Disclaimer: I don't own any of the original characters.
When it all came down to it, the meeting was about the proper use of a synthesizer, but no one saw it in exactly that manner. To find out what happened, Mr. Spock suggested that going back to the start would be the most profitable course of action. Therefore that is where we must also head to fully understand the events that took place on the USS Enterprise that day. We will now go back to the beginning…(warp sound effects and corny music)
Kirk could tell that mischief was in the air. Sitting down at his usual table in the recreation room of the Enterprise, he silently observed his crew from the corner of his eye. All seemed normal. Lieutenants Uhura and Sulu were drinking coffee in the center of the room and discussing the day's events. A group off to his right were watching a falosion crewman weave a blanket without a loom. This was particularly interesting for the only instruments the falosion used were its fifty-two opposable fingers/ tentacles. Other than that, and the various crewmen peering into library readers or watching entertainment vids, there was nobody else there.
He began to set up a game of chess. Soon, first officer Spock would be back from the science lab and Kirk had a particularly interesting scenario he had wanted to try on the Vulcan's skills. Playing on a popular Vulcan saying as a joke, he called the scenario The Needs of the Many. The scene was set to strengthen the positions of the other pieces as the king made a series of disastrous first moves, frequently putting its self in jeopardy. Kirk counted on the beginning moves, which were totally illogical, to surprise Spock. All Kirk usually needed were a few moves of indecision on Spocks part to totally wreak havoc on a chessboard.
It had been a generally stressful day and beating the pants off Spock was just what Kirk needed to make it go right. They had begun early in ships morning, charting stars and traveling a high speeds. The ship was strained, but Kirk stressed speed with this mission. Star charting missions strained on a crew moral, and it would be far better in the long run to get his crew back to exploration. The Enterprise was a floating barge of scientific genius. There were specialists from eleven different worlds, and on a star charting mission, most of them were sitting in the science labs wasting brain cells of routine quasars and black holes. That wasn't especially what they had joined starfleet to do, so Kirk often tried to end these missions ASAP.
The doors to the rec. room swished open and Doctor McCoy appeared, looked around, and made a beeline for the Captains table.
"Hey Jim, You'll never believe what I've made!"
Not waiting for an invitation, he pulled up a chair and plunked himself down next to the Captain. Kirk groaned. The last time McCoy had been experimenting in the synthesis lab, the sanitation team was busy for days cleaning up colored goo from the walls and the floor.
"Don't worry Jim, the doctor assured, I kept the power on low, and edible party balloons are the furthest thing from my mind."
"So," said the Captain, obviously not assured, "what have you made?"
McCoy lifted a bucket onto the table and removed the lid. It was filled to the brim with loose circular objects. At first Jim thought the Doctor had synthesized a bucket of worms. But upon closer inspection he found that the objects were not alike but made of a loose rubbery material. He picked one up.
"Their rubber bands Jim!"
"Rubber bands," the Captain replied, seriously wondering about the doctors sanity.
"Yes," continued McCoy enthusiastically, "They were used frequently about 250 years ago to bind up sheaves of documents."
"Oh", said the captain, not entirely reassured, "Why rubber bands?"
"Watch this."
The doctor took one out of the bucket and stretched it over the tip of his pointer finger. He casually aimed it at the next table and let go. With a small twang, the miniature missile shot thought he air. A moment later, Yeoman rand leaped up from her seat, holding her behind in surprise. Kirk smirked at the spectacle and then remembered he was the Captain and regained his composure.
"You have a seriously twisted imagination McCoy!"
"Come on Jim," the doctor urged, "Give it a try. I think I'm gonna prescribe it as a stress reliever."
Jim looked down at the bucked of ammo and sighed. It had been a long day after all, and if anybody got mad he could always blame McCoy. He reached for a rubber band. McCoy grinned as Kirk lifted his hand and sighted his way across the room at the table of coffee drinkers. Three seconds later Lt. Uhura squealed and began to furiously clean up the coffee that had spilled all over the place. She looked down at the mess, and raised her eyebrows as she pulled a rubber band from what was left of her drink. She looked over to the captain's table, but Kirk and McCoy were in seemingly deep conversation over the setup of the chess game.
It was at that moment that commander Spock chose to enter.
"Hello Spock, how are the star charts coming?"
