Trek It!

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  Obviously unimpressed, the Sulking Masters turned and walked away. “Hang it up, loser,” was the last Spook heard from them before they disappeared over a sand dune.

  'What now,’ thought Spook, 'what do I do? I can’t stay on Sulking, I don’t have a job, I failed Kallmenerd, and the Science Academy hates my guts. Where do I go? Where can a failure like me fit in? Who would accept a clumsy, stupid, worthless dolt like me?’

  Then, the answer suddenly dawned on him. There was only one place in the universe he could go...

  *****

  The U.S.O. Enterprunes floated majestically in her drydock. She glinted with metallic luster, gleaming, sparkling sunlight reflecting off her newly polished surface, her recently refurbished structure, the huge, shining sidepipes newly installed along her hull. The Enterprunes was indeed a sight for the very sore eyes of Captain Quirk; he had been separated from this ship, from his ship, for too long. The old feelings again began to well up within Quirk, the old feelings of starlust, of awe, of spacesickness and heartburn. He brimmed with joy, hope, and anticipation of beautiful new Enterprunes crew members to replenish his little black book.

  “Finally,” spoke Quirk softly, breathlessly. “After ten long years, she’s mine again.” He shook his head in wonder and tears streamed down his face, tears caused partly by strong emotion and partly by the strong breath of the totally drunk Chief Engineer of the Enterprunes, Mr. Splot, who was speaking directly into Quirk’s face.

  “Ach, mon,” sputtered Splot tipsily, as Quirk grabbed for a nearby oxygen mask. “Ow’d ye e’er do it?” Splotty belched, smacked his lips, and took a long draught from the gallon jug of scotch hanging from his neck. “Ow’d ye e’er get th’ Enterprunes away from Cap’n Snicker?”

  Quirk, again breathing regularly after ten minutes of inhaling oxygen, turned to look out the front window. The tiny shuttle in which he and Splotty were traveling was moving closer and closer to the Enterprunes, and Quirk’s view of the huge ship increased every second. “Well, Splotty,” he answered, carefully maintaining a safe distance from the inebriated engineer, “you’d be surprised at the power and persuasiveness, the influence and strength, the inspiration and effectiveness of a single, profound, well-placed financial reimbursement.” Quirk took a deep breath, proud of his impressive, lengthy explanation.

  “Bribed the suckers, huh?” Splotty nodded in comprehension and put away another bottle of Slurrian brandy.

  Quirk, embarrassed by the ease with which the soused engineer had translated his meaningful speech and thinly-disguised cover-up, quickly and subtly changed the subject. “How 'bout them Yankees, Splotty? Is there life after death? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”

  Splotty, thoroughly confused by Quirk’s tricky verbal maneuvering, plucked a large flask of Rombian gin from the left hip pocket of his coveralls and drained it thirstily. Already forgetting his captain’s words, and presence, he then began belting out a rendition of “My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean.”

  Quirk, hastily taking control of the shuttle from his shnockered companion before it could collide with the drydock, cast a quick, confused look in the engineer’s direction. “This bum is going to get the Enterprunes ready to save the Earth?” he muttered questioningly, as Splotty lapsed into a drunken heap on the floor. Quirk sighed, mumbled a quick “Ours is not to reason why,” and turned to the front window. Through the window’s tinted glass, the Enterprunes loomed impressively. Quirk was awed and humbled by the sheer size and beauty of the newly redesigned starboat; the massive, gleaming fenders, shining headlights, and double-belted whitewalls nearly overwhelmed the vessel’s returning captain.

  “She’s a trim craft,” said Quirk admiringly. “I saw the plans for her refitting. New, faster engines, sleeker, more aerodynamic structure, more powerful weaponry and deflectors, Jacuzzi...” Quirk’s voice trailed off in amazement.

  Splotty emerged from his drunken stupor long enough to stammer “Aye, dinna och nessie,” toss down another fifth of brandy, and yank the curtains off the front window to use as a blanket. Then, he was out like a light, sprawled on the shuttle floor with the thumb of his right hand lodged in his mouth and a jug of Slurrian brandy at his side.

