Episode 51: “The Cat Came Back (Again)”

Written by Swordtail

Published December 11, 2007

Scene 1 - The USS Celestial is warping through space, minding its own business.

Captain Righteous - Captain’s log, stardate 59853.4. Well, I’m still not sure what happened last week, but apparently Admiral Nelix blew his top and murdered half of Jupiter Station’s yellow-shirts in a fit of rage. So nothing out of the ordinary. Anyway, seeing as we’ve been given no official orders from Starfleet Command, I’ve decided to inform the crew of an idea I’ve been toying with for a while.

The camera goes to the Celestial’s briefing room. Everyone is present except Righteous. Commander Senseless is looking bored, Lieutenant-Commander Baque and Ensign Casey are having a mercy fight, Lieutenant-Commander Garell and Lieutenant Blavik are hitting each other and arguing over something (well, Garell is doing most of the hitting, Blavik most of the arguing), Lieutenant Bios is trying to fix the briefing room monitor’s internal circuitry which she just fried, and Dr. Puker is monitoring a weird looking device attached to Lieutenant Tener’s slightly-longer right arm. Lieutenant-Commander Genocide is looking on in mild interest.

Senseless (looking at watch) - Where is he...?

Finally, Casey gets fed up with losing and punches Baque in the stomach. He doubles over and falls under the table. Whatever Blavik and Garell were arguing about obviously came to a close with Garell declaring victory or something. Bios finally totally fries the monitor and gives up, and Puker removes the tissue regenerator from Teneer’s arm, revealing that it is now a few centimetres below the elbow.

Tener - Woo hoo! Elbow!

Genocide - You’ve still got time to attach a phaser cannon.

Tener - Give it a rest, sir.

Genocide - I know a guy, who knows a guy, who killed a guy, who knows a guy who makes weapon enhanced prosthetic limbs.

Tener - If you think they’re so great, you get one!

Genocide - Well, I would, but then I wouldn’t be able to hold my flak cannon.

He reaches under the table and pulls out that flachette cannon from Unreal Tournament 2004.

Genocide - I found a way to replicate the ammo.

Senseless - Commander, put that down before you hurt someone.

Genocide rolls his eyes.

Genocide - Fiinnnnnneeeee...

He drops the cannon, which goes off the second it hits the floor. A cluster of super-heated metal shoots out the barrel and fires itself through the door, then proceeds to ricochet around the bridge, killing every No-Name that’s present.

Genocide - Oops... sorry.

A moment later, Captain Righteous Lee walks in from the aft door in the briefing room, smiling. He sees the hole in the door, but is oblivious to the mess on the bridge.

Righteous - Blue woman, be sure to fix that when you get the chance. Hi everyone!

Baque finally pulls himself back into his chair.

Baque - Took you long enough. What happened, get lost?

Righteous - Nah, Admiral Nelix called me just as I was about to come here in order to yell at me some more. I personally don’t see why he’s yelling at me, you guys were the ones who disobeyed the Prime Directive.

Garell - You don’t even know what the Prime Directive is, do you?

Righteous - I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t know what that is!!! Stop talking about it!

Senseless - Sir, what’s this about?

Tener - Yeah, why’d you drag us all out of bed for this?

Bios - You have to get out of bed anyway, your shift started at oh eight hundred, twenty minutes ago.

Righteous - Alright, remember how the Enterprise was the first ship to reach the centre of the galaxy?

Bios - I already told you, they weren’t at the centre of the galaxy, they were off by tens of thousands of light-years!

Righteous - Oh, and I suppose next you’ll tell me they never reached the galactic barrier either!

Bios - (sigh) Don’t get me started on the way warp speeds and the scale of the galaxy dictate timescales...

Garell - You know, we should probably keep our mouths shut about that. One of these days someone might figure out that we can somehow cross the entire Federation in as little as a few hours.

Righteous - Can we get back to my great idea?

Baque - Do we have to?

Righteous - I think it’s high time we did something noteworthy!

Genocide - Uh... I think being the laughing stock of the quadrant counts, so let’s not try to ruin it.

Righteous - I think we should be the first ship to reach the end of the universe!

Everyone rolls their eyes, except Casey.

