MSTied: STEPHEN RATLIFF'S "The 7th Fleet." (Marrissa fic!) [(2/6)]

[Tv's Weretorgo]

>
> The Seventh Fleet

SERVO: Seven is a number used often in the Bible. Could it be that Ratliff is
in fact making a serious statement about how Star Trek seems to shy away
from organized religion?
JOEL: Mmmm... no.

>
> Cast in order of appearance:

Joel: Red Alert! Brace for Ratliff Introductions!

>
> Rear-Admiral Jean-Luc Picard Commanding USS Enterprise
> Commanding Third Fleet

SERVO: Three, as in the Trinity. I really believe that Steve-o is writing a
veiled commentary on how religious matters are being shoved to the side or
even negatively portrayed in Trek!
JOEL: I don't think so.
SERVO: No, really! This fanfic will be a symbolic battle between the
religously faithful and the secular majority!
JOEL: I don't think so.
SERVO: Are the believers the bad guys for their fanatical intolerance for a
world without open religion? Or is it the secularists who are evil, for
imposing a system where individualism is undesirable and matters of faith
are hidden?
JOEL: I don't think so.
SERVO: I'm deluding myself, aren't I?
JOEL: I think so.

> Lt. Clara Sutter Junior Assistant Chief Engineer, USS Enterprise

CROW: This sounds like a Dilbert title.
JOEL: She was just promoted from Senior Assistant Secondary Chief Engineer in training.

> Lt. Cdr Marrissa Picard First Officer, USS Stargazer

ALL: [reciting in unison, dully] ... Fighter Commander of the USS Stargazer, Lord High
Admiral of Star Fleet Kids Crews, Princess and heir to the throne of Essex, and the
greatest teenager in the history of humanity....
SERVO: So apparently there were no officers on the USS Stargazer before this fanfic?
JOEL: Yes, actually.

> Lt. Jay Gordon Second Officer, USS Stargazer
> Lt. Ross Lochard Chief of Security, USS Stargazer

CROW: Not a very good one if he lets little girls run around on the bridge.

> Lt. Katherine Lochard Assistant Fighter Commander, USS Stargazer
> Cpt. Sinclair Commanding, USS Armageddon
> Lt. Virginia Szustakowski Chief Engineer, USS Stargazer
> Jacqueline "Jackie" Picard Marrissa's sister (age 2)

SERVO: ...and Commanding Officer, USS Deep Hurting.
CROW: I see JFK's widow remarried *again*. Sheesh, and her name just keeps getting weirder,
too.

> Dr. Beverly Picard Mother of Jackie

JOEL: And good for nothing else.
CROW: In the Ratliffverse, any married female over 40 without "command" or "typing" skills
is officially demoted to "baby factory."

> Tom Cox The babysitter

JOEL: He had the title role in "Don't Tell Mom, Tom Cox is Dead."

> Rene Picard, jr Son of Isabelle and the late Rene Picard (age 2)

SERVO: Commanding Officer, USS Painful Story.

> Theresa Picard Aunt of Rene Picard, jr (age 5)

CROW: Rene Jr. later commanded a task force of the USS Hideous Fanfic, the
USS Plotless Nonsense, and the USS Big Stinking Load of Crap.

> Lieutenant Williams Chief Engineer, USS Nimitz
> Cpt Greer Commanding, USS Virginia, later USS Nimitz

SERVO: Queer old Captain Greer, commanding the Nimitz.

> Cpt William T. Riker First Officer, USS Enterprise
> Cdr Data Second Officer, USS Enterprise

JOEL: This list isn't enough... anyone have a program?

> Adm Victor Griest Asst Chief of Star Fleet Operations

SERVO: [as list ends] Never has there been a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
CROW: Now THAT's the kind of list we've come to expect from a Ratliff production.

>
> Prologue

SERVO: Oh, God, we're only now just starting.

>
> The Enterprise-E felt empty without the children.

