A Break From Boredom. by Aris Merquoni To quote myself on IRC earlier about this story: [re: What I'm gonna do to Ratliff's fanfic] It's gonna be keul... in that ******& scene where he has those kids write "I got beaten by a bunch of kids" on the Cardassian's hull, I'm gonna have Han and Lone Starr go by in the Falcon and Eagle 5 and burn "I got strafed by some Star Wars and Spaceballs fans!" on the saucer section, just above that "NCC-1701-D" thing. :) Well, you want it, you got it! -=+++=- Han Solo leaned back in the captain's chair of the _Millennium Falcon_. Leia and Luke were off doing some "Administrative stuff" within the New Republic, and he and Chewie were going to take the _Falcon_ out for a spin, to relive the old days where their reputations were questionable and life was lived on the edge, calculated in adrenaline and the speed of the Imperial cruiser ahead... was it *just* fast enough? Han noticed his fingers were twitching and calmed down. He was just going for a spin around the block. That was it. He had promised Leia that he wouldn't get into trouble. And Leia could be *very* persuasive... He was cut off from that rather pleasant chain of thought by his furry copilot entering the cabin. "All set?" He asked the Wookiee. Chewie growled and snarled the Wookiee equivalent of "Let's go!" Han grinned and started the takeoff sequence. The _Falcon_ shuddered a bit as it left the atmosphere and entered deep space, but as soon as they were away from the planet's gravity the ship flew as smoothly as any other. Han whooped as he took the ship through a series of loops and turns that defied nearly every law of physics in the book, then settled down for a bit. No sense in shaking the ship apart, was there? Apparently Chewbacca agreed with that, for Han got an earful as soon as the ship settled down. "Aw, come off it, fuzzball." Han joked. "We've just got a vacation. We might as well enjoy ourselves." Chewie stopped his lecture with a "Hrr." Han chuckled, pausing in surprise when the com beeped. Exchanging a querying look with his co-pilot, he opened the hyperwave channel up. "Han Solo of the _Millennium Falcon_ here." He said semi-professionally. He almost hoped it was Luke or Leia calling to say that they needed his fighting expertise... the last few months had been entirely too quiet for his taste. Even though he was 'free at last', there was nothing to do... nobody to fight, and he wasn't going to risk any illegal activity *now*. "Are you bored? Nothing to do? Hi Han. This isn't a recorded message; you can swear at me if you want." "Tanasha?!" Han nearly yelled. If it was that annoying sprite, Han had more than a few things he wanted to say to her. "Why, yes. Glad you remember me." Han could almost picture Tanasha's smirk, her green eyes twinkling with laughter about some private dimention traveling joke she had just found. "I was gonna ask if you wanted to join me in some cross-dimentional havoc." Han snorted. "Your kind of havoc I'd just as soon stay away from. Thanks but no." He reached for the switch to turn the com off when Tanasha spoke again. "I'd give you money... or a shitload of money, if you prefer. I'd rather not have to go steal one of those nice Corrillean fighters and then go through the bother of teaching, say, Jake Cardigan how to fly it. Might take a while. And Leia would be *soooooo* pissed if he crashed it..." Han paused in mid-motion, then returned his hand back to his armrest. "You got me there. Talk. I'll *consider* your proposition." Not all of the diplomatic skills he had earned over the years had been taught to him by Leia. "I wanna do something extremely mean to a fanfic author I know." Tanasha replied. Han blinked as Chewie lowed confusion. "Huh?" he finally asked when Tanasha had sat in smug silence for a while. "Oh, come *on*." She replied. "I've already given you that 'Everything's real, everything's fake' lecture, haven't I?" Han groaned. "Yes you have." Both he and Chewbacca shuddered. "Creeps me out." Han didn't like the idea of his entire life being chronicled somewhere by someone who thought they were just making it up. "Good. I won't have to explain it twice." Chewie growled at the elf, and Han was tempted to do the same. "There's a universe... by the media writers," that meant the clueless