by Erick Drake
"Thank you, Science Officer," said Daisy, her gaze still fixed on Jones.
"Michigan Jones," Jones introduced himself, "XO."
"You can turn off the charm, such as it is," said Daisy, "He's immune." She turned back to face the main viewer.
"Well, I'm not immune, the science officer can be as charming to me as she likes."
"Science Officer Tongue is a 'he' XO," said Daisy, flatly.
Jones, nonplussed, looked over at Tongue who smiled and nodded.
"Right, OK, welcome aboard Mister . . . Tongue."
"Thank you, XO. Pod ready to dock," repeated Tongue.
Jones shook himself. "Yes, right, initiate docking auto-sequence."
"No." Daisy turned once more to glare at Jones. "Our new XO will perform the docking sequence . . . manually."
"Captain is that wise?" said Tongue.
"Why not, our XO seems to have all the answers so far. You are qualified for manual docking, Mr Jones?"
"No."
"Good, then it's settled. You should get some practical experience."
"As XO it is my duty to present the Captain with alternative options and strategic assessments. May I respectfully suggest that this strategy is a ridiculously and unnecessarily dangerous one? The sort of command only an idiot would issue. Or someone who hasn't passed her Captain's exam? Thus, I present the alternative option of sod off you crazy bitch."
"Come now XO, I have every faith in your abilities," Daisy smiled sweetly at him.
"What are you talking about?" said Tongue, his eyes flicking gorgeously between Daisy and Jones. "This is an important mission, we cannot -"
"The XO is simply squirming Mr Tongue. It's OK Jones, just a test to see if you are up to being XO. I can always have a Bloke printed if you don't feel up to it . . . in the meantime Tongue, set for auto -"
"Oh no you don't!" Jones roared. "I'm not having that." Jones stomped around to stand behind Steve. "Steve, let's have the cargo pod on main viewer!"
"What, you're really doing this?"
"Yeah, I know what I'm doing trust me. I saw a manual once."
"Oh right, you've read the manual on the procedure."
"Yeah. Well, no, reading manuals makes my eyes scream. I saw one. It looked simple. Shut up. Put the thing on main viewer. Stat."
Steve boggled. "OK, cargo pod on screen. I expect you'd like to see a tactical overlay," he said hopefully, "So you can monitor trajectory and dangerous proximity to the ship’s hull and death count and so on?"
"Nah, who needs it. We should go to dramatic alert though."
"Dramatic alert, aye." Steve stabbed at a button. Immediately, the bridge lighting decreased, faces of the bridge officers and their consoles lit only by red emergency lights.
"Hang on, no bollocks, I can't see anything. Turn the lights back up."
"Dramatic alert cancelled."
The lighting returned to its usual soulless sodium-based levels.
Jones looked around, not happy with the lack of atmosphere. "Oh, I know, lens flare. Have we got any lens flare?"
"The cargo bay is getting quite close to the hull. And by 'quite' I mean 'catastrophically'."
"Right, fine, let's do it without lens flare. OK fire bay manoeuvring thrusters. Half power. That's it. Watch the velocity. Adjust pitch, negative three degrees."
"Oh sorry," Steve adjusted his trousers and sat up straighter.
"Watch your roll angle."
"My what?"
"Adjust Yaw by five tacks."
"Wait, what's a 'tack'?"
"Retract rollocks."
"You're just making it up . . ."
"That's it. Velocity zero, thrusters off. Inertia should do the job now." Jones stepped back, a satisfied smile on his face. Not bad, he thought, not bad at all.
All around the bridge people started breathing again.
They watched the main viewer as cargo bay one gracefully approached its docking port. They continued watching as it gracefully crashed into its docking port, elegantly bounced off again and poetically skidded along the hull, destroying a horrifyingly large amount of external equipment as it did so, before finally colliding with and coming to rest on the engineering section.
Jones turned to Daisy. "Cargo bay one manual docking complete, as requested Captain. The Captain was clearly correct in ignoring the perfectly reasonable alternative options her XO presented in pursuit of her own petty agenda. Well done, Captain. You can't learn these raw decision-making skills at Captain school, this is the sort of intuitive thinking one has to be born with. The XO would like to thank the Captain for her faith in his abilities."
