Topic: A random short

[Lieutenant_Q]

Tau Ceti III (New Earth)
15 August 2112 (Earth Date) 15 December (Local)

The sound of the raging blizzard filled the room as Jeremy entered the comm station.  Silvia turned and scowled at him as she pulled her jacket tighter around her.  "Close the door!  It's thirty below out there!"

He shivered as he closed the air tight door.  He was dressed for the weather and took some time un-bundling before he finally responded to her jab, "You don't think I don't know that? I've been out in that storm for the last forty minutes!  Whoever decided this planet was habitable needed their head examined."

"A drone decided this place was habitable, remember?  It's why Space Command scrapped their drone exploration program back in '06."

He scoffed as he took off his last layer, "And the Vulcans insisted that Starfleet promptly reactivate that program when it was reorganized in '10.  Archer told them where to shove it."

She turned her attention back to her computer, "Then the Vulcans decided to stonewall Archer's work on the Warp 5 engine." She sighed, "Spacebook is still in local only mode."

He nodded, "I couldn't get the Tachyon Gun operational.  The rotational mechanism is frozen solid, and I couldn't get it thawed enough to align it with either Earth or Alpha Centauri."

"Well I'm getting tired of this blackout! Let's tie it into the Sub-space transmitter!"

"I tried that, Starfleet says they need all the bandwidth for themselves."

She scowled, "Liars, they only use about a third of their bandwidth."

He shook his head as he sat down at his computer, "The point is, that Spacebook itself would take up all their bandwidth, and leave nothing for their operations."

"What could they possibly need all that bandwidth for?"

"Well.... remember two weeks ago when that Andorian Frigate decided that this planet belonged to them?  Starfleet was able to get the Powell and the Kurita here in time to drive them off.  It takes a lot of work to get a pair of Warp 2 Destroyers to outmanuever a Warp 3 Frigate."

"The Andorians can have this worthless iceball."

"Just because this part of the planet is frozen for three months out of the year, doesn't make it worthless. There's a massive deposit of lithium in the mountains, not to mention scores of metals."

"All I want to know, is how Jenna is doing, she was 8 months pregnant the before the gun froze.  I want to know if I'm an aunt yet!"

Jeremy scratched his head as he looked over his computer, "You know, there's nothing wrong with the receiver, we just can't send the verification information required to receive the updates."

"I've checked the news feeds, there's been nothing in there about births."

"When Earth and her colonies reached 10 billion in population, it's gotten harder to keep up in the news all the births and deaths."

"It also doesn't help when colonies like Terra Nova go off the map.  When is that freighter getting here with the replacement heating unit?"

Jeremy shrugged, "Starfleet says the day after tomorrow, assuming the Andorians don't interfere."

The lights turned a hue of red and an alert klaxon sounded, "Andorians." Silvia groaned.

Jeremy shook his head, "Not for us.  Starfleet says that Andoria just declared war on Vulcan."

"Again!?"

"Again.  It's a wonder that they haven't declared war on us yet."

"They have some kind of grudge against them, I guess."

"As long as that keeps them away from us, I suppose that's fine, I don't think Starfleet is ready for an all out war."