Casey - Wait... like, that sounds really stupid, but, like, maybe, you know, for, like his sake we should, like, explain it, or whatever?

Garell (looking at Casey) - Are you sure you and the captain aren’t related at all?

Bios - First, the universe is theoretically boundless, which means that there is no edge to reach, you’d just end up coming back to where you started.

Righteous - Okay, we’ll be the first ship to go around the universe then. Helm, set a course for any direction, maximum warp!

Bios - You do realize that even the most liberal estimate puts the universe at around 13 billion years old, which means that it is at least 13 billion light-years in circumference. Even sustaining maximum warp it would take us over 3.6 million years.

Righteous - Well, we’d better get started then.

No-Name #1 (comm) - Captain Righteous, please report to the bridge. Commander Senseless, you’d better come too.

The entire senior staff gets up and walks onto the bridge, where a replacement team of No-Names has pushed the dead ones into a pile in the corner and resumed their duties. The bridge officers take their stations.

Casey - There’s, like, a ship approaching.

Genocide - Its shields are up.

Senseless - Raise ours and go to yellow alert.

Casey - Like, incoming hail.

Righteous - On screen.

Beep! Chester the evil cat appears on the main viewer, sitting behind a hacked-apart console of his small shuttle.

Chester - So, we meet again!

Senseless - What, no armada of Breen or Gorn ships to back up you this time? Or has the futility of it all finally gotten through to you?

Chester - Futility? As you Federation types are so fond of telling the Borg, resistance is far from futile. Now, hand over the cure to this annoying glorified flu virus your incompetent nurse’s sister infected me with!

Blavik raises an eyebrow.

Blavik - Incompetent?

Senseless - Ha, joke’s on you because we don’t have it. Only Starfleet Command has the cure, and I hear Fleet Admiral Spot keeps it on her at all times just to be safe.

Chester - Hmm... that’s a pity.

Senseless - Why don’t you beam over and we’ll take you to her?

Chester - What do you think I am, stupid?

Everyone on the bridge - Yes.

Chester - Think what you want, but without the cure, I have no further use for you... Good bye!

He raises a remote of some sort and points it at the camera.

Chester - Nighty night!

Beep! Everyone on the Celestial looks around, at each other, then back at the viewer. Chester starts to look confused and then starts hitting the button on the detonator again and again.

Chester - Stupid, worthless, piece, of—

BOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!! The camera goes out into space and watches as a massive explosion of light erupts from the Celestial’s port side, just beneath the port main impulse engine. The blinding light eventually fades and the Celestial is gone. The camera goes to Chester’s little ship, where Chester is jumping with joy.

Chester - YES! VICTORY IS MINE!

Suddenly, a shockwave hits Chester’s little ship and throws him into the windshield.

Chester - Damn it!

Opening credits, using various clips from previous episodes...

Scene 2 - Camera is in a strange place. There are no stars that can be seen, and no galaxies, but plenty of light. Large white dots litter the landscape, some massive, some tiny, some expanding or contracting, some winking into and out of existence like a pulsar. Jets of energy can be seen sparking between several of them. Two nearby dots suddenly merge and change to a dark blue colour as they suddenly accelerate to near lightspeed off in opposite directions, trying to unleash the energy of their collision. Then, near a small, bright dot, a jet of energy shoots out like a lightening bolt. It zips a short distance, tearing open the fabric of space. Where it ends, the USS Celestial is tossed out by an explosion detonating on its port side. As it flies out, it spins wildly, but then is quickly hit by thousands of bolts of energy from the combined total of perhaps millions of bright nodes all acting at once. The ship is engulfed in an eery aura of white light, which soon fades into nothingness, and the strange place is once again calm... more or less. On the Celestial’s bridge, everyone picks themselves up. Sparks are shooting from damaged consoles, jets of gas are spewing into the room, and small fires are the only source of light on the otherwise pitch black bridge.

Righteous - What in the name of the Prophets...?

Casey - Like, all systems are like, not working, or something.

Senseless - Someone get the viewscreen back online, and try to find out what happened if you can.

Bios - The main computer is offline.

No-Name #2 (comm) - Engineering to bridge, we’re initiating the backup generators. Stand by.