Daisy gave him a flat look. "You are such a dick," she said.
Jones smiled and strode back to his command station, content with a job well done.
The rest of the bridge crew continued to gape at the screen, which showed various bits of Space Scrap 17 spinning off into space.
* * *
If the crew of Space Scrap 17 had not been preoccupied with desperately trying to save what remained of their ship, some of them might have noticed a newscast playing out on various unwatched monitors across the ship. This is what it said:
"This is Galactic News [INSERT NUMBER OF HOURS IN YOUR LOCAL DAY CYCLE]".
"Hello, I'm male newsbot. In a dramatic twist today, my ankle is now in a cast. In other dramatic twists, Leroy Cakes has beaten defending champion deity Razor Knuckleface in a cage fight to decide who is to be the next chairman and ruling deity of God Inc. Although superior in size, martial arts prowess, brute strength and unencumbered by brain cells, Knuckleface was defeated by Leroy Cakes's impassioned conviction speech and surrendered his position as Aspirational Concept 35 in favour of his holiness Cakes, who then hired him as a bodyguard. The inauguration ceremony confirming Mr Cakes as Aspirational Concept 36 will take place shortly.”
6 Bad hair day
"Captain's Log. 2390.8.26 We are still orbiting space station Lugubrious. Repairs to damage caused by the incompetence and petty vindictiveness of our XO are still underway. However, if we are to meet our secret rendezvous on time while keeping it a secret, we must risk engaging our wormhole generators. My initial high hopes for this mission have been somewhat dampened. This commission is not going to be easy as the crew seem incredibly lazy and thick. Also, I have been feeling unusually moist in the lower area, which I think may have something to do with the imitation plastic material from which the Captain's chair is made."
"Captain," Jones's voice interrupted Daisy's recording.
"Yes, XO what is it?"
"Engineering would like to speak with you. Also, and I don't wish to appear incompetent or vindictive, but I would like to suggest to the Captain that if she is going to record a personal log, maybe she shouldn't do it in the middle of the bridge where everyone can hear her."
Daisy looked up. The bridge crew were glaring at her. Ah. Bollocks. She'd got carried away.
"Assuming engines are repaired and we leave now," said Steve, "with a fully extended wormhole and Ion drive at maximum, we should meet our secret rendezvous in an hour. Not that I know anything about a secret rendezvous, what with my being incredibly lazy and thick and it being a secret and all."
"Jeebuzz," muttered Tongue.
"Something to say, Science Officer?"
Tongue realised he'd been overheard but decided to ignore it. "I've checked the engineering status. Much as I hate to say it, I'd recommend further simulation before we engage those engines. A slight delay is acceptable if it means we get there in one piece."
"Tongue, delay is not acceptable. We will reach our –" Daisy looked around uneasily at the bridge officers. Screw it, the cat was already out of the bag and squatting in the litter tray. "We will reach our rendezvous on time." She stabbed at the comms button on the arm of her chair.
"Engineering, prepare for engineering stuff."
"Nau?" came a voice over the intercom.
"Yes, now."
"What do you mean 'yes Nau?', y
ou called me?"
"What?"
"What?"
Jones looked over at Tongue, who had started to gently hit his head on his console.
"Captain," said Jones, "you're speaking to Chief Engineer Nau."
"Yes, thank you for the mansplaining XO, I know who I'm speaking to, which is more than can be said of your grasp of grammatical structure, 'you speaking to chief engineer now', 'me Captain and know who me speak to'."
Jones took a deep breath. "You are speaking to Chief Engineer Eric Nau. Mr Nau is speaking to you. The person to whom you are speaking is Chief Engineer Eric Nau, AKA Chief Engineer Nau."
"Captain, love a chat and all but did you want something ‘cos it’s mental down here."
"Yes Mr Nau,” Daisy glowered at Jones, “I want engines online and ready to leave . . . now."
"Yes?"
Daisy massaged the bridge of her nose. "Chief engineer, we need to leave orbit . . . immediately. What is your status?"
“Leave orbit?” The Chief sucked his teeth. "Well, we've managed to scrape cargo bay one off the engineering pod and auto-docked it with the hull. Because of course only a total mug would try to dock a cargo bay manually. "
"Yes, thank you Nau. Carry on . . . Nau."
