Why do pears...

 ...suddenly appear turn to over-ripened mush when one is least expecting it?

 I was just downstairs wandering from room to room with the phone clamped to my ear chatting to being chatted at by Indescribable. She was going on about how she took Babyzilla to the shops yesterday afternoon and bought some praline & cream icecream and cranberry & orange cookies. She ate the icecream last night (but didn't really like it) and scoffed the cookies this morning for breakfast. 
 As she gabbled on, I looked around for sustenance as I had yet to break my own fast (having spent most of the morning in the bath). The only thing I could see of slight deliciousness were three conference pears on the kitchen windowsill that were given to us by The Father from his pear tree. They'd been there for the past two weeks in the hope that the meagre Autumn sun would ripen them.
 I gently squeezed each pear, choosing the last one as it had a little "give". While my sister was prattling on, I bit into it and nearly broke my teeth! How can it still have the consistency of granite? How? It should have turned to mush by now!

 Eddie Izzard has the same problem it seems:



 There's a longer, more comprehensive video here (the pear bit starts from 4:30).
 

Graceless clod

Not me, sadly.

 Now, I was playing table tennis with The Father yesterday (don't ask), when he told me that I should loosen up a bit more. Be more fluid. Make my movements and shots more graceful as I "look like a piece of wood"!
 How very dare he! I am grace personified. Grace, elegance and poise are three words one could use to describe me. In fact, one could call me grace incarnate!

* ahem * Really?

 Shush, you! Just let him get on with his digging... 

 Hey! Anyway, I-  Oh.  Who left these here?

:

Unluckily, there was someone right where I hadn't intended to land.

"Ow!" she said as I clonked her on the elbow with Broom as I swerved at the last minute.

"Oof!" I said after hitting the trellis in the courtyard.

~

As I strode down a corridor to find Tim and Princess, they found me.

"Oof!" I said as the stretcher they were pushing bashed into my leg.

"Run!" Princess cried, bashing me again with the stretcher.

~

Oof!

* CRASH *

Drat. Sorry I've been a bit neglectful this past week or so - I've been trapped in the airing cupboard. Not in the Narnia-esque land back there (with its opening behind the hot water tank), as I had it closed off not long after I'd moved in after finding small hoof-prints and faun shit all over my best tablecloth and runner.

~

Oof!

* collapses into Sparky Malarkey and utters, with rubbish German accent *

Oh, Timothy, Timothy. Mine very own Timothy. You saved my life.

I shall never forgive you...

~

"Oof! Bugger. Who'd've thought there'd be a Cusp Interface on Cybertron?"

~

"Oof!" I fell back onto my desk, winded. "Ahh... Physical contact!" I drew myself together, transmogrifying into a fearsome dragon. "T-Bird!" I roared. "Timothy has escaped!"

~

"Oof! I think I just landed on someone" I said as I extricated myself from folds of pink taffeta.

"Not just someone" the figure said. "You've clobbered a fairy godmother! Either that or Barbara Cartland."

~

 

Oof! I'm back.

I dropped a penny the other day, turned and stooped to pick it up and accidently spun into a different universe. The one with the brown jelly babies!

:

    
 Well, I think we can clearly see who has been doing all the graceless clodding around here, eh Witchface?

 I don't know about that? It was all done in your body!

So. While those two bicker, lets watch the stunning Aljaž Skorjanec (and that Abbey Clancy, I suppose) glide handsomely beautifully around the stage.

Bookxotica

  So, here's another update of books-read-so-far-this-year. Well, I say books - there's a couple of graphic novels and two or three short stories, too. Still, I read them, so they count!
 And like last time, you don't have to take any notice of this - It's to aid my failing memory for the end of the year.
 

