A/N – This story is meant to take place fairly early on in the series, so the characters don't know each other that well yet.
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Dale Volker had a plan. A secret plan. Well it was a mostly secret plan. Brody knew. And Park, she knew too and Eli had just kind of blundered into their double secret meeting, so he knew all about it now too.
"So do I need to go over the plan again?" Volker asked.
Park and Brody shook their heads, "No I'm pretty sure we've got it" said Brody, "The device will be ready by Saturday, that is as long as Rush doesn't find out."
"Well he'd better not" Volker stressed.
"He won't find out" Park tried to assure her group, "…will he?"
"I don't know" Brody replied, "All I know is that he is gonna be pissed if he finds out you stole the main power doohickie from the console to power your fireworks display."
"Not stole", Volker qualified, "Borrowed, ok, borrowed. Besides if he checks the thing for fingerprints he's going to find Parks' prints all over it not mine."
"What?" Parks croaked.
"Well you were the one to actually pull the thing" Volker reminded her, "All I did was distract Rush with my pretend ineptitude. He loves to charge in and fix my mistakes."
"Pretend ineptitude?" Brody quipped.
"Yeah, well he, uh, he bought it anyway" Volker replied.
"But what if he finds out?" Park wailed.
"Relax" Volker told her, "Even Rush can't produce a fingerprinting kit out of thin air."
"Unless I make him one" Brody added.
"Yeah" said Volker, "Please don't do that."
"Sure"
"Alright then" Volker said cheerily, "We're all good for the big surprise on Saturday, as long the rest of the crew doesn't find out and tell on us."
"Hey Volker!" Sargent Greer called as he came striding up the corridor past the startled group, "I hope you're planning on having some grub at this party of yours. Because it just ain't a 4th of July party unless I have some kind of grilled meat in my hand."
"Uh, yeah!" Volker called at the Sargent's retreating form, "Grilled meat… no no problem…" As soon as Greer was out of sight Volker turned to his friends and asked, "Ok who told Greer?"
"Um, well…"
"Lisa?" Volker said, "Why would you do that? You knew this was a secret!"
"It just sort of slipped out" she said apologetically, "I told him it was supposed to be a secret!"
"Well," Volker said with a sigh, "I guess that's alright, you know as long as he knows it's a secret and doesn't tell the whole ship."
"Hey guys" Lieutenant Johansson said, walking briskly up on the group, "I hope you know you can count on me if you need to borrow anything from the infirmary for the games."
"G-games?" Volker stuttered, "What games? Where did you hear about games?"
"From Riley" she replied, "He said Eli told him and well, I guess he's pretty much told everybody else by now."
"Everybody?" Park groaned.
"Does, uh does Rush know about this?" Brody asked.
"I don't know" TJ told them, "I mean it's always possible someone told him, he must have some friends…"
Volker, Park and Brody breathed a collective sigh of relief. TJ was right, the only reason their secret was spreading was because people were too bored not to tell their friends. Thank God Nicholas Rush didn't have a friend in the world. Well not on this ship anyway.
(0)
"Ok, so I talked to Airman Becker and he says he thinks he can make some kind of sausages out of a mash of those blue potatoes and a few other things he still has left from the last re-supply" Park said.
"Greeeaaat" Brody said, "Nothing better than a blue meatless sausage cooked on a hot plate for our holiday feast. Yum yum."
"He's doing his best guys" Park reminded them, "It's not like we have a lot to work with here."
"Blue sausages should be fine, Lisa" Volked assured her, "How about the games that TJ wanted?"
"Well, I've asked around as discreetly as I could" Brody said.
"I think you can cross off discreet at this point" Volker sighed, "I'd be surprised if there was anybody on the ship, outside of a certain cranky Scottish scientist that didn't already know."
"Well, like I was saying," Brody continued, "I asked around and as you might guess, nobody thought to bring any board games with them as we ran for our lives through a stargate that we thought was taking us to Earth, but I did turn up two decks of playing cards and I borrowed an ipad from um,… from that bald Asian guy that hangs out with Cain. He had lots of games loaded on it."
"No no no" Volker said, "I meant like party games, things that you might play in your back yard."
"Oh. Well I guess you should've been more specific."
"Look!" Volker said, "All we really need are a few things we can throw and some targets to throw them at. Like lawn darts, or ladder-ball. That kind of thing."
"No problem", Brody assured them, "I can do that."
"Good."
"Ooh, I know" Park exclaimed, "Why don't we have races like my family used to have at our family reunions every summer! You know a three-legged race, a potato sack race…"
"Yeah that's sounds nice" Brody said, "But what happens if the next planet isn't a nice grassy park planet?" he asked, "What if it's a rock pile with a toxic atmosphere?"
"Why are you always such a pessimist?" Park asked.
