Trek BBS 10

Trek BBS September/October 2023 Challenge: Any Trek / Any Characters / Any Time Period. Any Sort of Haunting (Actual Ghosts or Treknobabble Pseudo Haunting or Scooby-Doo Dude in a Mask). Any Ship or Space Station.

Trek BBS: September/October 2023 Challenge
"Spooky Haunted Ghost Ship: Wooo"

The Intrepid-class U.S.S. Crucial postured itself out in the deep, vastness of deep-seeded, steep, deep space with no one else around. Captain Menrow stood, heroically, staring out through the screen at the stars.

"Please stop. You're straining a vein in your forehead, and I find its very presence offensive," commented Lieutenant Commander Armond as he stepped onto the Bridge.

Shaking his head out of it, Menrow turned to him. "Apologies. It's just that, ever since our main consciousnesses were sent to the future by a hacky-hacked Traveler, our present-day, non-prioritized minds drift far more frequently."

"So, you have the reflexes of Borg drones? I get that," Armond observed. "Well, it was nice of my crew of the U.S.S. Phoenix-X to loan me out to you for this one project."

Menrow deadpanned, "Oh, please. You and your senior staff have been sneaking away to other ships for years to attain some sort of mental variance from the nonsensical monotony of decades-long non-promotions. That's why I keep your guest quarters nice and tidy while you're away."

"Shh! You know these Starfleet ships have Enterprise-A movie-level video recording, right? Oh, and thank you for the Tellurian mints."

The Captain nodded. "In the meantime, are you up for a little Halloween side-quest? It is the most dramatic holiday, after all. Plus, our ship is malfunctioning, so we kind of have to relate it to something timely in order to stay relevant."

At that, the lights throughout the Crucial flickered off and main systems waned down. 

"You know what? I'll do it for my favourite onboard application: Life support," Armond declared, enthusiastically. "It's just always been there for me."

---

Entering the Torpedo bay, Armond, Menrow and Lieutenant Commander Hatcha approached an open transphasic torpedo casing, with its circuitry splayed out.

"Ever since Voyager returned home, Starfleet has been hoarding the transphasic torpedo for special circumstances and not sharing it openly, in an effort to preserve the timeline," she explained.

Menrow continued, "But it's finally been long enough that we've caught up to the time these things were invented in that alternate grey-haired Janeway reality. The one where she kills more openly. I mean, even more openly than a Tuvix week."

"So, this is what's causing your ship to malfunction?" Armond queried, perplexed.

Hatcha nodded. "Turns out, being on an Intrepid-class starship isn't enough. Even in terms of matching Voyager-level randomness, you actually have to know what you're doing."

"The Phoenix-X had a bunch of these for a short while before we blew them all in Ferengi poker," Armond recalled as he began reconfiguring. "They safely carried away every last one on a cargo pallet."

The Captain observed the other man's corrective work. "Of course! The subspace compression pulse generator was aligned. The key was misalignment."

"Right," Armond confirmed. "The phase state of the subspace compression pulse has to be asymmetric to pass through Borg— er, enemy ships." He took a breath. "We certainly aren't targeting a specific group in a genocidal way."

Hatcha's eyes widened. "Also, I probably should not have reversed the polarity on that as my attempt at a fix." But it was too late. The space all around the ship suddenly appeared fractured by proximity to the torpedo.

"Damn! Our forced-torpedo-ing has messed up the space-time continuum!" Armond realized.

The three ran out into the dark and air-fractured corridors to see what was going on, only to find the door behind them replaced with wall.

"Yeah. This is not the deck we came in on," Menrow observed. "And that is not one of our officers."

All turning their gaze down to the end of the jilted hallway, a blank-stare, messy-haired woman in a tattered wedding dress stood completely still before a passing visual fracture disappeared her.

"Ugh. Marriage-themed," Armond groaned. "This is because my ex-wife and I had a near-rekindling, isn't it?"

Turning down another corridor, the three came to sense they were being followed. Menrow looked at him. "You were going to get back together? Bro."

"A misstep, I now realize," Armond continued as they both suddenly stopped to find Hatcha was missing. "Speaking of steps, your first in command must've stepped into one of those space-time fractures!"

Menrow took out a tricorder. "So, the theme is about footing. Fascinating. Also, this thing says we are being bombarded by chaotic space. Similarly fascinating."

"The asymmetric polarity reversal of the transpasic torpedo must've created this influx of anti-laws-of-physics?" Armond surmised.

The Captain nodded. "Voyager encountered the same thing, naturally occurring in space, according to their fleet-wide highly exposed personal logs. And, did you know Harry Kim secretly replicated an additional pip for in-quarters roleplay?"

"Dude did not get the treatment he deserved," Armond added. "Wait. Of course! Our application of this space is just as undeserved. We're the ones creating chaotic space!"

He looked around to find that Captain Menrow had disappeared, relinquishing his declaration to the depths while the corridor all around began to hauntingly deteriorate, pressurize and morph. 

"The future does not look bright, Groom," came the eerie voice of the tattered Bride as what could barely be seen of her form descended uncomfortably close to him. "A life unsalvageable."

Despite the unsettling kinesthetic, Armond pushed on to focus rather than fall. "I was married, and I did relapse. But moving on is continual work that Betazoid Counselors are addicted to in their patients. A continuation that also applies to you." He was then snapped, face-first into the floor by her rage at heightened speed. "The difference with you is that you're a newborn! Whatever lives in chaotic space, you were made just a few minutes ago, and now you're alone."

"Join me in holy matrimony," her deranged voice aerated as Armond began to see under one of the air-fractures to the Torpedo bay.

Garnering what strength he had left, he arm-crawled passed the shard and into the bay, propped himself onto the Transphasic torpedo and closed it before tapping at the manual controls. "I'm just too old for you," he finalized as the casing slid out and the Crucial fired the torpedo into space, taking the chaotic fractures with it on a journey, unending.

"Wow. You almost married a baby," Menrow observed as the fractures were now gone and he and Hatcha were standing nearby.

The lights flickered back on, as did main systems. Hatcha got to work in starting a new transphasic torpedo. "That, I would have reported."

"Well, at least I practiced self-control," the Lieutenant Commander got up, dusted himself off and approached the work area. "A newly acquired trait I will have to carry on to the rest of my life. So, shall we try again? This time, we do not reverse the polarity."

Hatcha nodded as Captain Menrow took out a PADD and started tapping. "This was a great Halloween adventure. I'm going to submit it into the Starfleet Captain's bi-monthly Log Writing Challenge. We all get to vote on them and everything."

"Wasn't there a massive Reman-Vampire outbreak on Deep Space 4 last week, effectively shutting the whole station down, permanently?" Hatcha recalled.

Armond's eyes widened. "Oh, wow. You can't even tell the normal Remans apart from the Vampire ones. Now, that's a Halloween entry." He shrugged. "Anyway, good luck, Captain."

To that, the two got back to work as Menrow left to continue writing on. Meanwhile, out in deep space, the fractures of chaotic madness grew louder and louder.