DS5

“Are we there, yet?”

What I love most about our Captain is when he strolls onto the bridge and asks that. He knows we’re not there, yet; he can feel the warp engines thrumming along just like any of us. He can see we’re still in warp by looking at the main view screen, which is directly in front of your eyeballs when you walk on the bridge. No, I think he just does it to start conversation.

“We were,” I said, “or I thought we were. There were just a bunch of rocks floating around, so I figured we should leave. I’m surprised you didn’t feel us drop out of warp.”

“I did,” First Officer Stevenson said from her station beside me. “But I thought it was just a disturbance in the Force.”

“Probably just sinus pressure,” I said. “Anyway, now we’re just flying at warp 3 to nowhere in particular.”

I heard Captain Ryan settle into his command chair. I also smelled the smoke as he formulated a response. Before he could, however, Shandra said, “We’re here,” and the Troll dropped out of warp.

“We’re there yet,” I added helpfully.

One thing I’ll say for Starfleet is that they design beautiful ships and stations. Graceful, sleek, and symmetrical, they’re all distinctly human in their aesthetic. The vista before us, as we dropped out of warp, would hopefully one day continue that tradition, but not today. Deep Space 5 was in the middle of construction, and it was surrounded by construction crews, shuttles, various space borne construction equipment, and a steady stream of ships dropping off raw materials. We were part of that steady stream, and so I maneuvered us into the queue position that the local space controller transmitted in. “Captain,” I said, “space control is hailing us.”

“On screen,” Ryan said.

Oh joy, I thought, as a Vulcan’s dour countenance filled the screen. They’ve got a Vulcan running things.

“SS Icelandic Troll, please confirm your cargo manifest,” the Vulcan said without preamble.

“Didn’t you transmit it over?” Ryan asked me. I nodded, and shrugged.

“We require a verbal confirmation of your manifest’s accuracy from the ship’s Captain or owner,” the Vulcan said flatly.

“Um, okay,” Ryan said. “I am he. Both of him. I can confirm that the manifest is correct.”

“Thank you,” the Vulcan said, terminating the channel.

I turned to Ryan and said, “What do you think that was all–are you wearing a hoodie?” We obviously was. It was in the same khaki-gold color as our usual coveralls, and it had the ship’s logo on the right breast and RYAN skis-screened onto the left, but it was definitely a hoodie, because it zipped up, only went to his waist, and had, well, a hood.

“I’m trying a thing,” he said. “What were you saying?”

“Wonder if something’s up,” Stevenson mused. “Usually they don’t ask for a verbal confirmation.”

“That,” I said, turning back to my console.

“Is the planet here any fun?” Ryan asked.

“Ivor Prime?” Stevenson said. “Not really. Small colony, still in bootstrap stage. Class F sun, so it’s a little bright. Smaller seas, mostly landmass. No bars.”

“Huh,” he replied. Then, after a few minutes, “so now what?”

“We wait in this line,” I said, pointing to the view screen where a dozen or so ships were situated in front of us. “When we get to the front, we pop the bay, dump the cargo, and peel out of here. They’ve got us scheduled for three or four more runs, I think.”

“Three,” Stevenson said. “All bulk metals.”

“Huh,” Ryan said. Then, after several more minutes, “I’m going to–”

“You can’t take the skiff out,” Stevenson said. “Controlled space and we’d have had to file for clearance 48 hours ago.”

”–have some chocolate pudding,” Ryan finished, “in the galley.” He stood and left the bridge.

“I want chocolate pudding,” I muttered. This queue was taking forever; the ship at the front was badly bungling its offload, making the rest of us wait. I thumbed my media player and started Red Dawn (the 2012 version). My console cheeped. “Huh,” I said. “We’re being hailed.”

Stevenson shrugged. “Answer it.”

“Icelandic Troll,” I said, thumbing the channel open. “Whassup?”

“Hey, this is the Captain of SS Baby Spice. We’re in line right behind you. This is taking forever–we wondered if maybe you wanted to get together and chill for a bit while we wait?”

I looked at the First Officer. “Sure,” she said. “Beats whatever we’re doing right now.”

“Awesome,” Baby Spice sent. “I’m Captain Thomas, by the way. We’ve got a small shuttle–mind if we come over?”

“Sure,” Stevenson said. “See you in a minute.” She toggled a control on her console. “Hey, Buzz, we’ve got company coming over. Want to put out some snacks?”

“Company?” came the reply.

“Snacks.” I confirmed, before closing the channel. “I’ve got a convoy protocol in the helm,” I said. “It’ll just pace the ship in front of us automatically and holler if anything goes wrong.” I stood. “Shall we?”

