“ Captain what about this angry mob?” said ensign Follicle.
“ Haven’t you worked it out yet? None of this is real, we have never been in any danger.”
“ You are right about that Captain Hemorrhoid,” said a voice.
Suddenly the scene changed again. This time they were standing in a courtroom and a judge with a gable sat in front of them behind his large desk. “ I told you before we are a peaceful people. You were never in any danger.”
“ But I was shot!” said ensign Follicle.
“ You were never shot Hairy. We just made you think you were. If you push against your shoulder you’ll find there will be no pain.”
Hairy did as the alien said and it was true, he had no pain. “ My head still hurts though.”
“ I am sorry about that but we never considered that you would hit your head.”
“ Who do we call you now?” asked the captain.
“ I am Judge Hardy. I at least appear in his image.”
“ Why don’t show us your true form, do you think you will horrify us?”
“ My people like to make other life forms at ease. The truth is that we do not have a life form, we have a superior intelligence to most beings and although we do not know what others are thinking we can anticipate what they would like to see.”
The captain thought for a moment. “ So why did you go to all trouble of sending us into predicaments? You could have told us about yourselves from the start.”
“ We received the transmissions many years ago and as a people we were disturbed by what we saw. You might tell me that you consider this entertainment and perhaps in some cultures it is. To us even the family oriented material contained lies and deceit. When we realized that your space ship was from this world we felt we needed to test you and make sure you were not the people we knew you to be. We even monitored your space ship.”
“ So what was your verdict?” It seemed appropriate for the captain to ask his question this way.
“ My verdict is this…” Suddenly the judge disappeared and only his voice was heard. “ We are under attack by a violent alien race. I will get back to you later.”
The captain and the others were transported back to the room they were held captive in earlier.
While in space a Klingon war bird decloaked and began charging weapons.
* * * *
“ Ensign Lid-Lidia see if you can contact the Captain, now we have distracted these aliens.”
Lid-Lidia nodded her head. “ Captain Hemorrhoid are you there?”
A few moments later the captain answered. “ Yes we are here. Could you beam the four of us up please?”
“ You don’t mean five of you?”
“ No, there is just the original landing party.”
“ You haven’t seen the doctor?”
“ No we never saw him.”
Five minutes later the captain and the others including the doctor walked onto the bridge.
“ Welcome back Captain we are glad you are safe and sound. Doctor I understand you were beamed from claws of a giant bird?” said Kazzie-Spockers.
“ Nothing I couldn’t have handled,” he replied.
“ Open a channel to the aliens.” Said the captain. “ It’s about time we had a talk.”
A few moments later an audio message was received from the planet.
“ That was very clever Captain Hemorrhoid, the way your crew distracted us and you were able to make your escape. The truth is that you could have called your crew anytime and beamed back to your spaceship. We just made your think that your devises were not working.”
“ Yes you are very clever, but please answer a question for me? Why did you go to so much trouble to put us to the test? I told you from the start that we are a peaceful people, I also told you what our intentions were.”
“ I realize that you told us this but when we scanned your spaceship we found that you have many weapons on board. We needed to find out for ourselves if in fact you really are as peaceful a people that you claim to be. Two hundred years ago we received the transmissions from your planet and we saw the type of people humans are and this is why we did not believe what you said. We had to find out for ourselves.”
“ So what did you decide about us?”
“ From what we saw on the planet and from what we discerned from our spies on board your spaceship we are now convinced that you are indeed a peaceful people. You only have weapons to defend yourselves from the unknown. We are at this time not going to join your Federation though.”
“ Why is this?”
“ Captain we need more time to analyze what we have learned about you. We are actually what you would call xenophobic and we use our intelligence to fool other aliens beings that would come to our world. They usually find that it is a barren worthless planet and they do not stay long. In this way we do not any use form of weaponry. We just use our minds.”
The captain thought for a moment. “ I suppose there is nothing else to say then except goodbye. I don’t know if we will come back this way again. We have not explored very much of the Beta quadrant so far, so the chances are that it will be a long time before we come back.”
“ Captain our type of intelligence does not measure time the same way you do so what is a long time to you will be inconsequential to us.”
“ Tell me then before we go, do you have a name for your planet?”
“ You can call our planet ‘The Ponderosa’. We were very fond of the transmission of Bonanza, most of us really like the gentle giant ‘Hoss’, and you were right in what you asked on the planet. We do prefer your westerns to other types of entertainment.”
The captain hid a smile. “ Well goodbye for now then, it was nice meeting you Judge Hardy.”
“ Live long and prosper,” replied the alien. “ I got that from a transmission too.”
The captain turned to ensign Lid-Lidia. “ Take us to eighty-seven degrees at impulse speed and let’s go to warp factor five.”
“ Aye, Aye sir,” she replied.
“ Okay, make it happen,” he said pointing his finger.
Turning to Kazzie-Spockers he said. “ I hear you did a good job running this ship.”
“ Thankyou captain, I was just performing my duty.”
“ All I can say is well done, you helped get us out of a sticky situation.”
“ Glad I could help sir.”
“ Do you like my new command?” He said. “ Make it happen sounds good, don’t you think?”
Kazzie-Spockers looked at Beani-Poohs who shrugged her shoulders. “ Yes Captain it sounds good, I only wish I had thought of it. By the way Vulcans do not become embarrassed, you should have known by your association with Mr. Sook.”
“ You’re right I should have known, I was just having a little joke. Doctor I hear you had an interesting time on the planets surface?”
“ Interesting isn’t a word I would use. I go down there to render assistance to you and those aliens put me through hell. I’m a doctor not an Olympic athlete. Jumping over chasms and climbing up trees is not my idea of fun.”
As the doctor ranted and raved everyone had a good laugh.
* * * *
The captain was tired after all he had been through and hoped he would be able to get a good night sleep. As he brushed his teeth he noticed a small spot on his face near his temple. He hadn’t ever seen it before.
As he lay down he could feel sleep coming across him in waves, but he didn’t seem to have slept long when he awoke. According to his clock he had only been asleep three hours. He got up to splash his face and drink some water, he felt extremely thirsty. As he looked in the mirror and he saw the spot was now much larger. As he examined it more closely he noticed other spots and extra wrinkles, which were quite deep. Then he noticed his hair had gone completely grey. As he looked at his face he could see now he was much older than he looked three hours previously. He looked at least twenty years older and he could not imagine how it w
as possible. What would he do………
Star Yawns three, coming soon.
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