"Very well captain," said Mr. Spock as he sat at the table, "There are many fascinating areas which Starfleet may wish to send science vessels to at a later date…"
The conversation abruptly stopped as a fit of giggling, a noise seldom heard on the Enterprise, came from one of the tables. Commander Spock slowly reached up and pulled a rubber band that had looped itself onto the point of his ear. He analyzed the object as McCoy silently began having a fit of hysterics.
"Well Spock," said the captain trying valiantly to hold in his own laughter, "What is it?"
"What ever this may be called, captain," said Spock, "
It seems to be having a strange effect on the crew."
McCoy couldn't stand it anymore.
"It's called a rubber band, Spock. You see, about 200 years ago, enlightenment came to the people of earth, many strange rituals followed. The one I am now referring to involves a sacrifice of several wild pigeons, the burning of ones underclothing, rubber bands, and the consumption of large amounts of breakfast cereal. Now you see, there were two factions, and both needed the rubber bands for their part in the ritual. There were the lesser participants, or the froot loops as they were commonly called, and they ate of the cereals in the junior league, and then there were the champions, who of course ate The Breakfast of Champions. Next, after the sacrifice, came the burning of…"
Kirk clapped a hand over McCoy's mouth before he could say anything else to damage the future of the human race.
"Don't listen to him, Spock, a rubber band was just a device invented to hold documents together in a bundle. This was before the popularity of the old disk drives, you know, when everything important was written of printed." Spock raised an eyebrow.
"I see, and what purpose did it serve to fling such a useful device at unsuspecting victims?"
"Stress relief, Spock," said McCoy bringing his bucket back up from its hiding place under the table and picked out another large specimen. He fired at a table sitter, but it went wide and hit one of the VID watchers in the back of the head. A silent war began between the rest of the crew and the two humans at the chess table, with Spock moving his chair out of range so as to observe this phenomena more clearly. Th odds were even at this point due to the bucket being in the possession of the Captain and the Doctor, but the coffee drinkers at the other tables were beginning to catch on. They collected and conserved their ammo, and called others to aid them with shouts of, "come-on, It's us verses the Captain and the Doc, and, Five credits to anyone who gets a clean shot on Captain Kirk! McCoy and Kirk then found it prudent to move their line of defense behind one of the larger rec room couches. Nurse Chapel and Doctor M'Benga literally walked into the middle of it all and rolled for shelter behind the Captains couch. The conservationists were fouling up the offensive strategy of the Captains team and after a few minutes McCoy stuck his head up and shouted, Common Uhura, No fair hogging the ammo. He was rewarded with a fleet of rubber bands aimed at his head. Lieutenant Aldebrand shouted back, "You fired the first shot Doctor, and then someone unidentified added good naturedly, Hey Doc, didn't your people loose that fight too. McCoy laughed and retaliated, "I ain't admitting nothing to no damn Yankee."
The teams reassembled after that remark. Spock noticed that many of the crewmen from the southern part of the eastern part of the north American continent joined the doctor, while the captain defected to Leutenant Aldebrands coffee table declaring himself proud to bee one of them damn Yankees. A short and brief reenactment of what Spock assumed to be the American civil war followed. Captain Kirk and his Yankees won in less than ten minutes, mainly due to the fact that he had taken the ammo bucket with him when he defected. A short mock ceremony followed with McCoy and Kirk shaking hands over the one table left standing in the room while a crewman keyed the speakers to play a loud and brassy tune which someone identified to him later as Dixie. Spock had ironically found the scene quite explainable, if not totally logical. Any other offworlder would have left the room declaring that everyone was being affected by some kind of human mental illness, but Spock understood this particular crews fascination with the history of their world. Captain Kirk liked to have crewmembers that had taken earth history classes at the academy, and requested them. When Spock had asked him about this peculiarity, he had answered, "I like a crew Spock who can understand who they are and where they come from. If someone understands the mistakes of their forefathers they are less likely to repeat them. That is a quality that brings out discernment and caution in a person, and out here in space, new recruits can't have enough of that." Spock found the captains statement quite logical, and was no longer surprised when plays and entertainment nights on the Enterprise often had a historical theme.
The teams reassembled themselves once more as crewmen left and new ones joined. Lieutenant Sulu cried "Heres some fresh meat as he pummeled and unsuspecting ensign Checkov as he walked through the door. The frenzy began to pick up again, Captain Kirk called for reinforcements while Chief engineer Scott built up a more efficient barracks and then quickly took shelter behind them. Suddenly Ensign DuBois leaped to his feet and shouted, "To me men! Come-on Sulu, the fortress shall not stand the night!"