“Please.”

We made our way to the upper airlock just as the Baby Spice shuttle docked. “Permission to come aboard?” Thomas asked.

“Happily granted,” Stevenson said, stepping forward to shake his hand. “I’m First Officer Stevenson, and this is our navigator and helmsman, Mister Jones.”

“I’ve got my navigator, Mister Evans,” Thomas replied, gesturing to a positively hot young gent standing behind him. “Our engineer wanted to stay behind and get some work done without us in the way. You guys it for the crew?”

“Mister Jones and me,” Stevenson said, eliciting a chuckle from myself, “our Captain’s down in the galley, and our Engineer-slash-Medical Officer is heading down to meet us.”

“Odd combination,” Evans said, grinning. Just precious.

“You should see him fight,” I said.

“Shut up,” Stevenson said, smiling. “Let’s head down.” She led us down to the galley, where Captain Ryan was just laying out the last tray of snacks. He’d somehow managed a bowl of fruit punch, a small cake, and a tray of vegetables. Amazing. I hadn’t known we even had vegetables on board.

“Captain Ryan,” Stevenson said, “meet Captain Thomas and Mister Evans.”

“Welcome! I’m Captain Caterer today,” Ryan said, smiling. I wanted to roll my eyes, but I was busy keeping an eye on Mister Evans.

We lounged around for about an hour, enjoying the (appropriately, but disappointingly) non-spiked punch, finishing off the cake, and picking at the veggies. We talked about the kinds of jobs Baby Spice had been up to (mostly ore hauling), and that we’d been up to (all kinds of things; see the previous chapters). By and by, the intercom chimed. “Boss, boss,” it said. My auto-follow program letting me know that we were getting closer to the front of the line. “That’s us,” I said. “I can walk you guys up to your shuttle, if you want,” I added. “We won’t be long unloading.”

Everyone stood. “It was wonderful meeting you all,” Thomas said. “You have runs after this?”

“Yeah, a few,” Stevenson said. “I’ll head up with you guys.” We led the way back to the airlock, and waved as they boarded their shuttle. “Thank God they weren’t pirates or something,” she said. “Although with this much Starfleet around, I guess not.”

I blinked. “I should scan the ship in case they left time-delay bombs or something,” I said quietly.

“Have fun with that,” she said, walking to the bridge. “I’ll get us unloaded.”

We were heading back to the pickup point to take on another load of materials. Starfleet had asked us to modify our route, saying that a neutron storm was forming along the route we’d previously been using. The new route skirted the edge of Federation space–this was going to be a Deep Space station, after all, and they’re usually out on the edges–and added a few hours to our trip. Which meant more hours for watching movies.

Unless, of course, the Troll were to suddenly and jarringly drop out of warp, with no warning whatsoever, while also skipping a few beats on the ol’ inertial dampers. Which is what happened.

“What the hell?” Stevenson said, snapping awake from what was definitely not a peaceful mid-shift nap.

“We’ve dropped out of warp!” Adam’s voice came over the intercom.

“Make him not do that,” I muttered. “It’s pretty obvious we fell out of warp. What I need to know is–”

That’s what someone said. Nobody on the bridge, mind you, the sound just sort of echoed out of nowhere. “Um?” I replied. I hadn’t even opened a channel. “Hello?”

“Hello” the voice said. “Ah, the barbarian language.”

“Barbarian?” Stevenson asked.

A figure materialized on the bridge. Not transporter-materialized; more of a just-faded-into-existence materialized. It was a man, who would probably have stood about six foot two, except he had the head of a proportionally sized falcon, which put him at close to seven feet.

“I am Ra,” he pronounced in an echo-y, resonating voice. “And we are glad you have found us again, my children.”

“Buzz,” Shandra said, thumbing the intercom on. “We’ve a visitor on the bridge. It’s for you.”

An hour later, we’d been transported–not by sane Federation transporters, but but some Old God Magic Voodoo or whatever–to the surface of a planet we’d been several light years from. So, you know, so much for physics and stuff. We were standing, and I kid you not, on a beautiful, oasis-like plaza in front of a giant, shining white pyramid. Like Egypt on Earth. Pyramid. Both Stevensons and I were kneeling on a very comfortable patch of green grass, with Captain Ryan standing in front of us. We were all facing these mythical, magical beings, who would stand seven or more feet tall, but who were presently seated in gilt-covered thrones. There was falcon-head, dog-head, cat-lady, and monkey-head.

Captain Ryan was talking to them, and I couldn’t tell if it was going well or not.

