Embedded Files
“Captain’s Log, Stardate 54162.10. T’ Psycho is on reserve duty behind a quiet area o’ t’ front lines. We have orders to reinforce t’ standard patrols in case o’ any Dominion incursions into Federation space. Whilst keepin’ t’ ship at a state of alert, I am also allowing my crew to relax. I want ’em well rested if we have to go into action. End log entry.”
The Psycho was at a standstill in intersystem space, her systems running at idle and her crew almost exclusively in the holodecks or Fred’s Bar. Olding’s order to relax had been enthusiastically greeted by the crew, who’d wasted no time at all in abandoning their posts and heading for the bar. Olding himself was in his ready room, nursing a glass of orange juice and contemplating a relaxing nap. For a day or two, at least, he could pretend he was on leave, and also pretend to forget about his paperwork. Finishing off the orange juice, he lay back on his couch, closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep.
Below decks, sleep was the last thing on most people’s minds. Jackson, Damerell and Hill had collected outside Holodeck Three, where they were about to take part in an adventure story based on the Biblical tale of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt. All they needed was for Stark to appear. Earlier that day, they’d drawn lots to see who got which part in the story. The results hadn’t worked out quite as planned. Damerell had landed the part of Moses, the Counsellor the part of Aaron, and Stark the role of the Pharoah. Jackson had ended up with a role the computer defined as ‘generic Israelite #3′, and was not best pleased.
Feeling more than slightly stupid in their period outfits (mostly variations on a theme of sacks with holes cut in them, and, in Damerell’s case, a rather over-large stick-on beard.), they waited until Stark came pounding round the corner, dressed in his Pharoah outfit, with the headdress tucked under his arm.
“Sorry I’m late,” he panted, “I’ve just had to plug Bleep up to the computer for his monthly check-up.”
“Must have been fun for you,” the Counsellor said without much enthusiasm. “Come on, we’re late already.”
The four of them stepped towards the holodeck doors, which parted obligingly as they reached them, and entered Biblical Egypt.
They found themselves in a town, with small sandstone buildings and the occasional mighty palace scattered around them. Looking about them, Damerell and Hill were the first to realise that Stark was no longer with them. Jackson was too busy watching the fight that was just starting a couple of yards away.
“Guys, shouldn’t we stop them? Someone might get hurt.”
“Eh?” The Counsellor looked round to see two men laying into each other. “Oh yeah, good idea. Mr Damerell, you deal with it.”
“Why me?” Damerell whined.
“Because you’re Moses, remember? That means you have to do the important stuff.”
“Oh, great.” Damerell shuffled forwards a few yards, and quavered, “Um, is there something the matter?”
“Leave us, Hebrew!” one of the men said, as he pounded the other man into the sand. “This is a private matter.”
“Well, um, look, I really don’t think you ought to be doing that,” Damerell said, edging in closer and waving his arms in what he hoped was a conciliatory gesture.
“If you will not, then I shall make you leave!” the Egyptian said, dropping his original victim and closing on Damerell. Damerell cringed, then went into his standard beginning-of-fight stance. The Counsellor watched as the second officer dropped into a ball at her feet and began to keen “Please don’t hurt me!”, then kicked him out of the way, deciding to take this fight herself.
Damerell, propelled by the Counsellor’s foot, rolled headlong into the Egyptian, who plummetted forwards as his feet were swiped out from under him. Before he could hit the ground, however, Damerell’s feet suddenly shot out and connected with his jaw. By the time the Egyptian’s body hit the dirt, it didn’t take an expert to tell by the unnatural angle of his neck that he was dead. After a few minutes’ examination,
Jackson announced, “You’ve killed him.”
“Oh, well done,” the Counsellor said. “Start things off with a bang, why don’t you?”
“Me?!” Damerell replied incredulously. “It was your foot that did the damage, sort of…”
“Yes, well, I think we’d better leave,” the Counsellor said. “Come on.”
They hurriedly left the town, and were wandering through the brush, Damerell already getting bored, and the Counsellor and Jackson trying to decide if their killing an Egyptian was a proper part of the program.
“…I’m telling you, I don’t remember that incident turning up in the Bible!” Jackson protested.
“And when was the last time you read a Bible, hmm?” the Counsellor replied.
“Well, erm…”
“Exactly. Sadly, erm would be my answer to that question too. We’ll just have to hope it all works out.”
Damerell slouched along, kicking at pebbles as he walked. He’d been promised an adventure, and, so far, he hadn’t got one. This was rapidly turning out to be an exceedingly dull bit of R&R. He kicked at a bush, and leapt a metre into the air as the bush promptly burst into flame. The Counsellor and Jackson stopped dead in their tracks. Damerell ran behind the Counsellor. Amazingly, the bush didn’t seem to be harmed by the flames surrounding it. As the three of them watched, a face appeared in the centre of the bush.
“I know that face,” the Counsellor said. “It’s…”
“Eeeh, Moses!”
“…The Captain,” the Counsellor finished. “It fits.”
“Moses, where art thou, lad?”
“Come on,” Jackson said, yanking Damerell out from his hiding place. “Talk to the bush.”
“Erm, I’m, over here,” Damerell stuttered.
“Right then, Moses lad. I have seen the plight of my people which are in Egypt, and I am come down to deliver them out o’ t’ hand of the Egyptians, and to bring ’em up out of that land to a land flowin’ wi’ milk and honey. I will send thee unto t’ Pharoah that thou mayest bring forth my people of Israel out of Egypt.”
“Sorry, pardon?” Damerell said.
“What?” God-Olding replied.
“I didn’t quite get that.”
God sighed. “Basically, I want you to get t’Israelites out of bluidy Egypt, before the Egyptians murder them all! Got that?”
“Oh right. I got it.” Damerell gave the bush a thumbs up. “But I’m not really very good at public speaking.”
