The Continuing Missions

Fred opened his eyes blearily as his alarm call sounded. Swatting it off, he rolled over and whispered in Delia’s ear, “C’mon, darlin’, we’ve gotta go to work.”

“Aw, just a few more minutes,” Delia murmured.

“Sorry, hon, but ya gotta git up. Think of all the kiddies that are comin’ aboard.”

Delia’s eyes opened. “Oh, yes! I do so love children.”

“So do Ah, hon. So let’s git up and git the bar ready for ’em.”

Delia sprang out of bed, while Fred did so at a more leisurely pace.

 

“Captain’s Log, Stardate 546718.3. T’Psycho is in orbit around Emonox 3. As today is more commonly known as Christmas Eve, my first officer has suggested that we host a party for some disadvantaged children. I have reluctantly agreed, and t’senior staff is hard at work makin’ costumes and stuff for t’kiddies. End log entry.”

 

“Captain’s Personal Log. I HATE BLUIDY KIDS!!!!!!!!!!!! End log entry.”

 

A little while later, Fred and Delia were hard at work hanging tinsel all over the bar. Those crewmen who had turned up when the bar usually opened in search of breakfast had been pressed into service wrapping presents. On Barfoot’s suggestion, Fred had replicated hundreds of Captain Olding action figures for the boys, while the girls would receive Counsellor Hill caring dolls (they came with tricorder and phaser rifle).

There was also to be a competition where the winner would receive a scale model of the Psycho herself, and five others would get a big holo of the senior crew, with messages recorded from each person pictured in the holo. These gifts were slowly being swathed in wrapping paper, and piled beneath the giant pine tree that occupied one corner of the bar. The usual country’n’western music had been replaced by a selection of Christmas melodies from down the centuries, which provided a selection of mostly soothing carols, although Damerell had insisted that Slade’s ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ should be included.

 

Fred watched in satisfaction as Ensign Ingram sprayed fake snow on the windows, and said to no-one in particular, “It’s gonna be great.”

“I really hope so.”

“Eh? Oh, howdy Doc. What can Ah do ya for?”

“Shoot me.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Don’t let me play Father Christmas!!!” Jackson was already half into the costume; a grotesquely large padded stomach had been strapped on, and he was wearing a huge pair of bright red trousers with white fur trimmings. In his hand he was clutching his jacket, hat and fake beard.

“Well, Ah’m sorry, Doc, but you were the obvious choice.”

“Couldn’t anyone else have done it?” Jackson wailed.

“Everyone else is busy, Doc. Mr Stark is providin’ the nibbles, then he’ll be doin’ his balloon show, the Counsellor’s volunteered to help look after the kiddies, as has Mr Damerell, and Mr Barfoot and Ensign Ingram are runnin’ tours round the ship.”

“What about the Captain?”

“Erm, he’s a bit busy…”

 

“Come on, sir, come out now.” The Counsellor was using her most wheedling tone.

“NO BLUIDY WAY!!” Even through the doors of the ready room, Olding’s voice was clearly audible.

“Now, sir, it won’t hurt you to come out, just for a little while.”

“I’M NOT BLUIDY COMIN’ OUT UNTIL THE LAST BLASTED KID IS OFF MY SHIP!!”

“Now, sir, you don’t really mean that…”

 

As Jackson struggled reluctantly into his outfit, Stark was working busily away to produce treats for the kids. As well as age-old favourites like Christmas cake and jelly, he had produced a few individual nibbles of his own that he hoped would keep the kids happy. When he had discussed the situation with the Counsellor, he had pointed out he was worried that the food wouldn’t be very healthy.

Her reply had been, “These kids have been maltreated, malnourished and mal-anything else you can think of. I think our priority is to give them a good time, not worry about whether the food we’ll be giving them will be fattening.”
So Stark had set to work with a will, and plenty of sugar.

