Ladies, gentlemen, Konigstigers, lend me your ears!

In order to promote diversity in this section, I have decided to create a oneshot theatre to house my drabbles, plot bunnies and other such rubbish. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do writing them. Be advised, any of my plot bunnies are open to adoption, should anybody want to pick them up.

This one was written a few weeks ago in a half-hour writing binge. It's my experiment in sci-fi. Enjoy!

The Walrus

The damage to the Walrus was extensive. A giant rip had opened from the starboard bow to roughly halfway towards the keel, and it was clear the research ship was coming apart. Supplies were sucked from the ship into the vacuum of space, and a general evacuation order had been given.

The Walrus was simply a ship that had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It had made a 'jump' from a refuelling space-station to an unexplored star, and had immediately come under fire from an Irken battleship.

The unarmed vessel had now lost the attentions of the Irkens, who were now sailing away with the intention of finding another unescorted ship to raid for the fun of it. Of this, Captain Danny Fenton was glad of.

"This is Captain Fenton calling any USN vessels in range," he called from his CP on the bridge, "We are coming apart! We need another ship to pick up the survivors, out!"

The ship moaned, menacingly. Danny chose now to hope that all was well and run for the evac pods.

The Walrus had a crew of thirty-seven. Of these, only four had perished – the three men unlucky enough to be in the supply hold when it burst open, and the Ship's Lieutenant, who had been killed by an exploding computer.

Down in the Engine Room, the crew still manning the equipment were preparing to leave.

Under the command of Chief Engineer Sandy Cheeks, the team had now been reduced to four people – her, Spongebob Squarepants, Carl Wheezer and Chester McBadbat. All others had left for the pods.

"Status report!" ordered Sandy.

Chester looked up from a monitor he had been watching.

"We've lost two…"

There was a crash.

"Three thrusters! I'm not a computer genius, but that might just be an excuse to run before the engine blows up!"

"Deactivate the fourth thrusters," nodded Sandy, "Then we're getting the heck outta dodge."

"Eh?" asked Carl, confused.

"She means we're getting out of here," sighed Chester, "Just turn off the thrusters!"

"Oh…OK!" nodded Carl, "What was the code again?"

In a typically friendly, calm tone (that incidentally made everyone want to beat up the nearest AI programmer), a computerized voice echoed from the PA systems.

"Fifty seconds to critical engine failure."

"Does anyone remember the code?" asked Carl, sweating.

"I do!" replied Spongebob, brightly, "It's 2-5-6-1!"

"No it isn't!" shot Chester, "It's 2-5-7-1!"

"It's 2-5-8-1, now punch it in!" yelled Sandy.

Carl typed in the code, and was presented with another screen.

"Disconnect cores to Fusion Reactor System," he read out loud, "Y/N?"

"Thirty seconds to critical engine failure."

"Dag nabbit!" cursed Sandy, "Alright, you guys get out of here; I'll finish this and meet you at the pods!"

"We can help!" protested Spongebob.

"No we can't," sighed Chester, grabbing his arm and beginning to drag him out the door.

"But what if you need a second person?" demanded Spongebob.

"I'll be fine, Spongebob!" reassured Sandy.

Carl and Chester continued to drag him down the corridor towards the escape pods.

"Fifteen seconds to critical engine failure."

Sandy was still going through the thrusters deactivation procedure. If she failed, the engine would explode, and...the words 'terrible way to die' came to mind.

"Do I want to recalibrate the…darn it, who designed this system?" demanded Sandy, going through all questions as quickly as possible.

There was a sudden beep, the screen turned red, and three very, very bad words appeared on screen.

System Failure. Reboot?

"Five seconds to critical engine failure."

Sandy had just enough time to slump on the floor, place her head in her hands, and mentally curse absolutely everyone involved in this ship's construction.

Then there was an almighty bang.

Spongebob had run back and was nearing the engine room when it exploded spectacularly.

Captain Fenton wrote in his log that he had gone into the flaming room, grabbed Sandy's unconscious form, run back up to the pods and then attempted an unauthorised use of the electric shock things (what were those things called, anyway? Danny did not know.)

Shortly after, to everyone's delight, a rescue ship, the USS Eldridge, arrived to bring the pods aboard, and allow access to their medical bay.

It was there that Spongebob checked his CO and friend into medical care, and was given an offer by Doctor AJ Ibrehim.

"You're lucky we arrived when we did – she was slipping away when we arrived," he explained.

"Can you fix her?" asked Spongebob.

"Well…we can rebuild her. We have the technology…"