Disclaimer: I do not own most of these characters. This story is written for entertainment purposes only.
Author's Note: This one is dedicated to the comedy fans who enjoyed the last one so much. Once again, take a peek at the side of starship life that no one gets to see. All the stuff that doesn't make it into the official logs. Since this is a prequel, obviously the timeline is earlier. Second season to be precise. And oh, yeah. Read the footnotes again.
The Great WaterGun War
There are some days made for stories, those dark dreary days where it seems that all is grey, and never shall there be anything to do, but sit and sigh. Those blustery, flustery days where you sit, and sigh, and draw little pictures of nothing on the walls and calculate run-time equations just for a little something to do. Well, snuggle up, kiddies; cause Aunty Nic's got a good one for you here…
It was a dark and dreary day in the summer of 2152, dark and dreary because the nearest sun lay over a trillion miles away. Things ticked over nicely, it seemed as though nothing could possibly go wrong. It was the third week of such days, the point at which routine no longer serves to stimulate, where the mere presence of the same faces, and the same uniforms and the same conversations begins to threaten the sane. Already minor rebellions arose and were quashed, but anyone could feel the storm brewing, ready to bust loose into a full-fledged hurricane.
Like most events such as this, it began slowly, with a minor innocuous event...
"What the hell?" Spoken by one of the only people who can get away with such words in my presence, the simple phrase causes everyone to around. Commander Tucker wipes the back of his neck, then looks upward. He's looking for something he can't find, because it's no longer there. I know, because I saw Crewman Jennings move his cup before the condensation fell. But to Commander Tucker, it is definitely a mystery.
He bends down over his work again, and I to mine. An idea forms, however, a very tempting idea, and so simple for its execution. It would never have occurred to me, but for the fact that I am very, very bored. The value of even minor amusements inflates in such times, to where the risk outweighs the punishment, because at least punishment would be interesting[1].
I excuse myself for a moment, go pick up some supplies. Equipment secured, I return to paperwork. And then…
"What the hell?" Commander Tucker wipes the back of his neck, then looks upward, again. He's looking for something he can't find, because it wasn't there in the first place. Muttering, he returns to his work.
"Damnit." Normally I'd be coming out of my skin at this kind of language, I don't like sacrilege. Profanity is fine, but there are certain words I don't hold with using. However, those same words tend to form most of the Commander Tucker expressive lexicon, and while I have hit him for it before[2], doing so now would most certainly make this game a little less fascinating. He really scans the area above his head this time, trying to locate his phantom leak.
Failing to do so, he begins a diagnostic. If the commander has one big flaw, it is a tendency towards obsessiveness. If the slightest little thing goes wrong, he has to track it down and fix it before he can rest easy. This is not necessarily a bad thing, given that a small problem can lead to a big disaster, especially on board a starship, but it also means he can be very predictable at times.
"Right." Maybe three times was too much. "Who's playing games around here?"
Everybody looks innocent, which – given that we're engineers – means everybody looks guiltier than a puppy on a wet spot.
"Begman? Hollis? Nabakov?" He tosses out a few names at random, gets a few random headshakes. "It's not funny, you know." He says it like he's mad, but I can see the corners of his mouth twitching. He turns around, goes back to work…
Bam. Full force, right in the back of the neck. He spins around, heads straight for me. "I saw that, Hess." His monitor displays a nice security cam shot of Engineering, he probably did see me, the bastard. Besides, I can't deny it, my lips are twitching too. Instead I let it loose, a series of giggles that shakes its way through my entire body. He looks too priceless, his hand out, expecting.
I hand it over, there's not much I can do. He examines it for a moment, turning it around in his hands, then sprays me, right between the eyes. Chuckling, he pockets my gun and turns back to his station.
I whip out my back-up (my family is stocked with lawyers and cops, of course I have a back-up) and hit him again before he's gone three steps. What starts as a two person shoot-out quickly expands as people begin fabricating their own weapons. Given that a watergun is a basic hydraulic pump, there's a lot of things lying around that an engineer can use to make one. Battlelines become drawn, sides are chosen. Given how these things usually work, it's commissioned officers versus the non-coms, with a few class traitors either way. As a result, the two sworn enemies who started it all are now maintaining status as allies.
"There's so many of them!" The commander pops up from under the desk we're using for shelter and nails somebody trying to creep over top.
"That tends to be the case with non-coms, sir." The desk I really want is over next to the matter/energy converter, in territory controlled by the enemy. "Cover me."
"I'm running out of ammo!! And I can't tell when they're dead!" He knocks out someone trying to get in through the front then swears. "I'm dry."
I give him my gun, take his. "Wish me luck, sir." I make a dash for it, barely getting there alive. Two crewmen are hiding out under this desk, I disarm one then shoot them both with my captured weapon. I then lay down a stream of cover fire for Commander Tucker. He bruises something getting under, but otherwise is okay.
"Now what?" He's almost out of ammo again, but we've just cornered the main supply.
Gleefully I've discovered that one of the enemy was kind enough to feed a hose down, and rig a remote control. "We reload sir. Then I've got an idea."
"Good." We take turns filling the chambers, then I get him to cover for me again. A few tweaks to the mix and…
"Ah, Hess. Did I ever tell you I love you?"
"I still could never date you sir. Southern men are bastards, I know from experience."
"Only the ones you're related to." He pauses for a moment. "You don't suppose…"
"I doubt it sir. You'd be much better looking." Actually, on that front I am the black sheep of the family. Not that I'm bad looking, but my brothers have been known to cause riots within large crowds of women. So have I, but only because they're running scared.
He aims his gun at me, and I think he's gone traitor when he shoots past me, stopping an attempted ambush.
"Thank you, sir." I scramble back under cover, just as an entire wave washes over the desk.
"Are they bombing us now?"
"Looks like, sir." Sneaky bastards. Oh well, they don't know about our next great weapon either. "Sir…"
At that moment, the door across the way opens, neatly framing Lieutenant Reed who has no idea what he's walking into. Everybody freezes, except for one trigger happy fool who hits our armoury officer dead in the centre of the chest.
"What…" Reed looks around, confused, and a little angry. "What are you people doing here?"
Nobody moves, nobody says anything. Then Commander Tucker stands up, and gives Lieutenant Reed a shot right between the eyes. Using our new loads of dark blue dye.
[1] This is a good example why, if you have a surfeit of engineers, you never let them get bored. Bored engineers get creative, and a little creativity can be a dangerous thing.
[2] I think I already explained this once. It's complicated. Kind-of.