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2089-02-17
Outpost
of Tortuna (in the middle of nowhere)
Dashing
through the snow
In a one-horse open sleigh
O'er the fields
we go
Laughing all –
"It
was a nice idea for the kids around Christmas," Captain Fox
grumbled from behind him, "but it will bring the Crown
troops after us if they hear it."
"And
by the way: we are heading for Easter, Doc," Gooseman added.
He stood at the door with his back towards his teammates,
securing their theft of Crown data with his watch over the
corridor outside. "Even I know that."
"Silence,
please. The doctor is operati–"
"Silence
isn't the problem. It's more the lack of silence..."
the ST specified. "And you better hurry," he growled,
suddenly atypically serious. "We're about to have company."
Jingle
bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way,
Oh what fun it is –
At
least the hiss of blasters and the thunder from Zachary's bionic
flash drowned out the enervating song while the data was copied
into Doc's CDU.
2089-02-19
0903
GRS5-Office (just after a narrow of escape!)
"Good
morning, everybody." Zachary threw his uniform jacket over
the back of his chair. "Have you solved your CDU problem,
Doc?" The answer from Doc's desk was unmistakable:
A
day or two ago
I thought I'd take a ride
And soon –
"Obviously
not," Zachary concluded dryly, checking the files in his
inbox. "When do you think you'll be done,
Doc?"
"Hopefully
soon..." Hartford looked in concentration at the dancing
holographic display above his CDU. "It must be the automated
sound playback. Somehow there's a connection with the background
music player that I hadn't noticed before, and–"
"Doc,"
Zachary smiled grimly, "please spare me the details. I don't
get any of it. I just want to know when you'll be able to do your
job without torturing our ears."
"Hey,
it's a nice song!"
"Not
after two months." The captain shook his head. "And
it's sticking in my mind." He lowered his voice. "I'm
sick of 'Jingle bells.'" Everyone in the room turned
towards him. He sighed and shrugged. "I'm just a human
being."
"And you're
stirring your coffee in the rhythm of 'Jingle Bells,'" Niko
snickered.
Zachary dropped his
teaspoon as if it was glowing red hot.
"Ok..."
Doc bit his lip in concentration. "I'm done." With a
theatrical gesture, he restarted his CDU, and
.HGIELS
NEPO ESROH-ENO A NI
EDIR OT SI TI NUF TAHW HO –
,YAW
EHT LLA ELGNIJ
SLLEB ELGNIJ, SLLEB –
thundered
as an infernal noise through the room. Niko screamed and pressed
her hands over her ears. Zachary covered his ears, too. Goose
reached for his blasters, and only Doc's hasty reduction of his
CDU's volume saved it from being burned to slag. Doc sighed
deeply and grinned apologetically at his teammates. "I'm
sorry, folks."
Zachary
shoved his hand through his hair. "At least it wasn't
'Jingle Bells.'"
"It
was!" Goose snickered. "Backwards."
"What?!"
"It
was 'Jingle Bells,' Zach. In reverse play," Niko
clarified.
"That's
impossible." Doc snorted. "Nothing like that could
happen with my hardware–"
"Hrmpf.
GV, acoustic reverse play of the last sounds out of the CDU,
moderate volume," Zachary ordered.
–
bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way,
Oh what fun it is
to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh.
"Impossible?"
The Captain asked ironically with his brows raised questioningly
at Doc. "Doesn't seem so."
"But–"
"No
buts, Doc. Solve the problem." In a voice bearing slight
hints of despair, Zach added: "I can't stand another mission
with this song playing whenever you do something."
"Yes,
Doc." Goose leaned back in his seat and put his hands over
his heart in a mocking gesture. "Please... save us from
'Jingle Bells.'"
Niko at
the desk next to him giggled.
"Hey!
If all of you are done making fun of me, you might notice that I
actually solved the problem!" Doc flourished his CDU
with the gesture of a showmaster assistant on Tri-D. "As you
can hear – or rather, not hear – it's working
soundlessly!"
Zachary
sighed. "Finally." He turned back to his report on
their last mission.
"Great."
Goose swiveled round in his chair. "What was
wrong?"
"You wouldn't
understand even if I made the effort to tell you, my Goose man."
Doc stared in full concentration at the holographic display
rotating above his CDU... And no way am I going to confess
that I didn't solved anything, just deactivated the sound
device... If only the system messages shown in the display
were written in a larger font.
"Phew.