dummies who thought what they were writing wasn't real, "it's called 'Star Trek.' There's a lot of fanfic written for it." Han groaned again. If he never heard the word 'fanfic' again, it'd be too soon. A 'fanfic,' he had discovered, was probably the reason he had met Tanasha in the first place. It was the main reason, Tanasha had said, that dimentions 'split,' or changed into two. He didn't like being reminded. "Well, there's this *really* bad author, and his fanfics are *awful*. I was wondering if you'd like to go into that dimention and harass people." Tanasha had an *evil* tone to her voice. He had heard it before right before... he stopped *that* train of thought. Watching Tanasha shred someone wasn't exactly pleasant to watch. "So... what do you want *me* to do?" he found himself saying. He had been thinking about saying that, but hadn't been sure if he wanted to voice his thought. Now that he had, he was sure that he *didn't* want to say that, but it was too late. "You'll be the person going around and using the technique of whoop-@$$ against the idiots. My other friend-" "You consider me a friend?" Han asked incredulously. "Anyone who I can convince to not shoot me is my friend." Han snorted. "Don't be too sure about me, then." He could almost sense Tanasha smirking, somehow. "Anyhow... Lone Starr and I will be messing with the idiot's minds and tagging their ship. You in?" Han exchanged a glance with his furry co-pilot. Hadn't they just been looking for excitement a few moments ago? "Uh, sure." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he began to have second thoughts. What if this was a trick to totally embarrass him? He had been told that Tanasha had placed one of his 'parallels' in a room with two guys who looked exactly like him... The world outside the cockpit disappeared in a flash of white light. -=+=- "Haloooo, my Happy Friends!" Lone Starr woke up and half-turned in his seat. "Oh, hi Tanasha." He said to the elf standing behind him. "Uh, how are you doing?" She smiled, a genuine smile that lit up her cats-eye green eyes. "Fine, thankee, but I *am* a tad bored." She flopped down in Barf's seat, empty because the Mog was resting in the bunk in the back of the RV. "How is everything going with you?" Lone Starr, now *Prince* Lone Starr, shrugged. "Fine, I guess. Vespa and Barf are sleeping, by the way, so if you're planning to do anything loud..." He trailed off. "The last time Her Highness was awakened early by a loud noise, it wasn't pretty." Tanasha chuckled. "I wasn't planning to do anything *loud*, per se, more... diverting. Ya know that Star Trek writer I told you about? Ratliff?" He nodded. "Yeah. I read one of his fanfics and found it... gross, to say the least." He shuddered. "What does this have to do with anything?" "Well, I'm so bored that I was thinking... if you and another friend of mine help me, we can go into a dimention that is playing one of his fanfics, and..." She flicked her fingers to represent something blowing up, "have some fun with it." He grinned. "I get ya. Sure, I'll help, but you're gonna have to ask Vespa and Barf first." "What's this?" Asked the aforementioned Princess Vespa as she poked her head into the driver's compartment of the Winnebago, blinking sleep from her eyes. "Hi, Tanasha. What's up?" "Hi, Vespa. I was thinking that we could go and strafe a Ratliff fanfiction." Suddenly Vespa was fully awake. "You mean go in and burn holes through one of that guy's stories? Count me in, even if he's out. I *hate* that guy!" She considered a second. "I'd rather burn holes through *him*, but you get what you can take." Tanasha grinned. "Okay!" She stood up. "I take it the two of you can convince Barf..." "Should be no problem. He hated 'Enterprized' too." Replied Lone Starr. "Well, then, I'll make the requisite appeal to the DTA, then get my *other* friend... whether he wants to help or not." Tanasha's expression flashed from friendly to evil for a second, then went back. "See ya. I'll teleport back here before we go." There was a flare of light, and the elf was gone. She was back in five minutes. In that time, Lone Starr had managed to wake up Barf and convince him to go along with Tanasha's scheme. "Ready to go?" She asked rhetorically. "Good!" She said before they could open