Damerell was laying the tables. Each table had a crisp cloth draped across it, and was piled high with party hats and crackers. Damerell loved Christmas. As a child he’d always enjoyed it, unwrapping all the presents and then playing with the boxes. As he’d grown older, he’d missed all that, and thought that today might be a good day to revisit his childhood. And those Captain Olding action figures did look like good fun. Damerell began to lay out his plan.

 

Fred watched in satisfaction as Doctor Jackson was wedged into the grotto they’d had built in one corner of Fred’s bar. The final piece was in place.

“Fred’s Bar to Bridge. We’re ready when y’all are up there.”

“Thank you, Fred. The first children will be beaming up in a few…”

The Counsellor’s voice was suddenly cut into by Olding.

“NYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!”

“… moments.” The Counsellor’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Could you send Mr Damerell and Ensign Ingram down to the transporter room. I’ll be down there in a minute.”

“Why, certainly, hon. Phil-boy! Get yer ass down to the transporter room! And take Ensign Ingram with ya!”

Once Damerell had come down from the ceiling, he nodded and left, with Ensign Ingram trailing behind.

“Anythin’ else Ah can do for you, Counsellor?”

“Not right at the moment, thanks.”

The Counsellor signed off, and Fred raised his voice. “Excuse me, everybody, but Ah’d just like ya to know that the kiddies will be arrivin’ on-board the ship very soon, so they’ll be here in a little while. Make sure we give ’em a Christmas to remember!”

Jackson’s subsequent grumbling luckily could not be heard through his beard.

 

Damerell and Ingram arrived in the transporter room to find Barfoot already there. Moments later, Counsellor Hill arrived. “Right then, are we all ready?”

The others nodded more or less enthusiastically.

“Oh. Jolly good, then.”

The counsellor looked at them quizzically, but could detect nothing from them. Ingram was standing rigidly at attention, Damerell was busy trying to cross his eyes, and Barfoot was ready to operate the transporter console.

“Energise,” she said.

The transporter unit hummed, and, a few seconds later, the first batch of kids came aboard. They seemed surprisingly clean, but they were obviously under-nourished, and their wide eyes and shocked stares showed everyone that they had not seen a Federation starship before.

The counsellor was brisk and efficient. “Right then. Who wants to go on a tour of the ship?”

A forest of hands shot up in front of her. “Mr Damerell, put your hand down. Okay. Who wants to go first?” The number of hands did not change. “Mr Damerell, I said, put your hand down! I’m going to have to organise you into groups.”

She shuffled the kids around until they were in fairly even groups.

“Now then, you are going to go with nice Ensign Ingram, and you are going to go with, er, well, Lieutenant Barfoot.”
Barfoot and Ingram collected the relevant kids, and set off.

“Now then, everybody else is going to come with Mr Damerell and me to Fred’s Bar, where there’s lots of games and things for you to play, and a chance to meet Father Christmas! Won’t that be exciting?”

Most of the kids nodded, but one small, bespectacled child who was substantially better-fed than the rest, said, “No. Actually I think that will be rather boring.”

The counsellor glared at him. “And you are…?”

“Percival Ponsonby-Warner the second. My father runs the orphanage these waifs came from. In what I can only assume was a fit of sudden dementia, he decided it would be ‘fun’ for me to visit this… ship of yours.”

“And I’m sure you’ll enjoy every minute of it,” the counsellor said through gritted teeth, while a small voice at the back of her mind said, that’s if you live long enough.

“Hmph.” Young Percival seemed unconvinced.

“Right then!”

The Counsellor led the way out of the transporter room, trying to decide if murdering an insufferable brat could possibly be passed off as justifiable homicide.

She had barely got out of the transporter room when another small voice piped up, “When do we get to see the starship?”

“In a little while, when Mr Barfoot and Mr Ingram have shown your friends around.”

The Counsellor then broke one of the primary rules of child-care: never give them a logical argument.

“You see, we’re so busy that we could only spare a few officers to help out, so you’ll have to take turns.”

“Why?”

