Captain Lovely Ferren impatiently fidgets in the captain's chair. Really loudly. And obnoxiously. And illogically.
"Captain, please," Commander T'Rokka says from the first officer's seat right beside her.
Lovely leans over real reeeaaal slow so her chair creeeaaaks until she's right beside T'Rokka's ear. "Please what."
"Please sit still."
"But I can't," Lovely says. "I want to get this exploring mission on the road! Or in space…or…yeah."
"We must wait for the rest of the senior officers to arrive on board," T'Rokka informs her. Lovely sinks down into her chair. T'Rokka makes the observation that her captain can look very much like a puddle.
Something beeps. Lovely launches out of her chair. "They're here!"
"Sorry Captain, that was the microwave," says the helmsman, Skip, as he retrieves his warmed up coffee so he can sit it next to him and let it get cold again.
"Right." Lovely sits back down in her chair in a confused manner. "Rocky, why do we have a microwave on the bridge?"
"Because you requested it, Captain," T'Rokka says, puzzled.
Lovely snaps her fingers. "Right! Don't get old, Rocky."
"I am older than you, Captain, and I don't have any choice in the matter…" A beep cuts the Vulcan off.
Lovely tries to contain her excitement. "So is that them or was that the microwave again?"
T'Rokka looks at the empty microwave that no one is currently using and back at the captain. "That was them."
"Yes!" Lovely jumps out of her chair. She calls out, "Senior staff meeting in my ready room!" She bonks herself in the head. "Oh, right, they can't hear me. Rocky, push the button."
T'Rokka makes the announcement.
"Wait, what am I thinking?" Lovely says. "Senior staff meeting in the staff meeting room, of course."
T'Rokka makes another announcement.
"Eh, screw that," Lovely says. "Let's meet in the mess hall."
T'Rokka makes the hopefully final announcement.
Lovely drags her first officer to the turbolift (or at least tries to). "Let's go, Rocky!"
"Must you call me that?" T'Rokka asks.
"C'mon, I've called you that since we were, like, five," Lovely says.
"We did not know each other when we were five," Rocky points out.
"Well, you know what I mean."
Rocky must admit that she does not. Skip nearly spills his coffee on his way to the turbolift and hopes nobody noticed.
Everyone is gathered in the mess hall when the captain arrives. "Welcome aboard the…" Lovely leans toward Rocky and whispers, "What's the ship's name again?"
"The Insanity," Rocky answers.
"What, who named it that?" Lovely wonders.
"You did, Captain."
"Right! Welcome aboard the Insanity!" Lovely announces. She goes to shake everyone's hand.
Rocky trails after her. "Maybe you should get that memory problem checked, Captain."
"I don't have a memory problem, Rocky," Lovely says. She skips the handshake and goes in for a hug with her best friend from the Academy and new engineer, Aziyah Mox. "Moxie! It's been so long!"
"You just saw me last night, love, at the party?" Mox says.
Rocky raises her eyebrow at Lovely.
"Shut up," Lovely says. She lingers at Admiral Sukama. "Admiral Sheldon! Come to see me off?"
"Admiral Sukama, please, Captain Ferren," the admiral says.
"Call me Lovely, Admiral Sheldon, how many times have we been over this?" Lovely says.
"Too many…"
"So why don't I give you a tour before we set off?"
Admiral Sheldon tries to remove his hand from Lovely's grip. "You already have, Captain."
"Third time's the charm," Lovely says, and Admiral Sheldon is dragged away.
The rest of the crew make their way to the bridge.
"…and that's my chair, go ahead, try it out," Lovely says. She all but pushes Admiral Sheldon into her chair and then tries to squeeze her butt in beside him until they are sufficiently stuck. The chair creaks the whole time.
Admiral Sheldon notices something. "A microwave isn't regulation, Captain."
"Oh," Lovely spends too much time struggling to dislodge herself from the chair. "We don't want our coffee getting cold, right Skip?"