• The Things, by Peter Watts

• Revelation and Dust (Star Trek: The Fall), by David R. George III
• Trillions, by Nicholas Fisk

 

 

• Moon over Luna, by David R. George III
• Saga (volume one), by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
• Ex Machina (Star Trek), by Christopher L. Bennett 

 

 

• Psychic Warrior, by David Morehouse
• Smoke and Mirrors, by Neil Gaiman
• The Buried Age (Star Trek: The Lost Era), by Christopher L. Bennett

  

 

 
• Pawns of War (Star Trek: Romulans), by John Byrne
• Echoes and Refractions: The Chimes at Midnight (Star Trek: Myriad Universes), by Geoff Trowbridge
• Echoes and Refractions: A Gutted World (Star Trek: Myriad Universes), by Keith R. A. DeCandido 

 I must say, Blogger's supposedly easy picture positioning tool thingy is getting right on my nerves. It's rubbish! It doesn't postition anything easily or quickly, and I end up having to fight the HTML demons to do it the old fashioned way.

 

Babyzilla: The Time Vampire

While Uncle IDV is distracted by the camera, 
Babyzilla quickly wolfs down one of the cats.

 Oof! Sorry I haven't been around much. It seems that any free moment I've had has been intercepted by my sister Indescribable and her monstrous progeny, Babyzilla. If I haven't had to go and decorate her hall, I've had to 'zilla-sit when she comes to visit and then promptly buggers off with Inexcuseable! Honestly, that creature guzzles time like Miley Cyrus at an "it's-all-about-me" buffet. 

 Actually, I'm not being entirely fair. It hasn't all been about Babyzilla. There has been a spate of manual labour at The Parents', too. I thought all that was over, but they've recently had their garage converted into a bedroom and muggins here was tasked with decorating it! 

 Oh, and I've painted and wallpapered Inexcuseable's bedroom, too!

 Well, that's all over now (except for a modicum of upcoming garden maintenance at The Mother's request), so I plan to get back to blogging forthwith. In fact, I was just thinking about Hallowe'en: I'd better start looking at "holiday" brochures for our annual trip over the Cusp. After all, we don't want another ham-fisted adventure like this one. 

 Do you?
 

Ghost gerbil

 I thought Gerbil DeVice* was dead.

Gerbil DeVice. Dead to the world after a long day chewing cardboard loo-roll tubes.

 Turns out it was just really fast asleep. I'm glad really, as I don't want another ghost-gerbil incident...

~ cue wobbly soap opera-style flashback effect ~

 We arrive approximately 25 years ago in the family home of The Host, The Sisters DeVice and The Parents. Specifically, in the living room, upon a large, brown, corduroy settee where the aforemention Host and Sisters are sat in front of the telly:

 "But it's true!" Inexcuseable protested with more than a hint of whine in her voice (Don't worry, it was non-alcoholic, after all, she was only about eight).
 "Then why hasn't anyone but you seen it?" I asked her, scratching my arm absently. Indescribable just sat gormlessly glued to the telly, oblivious to the heated conversation going on next to her.
 "Because they lived under the piano in the dining room!" This statement could not really be argued with as the dining room was barely used what with housing the Infernal Piano of Doom and all.
 "What do you mean 'they lived'?"
 "Well" and the way she said 'well' followed by a deep breath meant that she had a long and somewhat preposterous story coming up. "I accidently dropped one of the gerbils an' it was pregant an' it exscaped into the dining room an' it went under the piano an' it had its babies an' the ones it didn't eat sucked her dry 'cos she didn't have any food to make more milk an' I couldn't catch them an' then they died an' now their little skellingtons are under the piano an' I've seen them. So there."
 My mind finished off respelling words adding punctuation marks to Inexcuseable's outburst but before I could reply, Indescribable bashed me in the ribs with her elbow. "Oi!" I yelled.
 "Shh! Telly" she muttered, rubbing the top of her leg though her rah-rah skirt and inadvertantly elbowed me again.
 I scratched the tickle on my arm again as I tried to remember what I was going to say, then an itch on my thigh distracted me further. Suddenly remembering what it was, I turned to Inexcuseable only to see her looking at me with a smug look slapped across her face. "What?" I demanded.
 "Y'know how when you kill a spider or fly or sumfing an' then afterwards the itches you get are their ghosts tormentin' you?" she answered but didn't say any more, clearly wanting an acknowledgement from me.
 "Yee-es?"
 "Well, I can prove the gerbil exscaped." My mind respelled some more.
 "Go on then!"
 "Look through the real to see the spider-ghosts" she said.
 "But we haven't killed any since finding out about their ghosts" I replied, slightly mystified.
 "Just do it!" she demanded.
 I sighed and then relented, focusing my sight through what was real and out the other side. And jumped. "Jinkies!" (we watched a lot of Scooby Doo).
 Crawling over the three of us were the faded little ghosts of two young gerbils. They scampered across our legs and over our arms, scrabbled up Indescribable's bat-wing jumper and jumped across our shoulders.   
 Breaking through her TV-induced stupor for a brief moment, still oblivious to what was happening around her, Indescribable announced: "T-Bag and the Revenge of the T-Set is on next", and we all settled down to watch the show, hoping that the irritating Sally Simpkins would get her comeuppance, and forgetting all about the fading ghostly gerbils.

