A Camelot Knight in Starfleet Command
A further adventure in The Adventures of Sir Lancelot
And parody loosely based on A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
By Bineshii
Chapter 2: Exploring a Star Ship
"These are your quarters," said Hoshi stopping at a door in a companionway like the one they first found themselves in. Both Lancelot and Brian had no idea where they were in this ship with so many levels and turnings. They looked confused.
"You can change out of your clothing, which is torn and burned." She said as she touched a place on the wall and the door slid open revealing Crewman Holmes laying out on a bunk bed two of those one piece blue outfits. These had no insignia on them.
"We got your sizes from the security scans as you both entered sick bay," the crewman told them as he beckoned them inside.
"Crewman Holmes will show you to the captain's mess after you clean up and change," Hoshi added. "And here," she said, handing them each their own language translating box.
"Thank you,...Hoshi is it? Or Lieutenant Sato?" asked Lancelot.
"Hoshi is fine, Sir. But call me Lieutenant Sato if you want to be more formal. I think you out rank me, even with the incompatibility of our military systems," she smiled as she stepped away from the door which closed automatically when she was outside it.
They walked tentatively around their new quarters, gazing at the sparse furnishings: two bunks, two chairs, two tables set into the walls, with boxes Lancelot now knew were called computers. There was another little room at the side, which Brian was poking into.
"That's the head," explained Crewman Holmes.
"Head?" asked Brian.
Crewman Holmes smiled. "Originally a navy term. A lot of navy terms have transferred into Starfleet. But you are more army types, aren't you? Okay, that is a bathroom."
Brian looked around for the wooden tub, and asked "Where do we get the water? Do we take buckets and lower them down the side of the ship?"
Crewman Holmes raised his eyebrows and thought about this. "Um, the water is already here." He pointed to a pipe coming out of the wall above Brian's head. "Here, let me show you, if you will step back out of the head."
The crewman turned a handle and water sprayed down, gurgling into a drain in the floor. "Turn this way to get it hotter." He turned it back off. "Soap by pushing this button. Toilet here," he said, raising a seat cover.
"Oh, I see you sit on that. Okay," said Brian. "But why is there water in it?"
Crewman Holmes pushed the flush button and Brian jumped back.
"That's how you get rid of the waste."
"Where does it go?" asked Brian.
"It gets recycled just like leftover food and old clothes and practically everything we use on board." He frowned. "Um, I will let Captain Archer and Commander Tucker explain all about that later, okay?" Crewman Holmes smiled, thinking of how Commander Tucker once had to answer 'a poop question' on a video sent back to Earth to an elementary school classroom.
"I will just stay here while you gentleman get familiar with these cleaning facilities and then show you how to change into this clothing. I am sure you will get the idea quickly."
...
Lancelot felt vulnerable without his sword belt, as he followed Crewman Holmes to the captain's mess. But there only seemed to be a few people wearing weapons among the crew that he had seen. The weapons were those small black metal things with handles and short tubes; the things which sprayed fire. He had learned from Hoshi that the armed people were ship security under Commander Reed or people of that other group called MACOS, whose job was to settle conflicts on or off the ship.
He tried to learn the layout of this ship which did not look like a ship but like a labyrinth of steel corridors. It seemed beyond his understanding at this point. However, having cleaned up and changed into 22nd century starship clothes from underwear up, felt comfortable. He glanced at Brian who was following him. The boy almost tripped because he was looking down trying to find all the pockets in the one-piece clothing. Brian looked sheepishly up at him and recovered his footing with those fine new boots they were wearing. The boots they both had on fit perfectly. Everyone was 'sized' for clothing and it was 'replicated' - whatever that meant.