"I guess I'm just trying to balance out your chirpy optimism with a little realism" Brody replied.
"We'll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it" Volker said, "I think races are an excellent idea and we can have them in the gateroom if we have too."
"Well if you liked that idea," she started, "Then maybe you'll like Greer's idea that we set up an obstacle course somewhere, you know with stuff they'd have to climb over and maybe some tires they'd have to set through…"
"Tires?" Brody said, "Where do you expect us to find tires?"
"I don't know!" Park wailed, "I just thought I'd bring it up."
"Well we'll, we'll think about it and see if we can come up with something" Volker told her.
"Volker!" Eli yelled jogging up to the trio of scientists, "We have a problem" he panted, "The power …cell …is missing …from your …fireworks device."
"Oh my God!" Park wailed, "Rush must've found out after all!"
(0)
"Yes, Mr. Volker, I do in fact have your power cell, which I must remind YOU, was stolen from this very console and is the reason I've spent the last hour getting shouted at by Colonel Young because he can't get his precious status report and do you know who he always blames when something doesn't go right on this ship?" Rush asked, "That's right ME! So why on Earth should I give you back a power cell that is at this very moment doing it's job, instead of being perched on the side of a shoddily built device that I assume you built for the somewhat unnecessary task of starting fires."
"Fireworks actually" Volker said, "It was supposed to shoot off some lasers and a few projectile fireworks for our 4th of July party."
"Party?" Rush asked, "This is the first I've heard of any party."
"Oh, uh, we… we didn't want to bother you" Park stuttered, "We know how busy you are and we didn't think you'd be very interested in a silly American holiday anyway."
"There's nothing silly about independence" Rush said, "In fact I'm sure there's many a Scot who'd be glad to have an independence day to celebrate."
"So, you'll let us have the power cell back for the party tomorrow?" Volker asked.
"Perhaps" Rush hedged.
"Yes?" Volker tried to urge Rush to continue.
"But only if you get a promise from Colonel Young for me that he will allow me to keep on with my work instead of trying to force me 'socialize' with the crew."
"So you're saying your one provision about letting us use the power cell for a few hours is that you not be invited to the party?" Park asked, dumb-founded.
"That about covers it" Rush said, "And if you could get Eli up here to help me on a more regular basis that would be grand."
"Well, uh, we'll see what we can do" Brody said.
"Splendid" Rush said, "Now if you'll kindly leave me to my work, I'll be glad to let you borrow the power cell tomorrow."
Brody, Park and Volker shuffled out of the control interface room as quickly as they could without flat-out running.
"Well… that's a relief" Volker said.
"I thought it was kind of sad" Park said, "I mean who would want to work instead of going to a party?"
"Could be he heard about the blue sausages" Brody quipped.
"Hey, it's his choice" Volker said, "And as long as Colonel Young doesn't have a problem with Rush skipping out on the party, I'd say we're in pretty good shape. We've got some grab, some games and plenty of patriotic music now that we can recharge our ipods."
"Yeah, that's all great" Brody said, "but will there be fireworks?"
(0)
"What do you mean no?" Volker couldn't believe his ears, Did Colonel Young just tell him he wouldn't allow Rush the luxury of skipping the festivities?
"Rush has to learn to get alone with the rest of us whether he wants to or not" Young said, "A few hours of watching other people have fun won't kill him and who knows it might even put him in a good mood for once."
"I seriously doubt that, Sir."
(0)
"He said… no?" Rush queried.
"Uh, yeah."
"Well then, I'm afraid our earlier agreement is null and void, Mr. Volker."
"It, uh, Doctor Volker actually."
(0)
Brody, Volker, Park and Eli stood a circle in the mess hall watching as some volunteers worked to decorate the room in red, white and blue with whatever blankets and pieces of clothing they could find.
"Well?" Volker said, "Does anybody have any ideas?"
"I guess we could go old school" Brody said, "You know make fuses and pack the gunpowder into paper tubes."
"Yeah that couldn't possibly end badly" Eli snapped.
"And what's your brilliant plan to save our fireworks display… Math boy?" Brody asked.
"How about we come up with a new energy source for the pyro-technical device?" Eli asked.
"We're listening" Volker prompted.
"The consoles in the apple-core room aren't the only power modules on Destiny" Eli reminded them, "All we have to do is find one somewhere no one will miss and adapt it to work with the device by tomorrow at whatever times passes for dark on the next planet."
"Actually" Brody said, "I've been thinking about that. Since we can't be sure what kind of environment we'll find on the new planet, I've been working on a back-up plan of my own."
(0)
Destiny, the Ancients or God himself must have been watching out for the crew this day because everything had gone beautifully. The planet that appeared when Destiny dropped out of FTL was the nicest they'd visited yet, with a big plane of some kind of reddish mossy grass that was perfect for three-legged and sack races and the various games the crew had come up with as well as for picnicking.
