I get the feeling that the Klingon attack cruisers are out in force right now.  Celebrating their version of Thanksgrabbing I suppose.  Shooting energy torpedoes everywhere like gangbusters and not worried about where the things land.  So it was that not even Michael Monticore’s cat fur deflectors could keep us from taking a direct hit on the main computer.  Specifically, K’s computer gave us the blue screen of doom and that was pretty bad news.

My science officer, Kool Kat, did his best to bring the damaged system back online, resorting to the system restore disk which had worked very well twice before in previous episodes.  Alas, the system restore failed to take hold, and the blue screen of doom started appearing even with the computer in Safe Mode.  In game terms, we had to move the status chit on our character sheet for the Computer from “damaged” to “destroyed”, rather than “repaired.”

Well, one can’t have amazing adventures in outer space on a starship without a computer.  At least, not without switching idioms in mid-season, which could prove bad for ratings.  And I don’t think turning a sci-fi show into a western exactly is what K and I signed on for on this channel.  So, Kool Kat looked at me and gave me the report.  Cue close up of me in the command chair with suitably appropriate music as I have to make a command level decision.  K’s Sims happiness bar is going down by the hour without her online MUD connection.

No decision, really, but nice and dramatic with heavy sighing and first-rate acting.  I call up the engineer, Captain Boozer, and tell him we need an infusion of Warp Power from the bank account.  You see, moving the quality chit for the Computer from “used” to “new” automatically moves the status chit to “operational”.  Captain Boozer doesn’t exactly like giving up the bank account Warp Power, but that’s an order!  Luckily, we manage to obtain something cheap without getting too horribly fleeced, Kool Kat replaces the old console with the new one, the character sheet is updated, and K’s happy level goes up.

I chalk it up to the science officer using his special ability of “Emergency Damage Repair”, and we get back in the action.  I take this as a hint I should fortify some of my own systems, and I make sure to burn a hard copy of my book work to date.  Not that I wasn’t maintaining multiple copies, mind you, but always good to keep one step ahead of demands, as they say.  Got myself some hot flash drive action for easy transfer and backup.  The old floppy to zip disc action wasn’t cutting it anymore.

My sensors don’t pick up any Klingon attack cruisers out there at the moment.  But be on the lookout.  They could peek-a-boo at any moment and fire you a nice juicy surprise!  Just another day in the neutral zone of life, so to speak.