“I’ll do it,” The Counsellor grumbled. “Shall we get going then?”
They made their way back into town, and found the mightiest palace, which looked as if it was probably going to be the Pharoah’s residence.
“Now what?” Jackson asked.
“We go in, and get the Pharoah to let his people go,” the Counsellor said. She indicated Damerell, whose neck was cricking as he looked up at the palace.
“What was that?”
“You’ve got to get the Pharoah to let your people go.”
“Let my people go?”
“That’s the one.”
“I thought you were going to do the public speaking.”
“For crying out aloud, Mr Damerell! You’re supposed to be Moses! I’ll back you up if you need it, but you’ve got to get the ball rolling.”
“Okay.” Damerell knocked hesitantly at the door.
The palace door opened, and a manservant-type figure looked down at the three ersatz Israelites and intoned, “May I help you?”
“Moses and company to see the Pharoah, there’s a good man,” the Counsellor said brightly.
The manservant regarded her impassively, before saying, “Do you have an appointment?”
“Well, no, but you go and ask the Pharoah if he’ll see us, and I’m sure he’ll say yes,” the Counsellor responded. “At least, he’d better, or I’ll knock his block off,” she muttered after the manservant had trudged off into the palace.
Several decks below, in Main Engineering, Bleep sat patiently as his systems check proceeded. His internal clock was the only thing actually functioning on Bleep at that time, and even that wasn’t working too well.
Due to the somewhat undermanned nature of the Psycho at this point, there was no-one on duty in Main Engineering to worry about Bleep, and so there was no-one to watch Bleep’s status screen as it displayed the results of the internal diagnostic. For a brief moment, the clock flashed up a time check: 31.12.1999, 23:45 hours.
Matt Stark was having the time of his life. At first, the concept of being the Pharoah of all the Egyptians had left him somewhat cold, but he’d very quickly discovered the upsides. Like this five-person bath that he and four computer generated handmaidens were currently sharing. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure enough of his protocol, so he’d kept his ceremonial headdress on, and the heavy gold arrangement with some kind of dog’s head on the top was giving him neckache. But he figured he could live with that. So he was distinctly unhappy when his manservant appeared to tell him that some Hebrews had arrived to see him. That would mean that he was required to actually do some acting now. Ho hum.
Stark clambered out of his bath, and was pleased to discover that his handmaidens were only too happy to help him get dressed. Once attired in his full regalia, he wandered into his throne room and parked himself in the massive gold-plated throne. “You may send the visitors in,” he announced as regally as he could.
At the far end of the throne room, a set of massive double doors parted, to reveal Damerell, the Counsellor and Jackson silhoutted in the middle of the widening gap. With a shove from the Counsellor, Damerell stumbled forwards into the throne room. “Er, hi.”
“Morning,” Stark said. The Counsellor shot him a dirty look. “Oops, sorry.” Stark deepened his voice and tried again. “State your business, Hebrews.”
“Well, um, we’d kind of like you to let us stop being slaves. You know, free people and all that.”
“Why should I?”
“Uh, good question…” Damerell looked around for support.
The Counsellor rolled her eyes, and said, “If you do not, then Egypt will be struck down with plagues!”
“Cool!” Jackson said. “What are we talking about here? Bubonic, anthrax-based, Naussican?”
“I was thinking more frogs and rivers of blood, actually,” the Counsellor replied.
“Oh. Different. Not so convinced they’ll work as well. I could knock up some sarin gas, if you like. Much more efficient.”
“Thank you, Doctor, but I think we’ll manage. Help from upstairs, and all that?”
“E deck? That’s crew quarters and a few labs. You’ve got them making the plagues? You should have told me.”
“Never mind, Doctor.” The Counsellor returned her attention to Stark, who had been following the conversation with widening eyes. “Getting back to the point, either you let us go, or the excrement hits the life-support, got it?”
“You can’t threaten me,” Stark said smugly. “I’m a Pharoah. I don’t care.”
“Big loss of prestige,” the Counsellor suggested. “You can let us go, and say it was an act of mercy, blah blah blah, or we can hit you with the plagues and go anyway. Your choice.”
“I’ll risk it,” Stark said, thinking of his bath, and not liking the idea of any kind of uprising. Time to get disciplinarian. “You run along now, and don’t try anything stupid, or I’ll come down you like a ton of the proverbial, got it?”
“Say something,” the Counsellor hissed to Damerell. “You’ve got to make a scene before you leave.”
“Why? It wouldn’t be polite, and besides, those guards look a bit big to me.”
“For crying out aloud! You’re Moses! Where’s your backbone?”
“Um…”
The Counsellor got annoyed at this point, and turned to Stark, and bellowed, “Let his people go!”
“Ooh, good one,” Damerell said. “Very catchy.”
“Well, why don’t you try it?” the Counsellor said.
In Engineering, Bleep’s internal clock rolled over. To 00.00.00, 00:00 hours.
And just as it did, Damerell said, as best he could, “Let my people go?”
A surge of power went through Bleep’s systems as he fused himself into the Psycho‘s main computer. All over the ship, displays switched off, lights went out, and emergency bulkheads dropped as the computer’s systems went haywire. A second later, the emergency batteries switched in, and the life-support was restored, as were the lights, but the damage was done.
In his ready room, Olding felt his stomach lurch as the gravity flickered, and the lights went off, then were restored at half power. He stood, straightened his tunic, and hit the intercom. “Bridge, this is t’ Captain. What just happened?”
“Uncertain, sir. We’ve had a power failure all over the ship. Everything’s gone nuts, sir!”
“On my way.” Olding approached the ready room doors, but stopped before he collided with them, waving his hand in the detection area instead. Unsurprisingly, the doors failed to open. “Bridge, this is Olding. I’m stuck in here.”
