WEEK 12, DAY 7
Despite Troi's urging, Beverly steadfastly refused to leave her quarters and enter the carnage she foresaw. "I am not going out there and getting involved in THAT!"
"Come on, how bad can they be?"
"HOW BAD!? You saw them yesterday, can you imagine what today's performance would be like? I'm not coming out until they're all asleep."
"Oh, whatever. You could at least keep trying to find some way to stop it."
"I've tried! There isn't one! Thirty cycles, that's all I can find out."
"There must be something else!"
"Nothing. I'll keep trying, but not today! I am not leaving this room, and no one is coming in! Beverly Crusher will not be seen on the Enterprise today!"
Time was to prove Beverly's decision was a wise one.
Picard was just waking up. He was relishing that wonderful feeling of the morning when you can't move, and you don't want to. It was warm, so warm. He felt something move behind him, something touch his ear. Ahh, my dearest. I love you too. I could listen to that sound forever. That oh-so familiar rhythmic, husky breathing of...
Worf!
Picard was wide awake now, but still didn't move. Worf was snuggled up behind him, hugging him from behind. His mind raced back. Obviously Worf's comforting from yesterday hadn't finished. And even more obviously it had been a while since either of them had slept in a bed with another person. Did we do anything? No, no we couldn't have!... maybe... no! He wouldn't have...couldn't have!... although... "Worf?" he asked in some concern.
"Hmmm?" Worf moaned, only half-awake.
"Why did you kiss my ear?"
Worf immediately woke up. His eyes flashed open, but he wasn't ready to move just yet either. "Why are you holding my hand?" he replied.
Picard felt that yes, he was holding something - their senses were only just coming back. He felt something else too. "Where's you other hand?"
"Between two pillows."
Picard's eyes widened in horror. "Those aren't pillows!!!"
DeHirst could not sleep at all. Visions of the day before haunted her, as if Q had come into her quarters and was showing her just how all the officers she had grilled in her career must have felt. 0800 came eventually. She didn't want to go out there and see those men ever again.
"Excuse, my arse. This is really happening!" She cast her mind back to Beverly's warning. Their cycle ends today! That means... no! No! But I have to finish the... okay. Fine. I can handle this. I'll grit it out, just like I usually do. I'm not here to make friends or enjoy myself, so just treat them like they are, a bunch of schoolgirls the lot of them. The report, well, they're normally pretty good. The usual one will do.
Preening herself up for the day, she ordered a glass of whisky for Dutch courage, and strode out into the corridor.
Time was to prove DeHirst's decision was an idiotic one.
'Firm, be firm.' DeHirst kept telling herself. She was utterly determined that she could and would take back control of her inspection, and she would refuse to be put off by these idiotic men and their behavior. It was just that a dusty corner of her subconscious kept on whispering 'resistance is futile', and another was telling her 'you'll be sorry!'
DeHirst was so tense that her right hand was bleeding from clenching her fist so hard. Occasionally her vision went red, and the only thing that stopped her from breaking down on the spot was her last 25 years in the Fleet.
It was Picard. Picard was killing her. Every point she had raised he shot out of the stars with an almost precise, vindictive abandon. DeHirst's firm resolve to hold her ground had turned into a desperate contradiction of anything he said.
It was only a matter of time before her patience gave out. And it wasn't long before it did.
The inspection had reached the shuttle bay, which was in a frenzied state of activity. There was plenty of cargo to be moved; an aid station was critically short on supplies, and the Enterprise had volunteered to go there (actually, Picard had said "Alright! Enough nagging already! I'll go!")
Right now, Picard was abusing another Ensign for not dusting a shuttle's engine. DeHirst was standing behind him, sighing annoyedly. Finally, she butted into the conversation.
"Thank you Ensign, you're dismissed." she said shakily, her anger almost boiling over.
"Yes sir!" the Ensign replied.
"No you don't! I'm not finished with you yet! You still haven't explained why you failed to clean the interior of the fuel tank satisfactorily."
DeHirst tried again. "Dismissed, Ensign!"
"I'll thank you not to get involved in my internal disciplinary procedures, Sara!"