They turned a corner and entered another curved corridor, then stopped in front of another of those identical sliding metal doors. It slid open into a room with one long table at which the captain was sitting with other officers. The captain rose, smiled and nodded at them, then indicated places they were to sit. Only two places were empty, the other places being taken by the blond man, the woman with ear points, and the man who was supposed to be from Britain, who was the only one wearing any weapons. Wearing a weapon at dinner? This was not polite to Lancelot's way of thinking. The man noted Lancelot's pointed stare, grinned, and unbuckled the weapon belt and laid it on a table behind him.
Lancelot nodded, grim faced, at Commander Reed, then turned his attention back to Captain Archer.
The captain addressed them. "I am glad to see you both again. You look unhurt and relaxed. These are my senior officers, Commander T'Pol, second in command of the ship, Commander Tucker, the chief engineer, and Commander Reed, ship's armaments officer."
Once again, Lancelot introduced himself and Brian. The expressions on the faces of the senior officers seemed to indicate that they had heard of Lancelot before somehow, but were skeptical that he was who he said he was.
The captain raised his eyebrows and cleared his throat, then said "Let us sit and eat, then discuss a few things."
The captain sat, and so did everyone else. The eating utensils looked familiar except for the pronged thing that looked like a trident of a Roman god. He had seen such a tool once in a Roman household, but had never used one himself. The captain noticed his perplexed expression, so after plates of meat and vegetables were placed in front of everyone by the captain's steward, the captain used this tool to hold his piece of meat while he cut it. Then he used it to raise a chunk of meat to his mouth. Lancelot and Brian studied this, and copied the captain's movements.
The food tasted good, but was not quite the same as what Lancelot and Brian were used to. The texture and spicing were different. After a few bites, the captain started a diner conversation.
"I understand that coming aboard my ship was not something you intended?"
"No, it was not." Lancelot said. "And I realize that it was not something expected by you or any of your crew."
"True," Captain Archer smiled. "From your description to Dr. Phlox, we think we have identified the aliens who did this. We are having trouble, though, identifying where you actually are from, who you actually are, and WHEN you are actually from."
Lancelot started to respond, but Captain Archer held up a hand. "You do realize that if you are who you say you are, you are a famous historical personage from many centuries in our past?"
Lancelot nodded. He had sensed this from snatches of overheard conversation, from his talk with Dr. Phlox, and from the body language of people.
"Well, if so, it is a priority of mine to return you to your own time."
"Thank you, Captain," said Lancelot. "It is hard for me to understand what has happened to us and why. Returning us to the time and place we were abducted would also be our priority. Is it possible for you to do this?"
"It is possible. But it may be difficult. We know that time travel is possible, and that people moving from one time in history to another, can change history. That is dangerous. There are people who live centuries in our own future who have formed an organization to keep people in their own time period. We are trying to contact one of them who we have met before, called Daniels. He would have the ability to send you back, if anyone could. We, on this ship, do not have that ability. In the meantime, you are our guests and I will give you a tour of the ship so you can find your way from your quarters to areas of the ship where you will be allowed to visit, such as the crew mess hall and my quarters."
The captain stopped talking and looked to be considering something for a moment. Then he said "over time, a civilization develops tools, machines, and weapons which are more and more powerful as the years, the centuries, and millennia, go by. The tools and machines improve people's lives and there is more food and better health which allows people to live longer lives. In general, there is less fighting between neighbors for longer and longer distances. Weapons become capable of killing large numbers of people and fighting is done between larger and larger groups of people. But use of these weapons becomes so frightening that people learn to live more peacefully in cities, kingdoms, and nations. Groups of allied nations develope non-aggression agreements and trade agreements. Eventually on most worlds – planets, a planet wide government is formed and all the people on that world become peaceful with each other. At our time in history, this world government on Earth is over a hundred years old."
"One hundred years of peace?" asked Brian incredulously. "One hundred years is almost forever!"
Lancelot smiled sadly. "I heard from your Dr. Phlox that the world wide war a hundred years ago killed millions of people with terrible weapons."
