MYSTERY VOYAGER THEATRE 3000
BY DANIELLE DUCREST
Disclaimers: Star Trek: Voyager is a registered trademark of Paramount. Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a registered trademark of someone else. No copyright infringements were intended. This was written for entertainment and not for profit.
Spoilers and Timing: No idea. Could be anything, really.
Summary: Tom is somehow transported onto the Satellite of Love. Will his sanity remain intact until Voyager can rescue him, or will he ever visit a holodeck again?
*****
Tom Paris leaned back in the chair at the navigation console on the bridge. Before him on the view screen, stars showed up as long, white lines as the U. S. S. Voyager warped by on warp six. Commander Chakotay sat behind him in the captain's chair. Like usual, they didn't exchange any words during the entire shift. Besides a few other people who usually worked the graveyard shift, they were the only ones on the bridge.
Tom sighed. Sometimes space travel was very boring. The Delta Quadrant seemed to go on forever. There usually was some excitement on board, but they hadn't run into anything for at least three weeks. The break had been nice for awhile, but now he wished it would end.
Something on his console chirped. Finally, Tom thought, some action. He looked at the computer screen. "Commander," he called, getting his CO's attention.
"Yes?" Commander Chakotay asked, coming to stand behind Tom.
"I'm picking up a very strong energy reading." Alarmed, he looked up at from the display at the Commander. "It's coming from the bridge."
"What? Where?"
"Right in front of the console, sir. It's coming closer every second."
A light suddenly appeared and quickly surrounded Tom. He tried to move out of his way, but the light seemed to hold him in place. Chakotay tried to reach out and grab Tom, but he was blinded as the light intensified. When he could see again, the console chair in front of him was empty.
Ensign Tom Paris was gone.
[Beginning sequence]
(Crow's voice) A Dixie Horizon: The Worst Frontier. These are the voyages of the Satellite of Love. Its on-going mission: to watch very bad movies, to seek out new life and run away from it, and to boldly go screaming where hopefully no one has to go anywhere near again…
[To the tune of Mystery Science Theatre 3000]
In the very distant future (shot of the hull of Voyager)
On a Sunday a.d.
There was a guy named Paris (shot of Tom Paris playing pool)
Born in the twenty-forth century (shot of several styrofoam balls hanging on threads of different sizes passing as planets)
He loved to watched old things called movies
And program them on the Holodeck (Tom Paris as Captain Proton)
Pearl needed a new test case,
So she grabbed him from the future (Tom disappearing from Voyager's bridge)
and shot him back into space.
"I'll send him cheesy movies. (Pearl holds up movie film)
The worst I can find."
[La, la, la] (weird undead guy and a big ape with glasses sing during 'la, la, la' parts. Right now, they're hanging in leg manacles from the ceiling)
He'll have to sit and watch them all (Tom and 'bots watch Cocacabana)
And I'll monitor his mind.
[La, la, la] (the weird undead guy is blow-drying a brain in a jar and the ape guy is eating a banana
Now keep in mind, Tom can't control
Where the stories begin or end
[La, la, la] (the undead guy is handing Pearl a movie roll while trying to keep the brain balanced on his head, while the ape guy is standing there smiling)
But at least he's safe from the Borg here (Shot of Borg cube, only it's made out of legos)
Trapped with his robot friends
[Robot Roll Call]
Cambot!
Gypsy!
Tom Servo!
Crooooooooow!
If your wondering where is the place (show Tom's quarters on Voyager)
in his quarters he can have a bath
[La, la, la]
Just repeat to yourself, "It's just a show,
I should really just relax."
"For Mystery Voyager Theatre 3000!" (show ship made of cheese shaped like Voyager)
[End beginning sequence]
Tom closed his eyes, trying not to be blinded by the white emptiness surrounding him. When the extremely bright light faded away, the first thing he noticed was the chair he was sitting in was gone. The next thing he knew, he was falling flat on his but on a hard floor.
Grimacing, he opened his eyes and looked at his new surroundings. To his left was a large octagon-shaped door with a six on it. To his right was a table, and behind him was a large window with a display of stars behind it. Tom stood and walked over to it. The star alignment was different. Wherever he was, he wasn't in the Delta Quadrant.
He looked downward through the window and nearly fell back on the floor in shock. Below the ship was a blue and green planet with swirls of white clouds. It looked a lot like Earth.