“Well, because we’re busy refitting some parts of the ship, so nearly everybody is involved in that.”

“Why?”

“Because every so often, we have to put new systems into the ship to make sure she works well.”

“Why?”

“Because we don’t want her to stop working when we’re off on a mission.”

“Why?”

“Because that could be dangerous for us.”

“Why?”

“Because if something fails when we’re moving at warp speed, the ship could be destroyed.”

“Why?”

“Because…”

The Counsellor suddenly realised what she was doing.

“Just because, okay?”

“Okay.”

 

Eventually, they reached Fred’s Bar. The Bar was ready for action, with all the tables pushed together into long lines, an area cleared away so that the children could sit and watch the entertainment, and all the breakables placed in secure storage. Jackson was still in his grotto, fuming quietly behind the beard. Next to him, a large Christmas tree stood, covered with decorations. Amongst them was a length of grimy, battered, lime green fur trim.

That had been Damerell’s idea. Ever since Wall’s departure, the fur trim had been removed from the helm and kept by Damerell in his cabin, but he had felt it would be nice to hang it on the tree, so out it came and had pride of place just below the plastic angel. Fred and Delia were standing by with glasses full of non-alcoholic punch for the kids, and a smaller set of alcoholic punch for the officers. In line with Fred’s ‘no-phoney-booze’ policy, the contents of the adult drinks did not contain synthahol, but real honest-to-goodness alcohol.

The Counsellor headed straight for Fred, while Damerell got on with getting the children to sit down in a circle in front of the stage.

“Fred,” she asked, “Is there enough of that stuff for me to have a glass?”

“Why, certainly, ma’am! Ah made this batch a little stronger for the officers.”

The Counsellor sniffed it and realised what was in it. A sudden malicious thought popped into her head, and she grinned evilly.

“Thanks, Fred.”

At that point, Damerell sprinted past, being chased by half-a-dozen cheering kids. The Counsellor frowned, while Fred said, “Glad to see Phil-boy’s natural sense of authority workin’ well.”

“Mr Damerell!” The Counsellor bellowed.

Damerell abruptly skidded to a halt. Three kids collided with him and fell into a heap on the floor.

“Mr Damerell, get them to sit down! The show’s about to start.”

“Erm, sorry.”

Damerell helped pick up the children, and ushered them back to their places. Once they were all sat down, he quietly sneaked out. He had to get changed really quickly.

Fred and Delia went round handing drinks to the children, who took them and soon the air was filled with happy gurgling noises as the kids tucked in. The Counsellor took her glass over to Percival before Delia could reach him, and, said, “Drink?”

“Thank you,” Percival said reflexively, and took the drink without even looking at her. The Counsellor smiled, and stepped back.

Once all the children had a drink, she moved in front of them, and said, “We’ve got a very special treat for you all now! Uncle Matthew and his amazing balloon show!”

She half-expected a snide remark from Percival at that point, but he had just taken a sip from his drink and appeared to be fighting for breath. The other children applauded politely as Stark shuffled forwards, dressed in a clown outfit and blushing furiously under his white grease-paint.

“Erm, hello, kids,” he said nervously.

“HELLO UNCLE MATTHEW!!!!” the children responded enthusiastically.

“Right. Good. Um, well, here we go…”

Stark produced a long balloon, and inflated it. He repeated the process a couple of times, then took his balloons, and held them for a moment, frantically remembering what came next. Then, inspiration hit him, and his arms and the balloons disappeared in a blur of movement. The children sitting at the front felt a draught as Stark worked. Then, a few seconds later, Stark stopped moving, and, breathing hard and feeling prickles of sweat on his forehead, triumphantly held up a balloon model of the Psycho.

The children applauded enthusiastically, and, emboldened, Stark set to work on somewhat more prosaic models of dogs and things. An unfortunate accident which left one balloon dog decapitated and sent a balloon raspberrying off around the bar to end up in Jackson’s grotto turned into a piece of good luck when Stark realised that he could now make hats, which he duly set about doing for all the kids there.

