The image kinda stuck in Stews head much like the gum that had just dropped out of his mouth that was now stuck to his shoe, than did the next, because the next few were so incredible that they were nearly unbelieveable.
http://home.satx.rr.com/sg3/FatherTed'sDNH2.jpgThe following explosion was so close and so bright that the GCS's sensors were temporarily blinded by the explosion that she lost her lock on the Raptor and overflew her target. The GCS dropped PF's and circled slowly around trying to either find debris of the Raptor or her cloak signature... But there was nothing but space, rocks and The debris of the Red Dwarf, all hands lost...
Noone said anything for quite a while. They just stared on and watched as the debris cloud drifted across the asteroid field. Finally Stew threw his book, '101 Ways to Kill Dizzy', by John Vaughn across the room, stomped up and down and stormed off into the bathroom quickly followed by torrents of slurs.
A few minutes later, stew emerged from hiding... "OH MY GOD NOOOOOOO!" Stew hollered and wailed! "This can't be happening! OH MY GOD, someone do something... oh no!" Stew paced back and forth through the control room, pops coming from his shoe with the gum stuck to the bottom. "This is not happening, I'm dreaming... The Federation Flagship... GONE@#$$%!!!"
"No", Kell stated matter of factly, "You are not dreaming. The Ballerina is still in search mode now and the Raptor is nowhere to be found. The Federation flagship Red Dwarf has been destroyed."
"Thank you very DAMN much for pointing out the OBVIOUS!" Stew shouted as he nearly leapt over to where Kell was seated, quite an accomplishment for someone so overweight as Stew, and hovered menacingly over Kell. "You ought to be smart enough not to push my buttons", he warned the taller yet thinner tech. "I don't really have any like of you and I never did. You are a nerdy goody-to-shoes momma's boy and you are a neat freak on top of it. I hate neat freaks. You remind me of my mother!"
"Furthermore", the irrate and infuriated Stew went on, "You clean up everything I leave out and I can't ever find em. Where is my gum I leave everywhere? Where are my science fiction journals I had in the bathroom, and where is my donut box," He yelled the top of his lungs?
Had it not been for the beep of the comms alarm distracting the two, a fight almost assuredly would have errupted.
"Well, what are you sitting there for, boy!" Yelled Stew. "Check it out. Now."
Kell may have been thinner and look weaker that Stew, but had Stew known any better, he would have recognized how perilously close to death he was from the murderous look in Kell's eyes. Kell just stared him down, not relaxing his posture one bit. And Stew began to notice this by the 9th or 10th alarm beep.
"Fine, sit there, I'll do it myself then", Stew stammered, quite disgusted as he slowly regained what little composure he had left and backed away from the younger tech. "Communiqué incoming. Non-standard transmission on a carrier feedback loop. Wait a second, Kell. What in the hell is this [censored]?" Stew moved over to Kell's comms console and pressed the recall key. He brought up the data tracking info Kell had put together. Something wasnt right...
"What have you done, Kelll? What the [censored] is this? What in the [censored] have you been doing sitting there?" Stew punched a key and the signal of the streaming still pics of the Red Dwarf's debris field was replaced with the carrier wave signal piggybacked on the tracking info Kell had used to send to the Fleet. Look at this crap! You created a hole in our security transmission and then opened the backdoor to allow whomever this is to track us and send a signals back? Are you mad?"
"You are gonna be court marshaled for this. Maybe even imprisoned." Stew looked at the transmission log once more in detail. "OH MY GOD. You dumbass rookie cadet! You used FLEET WIDEBAND subspace. You just let the Raptor know from the beginning where everyone was, didn't you?" Stew threw a disbelieving glance over in Kell's direction. "This is unreal. I don't get you. You never make mistakes. You are 'by the book'. What the hell is all this then? I don't get it!"
Kell just stared back at him. His menacing cruel eyes narrowed to slits
Stew looked back at the comms alarm. It beeped again."I'll tell you one thing, Kell, I may be responsible for this station, but your [censored] up isnt gonna take me down with it. I'm gonna make sure you burn at the stake for this screw up. I have been waiting a looooong time for this moment, haha! You have nearly broken in that one transmission 20 or so Starfleet code regulations... What the hell is the matter with you? Doesn't matter. You are through, finished done, gone goodbye baby!
