AUTHOR'S NOTE

In all the recent hullabaloo over the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, it's worth remembering another milestone anniversary of a long-running sci-fi series. I'm talking, of course, about Stephen Ratliff's "Marrissa Stories" - a long thread of over 50 fanfics centering around an obscure one-episode character from a Star Trek TNG episode.

Take a look at them on this site - it's interesting to see the evolution of one writer's general competence and narrative skills from the depths of "Enterprized" and "Time Speeder", to his current work, a number of Harry Potter stories that are at worst, decent. If you're reading this, Stephen, I'd like to stress that this is a celebration. You are, in the words of Mad Magazine, "a great sport, all kidding aside", and I hope that any fans of Marissa, Trek, Mystery Science Theater 3000, or just humorous stories will see that.

CHAPTER 1

A boxy, hunched ship flew through space at a dozen times the speed of light. Somewhere aboard, a voice broke the silence.

"Personal log, Marrissa Amber Floras recording.

"STARDATE 48632.7, in the year 2371. As I return to my childhood home, I realize I could not ask for more dependable or dedicated friends. Jay, Patterson, Clara - and our lost comrade Alexander Rozhenko, whose departure to discover his Klingon roots is still deeply felt."

Marissa stopped recording as her loyal but subordinate friend Jay-Gordon Graas tugged at a lock of her blond hair to get her attention. "Why are you talking like that? Do you have a sore throat or something?"

"It's how Captain Kirk talked." Marissa responded.

"Of course it's Captain Kirk." Jay-Gordon harrumphed, with surprising maturity for his nine years. "It's always Captain Kirk, if it isn't Captain Picard. What's the big deal with starship captains? Captain Proton, there's a good captain!"

Marissa, who was the oldest of their little circle, was a natural at condescension. "Don't be such a baby. Captain Kirk - he really happened, it was all real! Not like some book or holoprogram."

"No - no it's not! They said - I heard it - Captain Kirk wasn't real!" Patterson Supra, like many people with easily-mockable names, had a lot of anger in him. In the enlightened, peaceful twenty-fourth century, though, such drives to destroy and maim were channeled into safer avenues. Patterson was an accomplished sportsman, martial artist and orator...at least, that's what he would be called if he were an adult. At age seven, though, this translated to 'bully, stubborn, and a sore loser'.

"I remember, they found out!" Patterson continued. "They went over the records and all the dates were wrong, and the planets were wrong! I know, I remember it!"

Marissa didn't like to challenges to her authority - she had made an effort to be assertive and leaderly since her little group had formed. She was quite timid and tacit when she was younger, but her outlook had been changed by a trauma two years ago, when the spaceship she called home had hit a quantum filament, all power had been knocked out, and she had only been able to survive thanks to the ship's captain, renowned diplomat Jean-Luc Picard.

Marissa had been reborn that day - she had taken Captain Picard on as an idol. She attempted to emulate his mannerisms, speech patterns and worldview - decidedly difficult for a preteen, who had only the barest of insights into his conflicted and eventful life.

She put a parental hand on Patterson's shoulder. "You're not quite remembering it correctly, Patterson." Marissa said, with hints of the French accent she had tried and miserably failed to cultivate three months previously. "You'll find that the errors in the famous five-year mission's data banks were due to inteer.." She paused, to get her bearings as she navigated the uneven ground of the word's syllables - "The in-ter-ference from the failed installation of multi-tronic systems on the ship's computer."

The group had been very closely knit since their Starfleet officer parents had been assigned to a remote Federation outpost, Deep Space Nine. The station was in a very politically charged region of space, and the atmosphere wasn't exactly the most nurturing for young children. Though there were less than a dozen preteens on the station, some effort to accommodate them had been made by Keiko O'Brien, wife of the station's chief engineer. Mrs. O'Brien had started a one-room schoolhouse, the students of which had quickly formed two opposing cliques. In the late twentieth century, they might have been called jocks and nerds, but in the cosmopolitan, understanding environment of the twenty-fourth century...well, no one had been able to think of a substitute (Marissa had suggested "The Kid's Crew", but this had been vetoed out of apathy). It was immaterial, as Marissa's group thought in very delineated "Us and them" terms, and the three-boy-strong opposing force of Michael, Thomas and Corbin did the same.

The two groups had been locked in a state of cold war for more than a year and a half, but it had been brought to an unexpected end when a much larger war had started - after the discovery of a huge, powerful and dictatorial Dominion on Deep Space 9's doorstep, all non-essential personnel were withdrawn from the station. Through an application of the strange and mystical power children have over adults, Marissa's group had managed to get themselves all assigned to the same ship: The mighty Federation flagship, the Enterprise. The very same ship where Marissa had experienced her renaissance.

The Enterprise (Starfleet classification NCC-1701-D, as if you didn't know) was on the same peaceful mission of exploration and diplomacy that it had been for the past seven years. Or, at least, that's what Captain Picard kept saying. In practice, the ship was just as likely to be in a deadlock with a Romulan warbird, or an encounter with a hostile spaceborne species, as it was to be charting a far-flung region of space or hosting a diplomatic conference.

This varied lifestyle had produced some of the best officers to ever sail across the confusingly metaphorical sky. The senior staff of the ship - one-of-a-kind sentient android Data, revolutionary computer scientist Geordi La Forge, the proud Klingon tactical officer Worf, and so on - had risen to giants in their field since their mission had began.

Of course, being the breeding ground for so many of these giants, the Enterprise wasn't too small itself. As Marissa's shuttle dropped out of warp speed a few thousand kilometers from the ship, the girl pressed her face against the glass in a futile effort to see every inch of the nearly half-mile long vessel, her home of so many years. In a strangely slow maneuver, the shuttle circled the Enterprise at a relative speed of about 5 miles an hour. Marissa wasn't complaining, though - she was relishing every moment of it.

Three minutes later, she wasn't relishing it a bit. Neither were any of her friends. Clara Sutter had started talking to no one in particular - or maybe that imaginary friend of hers, Elizabeth, who Marissa had long as a means of pacification and power over the younger girl.

"What's taking them so long?" Clara sighed. "Anyone know?"

Marissa got up, theatrically. "I'll ask, don't worry." She stamped into the shuttle's cabin. "Daddy, what's going on?", Marissa said in her best put-upon voice.

Lieutenant George Flores looked up from his console. "Don't worry, Princess - our impulse drives are just offline for safety - we're on thrusters. We'll be there in a couple minutes."

"But I want to go now! Can't you just beam onto the ship?"

"Think, Marissa - what would happen to the shuttle? I can beam all your friends up if you really want to, but it would take around the same time anyway..."

"Pleeeeeease?"

Lt. Flores sighed. "Oh, all right. Get your little Crew to the transporter, I'll have Patterson's mom beam you out." A short woman on the other side of the cabin turned back to her station at this. "Runabout Mississippi to Enterprise, requesting transport..."