~ cue an even wobblier flashforward effect ~

 Actually, after looking back, I think that's the real reason Indescribable palmed Gerbil DeVice off on me: She didn't want to deal with its little ghost! She obviously wasn't that oblivious after all.


 Bugger.
     
 

"Blasted invisible barrier! Why isn't this rodent scared of me?"

Bah!

* Yep. You won, LX!

Star Trek Six: The Uniform Discovered

While I was preparing and researching the last post on my 'Stats' page, I had a look at the 'Referring URLs' section. And lo, at number six, with 131 referred pageviews, was this site:

Star Trek Online. Specifically one of their forum pages.

To save you the bother of link-clicking, it appears my Star Trek uniform designs have been recognised! This is what the poster posted on 5th May 2011:

Okay, so browsing the forums this evening, I came across a reference to the U.S.S. Relativity uniform.. I'd forgotten what it looked like so I did a Google search, and came across these... 1, 2, 3, 4

Now, I don't know this person from Adam... but I really.. really like the look of the uniforms displayed.

So.. as a suggestion... would you guys at Cryptic maybe contact this guy? See if he'd be interested in working with you, or selling his ideas for uniforms in game?

There is much hullabaloo regarding the *lack* of 2409 Uniforms, and although I am aware that there is an announcement regarding the Jupiter uniform series, I feel that more options would be better.

Anyone else like the looks of these? And would anyone else like to see them in game?

Saith, and Jolan'tru  *

 
And this is the post that garnered the 131 pageviews:

Star Trek: Voyages That Never Were III

Again, to save your clicking-finger from wearing down to a nubbin, here are the uniform designs - in colour! - complete with 'hideous back stripe' (you'll have to read the forum for the 'hideous' reference. Don't worry, it's only two pages):

Needless to say, I haven't been contacted by anyone from Cryptic wanting to buy my designs, or work with me in adapting them for the game.


Bugger.




* Jolan tru is a greeting used by the Romulans.
 

Top 10 Searches, or: Battle of the Bulges!

In response to MJ's Top 10 Searches post, here are the top 10 not-quite-as-depraved search keywords of all time (in reverse order) that led people (and I use the term in the loosest possible term) to Inexplicable DeVice (the blog, not myselves):

10. Manticore

 Manticore infested biscuit tins must be more common than I thought?

"Ooh, I could murder a custard cream!"

9. Olympic bulges
 This must have something to do with Dinah or that chapeau de tin-foil created by Eros.


 









8. Connor Trinneer bulge
 This could be from any of a number of Trinneer-based posts - more down below (fnar fnar)!

"Bah! No one can see
my abs in this top."

7. Chris Pine naked
 See the number one visited post at Inexplicable DeVice in the section below

"Are you stalking me again, IDV?"

6. Ryan Kwanten bulge
 See the number one visited post at Inexplicable DeVice in the section below

5. Alien Queen
They must have been after MJ...

"Hisssssssssssss!"