their mouths. The world disappeared in a flash of white light. The world reformed outside the windshield in a blaze of stars. Ahead of the Eagle 5 was the Enterprise-D saucer section and some sort of wimpy Cardassian cruiser. Tanasha flipped on a cellular phone. "Hello, _Falcon_. Just keeping in touch. Okay, all I want you to do is keep 'em busy. Yes, that's it. Try not to blow anything up. Yet." She chuckled and hung up as the other starship swung down to the attack, just as the Enterprise finished burning 'I lost to a bunch of kids' on the hull of the other ship. "Okay guys, now for some fun..." -=+=- Marissa Floras nodded in satisfaction as the phrase 'I lost to a bunch of kids' was burned onto the Cardassian ship's hull. Alexander cleared his throat. "Channel opened, sir." Gul Ducat appeared on the screen. "I-" He was cut off by a cut-in connection. "YEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAA!" Yelled someone as both ships were bombarded with blasts from a ship coming down across their fore bow. The ship rained a hail of death upon the two ships, then it looped up and off their scanners. Marissa blinked, stunned, then snapped back to attention. "Alexander, give me hailing frequencies with that other ship." -=+=- Tanasha, through Psionics, heard Marissa's last line and chuckled. "Okay, now starts the fun." With a thought, she re-routed the viewscreen's frequency... -=+=- Marissa opened her mouth as the hailing frequency opened, then closed it. "What the..." The viewscreen showed three men, one sitting, one standing and wearing military garb, and a short one, also standing, wearing an enormous black helmet. They were looking in a video screen showing... the exact same scene. First one of the standing men looked at the enterprise crew, his face showing on the viewscreen *they* were looking at, then the next turned and the first turned back. After a few seconds of this alternation, the one in the helmet said to the one in the one in officer's uniform, "What the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie?!" Marissa was taken aback, understandably. The military man turned to the guy in the helmet. "Now. You're looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now is happening, now." "What happened to then?!" Asked the helmeted man. "We passed it." "When?" "Just now. We're at now, now." By this point, everyone on the bridge of the Enterprise was thoroughly confused. "Go back to then!" Ordered the helmeted guy. "When?" Asked the officer. "Now!" "Now?" "Now!" "We can't!" "Why?" "We missed it." "When?" "*Just* now." The helmeted man paused. "When will *then* be *now*?" The scene on the monitor in the viewscreen changed as the uniformed officer said, "*Soon*." The viewscreen blanked. Every crewmember on the bridge universally sat back in their seat, as if suddenly undergoing acceleration. "Uh..." Said Marissa, trying to think of a professional thing to say. The enemy ship made another run on the Enterprise, shaking the ship and throwing Marissa around in her seat a bit. -=+=- Aboard the _Eagle 5_, Tanasha had her laptop out and was hacking... but not normal hacking. She was hacking into the statistics for the entire dimention. She closed the program. That'd do for now. Activating the reality-warping field around the Winnebago, she sat back and relaxed. -=+=- "Alex, shoot that ship down!" Marissa commanded. Little did she know that since the Reality had been set to full, she was no longer an experienced commander, but only a little girl playing in a game she where she couldn't win. "Uh, I can't find it!" Alexander called back. "What do you mean?" She asked. "It's gone!" He cried in despair. -=+=- The _Falcon_ was not gone. It was hovering, quite safely, directly above the _Enterprise_. The cockpit was pointing "down" toward the "top" of the saucer, giving Han an excellent position for his next run. Han flipped the com back on. "Are you *sure* I'm safe here?" He asked Tanasha. "Sure I'm sure!" She responded. "They aren't doing anything, are they?" Han had to admit that nothing was going on. The ship below/in front of him wasn't even moving. "Why aren't they?" He asked in disbelief. "Because," and he was sure she was laughing, "their scanners are only working on one plane. They haven't turned on the 3-D