  As Splotty subsided into restless, intoxicated slumber, Quirk began guiding the shuttle into docking position with the Enterprunes. Slowly, carefully, he maneuvered the tiny craft toward the docking bay mounted on the Enterprunes’ starboard side; the obsidian darkness of space between the shuttle and the massive starboat was pierced only by the flashing neon signs mounted above the dock, one labeled U.S.O. Enterprunes, the other NO VACANCY. As Quirk moved his shuttle closer to the dock, he could see that it had already been activated; its small, magnetic ring was pulsing in preparation to receive the shuttle, and two large hand-shaped grapplers had been ejected. When Quirk’s shuttle came within range, the two hands began closing around it, their long fingers gently guiding it towards the docking ring. Then, the shuttle made contact, the airlocks between it and the Enterprunes engaged, and the doors at the rear of the shuttle swooshed open.

  “At last,” whispered Quirk, his heart beating furiously. “I’m home.” Quite over-dramatically, he walked to the shuttle’s airlock, then stepped slowly through its open door. The first thing the captain saw in the Enterprunes’ interior was the corridor wall into which he clumsily tripped.

  “Wasn’t there ten years ago,” muttered Quirk, rubbing his nose in pain, turning from the wall and subsequently stumbling into a nearby soda machine. “Boy, the Enterprunes has changed over the past ten years,” he mused painfully.

  Quirk, slowly recovering from his jarring entrance, then began to take in the sights. He moved his head slowly from side to side, and his eyes were frozen in an unbelieving, wide-eyed stare as he drank in the view. Unfolding before him was a long corridor, lit by crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, decorated with intricate, luxurious tapestries, and carpeted with plush, crimson velvet. Classical concertos by the masters wafted lightly from hidden speakers and the faint scent of delicate perfume found its way to Quirk’s nostrils. The corridor was beautiful, like something out of a Rigellian pleasure palace; Quirk was overwhelmed. Then he turned from the 3-D holo-painting into which he had inadvertently rammed his face, and saw the real Enterprunes corridor.

  “Ah,” sighed Quirk, again at ease amidst familiar surroundings. “This is more like it.” Indeed, the corridor now before him was closer to Quirk’s recollections of the Enterprunes; the walls painted in tacky orange and pink, the fluorescent green cement of the floor, and the lighting fixtures composed of lone, bare hundred-watt bulbs all aroused Quirk’s memory of the original Enterprunes. Though it all glistened and shined from the Enterprunes’ recent refurbishing, it still was the Enterprunes, and as such stirred up strong feelings within the captain’s breast. Quirk recalled nostalgically the many valiant battles this ship had weathered, the numerous heroic quests she had carried him through, the countless women she had guided to his arms. 'Truly,’ he thought, 'this ship has been good to me.’ 'Very good,’ he added, remembering several rather voluptuous female passengers.

  Then, suddenly, Quirk’s reverie was shattered by an approaching belch. Whirling, the captain saw the belch’s source, Splotty, crawling slowly out of the airlock. The blitzed engineer still clasped a bottle of Slurrian brandy in his right hand, and around his shoulders hung the drapes from the shuttle’s front window, drapes he had been using as a blanket.

  “Dinna ken, cap’n,” slurred Splotty drunkenly. “Begorra.” Then he again drifted asleep, and collapsed on the corridor floor.

  “Poor Splotty,” murmured Quirk pityingly, “trapped in the clutches of the demon rum. On second thought,” he reconsidered, remembering that Splotty was to maintain the Enterprunes during its coming critical mission, “poor me!” Then the gallant starboat captain strode away down the corridor, his destination...

  *****

  ...the bridge. Quirk’s heart once more beat wildly at the sigh
t of this place where he had spent so much time. He was yet again overcome with emotion and nostalgia, and remembrances of past glories once more seeped up from the nooks of his mind. Many were the courageous feats he had engineered from this control center, many were the life and death decisions he had made here, and many were the chicks he had so eagerly chased around this circular room. Unconsciously, Quirk began singing “Mem’ries, light the corners of my mind...”.

  However, before he could reach the second verse, Quirk was abruptly interrupted by a shout of “Captain!” from across the bridge. Angry that his singing debut had been cut short, Quirk turned in the voice’s direction. He was greeted by the voice’s beautiful owner, “Yoohoora!”

  Indeed, the dark-skinned beauty facing Quirk from her communications console was none other than Lootenant Yoohoora. Originally communications officer of the Enterprunes, Yoohoora had, in the ten years since the end of the ship’s five month mission, found galaxy-wide success as a singing star. Her group, Lootenant Yoohoora and Hailing Frequency, had rocketed to the top of the charts almost instantly after its creation, and its songs, like “Distress Signal,” “Subspace Love,” and “Homing Beacon Baby,” had practically become household tunes.

