By H. Barton
It was 0700 hours. The only person on the Bridge was Counsellor Troi. She was sitting in the command chair trying to find the 'apply lip-stick' button, when O'Brien entered to repair the ready room replicator that was currently producing sub-standard Earl Grey tea.
Picard had somehow got into the 'school bus' turbo lift with a little girl in a bright green dress and a little boy wearing a T-shirt with the Enterprise on it. They were asking him if they could play wars with the photon torpedoes. He was trying to ignore them.
Geordi was in a cargo storage room and Doctor Crusher had just walked in to give him his tetanus injection.
The rest of the entire crew were in 10 forward.
Just then, a massive orange cloud materialised an front of the Enterprise and began to move towards it. Unbeknown to the crew, they were about to enter a neutron disturbance, a very unstable and dangerous portion of space.
Suddenly all the lights went off and the ship gave a huge jolt. O'Brien performed a graceful double forward roll into the viewing screen, everyone in the lift crashed into each other, and Geordi was flattened by a crate of radio active material.
As the shaking subsided, it was soon realised that everyone was trapped in whatever room they had been in because all the doors had jammed.
Doctor Crusher was leaning against a wall, and commented"This wall smells peculiar." Geordi picked up his VISOR and stood up."Where?" he mumbled, sticking his arms in the wrong direction.Suddenly the entire wall exploded into a mass of green slime that started to ooze around."Eeeeeeeeeeeooooooooo!!" Crusher screamed. Geordi clicked his VISOR back onto his head and looked at his tricorder."It's only radio active slime, Doc," he commented.
In the turbo lift, the Captain was somehow balancing on his head and the two children were standing in the corner looking stupid. The Captain tried to get up, but discovered he had sprained his toenail."Are you okay, um Mr Captain Picard, Sir?" The girl asked."Yes," the Captain replied, "but we have to get out of here or we will ultimately plunge to our doom," he looked at the girl. "Um, would you like to be my first officer, er..""Tonyon," the girl told him."Er, Tonyon?""Yes, Captain?""Er, Okay then, er, Commander Tonyon."
In the bar, Data came up to Riker and announced that the bar would be sickbay for now, as the real sickbay was inaccessible. "Also," he said, "The ship's laundry is acting as the Bridge and Captain Picard's personal quarters will be 10 forward." "Well done, Data," Riker told him, and helped himself to some more sythahol."Commander," Data continued, "The Bridge, engine room, sickbay, computer access and non-immediate food supplies are inaccessible due to fallen rubble and computer malfunctions. We must find some way of getting to the engine room so we can get out of this disturbance before the ship is totally overcome by raw energy and radiation, and explodes."
Ensign Ro had just crawled up onto the Bridge through the lift shaft. The main computer was not in working order. The Counsellor had appointed herself Captain and was sitting in the Command chair doing nothing whatsoever. O'Brien was poking at the replicator."Counsellor, I think I have reactivated a part of the computer," he told Troi. He walked over to a control panel and plugged a plug into the wall. A small section lit up. The Counsellor sat back in her chair and began to eat a Turkish delight bar that had appeared in a nearby replicator."Counsellor," Ro said impatiently coming up to Troi, "do you realise we have thirty minutes left to live before the warp core breaches due to radiation?""You can do the technical stuff," Troi answered, taking another bite of her chocolate.
Data and Riker had found a garbage disposal chute and crawled inside, hoping it would lead to the engine room. The had come to a junction."Which way, Data?" Riker asked."The most logical route would be garbage-chute 3a, as garbage-chute 3b seems to have raw energy and radiation emitting from it's walls.""Right," Riker said losing his balance. He fell on top of Data and both of them slid down garbage-chute 3b. Data, who was at the bottom, finally slid onto a pile of compost and lay still apart from his head, which ejected onto a pile of carrot peelings. Riker, totally unhurt, picked up the head and examined it."That was an exhilarating experience," the head said.