“Oh, okay, sir. Hang on in there, we’ll try and fish you out.” Olding perched on the side of his desk, and waited patiently for rescue.
Down in the Holodeck, the crew were unaware of the chaos that had just taken place. They were trudging out of the Pharoah’s palace, and Jackson and Damerell were wondering what happened next. “It’s perfectly simple,” the Counsellor said. “We go off for a meal, the rivers turn red, we go back to the palace and try again.”
“So the rivers fill with blood?” Jackson asked.
“That’s right.”
“Like that one?” Jackson pointed at the Nile, which was indeed turning a dark red.
The Counsellor was momentarily non-plussed. “That’s not supposed to happen quite that fast.”
“Maybe it’s the computer speeding things up to keep them entertaining for us,” Damerell said.
“Probably. Oh well, back to the palace,” the Counsellor said.
In Engineering, Barfoot, who was the ranking officer present, was struggling to make sense of what had happened. The ship’s computers were all going completely nuts, and he couldn’t see why. As he ran across Engineering, he noticed Bleep still plugged up to the computers for his diagnostic. “Unplug Bleep,” he called. “We don’t want any damage coming to him as well.”
An engineer leant across to Bleep, and grabbed the data-lines connected to Bleep’s head. As he did so, he received an electric shock that threw him across Engineering. Barfoot watched with interest as the unfortunate crewman bounced off the warp core and landed across the safety rail. “Okay, no-one touch Bleep.” Barfoot wandered over to look at Bleep, while in the background a group of engineers struggled to pull their unfortunate comrade back onto the deck.
“I’m telling you, it’s only going to get worse from here!” the Counsellor insisted. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
“Really? So we’ve got some red rivers,” Stark said, unimpressed. “I’m sure we can survive that.”
Damerell decided to try his catchphrase again. “Let my people go! Or…”
A series of wet splat noises could be heard from outside the temple, and everyone turned to see what was happening. At that point, a surprised-looking frog came in through the window before exploding on the floor. “Eew!” Stark said. “That’s my floor!”
“Or, that’ll happen…” Damerell said.
Stark watched the rain of frogs for a while longer, before saying, “I’m still not that impressed. I mean, so things are going to get icky round here for a while, but I don’t think that’s going to bring down my empire.”
“Let my people go!”
At that point, a servant ran in, saying, “Sire, sire! The people of our land are reporting that their first-born children are dying like flies!”
The Hebrews exchanged glances. “That was a bit quick, wasn’t it?” Jackson commented.
“Uh, yes,” The Counsellor said. “Still, we may as well take advantage of it. Oy, Pharoah!”
“What?”
“Let his people go!”
“Oh, bloody hell, go on then,” Stark said. “You lot are more trouble than you’re worth.”
“Result!” The Counsellor crowed. “Come on, chaps, let’s gather up the Hebrews and lead them to a land of milk and honey.”
“Milk and honey?” Jackson said disbelievingly.
“That’s the one.”
“Odd choice.”
“Don’t start.”
“I wonder,” Barfoot said, rubbing his chin, “If Bleep’s, uh, situation, is connected to the rest of our problems.” He looked around, and said, “Can we get a reading on Bleep’s internal systems?”
An engineer consulted a panel, and said, “Aye, sir, we can access his computers.”
“Fantastic! Right, what’s going on in there?”
“Uh… That’s a very good question.”
“Let’s have a look.” Barfoot bustled over to the monitor, and studied the readouts. “Bloody hell!” he commented. “I haven’t seen anything like that since the Academy!”
“What is it?”
“It’s the Millenium bug.”
“The what?”
The Counsellor, Jackson and Damerell had found it very easy to collect together the Hebrews, given that they were waiting expectantly outside the Pharoah’s palace. With the inspiring words, “Right, um, shall we go then?” Damerell had initiated the great trek to the Promised Land. They were marching in a long column, heading east, with Jackson complaining about blisters, Damerell worrying about getting the directions right, and the Counsellor heartily wishing that she’d never suggested this adventure.
Behind them, Stark assembled an army, and set out after them. He’d also packed a few extra pieces of equipment to aid the Egyptians. He’d remembered this part of the story, and wasn’t going to be caught by the same trick as the original Pharoah.
When finally they reached the Red Sea, Damerell said, “Well, that’s that then. Damn thing’s flooded. We’ll never get across.”
“It’s a sea, cretin,” the Counsellor explained, “they tend to be flooded.”
“We still can’t get across,” Damerell complained.
“Yes we can. Try commanding the seas to part.”
“You have to be joking,” Jackson said. “He’d have to be blessed by God or something to pull off a stunt like that.”
“He is blessed by God!”
“Good point,” Jackson conceded. “Well, get on with it then.”
Damerell looked doubtfully at both of them, before reluctantly stepping forwards and saying, “Erm, part?” The Red Sea slowly began to separate, leaving a dry stretch in the centre. Damerell looked at it and said, “Well, that was easier than expected.”
“Come on, everybody,” the Counsellor yelled. “Let’s get across!”
The Hebrews set out across the dry stretch, with the crew now bringing up the rear, Damerell looking anxiously at the towering walls of water on either side of them. As they walked on, the walls started to close in again. “Er, guys, we have a small problem.”
“Hmm?”
“The water’s moving.”
The Counsellor looked up, realised that Damerell wasn’t kidding, and, in her best calm-in-the-face-of-total-disaster voice, announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, if we could all just move a little faster? Possibly running a bit might be good. Let’s make this a race, shall we? Uh, extra milk and honey for the winner.” The Hebrews started to accelerate towards the other side, with the Psycho crew following hard on their heels.
Damerell ran with his arms outstretched, screaming, “Bloody hold still! I command you!”
Most of them made it out before the water collapsed. Damerell wasn’t quite so lucky. He was last out just as the waters finally rejoined, and got caught in the sudden whirlpool. As the others watched, he disappeared below the surface, with a scream of “Bug… bleargh!”
