Psi-Trek – The EPOC Generation
Space, the final frontier, these are the voyages of the
Starship Enterprise. It’s on going mission, to explore the same old
worlds, to meet regular lifeforms and standard civilisations. To boldy go
places where we’ve been before…
Captain Ricard’s mammoth ready-room stretched for
over 200 metres in every direction. In the centre Ricard leant back on his
chair and placed placed his feet up on the desk. His starship had just finished
an upgrade of the internal operating system and was heading for some hick
planet in the middle of nowhere to do something that would endanger them. All
was going well and he was just starting to relax. “Computer, Tea, Earl
Grey Hot.”
“Too many parameters, please simplify request.”
replied the computer's voice.
“Too many parameters?” Ricard stood up and
walked over to the replicator. After several seconds of idly flicking buttons
he sighed. “This damn new operating system, it can only do one command at
a time, the functionality is so limited.”
Commander Bill T Piker was standing next to Klingon
Security Chief Morph as the huge alien held Ensign Measley Crusher in a
head-lock. Next to Piker stood Engineer Geordi La Forgie. Piker was grinning,
as he struck his standard tough looking pose. “Ten more seconds and the
fivers mine.” he chuckled to La Forgie.
La Forgie watched in horror as Weasley held onto
consciousness for a further 10.4 seconds before lapsing into a coma. Morph
effortlessly chucked him onto the floor and smiled. “YOU OWE COMMANDER
PIKER £5. PAY HIM, OR I WILL MAKE YOU PAY.” he bellowed.
La Forgie sighed and handed Piker the money.
“Everytime, he’s tougher than he looks.”
Piker nodded his appreciation to Morph for holding back on
using full force and walked over to the Captain as he strolled onto the bridge.
Ricard noticed Piker and rose his hand slightly.
“Number one.”
Piker leapt into action. “Red alert! Load torpedo
bays, ready phasers, set course 145 by 259 by 009, engage at Warp
9.5…”
“What the hell are you doing Piker?” asked
Ricard.
“Well, you usually say Number One like that when you
want me to give lots of orders. It’s strange I always seem to know what
you want.”
“I was just getting your attention. Now, this new
operating system, it doesn’t appear to be as good as the old one. What are
we using now?”
La Forgie turned from his console. “Windows CE
V2.”
Piker gave his long glaring stare at the Captain who
straightened his uniform top. “Damn, I knew they’d get to Starfleet
eventually. La Forgie have we still got the back-up of EPOC that we took last
year?”
La Forgie held up an Iomega Zip Drive. “Right here, I
had to span it over 30000 disks using Winzip, but yeah, I got it.”
“Excellent, restore the back-up, if we have a
confrontation with our most feared enemy The Bored I certainly don’t want
to have to worry about allocating memory resources.” he said to his bridge
crew.
Piker nodded. “Agreed, let’s just hope we
don’t have to sort a spreadsheet though.”
“Understood Number One.” Ricard looked around
the bridge. “What’s Ensign Crusher doing on the floor, I order him to
be hung on the wall in Ten Sideways, it’s been boring since our dart board
got stolen.”
“I’m sorry sir, Security Chief Morph was just
demonstrating a new Klingon pain grip.”
“Speaking of pain, where’s Commander
Information?”
“He’s exploring his humanity with Counsellor
Babe.”
Ricard sighed. “Oh god, I hope he doesn’t want
another Shakespeare lesson, I only oblige him because he can get us out of any
situation.”
“Makes us all seem quite useless doesn’t
it?”
“Indeed.”
Morph broke the Captain’s conversation with a bellow
from his station. “CAPTAIN! I AM RECEIVING SOMETHING ON THE LATERAL SENSOR
ARRAY, THERE IS A SHIP APPROACHING. IT IS UNIDENTIFIED BUT IS OUTSIDE OF MAIN
SENSORS, DO YOU WANT ME TO DESTROY IT?”
“Not yet Mr Morph, let’s wait until it can put
us in danger, that way the tension will increase.”
“AYE SIR.”
Piker sat down in his chair. “All senior officers
report to the bridge!”.
“Helm, full stop, Mr Morph raise shields.”
“SHIP IS ENTERING VISUAL RANGE.” reported Morph
as Counsellor Babe and Commander Information walked onto the bridge.
“On screen.” replied Ricard, he squinted and
sighed. “Magnify.”
Commander information reached under his console and pulled
out a large magnifying glass and handed it to the Captain.
“Hmm, it’s The Bored all right, we haven’t
seem them for a season so it’s about right.” he said, handing the
magnifying glass to Piker.
“Captain, I sense that a ship is approaching.”
stated Counsellor Babe.
“Shut up! Mr La Forgie, can we rotate shield
frequencies, give us a bit of time if they try to attack us?”
“Sure thing, by running MMU through the main
deflector relays we can defragment the EPS conduits, should give us the power
we need.”
“Make it so.”
“Captain, I can also run Backlite+, using its macro
system we could speed up response time.”
“Good work.”
“CAPTAIN! THEY ARE HAILING US!” yelled Morph.
“On speakers.” replied Ricard.
Morph climbed up onto the bridge PA system. “DO YOU
WANT TO HEAR THEIR MESSAGE?”
“Yes Mr Morph.”
The crew of the Enterprise froze as the monologue voice of
the Bored Collective filled the bridge. “We are the Bored, resistant will
get less futile, we will get easier to defeat at every encounter until we are
irrelevant. You will surrender your ship or we will destroy you. Your defensive
technology is probably sufficient to destroy us.”
“This is Captain John Luke Ricard. We are fed up of
you sending one ship to attack us each time, for god sake, invade us or go
away.”
“CAPTAIN THEY HAVE OPENED FIRE.”
The bridge crew jogged around a little as the Bored
started firing. Piker studied a readout. “Damn, they’re carving us up
like a roast.”
“La Forgie, we need a weapon and we need it
fast.”
Commander Information stood up and turned around.
“Captain I believe I have a way of destroying the Bored.”
“Explain.”
“I think if we can convince The Bored that we are
about to get more advanced but only if they don’t destroy us, they will
wait around until we get upgraded. By that time we should have developed a new
weapon with which to destroy them.”
“Good thinking, make it so.” replied Ricard.
“I am going to implant an Internet Newsgroup message
about a ROM 1.1 into the Borg Sub-Space Collective. Once they’ve accessed
the data they will search the World Wide Web and discover everybody is waiting
for ROM 1.1. This should compel them to cease attacking us until we are
upgraded.”
Picard leant over to Morph. “Isn’t it convinient
that whenever we have a long winded solution the enemy stop attacking us.”
“IT IS!”
Commander Information finish his random button pushing.
“I have successfully planted the Newsgroup message.”
“Status of the Bored cube?”
“IT IS MOTIONLESS, IT IS NOT MOVING.”
Ricard smiled and looked at Piker. “Well Number One,
it’s the end of another episode and we’ve come up with another
fabricated way of defeating the enemy.”
“Yes sir, but surely you don’t think Newsgroups
are fabricated?”
“Number One, as the Captain there are some things I
don’t have to answer. Helm, take us to our next encounter, Warp
four.” |
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