SERVO: No children?
JOEL: Must have been anti-Ratliff gas.

> That was a statement
> that Jean-Luc had never thought he would make. He never wanted a command
> with families; not that the Enterprise-E had as many as the Enterprise-D
> had had.

[silence]

CROW: [whining] My parser hurts!
JOEL: There, there... how about a baby aspirin when we finish?

> However with his own family gone, the ship seemed to be missing
> something.

CROW: Apparently when his wife left him she took the kids *and* the warp core with her.

> He'd sent Beverly, Jackie, and Nicholas to live on Earth for
> the duration of the war.

SERVO: Nicholas ran away to Vegas to drink himself to death, and Jackie's husband was
assassinated by a "lone gunman."
JOEL: One more JFK joke and we hit quota.

> The Rear Admiral had once felt that that a
> starship was no place for children. Without his own, however, he prowled
> the halls of the Enterprise in search of something to

CROW: ...kill and eat.

> fill that hole in his
> life.

SERVO: Unsurprisingly, he found it in hard liquor.

> Just three and a half, almost four, years ago, he would have never done
> this. Then he had met and adopted Marrissa. That young girl had changed
> him more than he would admit.

CROW: After the lobotomy, he was powerless to stop her quest to become
queen of the multiverse.

> He married Beverly Crusher, and together had
> now not one but two children, a cute little two year old girl who knew just
> how to get her way with her father, and a new born baby boy. Beverly
> accused him of spoiling little Jackie,

JOEL: [as Beverly] You keep leaving her outside of the freezer!
SERVO: [as Beverly] And you never seal the plastic bag right!
CROW: [as Jean-Luc, henpecked] I just don't know how to use the Saranwrap, dear.

> but when that little girl looked up
> with her beautiful blue eyes and tossed back a wisp of her strawberry blond
> hair in a gesture that so reminded him of Beverly, he just had to cave in.

SERVO: [sighing] Now if only Marrissa's skull would do that.

> Up ahead was the deck 20 rear observation lounge, a small lounge that was
> a good place to watch the stars go by. It was where he use to

SERVO: USED! USED! LEARN TO SPEAK ENGLISH!
JOEL: [to SERVO] Now you're just overreacting.
CROW: Yeah, ignore the minor grammar errors and focus on the major plot errors.
SERVO: I just yearn for the days when the atrocious grammar and spelling
distracted me from the sheer pointlessness of it all.

> find
> Marrissa when she was troubled back before she left her post as the
> Enterprise's Chief of Security to become first Fighter Commander, then
> First Officer of the Stargazer.

CROW: A few commas would help... but where?
JOEL: How about "It was where he used to find, Marrissa, when she was a
troubled back, before she left her post as the Enterprise's
Chief of Security to become the first Fighter, Commander, then
First Officer of the Stargazer."

[stunned silence for a second]

SERVO: Joel, please don't ever do that again.
CROW: Yeah, you overloaded my parser worse than Ratliff did.

> He'd stopped there every night since
> Beverly and the children had left.
> This time it wasn't empty though.

SERVO: [as Picard] Who put all these beer kegs in here?

> Clara Sutter, his oldest daughter's
> best friend, was laying on one of the couches,

JOEL: Stoned out of her mind.

> and looking at the stars.
> "Mind if I come in, Clara?" Jean-Luc asked.

CROW: [as Picard] Because, you know, my wife left me and I've been feeling really lonely...
JOEL: Oh, Crow, don't go *there!* Yuck!

> "Come right in Captain," Clara said, knowing his preference for not using
> his full rank unless necessary.
> He took a seat on a nearby chair, and looked at the young lady.

SERVO: [Pe-Pe LePew] Ooooh, if only she spoke French.

> Only
> thirteen years old, and an Assistant Chief Engineer on a starship, the
> Lieutenant had accomplished a lot.

CROW: Oh, come on. They only gave her that rank out of respect for their elders.

