"Three more points for team red.", Ensign Carson said. She was one of the voluntary referees for the annual basketball competition on the Enterprise. She wasn't interested in playing the sport, but she really liked to blow the whistle at every little occasion. "Team blue has six points, team red has eighteen." The points total was another thing she really liked to shout. Uhura, Sulu and Chekov who were on the blue team looked very unhappy. "Why did the Captain choose Commander Spock for his team? And why in heaven's sake is the Commander so good at basketball?", Sulu complained. The others shook their heads. They didn't know either.
After they had finished the game and after McCoy had unsuccessfully tried to persuade Spock to be happy about winning it, a shock wave went over the crowded sports deck. Many people fell down and Uhura was even hit by a falling ceiling board. The six officers didn't even wait for the red alert to go off.
OOO
"Scotty, please tell me what happened." Kirk and Spock were running out of the turbo lift, the other two directly behind them. McCoy had stayed on the sport's deck to help the ceiling-board-hit Uhura. "We flew into a nebula. Or at least I thought so. But it's like jelly, sir. We're stuck." Kirk and Spock changed expressive glances. Spock bowed one eye brow and asked: "Mister Scott, I may have misunderstood you. Did you just say we would be stuck in a giant clump of jelly?" "Yes, and I don't like it at all." Spock had walked over to the science station. "I am analyzing the cloud.", he announced. "Eighty percent are polyuronids and fifteen percent are water. The other five percent are unknown. The computer produced a picture of the cloud." Kirk glanced over his shoulders and burst out laughing. "I'm sorry," he said under giggles, "But it's just so ridiculous. It has exactly the same contours like the delicious jelly my granny used to cook!" He almost choked from laughing, so Spock began slapping him on his back, secretly laughing as well. "Whatever this is, we need to find a way out of it. Do you have an idea, Mister Spock?" "Sir, why we don't try to fly backwards?", Sulu asked from the conn. "That's an idea worth trying. Mister Sulu, a quarter impulse backwards." Kirk took place in the commando chair. "Nothing happens.", Sulu announced. "Sir, the jelly is congesting our engines, we cannot use 'em this way." Scotty had troubles screaming over the noise the engines made. "Mister Sulu, turn 'em out.", he added. But it was too late. A cloud of fire suddenly was were the Enterprise had been.
OOO
"Three more points for team red." Spock stood on the field, stunned as he was. "Again" was the only thing he could say before his head was hit by a flying basketball and everything around him went black.