Skiing
"Sickbay to Bridge!"
"Bridge here."
"Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a surfer! What's going on up there? I sent Ensign Demmar-Waters up twenty minutes ago to tell you to stop rocking the ship!"
It was at this point that the aforementioned Ensign wandered nonchalantly onto the bridge, looking a little damp. The ship gave another great lurch, but she managed to stay upright, due to the fact that she was a surfer, not a doctor (dammitjim), or even a remotely competent nurse. The rest of the bridge crew managed to remain in their seats due to the seatbelts they had convinced Starfleet to install after the Nav-Sat incident. (insert shameless plug here)
"Sorry I'm a bit late, Cap'n. I got distracted by a snowball fight." Due to another shift in gravity, the second sentence drifted straight over everyone's heads, and no one paid it any attention.
"That'll be the agony booth for you then, Ensign."
"Captain?" Spock was sounding a little concerned, and that was a lot of emotion coming from the ship's resident Vulcan if there were no happy-spores around.
"Sorry, Mr. Spock. That trip to the mirror universe last week has left me a little confused. But not unfit for command," he hastily added. "Bridge to Engineering."
"Scott here, Cap'n."
"Hey there Scotty. What's going on down there?"
"Ah've got no idea, Cap'n! The gravity settings just seems ta keep changin'. Ah've ordered the Jefferies tubes an' the catwalks evacuated. Ah think someone's managed to hack into the mainframe, but I cannae stop 'em. I fix engines, nae computers! Keenser! Git down from there! Arg-" The ship gave another lurch, and the transmission was cut off.
"Well, Spock, it seems we have a hacker on our hands. Care to join me on a trip to engineering?"
"Captain, it would be illogical and unnecessary for both of us to leave the bridge, as it would only take one of us to defeat the hacker's programming, and Starfleet regulation-"
"Fine, fine, I'll go fix it on my own then. You have the conn, Commander." The captain pouted at Spock, and strode off the bridge. The first officer made his way carefully to the captain's Chair, ensuring he had hold of a hand-rail at all times. The Chair had a far superior seatbelt, and it was only logical that he take all reasonable steps to prevent a concussion, which would leave the bridge without another of its senior officers, its only voice of reason, and would be a waste of sickbay's resources. An irrational fear of Dr McCoy's domain had nothing to do with this logical deduction.
As the Captain entered the Engineering deck, he was greeted by the sight of Scotty clinging to the handrail of one of the catwalks, and Keenser clinging to Scotty's boots. He managed to catch Keenser, and after that Scotty was able to pull himself back up onto the catwalk, climb down, and attach himself safely to one of the consoles. He then detached himself, and duct-taped Keenser firmly there instead, to keep him out of any more trouble, ignoring Starfleet regulation 2171.8 subsection (b), regarding the treatment of named redshirts. He then led the captain over to another console, where they could access the ship's computer.
"It's not even Ensign Tang this time, somehow. Ah haven't seen the lass all day."
"Do you think she accidentally fell out of the airlock?"
"We can only hope."
On deck 17, Ensigns Tang and Richards the Elder were huddled around a panel in the wall.
"What's going on?"
"Someone's hacking into the ship's computer."
"Kat, that was you."
"Someone else. They're trying to override my programming."
"Well, why can't you override theirs?"
"Because I'm fairly sure this is Kirk."
"And?"
"You know, the Captain. The one that hacked the Kobayashi Maru. He's even better than Spocky!"
"Ko-bye ashy maroon?"
"Kobayashi Maru. You know, the really hard test set by Spocky?"
"The only one we ever failed, 'cause you refused to hack Spock's test?"
"Yeah, that one. Oh look, he's fixing the environmental controls too." The snow around them began to melt.
"I guess it's time to head back to our quarters before anyone catches us then."
"Indeed."
"Will you stop with the Spock-speak?"
"Negative."
Back on the bridge, the mystery of how the ship was rocking had been solved, but the question of why remained unanswered.
"Spock, any ideas?"
"Negative, Captain. However, I am currently attempting to access the security feeds for Deck 17 from the past two hours."
"Uhura, can you put them on the main view-screen, please?"
"Of course, Captain." Uhura was a lot nicer when you said please and thank-you.
"Thanks." Then there were several minutes of stunned silence as the bridge crew plus Ensign Demmar-Waters, who was under instructions from Dr McCoy not to return to sickbay, preferably ever, stared at the two figures (and several rubber ducks) sliding back and forth across the screen.
Finally, someone spoke.
"Did you know skiing was a Russian inwention?"
A/N: Catwalks – I'm fairly sure that's the name for the really high bridgey things in the Narada, the Death Star, and the new Enterprise, although the ones in the Enterprise have handrails, unlike the others.
About the skiing, for Ensign Richards the Younger, who got no other mention in this fic, and those of the rest of you who didn't understand, Kat (Ensign Richards the Elder) hacked into the ship's mainframe to change the gravity settings so that the corridors now appear to be sloping, meaning if they are filled with snow as in 'Let it Snow' (end shameless plug here), you can ski down them.
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