Lt. Cmdr. Jason Smegg - "Double, double, toil 'n' trouble"

On the other Blue Dwarf
Shortly after boarding
The engineer found the other ship fascinating; so fascinating that he was
almost envious of the other engineer who kept it in shape. All the
perfectly aligned bearing struts, the stellar fuel-intake system that was
twice as efficient as the one on his own ship... Starship Starship
burning Bright, In the Nebulae of the Night, What Ingenious Hand or Eye,
Could Frame Thy Fearful Symmetry?
While he admired the warp propulsion system, a young man walked up to
him. Smegg noticed that this man looked a whole lot like himself, only...
well, slimmer and more relaxed.
"Hello," the counterpart said, "you must be one of the visitors from the
other dimension? We'd heard about you."
"Um, yes," Smegg replied, not knowing what to say to this version of
himself. "Hi. Nice to meet you. I'm Lt. Cmdr. Jason Smegg. You must be
Lt. Cmdr. Jason Smegg? As well?"
"Yes," Smegg-2 said calmly, "although we really don't need to use titles
around here. All of us are equal. You may call me Jason. May I call you
Jason as well?"
"I suppose..." Jason said.
"Would you like to join me for a cup of tea?" Jason-2 inquired.
"Umm, sure."
The other Smegg's quarters
10 minutes later
The two Smeggs set down their teacups they had received from the food
dispenser. Jason-2 then reached into his pockets and pulled out four
individually packaged pink tablets.
"What are those?" Jason asked.
"Artificial sweetener," Jason-2 said. "Here you go," and handed 2 of them
to Jason.
Jason looked at the tablets. He'd never seen this brand of sweetener
before. "SOMA"? Oh well... He dropped the pills into the drink and
swirled them around with a stirrer. They dissolved faster than he could
have expected. He took a sip - and spit it out.
"Don't you like the tea?" Jason-2 asked. "It's a blend of Pekoe-Mon and
Earl Grey Poupon."
"It tastes like --" Jason sputtered, "-- like... TEA!"
"Well it IS tea..."
"Yes, and where I come from, tea is supposed to taste like week-old
chicken soup!"
"I'm sorry, then; our food replicators aren't programmed for week-old
chicken soup. I suppose I could fix that for you, but that would distract
us from our conversation."
"Oh well," Jason said, setting the teacup down. "Did I tell you about
earlier today when I got stuck in a jefferies tube and Efof Yuwanker had
to come and pull me out?"
"Efof Yuwanker?"
"Hey, I thought you guys were supposed to be polite!"
"I'm terribly sorry, Jason! Who is this Mr. or Ms. Yuwanker, whichever
the case might be?"
"You don't have a counterpart for him?" Jason said. "He's this alien we
picked up when we got a distress call from the planet Ffion. He's the
last surviving member of his race."
"The Ffionians are extinct in your universe?!" Jason-2 exclaimed. "What
did you do to them?! Over here they're founding members of the
Interstellar Peace Concordium!"
"We didn't do anything. Their planet irradiated them 600 years ago. Efof
was sealed inside a stasis capsule when the accident occurred."
"What a terrible, terrible pity. I should like to meet Efof as soon as
possible."
Jason decided to move on to another subject. "What a fine ship you have
here."
That was not apparently the best choiceof subject, for Jason-2's eyes
suddenly seemed to glow. "The better to assimilate you with, my dear!"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
One grizzled old sailor to another:
"Well, excuse me for saying so, 'Admiral' Phineas Q. Crunch,
but I still don't quite believe that yarn of yours
about the 'dreaded Cereal Pirates of Azhakbania'!"
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