> Commander La Forge called her his most
> promising officer, a title he did not bestow often. In fact, since La
> Forge had become Chief Engineer, only Wesley, Ensign Lefler, and Clara had
> been accorded that title. Clara was normally a confident girl, she took to
> the Engine Room like she had been born into it.

SERVO: Well, born *in* it, actually.

> In her element, she was
> unshakable. Tonight however, she didn't look so sure of herself.

JOEL: [as nervous Clara] Gosh, I'd feel a lot better if there was a huge and
nightmarishly complex generator barely containing colossal explosions in
here.

> "Troubled tonight, Clara?" Jean-Luc Picard inquired.
> "Does it show?" Clara asked.

CROW: [as Picard] Of course not, Clara.. a little paint and some curtains, and
it'll be hardly conspicuous.

> "Not really," Picard replied. "It's just that I find the people tend to
> visit this lounge when they need to think."

JOEL: [as smug, godlike Picard] I watch the people now and then. Sometimes
their insignificant actions amuse me.

> "Oh," Clara said. After a moment's silence, she continued. "I guess I am
> a little troubled. I just heard that the Seventh Fleet is going to make an
> attack deep into Cardassian territory."

JOEL: Oh, you know, if little girls know about your operation it's a *good* sign that security
is blown.

> "Worried about your best friend?" Jean-Luc Picard asked.

SERVO: [as Clara] Not really... she IS immortal and all.

> "A little," Clara said. "I mean Marrissa's gotten in and out of battles
> before, but we're at war now, and before I've always been right there.

CROW: [as Clara] Cowering in the corner.

> I've never had to wonder how she was doing."

SERVO: [as Clara] Usually her ego was so large I could pick it up on a
tricorder in a different star system.

> "I'm worried about her too," Jean-Luc Picard said. "I keep telling myself
> that she's a big girl now, First Officer of her starship. She can take
> care of herself.

JOEL: [as Picard, read as poetry] That it's her party, and she can cry if she wants to, cry
if she wants to, cry if she wants to.
CROW: In all fairness, you would cry too if it happened to you.

> Then I keep remembering how she was that first month
> after I adopted her, when ever comment put her in tears.

CROW: [as Picard] God, I hate teenagers.

> I remember every
> time she got hurt, and my mind starts imagining what could be happening too
> her.

SERVO: [Picard] It makes me feel all tingly and warm inside.

> But I have to put that aside.

JOEL: [as Picard] Fun can wait.

> I am a starship Captain. I have a
> ship and a fleet to command. I can worry about her latter."

CROW: [as Picard] I'm pretty confident about her former, but her latter keeps
me up at nights.

> "So you do your duties during the day, and end up haunting the ship at
> night," Clara summarized.

JOEL: [as Picard] Yeah... until Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd started shooting me with proton
packs...

> Rear Admiral Picard nodded and they lapsed back into silence.

SERVO: For those of you too stupid to follow the lack of action in this sequence, we
provide this convenient summary. Of nothing.

> He turned
> toward the window, and for awhile, the two watched the stars streak by as
> the Enterprise patrolled.
>
> Chapter One

CROW: Audience: zero.

>
> The bridge of the Stargazer was in pretty good condition, all things
> considered.

JOEL: [as Marrissa] What's this NPR crap? I want to hear 'Mmmmbop', and I want it
now!

> After all they were in battle, and the fleet they were part of
> had been reduced from 114 to less than twenty. So the blackened Ops
> console, and the shattered panel next to the Captain's Chair was to be
> expected.

JOEL: [as Captain] The maid hasn't cleaned yet, sorry about the mess.
CROW: Ahh, just throw a few throw pillows here and there, you'll never know the difference!

> Lieutenant Commander Marrissa Picard was in command, since
> Captain T'Gwen Washington had been taken to Sickbay. Lieutenant Ross
> Lochard was at tactical, his wife Kathy was at the helm.

CROW: His fourth cousin Billy Bob was at the engineering station.