In the lift, the Captain had thrown the girl through the ceiling, in hope that she would make a hole big enough for them to get through."Hey, do I get a rank?" The boy asked suddenly."Err, you did your science project on banana cake going mouldy, didn't you?""Yes Sir." The boy answered proudly."Well then, you can be my banana cake mould executive officer. Mister, would you like to journey to the ultimate?""Yes Sir!" The Captain grabbed the boy and flung him through the ceiling too."Mr Captain, why is this little metal thingy mangling itself?" A voice whined from above him. The Captain made a jump for the hole in the ceiling and managed to grab a conveniently placed ladder on the side of the shaft just as the lift started to plummet to it's doom.
The radio active slime was rapidly moving towards Crusher and Geordi."What can we do, Doc?" Geordi yelled. "Well, if we made a vacuum of some sort it should be sucked away." "How would we do that?" Geordi asked, "with the vacuum cleaner?""By opening the airlock." Crusher answered, ignoring him. "But, our toes will semi-disconnect, our eyeballs will pressurise, our noses will go numb, our lips will turn blue, and we will have to hold onto something and hold our breath for at least thirty seconds.""Sounds like fun," Geordi pressed a button and the airlock slid open to reveal space. They grabbed onto one of the crates of radio active material. After several attempts at saying "Computer, close airlock," Geordi began wildly pressing every button he could see to try and close it before they were sucked into space. The crate slowly slid out the door with the Doctor holding on. She grabbed the door at the last moment and managed to crawl back inside just as Geordi found the right button and the door slid shut. The green slime was gone."There you go, Doc," Geordi grinned, "nothing to it."
"Don't you think we should be trying to do something?" O'Brien asked Troi."What do you suggest?" She said, unwrapping a third chocolate fudge bar."Well, we could try to send a message to the engine room to manually give the 'Engage' command so we can get out of this disturbance.""Okay," agreed Troi.
The Captain and the two children were climbing up a ladder in the turbo lift shaft. The children were whining. The Captain was trying to keep cheerful."Come on team," he said, "what we need is a climbing song! What do you suggest, er, Commander Tonyon?""The Smashing Supernova Song?""Um, I was thinking more along the lines of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," the Captain said. "Twinkle twinkle little star," he started, feeling extremely stupid. The children stared at him and continued climbing.
Riker had had a lot of trouble trying to get Data's head back on his body, so he picked it up by it's hair and started walking towards a door. He pulled it open and it slid closed. He tried again with no success."We need something to prop it open with," he said, eying Data's lifeless body. In a few minutes, Data's body was jammed between the doors and Riker, calmly carrying Data's head, stepped through into the engine room.
On the Bridge everyone was yelling because there were only two minutes left until the ship was going to explode, and the party in the lift shaft had just come to a door which the Captain was trying to prise open with his fingernails.
There was a message flashing on a screen in the engine room. It said "Twenty two seconds until warp-core breach." "Commander," Data's head said, lying upside down on a panel, "I suggest you press the 'Engage' button rapidly, or we will all be destroyed within seconds.""Which is the 'Engage?'""The large red one which is flashing on and off rapidly with the large word 'Engage' on it.""Oh, this one," Riker said, pointing at the 'Override Replicators' button. The ship started shuddering as the computer's voice calmly informed them: "Five seconds to warp core breach. Four, three, two...." Just then, Data's head rolled off the panel it was sitting on and landed on the 'Engage' button.The Enterprise blasted out of the disturbance, and all over the ship lights came on, computers activated, and doors slid open. "Captain," Riker said proudly into his communicator, "we have cleared the neutron disturbance." "Wow!" Tonyon's voice yelled from the communicator, "someone's talking out of that little thingy!!"
A while after when everyone had calmed down, the Captain took the stairs to the Bridge and found about fifty chocolate bar wrappers stuffed down the sides of his command chair.
Data's body was found jammed in a garbage disposal chute in the engine room and all the garbage had come out into the warp core. Somebody, however, rescued it and screwed Data's head onto his arm socket.
Soon after on the Bridge, the turbo lift doors opened shakily and the two children were pushed out by a grumpy looking teacher. They were shoved over to Captain Picard and said flatly, "We would like to present you with this award of saviour for saving us." They held up a bit of old breakfast cereal packet with some scribbly pen on it."Oh, er, thank you very much, I will, um, go and hang it up in my ready room."
THE END
© Copyright - 1996 H. Barton - Reposted with Author's Permission
By H. Barton
Star Trek, Star Trek the Next Generation, and all names of people and ships are trademarks of Paramount.