4. Chris Pine bulge
 See the number one visited post at Inexplicable DeVice in the section below

3. Bulges
 See the number one visited post at Inexplicable DeVice in the section below

2. Jared Padalecki bulge
 See the number one visited po-  Good gods, I'm sick of writing that bloody sentence!

1. Connor Trinneer
 And here he is in all his buff and bulging glory!

"Mmmm... I'm so buff!"

"Wow! You *are* buff!"

"Sigh... And pretty, too."

Gah! I've read and typed the word 'bulge' so many times now that it has lost all meaning and looks ridiculous!

~ ~ ~

And now for the Top 3 visited posts of all time here at Inexplicable DeVice...

3. An unexpected 'guest'
 I have absolutely no idea why this post should have garnered 2,248 visits?

Just smile and look
elegant, Margo.
This nastiness will
soon be over with.

2. 2008 in review
 Well, Connor-in-his-underwear is bound to be a draw! 4,595 people can't be wrong.

"Shit! Here comes IDV again. Better hide."

1. 2009: A review
 So, here it is: The source of the 15,763 'bulge' searches. Take a bow Chris Pine, Ryan Kwanten and Jared Padalecki!

Oh, and Tim, of course!


P.S. I would have posted this on the same day that MJ did hers, but we lost the interwebs here at Castlette DeVice.

Weak

OK, I succumbed...

I didn't buy a Rheum Palmatum, which was good. Although, I did find an Angelica which I now covet.  I think I'll be going back again next weekend...

Goodbye money...

Inexcuseable wants to go to the garden centre once she gets home from work, and only because Lily's Tearoom does absolutely outstanding food (she always has a bacon & brie baguette).  I have been instructed to go with her - which I don't mind - but it means I will purchase a plant (or twelve) despite giving myselves explicit instructions not to.

Yikes! She's home. Here's my little bit of garden as it is now. In the interests of saving money, I'm hoping that it'll stay this way, but I'm not holding my breath...

EDIT, 17:02 - Well, we're back. And you'll be surprised to hear that I didn't buy any plants. Not even the gorgeous pineapple lily, or a magnificent rheum palmatum, or even the delicate and feathery albizia.

I did, however, end up paying for the three of us to go to the zoo.

Bah!

Sock it to 'em

Does anybody know how to get ghost socks out of a washing machine?*

This is totally unrelated to my
dilemma but I was entranced by
the impressive chest!

The other day, I attempted to wash Grandma DeVise's unmentionables (she's been staying with us for a little while) but couldn't get them in the machine because of all the bloody ghost socks! Initially, I sought the services of a local priest for a quick exorcism, but when I told her what I wanted exorcised she just laughed and said she didn't have time as she was visiting her mother in Cheshire. 
Then I thought of the Ghostbusters, but someone pointed out that they were fictional. Not letting something as trifling as that stop me, I hopped over the Cusp and into the Spine Tower, hoping to open the door into the Ghostbuster's universe. It was not meant to be, however, as the only novel the Ghostbusters spawned wasn't popular enough to get its own universe.
The only other option I thought of involves helping the socks move on by completing their unfinished business.  But what sort of unfinished business can a bloody sock have once it's dead? Besides, there're too many for me to even contemplate going through all that malarkey, so I gave up before I even started.

Help?



* I don't know how many that infernal machine has devoured over the years. Between it and the airing cupboard, my supply of socks has dropped to dangerously low levels.

 

Booktronica

Don't worry. You don't have to take too much notice of this. Its just a reminder for myselves so that when I come to do the end of year review, I know (at least) which books I've read this year.

So far, anyway...

• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson

• Deep Cover, by Ian Botham & Dennis Coath
• Fallen Gods (Star Trek: Titan), by Michael A. Martin

• The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

• A Stitch in Time (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), by Andrew J. Robinson

• Summon the Thunder (Star Trek: Vanguard), by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

• Harbinger (Star Trek: Vanguard), by David Mack

• Rise of the Federation: A Choice of Futures (Star Trek: Enterprise), by Christopher L. Bennett

• Waiting on a Friend, by T. J. Leng*

• What's Past: Distant Early Warning (Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers), by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

• The Stuff of Dreams (Star Trek: The Next Generation), by James Swallow

• Not the Royal Wedding, edited by Sean Hardie & John Lloyd (This was the inspiration for my Not the Royal Baby post).

