Warp Happy, Part Two
Sisko jostles his way down a crowded corridor toward his
residence. Grasshopper refugees have set up tiny camps every few
feet along the route. Many have ingeniously converted their
travelling cloaks into tents and small villages of these tents
line the corridors. He taps his commbadge.
"Dax. What word from Starfleet?"
*Nine ships are on their way. The Rutledge is the closest.
ETA three hours forty-two minutes. Four Federation planets have
agreed to take groups of the refugees, but in small numbers and
with numerous conditions attached. We're still looking*
"What of Bajor?"
*Kira here, Commander. The provisional government has now
officially denied entry to any of them*
"Please contact the Bajoran authorities and extend my . . .
acknowledgement . . . of their decision."
*Would you prefer to send your endorsement?*
"Not at this moment. Sisko out."
He pauses outside his door and hits the control. Three
dozen refugees and Jake look up from the banquet lying in ruins
on the dining room table.
"Jake?"
"Ah. Hi, Dad. I got home from school and the table was
covered with food. I didn't know what to do with it . . . so I
invited these people in. I hope that's okay."
Sisko takes a deep breath.
"Yes, that's fine."
*O'Brien to Sisko*
"Yes, Chief!"
*Sorry to disturb you at home, sir. But a Cardassian
warship has just entered the system*
"I'll be right up."
He pauses at the door and sweeps the room with a narrow
look. He watches a grasshopper nibble up one side of a cob of
corn and then down the other just like . . . a grasshopper.
"Jake."
"Yes, Dad?"
"Don't forget to do the dishes."
Sisko arrives at Ops just as Kira is concluding her remarks
to the Cardassian Gul on the viewscreen.
". . . and if you think for one minute that I'm going to
pass classified Bajoran scientific intelligence to any
warmongering Cardassian fascist who decides he can just violate
Bajoran space with impunity then you! have got! another thing
coming! We Bajorans kicked your butts out of this system once
before and we're perfectly happy to do it again! So put this in
your log! Navigational computer interface denied! Docking
clearance denied! Right of passage through Bajoran space denied!
So you can just turn your ship around and engage! And when you
get back to Cardassia Prime you just better walk the straight and
narrow because there will be such a letter of protest sitting on
the top desk of your so-called diplomatic branch that it'll take
the Cardassian government six months to work out the list of
summary executions! I . . ."
Sisko comes up behind her: "Thank you, Major. I see you've
briefed the Gul on the current situation."
*Commander! Thank goodness! I thought for a moment the
natives had been left in charge of the station*
"Please state your business."
*Cardassian intelligence reports that the Bajorans are
engaged in the testing of offensive weapon delivery systems at
this station. We have come in the cause of peace to investigate*
"Tell me, do your sensors pick up any offensive weapon
delivery systems hereabouts? Perhaps that Bolian freighter at
Upper Pylon 2. Do you think it might constitute a threat to
Cardassian security?"
*Very funny. We know what our sources tell us. Who knows
what plans are archived in your station computers?*
"If there are offensive weapon delivery system plans in the
station computers they are probably not a threat to anyone. Our
Cardassian-designed computer system is usually down."
Reaction shot of O'Brien looking hurt.
*We will be monitoring you. Don't make the mistake of
thinking you can advance your Federation expansionist tendencies
through your Bajoran clients!*
The Cardassian terminates the link.
O'Brien: "They're warping out. Wait. They're taking up a
position just beyond Bajoran space. Looks like he meant what he
said. They're monitoring the station."
"Keep an eye on them, Chief. I have every confidence in
your computers. Major, there may be an ambassadorship in your
future yet."
His office doors close.
Professor Baffleplate, Signor Nacelli and Warpo are playing
cards around an upturned crate in the Bolian freighter. The game
seems to be some kind of three-handed whist, with a plenty of
slapping and grabbing. (Of cards.) (Mostly.) Mrs Van Pelf
hurries in.
"Professor! Professor! The Cardassians have appeared!
They're trying to discover the secret of the metawarpic drive!"
"Oh, have they? Are they? Will they? Won't they?
