“Stars were streaking,
On the viewscreen.
Lieutenant L’naan,
Was at Ops…”
The Klingon woman who was the star of the impromptu Christmas song growled, turning her head slowly to glare at the young human ensign sitting at the helm station. The usual soft hums and bleeps of the spacious bridge were drowned out as he sang quietly, but incessantly, next to her, bobbing his head in tune to his improvised songs.
“Engisn,” her gruff voice snarled. “You have been singing human holiday songs for two hours. Badly.”
The young man turned his head and smiled. “Tis the season, lieutenant!”
“If you do not stop immediately, I swear on my honour that I will-” L’naan stopped as a confused expression slowly took over the ensign’s face, his smile fading as his eyes shifted and looked past her. She frowned and span around as she heard a humming sound behind her, and was surprised to see some sort of tiny winged craft hovering beside her.
“We are under attack!” L’naan roared, almost falling over as she leapt up from the reclined ops chair. “Security to the bridge!”
The nearby ready room doors hissed open and Captain Meadows jogged out, clutching a silver tool case in one hand and some kind of modified tricorder in the other, waving the latter around dismissively. “Stand down lieutenant!” she urged, moving next to the hovering craft. “It’s just me.”
L’naan eased up a bit, leaning forwards and examining the hovering craft. It was a curious thing; a long, mostly-cylindrical central hull, maybe a metre long and 30 centimetres at its thickest point, with two, back-swept, rounded wings with a span of around a metre. The hull was featureless except for some ‘faux’ windows at the front and some access panels, and constructed from mirror-like metal. It hovered in place with a light hum.
“What… what is it?”
“It’s a plane!” the captain said with a proud smile. “I’ve spent the last week designing and building it. It’s a replica of an early, pre-warp Tellarite terrestrial aircraft. Erm… approximately.”
“But… why, Captain?” L’naan said, exasperatedly, before adding, “is it armed?”
Captain Meadows frowned and shook her head. “No of course it’s not armed, lieutenant! It’s for a child. Look, you control it with this.”
The captain offered the tricorder to the confused Klingon, who grabbed it and looked at it. Most of the functionality looked to have been stripped out. Instead, various flight controls adorned the device, while the main screen showed a video feed of whatever was in front of the craft - the top of L’naan’s head, at that moment.
The aft turbolift hissed open and Lt Commander Kagiso’s burly frame came barrelling out, holding a phaser, followed by Commander Bastion. The two looked around the bridge, immediately seeing the drone hovering at the front of the bridge, and made their way down the slope to investigate.
“Relax, relax, commanders,” the captain reassured the two officers. “It’s just a toy.”
“Cool,” Kagiso said in a heavily-accented voice, immediately holstering his phaser and stomping towards the scene. “Is it armed?”
Captain Meadows spluttered, “no, it’s no- what is it with you two? Why would I arm a toy for a child?!”
“Why wouldn’t you,” Kagiso muttered, receiving an appreciative nod from L’naan.
“Ah, is this for the fleet toy drive, Captain?” Bastion smiled cheerfully, leaning close to investigate the hovering drone.
“That’s right Kelly,” the Captain nodded to her first officer. “The profile I was given was for a poor 12-year-old Tellarite girl, orphaned during the occupation of Axikol. Apparently she likes planes and other flying vehicles, ballroom dancing, and tea. So I’ve built this for her! It’s powered by a pair of modified phaser power cells, so it should last a good long while on one charge, and it’s easy to recharge and maintain with this.”
The captain planted down the toolkit she was carrying and popped it open, revealing a full set of engineering tools, all modified in different ways. “I’ve spent ages trying to develop a child-friendly toolkit. She won’t be performing starship maintenance with these, but they’re plenty to keep this bird in the air. And we need to encourage a new generation of engineers to help rebuild after all the devastation.”
“That’s great Captain,” Kagiso nodded. “But… I don’t see any tea.”
Captain Meadows smiled at the much taller man, a knowing, pleased-with-herself sort of smile. She reached over to L’naan, who handed the tricorder back. Meadows looked down and tapped some buttons, manoeuvring the drone directly above L’naan’s Ops station, and stood back, firmly tapping a button. Beneath the humming drone, a mug of steaming tea materialised atop the console in a swirl of light.
“A built-in replicator!” she announced proudly. “It’s programmed to produce teas from every species of the Federation we have records for.”
Kagiso raised an eyebrow curiously. “And… the dancing?”
Meadows nodded. “That was a little harder to come up with. I have every sympathy for the poor girl, but she’s certainly… eclectic. But, I developed a solution to that, too.” She held the tricorder to her face and spoke. “Commence dancing tutorial mode.”
With no further input, the drone hummed louder as it lifted itself towards the ceiling of the bridge, positioning itself directly above the captain. A feint beam of light emanated from the bottom of the craft and, before their eyes, a hologram of a tuxedo-clad Tellarite, just the right height for the Captain, materialised in front of her. The hologram extended a hand and politely asked, “care to dance?”
The assembled officers exchanged glances, then looked back at the captain. “The drone scans the user and generates a holographic dance partner at their exact height,” the captain said. “And using the toolkit, she should be able to reprogram the holo-emitter to display whatever dance partner she prefers. I’ve included a PADD with instructions.”
The officers raised eyebrows and looked back around each other, nodding slowly. “Captain, this is the most insane contraption I have ever witnessed,” L’naan blurted out.
“Look lieutenant, I challenge you to come up with something to satisfy those interests that isn’t a tea-making, dance partner-generating, flying drone,” Meadows said with a frown.
“I think it’s lovely, Captain,” Bastion said with a nod. “I think the Tellarite girl will love it.”
“Thank you, Commander,” the captain nodded.
“I think she’d like it better if it was armed,” Kagiso said, eying the drone curiously. “What’s its top speed?”
“Commander, I am not arming the child’s toy plane,” Meadows said, then cleared her throat. “It’s fast enough to be fun to fly around, but not fast enough to hurt anybody. Erm, not seriously, anyway. I couldn’t replicate old-fashioned jet turbines that worked at this scale though, so it just uses an anti-grav unit for propulsion.”
“You could install a phaser emitter on the nose there,” L’naan said, pointing at the ‘cockpit’.
“I’m not arming it!” the captain snapped, then looked at her first officer. “Commander, I’ll pack all this up this afternoon once I’ve recorded my greeting. Would you please ensure it gets transported to the Livesong Family Foundation outpost when we’re in range?”
“Of course, captain,” Bastion nodded.
“And Commander, keep it away from these two,” Meadows said, eying L’naan and Kagiso suspiciously. “I don’t want to hear that someone’s installed phasers on this thing before it gets to the child.”
“Quite so, Captain,” Bastion nodded, looking at the other two officers with a fake frown. “Right you two, back to your posts. I’ll be keeping an eye on you both until this is off the ship.”
As Meadows flew the drone back to her ready room, following it inside, Kagiso and Bastion walked back up the ramp towards the turbolift, while L’naan sat back down at her station, looking up at the viewscreen and the ‘stars’ that zoomed past them.
“It’s the Christmas toy drive,
The captain made a drone,
Lieutenant L’naan,
wanted to arm it with phaseeers…”
L’naan’s brows furrowed so deeply her eyes almost disappeared. She cracked her knuckles and looked over at the helm station again.