Skip smiles and nods and drinks his coffee and pretends like it's not cold again.
"I like cold pizza," Dr Zackery says. Everyone ignores him.
"Okay, so let's get going!" Lovely says.
"Uh, good luck on your journeys," Admiral Sheldon says as he rushes off the bridge and then off the ship.
"Aw, I was hoping to strand him on board so he'd have to come with us," Lovely says. "Skip, are we ready to go?"
"Yes Captain, just say the word," Skip replies.
Lovely sits down in a way that makes her chair as creaky as it can possibly get. Rocky puts fixing the captain's chair on her list of top-priority things to do.
Lovely suddenly catapults right back out of her seat. "And away we go!"
The Insanity warps off into deep space.
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Rocky's commbadge beeps for the seventh time and Lovely asks, "Hey Rocky, what's our status?"
"Captain, the answer will not change no matter how many times you ask," Rocky replies.
"Well, eventually…"
Rocky silences her commbadge, and returns her attention to Mox. "The captain's chair is creaking."
"I'll get right on it, love," Mox replies
Mox's commbadge beeps. "Hey Moxie, is Rocky there?"
"Yup," Moxie says with a trademark creepy Trill smile for no reason.
Lovely takes a deep breath. "As I was saying, eventually…"
Rocky reaches for Moxie's commbadge. Moxie swivels so she can't get to it. Rocky keeps trying. Moxie keeps swiveling. Lovely keeps babbling, unaware of the hideously ungraceful ballet routine occurring on her bridge.
Vya walks in.
"Aah, you're naked!" Zackery exclaims.
Everyone stops and stares and Lovely peeks her head out of the ready room.
Vya, who is an alien dragon who doesn't need to wear clothes and never does, rolls her eyes. "Zackery, how many times have you made that lame joke?"
Zackery starts counting on his fingers. That'll keep him busy for a while.
Lovely plops into her seat with a dramatic CREEAK and a few squeaks that only the Vulcan and the Vorta can hear (though the Vorta's too busy counting to notice). Moxie goes about trying to fix the chair with her captain's butt shifting around in it.
"I have a feeling we forgot something…" Lovely says.
"Too late now, love," Moxie says.
"Maybe I left the oven on…" Lovely shrugs. "Oh well, if my house burns down, it burns down."
The ship lurches and flings everyone to the deck except for Skip, who is an expert at staying in his chair. Zackery's stethoscope whacks him in the nose and permanently disfigures him. No, wait, he's good. Now he's having an intense mental battle over whether his essential doctor instrument is a serious health risk or not.
"Moxie, get to engineering! Skip, report!" Lovely commands from the ground.
"We're stuck in some sort of something, Captain!" Skip calls back as the ship shakes and Vya tumbles across his console.
"I just remembered what we forgot," Lovely says. She doesn't bother trying to get up off the shaking floor.
"Now is not the time, Captain," Rocky says.
"Now is the time, Rocky!" Lovely replies. "We forgot a science officer, so we don't have someone to tell us what sort of something we're stuck in."
"Or how to get out," Skip says uselessly at the useless helm. How useless.
"Moxie, what's up down there?" Lovely says over the comm.
"The engines are flipping out, love," Moxie answers. Rocky waits for a more detailed explanation but none comes and Lovely seems satisfied with that.
"The sensors are going crazy too," Vya announces.
"What is that noise, that better not be my ship," Lovely says. "It sounds like WHEEOOVVREWEERGHHGHEEERR." (That's nothing what it sounds like but close enough)
"That's not the ship, love, down here it sounds like VRRRMMMGRRVRRMMVV," Moxie says.
"Oh thank goodness."
"No, that's not good, love."
"Oh, uh, I mean, um crap."
The noise gets louder. The ship gets rockier. Then a beam of bright light shoots from the ceiling to the floor. A person who wasn't there before walks up from the back corner of the bridge, the dark one that no one looks at and certainly never bothers to fix the lights.
