Star Truck

Star Truck

A Star Trek FanFiction Spoof

by Stephen Oliver

 

“The engines cannae take it, Cap’n,” Scotchy the engineer shouted from the back of the ship. The intercom was on the fritz again. “Yer overloading them again.”

“I haven’t even started them,” Lieutenant Silly complained from the helm. He pointed. “See, the key’s not in the ignition at all.”

Captain Jimmy Z Crickit sighed. He hated it when his crew started bickering before they even left a planet. But what could you expect when you were the commander of the Condensation-class interstellar haulage ship Underpriced, infamous for being late, if it actually arrived at all?

Right now, they were stuck on some gods-forsaken backwater planet, waiting for the customs officer to get off its multiple butts and let them load their cargo. He had already greased its palms with Sirian Vodkatini and ten packets of Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum (which was a hallucinogenic aphrodisiac for them), but apparently it wasn’t enough. He had been metagoogling the Ultranet for some clues on what else it would take, when this little argument broke out.

“Look, guys, it’s not our fault the wrap drive didn’t work near that black hole,” he said. “Stupid Galactic Positioning System didn’t tell us to divert around it. They’re always forgetting to send out updates.”

He stopped as a thought crossed his mind. Turning to his science officer, he continued.

“You did remember to order the GPS update, didn’t you?”

First Office Spork nodded.

“Yes, Sir. It took a while for it to arrive, because they sent it to Alderaan, and not Aldebaran. But I was able to install it before we left.”

He punched a couple of keys on his control panel, and the copyright information appeared on the main screen.

“As you can see, Captain, it is less than half a stardate old.”

“Chust a minute, Sirr” Ensign Kickoff looked up from the map he was trying to refold unsuccessfully. “Vhat’s zat symbol in ze bottom rright corrnerr?”

Crickit squinted as he looked at the cracked glass.

“Damnation, they sent us the beta version again. No wonder it didn’t show that the black hole had wandered into Frienderation space. Lieutenant O’Hula, I want you to report it to the authorities at once.”

“I can try,” she muttered.

“What was that?”

“I said, “I’m on it”, Sir.” She began twiddling the dials, switching from FM to AM when she couldn’t find anything. “I can’t get through, Sir. There’s some sort of interference coming from that building over there.” She pointed out of the window.

Crickit put his head in his hands.

“Lieutenant, that ‘building over there’ is the customs shed. They probably want to talk to us and tell us that there’s another delay. Put them on the main screen.”

“Ah, Captain Crickit,” the tall pile of pink and green tinsel on the screen said. “You may load with immediate effect. This is good stuff… gurgle… blick… wordleflop… grool.”

The last thing they saw was a string of reflective material holding a gum wrapper up to the screen.

Crickit turned to the crew.

“Get to it, guys, before it sobers up and changes its minds.”

Six hours later, the engines proved that they could indeed take it as the Underpriced pried itself loose from the planet’s soil and lumbered upwards into space.

As they cleared the atmosphere, Crickit turned to Spork.

“Have you managed to get the GPS working?”

“Yes, Sir. They sent an emergency update via Direct Hyper-Light courier, with their deep-felt apologies.”

“I bet.”

“Apparently, they were already working on it after the Frienderation Frigate Balls O’ Fire disappeared down the black hole.”

“So, it’s up to date.”

“I hope so.”

“You? Hope? That’s an emotion, you know, Spork. I thought you didn’t have any.”

“They sneak up on me from time to time, Sir. I’ll go and have a lie down until it’s over.”

“Later, Spork. I want you on deck for now. It’s time to go into wrap drive.”

“Very well, Sir.”

“Navigator, Helmsman, I want you to get us faster than light faster than you did last time.”

“Yes, Sir,” Silly and Kickoff answered. Kickoff opened his new-folded map up again and started to turn it around and around, looking for their destination. Meanwhile. Silly spun the ship around to point in what he hoped was the right direction, causing nausea in every being aboard.

“All set, Sirr,” Kickoff said. He had the finger of one hand on the map while he punched in a 60-digit number in with the other.

“Make it so,” Crickit said.

Everyone looked at him.

“Sorry,” he said. “I have no idea where that came from. Let’s kick this old bucket of bolts in the backside and see if we can get our cargo to its destination without it fermenting.”

He shuddered, remembering the last time they had transported Deneb-Garr grapes that were a little overripe. They had been hung over for the whole week-long journey. He brightened up. On the other hand, the three-day drunk afterwards, while they were coming down again, had been fantastic.

He watched the lights on the screen as the wrap-nacelles extended out from the sides of the ship. Brown paper extruded from them as they spun around the ship, followed by sticky tape and string. Lastly, the label with their destination address was applied.

The ship then slipped itself into the waiting slot in PostSpace and vanished from the skies.

As they were being bumped around by the other ships in this microcosmic sack, Crickit grimaced to himself.

There must be a better way of doing things, he thought. Maybe something to do with bending space around the ship?

They had been underway for three days when they heard the distress call.

“Captain, a ship is calling for help,” O’Hula said. “Something about an infestation. They want medical assistance, and we’re the only one close by with a doctor on board.”

“If you can call him that,” Crickit muttered to himself. “Okay,” he continued out loud, “drop us out of wrap and see what we can do. When will we be in range?”

“In about two seconds, Sirr,” Kickoff said and pressed the big red ‘Stop’ button.

With a loud thump, the Underpriced was thrown out of the sack and came to a shuddering halt. Torn brown paper, string and sticky tape floated away from the ship.