Becker's sausages had been better than expected, which basically meant they were a slight notch about awful, but they had found a quantity of edible fruit nearby which had helped raise everybody's spirits. Everybody's, but Rush that is. The grouchy scientist after having been forced planet side by Col. Young had chosen to spend his holiday sulking next to the stargate working out math problems of some kind in his ubiquitous notebook
At TJ's suggestion the obstacle course crew began rounding up couples for a 'wife carrying' race, a tradition TJ had witnessed as a child when her father had taken the family to visit relatives in Norway.
"We're still a few couples short" Cain was explaining to Volker who noticed there were only two couples currently waiting at the starting line, which wouldn't make for much of a race.
"You're sure everybody knows they don't actually have to be married or anything to participate?" he asked Cain.
"Yeah" Cain said, "I told them everyone was welcome to enter. As long as you can find someone who will trust you to carry them through the course without dunking you in Greer's water hazard. Turns out we're not a very trusting group I guess."
"Well how about you ask Colonel Young if he'll lean on a few of his soldiers to fill out the ranks?" Volker said.
"Will do, boss" Cain said, hurrying off to find Colonel Young.
(0)
Thanks to Young's efforts the wife carrying race's ranks had now swollen to 5 couples, including Scott & Chloe and Park & a Lt. Anderson (a situation Greer wasn't best pleased with), Lt. James had entered with one of the other female soldiers rather than being carried herself by one of the male soldiers who'd asked her.
Since the race was meant to be run in pairs with two teams taking on the course at once and then timing them to see which team finished the course the fastest, that left them with the problem of either asking one of the teams to sit out or having them run by themselves, which didn't seem like much fun. As they were discussing the fairest way to deal with the uneven number of couples, Greer leaned over and whispered to Cain and Volker, who then declared the problem solved and announced that Ronald Greer and partner would make up the 6th couple and run in the last heat of the race.
After the first two heats it looked like Park and Anderson had the time to beat as the final two couples were called to the starting line. Lt. Matthew Scott moved to the starting line with Chloe already looking comfortably situated on his back, the crowd murmur increased as they waited to see who Greer had managed to scoop up for a partner when a distinct and loud stream of cursing starting moving it's way through the crowd until Greer emerged with a wildly struggling and swearing Dr. Nicholas Rush slung across his shoulders much to the amusement of the Destiny's crew who began cheering as soon as they realized what was happening.
Cain fired a single shot into the air to start the race and they were off! Greer took the early lead over the hurdles, but Scott passed him in the water hazard when Rush finally managed to land one of his kicks hard enough to knock them both into the water. As he came out of the water sputtering, Rush found himself once more scooped up and over Greer's broad shoulders despite his best efforts to get away. Greer had almost managed to catch Scott as neared the final obstacle, a steep hill of piled dirt and stones. Greer took over the lead on the hill and crossed the finish line with both the faster time of the day and a very soggy and angry scientist.
(0)
Back on Destiny the crew gathered on the observation deck to wait for Mr. Brody's fireworks display to start and to share their favorite stories of the holiday.
"Did you see his face as they splashed down in the water?" Young asked gleefully, the deck practically shaking under the vibration of so much laughter.
"Where is Rush now anyway?" Eli asked.
"I let him go back to work like he'd wanted to in the first place, I figured he's 'socoilaized' enough for the day" Young laughed, "Hey, if I was you Greer, I'd sleep with BOTH eyes open tonight!"
"Yes Sir!" Greer replied, clearly not worried about it at all.
"Eli!"
Eli turns to find himself face to face with an unhappy Lt. James and several of the other soldiers.
"Eli" James began, "Would you care to tell us why the showers suddenly don't work?"
"Well, you see…" Eli began telling them about the power cell and how Rush wouldn't let them use it, so he'd had to find a replacement "…so you see I just decided that the showers could do without their power for a day or two…"
"A day or two?" James shouted, "We've been running around on a hot planet all day Eli!"
"I promise I'll get it all fixed in the morning" Eli said, "I swear."
"Well you'd better" James muttered.
"It's show time!" Volker called, prompting everyone to look out the window to where Mr. Brody had mounted his device to the side of the ship, carefully aimed out into space at Young's demand.
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As the countdown ended, Brody threw a switch in the apple core room and his device came to life shooting out multicolored lasers out into space, at first randomly and then in ever more intricate patterns before the display ending with a giant flare of blinding light that shot off into the surrounding darkness to the deafening applause of a happy (for tonight anyway) crew and if anybody had thought to turn around as the fireworks went on they would've seen Nicholas Rush enjoying the show from the shadows as he waited for the crew to realize that he'd overwritten all their music databases with nothing but the sound of bagpipes.