"Now Captain Picard, this is hardly necessary!" DeHirst had had more than enough of this. "Frankly, I find your recent conduct unbecoming of a Starfleet off--"
"You shut up!" Picard cut in. "Or I'll tell Starfleet Command about how you 'inspected' the captain on the Centurion last year! That conduct was quite becoming, wasn't it? Apparently his ship didn't measure up, but he 'measured up' quite well, didn't he!? He measured up to 10 inches, I believe."
DeHirst went white, then red, then white, then red again, all in the space of eight seconds. She shook for a while, then collapsed on the floor and burst into tears. She just couldn't take any more of this - it had been a very long, very bad inspection.
Riker stared at the two of them. He was very angry. His face went crimson and his nostrils flared as turned on Picard. "YOU SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO HER!!" he shouted as he swung a right cross at Picard, sending him sprawling onto the floor.
In an instant Worf was in Riker's face. And in another instant, Riker had rebounded off the wall of a shuttle. "How DARE you attack the Captain!" he snarled.
Worf helped Picard to his feet, still trying not to look at him. "Are you all right sir?"
"Yes, thank you Worf I'm fine..." his voice trailed off as he looked around.
There were at least thirty men staring straight at him. He recognised them all as men he'd given a tearing off yesterday. They had tears in their eyes, and they were all Marked, their red patches shouted a warning to anything in their path to change theirs. There was an odd look on their faces. They were slowly walking towards him.
"We've had enough of you!" a young lieutenant shouted at him. "Always shouting at all of us like we're just robots! Well we have feelings too, you know! TAKE 'IM!!" he shouted, as they all charged towards Picard.
At once Worf gave the pose of a white knight defending his queen, but when he saw that it wasn't fooling anybody his self-preservation instincts kicked in, and he buggered off as quickly as possible.
Picard was marginally less alert than Worf. Never much of a hand-to-hand fighter, he only realised what was happening just after it happened, ie: when thirty men simultaneously dived on him and started punching the crap out of him. He tried to fight back, but thirty to one weren't the best odds in the world. Life is a matter of majorities, and right now Picard was outvoted.
But it didn't stay that way for long. Some of the rest of the shuttle bay crew came to his rescue, trying to prise the men off Picard. This only started even more one-on-one fights as old scores were suddenly given a chance to be settled. Riker led a counter-attack for the Rebellion, Geordi got in on the act, and in the end the entire shuttle bay had erupted in a huge battle with itself. Men, fists, screams, teeth, and cargo boxes were flying everywhere. Ensigns had ganged together and were saluting officers, then promptly gang-bashing them. "Stop it, all of you! Stop this mindless aggression!" Troi shrieked as someone floored her. Outside in the corridor no one could hear what was going on through the noiseproof walls. Data called security and they rushed in to break people up, only to get lost in the carnage as well. Eventually the entire security crew were also in the fight, and seemed to be losing it. Data himself got involved, trying to delicately render people unconscious somehow, only to receive a wayward phaser stun blast from a trigger-happy security crewmember and was put out of commission. The guard that shot him paused for a moment and saw what he did to poor innocent Data. Thoughts of guilt washed over him, his shoulders slumped, a bittersweet tear in his eye, and *THUD* he had a cargo box hit him in the temple (that'll teach him to get sappy in the middle of a brawl - there is no Walden Pond on the Enterprise). Geordi had his VISOR broken and knocked onto the floor, and not long after three ribs were broken and he was knocked onto the floor. The fourteen men now trying to attack Picard simultaneously had got into a brawl when they ran into each other, and they all completely forgot about him. Picard meanwhile had gone into a frenzied rage just at the thought of his crew attacking him, and was diving on the nearest man he could get to, even if it was someone that tried to rescue him. Riker had opened some cargo boxes full of paints and dyes, and was throwing whatever he could find at anyone he could see. Soon, the shuttle bay & its' crew looked like something out of Yellow Submarine. In a matter of minutes everybody was wearing not only a red uniform, but a green, blue, pearl, tangerine, mustard