Wait a minute! Why are we getting a comms message on a carrier feedback loop..." Stew triangulated the transmission and discovered, quite to his shock, that it wasn't sent from very far away at all... In fact, he almost mistook the sender for his own station. But...
Just then the stations space proximity alarm suddenly blared right next to Kell's finger for just an instant before he switched it off. It seemed very much to Stew like he was sitting there expecting it to go off.
Had Stew been chewing gum, he'd have another piece of it stuck under his shoe from the way his mouth dropped open. The transmission was Romulan. And it wasnt sent from the station, and it wasn't on subspace. Which meant that it was close, which meant that... Stew spun around to where Kell was his eyes momentarily fixating on an empty console chair. Kell wasn't sitting down anymore. He had walked over to comms terminal two and pressed a hailing frequency key.
"Message received, and all is prepared, commander." Kell spoke into the open channel.
A strange voice replied back in Romulan, "Very good agent Kell. Standby for transport."
Stew, for the 1st time in his life felt genuinely afraid. He felt cold, unsafe and alone. He would trade anything for the old Kell he knew and hated rather than this new stranger that stood before him now. The thought of his mortality was forced upon him in his sudden realization of current events. He felt like icewater had poured all over him seeping in his pores stabbing like little pins all over his skin freezing him solid from the outside in.
"You amaze me", said Kell, his eyes stll possesing their murderous intent.
Stew barely regained composure and shrunk back to the corner of the control room and glanced around for a weapon trying not to take his eyes off Kell. He picked up a coffee mug and held it up threateningly.
"All this time, I am stuck here with you in this disgusting pig stye and not once have you shown me any reason the Federation will prevail in anything. I am surprised your species are as successful as they are if they are anything like you." Kell strode over to the transmission control pad and pressed the 'send' key. Data from the core began being compressed and transmitted.
Kell walked a bit closer to Stew. Stew drew up his arm holding the coffe mug in anticipation of attack. But Kell simply squatted down to the floor and picked up Stew's copy of '101 Ways to Kill Dizzy' by John Vaughn.
"Mind if I borrow this?" Kell said, twisting a wry smile. He walked back over to comms terminal two and pressed the hailing frequency key again. "This is agent Kell, commander. All is complete. Ready for transport in thrity seconds."
Stew could only watch on in disbelief as the main viewer showed the RIS Raptor decloak so close to the listen station that he could see people walking by the windows in its hull. Despite being terrified, he couldn't help noticing the Nova Hawk class ship is so gracefully beautiful.
"Sorry about your donuts, Kell said. I ate them. All of them. And I want you to also know that I didn't enjoy them. Not one. Farewell, Stew. I'm sure Starfleet will lock you up for good. Maybe I will have you released from captivity when we conquer Earth. It will be the only reward you shall reap from the information this station provides the Romulan intelligence agancy. For your benefit, you should hope it helps us. It's the only way you will ever see the outside of a prison cell again. See you soon", Kell smirked as his pattern dematerialized.
The coffee mug was too late and smashed against the far wall. Stew jumped out of the corner and greedily eyed the emergency warp pod, his only escape route. He had nearly climbed into it when he glanced back at the viewer and saw the Raptor begin to cloak. Stew paused. Halfway in and out of the warp pod hatch. Thoughts raced through his head. He didn't even notice the stick of chewing gum resting on the warp pod escape control console.
If I use the pod, it only goes warp one for 60 seconds... then I'm dead in space till I'm rescued. Kell knows this. What if they find me... But the Raptor cloaked. It can't fire when cloaked. Maybe it won't destroy the station after all. Other thoughts raced though his head each sumarily being dismissed in turn.
Stew didn't like how tight and cramped the pod was. The listening station was alredy too small and cramped. He made a decision to stay.
"Ok, I'm staying", he said out loud. "What do I need to do, think damnit." He walked over to the data terminal to stop the transmission of core files, but the transmission had already been completed and the databases and records of all recent events had been erased. "Damn. That little bastard. Ok. What next... What do I do now", he thought talking to himself aloud.
"Ok, I need to contact Starfleet. I need to tell them what happened." He walked over to the comms terminal. "Will you look at that! A stick of gum. I don't believe it. He sat down at Kell's console and picked up the gum, unwrapped it and stuck it into his mouth. He then keyed up the location to Starbase 12, pointed the array and typed a short communique.