Wouldn't I? Couldn't you? What was the question? Come, let's
be men about it. No, forget I said that. What we have here are
desperate times, and desperate times call for desperate measures!
Ace of diamonds! Beat that! If you can."
Warpo plays the zero of diamonds.
"Well, that beats my ace."
"But, Professor, the Cardassians!"
"Oh, she wants to deal. Why didn't you say so? The game is
five card stud. You deal. That's five cardassians to him, and
five cardassians to him, and five cardassians for me, and five
for yourself if you're good. The winner gets the stud."
He lifts his eyebrows and rolls his eyes.
"I cannot believe you intend to sit here and play poker! We
must proceed to the bridge at once!"
"She's right! What kind of fools are we? Bridge it is.
You deal, Nacelli. Speaking of bridge, Mrs Van Pelf, perhaps you
can let the fans in on how you managed to get your nose in such a
state. It must be awfully hard on prescription eyeglasses."
"I'll have you know I've a very stately nose!"
"That's what I said. Aw, you're shy, aren't you. You don't
want to talk about it. Don't worry. I know just how you feel.
There are plenty of states I wouldn't want to put my nose into
either. New Jersey! Don't even ask about Idaho."
Nacelli: "He lost a lot of money playing five card spud."
"Pay no attention to him. He's a masher."
By now Warpo has dragged over a sack of potatoes and is
emptying it on the card table.
Baffleplate: "Careful. You'll put an eye out."
Warpo produces a potato slicer from inside his coat and
begins to feed potatoes into it, pumping the arm and chopping
them into flat slices. The slices spill out all over the table
and get mixed in with the cards. The game goes on.
"These cards are getting a little tatered. Hm, must be a
skins game. Who'll open? Nacelli! What's your bid?"
"Two dollars."
Van Pelf: "That is not how we bid in bridge! You must say,
`Two diamonds,' or words to that effect."
"Hey, this is too rich for me!"
"Didn't I tell you she was loaded?"
Warpo reaches into his coat and loads two coal shovels onto
the table.
"He bids two spades."
He drags over a golf bag and unloads that on the table.
Baffleplate counts.
"Ten clubs. That beats my lacrosse stick. Say, meet me at
the nineteen hole and I'll tell you what Sam Snead."
"I no wanna hear about that. Look, I got four hearts."
"Four hearts! Dr Bashir! Dr Bashir!"
Bashir runs in with his medical kit: "What is it?"
"What's up, Doc?"
"For heaven's sake! The sooner we get to a Dax episode the
happier I'll be!"
"A-a-a-a-h! A ladies' man. Baffleplate to Ops. We've had
a breakthrough! I think Lieutenant Dax would be very interested
in this! Send her up to take a gander, would you? And maybe a
goose! And tell her to put a little pepper on it!"
Nacelli: "Soytainly."
"Thanks for the condiments."
"Slow down a minute while I ketchup."
Warpo places a shaker of salt and a phaser on the table.
"Oh I see. A salt with a deadly weapon now, is it?"
Warpo places a bunch of vegetable matter on the table.
"What are those?"
Nacelli: "They're herbs."
"Well, when Herb gets here we can give them to him. What's
keeping that Dax?"
"She mustard been delayed."
"Says who?"
"Sesame."
"To think I threw up a lucrative position in the Heimlich
Institute for this."
"Basil."
"Huh?"
"Those herbs. They belong to Basil."
"All I can say is he'd better not try to curry favour around
here. Ah, here comes Dax."
Bashir: "Thank God."
"You wanted me, Professor?"
"That ain't the half of it." Eyebrows. "To the bridge!"
Cut to the bridge of the Bolian freighter. Baffleplate, Van
Pelf, Nacelli, Warpo, Bashir and Dax come in. Nacelli slides in
behind the controls and cracks his knuckles. Everyone leans
forward to look. Warpo puts his leg in Bashir's hand. Julian
throws it down.
Nacelli: "I rewire these." He hits the controls with ten
fingers and plays a chord.
Dax: "A piano!"