• The Candle Man, by Alex Scarrow

• Allegiance in Exile (Star Trek: The Original Series), by David R. George III

• Calvin & Hobbes: Scientific Progress Goes "Boink", by Bill Watterson

• The Struggle Within (Star Trek: Typhon Pact), by Christopher L. Bennett

• Cold Equations: The Body Electric (Star Trek: The Next Generation), by David Mack

 



* Yes, he's written a book! Well, a novella, really. And it's good, too.  You should buy it.

w-w-w-WOW! Not the Royal Baby excerpts

w-w-w-WOW! Not the Royal Baby edition

Click to embiggen

Tune in later in the week for an exclusive look inside this lavish, access-all-areas, official souvenir magazine of Not the Royal Baby, brought to you by w-w-w-WOW!

 

A name or art in the past?

Absolutely divine! I love this track so much. September cannot come quickly enough.

Star Trek: Voyages That Never Were V

Continued from... Star Trek: The Voyages That Never Were IV

OK. So, a little over two years ago I said I probably wouldn't do any more of these Voyages That Never Were posts as I didn't think I had anything left of worth to show. However, while searching for a cartoon I drew several years back, I found a few sketches of aliens that I thought I might share. Although, after you've seen them, you may agree with two-year-ago-me that they're not worthy...

After I'd drawn the starships and uniforms, I needed a crew to fill them. So, along with the usual humanoid races like the Trill, Betazoids and Vulcans, I set about creating some others...

This somewhat mermaid/man-like alien I called a Ssillaarii. I was going for some kind of serpent look, but it ended up looking like a man in a costume - OK for an actual TV show where it probably would be played by a man in a cheap rubber suit, but not OK for a realistic alien. Which is why I then produced these sketches (below) which, I think, are more natural-looking:
A hammerhead shark-like head, several limbs attached to its upper torso, and a long serpents tail complete with a fin on the end. This Ssillaarii would be a science officer on board whichever ship took my fancy at the time.


The alien in the upper & lower centre of the picture, and in the lower right, is an insectoid species called a Rane. Roughly the size of a human, she would look quite frightening, but would actually be very friendly and an excellent doctor.

This small, winged humanoid started off as quite unremarkable, as you can see in the sketch. However, like the Ssillaarii, I didn't want an alien that looked like a human with wings, and ended up redesigning her to be far more bat-like. Although named on the sketch as a Matarii, I eventually gave that name to a monstrous race of fairy-like aliens. Instead, her species is called the Yattho (the mentioned but not seen race of precognitive aliens from the Voyager episode "Before and After"). 

Ignore Deanna Troi and her crowned companion, I'm more interested in Stick-head on the right. I have no idea what race he's from, but I just like that he looks like Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy!



Oh, look! I've found the cartoon I was after, so I don't need to post any more alien sketches. You may all breathe a sigh of relief.

Cusp Trek VI: The Underused Crew

USS Cafe C 
Dorset Sector

 Beast sat up in his chair as a flunkie brought him his tea and placed it on the little table before him. It had been a long afternoon cataloguing gaseous chick pea curry-related anomalies and he was more than ready for something to eat. 
 Just as he was about to shove a forkful of sausage and beans into his mouth, a rattling sound distracted him. The rattle was coming from in front of him. He looked at his plate of greasy food and was alarmed to see it slowly shaking its way across the glass-topped table.
 "What the...?" he uttered, now feeling the entire decking shaking.
 "Oh, cripes!" Lieutenant Scarlet gasped behind him.
 Turning to the communications station, Beast asked her: "What?"

BANG!

