“Well, the nice thing is, we will be home for Christmas, Captain, because all this running around at around Warp 9.75 and above means our structural integrity fields need a New Year's overhaul!”
Lt. Cmdr. Doohan, third-in-command and chief engineer, presented me the bright side whenever he could.
“Can we get home and get overhauled by the 30th if you can get me Warp 9.875?”
“Captain, everyone here will be in their forever home if we try that for more than an hour – but I can give you three hours at Warp 9.775 with the understanding that we are going home at Warp 5!”
“I'll take it, Chief!”
At least in this fourth and last case, the people involved confessed and came to us for help, having realized their mistake – and, the creatures above proved sufficiently benevolent so there was no loss of life.
“We just need your kind to leave us alone, Captain,” I was told. “An honest mistake we understand. A dishonest mistake, after having been warned, will have each and every human and humanoid we meet pulled apart alive and devoured.”
Some retail company, getting ready for the holidays, had thought the above creatures were ready-made handbags for harvest.
Try sentient orchids with a bag like a Venus Flytrap and a "handle" and root feet like a boa constrictors! They had hog-tied their attackers and let a few go call for help – which is where the Amanirenas came in, shaking, rattling, and rolling at Warp 9.775, because the people involved thought their colleagues would be constricted to death. Instead, they were well-bruised, with a few strains and pains, but unharmed, and the planet placed on the “no-go” list by full fleet admiral Elian Bodega.
Admiral Bodega also had the problem of several ships in his full-system rescue fleet having been run around and needing to be in port – it was one thing when it was bad settlement decisions from decades ago, but another thing when deadly foolery for profit was beginning to take hold.
However, rear admiral Benjamin Banneker-Jackson and his adjutant Commodore Wilhelm Allemande already were working on decades of data to head off the settlement problems, and the rear admiral had a novel solution to the commercial shippers who were making bad pre-holiday decisions.
“Let the commodore handle their permits, and let him explain the situation!”
“Oh, yes – the news will spread and there will be no further problems in this sector for the rest of the decade,” the full fleet admiral said. “I just feel for these company heads who did not care that their employees got handled and hogtied by some spiky orchid types – I feel like popping some popcorn and watching the carnage!”
My first officer and younger cousin to the commodore, Commander Helmut Allemande, just shook his head.
“Captain, I do not say this as a boast,” he said, “but there is a reason I am considered in the top five science officers in the fleet despite my relative youth. The surviving commercial shippers of this region are about to become the best in class also, but the hard way.”
“Get right or get Wilhelmed, eh?” I said.
“Imagine being a fleet cadet and knowing everything you do is not only going to be scrutinized by your professors but Wilhelm Allemande,” he said. “But at the same time, he tutored all his younger relatives and everyone in the community who went to the Academy. He resembles God exactly in that meeting him in his love for you will make the best of you, but if you meet him in his wrath … it's too late.”
He sighed.
“Adm. Bodega does not understand completely,” he said. “My cousin is not going to call a meeting of these CEOs – he's also calling all their shareholders. Most of these companies and none of these CEOs are going to survive the day. Only the ones exempted from the call will be here.”
“A bit above a popcorn experience,” I said.
“Captain, I would advise you not to even witness it,” he said, “since it is a higher-than-ship-level matter. You do not need that memory.”
“You're serious,” I said.
“You have seen my cousin only moderately angry,” he said. “You have not seen him with 75 years of practice, fully intending to wrap up a whole bunch of powerful wicked individuals in their mess and choke the life out of them, live. You would have a better chance steering the Amanirenas through a solar flare than these people are going to have with Wilhelm Allemande.”
“Well, sir,” I said, “a wise captain listens to the security concerns of her first officer. I hear you, and I will honor your suggestion. We will have a peaceful bridge work day catching up on analysis and reports about all we have been doing since the Suliibruum Scream brought us out here.”
Toward the end of said peaceful day, Cmdr. Allemande quietly handed me a tablet – just one of the many of the day, but this one had the carnage we had not witnessed summarized on it. Certain stocks were in free fall. Certain CEOs were out of work. Certain environmental protests that had not been honored were loudly and proudly in the public eye, and Adm. Bodega was making all the right moved about them being honored. Nobody who opposed this dared to put up their hand to get them honored … not that day, and not on any day thereafter.
“It's already handled,” I said to my first officer.
“Yes, ma'am, it is,” he said.