A second later, the lights on the bridge come back online, and one by one the consoles light up again. The viewscreen activates showing a loading screen, with a progress bar. The word “CelesOS v2.3” hovers over the bar. As soon as it hits 100% the screen changes to show the strange area of space, filled with the white nodes of... whatever they are made of.

Garell - What the fuck just happened? Where’d Chester go?

Bios - A better question would be where are we? I’m not detecting any stars out there.

Tener - Oh great, it’s “The Void” all over again.

Bios - I doubt it.

Righteous - Actually a better question would be where’s the beef?

Everyone turns to look at him.

Senseless - Uh... what?

Righteous - I don’t know, I just heard it somewhere.

Senseless (turning away from him) - Bios, run a full sensor sweep of this entire area. Genocide, find out what Chester did to us. And Casey... get away from the replicator.

Casey - But, like, I’m hungry, sir!

Righteous - Me too! And I outrank you, Jack. Funny girl, replicate a hamburger for me, please.

Casey goes over to the small replicator at the side of the bridge and asks for a hamburger. However, instead of a hamburger, it replicates a steaming bowl of nothing.

Righteous - I’m pretty sure I didn’t ask for an empty bowl, Ensign.

Casey - Uh... I give up.

Garell - The replicators are probably busted. I’ll fix them as soon as I can.

Genocide - It was a bomb. There’s a hull breach on deck 10, port quarter, near the airlock, but it’s odd... There’s a three-metre-diameter hole running from a Jefferies tube to the outside of the ship, but other than that, there’s very little damage.

Suddenly, the red alert klaxons go off... again.

Bios - Oh... we’ve got a problem!

Baque - Well don’t keep it to yourself, Lieutenant.

Bios - I can’t make heads or tails of these sensor readings, but there’s one here I do understand: There’s an omega molecule somewhere out there that’s destabilizing!

Senseless - What? Where?

Bios - I don’t know, it could be a trillion lightyears away or half a metre, its impossible to tell. The sensors are acting wonky.

Baque - What direction?

Bios - Bearing 045 mark 178.

Senseless - Helm, get us out of here, maximum warp!

Garell - I don’t think the engines will be able to handle anything more than warp 4.

Baque - I take it back, I wish you hadn’t told me.

The camera watches as the Celestial turns around and the warp nacelles flash, but nothing happens. On the bridge...

Baque - Why, pray tell, are we not moving?

Righteous - We’re all going to die!!!!

Tener - Damn, and I was hoping to have my arm back before that happened.

Baque - Ha ha, maybe they’ll write “Stumpy” on your tombstone...

Tener - Shut up, sir.

Bios - Thar she blows!

The viewscreen changes to show an aft view. A blindly white light appears, but no shockwave follows. As the light fades away, it leaves another white node, slowly expanding. Bolts of energy shoot out of nearby nodes and interact with the new one somehow.

Righteous - Cool, we’re not dead.

Genocide - Yeah... that is kind of cool.

Garell - Alright, that should have vapourized us, but it didn’t... and why didn’t the warp drive work? I’m reading that according to the energy output of the warp core we should be moving at warp 4.

Baque - Well, we’re not going anywhere. There’s a piece of hull a few kilometres away and it hasn’t moved relative to us, so we’re stuck like a June-bug in molasses.

Senseless - Shut down the warp core... Bios, what are those nodes made of?

Bios - Don’t know, the sensors are acting wonky.

Baque - Yes, yes, you already told us that part, tell us something we don’t know.

Bios - Oh... wait a minute... I know where we are now.

Righteous - Ha! I knew we weren’t lost.

Genocide - Uh... no one ever suggested we were.

Righteosu - Oh. So, where are we?

Bios - We’re in hyperspace.

Pause...

Tener - Okay, thanks, because, you know, that makes total sense.

Scene 3 - Meanwhile, back in our own little universe, the USS Solaris is cruising along, minding its own business, when out of nowhere, they detect something. On the bridge...

Lieutenant Tevarin (Ops guy) - Sir, there is a small vessel off the port bow. It’s emitting high ego readings.

Captain Ketrell - Well, we can’t have that. Raise shields and charge weapons. Hail the ship.

Beep! Chester, jubilant at his good luck, appears on the screen.

Chester - Ha! You! You’re too late! The Celestial has been destroyed! Bwah ha ha ha!

