MSTed: "A New Generation" [7/10] (Ratliff)

[Jamie Plummer]

> Chapter Six
>
> Admiral Soovik stood at his desk,

Crow [Andy Merrill]: Hi everybody, I'm Soovik!

> disrupter trained on his
> Federation counterpart, Rear Admiral William T. Riker. His guards had
> just removed the lifeless body of Lieutenant Commander Ross Lochard.
> "So Riker, what will it be, defense plans or shall I bring a child
> in next?"
> Riker paled at the suggestion,

Mike [Riker]: "Oh no, not Marrissa! I don't want to see her!"

> but to his credit, replied, "I
> know of no defense plans."
> "Command Center to Admiral Soovik."
> The Admiral pressed the communications button on his desk with his
> disrupter hand,

Crow: And now it's time for Soovik's Monday Ratings Report.

> "Soovik here."
> "The Federation has declared war," the Command Center Staff
> member began. This caused Admiral Soovik to take his eyes off Riker.
> It was the break Riker had been waiting for.

Mike [Riker]: Yes! I can rejuvenate a depressed economy!
Tom: Read an econ text, Nelstone.

> "A Nova Class Starship
> has left Neutral Zone Patrol, destination

Crow: ... Venus.
Tom: More than darkness lies between us...
Crow: Twenty million miles of bleakness! ...
Tom: Human weakness!
Mike: What now?

> unknown." Soovik didn't
> hear the last part of the sentence. Riker had drawn a mini-phaser

Tom: I hear he does a good Terry the Turtle, too.

> from his boot and stunned him.

Crow: Hey! Soovik shouldn't be animated to explode!

>
> The Enterprise-F arrived behind the planet which Romulan
> Starbase Four orbited. The Enterprise's passive sensors detected a
> powerful polar magnetic field and a large amount of debris over the
> north pole of the orange and gold planet.

Mike: Hey, they've reached Tatooine!

> Marrissa, still seated in the command chair, asked her
> fighter commander, "Do you think you can fit a whole division of
> fighters in that?""

Crow: "Well, Captain, that *is* a big chair..."

> "With that magnetic field and debris, certainly,

Mike [Orson Welles]: "..., Pinky, we can TAKE OVER THE WORLD!"

> " Katherine
> Lochard replied.
> "Then launch fighters," Marrissa ordered. "Tactical,
> maintain passive scanning until Kathy tells you that

Tom: ... that dinner is ready, or when the street lights come on. I don't
need you getting kidnapped.

> her fighters
> are in place. Conn, plot a course around the planet and past the
> Starbase into the north pole, engage on my mark, three quarters
> impulse."
> "All fighters away, full concealment in thirty seconds,"
> Kathy announced.

Tom: Olly-olly-oxen-FREEE!

>
> Marrissa found the waiting part of battles the hardest.

Mike: She found the killing the easiest.

> Your pulse was up and your nerves were on the edge.

Tom: No it wasn't!

> The slightest
> out of place noise could cause you to jump.

Crow: "If you want to jump, turn to page 38. If you want to stay seated, turn
to page 53."

> Marrissa had learnt a
> lot since her first battle, but waiting was one thing that hadn't
> gotten easier in the past dozen years.
>

Mike: But the killing? Piece of cake!

> "First Enterprise Division concealed.," Commander Kathy
> Lochard announced.
> "Mister Maharaj, engage,"

Tom [Yogi]: Here's your love-a-ly ring, Cindy!

> Marrissa ordered. "Tactical,
> active scan, full shields.

Crow: "I'm telling you, this kid, and my bladder..."

> Engineering, secondary warp power
> to phasers."
> A chorus of Ayes answered the young Captain

Crow [Marrissa]: Are you an Aye, Ensign?
Tom: Yes, Captain.
Crow: Commander, are *you* an Aye?
Mike: Yes, Captain.
Crow: I can't believe it! I'm surrounded by Ayes!

> as the mile
> long Enterprise surged forward.

Mike: "Sorry, Captain Picard, the gears were stuck!"

> As the orange planet and its
> golden clouds and storms rolled by below them, a limp looking
> Warbird appeared on the horizon.

Crow: That Warbird is such a fop!

> "Target that ship and open fire when in range," Captain
> Picard ordered. The three upper forward phaser arrays; port,
> starboard, and fore, opened fire.

Tom [Minnewegian]: Oh, I just love a fire on an open range, don't you, hon?
Crow [Minnewegian]: Oh, my yes, why just the other day, Sven said, he said,
Martha, why don't we have a cookout?
Tom: Oh, dear, but that sounds fun, donchaknow?

> The red beams lanced out at the listing Warbird hitting
> it squarely in the middle. It exploded in a ball of blue-green
> plasma, a stark contrast to the orange and gold planet below.

Mike: You know, this isn't even as exciting as watching my cousin play "Joust"
on his Commodore 64.