> The Second
> Officer, Lieutenant Jay Gordon held the Fighter Command station, but was
> functioning as Operations Officer.

SERVO: [yawning] Fascinating.
JOEL: [as Ratliff] ...And they were all introducing themselves to each other.

> "Kathy, hard to port, Ross, fire torpedoes, 32 mark 5, now" Marrissa
> ordered. "Jay, fleet status."

CROW: Oh poopie. A Ratliff battle scene.
JOEL: Well, at least we can get some rest from the normal fast pace of the
fanfic.

> "The Kennedy had just been destroyed,"

JOEL: [as Jay] The torpedoes came from the Grassy Knoll Nebula, sir!

> Jay announced. "We've still got
> the Armageddon,

SERVO: Bruce Willis,

> the Hikura,

SERVO: Japan,

> the Hermes,

SERVO: Mount Olympus,

> the Virginia,

SERVO: Fat, dumb cops,

> the Rabin,

SERVO: Edger Allen Poe with a headcold,

[JOEL and CROW turn and begin to stare at SERVO]

> the
> Churchill,

SERVO: Some jerk named Winston,

> the Majestic,

SERVO: Stupid Adjectives for Starship Names.

> the Kentucky,

SERVO: Stephen's horse fetish shining through,

> the Paris,

SERVO: France,

> the Devin,

SERVO: Satan, furious of the mis-spelling of his alias,

> the Nimitz,

SERVO: Captain Valadez,

> the Pike,

SERVO: Fish

> the Sullivans

SERVO: The pelvis of Elvis

> and us.

SERVO: No comment.
JOEL: [to SERVO] I think you're losing it, pard.

CROW: [as Jay] Meanwhile, three more ships were destroyed during that lengthy report.

> The enemy forces have been reduced to 30
> ships."

JOEL: [as Marrissa] What are their names?

> "What's the kill score?" Ross asked.
> "101 them, 134 us," Jay said.
> "I'd say we were willing if it weren't for the number left," Ross

JOEL: Eh?
CROW: At least Ratliff's back to his usual level of incoherency.

> commented as the Stargazer made another pass on a Jem'Hadar ship.

SERVO: Hey, Jemmie-baby, nice nacelles! Wanna go to a quiet nebula somewhere for a
little anti-matter? Maybe we could link structural integrity fields later... hey
Jemmie, where are you going?

> "Jay, who is in command of the fleet?" Marrissa asked.

JOEL: Duhh... Marrissa, think carefully: You Marrissa. This Ratliff fanfic.

> "No one has sent any orders since Captain Thompson and the Harriman were
> destroyed,"

CROW: [as Jay] So we've pretty much just sat around and let the Jem'Hadar pick
us off.

> Jay said. "Why, do you have a plan to get us out of here?"

SERVO: [as Marrissa] No, but this seems like the perfect time to make myself
a Fleet Commander.

> "I'm working on one," Marrissa said. "How far apart are the two stars in
> this system?"
> "Point two A.U.s," Jay replied.
> "Perfect," Marrissa smiled. "Open a secure channel to all Star Fleet
> Vessels."
> "Channel open," Jay replied.
> "This is Picard of the Stargazer,"

JOEL: Just "Picard"? Not using a single one of her three dozen titles?
SERVO: I think it's like Prince. In the next fanfic she'll be represented by unpronounceable
ascii art.

> Marrissa began. "I think I can get us
> out of here. Any objections?"

CROW: [as a crew member] Yeah, I want to stay here and get killed.
JOEL: [as a crew member] I call dibs on being taken prisoner and tortured!

> After a brief pause, a response came in, "This is Captain Sinclair of the
> Armageddon, if you've got a way out, we'll take it. However, I have lost
> warp drive."

SERVO: [to JOEL] I didn't know humans had warp drive in the first place.
JOEL: [uneasily] Well, ahh, lemme tell you about the "birds, the bees, and Stephen Ratliff."
Later on, though.