“Do we go in after him?” Jackson asked.
“I don’t know,” the Counsellor admitted. “In the original, this definitely didn’t happen.” Fortunately, the rapidly changing currents threw Damerell out of the Sea and onto dry land, soaked but otherwise unharmed. As he picked himself up, the Counsellor said, “Well done. We managed to keep the Egyptians at bay, at least.”
“Eh?” Damerell spluttered, trying to wring out his robe.
“Look, they’re still on the other side of the Sea. They couldn’t cross.” Sure enough, Stark and the Egyptian army had stopped their chariots on the far side of the Red Sea, stymied by the lack of dry land for the horses.
“Oh good,” Damerell said. “Now can we have a breather? Almost drowning tends to take it out of you.”
“Okay,” The Counsellor said. “It’s not like we’re going to be chased again any time soon.”
“So what’s t’ Millenium bug?” Olding asked. He’d been freed from his ready room, but was now trapped with the others on the bridge, as all the turbolifts were still down. Luckily, the intercom was just about operational, so he could communicate with Barfoot in Engineering.
“It was a problem faced by computers on Earth at the start of the year 2000,” Barfoot said. “In order to save money, the designers only built two-figure date counters into their machines, which, upon the turn of the century, caused potential software conflicts with products using four-figure dates. Basically, the computers tried to reset to 1900.”
“Right,” Olding said. “Sounds like a total disaster.”
“Actually, it never materialised as a serious problem, but it’s still studied as an example of what not to do when designing computers.”
“Fine. So why do we have it now?”
“Well, as far as we can tell, Bleep’s internal clock has managed to reset itself to the late 1990’s. When it rolled over to 2000, Bleep went haywire, and, since he was plugged into the main computers when it happened…”
“He took us with him.”
“Correct, sir.”
“But surely Bleep doesn’t have a bluidy two-figure date counter? That’s ludicrous!”
“No, sir, he doesn’t. But, we think that the algorithms governing his internal clock have broken down to such a point that the changing of all four figures in the clock caused an almighty… well, the, uh, problems we’re having.”
“So what do we do?” Olding asked, wondering yet again why he always got these situations to deal with.
“Well, what we want to do is reconstruct the algorithms, and reinsert them into Bleep’s system.”
“And can you do that?”
“Um… We can rebuild the algorithms, but reinserting them into Bleep’s system could be a little tricky.”
“Why?”
Barfoot looked around Engineering, at the crewmen lying on the floor covered by blankets for the shock. He counted twelve casualties so far. “Well, it seems Bleep has electrified himself. We can’t actually physically touch him at the moment, and, with the computers down, we can’t insert the algorithms remotely.”
“Oh, bluidy marvellous. Well, find a way, Mr Barfoot.”
“Aye, sir.”
Stark, on his side of the Red Sea, smiled as the Egyptian army dragged his secret weapons down to the beach. He wasn’t going to let a piddling little thing like the Red Sea not parting for him get in the way of him crossing it.
On the far side, the Counsellor had been staring at the Egyptian army’s preparations for a while, when she suddenly realised what it was they were doing. “That cheating bastard!” she exclaimed.
“Who?”
“Our Chief Engineer. He’s brought bloody boats with him!”
“Eh?” Damerell followed the Counsellor’s pointing finger, and then they heard a low rumble as several dozen outboard engines started up. In a definite change to regularly scheduled facts, the Egyptian army became the first in history to make a motorised amphibious assault. The Hebrews could only stand and watch as Stark and his troops came ashore and began to march up the beach towards them. The Counsellor, feeling a really good dose of self-righteous anger coming on, marched down towards them, Jackson and Damerell trailing in her wake.
“What on Earth do you think you’re playing at?!” She bellowed.
“What?” Stark said, trying to sound aggrieved and almost succeeding.
“You could at least pretend to follow the original storyline! You know, the one where the Egyptian army lets the Israelites go?!”
“No-one told me that,” Stark offered in his defence.
“Oh, really! What was it we told you to do?” Stark shrugged his shoulders, now starting to think that his ever-so-bright idea hadn’t been such a smart one after all. Damerell then waved his hand in the air. “Ooh, ooh, I know this one!”
“Pardon?” the Counsellor felt her train of thought being forcibly derailed by the hapless Ops officer.
“Let my people go!” Damerell looked very pleased with himself for having got it right.
Unfortunately, his pleasure ended a second later as the scene around them vanished and reformed in a great blur of light, sound and colour. It eventually settled down again, but, as the four of them looked around, they realised it wasn’t for the better.
Barfoot experimentally prodded Bleep with a long plastic pole. His theory was that the plastic wouldn’t conduct electricity, and so he could then try and operate Bleep’s control panel from a safe distance. The operation had to be carried out from several feet away, as getting too close invited the prospect of an arc between Bleep and engineer. Barfoot had another three casualties on the deck sustained in the process of learning that little nugget of information.
He pushed the pole against the side of Bleep’s head, and wondered why he wasn’t meeting with the resistance he was expecting to feel. The pole just carried on moving towards Bleep as he pushed on it. Glancing down the length of the pole, Barfoot quickly realised why. The plastic pole was melting against the side of Bleep’s head, leaving a large gloopy mess that was dripping onto the deck. Hurriedly, Barfoot retracted the pole. Placing it down on the deck, Barfoot turned to his slowly diminishing supply of engineers and said, “Does anyone else have any bright ideas?” There was a general shuffling of feet and glances in other directions from the engineering crew.
Setting aside the remains of the plastic pole, Barfoot went back to the replicator. Maybe wood was the answer.
