STO Unofficial Literary Challenge #33: Prompt #1: You're docked in port between missions and give the all clear for the off-duty crew to go ashore for some well-deserved R&R. Do you head to the officer's club for a quiet drink, or is some hiking and fishing more your speed? And what wacky hijinks do the crew get up to when boilermakers are two-for-one at the local bars? Do they arrow for the tourist traps, or do they seek out more intellectual pursuits at libraries and museums? And how well does the Shore Patrol do at keeping a lid on the festivities and making sure everyone's back aboard when it's time to leave?
"Fleet Week"
The Bortasqu'-class I.K.S. Masamune docked at Drozana Station, the filthiest, scummiest, low-down spacedock this side of the Donatu Sector. Deloss, the Gorn and Klingon Defense Force officer, and his senior staff transported aboard before walking off the transporter pad.
"What about the rest of the crew? It is preposterous we only ever focus on the Bridge officers like we're the only people here!" Grough, the Gorn and helmsmen soap-boxed.
The Captain waved it off. "They snooze; they lose. As for the rest of you, since you're all coincidentally off-duty, you may take your leisure time upon you to enjoy to the fullest one may in the limited time we have to live in this universe."
The group then nodded to each other in agreement of that existentialism and dispersed among the filth.
---
Deloss made his way to the Bar and found the Klingon and fellow Captain, Sigon, sitting at a table, looking uneasy.
"You're here?? This means a crossover!?" Deloss said, shocked and appalled. "It is clear now that everything going forward is to be contrived."
Sigon looked up in search of the voice and found its owner. "Oh, it's you, Captain Deloss. Yes, I'm here with the crew of the I.K.S. Baetal for Klingon Fleet Week: A time where mighty warriors of the Empire are allowed leisure activities and a sense of temporary freedom and false security."
"Same here," Deloss replied, sitting across from him. "It is odd the Week applies to the whole of the Klingon Defense Force, thus leaving Klingon space theoretically vulnerable and without defense."
The Klingon sat up. "That is not the problem; the issue is that with all this frolicking and frivolity, there is a 60% chance of shenanigans and wacky hijinks unbefitting that of a warrior of any race and/or creed."
"You're sounding like me," Deloss observed. "Aren't you the party Klingon who invades Raatooras every year and makes its inhabitants serve him an over-abundance of food and alcohol and other activities of a personal nature?"
Sigon waved him off. "Their population is receding because of it."
"Besides, what are the chances of any of our crews causing a ruckus?" Deloss asked. "I know with mine, I have whipped them, including an alternate universe version of them, into warrior-shape. What do you think this is, an ongoing series of stories containing indomitable antics and inane irreverence??"
The other officer stood up. "Yes, I do think that! Let's just check in on the predictable buffoonery, shall we?"
---
They both walked over to a group of officers from the Masamune and the Baetal. There, Ronin, Grough, Poroka and Gozer were standing around the Dabo table.
"This gambling receptacle is literally the only thing to do on this station, so pretty much everyone will end up here," Sigon stated as they approached.
Deloss snarled. "Well, I was going to peacefully reorganize my music playlist, but exacerbating our conflict and trying to prove each other wrong is a worthy task as well."
"—Spin the wheel, and win!" announced the holographic Leeta to the group standing around. Everyone appeared inactive and bored. "Yay! I'm suppressing this terrible experience!"
Gozer slowly scanned his Energy Credit card and waited patiently for the spin. "Ohhhhh... boy..." he said in a paced and droning fashion, reflecting an uncharacteristic inanity. Drool hung from his gape. "Are the pizza pockettttssss ready yet? Heh, heh, heh. Duuuuddde."
Deloss turned to his companion, annoyed. "Is this the inexcusable lunacy you so eluded to, Captain Sigon?"
"What the Gre'thor? This appears to be the polar opposite of maddening rowdiness! We must scan this filth mongering space cage," Sigon said, taking out his Klingon tricorder. "It really is disgusting; even from a Klingon point of view."
Captain Deloss followed the other man and they began walking. "They do appear to be more comatose than usual. But that doesn't excuse what happened to you? You're not the same Sigon who drank an entire barrel of bloodwine on the Chancellor's throne, gone through two heart surgeries that same night, and lived to boast about it?"
"Not long ago, I was boarded by Captain Menchez, who commandeered my ship to enact vengeance against the Kazon-Rokka for the loss of his crew. When he was about to give his life in honor, I, misguidedly, and drunk, saved him from certain death. I've been living in dishonor ever since," Sigon explained.