Lieutenant Sa’lol (science) - Why aren’t you dead yet?

Commander Ren - Excellent question. Rick, fire at will.

The camera watches as Solaris opens fire on Chester’s small ship. Chester, however, doesn’t look phased in the least.

Chester - Oh please, is that the best you people can do?

Ketrell - Actually... yes.

Solaris fires a couple torpedoes into Chester’s ship, which rocks violently, but sustains very little damage.

Chester - Well, as happy as I am to allow this to continue, I have a date with destiny. Now, hand over the cure and I’ll be on my way.

Sa’lol (smiling evilly)- Why don’t you beam over and we’ll talk about it?

Chester - Or, I could do this.

He presses a button on his console, then speaks into a microphone.

Chester - Commander, now.

The camera zooms out of the top of Solaris’ bridge, and looks up above Chester’s ship, where a Romulan Warbird and a Son’a warship decloak. Back on Solaris...

Ren - Where the fuck did those things come from?

Chester - You’d be surprised what the Son’a left behind after they got their asses kicked by the Federation alliance at the end of the war. That, and my buddy Commander Spliff has a beef with you guys that I’m only happy to oblige.

The screen splits to show Commander Spliff on one side.

Ketrell - Shouldn’t you be dead?

Spliff - You know, I get that a lot. The truth is I have more lives than Fluffy over here.

Chester - I told you not to call me Fluffy in front of my enemies!

Spliff - I don’t take orders from you, Fluffy. Gunnery officer, fire!

Ketrell - Helm, evasive manoeuvres!

The camera watches as the Federation ship flies randomly around as the warbird tries to hit it. One of its disruptor beams smashes into Solaris’ underbelly and nearly blows a hole through it. The ship goes spinning, disabled. Camera goes to Spliff’s warbird, where Chester appears on the viewscreen.

Chester - What are you doing! I said I need them alive!

Spliff - Yeah, and they’re alive!

Chester - The lifeform count on that ship just dropped by 25!

Spliff - Who cares? Now shall we vacate the area before Starfleet shows up?

Chester - Uh, Starfleet just did show up!

Spliff - Meh.

The camera watches as the Son’a ship pushes the disabled Solaris into the big open space in the centre of the warbird, while Chester’s small ship enters the warbird’s shuttlebay. Both ships then cloak, hiding the crippled Starfleet vessel...

Scene 4 - In the Celestial’s briefing room, the entire senior staff are present.

Bios - So, I bet you’re all wondering what I meant by hyperspace, seeing as science fiction has created a half dozen different meanings for the term.

Garell - Yeah, at least subspace stays consistent...ish.

Bios - Well, we’re not moving really fast and we’re not traveling through time, so rule those ones out. Where are we then? Answer: Outside our own universe, in our “parent” universe.

Righteous - My head’s starting to hurt, and this time I doubt there’s a temporary analysis nearby...

Bios - One of the leading multiverse theories states that our universe may simply be a budding off of another universe. Well, it appears it’s right. We have somehow stumbled into the universe from which our universe emerged.

Tener - ...What?

Bios (rolling her eyes) - All those white things out there? They’re essentially black holes, and at the centre of each is a universe, protected from us by the event horizon, which freezes time and basically stops the singularity from expanding and filling up this universe. However, within each black hole, time passes normally so that’s why we perceive our own universe as being billions of years old, when in fact hundreds or possibly millions of trillions of years have passed in this parent universe. That’s why there’s no stars here now: All the matter has collapsed into the black holes, leaving this universe nothing more than a huge nursery for baby universes.

Genocide - If those are black holes, Ms. Smarty-pants, why are they white?

Bios - The laws of physics are slightly different here. That’s also why we couldn’t go to warp and why our sensors are all wonky.

Righteous - Woo hoo! Plot hole filled!

Senseless - Sir, you’re taking this quite well.

Righteous - Why’s that?

Senseless - Well, we just found irrefutable proof that our universe wasn’t created by a God or gods, and yet you seem fine with that.

Righteous - Oh, that just means the Prophets created this multiverse thing, not just our single universe. Simple as that, isn’t it?

Baque - Adaptive religion... 21st century Earth could have learned a lot from the Bajorans. Never thought I’d hear myself say those words...