Nacelli slides a finger along the length of the console,
playing a long upward scale. He glances over his shoulder and
leans into "I've Found a New Baby". The thing about Chico Marx
at the piano is the way he "shoots the keys"; i.e., when he gets
to the top end of the keyboard he makes a pistol out of his
fingers and fires the hammer when he hits the top note, winking
at the nearest young woman whenever he does it. So it should
come as no surprise that by the end of the tune he's come on to
Dax about six times, and Julian is about ready to fly to her
defence.
"Sir, I believe you are stepping beyond the bounds of
propriety!"
Dax: "Julian!"
Baffleplate: "A fight!"
Nacelli: "Hey! Atsa matter you!"
Van Pelf: "Gentlemen! Please! You are scientists!"
Baffleplate: "The old dame's right! What are we? Monkeys?
Alright, leave that aside for a moment. I think there's nothing
to be done now but to let bygones be bygones. Shake hands so we
can get out to the lobby for a quick one while Julian here sings
something."
"Sings something!"
"Yes, my lad, you see, in a Marx Brothers movie there's
always a sappy interlude where the handsome young nonentity
serenades his girl. And you're the sap. So tune up, maestro."
Dax: "Julian?"
Bashir: (Clears throat.) "Well. Um." Sings:
"My love makes me treat you the way I do.
Say, ain't I good to you?
You know there's nothing too good for a girl that's true.
Aw, baby, you know I'm good to you.
Fur coat for Christmas, and a diamond ring,
Big Packard coupe, most everything.
And it's love makes me treat you the way I do.
Aw, baby, ain't I good to you?"
(Redman-Razaf, 1929)
Dax: "Julian!"
Bashir: "I don't even know what a Packard coupe is."
Ops.
O'Brien: "The Cardassians are hailing."
Sisko: "What is it this time?"
*Commander Sisko! Our sensors are picking up a number of
Starfleet vessels hurrying to your location. Tell me, could they
be coming to protect your experimental ship?*
"We are experiencing a refugee influx here. Those ships are
coming to provide relief."
*How convenient, Commander. Let me put it simply. Any
Bajoran ship suspected of harbouring offensive experimental
propulsion systems will be fired upon as soon as it leaves your
station*
"`Convenient!' Of course you realize your threat only
carries any weight until the first of our ships arrives."
*We have our own reinforcements in motion, Commander. So
you'd be well advised to prevent any movement of Bajoran vessels
to or from your station*
"In case you'd forgotten, it is the Bajorans' station. They
won it in a war."
*Let the record show who brought up the word `war' first.
Transmission ended*
Sisko grinds his teeth.
"Major Kira. Under no circumstances is that ship to leave
Upper Pylon 2."
"Commander, you're not going to let that . . ."
"Not now, Major! The best interests of all parties will be
served if that ship stays docked until reinforcements arrive.
Where's Dax?"
Dax steps out of the turbolift.
"Who's at the ship?"
"Julian and I just left. He's with the refugees. The three
scientists and Mrs Van Pelf are on the ship."
"Get back up there and tell them the speed trials are off
until further notice."
*Odo to Sisko*
"Sisko here. What is it, Constable?"
*The grasshoppers are rioting. I have an emergency
situation down here. I need every available body*
"Acknowledged. Dax, hold on. I need you here. Chief,
who's our nearest person to the experimental ship?"
"That would be Door Repair Guy, Commander."
"Have him deliver the message and ensure the ship is
secured."
Cut to Door Repair Guy near the Pylon 2 turbolift. He's
navigating the crowded, noisy passageway with his toolbox
balanced on the top of his head. His commbadge chirps.
"Door Repair Guy here."
*O'Brien . . . to Upper Pylon 2 . . . the docking clamps."
"Turn up the gain. I didn't copy. It's a crazy house down
here."
*. . . repeat. Go . . . the experimental . . . on board.
Got it? I haven't got all day to talk about this*
"Yeah yeah. Acknowledged. Out."
He enters the turbolift.
Door Repair Guy saunters into the airlock and sets down his
toolbox.
"What's the problem here?"
