March/April 2026 Challenge: Old. Old tech, old school, old ship, old worlds, old life, old civilizations etc., whatever fits the bill.
Trek BBS: March-April 2026 Challenge
"Old: The Previous Upper Decks"
The Prometheus-class U.S.S. Phoenix-X mifted, miffly and monotonously in middling madness along the Federation border as the Type-4, Class F shuttlecraft Hendrix exited its shuttle bay and jumped to warp. BOB operated the shuttle's forward consoles.
“Special counsellor’s log, Stardate 70185.2. With the entire crew in near Antedian states from constant patrol, I’ve taken the unlocked, non-synced Hendrix toward the Volterra Nebula where a two-decades old Enterprise-D analysis has finally indicated a potential cluster of temporal matter. Since I’m a temporally displaced Ferengi myself, I intend to ride that anomaly back to the future where I came from!"
The shuttle dropped warp approached an energized, fluctuating mess of giant hardened vines and branches in space. Captain Seifer awoke from a pile of blankets in the back of the shuttle, just now noticing the situation.
"What the hell, man? You stole this century-old, ancient shuttle gifted to us from the Unreliable to go anomaly-hunting to— what, time travel re-sync yourself, extraordinaire??" the jaw-dropped Trill blitzered.
BOB turned, quickly accepting his undoing. "Ahh! Yeah, pretty much. I’ve been waiting forever for a Temporal Investigations agent or some kind of 29th century Integrity Commission to correct my misalignment as I find the anticipation of such a pluck more stressful than the violation itself."
"Dammit, man. I ordered you otherwise specifically to evade those fun-killing hacks! It’s in the same sense I was hiding out in here to dodge hounding crew from stuffy patrol updates since I’d been missing twice now on shuttle mishaps."
The Ferengi nodded. "Shirking said duties on small craft was probably indicative of said issues in the first place."
"I know my foibles!"
But they were quickly approached by the Type-11 shuttle Haruko and hailed by its sole occupant, Tong. "Captain? You thumb-printed remote-authorized us to investigate this quandary this morning?"
"I’m going to be honest. I probably did that half-asleep and it seems BOB came across your same findings."
Tong understood. "Ah. Trying to escape the timeline again? Classic BOB shenanigans. Well, Hachi and I found two vessels, though, not future-related but, rather, past. Come. You’ll see what I’m being overtly coy about."
---
Soon, both shuttles weaved themselves near the outskirts the chaotic temporal timber, where they separately shuttle bay-landed aboard two lifeless Federation vessels, now hung in the confines of the late 24th century: the archaic, low-quality original Constitution-class U.S.S. Shinsoku and the gimmicky-obsessed angled Crossfield-class U.S.S. Theodosia.
"This is amazing," Seifer observed as he joined BOB on the Bridge of the now-lighting up Shinsoku. "Retro nobs, illuminated blocks and faceless data cards with no clue what’s on them! It’s like being back in the 23rd century of misogynistic, sweaty old Vulcan bigotry."
The screen clicked on to show the hail from the Theodosia, where Tong and Hachi were now just getting into its reactivated Bridge. "Are you kidding me? Those ships were slow, redundant and lacking in visual resolution due to pervasive chemical leaks," Hachi offered while manning a nearby console. "At least this ship looked way more advanced than yours."
"This is the 288m asbestos version over its surplus-budget 442m neon-lights-everywhere version— I’ll give you that," Seifer noticed, looking around.
BOB perked from checking the ship logs. "Captain, according to this, the Shinsoku was fighting Klingons in orbit of Caleb IV in 2270 before its crew were simultaneously transported off whilst a battle-damaged eruption sent the ship skewing through some kind of fungal subspace network."
"They must’ve looked like they exploded and died but, instead, became trapped in the multi-dimensional weave left by the Theodosia’s attempted spore drive jump, a decade earlier," Tong realized as he went through his own ship’s logs. "According to this, the Theodosia was covertly doing a Discovery and Glenn thing."
Seifer blinked. "I have no idea what space magic nonsense you just spouted, but it’s clear the Shinsoku rode what I assume are mushrooms all the way to the Theodosia and this fungal-growing end point."
"That’s exactly what that was," Tong conflated, impressed. "There’s some kind of hippie mycelial network permeating all of space and time and it’s bleeding out here? Anyway, I suggest we trigger main controls by initiating each ship’s tactical simulations."
With Seifer nodding and everyone getting to work, both old vessels began to rev up even more with the unfortunate happenstance of becoming suddenly locked in connection with each other. "Oh, crap!" BOB panicked. "The simulations have become synced and see each opposite vessel as its assigned enemy. Also, we can’t turn them off??"
"This feels like we’re ramping up to something," Seifer deadpanned. "Are we doing a thing?"
Hachi nodded in agreement from his checks. "The only way to end our Alexander Rozhenkoing and get full warp control will be for us to complete our simulation through real-disabling you guys."