yellow, white, grey, brown, and violet uniform. Worf gave an ancient, blood-lusted Klingon war cry, which was responded to by a splash of brown paint. A group of practical jokers had centered themselves around the food dispenser, and were throwing in everything they could make. Pies, cakes, custard, anything. Some of the crew saw this, and a few gangs with a similar sense of humor charged for the remaining dispensers. Soon, along with the paint, desserts were covering the shuttle bay crew. A green security guard covered in strawberry mousse was kicking a magenta engineer with a chocolate mud cake dribbling down the back of his head. Worf was hit by a bag of sugar which exploded all over him, and combined with the paint made him look like a donut. 'Is this some advanced human form of war?' he thought, licking some of the sugar off his finger. Data had recovered from being knocked out earlier and re-entered the fray, only to have a crate of melon synthenol hit his power switch and render him unconscious for a second time. Picard was about to dive on Riker when he was hit in the face by a pavlova, lost his balance, and slipped in a patch of lemon sorbet. Riker laughed at this before he was struck down by a flying fruit platter. Geordi gingerly stood up, blood and rasberry jam running down his face and a shit-eating grin decorating it. He blindly stared into the fray and, half-concussed, said "Bye Tasha, I'll see you at the clinic." before being knocked unconscious when he was sandwiched by a box of PCB spares and a rice pudding.
And in the middle of this technicolour apocalypse stood DeHirst. No one was even looking at her, it was as if she didn't even exist. She was looking around at the devastation with the expression of a four-year-old lost in the woods. Long past tears, well past confusion, she was totally convinced that she had gone insane. 'This is some kind of shared hallucination. It must be!' she thought. When a crew member collapsed unconscious on top of her, she realised this was only too real. 'Escape! Get out of this place!!' She ran screaming out of the shuttle bay, found an escape pod, jettisoned it and flew away to her rendezvous point.
She never set foot on the Enterprise again. Normally the notes on her inspection reports were as long as seven pages. The Enterprise got one word: Satisfactory. When the High Command asked her to expand on that she got a wild look in her eyes and started frothing at the mouth, so they didn't ask about it again.
Despite Troi's urging, Beverly steadfastly refused to leave her quarters and enter the carnage she foresaw. "I am not going out there and getting involved in THAT!"
"Come on, how bad can they be?"
"HOW BAD!? You saw them yesterday, can you imagine what today's performance would be like? I'm not coming out until they're all asleep."
"Oh, whatever. You could at least keep trying to find some way to stop it."
"I've tried! There isn't one! Thirty cycles, that's all I can find out."
"There must be something else!"
"Nothing. I'll keep trying, but not today! I am not leaving this room, and no one is coming in! Beverly Crusher will not be seen on the Enterprise today!"
Time was to prove Beverly's decision was a wise one.
Picard was just waking up. He was relishing that wonderful feeling of the morning when you can't move, and you don't want to. It was warm, so warm. He felt something move behind him, something touch his ear. Ahh, my dearest. I love you too. I could listen to that sound forever. That oh-so familiar rhythmic, husky breathing of...
Worf!
Picard was wide awake now, but still didn't move. Worf was snuggled up behind him, hugging him from behind. His mind raced back. Obviously Worf's comforting from yesterday hadn't finished. And even more obviously it had been a while since either of them had slept in a bed with another person. Did we do anything? No, no we couldn't have!... maybe... no! He wouldn't have...couldn't have!... although... "Worf?" he asked in some concern.
"Hmmm?" Worf moaned, only half-awake.
"Why did you kiss my ear?"
Worf immediately woke up. His eyes flashed open, but he wasn't ready to move just yet either. "Why are you holding my hand?" he replied.
Picard felt that yes, he was holding something - their senses were only just coming back. He felt something else too. "Where's you other hand?"
"Between two pillows."
Picard's eyes widened in horror. "Those aren't pillows!!!"
DeHirst could not sleep at all. Visions of the day before haunted her, as if Q had come into her quarters and was showing her just how all the officers she had grilled in her career must have felt. 0800 came eventually. She didn't want to go out there and see those men ever again.