 "Something exploded, Captain, and we're about to be hit by the shockwave. Hold on! Oh, and stop waving your little sausage at me!"
 Stunned at Lieutenant Scarlet's outburst, Beast looked down at his zipped-up fly then looked blank for a moment before noticing that he was still holding his fork up complete with a small sausage speared on its tines. "Oh. Yes. Sorry" he mumbled before turning to his helmsman and ordering him to turn the ship into the wave.
 After an awful lot of shaking, crewmen careering haphazardly across the bridge and someone turning the lights off and on again several times to make it even more dramatic, the starship settled once more.
 "Where did that come from?" Beast asked, incredulous.
 "The shockwave originated from the vicinity of the Infomaniac Oubliette, Captain."
 "The Oubliette? That's the DragKlingon's key innuendo producing facility. Confirm."
 "I can confirm the location of the Oubliette, but not its existance" Lieutenant Scarlet answered. "Do we report this, sir?"
 "Are you kidding?"

USS Enterprise-A 
Denmark Sector

 "Well?" CyberPetra demanded from the captain's chair.
 "Cor, let me get out of the lift first, Chekov" I said, somewhat exasperated, before barging past Cardboard Cut-out Spock and stomping down the steps from the turbolift and into the command well. "I can't find him."
 "You obviously didn't look hard enough, then."

Plastic "no tackle" Tim
(& cronies)

Feeling a
little flat?

 "I'm a doctor, not a private investigator!" I snapped back. "I did find these, though" and from my back pockets produced an OFFICIAL SPARKY TIM CUT OUT 'N KEEP ACTIONLESS FIGURE and a Plastic "no tackle" Tim. "The real Tim's not on the ship, I know that much. He's probably doing his stupid yoga somewhere hot and humid."
 "Girls, girls" Roses teased from her post at the corrallerallerer station.
 'Petra and I narrowed our eyes at her but she didn't take any notice. Rather, she just lit up a cigarette and put her feet up on her console while Princess attempted to stifle a snigger from her seat at the helm.
 "I don't know why you're laughing, Lieutenant Valeris" 'Petra said turning back to face the front. "You've got to pilot us out of spacedock."
 "Preferably in one piece" I added.
 Princess scowled and started the engines. "Clearing all moorings" she announced then almost stalled. The entire bridge crew stopped what they were doing and stared at her as she fumbled with the controls, trying not to let the engines cut-out. "Stop it!" she shrieked. "You know what'll happen if you all look at me-"

The real Kim Cattrall?

 Suddenly she was silent. Instead of a living, breathing, screaming Vulcan Australian steering the ship, a mannequin looking not unlike Kim Cattrall's whory old dummy*, sat motionless at her console.
 "Everyone stop looking" 'Petra sighed. Reluctantly, we averted our gaze and after a few moments, Princess returned to her normal state.
 "Look" she said, turning to face me, "when I signed on for another Cusp Trek adventure, I didn't think I'd inherit my character's original actress's previous role's curse."
 "Neither did I" I admitted. "Although, we are over the Cusp so what else did you expect?" Princess just huffed and crossed her arms. "Oh, remember you're supposed to be piloting us out of spacedock..."
 Instantly, Princess turned back to her console and flailed at the controls, turning the Enterprise just in time to narrowly miss hitting the edge of the retracted spacedoors.
 "Strewth! That was close" she admitted. Everyone else just breathed a collective sigh of relief and unclenched their arses.
 Roses was the first person to speak. "Right" she said, her crash-anxiety almost gone. "We'd better get a move on if we're going to be on time for this dinner with the DragKlingons."
 "I want everyone on their best behaviour" Commander 'Petra ordered. "You know how touchy they are about the destruction of their Oubliette."
 "Oh, yes. Perhaps some Romulan Ale will make the evening go more smoothly?" Princess suggested.
 "Are you quite mad?!" 'Petra asked, aghast. "I'm not drinking blue Kool-Aid! We'll have champagne, and that's that."

A little while later, after we'd rendezvoused with the DragKlingon vessel, Infomaniac One, and invited its crew aboard, we were all sitting around the dining table getting hideously drunk.