Puker - So, if the laws of physics are different, how are we alive?

Garell - I think I know where Bios is headed: Our universe’s laws of physics are an offshoot from this one’s, right? So they’d be pretty similar.

Bios - Right, so far all I can find in the way of a difference is the way subspace works, and the way pie cooks.

Casey - Like, you mean, there’s no pie while we’re here!?

Bios - Yeah...

Righteous - Well, that just won’t do. Girl who breaks stuff a lot, find out how to get back home, and I mean now!

Bios - Okay, I think I can recreate the conditions Chester’s bomb caused and get us back into a singularity, but I can’t be sure which one is ours, seeing as the sensors were down while we came out... so we’ll have to wing it until we find the right one.

Tener - Waiiiiiit a minute... how do we know this isn’t another of Chester’s simulations?

Senseless - Because there’s no way in hell Chester is stupid enough to come up with something as dumb as us being sucked out of our own universe and thrown into literally a trillion light-years north of the middle of nowhere.

Tener - Well, this is Star Trek, it’s not supposed to make sense...

Scene 5 - Onboard Spliff’s warbird, in the standard-issue “interrogation” room, Lieutenat Sa’lol, Captain Ketrell, and Lieutenant-Commander Adair are tied to the wall as Chester prances before them. Spliff is sitting at the back looking disgusted.

Chester - ...And after I managed to steal the ship, I disrupted their planetary sensor grid to mask my escape. Then, on the way to the Selentra, I ran into Spliff.

Spliff - Quite literally.

Ketrell - Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t your warbird get destroyed at the Battle of Starbase One a few weeks ago?

Spliff - Yeah, and I was on it. I bet you’re wondering how I survived?

Sa’lol - Not really. To be completely honest, it’s a darned miracle any of us survive our daily activities, so I’ve decided not to jinx it by poking into other people’s lack of dying. But how did you get another warbird?

Chester - The Romulans make these things a dime a dozen, half of them don’t even make it to the fleetyards without being stolen.

Adair - Oh, gee, that’s a good thing to know... What about the Son’a ship? Are there Son’a on it?

Chester - The Son’a that didn’t go back to the Ba’ku planet at the end of Star Trek: Insurrection died a horrible death a few months later, coincidentally around the same time Insurrection came out on VHS.

Ketrell - Where are the rest of my crew?

Chester - Locked up, we were going to interrogate them, but you’re the more interesting characters. Kinda like Solaris’ own little trio of main people, just like on Enterprise.

Adair - In that case, shouldn’t you go get Dalarsh instead of me?

Spliff - Your chief engineer can’t remember what she had for breakfast, much less the command codes for the spacedock.

Sa’lol - The spacedock? What do you want those for? Breaking into that place is a piece of cake!

Chester - Ha, ha, ha, it amazes me how little you humans know.

Ketrell, Sa’lol - We’re not human!

Adair - Thanks for standing up for me, guys.

Spliff - My defeat at the Battle of Starbase One was humiliating to say the least.

Chester - Don’t beat yourself up about it, no one could have known that the spacedock had been armed to the teeth.

Adair - Uh, as I recall correctly, Admiral Spot told you that it was over a year ago.

Chester - I was busy! Now, we’re going take control of it, and then use it against Earth. And as your cities crumble to dust under the everlasting barrage of total pwnage, remember that I will always and forever be... be..... hack... be... HACK... HAAACKKKK!

Chester hacks up a hairball.

Chester - Sorry, I will always and forever be Chester! The evil cat!

Lightening strikes and thunder claps as the room suddenly dims and the camera faces Chester. It then pans back to show the other four people staring at him.

Chester - Oh come on, I think I’ve earned my title as evil cat by now.

Ketrell - No, that’s still up for grabs between Fleet Admiral Spot and Admiral Nelix. You’re nowhere near their level of evil.

Chester - That will change... I destroyed your precious Celestial, crippled your precious Solaris, and will soon vapourize your precious DisneyLand!

Sa’lol - You’re going to take control of the most powerful battlestation in the known universe, save for maybe the Borg unicomplex, and use it to destroy DisneyLand!?!