"Excuse, my arse. This is really happening!" She cast her mind back to Beverly's warning. Their cycle ends today! That means... no! No! But I have to finish the... okay. Fine. I can handle this. I'll grit it out, just like I usually do. I'm not here to make friends or enjoy myself, so just treat them like they are, a bunch of schoolgirls the lot of them. The report, well, they're normally pretty good. The usual one will do.
Preening herself up for the day, she ordered a glass of whisky for Dutch courage, and strode out into the corridor.
Time was to prove DeHirst's decision was an idiotic one.
'Firm, be firm.' DeHirst kept telling herself. She was utterly determined that she could and would take back control of her inspection, and she would refuse to be put off by these idiotic men and their behavior. It was just that a dusty corner of her subconscious kept on whispering 'resistance is futile', and another was telling her 'you'll be sorry!'
DeHirst was so tense that her right hand was bleeding from clenching her fist so hard. Occasionally her vision went red, and the only thing that stopped her from breaking down on the spot was her last 25 years in the Fleet.
It was Picard. Picard was killing her. Every point she had raised he shot out of the stars with an almost precise, vindictive abandon. DeHirst's firm resolve to hold her ground had turned into a desperate contradiction of anything he said.
It was only a matter of time before her patience gave out. And it wasn't long before it did.
The inspection had reached the shuttle bay, which was in a frenzied state of activity. There was plenty of cargo to be moved; an aid station was critically short on supplies, and the Enterprise had volunteered to go there (actually, Picard had said "Alright! Enough nagging already! I'll go!")
Right now, Picard was abusing another Ensign for not dusting a shuttle's engine. DeHirst was standing behind him, sighing annoyedly. Finally, she butted into the conversation.
"Thank you Ensign, you're dismissed." she said shakily, her anger almost boiling over.
"Yes sir!" the Ensign replied.
"No you don't! I'm not finished with you yet! You still haven't explained why you failed to clean the interior of the fuel tank satisfactorily."
DeHirst tried again. "Dismissed, Ensign!"
"I'll thank you not to get involved in my internal disciplinary procedures, Sara!"
"Now Captain Picard, this is hardly necessary!" DeHirst had had more than enough of this. "Frankly, I find your recent conduct unbecoming of a Starfleet off--"
"You shut up!" Picard cut in. "Or I'll tell Starfleet Command about how you 'inspected' the captain on the Centurion last year! That conduct was quite becoming, wasn't it? Apparently his ship didn't measure up, but he 'measured up' quite well, didn't he!? He measured up to 10 inches, I believe."
DeHirst went white, then red, then white, then red again, all in the space of eight seconds. She shook for a while, then collapsed on the floor and burst into tears. She just couldn't take any more of this - it had been a very long, very bad inspection.
Riker stared at the two of them. He was very angry. His face went crimson and his nostrils flared as turned on Picard. "YOU SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO HER!!" he shouted as he swung a right cross at Picard, sending him sprawling onto the floor.
In an instant Worf was in Riker's face. And in another instant, Riker had rebounded off the wall of a shuttle. "How DARE you attack the Captain!" he snarled.
Worf helped Picard to his feet, still trying not to look at him. "Are you all right sir?"
"Yes, thank you Worf I'm fine..." his voice trailed off as he looked around.
There were at least thirty men staring straight at him. He recognised them all as men he'd given a tearing off yesterday. They had tears in their eyes, and they were all Marked, their red patches shouted a warning to anything in their path to change theirs. There was an odd look on their faces. They were slowly walking towards him.
"We've had enough of you!" a young lieutenant shouted at him. "Always shouting at all of us like we're just robots! Well we have feelings too, you know! TAKE 'IM!!" he shouted, as they all charged towards Picard.
At once Worf gave the pose of a white knight defending his queen, but when he saw that it wasn't fooling anybody his self-preservation instincts kicked in, and he buggered off as quickly as possible.
Picard was marginally less alert than Worf. Never much of a hand-to-hand fighter, he only realised what was happening just after it happened, ie: when thirty men simultaneously dived on him and started punching the crap out of him. He tried to fight back, but thirty to one weren't the best odds in the world. Life is a matter of majorities, and right now Picard was outvoted.