Yum! Plastic baby sperm whale...

 "An' tha's how yo' tell a Terrelian fro' a Tarellian" Cookie slurred with a filthy grin on his face.
 "Buuuuh-Urrrrp!" exclaimed Ms. Nations and took another gulp of champagne.
 "Ah wouldn' mind if it wa' one o' those four-armed Terellians" said Eros salaciously.
 "Buurrrrrrrr- *hic* -urrrp!" agreed Ms. Nations.
 LX tried to fork a hardboiled Klingon egg on his dinner plate but, rather vexingly, it kept leaping in and out of focus.
 "General Chang" Roses began with only a slight slur, "tha's 'n impressive crest."
 Touching her hand (the one that wasn't clutching a bottle of Jameson's) to her gnarled and wrinkled forehead, MJ attempted a smile but failed and grimaced instead. "An' that's an equally 'pressive 'do" she said, the enormous crest knocking pictures off the walls as she turned her head to face Roses. "I'll 'ave to gerra picshur for the Hair Hall of Fame before we go."
 Suddenly, LX stood up and grabbed the edge of the table to stop himself swaying too much.
 "I offer some toast" he said raising his glass and sloshing Champagne all over the place. "The underused crew... The fu..." And with that, he very slowly fell over head first into a bowl of half-eaten plastic sperm whales (see the last paragraph of the Romulan Ale article as linked to above).
 "Shit" MJ sighed. "Gorkon never could hold his drink. C'mon you guys. Azetbur, Kerla, we're off."
 "Well, this was fun" I said.
 "Mm" 'Petra agreed taking another sip of Champagne. "We must do it again some time."

 In the transporter room, Princess looked up as the doors whooshed open and rolled her eyes at the carnage before her.
 "Good grief!" she exclaimed as MJ and Cookie staggered in supporting a comatose-looking LX. Ms. Nations crawled after them closely followed by Eros and myself, with Roses and 'Petra bringing up the rear.
 "Stand aside, lassie" Eros said to Princess, trying to shoo her away from the transporter controls as he used them to pull himself to his feet.

Princess gets wrapped up in her work

 "No way, Captain Scott! You're so drunk you'll beam them into the centre of a planet. I'll do it." And she scooped up her sewing from the console and handed it to MJ. "Here are your new costumes." MJ looked at them in horror. "I had to make them out of old curtains as you wouldn't stump up for new fabric."
 Before MJ could complain, Princess mashed the transporter keyboard with her palm, beaming the DragKlingons over to Infomaniac One. 
 "Drat! I forgot to get the recipe for those new poutine torpedoes from Brigadier Kerla" I grumbled. "Beam me over, would you?"
 With an enormous sigh, Princess obliged and I found myself materialising on board the DragKlingon's starship. 

IKS Infomaniac One
Canada sector

 The first thing I heard was someone throwing their guts up. The next was "look out!". I stepped back just in time to avoid being sprayed by purple puke.

LX/Gorkon after one too many Romulan Ales

 Across the room, LX lay on a table, wiped out after projectile vomiting.
 "Did... Did I win yet?" he whispered before passing out.
 Suddenly the ship lurched and the stars outside the portholes stretched out. We'd gone to warp. And probably with some pissed DragKlingon at the helm.
 "Look, can you stop this thing so the Enterprise can pick me up?" I asked MJ.
 "I doubt it" she replied. "Azetbur has locked herself in on the bridge and you know what she's like when she's had a few."
 I had to agree. "Well, just drop me off when you pass the next planet, then."