Chester - No, I’m going to destroy San Francisco, but the shockwave will be so large it’ll vapourize DisneyLand... in Florida!

Chester leaves the room laughing evilly, with Spliff following, rolling his eyes.

Spliff - Guards, prep the Romulan Mind Reader Device Thingys. Use them on the Vulcan first.

The door closes.

Adair - Ha! I bet he doesn’t even know Vulcans have enough mental discipline to resist the Romulan Mind Reader Device Thingy.

Sa’lol - Is now a bad time to point out I never bothered learning that mental discipline?

Ketrell - We have to get out of here and warn Starfleet.

Adair - Warn them about what? That the Celestial was destroyed? That Chester plans on hijacking a space station filled with hundreds of thousands of skilled men and women? That the Sens broke their seven-game losing streak?

Ketrell - No, we have to warn them that the cat came back!

Pause.

Sa’lol - That joke sucked, sir.

Ketrell (looking ashamed) - I know...

Scene 6

Bios - Everyone ready?

The camera pans around the Celestial’s bridge. It’s at red alert, and everyone is bracing themselves.

Righteous - Ready!

Bios - Sir, take us in.

In space, the Celestial’s deflector dish lights up and a tear in the fabric of the multiverse opens and sucks the Celestial inside. It closes and a bolt of white energy shoots off towards one of the universes. The camera then goes somewhere else, into a nebula of some sort, where the Celestial suddenly appears out of nowhere. On the bridge, everyone instantly falls to the ceiling. One of the No-Names ends up with his neck bent at an impossible angle. The senior staff pick themselves up and dust themselves off.

Casey - Like, when was the last time someone cleaned this ceiling?

Garell - Probably never. What happened?

Bios - Well don’t look at me, all I did was pick a universe at random.

Senseless - Why are we on the ceiling?

Baque - Maybe gravity in this universe repels instead of attracts?

Senseless - Computer, deactivate artificial gravity throughout the ship.

The gravity generators shut down and everyone starts to float around.

Righteous - I’m going to take a guess here, and correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think this is our universe.

Bios - No, it’s not. Well, one down, a trillion to go.

Genocide - I get the feeling this is not going to be a pleasant set of experiences.

Scene 7 - Onboard Spliff’s warbird, in the interrogation room, Sa’lol is strapped to a table while the Romulans probe her mind. Chester is looking like a child waiting for Christmas as Sa’lol just looks bored.

Chester - Have you found it now?

Romulan Scientist (rolling her eyes) - I told you the same thing five seconds ago, I’ll let you know the instant I find the cure.

Sa’lol - Well, good luck with that.

Spliff - I’m not very impressed, Lieutenant, you’re not even resisting.

Sa’lol - I don’t get paid enough to resist. I told the Borg the same thing nine years ago at the Battle of Sector 001. And, well, it worked: They left our ship alone. Turns out they actually lose interest in you if you show no signs of resistance.

Spliff - Well don’t expect that to happen here.... wait a minute, you’re way to young to have been in Starfleet at the Battle of Sector 001.

Sa’lol - Shows how much you know.

Romulan Scientist (reading) - Lieutenant Sa’lol, born stardate 26045.2. That makes you nearly 34. Entered Starfleet service on stardate 51669.9. The Battle of Sector 001 happened on stardate 50893.

Sa’lol - ...Well played...

Chester - So... found it yet?

Romulan Scientist - No! All I’ve come across are racquetball stats, the vintage of the wine that’s been used to christen every starship brought into service in Starfleet, the email usernames and passwords for everyone onboard Solaris-

Sa’lol - You might wanna save that, it comes in handy more often than you’d think.

Romulan Scientist - And bits and pieces of something called “The Galaxy’s Best Pumpkin Pie.”

Sa’lol - Now, that I will fight to protect. Do you know how many main characters died to provide us with that information? At least one.

Spliff (to Chester) - How can you be sure she even remembers the cure?

Sa’lol - I can’t remember what I had for breakfast two hours ago!

Chester - Yet you can remember the vintage of the wine used to christen every Federation starship ever built?

Sa’lol - I put effort into things I take an active interest in. You, however, are boring.

Chester - Oh, that’s it!

With a hiss, he lunches at Sa’lol and starts clawing up her face.

