"At least for right now."
The Colonel nodded. "I've got an idea though."
The black ship re-materialized the space cabin near the station in a small field of drifting rocks.
They worked on it for some time, then the Colonel proclaimed it usable.
Then the small spherical cabin vanished.
"Cloak operational. Shields on line." Kavel said. Then he materialized on the station. "Transporter OK." He said.
Commander Klastor applauded.
"Now, when anybody stops by, most of us beam over there and sit and twiddle our thumbs until it's safe to come out." Rontel said sourly.
"You don't all have to go." Klastor said.
"No, not all, but most." The Colonel said. He raised an eyebrow at her, "And it can be used for short getaways by people that want a slight change of scenery."
Jeap laughed out loud. "Some change, you can see this place from the outside.
Continued in: The Patrol Part 13
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