Starship Armstrong - Season 2

Part 75 - The Trial Of Dr. Kang (XI)

McAfree was only pretending to read the book, Littlecrow could tell. The Captain had seen that girl read before and she flipped those pages like they were white hot.

They were both in the Captain's hotel room on Mars. McAfree laying on the bed slowly flipping through the pages of an old paperback. The Captain was watching her from a chair.

McAfree was waiting, the Captain realized, for her to let her guard down for even a split second. It was a good thing she had planned for all of this.

"I noticed you have a pending application for Foundation membership," said the Captain.

"Yeah," said McAfree, flipping another page of her book.

"I also noticed that you haven't taken any of the written tests yet," said the Captain.

"I don't know if you also noticed that I've been floating around the remotest buttholes in all of outer space for the past year," said McAfree, closing the book "Trying not to get killed just because I threw in my lot with the worst member of the secret ruling class ever."

"I bet you could ace those tests without even trying," said the Captain.

"Probably," said McAfree "But there's a brutal waiting list on any planet. And on Mars? Forget it."

"Yeah well I might still have some old crusty strings left around here," said the Captain "And I pulled on one and, what do you know, it didn't instantly crumble to dust."

"What are you trying to say?" asked McAfree.

"I have convinced the testing center to squeeze in an additional chair," said the Captain "I have lined up all four tests for you, over the coming four days."

"Are you kidding me?" asked McAfree "You usually have to wait for like a year for each one!"

"Most people need a year," said the Captain "You're ready, you deserve it, and frankly you've earned it. You're start tomorrow morning. Good luck on your tests."

"Luck is-" McAfree began to form a snippy comment, but she stopped herself.

"Thanks," she said "You didn't need to do that."

"I kind of did," said the Captain "This is also my way of keeping you from giving me the slip while you're out on bail."

"Clever," admitted McAfree.

"And maybe when you're finished whatever it is you're doing with Dr. Kang, you'll want to join the Armstrong Science Department for real."

"No offence Captain," said McAfree "But I'm not going to be finished with Dr. Kang until I'm the undisputed richest and most politically powerful woman in the galaxy. I don't think I'm going to have time to crew very many exploratory starships at that point."

"Fair enough," said the Captain.

* * *

Mitzner sat at a table in the bar's outdoor balcony section, flushed with drink. It had taken several steady hours of drinking to achieve this state and she was maintaining it with watchful vigilance.

Mitzner was the center of attention. At her table sat Ensign Gul, Ensign Guildenstern and Ensign Marceaux. She was regaling them all with stories of the trial.

"This is the best part," said Mitzner, carefully pouring herself a drink and spilling only a little.

"You've said every part so far was the best part," said Gul.

"Have I been wrong yet?" asked Mitzner.

Gul shrugged in defeat.

"So as I was saying I was just just getting to the best part. So like I said in comes the robot Kang, which I don't know how much of that any of you guys were present for but that's the Kang that's even worse than the other Kang. And Kang's lawyer is like 'this thing can't testify that's like self incrimination' and Gibson's brother is like 'no it isn't' and the Judge is like 'oh my tiny brain can't make a decision on a yes or no questions without a mountain of paperwork so let's take the day off to generate paperwork.'"

"So that's how today's hearing ended?" asked Marceaux.

"No that was yesterday," said Mitzner, pouring a new drink "Today, oh my stars, today was the best part. So Gibson's brother brings in a psychologist and she takes forever to basically say there's two Kangs, like any idiot can't clearly see that there's two of the asshole, and the Judge is like 'works for me' so we're going to hear from the robot Kang after all. So that was today."

"That sounds really exciting," said Gulidenstern "Maybe we should all go tomorrow."

"It's actually the most boring thing," said Mitzner.

* * *

"Well, you know, adding rifling to their guns and stuff," said Wagner.

He, too, was the center of attention.

"They didn't even have rifles yet?" asked probably the second most beautiful girl Wagner had ever seen, who was sat right beside him on a shared log beside the roaring bonfire.

"All they had was really basic muskets. So it wasn't exactly 100% legal to be giving them what was, for all intents and purposes, weapons technology," said Wagner.

"Oh my stars! Did you get in trouble?" asked the first most beautiful girl Wagner had ever seen, sat on the other side of him on the log. She grabbed his shoulder.

"Well the whole thing fell apart when the crew members we were looking for ended up joining the opposing army. A shuttle pilot had to break up what was basically a war with Foundation personnel on both sides. Everyone was in so much trouble that you couldn't single out any specific thing for anyone to be in trouble for. So we all got off scott free. I'm pretty sure the Lieutenant Commander got chewed out by Captain Littlecrow though."

"Wait, Captain Alexandria Littlecrow?" asked another camper, sitting directly across the fire from Wagner "You mean you're serving on THAT FSS Armstrong?"

"Yeah, the one from the war," boasted Wagner "About half the crew are the ones from back then too. The Lieutenant Commander from that story is Zarah Mitzner."

The gathered campers fell over themselves to overwhelm Wagner with so many questions he couldn't hear any individual one.

Author's Note: Okay so this is going to be the last episode of the season (not that it's over yet!). Last time I switched seasons I had a significant drop off in readership, so this time I'm making the new season available in advance so people can add it to their reading lists so you'll still get updates when Season 2 ends and Season 3 beings.

So there's a blank dummy version of Season 3 currently on my profile, you have to click "show more" to find it. It's directly below Season 2. If you add it to your reading list now then you won't miss out on Season 3.