"Over ma dead body," called Scotty. "This wall is as impenetrable as the grand land o Scotland ever was." The Captain dragged his couch over to Scotty's fortress, and helped his engineer defend the homeland, while Dubious led many semi successful raids. It seemed to Spock that Dubois was about to get the upperhand when Lt Sulu came up with the ingenues idea of using antigrav pads to bomb people from above. Spock whose mind was still sorting out the historical theme of it all thought he had figured it out when what appeared to be the battle of Hastings turned out to be The Battle of Britain, complete with antiaircraft fire, and (And how this fit Spock could never figure out) the theme from Rocky as a background accompaniment to the battle. The frenzy picked up and more crewmen scrambled for cover. Lieutenant Uhura had found a fairly large sculpture in the corner and had slipped herself between it and the wall. She had brought her empty coffee cup with her and was picking ammo off of the sculpture as if they were ornaments on a Christmas tree.
At that moment Spock found himself to be the object of much attention when Ensign Bradley loudly offered ten credits to the next person who ringed one on someone's ear. Spock found it a prudent moment to join the captain behind his bunker.
"Ah, Mr. Spock, glad you could join us," said the Captain while firing randomly over the wall. "I believe things have gotten a little out of hand."
"Indeed, Captain," Agreed Spock, refusing the ammo offered to him by Mr. Scott, "I would also like to report that some unknown party has sent Lieutenants Burns and Kogawa, and Crewman Isiney down to the synthesizer to acquire more ammo."
"Oh no! Owww!," Said the captain as one of the rubber bands from Sulu's squadron found it's mark. "How about protecting your Captain Spock!"
"Is that an order captain?"
"Oh lighten up Spock," said McCoy diving into the bunker in front of a malicious barrage of rubber bands.
"You seem to be making a lot of enemies today, Doctor?"
The two of them laughed for a moment and the laughter, along with all of the other noise in the room, stopped.
"Gentlemen, said Spock, I believe someone has adjusted the gravity of this room."
McCoy, who was now floating three feet above spocks head, said sarcastically, "Jeez Spock what ever gave you that Idea."
"WEEEEEE!" cried Sulu as he floated past McCoy and shot a rubber band.
And the game continued.
When it all came down to it, the meeting was about the proper use of a synthesizer, but no one saw it in exactly that manner. To find out what happened, Mr. Spock suggested that going back to the start would be the most profitable course of action. Therefore that is where we must also head to fully understand the events that took place on the USS Enterprise that day. We will now go back to the beginning…(warp sound effects and corny music)
Kirk could tell that mischief was in the air. Sitting down at his usual table in the recreation room of the Enterprise, he silently observed his crew from the corner of his eye. All seemed normal. Lieutenants Uhura and Sulu were drinking coffee in the center of the room and discussing the day's events. A group off to his right were watching a falosion crewman weave a blanket without a loom. This was particularly interesting for the only instruments the falosion used were its fifty-two opposable fingers/ tentacles. Other than that, and the various crewmen peering into library readers or watching entertainment vids, there was nobody else there.
He began to set up a game of chess. Soon, first officer Spock would be back from the science lab and Kirk had a particularly interesting scenario he had wanted to try on the Vulcan's skills. Playing on a popular Vulcan saying as a joke, he called the scenario The Needs of the Many. The scene was set to strengthen the positions of the other pieces as the king made a series of disastrous first moves, frequently putting its self in jeopardy. Kirk counted on the beginning moves, which were totally illogical, to surprise Spock. All Kirk usually needed were a few moves of indecision on Spocks part to totally wreak havoc on a chessboard.
It had been a generally stressful day and beating the pants off Spock was just what Kirk needed to make it go right. They had begun early in ships morning, charting stars and traveling a high speeds. The ship was strained, but Kirk stressed speed with this mission. Star charting missions strained on a crew moral, and it would be far better in the long run to get his crew back to exploration. The Enterprise was a floating barge of scientific genius. There were specialists from eleven different worlds, and on a star charting mission, most of them were sitting in the science labs wasting brain cells of routine quasars and black holes. That wasn't especially what they had joined starfleet to do, so Kirk often tried to end these missions ASAP.
The doors to the rec. room swished open and Doctor McCoy appeared, looked around, and made a beeline for the Captains table.
"Hey Jim, You'll never believe what I've made!"
