Nebula Nine IV (finale)
Written by niraD
"I'll go first," the gray bunny said. "I'm Judy. I introduced myself to some of you as Lieutenant Hopps earlier. I'm a security officer." She turned to face the red fox on her left.
"I'm Nick. Or Lieutenant Wilde. I'm an operations officer." He turned to face the black ewe to his left.
"I'm Sharla. Like most of you, I'm a cadet. And I'm a pilot." She turned to face the coppery red canine to her left.
"I'm Stephanie. I'm a medic. We're actually pretty well-stocked with medical supplies, so let me know of any injuries."
"You're not a fox," the lean cheetah across the cabin from her said.
"No. No, she isn't," Nick said. "She just likes the color red. Gideon, I think you're next."
The portly fox took a breath before speaking. "So, like y'all heard, I'm Gideon. An' I ain't a cadet or nothin'. I'm just a chef. But we got a lot of food, 'cause I was restocking the captain's pantry when, ya know, the bad stuff happened. An' I know Judy an' Sharla from when I was a kit. That's all." He turned to the beaver to his left.
"So, I'm Howie, and I'm an engineer, and..." He looked around the cabin. "Is this really it? Are we all that's left, just the nine of us out of the dozens that were on the Wilbur?"
Nick spoke softly. "I think so. I've scanned the debris field repeatedly, and I haven't found any other signs of life."
Sharla chimed in, "And Howie, we need you to take a look at the quantum drive. The impulse drive came online just fine, but the quantum drive didn't respond at all."
"Got it," the beaver said. "As soon as we're done here, I'll take a look at it." He looked at the goat-like mammal to his left.
"Hi. I'm Raj, which is short for Rajesh, but you can call me Raj."
"And he's a tahr," the cheetah chimed in. "They're native to a subcontinent in the other hemisphere from Zootopia, which is why you probably haven't seen many mammals like him."
"Anyway, yes, I'm a tahr," he continued. "And I work in astrometrics and navigation. So I guess, Raj is my name, and stars are my game. And the game we were playing probably had nothing to do with what happened to the ship."
"Will you please let it go?" Howie whined.
The cheetah nodded. "Howie's right. It is scientifically impossible for our roleplaying game to have had any effect on the ship's operations, or on whatever disaster befell the Wilbur."
Judy spoke up. "I know I'm going to regret this, but what kind of roleplaying game was this?"
The beaver sighed. "It was just a normal roleplaying game. I was the gamemaster, and they were playing characters who were crewmembers on a starship. They were on an away mission exploring a new planet when their ship exploded. And then the real ship exploded. But it wasn't my fault."
"If I may interrupt," Sharla said, "Raj, can you take a look at the nav system? It's on, but it isn't responding. It just says it's initializing forever."
"Um, sure. I'll look at the nav system as soon as we're done here." Then he looked at the cheetah to his left, who was lean even for a cheetah.
"I suppose it's my turn now," the cheetah said. "My name is Shelly, and I am a science officer cadet. So if any of you have any doubts about our little roleplaying game having any effect on the fate of the Wilbur, then I can assure you that such a thing would be scientifically impossible." Then he turned to the bobcat to his left.
"Hi, I'm Leo. And before Shelly says anything, no, I am not a lion. Obviously, I am a bobcat. My mother just named me Leo because she knew that someday I would be his roommate, and because she hates me. And I'm also a science officer cadet." He turned to the bunny to his left.
Judy looked around the group. "Thank you. I know this has been difficult, but we've still got a lot of work to do. Howie, Raj, you know what you need to do. For everyone else-"
"Excuse me," Shelly said. "If I may ask, which of you two is the captain?"
Judy looked at Nick, then replied, "We're both lieutenants junior grade. Neither one of us is a captain."
"I beg to differ," Shelly said. "According to General Order A-113, when an auxiliary vessel is separated from its mothership-as I'm sure we can all agree is now the case with the Nebula and the Wilbur-the senior officer receives a temporary field promotion to the rank of captain. So which of you two is the captain?"
"Not it!" Nick interjected.
"Seriously, Nick? 'Not it'?" Judy scolded. "What are we? Schoolkits on the playground?"
"Look, Carrots," Nick said, "I just think that you should be the captain. I'm more useful in ops, maybe as your first officer. Besides, you graduated before I did, so technically, you're the senior officer."
"Only because Hopps comes before Wilde alphabetically," Judy responded. "I'm not going to use that to take this away from you."
The fox raised his eyebrows. "Rock-paper-scissors?" Judy rolled her eyes, but then shrugged and held out her paw. Nick held out his own paw, then the two chanted in unison:
"Rock, paper, scissors…" Both made the gesture for paper. "Rock, paper, scissors…" Both chose rock. "Rock, paper, scissors…" Rock again. "Rock, paper, scissors…" Scissors this time.
"Excuse me," Shelly said. "Lieutenants, permission to make a suggestion?"
In unison, Judy and Nick answered, "Permission granted."
"Very well then. So the two of you obviously know each other rather well, and anecdotal evidence suggests that in the game of rock-paper-scissors, players familiar with each other will tie more than 80% of the time due to the limited number of outcomes. I suggest rock-paper-scissors-lizard-flock. With more outcomes, there is less chance of a tie."
"What?" Sharla asked.