"I'm home!" He exclaimed.
"If you say so."
Tom whirled around, looking first at eye level. Seeing nothing, he glanced down. Only a few feet away from him were these three small creatures. The one to the left, the one that had spoken, was red. He had a clear, plastic head and short arms, and was hovering a few inches off the ground. The creature in the middle was gold, with a long mouth and a goalie mask strapped to the back of his head. The one on the right was tall, with a purple head shaped like a twentieth century vacuum cleaner that Tom recognized from old movies. Robots, Tom realized. Like the ones in his Captain Proton holodeck programs, only match smaller and in color.
The gold robot spoke first. "So, you're the new guy Pearl sent up here."
"Huh?"
The red hovering robot spoke next. "She sent Mike back to Earth and sent you up here."
"That's really Earth?" Tom couldn't believe it. He'd never been so close to home in five years. But how could that be Earth? It'll take sixty-four years for Voyager to get out of the Delta Quadrant but all he had to do was pass through some phenomenon and he was home? It had to be a trick.
He tapped his Comm badge. It chirped, telling him it was active. Tom looked at it in puzzlement. If this were a trap of some sort, his Comm badge would have been disabled. "Tom Paris to Voyager." No answer. He tapped it again. It chirped once more. "Voyager, do you read?" Still nothing. But what could be wrong? It was working perfectly.
"Uh, excuse me, sir, but what are you doing?" the big, purple robot asked.
Tom looked at it. This one had a female voice. "Who are you? Where am I?"
"You're on the Satellite of Love, in low orbit around Earth." The red robot said. "That's that planet down there. We have no way of escaping to it. Instead, we're forced to watch very bad movies while Pearl studies your brain patterns for a human tolerance experiment."
"Who's Pearl?" Tom asked. At that same moment, a buzzer began to wail, and a light set on the back wall began to flash.
"That should be her." The gold robot said. "You're supposed to push that big blue button up on the table."
Tom did as he was told, and they all turned to a second door set in the back wall. The door opened, revealing a blond-haired woman with two much makeup on the screen behind it. Pearl, Tom realized.
"Hello, Tom." The woman said. Her head moved as she spoke, showing in the background a weird guy with a brain in a plastic bowl resting on his head and an ape wearing glasses. "Welcome to the twenty-first century."
"The twenty-first century?"
"Yes. I sent you back in time so you could be a part of my experiment, and because of your interest in old movies." She held up a movie reel. "I've got a bad one just for you. You'd better get to your seats." The door rolled back into place, covering the screen.
An alarm went off, and the robots started going crazy. "Panic! Panic! Movie time! Ahhhhh!" the red and gold robots screamed.
"What are you guys doing?" Tom asked.
"It's movie time!" the red one answered. "We've got to go!" The two robots ran toward the door with the six on it. It opened, and they ran into the next room. "Come on! We don't have much time! And the name's Tom Servo!"
"My name's Crow!" The golden one shouted while they ran through the hall to the next door. It had a five. It opened up to another hall. At the end of this one was a door with the number four on it, which opened up to another hall, and so on. "What's yours?"
"Tom Paris," Tom answered just as they went through the door with a one on it. This door opened up to a room with movie theatre chairs and a movie screen. Tom, Tom Servo, and Crow sat down in the front row just as the movie started. They sighed in relief, then sat back to watch.
Tom watched as the credits rolled, all the while listening to his new robotic friends make sarcastic comments.
Crow hums the X-Files tune before Tom Servo tells him to stuff it. "Oh, sorry. There are too many people on here with the last name Scully. Is it just me or is he the only guy in the credits?"
"It's definitely you," Tom Servo answered.
Tom Paris looked uncertainly between the two robots, then he stared at the screen. This would be a long two hours. He always did like old movies, but with these two critics, it would be hard to sit here and watch it all. He shrugged. Might as well join in to make it less bearable.
A picture of one of the actors appeared on the screen. "He reminds me of my old dog back on Earth when I was a kid."
"You had a dog?" Crow asked, feigning shock.
"Was his name toto? 'Cause that dog was just as ugly as you."
"Yeah, and you're both uglier than that actor," Crow added.
Or...maybe he shouldn't try to join in. Maybe Captain Janeway would figure out a way to get him back on Voyager...before he lost his sanity.
He could only hope.
THE END
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