[July Chal. Entry] "Best Laid Plans Of Mice And Men"

[hellsgate]

July Challenge Entry:
"Major Malfunction"
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"Star Trek: The Captain's Table"


"The Best Laid Plans Of Mice And Men"


Old Calendar Date:

2130 Hours
15 July 2260

Location: Classified / Unknown.

Stardate: 63537.96

The place was bustling tonight. Captain Raymond Cross had been sitting at a small table, playing cards and trading yarns with two humans and an androgenous mechanical construct carrying something called a Medusan in its specially-crafted abdomen.

Captain Cross had ordered dinner and a lovely buxom redhead server brought the dish to him with an elogated look at her assets, before she'd pecked him on the cheek, offered him directions to their own facilities and returned to the protein resequencers behind the bar.

Ray had only just found the place while on a repair and resupply layover at a Tellarite outpost. He'd stumbled upon what he'd thought was the door to the head in his courtesey quarters aboard the station. Last month, He'd been placed in command of a Corps of Engineers' rig sent out to monitor the subspace amplifiers deployed along the Klingon Frontier that had been blinking out regularily over the last week and a half. The Daedalus-Class Crichton was dispatched to figure out the specific problem. The resulting mayhem would be tonight's store credit toward his cola and pork chops.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Is that a story?

Stardate's all wrong and there's nothing to indicate what the malfunction is.

 

[Kaziarl]

um... what? I know I have some shorts now and then, but i don't see any part related to the challenge... I'm confused.

 

[hellsgate]

Kaziarl: This is just the first part. I was inspired last night & had to get it down on-screen before I lost the brain-fart altogether. There will be more soon. Ok, I'll fix the stardate later by using another website's stardate calculator.

 

[Kaziarl]

Kaziarl: This is just the first part. I was inspired last night & had to get it down on-screen before I lost the brain-fart altogether. There will be more soon. Ok, I'll fix the stardate later by using another website's stardate calculator.

Ok, I look forward to it then.

 

[hellsgate]

"Star Trek: The Captain's Table"
"The Best Laid Plans of Mice And Men"
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July ("Major Malfunction") Challenge Entry
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U.S.S. Crichton
Daedalus-Class
NCC 013

Credit: Image by Scaramanga

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Author's Note: I pictured Captain Cross as William Hurt since seeing him in "Lost In Space". I wanted to picture him dealing with the Binars in the 'Trek' universe.
======================

Stardate:

-67985.95833333333

Old Calendar Date:

15 July 2260
2130 Hours

The place was bustling tonight. Captain Raymond Cross had been sitting at a small table, playing cards and trading yarns with two humans and an androgenous mechanical construct carrying something called a Medusan in its specially-crafted abdomen.

Captain Cross had ordered dinner and a lovely buxom redhead server brought the dish to him with an elongated look at her assets, before she'd pecked him on the cheek, offered him directions to their own facilities and returned to the protein resequencers behind the bar.

Ray had only just found the place while on a repair and resupply layover at a Tellarite outpost. He'd stumbled upon what he'd thought was the door to the head in his courtesey quarters aboard the station. Last month, He'd been placed in command of a Corps of Engineers' rig sent out to monitor the subspace amplifiers deployed along the Klingon Frontier that had been blinking out regularily over the last week and a half. The Daedalus-Class Crichton was dispatched to figure out the specific problem. The resulting mayhem would be tonight's store credit toward his cola and pork chops.

Admiral Narinder Nagra had sent out the repair order just as Ben was enjoying the first night off in two weeks. The beginning of what was supposed to be a week of uninterrupted bliss on Quadra Island. A small speck of rock and trees in North America's Pacific Northwest, away from the light pollution that made amateur astronomy so damn next-to-impossible. He'd tried to get away from the demands of running the newly constructed vertical farm complexes in New Vancouver but "no good deed goes unpunished."

The Corps of Engineers were temporarily re-assigned to garbage collection. Twitchy subspace amplifiers on the Klingon Frontier.

"Oh Joy. Klingons. 'If at first you don't succeed, find a bigger hammer.'" His last command experience resulted in a stand-off with two Klingon battlecruisers and the NX-Class Columbia having to tow their ass home (minus one and a half nacelles) in crushing embarrassment.

 

[TheLoneRedshirt]

A very promising start!

 

[hellsgate]

Ben had to wait for a shuttlecraft to pick him up on-site, despite asking for the Crichton to beam him directly aboard. The Vissian at Tactical had informed him via Ben's wrist communicator that many of the bridge consoles, (among many other stations throughout the ship,) were still in pieces on the deck. Mars Station was having difficulty dealing with the volume of demands since the destruction of Vulcan left everyone scrambling. The Crichton's warp core wouldn't be online until tomorrow afternoon at latest.

An Edoan pilot greeted Ben as the door in the aft of the runabout dropped to allow him aboard. As he strapped in, a small busload of his crew waved, shook his hand, asked for details of their mission or just nodded toward him as they settled in under headphones for the duration of the trip. Among his crew were Humans, Tellarites, a few Vulcans, some Andorians, an Orion, a handful of Suliban, a female Denebulan, a civilian Klingon specialist or two, and other races he didn't quite immediately recognize.

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The low ceiling bridge wasn't built to be anything except utilitarian. Bare gunmetal grey deck plates with the occasional easy-access grill plate covering the ODN/EPS systems beneath his chair. The Master Situation Display was mounted on a pane of break-resistant transparent aluminum, located immediately behind the Captain's Chair. Tactical and Engineering were thirty degrees behind him on either side.

A singular helm position with astrogator located in an alcove to his left and Life Sciences located in an identical alcove at his right. This was among the first 'Federation' ships to include extra chairs for a Mission Specialist and Ambassador to either side of the Captain's Chair.

The female Denubulan he'd seen aboard the shuttle was introduced to Ben by his First Officer. She'd be his new Doctor. It took him a moment to get used to the idea of turning his head and coughing for her for the next few weeks, (or however long it would take to deal with fixing or replacing the Federation's subspace amplifiers.) He'd had a few girlfriends, just not lately.

His First Officer was the Edoan that had piloted the shuttle from Quadra Island to get him here. Commander Slaya Werner. Upon reaching the bridge, She took her place at Engineering. She'd gathered a carry-all full of status report PADD's from the cadets/interns assembled in the tiny walk-in-closet the C.o.E. mistook for a shuttlebay module at Mars Station.

 

[hellsgate]

Dr. Kyla Durnas took her place at Life Sciences and logged into the mainframe.

'Kyla was entirely professional,' Ben thought, 'or is it just my imagination...?'

He looked over and the flirtatious Denebulan winked back at him.

The lighting dimmed somewhat as things got underway. Ben heard a gentle thrumming as the M/ARA finally initiated internal power from main engineering and Werner took the emergency batteries offline to recharge before departure. His helms-person emerged from the turbolift and took his place, a Suliban with reptilian mottled skin and generally human bipedal features. Their astrogator was right behind him.

An Andorian, in traditional Royal Guard uniform, including a (largely ceremonial) blade and phaser at her hips. Lieutenant Saran Par, on experimental loan from the Royal Guard. From the rumours Ben had heard at Starfleet Command, she was assigned to keeping an eye on Him, The Federation and The Klingon Empire.

'Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean someone's NOT out to get you.' Ben thought.

 

[hellsgate]

Comments? Criticisms of any kind?

 

[trampledamage]

I'm waiting for the story to finish!

I'm enjoying your introduction, it's a great set-up to chaos.