  “Welcome home,” sang Yoohoora liltingly. “We’re glad that you’re back aboard/Welcome home...”

  “Welcome ho-o-o-o-o-o-me,” echoed Yoohoora’s three-girl backup group, who had accompanied her onboard the Enterprunes as a publicity promotion for Hailing Frequency’s coming galactic tour.

  Quirk, obviously reveling in the attention being showered upon him, stood for a moment in silent rapture. Then, another shout of welcome sounded from the other side of the bridge.

  “Captain Quirk!” This shout, Quirk discovered after quickly whirling to face its owner, belonged to none other than Lootenant Wreckov, the Enterprunes’ navigator and token Russian.

  “Wreckov!” responded Quirk, his face lit with pleasure at the sight of his old friend. “How are you comrade?” After a moment, however, when Quirk began taking in Wreckov’s appearance, his look of pleasure rapidly vanished. “Pavel Wreckov,” he scolded belatedly. “What in Klingon have you done to yourself?”

  Indeed, the Lootenant Wreckov greeting Quirk in no way resembled the old Wreckov Quirk had known so well in the past. This Wreckov was clad in a collared pullover shirt which sported a small alligator emblem where the Starfeet insignia usually went, a pair of baggy khaki pants and nonregulation shoes of the docksider variety. Quirk was absolutely flabbergasted at this unusual dress, and was even more shocked when Wreckov again spoke.

  “My name is no longer Pavel Wreckov. I am now known exclusively as Lootenant Biff Wreckov, navigator and social director of the Enterprunes.”

  Quirk was stricken speechless; not a word emerged from his shocked mouth until he realized he was losing his scene. Then, seeing a great opportunity for an over-dramatic speech, he began again to speak.

  “Wreckov, do those clothes express the true nature of mankind? Do they show, in some small way, the millions of years of constant struggle and sweat through which man has lumbered to reach this plateau of peace and advancement? Do they show the primal core of man’s being, of his...”

  Quirk’s speech was suddenly ended, just as the bridge crew was starting to catch some heavy z’s, when another of his old crewmembers stepped forward to offer a greeting.

  “Hello, Captain,” said the Asian crewman, breaking Quirk’s lengthy dissertation and awakening most of the dozing bridge crew.

  “Oh,” muttered Quirk, ticked off at this intrusion into his latest attempt at scene-stealing, “Lootenant Lulu. How nice to, um, see, uh, you again.”

  “Peace brother,” proclaimed Lulu. “Would you like a flower? Have you found the way of the Great Bird of the Galaxy? Would you like to donate to my church?”

  Once more, Quirk was stunned by the changes which had appeared in his crew since the end of the Enterprunes’ last mission. He hardly recognized Lulu now, though the Lootenant had been his close friend and helmsman for five months. The Lulu who now stood before Quirk wore not the familiar uniform of a Starfeet officer but rather a full-length, dark-brown monk’s robe. His head was shaved completely bald, and around his neck hung a simple gold medallion. Clasped in his right hand was a small bunch of flowers, and in his left were several tracts extolling the glories of his new-found religion, the Cult of the Great Bird.

  “Lulu, Lulu, Lulu,” spoke up Quirk, recognizing another opportunity to overact. “What have you done with yourself? Why have you joined a cult? Whatever happened to the Lulu I used to know, the wimp who didn’t know right from left, white from black, Coke from Pepsi? How did you get this way?”

  Lulu smiled in blissful remembrance. “Well, Quirk, after the Enterprunes’ last mission, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I went on the pro fencing circuit, but lost a few fingers and dropped that. Then I hooked up with FTD for a while, hoping to exploit my knowledge of botany, but I delivered an Antilean man-eating violet to the Sulking ambassador instead of a 'Tickler’ bouquet, and quickly lost that job. Then I got desperate, turning to jobs no one else would take, like politics, talk-show hosting, and acting. Finally, though, I became enlightened through a holovision commercial and joined the Cult of the Great Bird of the Galaxy. All it took was my sworn, eternal allegiance, a vow of undying fealty and a money order for $1.85.” Lulu again smiled and inhaled deeply from the flowers in his hand.