Not waiting for an invitation, he pulled up a chair and plunked himself down next to the Captain. Kirk groaned. The last time McCoy had been experimenting in the synthesis lab, the sanitation team was busy for days cleaning up colored goo from the walls and the floor.
"Don't worry Jim, the doctor assured, I kept the power on low, and edible party balloons are the furthest thing from my mind."
"So," said the Captain, obviously not assured, "what have you made?"
McCoy lifted a bucket onto the table and removed the lid. It was filled to the brim with loose circular objects. At first Jim thought the Doctor had synthesized a bucket of worms. But upon closer inspection he found that the objects were not alike but made of a loose rubbery material. He picked one up.
"Their rubber bands Jim!"
"Rubber bands," the Captain replied, seriously wondering about the doctors sanity.
"Yes," continued McCoy enthusiastically, "They were used frequently about 250 years ago to bind up sheaves of documents."
"Oh", said the captain, not entirely reassured, "Why rubber bands?"
"Watch this."
The doctor took one out of the bucket and stretched it over the tip of his pointer finger. He casually aimed it at the next table and let go. With a small twang, the miniature missile shot thought he air. A moment later, Yeoman rand leaped up from her seat, holding her behind in surprise. Kirk smirked at the spectacle and then remembered he was the Captain and regained his composure.
"You have a seriously twisted imagination McCoy!"
"Come on Jim," the doctor urged, "Give it a try. I think I'm gonna prescribe it as a stress reliever."
Jim looked down at the bucked of ammo and sighed. It had been a long day after all, and if anybody got mad he could always blame McCoy. He reached for a rubber band. McCoy grinned as Kirk lifted his hand and sighted his way across the room at the table of coffee drinkers. Three seconds later Lt. Uhura squealed and began to furiously clean up the coffee that had spilled all over the place. She looked down at the mess, and raised her eyebrows as she pulled a rubber band from what was left of her drink. She looked over to the captain's table, but Kirk and McCoy were in seemingly deep conversation over the setup of the chess game.
It was at that moment that commander Spock chose to enter.
"Hello Spock, how are the star charts coming?"
"Very well captain," said Mr. Spock as he sat at the table, "There are many fascinating areas which Starfleet may wish to send science vessels to at a later date…"
The conversation abruptly stopped as a fit of giggling, a noise seldom heard on the Enterprise, came from one of the tables. Commander Spock slowly reached up and pulled a rubber band that had looped itself onto the point of his ear. He analyzed the object as McCoy silently began having a fit of hysterics.
"Well Spock," said the captain trying valiantly to hold in his own laughter, "What is it?"
"What ever this may be called, captain," said Spock, "
It seems to be having a strange effect on the crew."
McCoy couldn't stand it anymore.
"It's called a rubber band, Spock. You see, about 200 years ago, enlightenment came to the people of earth, many strange rituals followed. The one I am now referring to involves a sacrifice of several wild pigeons, the burning of ones underclothing, rubber bands, and the consumption of large amounts of breakfast cereal. Now you see, there were two factions, and both needed the rubber bands for their part in the ritual. There were the lesser participants, or the froot loops as they were commonly called, and they ate of the cereals in the junior league, and then there were the champions, who of course ate The Breakfast of Champions. Next, after the sacrifice, came the burning of…"
Kirk clapped a hand over McCoy's mouth before he could say anything else to damage the future of the human race.
"Don't listen to him, Spock, a rubber band was just a device invented to hold documents together in a bundle. This was before the popularity of the old disk drives, you know, when everything important was written of printed." Spock raised an eyebrow.
"I see, and what purpose did it serve to fling such a useful device at unsuspecting victims?"
"Stress relief, Spock," said McCoy bringing his bucket back up from its hiding place under the table and picked out another large specimen. He fired at a table sitter, but it went wide and hit one of the VID watchers in the back of the head. A silent war began between the rest of the crew and the two humans at the chess table, with Spock moving his chair out of range so as to observe this phenomena more clearly. Th odds were even at this point due to the bucket being in the possession of the Captain and the Doctor, but the coffee drinkers at the other tables were beginning to catch on. They collected and conserved their ammo, and called others to aid them with shouts of, "come-on, It's us verses the Captain and the Doc, and, Five credits to anyone who gets a clean shot on Captain Kirk! McCoy and Kirk then found it prudent to move their line of defense behind one of the larger rec room couches. Nurse Chapel and Doctor M'Benga literally walked into the middle of it all and rolled for shelter behind the Captains couch. The conservationists were fouling up the offensive strategy of the Captains team and after a few minutes McCoy stuck his head up and shouted, Common Uhura, No fair hogging the ammo. He was rewarded with a fleet of rubber bands aimed at his head. Lieutenant Aldebrand shouted back, "You fired the first shot Doctor, and then someone unidentified added good naturedly, Hey Doc, didn't your people loose that fight too. McCoy laughed and retaliated, "I ain't admitting nothing to no damn Yankee."
