"FWLS3" - читать интересную книгу автора (A Future We'd Like to See)

A Future We'd Like to See 1.3 - Where No One Has Really Felt
Like Going Before
By Twoflower (Copyright 1993)

Space. The final frontier.

Well, not for me. The final frontier for me would probably
be finding out exactly what Ensign Lauren is wearing under her
Starfleet uniform. Rumor has it she doesn't wear underwear. But
for most of the other guys on this ship, space is probably pretty
final for them.

That's me, faithful Starfleet lackey in the red tunic.
Working his way up the Starfleet ladder from unimportant Security
red-shirt clad guard to captain of my own ship. Not that
promotion is anywhere in the future, at least not at the rate I'm
going.

I figured Starfleet'd be a good career move. It pays better
than being a Not-So-Secret-Agent, and is certainly more
pleasurable than serving with that miserable Space Patrol. Plus,
it looks TERRIFIC on job applications, if you ever decide to
resign and become, say, an accountant.

I hadn't figured on two elements, however. First of all,
officers are expected to know about astronavigation, warp
processes, dilithium doohickeys and all sorts of stuff which uses
words with more than four syllables. I'm not big on crash-
memorizing.

The second thing I hadn't realized was how incredibly
dangerous my chosen profession was. Lucky me, I get slapped into
the Security section, the bunch with the life expectancy of a
slug in a vacuum. (Don't ask me why I picked that metaphor - my
creativity usually outruns my logic to the speech buzzer.) The
chances of a redshirt returning from an away-team mission alive
was very slim indeed. The only person who managed it in the last
two months was old Ensign Recyclable, and he had a heart attack
afterwards, 'since he was the galaxy's oldest Ensign at seventy-
four and couldn't take the excitement.

Fortunately, the missions are few and far between, on the
Starfleet flagship Interplaq. Mostly we pose for the media,
showing that Terran Confederation credits are going to good use,
and handle small, easy missions which don't require a Security
accompaniment.

But woe be to the Ensign on duty when that companel lights
up and says the dreadful phrase, "Security to Transporter Room
Four." Lucky me, it popped up on my shift that day.