The seas were rough, and the small landing craft shuddered as the blunt ramp that served as its bow smashed into the waves. The Psycho crew found themselves huddled at the rear of the craft, behind a group of nervous looking soldiers. The abrupt change in the program had meant that they had a few modifications to their original dress. The Counsellor and Jackson were now dressed entirely as soldiers, their original costume having vanished, but Damerell and Stark hadn’t been quite so lucky. The sole change to Damerell’s outfit was the steel helmet that had perched itself on his head, the beard and rough sack-dress still remaining. Stark’s clothing had gone in the other direction, putting him into green trousers and heavy boots, but leaving him with his gold jerkin and big ornamental headdress.
“Don’t I look special,” he grumbled.
Ahead, a man with captain’s bars on his helmet shouted, “As soon as you get ashore, go as far up the beach as you can! We have to clear those murder holes!” From behind them, the sailor steering the craft yelled, “One minute!”
“Excuse me,” the Counsellor asked the soldier standing in front of her, “Where are we?”
“You don’t know? Boy, are you in the wrong place, lady. That’s Omaha beach up ahead, and we’re about to give the Krauts a real nasty surprise.”
“Omaha beach ring any bells?” Hill asked the others. Jackson and Stark shook their heads, but Damerell looked thoughtful. At that point, the sailor shouted, “Thirty seconds! Clear the ramp!”
“Got it!” Damerell said. “This is World War II! Omaha beach was a place where American soldiers got massacred trying to invade France!” He was about to continue when he suddenly realised that the entire population of the landing craft was staring at him, for the most part with a decidedly hostile expression.
“Massacred?” the man who the Counsellor had spoken to said. “That’s not a real helpful attitude to have right now.”
“Uh, well, when I say massacred, I was thinking more, uh…” gabbled Damerell, as the soldiers began to think about making him go first. He was saved from the possibility of making any further social faux pas by the landing craft’s ramp dropping, and all hell breaking loose.
From somewhere on shore, a heavy machine-gun opened up, and poured fire into the tightly packed soldiers in the landing craft. The first four rows of them were chewed up by the murderous assault, and the rest would have followed quickly had not the captain yelled “Over the sides!”
As soldiers dived overboard, the Counsellor shouted, “Damn good idea!” She hauled herself over the thin steel sides of the landing craft, and dropped into the water. The others quickly followed.
After a panicked struggle up the beach, the four of them took shelter behind an anti-invasion device. Damerell very quickly became catatonic as the full impact of the situation hit him, and began to gibber soundlessly whilst rocking backwards and forwards. The Counsellor squinted up the beach, where, just as forecast, the Americans were dying in their dozens in an attempt to make it as far as the concrete machine-gun emplacements that were cutting them down.
“We have to get out of here!” she yelled.
“No arguments here!” Stark said, trying to keep as low down as possible.
“But surely it doesn’t matter,” Jackson said. “The holodeck safeties will keep us out of trouble.”
“Doctor, would you call this a holodeck malfunction?”
“Yes, of course!”
“Right. And what’s the first thing that usually fails when the holodeck malfunctions?”
“Oh, shit.”
“Exactly. Unfortunately, we can’t stay here.” The Counsellor looked up the beach again. “We’re going to have to try and make it to that ridge up there.”
“What, the one where the Americans are trying to gather?” Stark asked.
“That’s the one.”
Stark frowned. “You have noticed how few of them are gathered there, haven’t you?”
The Counsellor did a quick count of the bodies between them and the ridge. “Good point, but I still don’t see that we have any option. If we stay here, we’re definitely dead. If we go, we’re almost certainly dead.”
“Great options,” Stark grumbled.
“Quite,” the Counsellor agreed, leaning across to give Damerell a poke in the ribs. “Come on, Commander! We’re going to go for a nice run up the beach!”
Damerell stirred as she poked him. “Let my people go!” He burbled. Once more, the holodeck systems went nuts.
Barfoot hurriedly extinguished the blazing wooden pole in one of the fire-buckets arranged around the warp core. “Okay,” he said cheerily, as smoke rose from the bucket, “That didn’t work. I’m sure we’ll solve this one eventually.”
The Counsellor found herself apparently suspended over water, with both arms outstretched. Behind her, Damerell appeared, and flung his arms around her in a panic. “Mr Damerell! Let go of me at once!”
Damerell reluctantly let go. Turning around, the Counsellor found that Damerell’s outfit hadn’t changed, and in fact he was still wearing the steel helmet he’d picked up in World War II. She, on the other hand, was now the proud owner of an incredibly restrictive corset, over the top of which was the most ridiculous outfit she’d ever seen, covered in ruffles and pleats and folds and God knows what else. And she was still wearing her helmet. Placing her hands on her hips (a task made more difficult by the fact that under her long skirt there was some kind of tent arrangement that was pushing the skirt out), the Counsellor examined their surroundings. They were aboard some kind of vessel. Luckily, judging by it’s size and design, this one wasn’t about to charge onto a beach. In fact, the vessel didn’t look military at all.
“Any clues as to where we are?” Hill said.
“Nope,” Damerell said. “And where are the others?”
Stark was the first to regain his senses after the maelstrom of colours had settled down. This turned out to be a bad thing, however, as he looked in front of him to discover a naked Jackson reclining on a couch.
“AAGH!” Stark shouted, scattering the paper and pencils he hadn’t noticed he was holding. Jackson came to his senses at that point, and joined in the screaming.
Eventually, the two of them calmed down to the point where, as Stark pointedly looked in the opposite direction, Jackson found a robe to wear. “That’s better,” Stark said, turning round again.
“At least I’m now in character,” Jackson replied, “You’re probably going to look out of place here.” Stark reached up to discover that his headdress had survived yet another transformation. Instead of a soldier’s uniform, however, he was now wearing cheap trousers and a rather itchy shirt.
“We’ll just have to live with it,” he said. “Now where are we?”