"There's some minor damage to the hull. The effluent discharge orifices are mangled, we'll need to fix them before we reach Yerboots. I can get the wormhole generators online but the thermo regulators are playing up."
"Could we jerry rig a bypass of the thermo regulators without blowing ourselves up?"
"We could jerry rig a bypass of the thermo regulators without blowing ourselves up but there's another problem."
"Go on?"
"We can't jerry rig a bypass of the thermo regulators without blowing ourselves up."
"I see. What about the Ion drive?"
"Oh bugger, hang on," the comms went silent. After a moment Nau's voice returned. "Sorry Captain, just remembered I left the Ion on."
"Can we get full speed out of it?"
Nau sucked his teeth. "That would mean putting the steamer on."
"Fine. Do it. How long until the wormhole generator is repaired?"
Chief Engineer Nau sucked his teeth again. "Ooh, job like this . . . six years."
"You have 30 mins."
"Thirty minutes? Workmanship of this quality? I'll have to go and get some parts, shouldn't take too long, say three weeks and then I'll only come back after your repeated attempts to contact me fail and then you threaten to go on some media show about dodgy tradesmen."
"Not three weeks Nau -"
"Now? Leave it out guv!"
"Let me finish - not three weeks Mr Nau, I want it done in thirty minutes."
"Alright, a month, not a second less."
"Thirty minutes."
"OK, fine, thirty minutes."
"You have ten minutes."
"What? Ten minutes? Workmanship of this quality? My dear old mother would die of shame of she wasn't dead already. OK, fine – ten minutes."
"You have five minutes."
"Five minutes? Workmanship of -"
"You have one minute."
"Daisy, Daisy," Jones cut in, "look sorry to interrupt but at some point, you have to stop the demanding Captain trope and accept the estimate."
"Done," said Nau.
"Right, let me know when repairs complete."
"I just said. They're done," Nau repeated. "finished them ten minutes ago."
"You can't have done."
"Yeah, I used my time machine, slipped back and repaired the engines before the accident."
"Time machine?"
"Only a small one. It gets boring down here when we're not in flight, so I thought I'd get myself a hobby."
"Chief," said Tongue, "Time travel is impossible. Or at best incredibly difficult. You can't have solved the equations in your spare moments between shifts."
"It's easy. Look, if you take the basic concepts of symbolic logic and completely ignore them you get symbolic bollocks and if you get the transformational equations in the right transitional sets, hey presto, whichever way you look at it the sum of the integers must equal total bollocks, which means you can convert symbolic bollocks into actual bollocks, or, in this case, a time machine."
"That makes no sense," said Daisy, glancing around the bridge for confirmation, "And on the off-chance that it does, you can't repair the engines before they were damaged. That's a paradox or stupid or something."
"Well only if you think of time as having a single dimension, which it doesn't, actually it has -" A soul-rending scream interrupted the engineer’s explanation.
"Jeebuzz, what's happened?!"
"Sorry Captain, that's Mr Kettlewick."
"Who?"
"Mr Kettlewick. Like a total spanner I forgot to adjust the spatial coordinates when I calibrated the time field. Accidentally scooped up Mr Kettlewick from Victorian England -" the Chief was again interrupted by another terrified scream. "Hang on Cap."
The bridge listened as the Chief tried to calm his new passenger.
"Kettlewick, again, you are in the future. It is the year 2390. Science and stuff are all different and stuff. We've gone out into the Galaxy and met new life forms, aliens. It's a lot to take in."
"What in Hades is that! Is this monstrosity one of the hideous things you so calmly refer to as 'aliens', sir?"
"That's a woman Mr Kettlewick."
"A woman Mr Kettlewick? A female doppelgänger of myself? Can it be?"
"No, I mean 'it's a woman, Mr Kettlewick'."
"There, sir! There, you see the importance of correct grammar and proper deployment of the comma! It was for this very purpose I formed the Society for Appropriately Clenched Grammarians. The membership of said society would venture forth on to the nobles each Sunday, the commons not being a fit place for such esteemed gentlemen, to practise the honourable fighting art of punch-uation in order that we might seek out misusers of the Queen's punctuation and punch them. Thus."
