Melting Snow

Creation Saturday: Stuck in Normal Space

Saturday, February 3, 2018

Happy Creation Saturday

The "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"  prompt for DAY 1509
Create something with these words dictionary, have fun.
freighter, shoot, sock, cut, hammer, estimate, psychology

Stuck in Normal Space

A freighter, its warp engines inoperable, cuts through the darkness of interstellar space. Captain Joe Frys, a disgraced Star Fleet Commander, had found himself in command of the Mystic Pear when the Ferengi merchant, who owned the ship, was found dead in the engine room. The merchant's body, a hammer in his right hand, was laying next to the scuttled warp engines.

Captain Frys, reposed in the command char, with his eyes fixed on the view screen. He hated traveling in normal space, because it took too long to get from one star system to the next. Unfortunately, he had no choice. At least, not until the ships engineer, who tended to mix Q'noS wine with his Irish whiskey, sobered up. In the meantime, he had to figure out which one of the planets, in the approaching star system, to download the Mystic Pear's cargo of rainbow silk sock art to.

He sighed. Perhaps, he thought, I should reconsider the Klingon's offer of employment. I've already been court marshaled, so the only thing Federation can do is give me life on some off-the-star-lanes prison planet.

"Captain Frys," came the sultry female voice of the ship's AI unit over the intercom. "There are warning buoys deployed throughout the star system we are approaching."

"What are they waring us against?"

"Entering the system, Sir. The messages say that their lasers will shoot holes in our skulls."

"Don't you mean hull?"

"No, Sir, I am sure the word they used is translated skulls."

"Give me an estimate of how long it will take to transport the cargo to the nearest planet."

"The transporters are offline, Sir."

Commander Frys shook his head, "What else could go wrong?"

"Well, Sir," the AI unit responded.

"That was a rhetorical question! Sound general quarters, and lay in a course that takes us through the heart of this system."

"Sir!" The AI unit sounded perplexed.

"I'm calling their bluff. I don't think any intelligent creature in this system has lasers that can penetrate the hull of this ship, much less our skulls." He smiled, "Whoever deployed those buoys is playing a psychology game with us."

Q, who was in another dimension, shook his head. This Captain Joe Frys was not as much fun as Commander James Tiberius Kirk. He knew Kirk would have probed the buoys and retrieved a couple for examination before ignoring them.