“No idea.” Jackson bent down, and retrieved the pad of paper Stark had had. “Still, at least it was a good likeness.” Jackson set off out into the corridor. Stark picked up the sheet Jackson had been looking at. On it was a sketch of an attractive young woman. Wondering what precisely it was that went on in Jackson’s head, Stark followed the doctor out into the corridor.
Eventually, the Psycho crew found each other, on the portside boat deck of what Hill and Damerell had realised was a very large liner. By the time Stark and Jackson met with them, they had been the subject of many a curious stare, as their outfits did not exactly match with the period they were currently occupying.
“About bloody time,” the Counsellor said. “Sorry,” Stark said, “We had a few clothing difficulties.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“Thought not. Erm…” Stark stopped, uncertain of how best to phrase this. “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”
“Better take the good news first,” the Counsellor said, wondering what was coming next.
“The good news is that we’ve found out where we are, and nothing unpleasant is likely to happen to us in the next few minutes.”
“And the bad news?”
“The bad news is, we’re aboard the Titanic, and she’s going to hit a bloody great iceberg and sink tonight.”
“Oh, joy.” The Counsellor frowned and looked around her for a moment, trying to ignore the panicked gibbering that had started emanating from Damerell again the instant he realised they were in danger. “Well, since we have a few hours, it’s about time we figured out precisely what’s going on.”
“So what is going on?” Stark asked.
“Well, we’re trapped in the holodeck,” the Counsellor replied, “with the safeties off, and a serious malfunction underway.”
“You mean, a malfunction other than having the safeties off and us being trapped?” Stark said.
“Well, yes.”
“Um, are we sure we’re trapped?” Jackson said, “Because we haven’t actually tried to leave yet.”
There was a long silence as the rest of the crew pondered that comment, then the Counsellor briskly said, “Computer, exit!”
Nothing happened.
“As I was saying, we’re trapped, and pretty much at the mercy of the holodeck’s systems at the moment.”
“So why so we keep jumping programs?” Stark said.
“I don’t know,” the Counsellor said. “It could be random, or there might be some sort of trigger event. Mr Damerell, any comments?”
Damerell was still rocking backwards and forwards when the Counsellor spoke to him. “Oh, Mr Damerell? Is there anyone in there?”
“Let my people go!” Damerell abruptly said.
“Well done, you…”
The holodeck image dissolved.
Barfoot looked at the contraption with pride. “Don’t worry, lads,” he said, “This one’s bound to work.” He had built a device that he felt was guaranteed to access Bleep’s systems.
At one end, a small winch mounted on a turntable was connected to a wooden arm that was projecting out over Bleep. At the end closest to Bleep, the wood had been sharpened down to a point and coated with metal. At the other end, the arm was mounted on runners to allow it to move back and forth. Barfoot swung the turntable gently, and the arm moved into a postion over Bleep’s head. He let some of the line out on the winch, and the metal point was now suspended in front of Bleep’s chest-mounted control panel.
“Right then, cop hold of these,” Barfoot said, handing some binoculars to an engineer. “You’re going to spot for me.” He then ordered another engineer to collect the padd he’d left by the side of the warp core. “That’s got the algorithms worked out on it. You read ’em off, and we’ll have Bleep reprogrammed in no time.”
Barfoot rubbed his hands together, and began to manipulate the crane. The engineer with the padd said, “Uh, first sequence. X minus 4.78 inverse squared…”
“Hang on, hang on, don’t rush me….” Barfoot squinted at the control panel. “Where’s X?”
“Uh, left a bit… Stop there… Down a fraction… Stop. Okay. That’s it.” Barfoot pushed the arm forwards and pressed the ‘X’ key.
“Right, that’s X. Next?”
“Minus.”
“Right you are!”
“…sod!” The Counsellor’s outburst was the first clear thing any of them heard.
“Pardon?” Stark said.
“We were just about to make some progress, when Mr Rice-Paper-For-Bowels Damerell bleats ‘let my people go’ and we jump programs again! How are we supposed to figure… out… That’s it!”
“What is? said Stark, who was still mystified.
“Damerell saying ‘let my people go’ is the key phrase that’s causing all this. So, Mr Damerell, the trick is, not to say… What are you staring at?!” The Counsellor had suddenly become aware that Damerell’s gaze was fixed on something, and, for the first time, she took notice of their surroundings.
They were standing in a park, next to a small lake. Behind them was an old country house, with a horse or two in the grounds in front of it. But it wasn’t that that had fixed Damerell’s attention. Once again, of all the crew, he was the one whose outfit had changed the least. He was still in his beard and sack outfit, only now he had a top hat on. Stark, on the other hand, was wearing a set of smart white breeches, a white shirt with cravate, and a black jacket, along with the ever-present Pharoah’s headdress. It was her outfit, however, that had grabbed Damerell’s attention. Glancing down, the Counsellor saw the problem.
She was once again in a tight corset, which was covered by a long white dress. However, unlike the previous outfit, the neckline on the dress was quite low, and the corset had pushed up and revealed quite a lot of the areas of herself that in the interests of discipline the Counsellor tended to keep covered up.
“Mr Damerell!” Hill bellowed, realising there was only one way to deal with this problem.
“Uh, sir?”
“You will kindly focus your eyes at face height at all times whilst this program is operational, is that clear?”
“Uh, yes, sir.”
“Well done. You will also refrain from uttering the words ‘Let my people go’ unless clearly instructed to by me. Is that also clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well done. Now, where’s the Doctor gone?” Stark and Damerell glanced around. “There is he is,” Stark said, pointing.
“Doctor, get out of the lake!” Hill bellowed.
Jackson had found himself up to his waist in cold water, a state of affairs he was less than happy with. As he started to wade towards the shore, he realised he was also now wearing tight breeches, which, wet as they were, were undoubtedly going to chafe like buggery when he got out of the water.
Jackson pulled himself out of the lake, and the Counsellor said, “Now we’re all here again, and we know what the problem is, I think that the best thing we can do is to not do anything.”