Sa’lol - OW HEY STOP IT!

Spliff pries the angry feline off the Vulcan’s face.

Spliff - You’re not helping. Go eat some catnip.

Chester - Pbbbt... not the crap your ship has...

Scene 8 - Onboard the Celestial, they’re back in the multiverse or hyperspace or whatever you want to call it. On the bridge, the gravity is still off line because no one bothered to turn it back on.

Bios - Shall we try again?

Righteous - Yup. Engage!

Baque just shakes his head and hits some buttons. Again, the Celestial vanishes in a flash of light and reappears in the middle of space somewhere. It looks fairly normal, except all the stars are blue. On the bridge, everyone instantly falls to the floor.

Genocide - Ouch. Who turned the damn gravity back on?

Garell - It’s not on. The ship itself is producing a gravatitional field that’s attracting us...gravity in this universe must be much higher than in ours. Good thing we didn’t have the artificial gravity on or we’d all be stains on the carpet!

Righteous - Well, I’m not impressed. Let’s try another one.

Baque (hitting buttons) - You know, I’m starting to wonder if maybe all the creation theories out there might not have a grain of truth in them.

Garell - What? I never thought I’d hear you say those words.

Baque - Yeah, but, consider what’s happened to us so far: First we end up in a universe where gravity works the opposite way, then we end up in one where not only is the same thing true but water molecules are a million times bigger so we end up nearly drowning in humidity, then we go into one where giant amoebas are everywhere, then into one where we could have been crushed like a pop can: I’m not sure I believe quantum mechanics and the various uncertainty principals that led to all those physical properties could “coincidentally” be out to get us. Only sentient beings have that kind of a sense of humour.

Genocide - Well, on the bright side, how can things get any weirder?

The Celestial vanishes and the screen fades out. The words “Three hours later...” appear and then the scene fades in to show a large green field, under a purple sky, with a few dozen moons circling above whatever planet it is on. The camera pans around and the Celestial can be seen landed in the middle of the field some distance away. Righteous, Senseless, Bios, Garell, Baque, Genocide, and Casey are standing just over a hill staring at something in front of them with their eyes wide. The camera pans around to show several over-sized plush-toy-like beings dancing and singing. One, that looks like a cross between a dolphin and a rhinoceros, hops over to the crew, smiling way too much.

Stupid Weird Thing - GreEEEEEttttings, FRIENDS! Do you know what time it is?

Other Creatures - HAPPY TIME!

They all start dancing and singing even more as trees start waving around to the music they’re making. The camera goes back to show the Celestial crew looking at Genocide.

Baque - You just had to ask, didn’t you?

Scene 9 - Onboard Solaris, the remaining senior staff are locked in their quarters. Lieutenant Frell, the Bolian helm girl, is pacing back and forth in her quarters. Suddenly there are several loud thumps outside her door and then the door opens, revealing Lieutenant-Commander Dalarsh, the Andorian chief engineer, holding her favourite lead pipe. On either side of the door are two knocked out Romulans.

Dalarsh (looking at the pipe) - Damn, this thing is so useful...

Frell - How the hell did you get here?

Dalarsh - Oh, I just used the manual override in my quarters and opened the door.

Frell - And you decided to wait FOUR HOURS before coming here?

Dalarsh - Well, I was busy repairing the ship. Think you can fly us out of here on one impulse engine?

Frell - Probably, but we might do a lot of damage to the warbird.

Dalarsh - That would be a shame, wouldn’t it.

They both run out the door. For good measure, Dalarsh smacks one of the Romulans again.

Scene 10 - In the interrogation room, Ketrell, Adair, and Sa’lol are all tied to different tables while the Romulan Scientist probes their minds and Spliff and Chester watch impatiently.

Romulan Scientist - Alright, either they’re stronger than we give them credit for, or they don’t know the command codes.

Ketrell - What command codes? All we do is ask “Can we come in?” and they let us in.

Spliff - Okay, then we’ll go to Plan B. Tell our engineering crews to get to work on repairing Solaris. We’ll cloak and follow at a safe distance, and once Solaris is inside the spacedock, it will destroy the shield generators from the inside. Then, we’ll—

Adair - Why are you telling us your plan?