But it didn't stay that way for long. Some of the rest of the shuttle bay crew came to his rescue, trying to prise the men off Picard. This only started even more one-on-one fights as old scores were suddenly given a chance to be settled. Riker led a counter-attack for the Rebellion, Geordi got in on the act, and in the end the entire shuttle bay had erupted in a huge battle with itself. Men, fists, screams, teeth, and cargo boxes were flying everywhere. Ensigns had ganged together and were saluting officers, then promptly gang-bashing them. "Stop it, all of you! Stop this mindless aggression!" Troi shrieked as someone floored her. Outside in the corridor no one could hear what was going on through the noiseproof walls. Data called security and they rushed in to break people up, only to get lost in the carnage as well. Eventually the entire security crew were also in the fight, and seemed to be losing it. Data himself got involved, trying to delicately render people unconscious somehow, only to receive a wayward phaser stun blast from a trigger-happy security crewmember and was put out of commission. The guard that shot him paused for a moment and saw what he did to poor innocent Data. Thoughts of guilt washed over him, his shoulders slumped, a bittersweet tear in his eye, and *THUD* he had a cargo box hit him in the temple (that'll teach him to get sappy in the middle of a brawl - there is no Walden Pond on the Enterprise). Geordi had his VISOR broken and knocked onto the floor, and not long after three ribs were broken and he was knocked onto the floor. The fourteen men now trying to attack Picard simultaneously had got into a brawl when they ran into each other, and they all completely forgot about him. Picard meanwhile had gone into a frenzied rage just at the thought of his crew attacking him, and was diving on the nearest man he could get to, even if it was someone that tried to rescue him. Riker had opened some cargo boxes full of paints and dyes, and was throwing whatever he could find at anyone he could see. Soon, the shuttle bay & its' crew looked like something out of Yellow Submarine. In a matter of minutes everybody was wearing not only a red uniform, but a green, blue, pearl, tangerine, mustard yellow, white, grey, brown, and violet uniform. Worf gave an ancient, blood-lusted Klingon war cry, which was responded to by a splash of brown paint. A group of practical jokers had centered themselves around the food dispenser, and were throwing in everything they could make. Pies, cakes, custard, anything. Some of the crew saw this, and a few gangs with a similar sense of humor charged for the remaining dispensers. Soon, along with the paint, desserts were covering the shuttle bay crew. A green security guard covered in strawberry mousse was kicking a magenta engineer with a chocolate mud cake dribbling down the back of his head. Worf was hit by a bag of sugar which exploded all over him, and combined with the paint made him look like a donut. 'Is this some advanced human form of war?' he thought, licking some of the sugar off his finger. Data had recovered from being knocked out earlier and re-entered the fray, only to have a crate of melon synthenol hit his power switch and render him unconscious for a second time. Picard was about to dive on Riker when he was hit in the face by a pavlova, lost his balance, and slipped in a patch of lemon sorbet. Riker laughed at this before he was struck down by a flying fruit platter. Geordi gingerly stood up, blood and rasberry jam running down his face and a shit-eating grin decorating it. He blindly stared into the fray and, half-concussed, said "Bye Tasha, I'll see you at the clinic." before being knocked unconscious when he was sandwiched by a box of PCB spares and a rice pudding.
And in the middle of this technicolour apocalypse stood DeHirst. No one was even looking at her, it was as if she didn't even exist. She was looking around at the devastation with the expression of a four-year-old lost in the woods. Long past tears, well past confusion, she was totally convinced that she had gone insane. 'This is some kind of shared hallucination. It must be!' she thought. When a crew member collapsed unconscious on top of her, she realised this was only too real. 'Escape! Get out of this place!!' She ran screaming out of the shuttle bay, found an escape pod, jettisoned it and flew away to her rendezvous point.
She never set foot on the Enterprise again. Normally the notes on her inspection reports were as long as seven pages. The Enterprise got one word: Satisfactory. When the High Command asked her to expand on that she got a wild look in her eyes and started frothing at the mouth, so they didn't ask about it again.