Space Voyages

The members of the starchaser S.C.C. Undertaking run into some problems.

The bridge of the starchaser S.C.C. Undertaking began to shake violently, and red warning lights started blaring.

            “Lieutenant Webber!” called out Captain Kircard, as the rest of the crew scrambled to their stations. “Status report, now!”

            Lieutenant Webber pushed some very colorful buttons on his console.

            “Sir, it would appear we’re in a terrible science fiction story with names so parodic they’re actually just stupid.”

            “And what is the cause of this?”

            “Probably the Author watching too many episodes of Star Trek, Captain.”

            Kircard sat in his spinny captain chair and gestured to the obnoxious red, blaring alarms.

            “Then what’s with all this, then?”

            Webber pushed more colorful buttons. He even slid a little yellow bar across the top of his screen.

            “The universe is collapsing,” he reported. “Radiation levels are increasing. Energy output is diminishing. All systems are reporting anomalous frequencies.”

            “The story is so boring and generic, it’s trying to kill itself,” Kircard slowly realized.

            The bridge shook again. Several starchaser crew members were thrown off their feet.

            “How do we survive this?” Kircard asked. “What do we do? Can we enter a different story?”

            Just then, the lieutenant commander and Icktharian alien, Blarben, spoke up. He looked more or less like a human, but he had a purple triangular appendage on his head reminiscent of the tellitubbie Tinky-Winky.

            “Sir, as the only Icktharian officer on this mission and obligatory emotionless being for the series, I recommend changing the electron fields by 5.79 microriboflavins and �"”

            “Oh, please, Blarben, not just anybody can spit out believable semi-intelligent technobabble,” the Captain scoffed. “Lieutenant Webber! Alter the angular frequencies of our stasis cube until we’ve reached atomic balance. Maybe we can stabilize a small part of the universe.”

            Webber shook his head. “No use, Captain. The story wants to put itself out of its misery, and we can’t stop it.”

            Kircard held his head in his hands, feeling the piercing alarm bells digging into his eardrums, the red lights flashing behind closed eyelids.

            “We don’t have anything?” he demanded. “Nothing at all that might convince the story to continue?”

            “Comedy?” the navigational aide Guvolli asked.

            “Oh, please,” Kircard said.

            “Good writing?” somebody else suggested. Suggestions began pouring forth from the crew members.

            “Thoughtful moral predicaments?”

            “Ridiculous prosthetics?”

            “Engaging characters?”

            Navigational aide Guvolli turned towards that one person and pointed at them, a big smile on his face. “Ha, engaging characters, I see what you did there.”

            The two of them high-fived.

            “Shut up, all of you!” Kircard screamed, slamming his fist against the arm of the aforementioned spinny captain’s chair.

            “We could always appeal to the will of the Author,” Blarben said.

            Kircard shook his head. “Have you seen her other works? They’re drug-fueled hellscapes filled with pain, suffering, and worst of all, irony.”

            “Sir!” Webber cut in. “What if we developed a witty meta-narrative to run throughout our plotline?”

            “It’s not good enough, d****t, NOT GOOD ENOUGH!”

            From the viewscreen of the starchaser, they saw the black void reach out towards their doomed vessel. It seemed as though all was lost.

            “Wait!” burst Guvolli. “What if we end on a cliffhanger?”

            “How would that help?” Webber asked dubiously.

            “Well, the story wouldn’t be over, but if no next installment is ever made, then we’re just stuck in place, but so is the collapsing of the universe! Nothing will keep progressing!”

            “What you’re suggesting is trapping ourselves in an eternal stasis,” Kircard said.

            “It may be our only hope, captain.”

            Kircard looked out at the tendrils of nothingness enveloping whole galaxies and star systems.

            He closed his eyes.

            “Do it.”

            TO BE CONTINUED           

Reviews

[Indra's Child]

You've done it again.
haha, I love all your writing. Ironically I've been binging Star Trek all night. I always get all inspired to write sci-fi, but then I always find it running too parallel to other movies/shows. Mainly Star Trek Voyager.
The point? I'm a nerd and this is awesome.

[Delmar Cooper]

Cute. I wonder if there is a name for this type of writing? Bet there is. Self referential? The self being in this case a contrived author. " Peek behind the curtain writing?" Well, whatever, it was fun.