"True," said Captain Archer. "And, that time of weapons of mass destruction in Earth history has been a critical time in the history of many worlds. It is a point where the weapons are powerful enough to destroy all life on a planet. Some planets are now bare rock with no plant or animal life. They are dead all because a sentient species could not overcome their anger and aggressive tendencies. Our civilization seems to have passed that critical point. Your time period was a step on the way to our success. Your King Arthur made a great step forward in our civilization with his ideas that he developed toward peaceful resolution of problems. You, yourself, played an important part in this and are well remembered in stories and legends. You must be returned to your time to finish your work."
"What if you can't get us back?" asked Brian.
"Then," said Captain Archer, leaning forward, "history may change radically. We might not survive that last world war."
Lancelot and Brian looked at each other with deep concern.
Captain Archer then said, "We may already have changed history, even if we could send you back today. Just knowing what kind of future, what tools and weapons are possible, will change your behavior when you return. Even if you don't try to invent any of the things you see that we have here, you will be doing things even just slightly different then you would if you did not know about them. And something in history will change."
"What if we just stay here? Won't that keep us from changing things?" Brian asked.
"No," said Captain Archer, "because you are both young, so if you stay here, things you have yet to do, that we know about from the legends, won't happen."
"I think I see your dilemma," said Lancelot. "We must go back. We must not try to let what we see here, what we learn here, influence us. Brian, we must take an oath to protect the future. These people could be our many times great, grandchildren."
The senior officers all nodded; the stern expressions on their faces relaxing.
Then Captain Archer picked up a device and aimed it at one wall, saying, "Since I learned what Dr. Phlox has already talked to you about, I thought I would show you some graphics of our solar system and images of our home planet. It is a wonderful world."
Both Lancelot and Brian were awestruck with the beauty of the world that was home to them and to these people, their distant descendants.
...
After the meal and the viewing of the graphics of their home world, Captain Archer took Lancelot and Brian on a tour of the ship. They went past areas where they were told they must not enter. These areas had dangerous machinery that they would not know how to handle. Captain Archer briefly explained warp drive, electric power, and engines driven by petroleum products, in a superficial manner. He mentioned running water and recycling which they already had some acquaintance with. Then they entered the main engine room.
"This looks and sounds like the hell that a Christian monk was trying to explain to me," Brian whispered to Lancelot.
"Brian, it appears more like the forge of Vulcan from Roman tales," Lancelot whispered back. "Stay right beside me and don't touch anything."
"This is the warp engine which drives the ship," Captain Archer explained as he nodded to Commander Tucker who was smiling down at them from one of those meta grid walkways above them.
"Is it...alive?" asked Brian with trepidation noticing the humming and the pulsing of the machinery.
"No," said the captain, "though our chief engineer might disagree with me on this."
Lancelot understood the captain's humor but had to lay a hand on Brian's shoulder to reassure the boy.
They were allowed to walk all the way around the main engine then go up and down metal staircases called 'ladders' and walk along the metal grids which still reminded Brian of loosely woven chainmail that you could look down through. He tried to not feel dizzy.
They left engineering for a quieter companionway and walked to a tiny room called a turbo lift. Inside it, they felt motion and when the door slid open again, they were in a different companionway near a place called a gym, short for gymnasium, a word that Lancelot was familiar with from his knowledge of Latin. Commander Reed showed them around the gym and how to use various physical training machines, while the captain talked to the bridge on one of those wall boxes. Lancelot paid close attention as he wanted to come back later and keep up his own strength and coordination by attempting to use these machines. He made a mental note that Brian should come with him.
"My security people, and the MACOS also, are eager to work out with you two," grinned Commander Reed as they left 'the gym' to continue their tour.
They ended their tour at the mess hall, where Brian stared into glass compartments in the wall where all sorts of foods were displayed.
"Go on, boy, pick one and open it," encouraged the chef who had just shown them a marvelous kitchen which had no smells but had clean and gleaming metal tables and little machines which cut and mixed food. There was no smell because the meats and vegetables were kept in a small room which was so cold Brian shivered when they went in there.