Just as Stark finished with that, the next group of kids arrived from their tour, and the Counsellor realised it was time to send this batch off round the ship. “Right, children, you’re now going on a tour of the Psycho with Mr Barfoot. Say hello to Mr Barfoot.”

“Hello, Mr Barfoot!”

Barfoot grinned. “Hiya, kiddies! Have I got some fun for you! We’re going to see all the best bits of the ship now! Isn’t that fun!”

The Counsellor looked across at Percival, to see if he would come back with a cutting remark. Instead, she found him swaying gently and hiccuping. When the group moved off, Percival went unsteadily with them, leaning up against a wall to guide himself. She grinned as he hit a support strut, spun through 360 degrees, then carried on.

The next batch of kids were setting up in front of Stark, and Fred and Delia were handing out drinks to them. The Counsellor looked around for Damerell, whom she suddenly realised she hadn’t seen for a while. He was not in the bar.

“Where’s he gone now?” she muttered, then bounded forwards, her best diplomatic-receptions/prize-giving ceremony smile plastered on her face, to introduce Stark.

 

Barfoot’s tour was, as he proudly announced it, a “stern-to-stem tour,” a witty pun that unfortunately went clean over the heads of his audience. He took them down to the shuttlebay as the start. As they stepped out onto the hangar deck, the children gazed around in wonder at the cavernous space around them. Two shuttles, the Lecter and the von Bulow, were parked at standby, and he led the children over to the Lecter, which had its hatch open for just this purpose.

“Now, if you all crowd in here, I’ll show you how a shuttle operates.”

Barfoot then gave his enthralled audience a highly-simplified and entertaining description of shuttle operations, using the flying habits of the Psycho‘s former helmsman as an example.

When they stepped outside, Barfoot looked up to the control gallery and nodded at the deck officer. A siren sounded, and the shuttlebay doors began to open. The children gasped in shock as they saw open space before them.

“Don’t worry,” Barfoot said, “The containment field holds the atmosphere in, so we’re all perfectly safe, and you can see the pretty stars from here.”

He was answered by stunned silence.

All except for Percival. “Thash, thash, really pretty,” he slurred. “Thash just great.”

 

Up in the control tower, the deck officer looked at his readings. The containment field had a problem. There was some glitch in the system. Hurriedly, he tapped his comm badge.

“Payne to Barfoot.”

“Barfoot here. Go ahead.”

“I think you might want to move on, now, sir. Let us close the shuttle-bay doors.”

“Nah, they’re enjoying it. I figured I’d wait a bit.”

“No, sir, I think you want to leave NOW.”

“Ah. You do, do you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Right you are, then.”

 

Barfoot glanced at the field. It was shimmering slightly.

“Gosh, isn’t that pretty,” a little girl commented.

“Yes, isn’t it,” Barfoot said hurriedly. “Now then, I think we should move on.”

“Aw, can’t we stay for a bit? Pleeze?”

“No, we should go now. Come on, let’s have a race to the hatch.”

The children took off towards the hatch, Barfoot ushering those lagging behind along. Percival had to be dragged out of the shuttlebay. Barfoot got them all through, and said, “Barfoot to Payne, we’re all clear.”

“Thanks, sir.”

Payne activated the shuttlebay doors, just as the field failed. He managed to contain most of the air before it blew out into space.

 

Their next stop was Main Engineering. Before they went in, Barfoot said, “Now, listen. Main Engineering is a busy place, and we mustn’t get in the way. Nice Uncle Matthew runs this place, and we wouldn’t want to upset him by getting in his crew’s way, would we?”

The children solemnly shook their heads.

“Okay then. Let’s go in.”

Barfoot stepped forwards and triggered the sensors to the red double-doors.