> "All ships, send a status report," Marrissa ordered.

ALL: [in unison] All ships getting whupped, sir!

> "Virginia,
> Churchill, Majestic, break off and set your sites on a the ship designated
> target Gamma Four. Armageddon,

CROW: [as Marrissa, deadpan] Yippey-kai-yea, motherfu--
JOEL: [warningly] Crow, don't make me wash your mouth out with WD-40 next break.

> draw the fire off those three and lead them
> towards the Kentucky. Pike, Sullivans, converge on the Kentucky. Stand by
> for further orders."

SERVO: [as Marrissa, ordering] Oh, and Jay, stand by to give tongue bath.

> Marrissa turned back towards Jay and said, "I'm going to need Lieutenant
> Szustakowski on the Bridge. She has some experience with shield linking
> and warp field theory was her Engineering concentration."

JOEL: How will linking panty shields help the situation?
CROW: Well, the deluxe models have wings, and a "new, improved barrier"
for extra protection.

> "She's on her way," Jay informed. "It appears that our only problem of
> immediate concern on the fleet is the Armageddon's warp drive."

CROW: Ignoring the thirty enemy ships, of course.

> "That's not going to repair itself," Lieutenant Ross Lockard stated.
> "We'll find a way to bring them along," Marrissa stated as Lieutenant
> Virginia Szustakowski entered the bridge.

SERVO: [as Marrissa] Since we'll probably need to justify the four-page cast list.

> "Reporting as ordered Captain," the Chief Engineer said.
> "Gina, if we were to run a group of ships between those two stars at say,
> warp 4, would that cause enough tidal forces to cause a nova?" Marrissa asked.

JOEL: [as Szustakowski] No, but if I get the wave machine from the swimming
pool on deck twelve...

> "You'd have to link up all the ship's shields, synchronize all the warp
> fields, and maintain a fairly rigid formation,

CROW: Gaggh! Not synchronized Spaceship swimming!
JOEL: [deep, evil voice] And you thought it could not be done.

> but yes," Szustakowski said.
> "Can we do it with the current ships and tow the Armageddon along,"
> Marrissa inquired.
> "Towing the Armageddon makes it harder, but I think we can do it,"

SERVO: Well, sure, once you throw in some SciFi technodrivel and some typical Ratliffian
implausibility, it could happen.

> the
> Chief Engineer replied, her mind going though the necessary equations.
> "The Stargazer would have to lead, and we'd have to have three rings of
> four starships behind her."

CROW: [as Gina] And I'll need some paper clips, a kazoo, some fresh gagh, a Popeil's
pocket fisherman, a spiral-cut ham, a towel and a pan-galactic gargle blaster.

> "Get me that formation," Marrissa said. "Open that channel again Jay. We
> may get out of this yet."

JOEL: [as Marrissa] Break the fourth wall, then we're *outta* Ratliff land!
CROW: [as Jay] But wouldn't that mean sacrificing every single one of your ten thousand ranks?
JOEL: [as Marrissa] Damn the approaching plausibility, full speed ahead!

> "All ships are listening," Jay responded.

SERVO: [as Jay] Oh, except for that *one.*

> "Ok, this is going to be tricky everyone," Marrissa began. "We're going
> to attempt the Flare escape.

JOEL: [as Marrissa] That's where I change into my dad's old Friday night outfit, then scare the
crap out of the enemy!

> I'm transmitting the courses you will need to
> take and targets to hit along the way. Be ready to link shields and warp
> fields. Armageddon, you'll need to be in position early. We'll be towing
> you in the center of the formation."

SERVO: So, what are the bad guys doing right now?

> "Understood Stargazer," the Armageddon's captain replied. "But if we
> don't make it to your formation in time, leave without us."
> "That's a no go, Armageddon," Marrissa replied. "I intend to take all of
> the ships out of here."

SERVO: So the enemy has decided to wait around and not fire at the Stargazer
while they were thinking up this plan?
CROW: Pretty much.