“Gets my vote,” Stark said.
“This doesn’t look like a life-threatening scenario,” Hill continued, glancing around them. “So I vote we stay here until they can fish us out.”
“Any chance we can get some dry clothes?” Jackson said. “These breeches are itchy.”
“You should try mine, ” the Counsellor retorted, “But I take your point. We’ll go up to the house, and see if we can’t find some clothes for you.”
“…Square root of 42y minus…”
“Right.” Barfoot’s initial enthusiasm was dying out as the process of reprogramming Bleep dragged on. It didn’t help that his arms were getting tired. But the Captain was depending on him to set Bleep right. Wiping the sweat away, Barfoot kept swinging his pole.
The crew had just started up towards the country house when a young woman came running out of the house. She, like the Counsellor, was dressed in a revealing outfit, and she was also wearing a large bonnet, that, despite it being tied in place, was in serious danger of being blown away as she ran. “Oh, Mr Darcy, Mr Darcy,” she called.
The crew exchanged glances. “Any chance she’s talking about one of us?” Stark said.
“Do you see anyone else around?” The Counsellor replied.
“Well, no.”
“There’s your answer, I’m afraid. Well, at least she doesn’t appear threatening.”
The young woman had almost reached them when there was a sudden roar of engine noise behind them. The Counsellor and Stark swung round to see a landing craft run up the lake and drop its ramp against the bank. A second later, more American soldiers came pouring out of it, and started running up towards the house.
“Hit the deck!” The Counsellor yelled, and the Psycho crew threw themselves to the ground.
The young woman reached them, looked down at the four of them cowering on the floor, and said, “Why, Mr Darcy, are these your friends?” A second later, a machine-gun burst cut her roughly in two.
“Oh, shit!” The Counsellor raised her head and glanced back at the Americans, who were taking up defensive positions in the shrubbery. “We can’t stay here! Get to the house!”
The crew picked themselves back up and began to sprint for the country house, Damerell emitting a high-pitched keening noise as he ran.
Amazingly, they survived the onslaught of bullets, and made it through the french windows into the house, where several well-fed gentlemen were standing with incredibly stiff postures, clutching wine-glasses, and listening to another young woman play the grand piano.
“Everybody get down!” The Counsellor shouted, as she started to close the doors. “We’re about to be invaded!”
“I beg your pardon, young lady?” One of the gentlemen abandoned his conversation to fix the Counsellor with a disapproving gaze.
“Hit the deck, fat boy!” she replied. “You have the US Marines outside thinking this is France!”
“One cannot help but feel that your language and manner are inappropriate to a social occasion such as this, and, moreover…” The gentleman’s sentence was never finished, as machine-gun rounds stitched a series of holes across the raised lid of the piano. The young woman, seemingly unaffected by this, played on.
“I think it might be time for your catchphrase,” Stark said to Damerell, who hurriedly burbled out, “Let my people go!”
“Okay people, we have a problem.” Barfoot had abandoned his Patented Poking Device, and had drawn the engineers into a huddle. “We need a capital letter, the Caps Lock key on Bleep’s keyboard isn’t working, and we’ve only got one poker. How do we hold down Shift and get our capital X at the same time?”
The engineers exchanged glances. Out of all the complex engineering problems they’d been called on to solve, this one was by far the most surreal. Barfoot gave his team an encouraging grin. “Come on, guys, let’s have some ideas. Nothing’s too bizarre, trust me.”
“Could we modify our poking device? Give it two prongs?”
“When I said nothing’s too bizarre, I actually meant…” Barfoot looked sideways at the engineer who’d had the bonkers scheme. “That’s brilliant! We press Shift and X at the same time! Several days leave coming your way, I think!”
The engineers set to work dismantling the business end of the poker.
“Bloody hell, familiar surroundings!” Stark said. The four of them had arrived on the bridge of a Federation Starship. Stark now had a commbadge on his US Army tunic, but otherwise they didn’t seem to have changed at all. An old Federation Starship, admittedly, but at least it was recognisable. “Anyone recognise which ship we’re on?”
“The Stargazer,” said an authoritarian voice from the command chair. Hill spun round to face the speaker.
“Captain Picard?”
“Yes. Now if you don’t mind, I’m a little busy…”
“Christ, he’s got hair!” Stark commented.
“Must be an old simulation,” Jackson said.
“Look, I’m sure this is fascinating to you, but I’m in the middle of a battle right now,” Picard protested. “There’s an unknown vessel out there and it’s pounding our… What do you mean, ‘he’s got hair’?”
“Shit, this is the Battle of Maxia!” the Counsellor realised. “Quick, guys, take the helm! We’re in trouble, again.”
“About that hair remark,” Picard persisted. “I demand to know what you meant by that!”
Hill threw herself behind the helm console, and ran a quick diagnostic. “Thrusters are down, impulse is off-line, we’ve got partial warp power. Must be the final phase of the battle.”
Damerell sat down next to her at ops, and said, “What happens then?”
“Don’t you… no, I’m not going to waste the shock. Does the Picard Manouevre ring any bells?”
“Straightening your uniform jacket? Doesn’t really count, you’re still in that corset.”
“And you’re in that damn sack-cloth! No, the going to warp speed then dropping back out to beat the sensors! We did it once, remember?”
“Didn’t we ram our target?”
“Yes, well, maybe this one will go a little better. All we have to do is wait for Picard to give the word, and I hit the warp drive, then you hit the phasers. Easy.”
“What’s happening to my hair?!”
Hill glanced over her shoulder, irritated at Picard’s pre-occupation. “Nothing’s happening to your hair.” She glanced at his already high hairline. “Yet.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?!”
Stark and Jackson, who had been left on one side during this, were getting more and more confused about the tactical aspects of their current predicament, but at least they’d met the real Jean-Luc Picard. “It means,” Jackson said in his best doctor-to-patient voice, ie immensely patronising, “That you’re going bald.”