"Ow!"
"Now sir, kindly inform me as to how this hideous thing could possibly be a woman?"
"Well, she is. Assistant engineer Tamsin Boucher."
"Are you blind sir? It's wearing trousers! Have you lost possession of your wits? And 'Assistant engineer'? Fie, sir, fie I say! I confess I do not understand what passes for humour in this century of yours. I demand to see the Captain!"
"Er, yeah, maybe we should wait till you've had a chance to settle in. The Captain's a bit busy right now."
"Busy? Of course, he is. 'Busy' is the correct occupation for such a man. Probably promenading the decks in his finest trousers. Very well, I shall seek an audience at his earliest convenience. For now, I shall inspect these engines of yours."
"You do that Mr Kettlewick. Captain?"
Daisy stopped massaging the bridge of her nose. "So," she said, "Are we ready to leave now, Nau?"
"We need more simulation time."
"Now now Nau, you can do this. We must leave now Nau. Captain out."
"Captain," said Tongue, "we can afford a delay of a couple of hours if it means we reach the rendezvous in one piece."
"Science Officer, I will not -" Daisy stopped as she swiveled her chair to face Tongue. "When did you get time to put your hair in plaits and where did that fringe come from?"
Tongue smiled. "Oh this?" he said in a dismissive tone. Daisy's eyes narrowed. She knew that tone. It was a tone that tried to give the impression of a devil-may-care attitude that only someone who has put in hours of work and attention to detail could manage. Dismissive but with a subtle undertone of triumph because someone had noticed. "Our hair automatically adjusts to look hot no matter what the circumstances. I think this is the 'looking professional and in control and yet very cute and potentially available' style. It's nothing, really." He tossed his head casually, just to underline how much of a nothing it wasn't.
"Jeebuzz, I'm glad you're a bloke," muttered Daisy. "Anyway," she continued aloud, "I will not counte
nance a delay."
She swiveled her chair back to face front, "Mr Power, activate wormhole generators. Set Ion drive to full steam."
"Full steam ahead, aye. Wormhole generators on. Exotic matter projectors active. Wormhole opening."
Daisy leaned forward. Nothing happened. "Steve, what's happening? Or rather, why are things not happening?"
Steve turned to face her. "Oh, sorry Captain, I was waiting for the catchphrase."
"Catchphrase?"
"You know, that pseudo-momentous thing all Captains feel compelled to say when they mean 'go' . . . 'Engage', 'Make it so', 'get it done', 'one small step', that kind of bollocks."
Daisy felt suddenly uncomfortable as all eyes on the bridge stared at her. Momentous. OK. Her mind went blank. She looked questioningly at Jones. He just smiled and raised his eyebrows. Bastard. "Er, OK" she said after what seemed like an ice-age. She shuffled forward in her chair and straightened her back. She cleared her throat. "Off we pop!"
The bridge crew visibly deflated. "Right," said Steve, "Off . . . we pop". He pressed a big green button with the word 'Go' crudely written above it in felt tip pen.
The ship shuddered violently and the main bridge lights switched off, leaving the crew illuminated only by the red glow of the emergency lighting.
"Steve, what's happening?" shouted Daisy above the clamour of the . . . well, whatever it was that was clamouring. It sounded like engines trying to heave something way too heavy for them. And stressed metal. There was a lot of stressed metal.
"Nothing to worry about Captain," Steve called back as he held desperately on to the navigation console, "This is perfectly normal." Steve looked toward the main viewer at the front of the bridge. "That, on the other hand, is not."
Daisy followed Steve's gaze. Standing before the main viewer were two anachronistic figures dressed in old-style black tie attire: black bow ties and long-tailed jackets with white gloves. They looked every inch like old-time stage magicians. Except for the inches above their necks. Those inches were very wrong. Instead of human heads, they had what looked like oversized carnival papier mâché heads with garishly painted eyes and cheeks and noses. The figure on the left sported a mouth painted into a happy grin, the sort of happy grin a serial killer might wear while going about her stabby business. The mouth of the figure on the right had been painted into a large, surprised 'O'. Both sported cheeky chappy pencil thin moustaches.