At least I'm almost done– What?!!" Zachary jerked back
from his desk, causing all of them to look at him in alarm.
Again. He whirled round. "Doc! What am I supposed to make of
this?!" Zach pointed angrily at Pixel, dancing soundlessly
above the pad that held his report and causing single letters on
the displayed page to blip in a different color than the rest of
the text.
"Pixel! In here!
Immediately!" Doc commanded his program. With no result. He
hurried to his captain's desk. "I'm sorry, Zach. There's
something wrong–"
"I
already noticed that," Fox said in a frighteningly calm
voice. "And–"
"Why
are single letters in your text suddenly being highlighted?"
Niko, looking over Zach's shoulder, asked him.
"I
didn't highlight anything. That was this sparkle." He
looked, frowning, at his report, read the blinking letters aloud
in order... "A–d-a-y–o-r–t-w-o–a-g-o–-
DOC!!!" This time he actually did shout.
"I
thought 'Jingle Bells' was over with," Niko said
carefully.
"You didn't
listen carefully, Niko," Goose grinned. "'Jingle Bells'
aloud was over with. This is 'Jingle Bells'
soundless."
"Oh, shut
up!" Doc snapped at him. "You stay in there!" He
ordered Pixel after he successfully caught the program with his
CDU.
Zachary returned to his
desk and corrected his report's appearance on the display. He
scanned briefly through it, typed a final note and saved it.
"Okay. I'm taking this to the commander. Personally. I'll be
back in about an hour. And by then you've better have
solved that problem, Lieutenant Hartford." He stalked
out of the room.
2089-02-19
1418
GRS5-Office
I
shouldn't have lost my temper. Zachary sighed inwardly. His
discussion with Walsh of the events of the last mission had taken
longer than he'd expected. At least Doc had had enough time to
find out what was wrong with his equipment. Zach shook his head,
opened the door, and was welcomed by...
–
seated by my side;
The horse was lean and lank
Misfortune
seemed his lot,
We ran into a drifted bank
And there we got
–
"Oh
no, not again!" Doc screamed at his desk in frustration.
Goose and Niko were nowhere to be seen.
Fox
took in breath to indicate his arrival, but Doc erased the sound,
while muttering to himself:
"...that
can't be... that's impossible... So, there's the subroutine that
calls the speakers... and it is called by... Ha! Finally!"
Doc marked an entry in the active program list and hit the key to
confirm the uninstall command. "No background music player
means no background music!" The holographic display rotating
above the CDU began to blur, and suddenly where it had been clear
with floating green glowing letters it was azure blue with
brilliant white, jaggy text large enough that even Zach could
read it from his place at the door:
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"Doc–"
"Holy
shit! I'm BeSODed!!!"
The
azure holographic display slowly opened at the top. Program
sparkles scurried out of it as it unfolded, its tips sinking down
along the sides till it flapped across the backs of Doc's hands.
Zach thought, it looked like the opened flower of a big, empty,
blue banana peel with program sparkles dancing above it like
stamen. Unfortunately, they weren't stamen. More unfortunately,
the overlaid sound device deactivation command seemed to be
disabled, too.
=Hey!!! What did
you do to our home?! Doc, I'm going to miss the byt'a'roller
final game!= Pathfinder squirked and flashed violently.
=You
ruined my date!= Lifeline flashed furiously and sent out a couple
of sparks. =The tech mainframe central AI will never–,= the
sparkle changed its color from light green to the deep red of
shame as it interrupted itself, =again!=
=Oh,
Lifey, put a lid on it! I can't stand another one of your tales
about exchanging electrons with that arrogant bastard of–=
The light-green sparkle slammed into the light-red one and caused
something that looked like small fireworks in a rainbow of
colors.
Pathfinder ruffled its
holographic appearance in front of Doc's face. =You better get
that fixed soon, Doccie,= he squirked in a threatening voice, =Or
the real events of last Saturday night with Sergeant
Levine – Sergeant Lolita Levine – are going to
be posted on every mailing list my friend, the mainframe AI, can
find!= The sparkle beeped, flashed, danced shortly around the two
struggling other sparkles, and added, disgusted: =And for
Heaven's sake, break up the ladies!=
And
to top it all, Pixel bumped off Doc's cheeks beeping an
all-too-familiar song:
Jingle
bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way,
Oh what fun –
Captain
Zachary Fox chose to close the door – from the outside.
END
Big
thanks to Elizabeth 'fatima' Bales for her help with English.
:)
All remaining mistakes are totally my fault.
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