"I saw it on an old sitcom. It's simple, really." The cheetah held out his paws and started making the appropriate gestures. "Scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock trips flock, flock tramples lizard, lizard… lizard does something to scissors, scissors shears flock, flock eats paper, paper chokes lizard, lizard climbs rock, and as it always has, rock crushes scissors."
Nick cocked an ear towards the cheetah. "Could you repeat that?"
"Certainly. Scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock trips flock, flock tramples lizard, lizard uh… beats scissors somehow, scissors shears flock, flock chews paper, paper chokes lizard, lizard climbs rock, and as it always has, rock crushes scissors."
Nick smiled charmingly. "One more time?"
"Cut it out, Slick," Judy said.
"Or," Sharla chimed in, "instead of trying to remember all that, they could just play odds-or-evens. One of you picks odds, and the other picks evens. On the count of three, each of you holds out either one finger or two fingers. If the total number of fingers is odd, then the one who picked odds wins. If the total number of fingers is even, then the one who picked evens wins. There are no ties, and even mammals with hooves can play."
"I'm odds, you're evens?" the bunny asked, holding out her paw again.
"Sure. On three."
Together they chanted, "One, two, three…"
"Three fingers," Nick said. "That's odd, so you're it."
"Seriously, Nick? I'm 'it'?"
"Hey, Carrots, I already said you should be the captain. And now, I've been vindicated by the game of odds-or-evens."
The bunny captain rolled her violet eyes at the grinning fox.
"Decapitates!" Shelly shouted. "Scissors decapitates lizard. Oh, wait, that can't be it. For the game to work, lizard has to beat scissors, not the other way around. Um, never mind."
The bobcat cadet looked up from the sensor display and looked at the other two mammals in the cockpit. "Well, Lieutenant Wilde was right about one thing. There aren't any more survivors out there."
The newly promoted bunny captain nodded. "I'm sure he'll appreciate your checking."
"But he's wrong about something else," Leo added. "That debris out there isn't the Wilbur. At least, not all of it anyway.
"What do you mean?" Judy asked.
"After checking for survivors," he said, "I ran a few more scans. There isn't enough debris out there to be the Wilbur. I don't know where the rest of it is, but what's here is less than ten percent of the ship. And I could only find a couple... a couple casualties? Literally, there are only two... casualties out there. I have no idea where the rest of the crew is."
"I suppose that's more or less good news then," she said. "Raj, what's going on with the nav system?"
The tahr started to speak, "Well..."
The beaver poked his head into the cockpit. "Lieutenant? I mean Captain? Captain Hopps?"
"Hi, Howie," the bunny replied. "What's up?"
"The quantum drive is back online."
"Really? Wow, great job!"
"Actually," Howie said, "I can't take much credit. It was offline because the strontium cube had suffered a stress fracture. But there was a brand new strontium cube just sitting there next to the quantum drive, waiting for me to install it. So we're good to go. The quantum drive is back online."
"Great!" Judy said. "So, Raj, back to you. What's wrong with the nav system?"
"Nothing," the tahr said. "And that's the problem."
"What do you mean?" she asked. "Sharla said it wouldn't initialize."
"Actually," Raj said. "It was initializing. It was just taking a really long time, because all the references had moved."
"But... But..." Leo said, "the references are stars, aren't they?"
"Exactly. And technically, they didn't move. Technically, we moved. We moved a really long way. And that caused the nav system to take a lot longer to initialize. But it finally finished, and now I know where we are."
"This sounds like bad news," Judy said.
"Let's just say, we're a really, really long way from home. Seventy light-years."
The four mammals were silent for several seconds, then Judy sighed. "Okay, I need that in captain dummy talk, guys."
Raj shrugged. "Well, if we could run the quantum drive at maximum speed the whole way, we could be home in a few weeks."
"You said 'if'," Judy said.
"Yeah, here's the thing," Howie said. "Quantum drives don't work that way. The heavy-duty quantum drives on the Wilbur were designed for a ten-percent duty cycle. We could run them at full power for a couple hours a day. Or more accurately, we could run them at full power for about half an hour, maybe four or five times a day. The quantum drive on this yacht is designed for much less than that. We might get several minutes of full power, maybe four or five times a day. The trip home isn't a few weeks. It's gonna be months. Maybe years."
Captain Hopps looked from one cadet to another, taking in their somber expressions. Then she headed towards the cabin. "C'mon," she said. "Let's go tell the others. We need to get ready. We've got a long journey ahead of us."
Nick sat up on the padded bench. He smiled at Judy as she removed her PIXAR helmet. "So, Carrots, was it as good as you remembered?"
"Absolutely. But you were in the Captain Max role. I was in the Lieutenant Chloe role. Why did you insist that I become the captain instead of you?"
Nick smiled at her. "Carrots, do you really have to ask?"
Author's Notes: In the Castle episode "The Final Frontier", we don't really learn much about what the short-lived sci-fi series Nebula Nine is like. The episode as a whole is an homage to various sci-fi shows, so I pulled bits and pieces from several of them to create my Nebula Nine: Star Trek, Firefly, Galaxy Quest, The Orville, and others. And of course, the gang from The Big Bang Theory are big sci-fi fans, so I based some of the surviving characters on them too. Thanks for reading. I'd love to hear what you thought of this installment.