Suddenly he sprang up to his feet his eyes wide as saucers. He lurched up backwards and clutched his mouth and throat. His tongue! He couldn't feel his tongue! His throat began to swell and his cheecks got puffy and red. His eyes started to water. He couldn't breathe!
Stew may have been a sloppy fat and lazy technician, but he was courageous. You had to be working on such a tiny station out in the middle of space alone.
Stew finally did something that he felt mattered. Something that possibly could make whatever life he leaves behind to be remembered, whatever precious few seconds remained to make his life count for something. Stew staggered forward clutching the chair and leaned over the console... desperately looking for the send key. He found it.
The last thing Stew hoped to see, the last thing that would give him the satisfaction of dying like this was doing his duty. In his cold realization of this last act in his life, he felt it was the only thing that would give him meaning and closure in dying this way, was to warn Starfleet everything had been compromised. All the codes, locations transmissions, relays, sensors and listening posts. Starfleet had to be warned.
He felt his life ebbing away as he took one of his last gulping breaths and managed one last heroic effort and pressed the 'send' key. He looked up at the viewscreen. And to his horror it read on screen and on audio speakers:
http://home.satx.rr.com/sg3/Transmission1.jpg Hello Stew. You didn't think I'd be stupid enough to let you warn Starfleet did you? Hehe. You know I never make a mistake. I liked you Stew. You made me laugh, Looks like I get the last one my friend. It was either this or the warp pod. Had you taken the warp pod, there is a message there that tells you the antidote for the poison stick of gum is in the coffee mug in the control room.
As wide as Stew's eyes were you wouldn't think they could get any bigger but they did as he jerked his eyes around to the floor where the broken pieces of that Coffee mug were. The antidote was all over the wall and floor. He moved toward it.
Or maybe you are in the control room and got the other poison gum stick and pressed the send key. Double trouble for poor Stew. Oh, by the way, I lied. There is one donut box left on top the fridge. Better hurry up and get one though... you only have about 30 seconds before the self destruct sequence completes. Enjoy!
And crumpled to the floor with a gurgling scream. Hanging out of his mouth, his toungue touched the spilt antidote serum and almost immediately sensation came rushing back. It tastes like Strawberry he thought. Then he died.
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On board the bridge of the Raptor...
"Tal Prae'ex Dizzy, sir, I have the data you asked for." Kell handed to his commander a datapad debriefing summary.
"Excellent work Agent Kell. Your services go beyond the call of duty. Your future is bright indeed and a promising career in espionage assured. I am pleased. And what is to become of this Stew? Do I need to clean up anything for you Agent Kell?" Dizzy challenged.
"No sir, I do not believe so. Let us just say I gave Stew something to chew on that will keep him occupied for eternity." Kell smirked with a smile.
"Commander!" The Romulan sensor specialist alerted. "The Listening station has self destructed."
"Was there any transmission sent from the station after Agent Kell beamed aboard?" Dizzy asked not taking his eyes off Kells'.
"No sir. No transmission detected."
"Very well. Standby Warp Engines," he ordered and then rose from his command chair.
"I am pleased, Agent Kell, very pleased. Feel free to enjoy yourself aboard the Raptor as we continue home for repairs. I have a present waiting for you in the cargo bay. Just a bit of the Red Dwarfs debris we managed to salvage while sneaking away from the battle. Feel free to go now and find yourself some token of value. What you find wouldn't be here had you not been there. Pick a fitting trophy for yourself to remember this glorious day!"
"Very gracious of you commander, Dizzy. It would be an honor. Before I take my leave of you, I too have a gift." Kell pulled from his pocket Stew's copy of '101 Ways to Kill Dizzy' personally signed by John Vaughn. "This is for you, Commander." He said proudly handing it to him. "You may find it entertaining. Also take pleasure in that it is signed by the author."
"Excellent Agent Kell. Thank you! I shall indeed savor this gift!"
As Agent Kell exited the bridge a very proud Romulan, Dizzy sat back in his command chair. "Navigator, best speed to waypoint 1. Engage."
The Raptor moved off toward home, mission accomplished.
Dizzy thought to himself, The Federation flagship destroyed on the eve of their Klingon invasion. Not a good start for them at all, he smirked. Dizzy opened the book to the contents page and took notice of chapter 14: "How to kill Dizzy in an Asteroid Field". Ahh, a book of fiction I see...'
Topic: WHO WAS THE CAPTAIN OF THE FED SHIP THE USS LOVE MACHINE. (Read 2834 times)