"HOOOLD IT!" yells the newcomer. "The Adjustor has arrived!"
Everyone stares. A random crewperson points and screams, then they all point and scream, and then they run while pointing and screaming.
"It is RUDE to point, people!" the Adjustor declares. She notices the beam of light for the first time. "Don't touch that."
A scream comes from inside the light. The Adjustor spins and dramatically sucks in a breath, then leans in close to the light and whispers, "I told you not to touch that."
Panicked shouting for help answers her from inside the light.
The Adjustor jumps into her screaming position and screams, "Don't go into the light!" She laughs at her own stupid joke. "I'm serious, don't." She whips out her sonic screwdriver and commands the light to be no more, and it disappears.
Lovely kneels there bleeding with pieces of metal ceiling sticking out of her face. Zackery tries to shove the Adjustor out of his way but finally settles for simply not. He goes around her instead.
He listens to Lovely's heart with his stethoscope as she goes into shock. "I'm gonna need to surgically remove that from her face."
"Um, there is a blue phone box on the bridge," Skip interrupts unhelpfully.
Lovely is so shocked she comes out of shock "Why is there a blue phone box on my…" she says. "Are you sure, Skip?"
"Yes, Captain."
"Are you absolutely, positively, one hundred and ninety-nine percent sure?" Lovely asks.
"Yes, ma'am."
"It's blue?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Zackery is awkwardly trying to carry his captain off the bridge. Vya ends up doing all the work.
"Blue?!" Lovely whispers to herself in disbelief.
Rocky escorts the Adjustor to the brig.
"Hey, we're not stuck anymore," Skip says. He realized no one is left on the bridge to hear him. He goes to warm up his coffee in the microwave.
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Zackery finishes the surgery and takes off his surgery glasses (he can't see all that well). Lovely's face is permanently disfigured (for real this time). Her eyes are gone, replaced by scars. Zackery is explaining this to her as he listens to her heart with his stethoscope.
Lovely waves him away. "Yeah, yeah, okay Zackery, but what of the blue phone box?"
"Huh?" says Zackery. He's too intent on his doctor duties to know of any phone box.
Moxie walks in. "Ready to check out the thing that appeared on the bridge, love?"
"Yes."
"No," Zackery says at the same time.
"He means yes," Lovely says. She's already getting off the table.
"Can you see?" Moxie asks.
Lovely holds out her hand. "Zackery, give me my eyes so I can roll them."
"Captain, your eyes are nothing more than mush dripping from the broken-"
Lovely cuts him off. "TMI, doctor. Moxie, take me to the bridge."
Zackery makes a huffy noise of protest.
"Sorry, love, she's the captain," Moxie says, and they leave.
Vya set up yellow caution tape all around the box after trying to get it open for three hours.
"Report," Lovely orders.
"Everything's normal, Captain, and we're at warp seven with no problem," Skip says.
"I wasn't talking to you, Skip," Lovely says.
"Yes, Captain."
"I can't get the box open," Vya admits.
Zackery runs onto the bridge. "Captain! You shouldn't be out of sickbay yet!" He tries to listen to her heart again as if that is the answer to everything.
"That is enough of that, doctor," Lovely says and pushes him away. Zackery switches to a tricorder.
"We should interrogate the prisoner," Vya suggests.
Zackery trails them to the brig. They find the Adjustor peering intently into the top left corner at the back of her cell.
"Who are you," Vya demands to know.
"I am the Adjustor," says the prisoner. She tries to wave her sonic screwdriver around for dramatic effect, but realizes she doesn't have it and ends up awkwardly flapping her hand around instead.
"What are you doing here?" Vya asks.
"Well, I was stuck in a time loop, and by my estimates, it's been…" The Adjustor licks her finger and sticks it in the air. "306 years, 53 days, one hour, and three minutes." She tilts her head. "And I've crossed into an alternate dimension universe thingy whatever you call it. Hmm."