“Oh.” Picard seemed suddenly calm. Hill returned her attention to the main screen, where the Ferengi vessel was coming around in a slow turn to port. “Okay, Mr Damerell, stand by main phasers. Wait for Captain Picard’s word.”
“I’m going bald?”
“Was that it?”
“No.”
“I’m going BALD?”
“Sure?”
“Yes.”
“I’M GOING BALD?!!!!!!”
“Really sure?”
“Shut up, Mr Damerell.” Hill risked a glance over her shoulder. Picard was clutching his hair, an anguished look on his face. “He appears to have gone catatonic,” Hill commented, before looking back at the main viewer. The Ferengi ship was appreciably bigger. In fact, it was almost on top of them. “Ah, shite,” Hill commented. “Mr Damerell, now!”
Damerell opened fire with all phasers, hitting the Ferengi ship, which promptly returned fire. The Stargazer began to shake alarmingly. “Not what I was thinking of, Mr Damerell,” the Counsellor said. “We’ve just screwed up the Picard Manouevre. Again. Try your catchphrase.”
“Let my people go?”
“That’s it! Programme complete! Main computer rebooting!” Barfoot punched the air. “Good job, people.” Barfoot glanced across his padd full of things to do once the power was back on. “Ooh, senior staff in the holodeck. Better fish them out. They’re probably just bored to tears, but if we don’t rescue them first, there’ll be hell to pay.” Barfoot picked up a toolkit and ambled off out of Main Engineering.
“We’re back on the Titanic, aren’t we?” Stark said.
“Looks like it,” Hill agreed.
“That’s a hell of a conclusion,” Jackson said. “How’d you figure that out?”
“Two things, Doctor,” Hill said patiently. “One, this ship is identical to the ship we were on earlier. And two, the deck is currently at a thirty degree angle and rising.”
They were hanging off a railing somewhere close to the Titanic’s stern. Around them, people were screaming and falling towards the icy sea, which was getting closer to them as the giant liner sank.
“Mr Damerell…”
“No problem! Let my people go!” They waited expectantly for the world to swirl about them and take them somewhere different. It didn’t. As the other three looked at the Counsellor for leadership, she allowed the pent-up frustration she was feeling to express itself in a wide variety of swearwords from across the Federation.
“Uh, sir,” Damerell ventured.
“Quiet, Mr Damerell, I’m trying to remember how you refer to illegitimate children in Andorian.”
“Uh… While you’re thinking, any ideas on how to get out of this?”
“Once we’re in the water, the cold will mean shock will kill us in less than five minutes, so, think warm thoughts, gentlemen.”
“That’s it?” Jackson exclaimed. “Well, we’re out of options. We’re already sinking, we’re nowhere near a lifeboat, and air-sea rescue won’t really be around for another sixty years or so. Personally, I’m choosing to visualise a nice, roaring fire.”
“Great,” Stark said.
Barfoot stopped outside Holodeck Three, and consulted the padd. “Hmm, some cruise liner scenario. Fairly dull. Still, better check they’re alright.” He began to manually override the door controls.
The water was less than four feet from their varyingly-shoed toes when the Counsellor said, “Gentlemen, it’s been weird. See you around.” She let go of the rail, and plunged into the icy waters. Stark looked at Jackson and Damerell, shrugged, and dropped in after her.
Jackson looked at Damerell and said, “If someone had told me I’d be going out this way, I’d never have believed them.” Then he, too, let go of the rail. Damerell opted to close his eyes and grip the rail even more tightly.
The door had been strangely jammed, but Barfoot finally overrode the locks, and took a pace back as the door slid open. He immediately wished he’d taken a step to the side as well as a tidal wave of near frozen Atlantic seawater swept over him. Counsellor Hill, Stark and Jackson were flung out of the holodeck along with the water, coming to a rest on top of Barfoot.
“You people never do things the easy way, do you?” Barfoot spluttered.
Alone in the holodeck, Damerell could feel the water, which had been lapping round his feet, sudddenly disappear. Convinced that the cold had got to him, he let out a despairing sigh, and let go of the rail.
Barfoot had just stood up again when Damerell plunged out of the holodeck, his feet catching the engineer in the small of the back. Barfoot dropped with a small ‘oof’ noise as all the air was forcibly removed from his lungs. Damerell collapsed to the floor after him. The Counsellor, struggling to a sitting position, said, “Next time, let’s all volunteer for overtime.” Stark and Jackson nodded, whilst Damerell muttered something. “What was that, Mr Damerell?”
Damerell coughed, spat out large amounts of seawater, and wheezed, “Let… my people… go.”
“Quite.”
“Captain’s Log, Stardate 54162.17. After our minor technical difficulties, t’ Psycho has been called to the DMZ patrol line to take over from t’ Melonoma. Strangely, my senior crew seems quite relieved our period of rest and relaxation is over. Me, I’m just glad Bleep is almost workin’ again. End log entry.”
Olding took his seat on the bridge, and glanced across at the Counsellor, who seemed unnaturally happy about heading into combat. Damerell, too, seemed equally glad, which in his case meant that he wasn’t trembling visibly or quavering, “We’re all going to die!” He was, however, wearing an antique tin helmet, which Olding suspected was functioning as an armour-plated comfort blanket.
“Bleep… wzrtfgl… Mind the gap… All decks report ready for warp, Captain.”
“Very good. Mr Ingram, engage. Mr Damerell…”
“Let my people go!”
“Eh?”
“Don’t worry sir. It’ll wear off in no time,” the Counsellor assured him.
“Do I want to know how it started?”
“Not really, sir.”
“Fine. Mr Damerell, activate t’ shields and sound yellow alert. Time to go t’ war.”
The Psycho went to warp.
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