  “Oh, boy,” muttered Quirk in exasperation. Slowly, he looked around the bridge at his crew, at Yoohoora with her three-girl backup group, at Wreckov in his preppie outfit, at Lulu, the newly converted cultie, who even now was offering pamphlets to a passing engineer. How would Quirk ever manage to whip this sorry bunch into shape, how would he be able to defeat T’Jerk, and better yet, how could he get a promotion out of this fiasco?

  Quirk’s heart was again starting to beat wildly, when, from the comlink mounted on his command stool, a hailing bleep sounded, followed by a message.

  “Attention, all you cats out in Enterprunes land,” spoke the voice from Quirk’s comlink. “This is rockin’ Lootenant Slyle beamin’ at ya’ from transplurter control. Quirk, I humbly request that you bop-a-loo-bop down here and rap with our new guest. He is zappin’ in here even as we jive, brother.”

  Quirk was stunned. His heart again beat wildly in his chest as he replied to the message. “Wait a minute,” he stuttered perplexedly. “This isn’t in the script. I’m supposed to fight with Snicker first, and then meet McClod. What’s going on here?!” Quirk reeled dazedly about, blindly stumbling into an engineering console and shorting out power for half the ship. “Was there a last minute rewrite? Have we changed movies? Is this 'Kingdom of the Spiders’?” Quirk fell to his knees a broken man. “Why is Slyle here? He’s not in this movie! Where’s Spook? Where’s my mommy?!” He screamed helplessly.

  Slyle’s voice again echoed from the comlink. “Hey, cool it Quirk baby. There’s no sweat here, bro. This is a spoof, remember, not a real flick. This scene’s goin’ down for laughs, man, not freakin’ drama, and nobody, but nobody, counts scenes in the ha-ha biz. You dig this groove, blood?”

  Quirk stopped sobbing, and a semblance of order appeared on his tear-streaked face. “Oh,” he comprehended, slowly struggling to his feet. “But you’re still not supposed to be here.”

  “But I should be, bucko. Enough a’ this patter, dudes, just rock on down here and lay some language on you-know-who. In the meantime,” Slyle paused for an instant and the sounds of buttons being pushed filtered over the comlink. “Slyle here is gonna lay some heavy tunes on you cats.” Slyle’s voice slowly faded from the comlink and was replaced with lilting music.

  Quirk, still rather confused, staggered dizzily off the bridge and into the turbo pole shaft. Taking the pole in his hands, he shakily stepped off the landing leading from the bridge, shouted the command “Transplurter room,” and began rapidly sliding down the pole. Within seconds, the turbo-pole, that incredi
bly swift and modernized device used for transportation throughout the ship, had whisked Quirk to his destination. When he reached the landing for the transplurter room’s deck, the turbo-pole’s advanced, state-of-the-art stopping mechanism, a net, suddenly shot out from the walls of the shaft and caught Quirk squarely within its mesh. Slowly, his heart again beating wildly from losing his breath, Quirk crawled along the stopping net and onto the transplurter deck’s landing, and before long found himself at the door to the transplurter room itself.

  After speaking the proper top-secret code words, “Open sesame,” and seeing that the door didn’t scuff his boots when it swished open, Quirk entered the transplurter room. The last thing he heard before suddenly and unexpectedly slipping into unconsciousness was a cry of “Fore!” and a swooshing whistle of air near his head. The last thing he saw was a standard Starfeet golf ball plowing through the air towards his face.

  The next thing Quirk heard, as he pushed aside the darkness which had descended over his senses, was an old and very familiar voice; the first thing he saw was an even older and more familiar face. As his mind and vision cleared, Quirk saw the possessor of both voice and face examining him intently, and suddenly realized just who it was.

  “McClod!” shouted Quirk joyfully, pleased at the sight of his old friend and confidant. “Bobo McClod!”

  “Sho’ nuff, Jambo. How y’all doin’? I hope that there practice drive didn’t hurt too dang much.”

  Quirk simply nodded in reply. It felt good for the Enterprunes’ captain to see this companion from the past; Quirk and McClod were very good friends during the ship’s original mission, and together with Spook they had become famous as the 'Enterprunes triumvirate.’ To Quirk at this moment, though, McClod was an island of stability amid a sea of change; unlike the others from the old crew -- Lulu, Yoohoora, Wreckov, Slyle -- Dr. Bobo McClod was essentially his same grizzled self. Almost.