Everyone fought the desire to throw up.

Half a mile away, a lumpy pile of dirt floated in space.

“Oh dear,” Silly said. “That looks like it’s a Crudistani ship. Better put your wellies on, Captain.”

“I will.” Crickit stood up. “Silly, you have the con. Spork, you’re with me.” He walked out of the control room.

Kickoff glared across at Silly.

“Vhy do you always ket ze con?” he hissed.

“Because I’m senior to you, so there!” Silly gloated.

Crickit’s first stop was his quarters, where he put on his fishing waders before pocketing a nose clip. This would not be the first time he had been on a Crudi ship. The inhabitants of that planet were hive-creatures, so the crew would be all-female, meaning that he would be wading through piles of soft wipes and scented cloths.

He left his cabin and walked down the corridor to the san.

He hoped to Gods that Moans hadn’t been sampling his own ‘medicines’ again.

He was in luck. The medic was sober.

“We’ve got an emergency on another ship,” Crickit told him.

“Does that mean we’re going to stream over?” Moans looked excited at the thought as he picked up his pink bag. He preferred the colour to black.

“Yes, we are,” Crickit replied, sounding grumpy.

There was a good reason he hated the Displacer.

As they went down the corridor, Crickit grabbed a passing crewman.

“I need you on the Otherwhere Team to help me in an emergency, O’Reilly.”

“Okay, Sir,” The man fell into step with him.

“What on earth happened to your shirt, O’Reilly? It’s bright red.”

“I’m sorry, Sir. I left some Centauran cherries in the pocket when I put it in the wash, and the colour ran. Not to mention the sticky mess that it left behind got caught in my hair. I had to shave it all off.”

“Oh, I see. Well, try not to be so forgetful next time.”

“Yes, Sir.”

They walked into the Displacer room and stepped into the booths. They nodded to the technician at the controls to say they were ready.

Crickit cringed as the Blender blades stuck out from all sides. It didn’t hurt as their atoms were taken apart, but the thought of being chopped up like this always depressed him.

Their bodies were broken down, and the resulting subatomic paste was squeezed out of the booths and electronically blasted across to the other ship.

As always, it seemed to Cricket that nothing had happened to him, but the world had jumped around him. He looked down to check that all his parts were still there.

Damn it, he thought, I’d better get Scotchy to check the system. It’s given me plaid trousers again. At least that was better than the last time, when he had ended up wearing a pastel pink toga. Which had been see-through in all the wrong places.

The captain of the Crudistani ship was waiting for them as they were put back together again. She was small and dainty, resembling a four-foot tall ladybird.

“Thank you for coming, Captain,” she chirped. “We have an outbreak of Flurges. She’s one of the passengers, on her way to her wedding.”

Crickit glanced across at the science officer.

“Flurges are the inhabitants of Betelgeuse 7,” Spork explained. “They’re slug-like creatures that are normally slow and —” He hesitated for a moment.

“Sluggish?” O’Reilly suggested with a grin.

Moans glared at him. Puns were his thing, and he hated competition.

“The problem is, Captain,” the Crudi exclaimed, “it’s her mating season. She’s never mated before, so she is out of control. She has already eaten half of my crew.”

“How do Flurges mate?” Crickit asked, afraid to ask.

“They eat their mates whole, then extract the necessary genetic material from the body as they absorb it. She will continue until she finds male genes. You are the only males on the ship.”

The three men went a little pale. Spork was already pale because he was, after all, vulcanised.

“Are you armed?” she asked

“Of course.” Crickit pulled his fazer out. “It’s designed to confuse an enemy. We’re not allowed to carry anything more dangerous.”

“Ah, I see,” the Crudi said. “Frienderation rules, of course.”

“No,” Crickit replied. “We’re just too trigger-happy and like shooting things.”

They walked down the corridor together, towards the sounds of screaming.

Suddenly, their noses were assaulted by the stench of rotting cabbage, which overwhelmed the overall miasma of patchouli and lavender.

“I believe those are the pheromones of the Flurge species,” Spork declared.

At that moment, the creature slurped around the corner, holding a Crudi in each of her two main pseudopods.

As soon as she saw them, she let out a complex, multi-toned screech.

“Males,” she screamed. “There are males on board. Come to Mummy-to-be!”

They all began firing their fazers, but to no avail. The Flurge was simply too big and too crazed to be disconcerted by anything.

She rushed towards them as they began to back away.

O’Reilly wasn’t looking where he was going, so he tripped over a neatly piled stack of soft wipes. He sprawled on his back as the others continued to run.

The Flurge was on him in a moment. The pseudopods shot out and grabbed him, dragged him upright, and pulled him up to the front of her bulk.

“Male, yummy,” the creature said.

The front opened up into a huge orifice, which engulfed the unfortunate crewman.

He disappeared with a cut-off scream.

Immediately, the Flurge sagged against the wall and began humming to herself in a basso profundo voice, eyestalks half-closed with a sated look.

Crickit led the rest of them back to her.

“Is she safe now?” he asked the Crudi captain.

“Yes, but I think her groom might be a little upset that he will not be the one to be eaten on his marriage night.”

Moans was eyeing the creature.

“You said this one had never mated before. Is that right?”

“Yet, it is,” the Crudi chirped.

“And I believe that this is the first time Humanity and Flurge have met.”

“I think you may be right, doctor,” Spork said.

“In that case, Captain, you could say that he has baldly gone where no man has gone before.”