The Gorn nodded in understanding. "So, you blame the alcohol and the lifestyle you were living. Perhaps disregarding who you are is the real dishonor?"
"Impossible! A Klingon never looks at things from other perspectives," snapped the now-hardened man. "Sometimes we don't even open our eyes. It's how I ended up in a targ pen last week."
As they reached the end of a corridor, Sigon's tricorder indicated a signature out-of-the-ordinary. Deloss snatched the device out of his hands, impatiently.
"It's some kind of triolic tear in the space-time continuum? There are several of them aboard the station!" the Gorn reacted in complete shock.
Sigon peered at him, judgmentally. "Through the tears, the tricorder is detecting several Devidians sucking the neural life out of the station's inhabitants. That's the job of the 'Spin the Wheel' episode!"
"Perhaps we weren't affected because we didn't get drawn and stuck at that one Dabo table," realized Deloss. "The Devidians clearly enacted this phasing technique. But I have a plan. I believe the only way to defeat them is to increase the neural energy to their gaping holes and overload those slack-jawed gawk-heads."
The other man recoiled in disgust. "Ugh! Oh man, you Gorn are sick. I see why we conquered you now."
---
The two ran out to the open area to find the dreary, dead-zoned, uninspired atmosphere of a forced fan fiction— err, bar room place.
"We have to liven-up this gunk-joint with one of your signature Sigon-parties or everyone dies!" Deloss warned.
Sigon recoiled. "What? That's ridiculous. The answer is clearly something sciencey where we flood the station with particles that would combat triolic radiation. I don't know; chronitons, or tachyons, or something. You basically just pick one at random and it works."
"Don't you see? The fact they're trying this new tactic means they've grown smarter and likely have already thought of that!" Deloss argued. "It's the chicken-and-the-egg, but our version of it. The Klingon Empire chicken-and-the-egg!"
The Klingon shook his head. "All I see are conclusions and a Gorn's love-affair with jumping to them. Do you ever think in a normal way, or are you forever misaligned with the rest of us?"
"Of course a Klingon would dismiss me, as if Gorn have nothing to contribute to the Empire," Deloss countered. "It's our rock-clutching obsession that cleaned up your precious Praxis aftermath. Don't you remember?"
Sigon snapped his fingers, distractedly. "Obsession? Of course! I could launch an explosive party popper— or disco ball, as many call it— forcing everyone into an annoying Q-obsessed dance off? The only problem is, if I die, it goes on forever."
"Disco balls on Drozana? Wasn't that done before by Starfleet Den—"
The other man quickly cut him off. "There's no time to finish that!" He then slapped his wrist communicator. "Sigon to Baetal. Transport my party popper devices and all the forgotten barrels of bloodwine from our cargo hold to Drozana, immediately."
"Yes, sir," came the voice of Liss over the air. "It's odd we store them in barrels to begin with. I mean, by the 25th century, we don't have healthier containment receptacles?"
In an instant, the barrels were transported in, and Sigon received his devices that he discharged within Drozana's open area. Giant floating disco balls and confetti were expelled everywhere while people slowly began scooping bloodwine for their alcoholic tastes.
"It's time to PARTY, YOU INFERIOR FOOLS!" Sigon announced over all the sudden ruckus and over-the-top exceptionalism. "The 'inferior fools' thing is just to Klingon-it-up a little."
Deloss looked at him. "Where'd you get those anyway?"
"An omnipotent being called Qu sells them on the blackmarket, which I used to purchase for my Friday Night Fek'Ihri Dance-Offs," Sigon explained. "Ohhh, the limbo showdowns they initiate. We often use the Hordlings as height poles."
The Gorn nodded. "Anyway, I am certain we have both learned lessons here, though I do not know what."
"Well, mine is that I can adapt to the cognitive dissonance of my lifestyle being the cause of dishonor while continuing said lifestyle," the Klingon added. "It's a lemniscate Klingon Empire chicken-and-the-egg."
Deloss tapped his jaw. "Hm. Then, I guess mine should be that relevance is relative; whatever that means."
Suddenly, with everyone on Drozana now excited and celebrating, explosions of overloaded Devidians popped out of mid-air and onto the floors all over the place.
"Currrssssse, you Sigon and Deloss," a new Shrouded Phantasm named Stuart argued as he tried, unsuccessfully, to get up off the floor. "We will return to have our revvvvengggge!"
The two watched as the Phantasm used his staff to get up and disappear he and his other Devidians away, back to their realm. The Phantasm then quickly popped its head back through a mid-air hole and he sucked a few more sips of Gozer's neural activity.