scanner!" Han burst out laughing. "I don't believe it!" he said. "You mean, I could sit here taking potshots all day and they wouldn't see me?" "Of course. This ship isn't piloted by the brightest bunch, ya know." Han kept on chuckling. "I *don't* believe it." "Believe it. Don't do anything... the captain's getting out her log. I'll let you listen." -=+=- "Gone?" Marissa asked Alex. "But we didn't get to blow it up!" "It's gone! I can't find it!" He responded. Marissa considered that for a second. "Well, I think I'll note these events in the Log." She said, hoping that it sounded professional. She got out the rectangular gray recorder and pressed the 'record' button. "Captain's Log, Stardate-" Marissa was cut of by a siren going off on the bridge. Red lights, not the regular red alert lights, started flashing. "Thank you for pressing the self-destruct button," said the computer. "This ship will self-destruct in two minutes." "Oh-my-God-what'd-I-do?!" Cried Marissa, jumping out of her seat and covering her mouth in horror. The Log fell to the floor and bounced once before shattering. "Thank you for pressing the self-destruct button. This ship will self-destruct in one minute forty-five seconds." -=+=- Han couldn't help but laugh at Marissa's startled exclamation. "Okay, Tanasha, what'd you do?" He asked. "I rigged it so that when she pressed the record button, a sound file of some self-destruct notices would go off. The lights and sirens are just for effect." "Instant mayhem?" He asked. "Mayhem is *fun!*" Tanasha replied. Han rolled his eyes and enjoyed the noise coming up from the other ship. "Thank you for pressing the self-destruct button. This ship will self-destruct in one minute." -=+=- For the next minute, as one may imagine, there was various running about on the bridge and shouted orders that nobody really listened to. Finally, the ship began the countdown. "Six... five... four..." All the officers on the bridge huddled together in front of the captains chair, wondering what would become of them. "Three... two... one..." Everybody braced for the explosion. "Have a nice day." Said the computer. The sirens stopped. The lighting returned to normal. Marissa and her crew unbraced and looked around. Nothing had detonated, and the ship was fine. Well, almost. -=+=- "Done with that spraypaint, yet?" Lone Starr looked up from his job. "Just one second." He sprayed a few more black lines on the white surface under his feet, then capped the can of paint. "Okay, we can go now." Tanasha and Lone Starr ascended the ladder back into the RV. "Okay, now for a parting touch," said Tanasha with an evil grin, once they got inside. "Lemme tell Han, then we go." Tanasha gave out her instructions, then reached out and blanked the shields on the _Enterprise_. "Okay, rock and roll!" Both the _Millennium Falcon_ and the _Eagle 5_ turned and fired across the dish of the _Enterprise_, making deep pits and various black marks on the hull. As they soared away, Lone Starr's handiwork was quite evident. The pilots and crew of both starships laughed as they were teleported back to their home dimentions. -=+=- The reality level in the dimention snapped back to 50% or thereabouts, and Marissa was suddenly once more the impossibly ultra-competent officer and teenager. "Status report." She barked. The officers scrambled back to their posts. "Uh, shields are off-line, and we have major hull scoring, and..." The 12 year old officer looked up from his screen. "Ah, Marissa, you might want me to put this on the viewscreen." "Well, do it." Marissa replied. The image came up. It was the exterior view of the saucer section, and it was covered with deep black scorch marks. Marissa ground her teeth at the damage the intruders made, until she saw what the techie had been staring at. Spraypainted across the dish, right above the NCC-1701-D logo, was the phrase, "I got strafed by a bunch of Star Wars and Spaceballs fans! I eat space tracks!" Marissa seethed with fury for a few seconds, then yelled out something incoherent and smashed her fist into a console. Unfortunately, the console had been re-routed to the main warp engines, and the saucer section of the _Enterprise_ lurched forward... right into the Cardassian ship. The resulting fireball warmed the hearts of all who saw it.