> The explosion drew two other Warbirds like a moth to a
> flame.

Crow: Fortunately for Marrissa, Romulan starship captains are as dumb as
moths.

> As Alex announced their arrival, Marrissa was already
> plotting her response.
>
> "Clara,

Tom [Marrissa]: ... tell Jay to tell Bobby to tell Soovik that I'm still, like
really mad at him.

> divert secondary warp power to shields. Let's see
> if La Forge was lying about that warping fire."
> The Warbirds

Tom: Mike, did you see their cameo in "Blow Up"?

> opened fire on the Enterprise. However the
> shields appeared to absorb the fire,

Mike: The Yardbirds are like a storm raging inside you.

> warping it into the
> multi-phasic mesh

Crow: Oh, he means L'Eggs.

> that was the Enterprise's pertection.

Mike: Profect!

> The Enterprise's response was less than the shot that had
> destroyed the obviously damaged and unshielded warbird early.

Tom: Huh? When did Ratliff start writimg about avian hangovers?

> The Warbirds still flinched at the phaser fire, stalling their
> progress.

Crow: o/~ "Now, is the time, this is the right time, this is the best time,
of your DEATH!" o/~
Mike: Oooh... Quinn Martin in Tomorrowland.

> Meanwhile the Romulan Starbase came up on the horizon,
> a nest filled with eggs.

Tom: So does this answer the immortal question, "What color is the sky in
Ratliff's world?"
Crow: The answer appears to be "yolk."

> The Enterprise moved toward it, the
> Warbirds nipping at its heels.

Mike: Oh, he just smells the Fedration's dog on her.

> Like the animal trainer's whip, the

Tom: ROSS... IN... SPAAAAACE!

> Enterprise's phasers returned fire, causing the Warbirds to
> distance themselves.
> Up on the Starbase they came, the Enterprise executing a
> tight firing run before turning toward the north pole.

Crow: Up my lunch came, executing a tight run through my duodenum before
shooting up the esophagus.
Mike: Crow, you don't *have* a duodenum.
Crow: Do too!

> The Starbase
> didn't return fire. Marrissa noted this strangeness, wondering why.

Tom [Marrissa]: "Hmmm... now why did I note this strangeness?"

>
> Commander Worf smiled at his captors, sitting down with
> one foot on his knee, seemingly absentmindingly rubbing the heel of
> his boot.

Crow: "Nothing, nothing!"

> This unnerved his captors. "I never heard of a Klingon
> willingly surrendering before," the first guard said.
> "Neither have I," the second guard replied. At that the
> forcefield dropped. Worf pulled something from the heel of his boot.

Tom [Don Adams]: Chief, you won't *believe* the cell I'm in.

> Moments later the guards lay stunned in Worf's old cell, and he had
> two Romulan disrupters in addition to his own mini-phaser from
> the heel of his boot.

Mike: Donna Milee' would kill for such a shopping spree!

>
> By the time Riker reached Romulan detention area 15,

Crow: Majestic-21 was there.

> the Romulans and the Star Fleet personnel had switched roles. A
> grinning Klingon met him at the door.

Mike: Toblerone!
Tom: Toblerone doesn't look like a Kilngon!
Mike: Uhh, from TOS.

> "Commander Worf, I assume you have good news," Admiral
> Riker inquired.

Crow [Worf]: Why yes, I do have Good News. Please, take a Watchtower,
William.

> "Yes, sir," Worf replied. "We have released all Enterprise
> personnel save Commander Lochard, who we couldn't find."
> "He's dead,"

Tom: Jim.

> Riker said shortly.
> "The kid's crew managed to get in to the base's command
> and control system,

Mike: I think this what Hayek warned us about...

> while engaging their minder in a game," Worf
> continued.

Tom: I think this story has its minder up its hinder.

> "They disabled the base's disrupters and listened in
> on communications."
> "Any news?"

Mike: Tommy Lee and Pamela have reconciled again.

> "A Starship is in the system, it's busy ridding the
> system of Warbirds."

Crow [Minnewegian]: Oh, good for them. They wreak havoc on my tulips,
donchaknow?

> "ID?"
> "Partial ...

Crow: .. on a right thumb.

> 1-F"

Tom: Damn flatfeet draft dodgers are a bunch of comminists!

> "Nova Class?"

Mike: Frontline, actually.

> "Yes."
> "It seems Admiral Picard has already replaced the
> Enterprise," Riker commented. "Let's give Captain Marrissa
> Picard a hand.

Mike: "It's a good thing you done that, Marrissa, a very good thing."

> Which way is the control center?"
>

[Commercials]
[Continued in part 8]

Jamie Plummer jc...@virginia.edu http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/~jcp9j
"It's merely symptomatic of our postmodern ennui. There are no
absolutes unless you perceive our world as meaningless when it's
really your own freedom you detest. I like pork." -- Brak