"Ohhh yeahhhh, that's the stuff," Stuart said before noticing everyone observing his addiction problem. He addressed them before pulling himself back into his realm. "We'll be back! And don't bother fixing your lights!"
The Bortasqu'-class I.K.S. Masamune docked at Drozana Station, the filthiest, scummiest, low-down spacedock this side of the Donatu Sector. Deloss, the Gorn and Klingon Defense Force officer, and his senior staff transported aboard before walking off the transporter pad.
"What about the rest of the crew? It is preposterous we only ever focus on the Bridge officers like we're the only people here!" Grough, the Gorn and helmsmen soap-boxed.
The Captain waved it off. "They snooze; they lose. As for the rest of you, since you're all coincidentally off-duty, you may take your leisure time upon you to enjoy to the fullest one may in the limited time we have to live in this universe."
The group then nodded to each other in agreement of that existentialism and dispersed among the filth.
---
Deloss made his way to the Bar and found the Klingon and fellow Captain, Sigon, sitting at a table, looking uneasy.
"You're here?? This means a crossover!?" Deloss said, shocked and appalled. "It is clear now that everything going forward is to be contrived."
Sigon looked up in search of the voice and found its owner. "Oh, it's you, Captain Deloss. Yes, I'm here with the crew of the I.K.S. Baetal for Klingon Fleet Week: A time where mighty warriors of the Empire are allowed leisure activities and a sense of temporary freedom and false security."
"Same here," Deloss replied, sitting across from him. "It is odd the Week applies to the whole of the Klingon Defense Force, thus leaving Klingon space theoretically vulnerable and without defense."
The Klingon sat up. "That is not the problem; the issue is that with all this frolicking and frivolity, there is a 60% chance of shenanigans and wacky hijinks unbefitting that of a warrior of any race and/or creed."
"You're sounding like me," Deloss observed. "Aren't you the party Klingon who invades Raatooras every year and makes its inhabitants serve him an over-abundance of food and alcohol and other activities of a personal nature?"
Sigon waved him off. "Their population is receding because of it."
"Besides, what are the chances of any of our crews causing a ruckus?" Deloss asked. "I know with mine, I have whipped them, including an alternate universe version of them, into warrior-shape. What do you think this is, an ongoing series of stories containing indomitable antics and inane irreverence??"
The other officer stood up. "Yes, I do think that! Let's just check in on the predictable buffoonery, shall we?"
---
They both walked over to a group of officers from the Masamune and the Baetal. There, Ronin, Grough, Poroka and Gozer were standing around the Dabo table.
"This gambling receptacle is literally the only thing to do on this station, so pretty much everyone will end up here," Sigon stated as they approached.
Deloss snarled. "Well, I was going to peacefully reorganize my music playlist, but exacerbating our conflict and trying to prove each other wrong is a worthy task as well."
"—Spin the wheel, and win!" announced the holographic Leeta to the group standing around. Everyone appeared inactive and bored. "Yay! I'm suppressing this terrible experience!"
Gozer slowly scanned his Energy Credit card and waited patiently for the spin. "Ohhhhh... boy..." he said in a paced and droning fashion, reflecting an uncharacteristic inanity. Drool hung from his gape. "Are the pizza pockettttssss ready yet? Heh, heh, heh. Duuuuddde."
Deloss turned to his companion, annoyed. "Is this the inexcusable lunacy you so eluded to, Captain Sigon?"
"What the Gre'thor? This appears to be the polar opposite of maddening rowdiness! We must scan this filth mongering space cage," Sigon said, taking out his Klingon tricorder. "It really is disgusting; even from a Klingon point of view."
Captain Deloss followed the other man and they began walking. "They do appear to be more comatose than usual. But that doesn't excuse what happened to you? You're not the same Sigon who drank an entire barrel of bloodwine on the Chancellor's throne, gone through two heart surgeries that same night, and lived to boast about it?"
"Not long ago, I was boarded by Captain Menchez, who commandeered my ship to enact vengeance against the Kazon-Rokka for the loss of his crew. When he was about to give his life in honor, I, misguidedly, and drunk, saved him from certain death. I've been living in dishonor ever since," Sigon explained.
The Gorn nodded in understanding. "So, you blame the alcohol and the lifestyle you were living. Perhaps disregarding who you are is the real dishonor?"
"Impossible! A Klingon never looks at things from other perspectives," snapped the now-hardened man. "Sometimes we don't even open our eyes. It's how I ended up in a targ pen last week."