Lovely leans toward Moxie. "You gettin' any of this?"
"Yup," Moxie says.
"Good, 'cause I'm not."
"What was that light beam that appeared on our bridge?" Vya asks.
"Apparently you passed into the outskirts of my time loop," the Adjustor replies.
"Are you saying you created the time loop?" Vya asks.
"Yes."
"Why."
"…reasons."
"…"
"You must've accidentally dragged me out of it when you passed by. You missed getting stuck yourselves by this much." The adjustor holds her fingers together. "Do you see the teeny tiny space there? That much. Literally."
"No, I can't see," Lovely says accusingly, doing her best to glare at the Adjustor.
"Ah yes, speaking of that, it must be fate that brought us together-"
"Fate? Are you saying it was fate that half my face got ripped off?" Lovely is visibly angry. Moxie takes a step back.
Zackery takes an unwitting step forward. "Actually Captain, it was more like one-fifth-"
Lovely jabs a finger over his mouth to shush him but misses and her finger goes up his nose instead. "Not now, Zackery," she says.
Zackery sneezes.
"That's not quite what I meant," the Adjustor says. "I mean I can help you. I have this thing in my Tardis…"
"Tardis?" Vya asks.
"The blue box," the Adjustor says, "Anyway, I have a special blindfold that lets blind people sense their surroundings."
"Take me to it," Lovely demands.
They return to the bridge and the Adjustor opens the blue box. "Don't touch anything," she says as if she's been in control this whole time.
Vya touches something just because.
"It's bigger on the inside!" Moxie notices after eight and a half minutes.
"Nah, it's smaller on the outside," the Adjustor says. She rummages in a pile of junk. "Sorry about the mess, I haven't cleaned in 306 years." She laughs.
Nobody else laughs. Zackery doesn't even get it.
The Adjustor finds a seemingly normal red blindfold and ties it around Lovely's face.
"Can you see now, love?" Moxie asks while getting as close to Lovely's face as humanly possible. Or as Trill-y possible. Whatever.
"Not…exactly, but I know you're right in front of me." Lovely pushes the face away. "Does it cover the scars?"
"They stick out, but hey, now we both have scars," Moxie says. They smile creepily at each other and reminisce about the good old days.
Lovely turns to the person beside her. "Thank you."
"You're welcome, Captain," Zackery says.
"No, not you Zackery," Lovely says. She searches out the other person. "Thank you, Adjustor."
"Glad to be of help," says the Adjustor.
"I'm still mad at you," Lovely adds. "But…we did forget a science officer, so if you want…"
"Yes!" the Adjustor says way too loudly.
They leave the Tardis and go back to the bridge. "How's it going, Rocky?" Lovely asks.
"Yes, Captain," Rocky says distractedly. She looks up real quick. "I mean, good, Captain."
"Yes, all's good that ends good," Lovely replies.
"What is ending?" Moxie asks.
"Nothing, it just felt like the right thing to say," Lovely says.
The Adjustor suddenly sucks in a deep breath and covers her mouth with her hand and stands there looking very concerned for a few minutes. Unsure of whatever rituals she may or may not have, the crew goes about their business around her.
"The time loop!" she finally says. "Go back!"
"Skip looks to Lovely for confirmation and realizes she doesn't notice him. "Captain?"
"Sure," Lovely says.
They go back to the time loop and the Adjustor attacks the science console with a passion. "Oh thank goodness," she says and slumps into the chair but misses and sprawls on the ground instead. She stays there as if that was her intention.
"Why is there a time loop again?" Lovely asks.
"I told you. Reasons." The Adjustor waves her hand in the air from her undignified position on the ground. "Carry on."
"Right," Lovely says. "And away we go!"
The Insanity warps off. Lovely's chair creaks.
The End