Chester - It’s part of being evil. Also, I’ve begun formulating an elaborate and easily escapable death trap to throw you into. I’m thinking of something involving a slowly compacting room with a door that is propped closed by a chair. I’d like to have it involve flying snakes, but I don’t see how...

Ketrell - You’ll never get away with this!

Everyone looks at him.

Ketrell - What!? It’s what we’re supposed to say.

Suddenly, the ship shakes violently, and equipment and No-Names go flying across the room.

Spliff - Bridge, report!

No-Name #1 - Solaris has broken free of our tractor beam and has opened fire on our warp core. The cloak is failing.

Spliff - Decloak! Raise shields! Tell the other ship to destroy Solaris! Preferably while they’re not inside us.

Suddenly, Ketrell, Adair, and Sa’lol are beamed away in a Starfleet transporter beam.

Spliff - Damn it! Denied my revenge yet again!

Romulan Scientist (spying something on the monitor) - I’ve got the cure!

Chester - Yes! Victory is mine! BWAH HA HA HA!!!

The camera goes to space, where suddenly a tear forms and the USS Celestial comes barreling out, right towards Spliff’s warbird. On the bridge.

Bios - We’re home!

Baque (looking at the viewscreen, which shows nothing but a wall of green metal) - That’s a ship.

WHAM! The Celestial rams the upper hull of Spliff’s warbird just as Solaris manages to fly out from inside it. The Celestial plows right through the upper hull and ends up nearly going right through the lower hull as well. It finally comes to a stop as explosions ripple across the warbird’s hull and the lights flicker. On the Celestial’s bridge...

Righteous (rubbing a bump on his head) - Ow... back us up please.

The Federation ship quick backs out of the crippled and exploding warbird, deep gashes cover its forward hull, but otherwise it is undamaged, all things considered. It is barely a few hundred metres away when the warbird explodes in a ball of fire, tossing both the Solaris and Celestial around like toys. When they finally manage to right themselves, the camera goes to the Celestial’s bridge.

Senseless - Report!

Casey - It, like, went all boom and stuff.

Genocide - There’s another ship out there! Wait, there’s two: One is Solaris though, so no worries.

Casey - Like, incoming hail.

Righteous - Onscreen.

Beep! Chester and Spliff appear on the screen, surrounded by a Son’a bridge and various goofy forehead aliens and Romulans and several Gorn and Breen as well.

Chester - You may have won this round, but I have the cure!

Spliff - You may have destroyed yet another of my warbirds, but I will have my revenge!

Chester - And your mighty Federation will bow down before me! Victory will be mine!

Thunder claps and lightning flashes. Chester looks up at the ceiling as it does.

Chester - Would somebody fix that damn speaker and replace that stupid fluorescent light?

The screen goes to show the Son’a ship cloak and jump to warp. Or vice versa, whichever makes more sense. Then, the Solaris bridge appears on the screen.

Senseless - Captain, what was that all about?

Ketrell - Oh, it’s been a swell day. We just spent a good five hours tied to tables while Romulans probed our minds.

Sa’lol - Yeah, they almost got the recipe for the galaxy’s best pumpkin pie. I resisted though.

Baque - Wait, have you guys been stealing our spotlight again?

Ren - Maybe.

Baque - Get your own series!

Adair - We tried! It sucked! Hey, where have you guys been anyway? We thought you were destroyed.

Righteous - We were in this funny place with white lights and weird gravity and stuff and it was called hyperspace or something.

Genocide - Yeah, Chester’s bomb tore open a hole in the fabric of the universe.

Adair - Uh, his bomb shouldn’t have been able to do that, it wasn’t big enough.

Bios - Yeah, but it accidentally set off our complement of tricobalt torpedoes, which did tear a hole in space.

Genocide (looking down) - God damn it, I wanted to detonate those...

Senseless - We’ll send over a repair team to help you get your systems back online. Celestial out.

As the channel cuts, Doctor Puker walks onto the bridge eating from a box of Wheat Thins crackers.

Puker - Well, as I always say, all’s well that ends well. Situation normal.

Everyone on the bridge turns to stare at him.

Puker - (crunch, crunch) ...What?!?

And then all this shit happened, but I’m sick of trying to make stuff rhyme, so I’m ending this right now.

The End