As they reached the end of a corridor, Sigon's tricorder indicated a signature out-of-the-ordinary. Deloss snatched the device out of his hands, impatiently.
"It's some kind of triolic tear in the space-time continuum? There are several of them aboard the station!" the Gorn reacted in complete shock.
Sigon peered at him, judgmentally. "Through the tears, the tricorder is detecting several Devidians sucking the neural life out of the station's inhabitants. That's the job of the 'Spin the Wheel' episode!"
"Perhaps we weren't affected because we didn't get drawn and stuck at that one Dabo table," realized Deloss. "The Devidians clearly enacted this phasing technique. But I have a plan. I believe the only way to defeat them is to increase the neural energy to their gaping holes and overload those slack-jawed gawk-heads."
The other man recoiled in disgust. "Ugh! Oh man, you Gorn are sick. I see why we conquered you now."
---
The two ran out to the open area to find the dreary, dead-zoned, uninspired atmosphere of a forced fan fiction— err, bar room place.
"We have to liven-up this gunk-joint with one of your signature Sigon-parties or everyone dies!" Deloss warned.
Sigon recoiled. "What? That's ridiculous. The answer is clearly something sciencey where we flood the station with particles that would combat triolic radiation. I don't know; chronitons, or tachyons, or something. You basically just pick one at random and it works."
"Don't you see? The fact they're trying this new tactic means they've grown smarter and likely have already thought of that!" Deloss argued. "It's the chicken-and-the-egg, but our version of it. The Klingon Empire chicken-and-the-egg!"
The Klingon shook his head. "All I see are conclusions and a Gorn's love-affair with jumping to them. Do you ever think in a normal way, or are you forever misaligned with the rest of us?"
"Of course a Klingon would dismiss me, as if Gorn have nothing to contribute to the Empire," Deloss countered. "It's our rock-clutching obsession that cleaned up your precious Praxis aftermath. Don't you remember?"
Sigon snapped his fingers, distractedly. "Obsession? Of course! I could launch an explosive party popper— or disco ball, as many call it— forcing everyone into an annoying Q-obsessed dance off? The only problem is, if I die, it goes on forever."
"Disco balls on Drozana? Wasn't that done before by Starfleet Den—"
The other man quickly cut him off. "There's no time to finish that!" He then slapped his wrist communicator. "Sigon to Baetal. Transport my party popper devices and all the forgotten barrels of bloodwine from our cargo hold to Drozana, immediately."
"Yes, sir," came the voice of Liss over the air. "It's odd we store them in barrels to begin with. I mean, by the 25th century, we don't have healthier containment receptacles?"
In an instant, the barrels were transported in, and Sigon received his devices that he discharged within Drozana's open area. Giant floating disco balls and confetti were expelled everywhere while people slowly began scooping bloodwine for their alcoholic tastes.
"It's time to PARTY, YOU INFERIOR FOOLS!" Sigon announced over all the sudden ruckus and over-the-top exceptionalism. "The 'inferior fools' thing is just to Klingon-it-up a little."
Deloss looked at him. "Where'd you get those anyway?"
"An omnipotent being called Qu sells them on the blackmarket, which I used to purchase for my Friday Night Fek'Ihri Dance-Offs," Sigon explained. "Ohhh, the limbo showdowns they initiate. We often use the Hordlings as height poles."
The Gorn nodded. "Anyway, I am certain we have both learned lessons here, though I do not know what."
"Well, mine is that I can adapt to the cognitive dissonance of my lifestyle being the cause of dishonor while continuing said lifestyle," the Klingon added. "It's a lemniscate Klingon Empire chicken-and-the-egg."
Deloss tapped his jaw. "Hm. Then, I guess mine should be that relevance is relative; whatever that means."
Suddenly, with everyone on Drozana now excited and celebrating, explosions of overloaded Devidians popped out of mid-air and onto the floors all over the place.
"Currrssssse, you Sigon and Deloss," a new Shrouded Phantasm named Stuart argued as he tried, unsuccessfully, to get up off the floor. "We will return to have our revvvvengggge!"
The two watched as the Phantasm used his staff to get up and disappear he and his other Devidians away, back to their realm. The Phantasm then quickly popped its head back through a mid-air hole and he sucked a few more sips of Gozer's neural activity.
"Ohhh yeahhhh, that's the stuff," Stuart said before noticing everyone observing his addiction problem. He addressed them before pulling himself back into his realm. "We'll be back! And don't bother fixing your lights!"