He took one step into the room before he was knocked to the ground by a sudden mad rush of children. They scattered all over the place, running shrieking around the warp core, riding the one-person lifts up and down, chasing each other along the length of the horizontal intermix chamber, and doing a thousand other things seemingly all at once. Barfoot stood dumbstruck. From behind him, Percival appeared, staggered up to the safety-rail around the warp core, looked the core right in the dilithium chamber, and said “Barman, a pint of your finesht light ale, if you would be sho good.” He then started to giggle helplessly.

 

A deputation of annoyed engineers soon collected around Barfoot, with much accompanying tapping of feet and cracking of knuckles.

“Erm, lads, what can I say? I’ll just get them out of here, shall I?”

There was a general nodding of heads.

“Okay.”

Barfoot took in a massive breath, and in his best drill-sergeant voice, bellowed, “OY!!!! STOP WHATEVER IT IS YOU’RE DOING AND COME OVER HERE!!!!!!!”

All activity in Engineering ceased abruptly. A mixed group of children and engineers shuffled over to Barfoot. Strangely enough, all looked guilty.

“Everyone in a Starfleet uniform can go back to what they were doing. The rest of you, come with me.”

As he ushered them out into the corridor, he did a quick head-count. They were missing one. Just then, the doors opened, and a hand propelled Percival out into the corridor.

“What did I just tell you?! I might as well end this tour right now and send you all back down to the orphanage!”

The children bit their lips and snuffled.

One girl said, “Please don’t, Mr Barfoot. We don’t get a chance to run around a lot in the orphanage. We’re sorry. We won’t do it again. Promise.”

Barfoot’s expression softened a bit, and he mentally tagged another chunk onto the tour.

 

Their tour took them past the science labs, up to the deflector dish control room, then up a few decks to Impulse Engineering, and finally to a holodeck. This originally hadn’t been on the tour but Barfoot had gone through the science labs a bit faster than planned to make sure they had time.

“Everybody inside,” Barfoot said.

The children crowded through the doors eagerly, then looked around in blank incomprehension.

“This is boring!” one announced.

“Just a minute,” Barfoot said, then turned to the wall-panel. “Computer, run programme Alpha-1.”

A pleasant woodland glade appeared around them.

“Right, kids. You’ve ten minutes to run around, then I want everybody back here. Off you go.”

As the children dispersed, Barfoot sat down on an upturned log and called in to find out what was going on. He explained his detour to the Counsellor, who agreed that it was a good idea.

She then said, “Have you seen Mr Damerell anywhere?”

“No. I haven’t seen him since the kids came on board.”

“Oh. I’ve lost him somewhere.”

“Check down the back of the sofa. That’s the first thing I do when I’ve… lost… some… thing…” Barfoot trailed off as he realised that the stony silence over the comm line signified his joke had fallen flat.

“Um, I’ll just shut up, shall I?”

“Good idea, Mr Barfoot.”

 

At the end of the ten minutes, the kids collected round Barfoot. Two of them were having to support Percival, who seemed to have lost the ability to use his legs.

“Okay, can you guess where we’re going next?” Barfoot asked.

The children shook their heads.

“The bridge!”

That provoked an excited burst of chattering from the children, with the exception of Percival who lifted his head and said plaintively, “I don’t feel very well.”

Barfoot, not noticing this, led the children out of the holodeck and into a turbolift. The children chattered excitedly during the short ride up, but all noise stopped when the doors opened and they filed out onto the bridge. Those members of the crew present on the bridge gave the children encouraging grins, with the exception of Bleep, who was excused on the grounds that his mouth didn’t move.

Barfoot took the children round all the different stations, explaining what they did, and answering questions. Finally, he marshalled them all in front of the main viewscreen, and, while they gazed out at the view of Emonox below them, Barfoot began to think about getting them down to Fred’s Bar.

Then, the inevitable question came up. “Can I sit in the captain’s chair?”

“Erm.. well, I don’t know if he’d like it,” Barfoot stalled, as he sidled across to one of the crew.

“Where is the captain?” he muttered under his breath.

