Still dark, but . . . but it's still dark. >sigh<

Who: Zack, Cubie, and a roomful of annoyed engineers (but not Zodar,
who I now see was elsewhere)
Where: The still-darkened engine room
When: Just after the starbug crashed
Cubie glared at the engineers who were huddled in the middle of
the room. "You guys plan on fixing anything anytime soon?"
"Ante up."
"I raise five."
"I'll see that."
"Call."
"I need three."
"Two for me."
"Four."
"FOUR?"
"Yeahhhhh."
Zack walked over. "Room for one more?"
"ZACK!" Cubie snarled.
Zack crept back to the table he'd been hiding under.
Cubie's flashlight dimmed, then went out. Everything went dark
again.
"I've got a straight flush."
"I've got a royal flush."
"I've got four aces."
"You liar!"
"No worse than you!"
Just then, Cubie heard shouts from the passageway outside
engineering. Odd flashes of light glared off the bulkheads.
"I shall eviscerate you!"
"You mean disembowel me, and you won't, because you've been
losing this fight ever since it began - ARGH!"
"A-HA! Disembowel and eviscerate are the same length! I have
sustained a mighty advantage in this struggle."
"You mean 'I won that round'. But now you shall lose the match!"
"Ow!"
The temporal divorce lawyer and Cerebrum's anti-lawyer came into
engineering, still battling with lightsabers.
"Your season has approached!"
"You mean 'my time has come'. But it is YOU who are doomed
here!"
Cubie walked up to the two men and snatched their lightsabers
from them. "I'll take those, if you don't mind. And you both should
be ashamed of yourselves! What if a small child had been playing in
engineering and had been climbing up this support rod. You might
have lopped his little head right off his shoulders."
She looked at the divorce lawyer. "And YOU are fired, Mr.
Dolittle."
"PENFIDDLE!! MY NAME IS PENFIDDLE!!!!"
Cubie waved the lightsaber an inch under his nose. "And you
seem to have this bizarre notion that I care. Regardless, I no
longer require your services. You are dismissed. Send me a bill for
services rendered, and if you are nice, I'll pay it without fighting
you in court for the next eight millennia. And you know I am
perfectly capable of doing it, too!"
Penfiddle paled. "Ah, yes. Well, then. I shall return to my
ship. Good day, Mrs. Richards. Mr. Richards." He glared at
Jones. "And know that this is but the first of our direct conflicts -
there shall most certainly be future encounters where we shall-"
Jones interrupted. "Just say 'We'll meet again'."
"AAAAARGH!" Penfiddle stormed out.
Jones watched him go, then turned back to Cubie. "If I may?"
Cubie handed him his lightsaber. He deactivated it, then nodded
and departed.
Cubie took the remaining lightsaber and walked over to the
engineers. "Would this thing's power source be of any use to you in
repairing the Blue Dwarf?"
Dren reached up for the lightsaber. "Could I see that for a
moment?"
Cubie smiled. At last - the engineers were acting! "Certainly."
Dren took the lightsaber and held it over the cards. "See! I
DO have four aces!"
L'Ontar frowned. "Yeah, but three of them are diamonds. You
cheater!"
A fistfight broke out and the lightsaber fell to the deck, where
it burned a hole down into the next engineering compartment and
severed a steel cable.
Cubie grabbed the lightsaber again, annoyed. "Come on, Zack.
We've got work to do." She walked over to the hole where the water
had gone. "Hold this while I check out the damage."
Zack came over and gingerly held the lightsaber while Cubie
crawled into the access crawlspace and started looking around.
Behind him, he could hear the three engineers wrestling.
"Look at this! You've got another deck in your pocket!"
"That fell out of YOUR pocket!"
"Did not!"
"Care to explain why the box is labeled 'This deck of marked
cards belongs to Dren Walker'?"
"Oh! THAT deck of cards! Could I see-"
=====
Meanwhile, the severed cable whistled through several pulleys
before the massive support rod it had been sustaining fell with a
crash to the main hangar bay. The very tip of it slammed into a
scutter, causing it to drop the bowling ball that it had inexplicably
been carrying. The bowling ball rolled down the hangar bay, bouncing
off of several fuel tanks and finally knocking over a card table with
an almost-completed 1000-piece puzzle. Pieces went everywhere, and a
mouse spotted one that bore an uncanny resemblance to a slice of
cheddar cheese. Snagging it, he raced back to his nest and nibbled
on it, then dicarded it in disgust and scrambled off in search of
something more palatable. The piece fell through a crack in the
conduit where the mouse's nest lay, slid down a long air vent, and
fell into a bowl of peanuts in Parrott's bar. Penny Lloyd frowned at
the puzzle piece, then smiled. It was a sign from God. She hefted
her bazookoid and walked out as the other patrons dove underneath
tables and chairs. Penny Lloyd's smiles and bazookoids were rarely
good combinations.
Penny stepped out into the Promenade and sighted in on her
nemesis - McDonald's. The fact that it was already a pile of rubble
did little to deter her. What she had against the fine eating
establishment was a mystery even to Cerebrum's staff, but grievance
she had. Before Tom, Dick, and Harry could wrestle her to the
ground, she managed to fire off another shot at McDonald's. The
bazookoid round raced toward the wreckage.
Elwood felt a disturbance in the force, or possibly slight
indigestion caused by the reserve power pack running low. He peered
up over the debris and spotted Penny Lloyd's Bazookoid flying at him
in that bizarre John Woo slow-motion.
~Zack & Cubie~
Engineers - substandard