Mrs Van Pelf: "Young man. It is imperative that we get
under way, but the docking clamps refuse to retract. You simply
must do something."
"Well, let me look."
He pulls open a panel and pokes around.
"The docking clamps are secured from Ops. They must of
forgotten to release them with all the rioting going on. I'll do
it. It's just a matter of . . . entering . . . the correct
maintenance override."
He punches in the numbers with one hand while shielding the
control interface with the other. He smiles self-consciously.
"Security. You can't be too careful these days."
"Hmph!"
"Okay. Cleared for separation. Happy motoring."
The airlock door rolls shut.
Ops.
Kira: "There's an object moving off. It's the experimental
ship!"
Sisko: "Major!"
"It wasn't me! Someone has overridden the docking
controls!"
The turbolift deposits Door Repair Guy.
O'Brien: "Didn't you get my message? I said to stop them
from going!"
DRG: "O-O-O-o-o-o-h!"
"The Cardassians are moving off after it! They're firing!"
Sisko: "I hope you *enjoy* vole duty because . . ."
Dax: "Benjamin! Look!"
Baffleplate: "So, how does it . . . how does it go?"
Nacelli: "Hey, you're the inventor. Think something up."
Baffleplate: "Oh, of course. Why didn't I think of that
before? I guess that's why I pay you the big money, to remind me
to think something up."
Nacelli: "Somebody got to. Go on! Think up something fast,
real fast."
Baffleplate: "If I think up something fast, you think you
can build it?"
Nacelli: "Thatsa no problem. But time she's a waste."
Baffleplate: "Rockets."
"Too slow."
"Slingshot."
"Still too slow."
"Boomerangs!"
"Think faster!"
"A-monkey-in-a-wheel!"
"Hey! Boss! I think you got it! A monkey in a wheel! You
stay there and Warpo and me we fix it up good! A monkey in a
wheel! Thatsa fine!"
Mrs Van Pelf: "Theodore, I am beginning to have my doubts
about this entire experiment."
"Keep driving."
Engineering. We find Warpo brushing his teeth with a shoe
brush. He admires his smile in a hand mirror. He begins to comb
his hair with a toothbrush. Nacelli hurries in.
"Hey, what a great assistant! Always the spit and the
polish. Hey, come here a minute. Where's you monkey? You gotta
monkey there? Hey, monkey come on out!"
Nacelli frisks him for the monkey. Warpo writhes and
squirms like he's being tickled to death. Then they get into a
fight. Warpo stands back and holds one fist out while swinging
the other up and down. He winds up his fist and kicks Nacelli in
the pants.
"Hey! Pastapazooli!"
The monkey scrambles out Warpo's pant leg and across the
floor.
"There she go!"
Warpo is off with a butterfly net and chases the monkey all
over Engineering in fast motion. Her catches her and gives her a
peanut. The monkey sits down and eats while Warpo runs all over
the place setting up the wheel and adjusting the computer
controls. He hangs a banana on a string in front of the wheel
and puts the monkey in. The monkey begins to run after the
banana.
The bridge.
"Theodore! Look!"
The Professor and Mrs Van Pelf lean over a visual display
showing a blip (them) moving away from the station, and several
large blips (the Cardassians) moving to intercept. Little faster
blips separate from the large blips and close rapidly.
"They're firing!"
Baffleplate hits the intercom.
"Captain to Engineer! Give me all the monkey you've got!"
Warpo leaps up at a huge lever and pulls it down with his
body weight, climbing up on it as if it were a high bar and
bicycling his legs in the air.
The Bolian freighter elasticizes the width of the entire TV
screen and snaps into superhigh warp. Sheets of stars fly past
it like gusts of rain.
"Good! It's about time this plot went somewhere."
Views of the Bolian freighter navigating caverns of light.
An incandescent landscape passes overhead. A bare plain
dominated by formations of glowing diamond-shaped objects drifts
by below.
"Say, isn't that Stanley Kubrick?"
Mrs Van Pelf: "We are exceeding all known speed records."