“Arr, well, zur, the cap’n be in his ready room. He’s given instructions not be disturbed, loike, until ‘the last o’ them bluidy kids gets the hell off my ship’, zur.”

“Okay.”

Turning back to the children, he said, “Alright, you can sit in the captain’s chair, but be quick.”

There was a mad rush for the centre seat.

“One at a time! Come on, don’t crowd around!”

As quickly as he could, he cycled the kids through the seat, so that each one got a sit in it, spun it around a bit, and looked at the viewscreen. Several of them, mostly the boys, said things like, “Engage!” and “Red Alert!” although Barfoot had to ask them to stop after Bleep automatically sounded the alert siren.

The last one to sit down was Percival. Like everyone else, he spun round in the chair, but, unlike the others, he complained that the bridge was still spinning after they stopped him. Alarm bells rang in Barfoot’s head. “Um, right, well, perhaps we should get you out of the chair now… Oh, too late.” Percival was suddenly and violently sick all over the chair.

Signalling a couple of crewmembers over, Barfoot told them to get Percival down to sickbay. He marshalled the other kids into the turbolift, and, just before the doors closed, said, “For God’s sake get that damn chair cleaned!”

 

Barfoot’s group arrived in Fred’s Bar just as Stark was finishing his last balloon act. As the applause from that died away, the Counsellor said, “Right, everybody! Now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for! Your chance to meet Father Christmas!!”

“Oh, hurrah,” Jackson said under his breath.

The Counsellor, Barfoot and Ingram got the children organised into a line, and started to send them into the grotto. None of them noticed a slightly larger than average child push his way into the line, and shuffle forwards on his knees.

Jackson forced a smile as child after child climbed on his knee, made idiotic small talk, then looked absurdly happy as he handed them their gift. For ease of memory, the girls’ presents were wrapped in pink wrapping paper, and the boys’ in blue. After a while, his acting skills began to pall. When, finally, one great lump of a child landed on his knee, Jackson wheezed, “Ho bloody ho, little boy. What’s your name, as if I really care anyway?”

“Philip,” the child replied in an unnaturally high squeak.

“Really, Philip. Well, isn’t that… wait a minute!” Jackson peered more closely. “I know you! Get the hell off my knee!”

Damerell grinned weakly. “Hi.”

“Get out of here!”

Damerell stood up, denting the low roof of the grotto, then said, “Don’t I get a present?”

“No!”

“Spoilsport.”

Damerell sulked his way out of the grotto.

Jackson failed entirely to smile cheerily at the next child in.

 

When, at last, all the children had received their presents, and were playing happily with them at the tables, Fred and Delia began serving the food. Once that was done, they joined Barfoot and the Counsellor by the bar.

“It gives you a warm glow inside, doesn’t it?” Barfoot sighed.

“Absolutely,” the Counsellor agreed. “Just to see their little faces light up, the unreserved joy they get from even the smallest things…”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was talking about the children. What were you talking about?”

“A good curry. It gives you a really warm glow inside.”

Giving Barfoot an odd look, the Counsellor turned to Fred. “Well, Fred, there’s only one more thing for us to do now.”

“Sure is, ma’am. Ah’ll jest go get the prizes.” Fred disappeared behind his bar to fetch the prizes out.

He piled them on the bar, and the Counsellor moved forwards. “If I can have your attention, please.”

The children all looked expectantly at her. Many of their faces seemed entirely covered with chocolate.

“When you came aboard earlier today, we wrote all your names down on data chips, which we placed in this helmet,”she indicated an upturned EVA suit helmet lying on the bar. “Now, in a second, I’m going to get some people to draw six names out. The first five will get these great holos of all of us, and the lucky winner will get this wonderful model of the Psycho!” She brandished a holo and the model above her head, to wild applause. Then, she turned to Fred. “Fred, if you would be so good, please pick the first name.”

Fred rummaged around inside the helmet, and plucked out a data chip. The Counsellor inserted the chip into a reader, and said, “And our first lucky winner is… Lieutenant-Commander Damerell!!?”