"Hold on a second," Seifer repulsed. "If anyone is disabling anyone, it’s the original Constitution-class taking your half-baked triangle toaster pastry out to serialized-drama-breakfast."
Tong protested as he brought phasers online. "Are you kidding me, sir? The Crossfield-class wipes your screenless, fighter jet stealing, doomsday food starship all the way from Delta Vega to the other Delta Vega."
"Your corridors are too big and you waste all your internal space on a mythical turbolift universe!" Seifer argued as he diverted weapons control to the Captain’s chair. "Also, why is everyone always crying!?"
---
Tong quickly leapt backward to the Theodosia’s nub chair as Hachi initiated the Crossfield-class ship to pass the Shinsoku whilst hitting it with photon torpedoes.
"Constitutions can’t keep their visuals consistent," Tong added. "Are they high-definition shiny-metallic or toneless, grainy matte? Do their pylons have gaps in them or not??"
The Shinsoku rotated around and blasted canned phaser beams after canned phaser beams into weakening the forward shields of the Theodosia. Seifer argued, "Crossfields can’t keep their technology comparable with everyone else! Why do you have holographic interfaces? Or AI more advanced than ten years from then??"
"They were Kurtz-ppealing to an attention-anemic generation of slab-obsessed, aggressive attentioners— Admirals, maybe," Tong countered, defensively, as the Theodosia went to black alert, spun its saucer section and popped itself to suddenly below the Shinsoku.
BLAM! The Shinsoku’s ventral shields were broken through by a volley of photon torpedoes and the lower hull was breached. "Ahh! The Great Bird of the Galaxy must be spinning in his galactic bird grave!" BOB gritted from his light-bulbed damage reports.
"I’ve got to Kirk this somehow. Every starship carries a part of its predecessor and it looks like the Shinsoku has the grappler of its NX-class forerunner," Seifer observed before he fired a metallic cable out from the Constitution-class mashup to grab a giant branch of hardened Yeel tree.
Snapping it off, the Shinsoku flung the mammoth space bark into the Theodosia’s next attempted spore jump/hull spin, locking the mycelial appendage into the saucer section gaps and, instead, causing the bottom half of the Crossfield-class ship to spin uncontrollably.
"Aaaaahhhh!!!" Tong and Hachi screamed as they cancelled their black alert, stopped their pointless spin and settled the resulting hull stress.
Hachi got himself up off the floor. "Captain, did you just jam a stick into the spoke of our saucer wheel like a mean kid throwing a rod into a friend’s bicycle tire?"
"I did do that. Yes," Seifer blinked in shared realization seconds before both simulations ended and two formally-dressed agents transported onto the Bridge of each ship.
Everyone noticed the Phoenix-X had delivered them as the human woman upon the Theodosia took them in. "Agent Liangi of Temporal Investigations: You time it, we sometimes untime it. But not always."
---
"Agent Chovdun," the human male upon the Bridge of the Shinsoku introduced while taking in the fascination of the back-to-basics starship. "Pretty good find you boys have here."
Seifer slumped in defeat despite the win. "Actually, I’m just now realizing the inherent authenticity-contamination of the Constitution-class. No matter how pure and out-of-the-box we want it to be, some kind of extended-canon composite irrigates mongrel tech mashing."
"It’s like a quantum wave function in that you can’t claim an unsullied observation without it being effected by the observer," Liangi added.
Nodding, Seifer replied, "I miss the old days. Now androids are banned, Romulus is destroyed and Picard is some kind of angry hermit?"
"He’s a delightful crank!" Chovdun countered. "But, yeah. Times change and whether they’re good or bad is irrelevant as people are pawns to a galactic plot tapestry. Bearing witness is its own comeuppance."
Liangi continued. "Anyway, we’ll eradicate this mycelial outpouring and take these starships back to the Federation for the Starfleet Museum or some kind of covert mission or something. Who knows."
"Ahem! Hello? What about me?" BOB interrupted, expectantly. "I’m an anomalous aberration?"
Chovdun gritted angrily before transporting everyone and their shuttles back to the Phoenix-X. "Didn’t you hear what Liangi said about untiming!? Not always!"
---
Back on the Bridge of the Prometheus-class Phoenix-X, the crew came to see Seifer taking a seat at his chair.
"Captain, are you finally back?" Veker asked. "You know how the crew deteriorates into it’s weekly targ hunts whenever you’re away."
Seifer looked. "Wait. I thought those stopped when the Klingon Officer Exchange Program ended?"
"They never took the targs with them. Said they were tainted by Starfleet grooming and pet love standards," Hachi added. "As for us, that was a fun battling of a bunch of old ships. Back to patrol position then?"
The Captain hesitated. "Actually, let’s do a quick survey for any more anomalous irregularities. From now on, if we find a single mushroom spore tree anywhere, we are to destroy it!" After an agreeing crew, the Phoenix-X turned in space and jumped to warp.