"Then keep an eye on the rear view. What's the fine for
going three trillion miles per hour?"
Galaxies whiz by.
Shot of Warpo in the monkey wheel, running in fast motion.
The ship banks suddenly.
Nacelli: "Whatta you know! The edge of the universe! Itsa
curve! We gotta turn back!"
Warpo staggers from the monkey wheel, walks sideways one
way, then back the other, and falls on his back.
The freighter falls out of warp just above Deep Space Nine.
Baffleplate: "Just let that Carl Lewis come near me. I'll
snap my fingers at him just like that. Prepare to tie up."
Mrs Van Pelf: "But, Professor, look! We haven't left yet!"
They watch in amazement as the Bolian freighter pulls away
and jumps into warp.
"How I envy the young! Quick! Park before we show up and
swipe the space!"
Warpo enters, yawns, stretches, and wiggles his eyebrows at
Nacelli. Nacelli takes his hat off and nods. The two of them
transmogrify into . . . the Traveller and Wesley Crusher!
Traveller: "Our work here is done."
Wesley: "Cool!"
They sift off to a higher plane.
Mrs Van Pelt: "Oh, Theodore!" Faints.
Baffleplate: "Great Scott!"
Cut to Door Repair Guy in crawlway.
"Here, voley voley voley. Here, voley voley voley."
THE END
Elwy: "And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. The
Marx Brothers in _Warp Happy_. In a moment I'll be talking to
Star Trek: Door Repair Guy producer Gul Berman about the
extraordinary visual effects used to create this memorable piece
of cinematic magic. But first a few TV Ontario highlights."
"Nails. We've used them for thousands of years. How were
they invented? And what future lies in store for them? Tune
into `Nails: a Sharp Idea' next Tuesday night at 8:00 on TVO."
"A world without chickens is hard to imagine. Even harder
to imagine is how they got along without humans. Have millennia
of captivity made chickens stupider? Tune in next Wednesday at
9:00 for `Chickens: the Stupidest Birds'.
"I'm here now with Gul Berman (played by Red Green), co-
producer of the hit television series Door Repair Guy. Now, Gul,
when you were presented with the raw footage for an unfinished
1950s Marx Brothers science fiction movie and told to make a Star
Trek episode out of it, what did you do?"
Gul Berman (played by Red Green): "Well, that's a very good
question, there, ah, Elwy. Most modern science fiction
television shows are recorded on video tape, whereas your typical
1950s science fiction thriller is normally filmed on regular
celuloid film, what we in the trade call movie stock. They're
noncompatible, sort of like the wife and myself by the second
intermission of the hockey game on Saturday night. So what did I
do, Elwy? I panicked. Luckily, though, we live in an age of
innovation and just about anything can be accomplished if you can
just tie a computer into it somehow. Now we in the business have
a special kind of computer for just this kind of job. It's
called a Toaster. Why it's called a Toaster I don't really know,
except that it requires a lot of bread and by the time you're
through with it you're usually fried. Luckily, however, it is
possible to build one out of materials lying around your own
house or workshop. First you start with a regular household
variety toaster. You decrumb it, there. Just hold it up and
give it a good shake, like that. Now of course it wants extra
circuitry. These can be salvaged from equipment found all over
the house: a transistor radio, garage door opener, and I
especially like this one, a smoke detector. So you just wire
those in there. A little solder will do the trick, or if you're
out of that, a strip or two of the handyman's best friend, duct
tape. Now you just slide the video cassette into there. While
this has been going on I've had the celuloid on the heat over
here, and you see we've made a nice stock out of that, so we'll
just pour that into the other slot, there, and plug her in, and
see what we get.
Pop! Bang! Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep
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Written by Douglas McLeod, ai919
------------
--
The opinions expressed above are not necessarily those of Krell and
Brothers, Doorhangers, or of the Klingon Guild of Doorhangers.
}}:-) Douglas A.McLeod [email protected] )-:{{
Episode 24 -- Warp Happy, Part Two
Notes on Warp Happy, Part Two
"Gee, Baby, Ain't I Good to You?"
Packard Coupe.
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