Damerell cursed. He’d expected them to pick the winner of the Psycho model first. That was what he’d really wanted.
The Counsellor glared at him, and said, “Let me guess. If I pick another one, it’ll have your name on it too, won’t it?”

“Ahaha.”

“I shall take that as a yes. What have you done with the original chips? Come on, hand them over!”

Damerell reluctantly indicated a storage locker. The Counsellor opened it to find another helmet in there, full of chips.

“Right,” she said, “We’ll just try that one again, shall we? Fred, if you would?”

Once more, Fred pulled out a chip, and the Counsellor inserted it in a reader. “And the winner is… Kirsty Paulson!” Little Kirsty scampered forwards to collect her holo.

Satisfied now they were dealing with the genuine chips, the Counsellor got Ingram, Barfoot, Delia, and a couple of other crewmen who had been helping out to pick out the rest of the holo-winners. When Damerell offered hopefully to pick one, she slapped his hand away. Then, she herself dipped in, and pulled out a chip. “And the winner of the Psycho model is… Micky Da’nar!” A small boy stood and bashfully made his way to the front, where Delia handed him the model of the Psycho. He solemnly shook hands with her and Fred, then made his way back to his seat, blushing bright red, while the other children applauded.

While the children returned to their eating, the Counsellor stepped over to Barfoot, and said, “Haven’t you lost one of your group?”

“Oh, yeah. One of them must have had something that disagreed with him,” Barfoot said. “I sent him to Sickbay to get his stomach pumped.”

The Counsellor, knowing full well who it was and how it had happened, repressed her malicious grin with difficulty. It suddenly became a lot easier when Barfoot said, “Incidentally, he puked on the Captain’s chair.”

“What?! Did you get it cleaned?”

“Well, I told them to get on with it.”

“Oh, good grief!” The Counsellor slapped her comm-badge, and said, “Hill to Bleep. Is the, erm, problem dealt with on the bridge?”

“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… Which problem, Counsellor?”

“The, well, you know, problem with the Captain’s chair.”

“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… Affirmative, Counsellor.”

“Thank God. Is the Captain still in his ready room?”

“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Stand clear of the doors please… Affirmative, Counsellor.”

“Great. Hill out.” She felt a tide of relief wash over her.

 

Some time later, they were beaming the last batch of kids out, when Percival entered the transporter room. He was decidedly pale, and no longer seemed inclined to make snide remarks. That’ll teach you to mess with me, kid, the Counsellor thought triumphantly. As he staggered onto a transporter pad, a little girl, happily clutching her Counsellor Hill doll, stepped forwards, and said, “Thank you for having us, Miss.”

“It was no trouble. We enjoyed having you here.” She smiled at the girl, who took her place on the pad.

“Energise.”

The children vanished.

“Is that the last of them?”

“Yes, counsellor.”

“Right.” The Counsellor’s smile abruptly vanished. “MR DAMERELL!!! I WANT A WORD WITH YOU!!!!!!”

 

After shouting at Damerell for a while, the Counsellor made her way back to the bridge. “Is the Captain still in his ready room?”

“Yeah,” said Jackson, who was still picking bits of phoney beard off his face.

“I guess I’d better coax him out,” the Counsellor said. She went over to the ready room, and sounded the door chime.

“Have they gone?” Olding asked.

“Yes, sir. The last one left a few minutes ago.”

The door opened, and Olding poked his head out, as if expecting to find children lurking outside. Once he had satisfied himself that the bridge was safe, he stepped out onto the bridge. “Right, then. I suppose I’d better start authorisin’ shore leave for you lot for tomorrow.”

He made his way to his seat, and sat down. The Counsellor took her place next to him, and consulted the personnel roster. “Right, well, if we send Alpha shift down first and… Sir, is there a problem?”

Olding was sniffing loudly. “Aye, Counsellor. Can you smell somethin’?”