The teams reassembled after that remark. Spock noticed that many of the crewmen from the southern part of the eastern part of the north American continent joined the doctor, while the captain defected to Leutenant Aldebrands coffee table declaring himself proud to bee one of them damn Yankees. A short and brief reenactment of what Spock assumed to be the American civil war followed. Captain Kirk and his Yankees won in less than ten minutes, mainly due to the fact that he had taken the ammo bucket with him when he defected. A short mock ceremony followed with McCoy and Kirk shaking hands over the one table left standing in the room while a crewman keyed the speakers to play a loud and brassy tune which someone identified to him later as Dixie. Spock had ironically found the scene quite explainable, if not totally logical. Any other offworlder would have left the room declaring that everyone was being affected by some kind of human mental illness, but Spock understood this particular crews fascination with the history of their world. Captain Kirk liked to have crewmembers that had taken earth history classes at the academy, and requested them. When Spock had asked him about this peculiarity, he had answered, "I like a crew Spock who can understand who they are and where they come from. If someone understands the mistakes of their forefathers they are less likely to repeat them. That is a quality that brings out discernment and caution in a person, and out here in space, new recruits can't have enough of that." Spock found the captains statement quite logical, and was no longer surprised when plays and entertainment nights on the Enterprise often had a historical theme.
The teams reassembled themselves once more as crewmen left and new ones joined. Lieutenant Sulu cried "Heres some fresh meat as he pummeled and unsuspecting ensign Checkov as he walked through the door. The frenzy began to pick up again, Captain Kirk called for reinforcements while Chief engineer Scott built up a more efficient barracks and then quickly took shelter behind them. Suddenly Ensign DuBois leaped to his feet and shouted, "To me men! Come-on Sulu, the fortress shall not stand the night!"
"Over ma dead body," called Scotty. "This wall is as impenetrable as the grand land o Scotland ever was." The Captain dragged his couch over to Scotty's fortress, and helped his engineer defend the homeland, while Dubious led many semi successful raids. It seemed to Spock that Dubois was about to get the upperhand when Lt Sulu came up with the ingenues idea of using antigrav pads to bomb people from above. Spock whose mind was still sorting out the historical theme of it all thought he had figured it out when what appeared to be the battle of Hastings turned out to be The Battle of Britain, complete with antiaircraft fire, and (And how this fit Spock could never figure out) the theme from Rocky as a background accompaniment to the battle. The frenzy picked up and more crewmen scrambled for cover. Lieutenant Uhura had found a fairly large sculpture in the corner and had slipped herself between it and the wall. She had brought her empty coffee cup with her and was picking ammo off of the sculpture as if they were ornaments on a Christmas tree.
At that moment Spock found himself to be the object of much attention when Ensign Bradley loudly offered ten credits to the next person who ringed one on someone's ear. Spock found it a prudent moment to join the captain behind his bunker.
"Ah, Mr. Spock, glad you could join us," said the Captain while firing randomly over the wall. "I believe things have gotten a little out of hand."
"Indeed, Captain," Agreed Spock, refusing the ammo offered to him by Mr. Scott, "I would also like to report that some unknown party has sent Lieutenants Burns and Kogawa, and Crewman Isiney down to the synthesizer to acquire more ammo."
"Oh no! Owww!," Said the captain as one of the rubber bands from Sulu's squadron found it's mark. "How about protecting your Captain Spock!"
"Is that an order captain?"
"Oh lighten up Spock," said McCoy diving into the bunker in front of a malicious barrage of rubber bands.
"You seem to be making a lot of enemies today, Doctor?"
The two of them laughed for a moment and the laughter, along with all of the other noise in the room, stopped.
"Gentlemen, said Spock, I believe someone has adjusted the gravity of this room."
McCoy, who was now floating three feet above spocks head, said sarcastically, "Jeez Spock what ever gave you that Idea."
"WEEEEEE!" cried Sulu as he floated past McCoy and shot a rubber band.
And the game continued.