“No, I swear,” he was saying, “my ka separated completely. Total out-of-body experience. But my ba snagged it and shoved it right back in my body. I’ve been fine ever since.”

“I’m sure our brother Set was displeased at losing such a treasure,” falcon-head–sorry, Ra–said.

“Yeah, sorry, just wasn’t time,” Ryan said. I could hear him grinning. “Hey, can my crew stand up?”

“Certainly,” cat-lady said. “There will be plenty of time to engage in all the rituals, no need to do them all right now.”

“Rituals?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied, leaning over a bit to look past Ryan at me. “We have waited centuries for you to seek us out. We had thought we had left you everything you needed to join us sooner, but it seems to have taken longer.”

“Left… us?” Shandra asked.

“Indeed,” monkey-head said. I hadn’t caught his name. “Our vision was to bring you to the stars with us, by letting our own example inspire and drive you. We were, frankly, a bit disappointed. But you are here now.”

It clicked. “They think they’re the ancient Egyptian gods,” I whispered to Shandra out of the side of my mouth. “They–”

“Yeah, no, I got it,” she said.

“I don’t think they get out much,” I added.

“Hush, guys,” Ryan said, turning briefly to glare at me. “They’re cool! We’ve made First Contact!”

“That’s so illegal,” I said.

“You have become less respectful since we departed,” falcon-head noted.

“We get that a lot,” I said. “But,” I said, “here’s the thing–”

“No, I got this,” Ryan said, gesturing for me to hush again. I hate being hushed, but I was all for him delivering the bad news. He turned back toward the “gods.” “First of all, thank you so much for bringing us down here,” he said. “This is a blast, and I have some great ideas about tourism that’ll bring you tons of people, if that’s what you want. You’ve got really lovely weather.”

“Thank you,” falcon-head said, nodding.

“But rumor has it that the old Greek gods already tried this and it went just terrible.”

“THE GREEKS?” dog-head said, standing. Yeah, about seven foot two, I’d guess.

“Yeah, Apollo, Zeus, the whole pantheon,” Ryan confirmed. “But it’s cool, nobody’s worshipping them anymore.”

“Nor should they,” dog-head said, growling. “Weak, false gods that they were.”

“Yeah, but,” Shandra said stepping forward, “we don’t really worship anyone anymore. I mean, plenty of people are spiritual, but literal god worship hasn’t been a thing for… gosh–”

“About a hundred years,” I supplied.

“Yeah, about that,” Ryan confirmed, nodding.

The four “gods” stared at us. “Impossible.”

“Not really,” Ryan said. “I mean, we figured out faster-than-light travel and communications. We’ve met dozens of other living species. We’ve formed an entire Federation of Planets.”

“I told you that was going to happen,” cat-lady muttered. “The galaxy is lousy with them.”

“Yeah, so, it gave humanity kind of a whole new perspective. After the sperm whales went extinct, we started getting the planet in order, meeting new life, new civilizations, the whole deal,” Ryan said.

The “gods” looked nonplussed. “So none of our worshippers survived?”

“Oh, no, no,” Ryan said, holding up his hands reassuringly. “Egyptians are all over the place. Really, all the Arabic peoples still exist.”

“We’d assumed they were dominant,” Ra pointed out.

“Yeah, I got that from your initial message,” I said. “But the thing is, none of us are dominant anymore. Our cultural heritages are important, but we’re really all just Human, now. Like, we really cherish old traditions like Saint Paddy’s Day, but we don’t–”

“Saint Paddy?” dog-head asked.

“Kind of Celtic,” Ryan said. “Big drinking holiday. Alcohol.”

“He is still worshipped?” dog-head asked.

“No, it’s just a cultural leftover. There’s lots of Arabic ones, too. Heck, we still–”

“Not that,” Shandra said quickly.

The “gods” were quiet for a moment. “But you feel Humans would still want to visit us, see our promised land, and pay respect?”

“Yyyyeah,” Ryan said slowly. “I could see respect. Honestly, some themed roller coasters would go a long way, too. And some high-end hotels.”

“Roller–” monkey-head started.

“Actually, we can send you a whole data dump, and refer you to some wonderful consultants,” I said. “But we’re really on a schedule, so…”

The “gods” looked at each other. Ra nodded.

“That was amazing,” Captain Caterer said. “We are totally going back there one day.”

We were back on-track for our materials pickup, moving at maximum warp to try and make up for lost time. We’d already sent a communique off to Starfleet, who was no doubt scrambling a cruiser to get to the planet ASAP for a formal First Contact. We’d also tipped off a themed entertainment designer I knew. The ancient Egyptian gods would be just fine.