USS Enterprise-A
In orbit of "Rear Port"
(a DragKlingon penile colonoscopy haemorrhoid in Canada Sector)

 "I've picked up his lifesigns, Commander" Roses announced to 'Petra.
 "On screen."
 The image on the viewscreen changed from that of stars to one of two figures kneeling in snow near a camp fire. Each one appeared to be holding a doll or effigy and were articulating them around in an approximation of life-like movement.
 "Zoom in" 'Petra ordered, curious as to what he was seeing. "What are they saying? Isn't there any sound?" he whined.
 "Nah. I think the external microphone's broken" Roses replied as she re-focused the sensors. The viewscreen suddenly filled with the two figures, one of whom was IDV. "Well, there's Doctor McCoy."
 "Yes, but who's the girl?" 'Petra asked. "And are they..." he squinted at the screen. "Are they holding mini-Tims?"
 "Good grief, they are! McCoy's got an OFFICIAL SPARKY TIM CUT OUT 'N KEEP ACTIONLESS FIGURE and the girl has a plastic 'No-Tackle' Tim doll. They're playing with them."
 "Wait" Princess said. "I believe I can make out what they're saying."
 "How? Can you lip read?"
 "No. But due to my inanimate mannequin-half, I can understand what the inanimate mini-Tims are saying to each other."

On the frozen arsteroid below...     

 "I can't believe I kissed you" an awed OFFICIAL SPARKY TIM CUT OUT 'N KEEP ACTIONLESS FIGURE said.
 "Must have been your lifelong ambition" the sexily arrogant plastic 'No-Tackle' Tim doll replied.
 The two effigies stared longingly into each other's eyes as the tingle of the transporter beam washed over them and their flesh-and-blood manipulators.

In the transporter room aboard the Enterprise...

  "That was quite a sordid little fantasy you two were re-enacting down there" 'Petra said with a hint of jealousy.
 "Hmmmph" I muttered.
 "So" he said turning to my companion, "who are you supposed to be?"
 "I'm Tara."
 "I'm sorry, what did you say your name is?"
 "Umm... Martia?"
 "That's better. Much more becoming this farcical scenario we find ourselves in, don't you think? Why, it even uses the same letters as 'I'm Tara'!"
 "I suppose" Tara pondered. "Hey, am I still married to David Bowie?"
 "I don't know?" 'Petra answered, then turned to the rest of us. "Someone google that" he ordered.
 "Christ!" Princess whispered to me. "This 'captaining' has gone to his head. Who does she think she is?"
 "Why do you think he only had cameos in all the previous instalments?" I whispered back.
 "So, what happens now?"
 "I don't know. This has all turned into a bit of a shambles. The storyline's unravelling faster than a magic carpet snagged on a Scots pine!"
 "Actually, now that you mention it, I was going to ask why I had to make those curtain-uniforms for MJ."
 "Well, she's playing General Chang who was originally portrayed by Christopher Plummer, who, as I'm sure you know, played Captain Georg von Trapp in The Sound of Music. So, that was going to lead on to-  Shit!" I suddenly blurted out.
 "What?" Princess asked.

SURPRISE!

 "We haven't done MJ's 'reveal'!"
 "Oh. But everyone knows she's really an Alien Queen by now."
 "Do they?!" I almost screeched.
 "Of course" Princess soothed. "Even if they'd forgotten (because it's been nearly three years since the last Cusp Trek), the fact that her massive crest kept knocking pictures off the wall in the dining room whenever she moved her head was a big giveaway. That and all the drool..."
 "You're sure? I don't want to have to go back and fit in more explanation and such-like."
 "Positive. Besides, no one except Tim really reads this guff, and he's not even here!"
 "Fine" I snapped. "Let's just get this over with.  Roll credits!"   
 

Starring (in order of appearance):

Sulu - Beast

Janice Rand - Miss Scarlet
Chekov - 'Petra

'Bones' McCoy - IDV

Spock - a Cardboard Cut-out
Kirk - OFFICIAL SPARKY TIM CUT OUT N KEEP ACTION FIGURE & Plastic "no tackle" Tim

Uhura - Roses 

Valeris - Princess
Kerla - Cookie

Azetbur - First Nations

Scotty/Trip - Eros

Gorkon - LX

And special guest star:

Chang/Hideous Alien Queen - MJ

* Tim, rather rudely, proclaimed that Kim Cattrall was a "whory old dummy" here.