But now, faced with this wall of food behind glass, Brian pulled on what obviously was a handle and the glass door opened. It was cold in the little compartment too, so he withdrew the plate of food quickly. It had something he recognized on it.
"A pot pie, good choice, boy. I thought you might be going for the pecan pie or the piece of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting instead," said chef.
"Cheese?" asked Brian, "Where?"
Chef pointed. Brian got the piece of carrot cake out too, and then turned to see what Lancelot would say. The knight silently mouthed "enough". So Brian decided not to make any more selections and went over to one of the tables and placed his choices on it.
"Go ahead," chef said to Lancelot as the captain made his choice, then picked up a mug and went to a device under which he held the mug and said "coffee".
Lancelot had learned about this device earlier so he followed the captain's example and held up a mug and said "ale" and holding a second mug up said "chocolate milk".
Brian, half way through the pot pie, grinned, knowing Lancelot was bringing him his newly discovered favorite beverage.
"The mess hall is open at any time for you," Captain Archer told them as they sat together at the little table while crew people came and went from other tables around them.
This suited Brian just fine. This was something familiar because having once been a kitchen boy, he felt at home in any kitchen or dining hall.
...
Now familiar with the layout of the ship, Lancelot and Brian were allowed to move around unescorted. Lancelot would slip onto the bridge or into engineering or into the mass hall to observe the senior officers' conversations, now that Hoshi had given him and Brian their own translating devices. Slowly, things he observed and the questions he asked had started to make sense for him of life on a military star ship.
Brian, when Lancelot let him go off on his own, attached himself to Travis Mayweather or one of the younger MACOS. Travis showed him that wild place - the sweet spot, where he could swim through air. He wanted to get better at turning somersaults and bouncing off walls before he told Sir Lancelot about it. Then he planned to take his knight there and show it to him. He wanted to see Lancelot's first reaction to being afloat in air.
Also, Brian wished a couple of his friends in the squires school back at Camelot were here to enjoy this with him. In a way, he was home sick, but in a way, he never wanted to go back. He was learning new hand-to-hand combat techniques in the MACOS practice area, but they were careful to tell him these were techniques from his time, from the Far East. And he attended movie night where visions appeared on a wall with people moving fast in carts without horses pulling them, and riding the sky in all kinds of metal ships. The glass buildings in cities, especially London, fascinated him. No horse droppings in the streets and people were good about throwing garbage into receptacles conveniently located all along the streets. There was so much more of this ship yet to explore. Brian hoped they would not be sent home too soon.
But life on a star ship was not all play and exploration. Lancelot expected Brian to maintain their 6th century weapons and clothes in good order like a proper squire. So Brian attended to clothes washing and mending one day before he joined Travis when the lieutenant went off duty. Travis had promised to show him how to read star charts and lay in courses so a star ship would not bump into any planets or burn up by going through a star.
...
"What was all that racket in the laundry room?" asked Trip Tucker as he passed through the maintenance area companionway on his way to engineering.
"Well," said Hoshi Sato, "I showed Brian how to put clothes in the washer and set the dials for soap and load level."
"Okay, but what did he do to make all that noise I heard earlier?" asked Trip as he peered in through the laundry room door.
"He put his and Lancelot's chainmail vests, metal studded gloves, and metal studded trousers in the washer along with their cloth tunics," said Hoshi while practically gasping with laughter.
Trip laughed too. "So did you set him straight on that?"
"Oh, yes. But I think he was a bit disappointed that our magical cleaning machines had limitations," Hoshi explained. "Do you think you can repair the scratches and dents in the machine?"
Trip sighed. "It seems that lately all I do is follow that kid around the ship repairing things."
"Shall we tell Sir Lancelot about Brian's latest peccadillo?" asked Hoshi.
