Dream On, Snoopy

[Gage Silver 0]

Dream On, Snoopy

A Silver - Granger Production

 

 

Red-lines: they didn’t exist because they looked cool. They’d pushed the Creek beyond her safe limits to escape Romulan space and she was making her objections known. Glaringly. Exceeding safety limits by a third amounted to a lot more than it might appear on paper and more systems were now red than green, stifling what relief the Engineering crew felt. At least they’d shut off the ear-piercing alarms.

 

After a Matter-Antimatter Reactor trip and disabled warp drive, the overheated impulse engines and their fusion reactors were among the most critical; and they weren’t going anywhere without warp or impulse. Pushing the impulse engines had demanded more power than their reactors could safely supply under load. To avoid an inopportune blackout, they’d run the fusion reactors beyond their safeties, and mistreated reactors had a greater potential to reach out and make a bad day worse. Granted, fusion reactors generally didn’t fail catastrophically like the old fission or newer matter-antimatter reactors - generally - but failure was still possible, most often structural, and that wasn’t something you could duct tape and call it fixed.

 

T’Aral should’ve been a prophetess, Gage mused. Amid attempts to mitigate a potential crisis, engineering couldn’t spare a one-armed man and Gage was directed aft to impulse/fusion control.

 

As the ship hovered for repairs just inside the Romulan neutral zone, Cass resumed working on the uncooperative bridge SpecOps consoles. Most of the problem had been resolved, but it became more and more obvious that remote junctions were sparking, blinking a few of the Nav/Recon subsystems in and out. She had twenty minutes to get to those junctions, two-step with the isochips, and get back to the bridge.

 

Joy.

 

Only problem? The junction chips needed total replacement and main engineering wasn’t exactly close. So you pull rank with the minions, commandeer a lift, and hightail it to engineering, hoping they have what you need... or at least something you can jerry rig.

 

All went according to plan until, juggling a pile of chips she had just requisitioned from supply, she turned toward the lift and ran straight into the arms of Ensign Silver.

 

“Sorry, sir,” she said as she scrambled, unsuccessfully, to stop a pile cascade. “Needed some replacem....” her eyes darted to the sling... “Sir?”

 

Balancing a few of the isochips that had fallen on to his slinged arm, Gage froze. “What?”

 

“Looks like you and an engineering console had a little disagreement, Sir.” Giving his arm the once-over, she knelt to reclaim the chips.

 

Gage blinked at her, the realization dawning on him slowly and his gaze jumped from sling to Cass and back. A feigned - ridiculously belated - sound of pain escaped him and he gripped his elbow in alarm. “Cass, they got me,” he said, pouring on the schmaltz. “Doc told me I might lose my arm; said there’s only one thing and only one thing that'll save it.”

 

Cass straightened up, her face blanked. “And what would that be, Sir?” she said, taking the bait.

 

He dropped heavily to his knees and the deck complained with the shift in weight. “Mouth t’ mouth. Save me, Cass.”

 

Lips pressed, it took every bit of her Marine training to keep a straight face. One deep breath later the opening lift doors saved her. “In your dreams. Sir,” she whispered, slipping by him. “In... your... dreams.”

 

“Thought I was dreaming,” Gage retorted as she entered the lift and he got back to his feet. He grasped the railing of the adjacent companionway and, putting a foot to the first rung, paused.

 

“It wasn’t a console,” he defensively shot at her between the closing lift doors. “It was a hundred an’ forty pounds of falling damsel.”

 

“Right,” she muttered through her teeth, eyes front, ignoring the gawking passersby as the lift doors closed.

 

Gage regarded the closed doors. “Yeah, she didn’t say ‘thank you’, either,” he muttered and began climbing the companionway.

 

=/\=

 

Marine Corps Specialist Cassidy Granger braced against the bulkhead as energy beams sprayed a net from one end of the corridor to the other. “Captain Silver! You all right, Sir?” Shedropped to a semi-crouch, glancing up and down the passageway as the barrage lulled, then zig-zagged toward the j-tube access panel that would take them to the bridge.

 

It’d been hot and heavy for hours, the team whittled from seventeen to three in short order. But now there were two. Gage Silver, Captain of USS Comanche Creek - highly decorated veteran, expert rifleman, bodybuilder par excellence - and Warrant Officer Cassidy Granger, holding back a horde of Romulans that swarmed the ship from stem to stern.

 

Of the bridge crew, all but the captain had been captured, probably being tortured for their command codes and secret family recipes. They had to get to the bridge. Change the codes. Otherwise, those Romulans would have full access to the Federation database and the Captain’s pay-per-view. Now, they were the only thing that stood between victory and the total annihilation of the Federation.

 

It was Gage and Cass against the Romulan Star Empire.

 

“Cass! Granger! Report!”

 

“Here, Captain Silver, Sir! Where the hell are you?” Breath coming in heavy gasps, brow glistening in sweat, soaked tee clinging to her... front, Cass braced, phaser at the ready, waiting... praying for the one who would save them all.

 

From the far end of the corridor an image emerged from the shadows and advanced slowly. Tall and rugged, Gage’s uniform shirt was torn, the edge dangling off his shoulder and across his Herculean chest. The aftermath of heavy fighting strained his face and his right arm hung limply at his side, bulging at the shoulder.

 

“We got ‘em, Cass. We got ‘em all,” he announced, triumphant. His phaser dropped when he reached her, but he still managed to smile as he leaned against the bulkhead, his right arm dangling at an odd angle.

 

“Captain,” she exclaimed in alarm, her phaser clattering as it hit the deck, “you’re injured! I can fix that!”

 

Holding up his left hand, his face brightened in their victory. “No, Cass. It’s only a scratch. I’ll be fine.”

 

“Really, Sir. I can fix that.”

 

Before he could downplay his injury once more, she put the heel of one foot against his right collarbone, grabbed the dangling forearm, and gave it an almighty pull. A loud snap and she was done; the unsightly bulge that ruined the fit of his uniform had disappeared.

 

“There you go, Sir!” she said, clapping him on the left shoulder. “Good as new.”

 

“Thank you, Cass,” he said with a heavy bass, smiling graciously and strutting. “You’re a good Marine...for a woman. One last favor?”

 

“Of course, Sir,” she said in breathless admiration, “anything you ask.”

 

Towering above her, Gage grinned at Cass in all her...excellence and held out his other hand.

 

“Can I have my arm back?”

Edited February 2, 2012 by Gage Silver

[Crash Calestorm 0]

Oh. My. Gawd. What're you guys smokin', and why haven't you shared!?

[Gage Silver 0]

Good question.

[Cassie Granger 0]

It was his dream, ma'am. I've been wonderin' the same thing.

[Gage Silver 0]

Hey, hey...can't pin this all on me 'cause I chased the rabbit 'n' fell: wasn't my Muse that got into the wacky tobaccy. The men on the chessboard just tell me where to go, but she must'a had some kind of mushroom. Go ask Alice; I think she'll know.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Gage Silver

[STSF_Scooter 0]

::snorts derisively:: Makes me wonder exactly what you and Sunny D were sharing with Floyd the Caterpillar. Doc, maybe its time for some toxicology testing.

 

[Chirakis 1]

Perhaps it was the trip through the rift?

[Gage Silver 0]

::snorts derisively:: Makes me wonder exactly what you and Sunny D were sharing with Floyd the Caterpillar. Doc, maybe its time for some toxicology testing.

 

 

Me? Share with Floyd? Mais non, mais non.

 

Perhaps it was the trip through the rift?

 

Key word: trip.