"Naw," said Trip, thinking about the times he had not told his parents about things his little sister, Lizzie, had done. "Lancelot watches that kid like a hawk and disciplines him like the MACOS do their own."
"Trip, okay, no telling on him, because he IS a kid and messing up is normal," Hoshi said with a frown.
"Not really a kid, Trip said. "In his time period he would be expected to go into battles at his age, even just as an assistant handing weapons to someone else. And he would be a legitimate target for someone to take down with a sword or ax. So I guess MACO style discipline would be appropriate. But Lancelot also treats him like a younger brother or as a father would a son. I guess military rank and relationships were more personal back then in their time."
Hoshi smiled. "The two of them are so personable, but at times they say or do something that reminds me how much they live in a completely different world than we do."
Trip sighed. "Yeah, I know what you mean. After all they have seen here, though, how are they ever to go back to their old lifestyle? The captain is trying to contact Daniels to see if sending them back as soon as possible can be arranged."
...
One afternoon, Lancelot and Brian were left alone in 'their quarters' until what Captain Archer described as evening meal. How were they to tell when it was meal time with no sun in a blue sky above, was Lancelot's first thought. Then he remembered about the clocks. At least he could read the numbers on them, though the writing on the padds and computers was beyond him. It was a foreign language to him. He would have to ask Hoshi if there was a translating device for that too.
The 'sky' outside Jupiter Station was always black with more pinpoints of light than was ever seen in the night sky back home. When they made a test run at warp speed to break in some new warp drive parts, the moving pinpoints of star light were like fireflies gone manic. Lancelot had felt dizzy watching this, so he had turned back and looked around the room again. Dark outside and day-bright inside. This was all wrong. He had blinked, but things did not change.
Brian standing there, also disoriented, was the only familiar thing in this strange new world. Lancelot had sighed and had taken a few steps just to feel that he was awake and not in some fantastic horrifying dream. His steps brought him to that mirror that was as tall as he was. It was like a very still pond showing himself from head to toe.
"Is that really what I look like?" he whispered.
Brian stepped closer and glanced from the mirror to Lancelot and back to the mirror. "It is as I have always seen you, My Lord."
Lancelot tried raising one eyebrow, like that woman with the greenish-brown skin, and rakishly slanting eyebrows, had done. "I do look younger than most of the other Round Table knights. But I look the same age as T'Pol, yet her years number those that I will probably never live to see. 'Sixty-five in your years,' she said. Did you hear that too, Brian?"
"Yes. I heard. Do you think they will fix us so we could live so long? Dr. Phlox said the human lifespan is 120 years in this future time."
"Brian, if we allowed him to do that, we would outlive our own grandchildren. Would you like that?"
"I don't know, Sir Lancelot. Would you want that?"
"I am not certain that I would. You and I are close, but I am not sure I want 70 more years with you, after everyone we now know is gone." Lancelot cocked his head mischievously at Brian.
Brian frowned. "But I will grow up. I won't always be short and clumsy and ignorant about things."
"Brian, I was only teasing. Of course I want you as a life-long companion. You know too much about me for me to push you out of my close circle of associates."
Brian had walked to one of the bunks and sat down with his hands clasped on his knees. Looking at the rug in front of him he said "You always try to reassure me by saying something more which I don't know how to take." Then Brian stared up at Lancelot with those intense blue, blue eyes. "I never want to leave you. I am your vassal and companion for life no matter how long or short that may be."
"I know, Brian. That is about the only thing I am sure of and take solace in at the moment. In this strange new world we must hold to each other not to go insane. And if we ever get home, we two will hold a view of life that no one else would ever understand. This experience will have made us different from everything and everyone we know in our time and in our world. We won't be able to forget it. But we will have to behave like we never knew it will exist in the future of our people."
Brian wondered why they would have to do that but did not respond. He stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes because he didn't want to have to think of anything else before his next meal.
11