Too Much Time On Their Hands

Posted on Sat Sep 30th, 2017 @ 7:08pm by Senior Chief Petty Officer Gareb Endilev

Mission: A Day in the Life
Location: Secret As Guidelines of Bluebacks
Timeline: Current

Authors: Mad Black, Senior Chief Petty Officer Gareb Endilev and a stack of npc's


Everyone was crowded into the backroom of one of the empty shops, not that they were likely to be caught since Riley Franks father had all the passcodes, and it had been very easy for Riley to acquire the one he wanted. Standing on the top of a workbench, he gazed out at the members of the Bluebacks. All one hundred and seventy-eight of them were here, that was one of the rules. All wore the blue shoe on their left foot, only their left foot, and while most of them were teenagers, some cadets, mostly civilian, others were adults who wanted a little fun.

"Tonight we break the General Turbolift Record for getting the most number of bodies into a General Turbolift. Which means a turbo lift that carries people. USS Bonnells Bay recorded on the news network, via our secret reporter, that they got forty-six people, but our GTL's are larger, so doing the maths, we need to get ninety-nine people or more. We've picked one of the more quieter GTLs number 17, so we're going to split up and use the transporters..." He held up a Station Maintenance card to everyone. "To beam to 17, where we'll lock it in place and using an Engineering pass." He held up another identification pass. "We're going to smash BB and send their TL through the bottom of their ship. Now we need to have all ninety-nine or more people in the lift for seventeen minutes for it to be valid. Toby, you'll be filming it, remember to film everything but the faces, we need to be able to count the pairs of legs. If no one has any of those stupid questions they ask at the command or department head meetings, let's go."

Gareb was fresh from his lunch, halfway on the station and half in the past. He walked along in his daze until he heard a rather large and excited crowd forming around the turbo lift. "Wonder what's going on?" He decided to go ahead and get over there to see.

Pushed forward Gareb was almost thrown onto the transporter pad, and beamed along with the rest to the turbo lift.

"Hey man, where's your blue shoe?" One of the others asked as Riley swiped the access card, the GTL appearing seconds later, doors opening. Dragged into the flow, Gareb was pulled, pushed into the turbo lift, which was rapidly filling beyond capacity and began to groan and creak. There were too many people for him or anyone else to escape, as two female cadets used him as a ladder to create a second layer.

"Go up! Go up! Go up! Go up! Go up! Go up! Go up! Go up!" The people inside the turbolift began to chant. Going up was the only way they could go. "Go up! Go up! Go up! Go up! Go up! Go up! Go up! Go up! Go up! Go up! Go up! Go up!" All of a sudden the turbolift began to slip, alarms sounded, the door tried to close, but only managed to go several inches, before she slipped further down the shaft, drawing people in with it and throwing people outwards, before the grav stops gave way, with far too much weight inside. Screams could be heard as alarms went off in Operations, Engineering Station Maintenance and DCE. People inside the lift were thrown around as the turbolift built up speed and continued to drop. What began as fun was now terror. With no grav stops there was only two ways to stop the out of control lift.

"So which is it?" One of Maintenance's people asked one of DCE's. "Do we attempt a beam or do we bring up the big guns?"

"I'd stay the stopper."
"I'm for the stopper."
"Stopper."
"Stopper"

"Stopper it is." One of Maintenance's people used the ship's computer to bring up the solid block the size of a General People carrying turbolift, guiding it into the correct shaft and clearing all other turbolifts, as the stopper moved up from the turbolift holding center towards the downward speeding turbolift. "Going to be a hard bump."

"More than a bump." Someone else announced.

"If they were stupid enough to pile in like they did, they can't blame anyone else. I'm trying to slow the TL, but it's not responding."

"It's too heavy, grav stops have gone, stopper and TL will meet on Deck 1639."

"I'm overriding the nearest TL to our location to take us two decks above, just in case we have a major collision which affects the shafts, last thing we want is to need rescuing ourselves." Bundling into the TL next to the one that was plunging downward, they stopped at 1637 and got out. Opening the doors of the lift in trouble, as the stopper stood solid in it's path and waited. "Sixty seconds."

"Are we calling medical?"

"I say we wait and see what mess we've got, it'll be a rough stop but broken bones should be all we get. They can walk to medical, we're going to have to clean up the mess."

"Sounds reasonable." Someone else agreed.

The collision between the two echoed through all shafts, the stopper, bringing the overweight TL to a sudden, rough stop, but there was no bounce and no damage to the shaft or the adjoining shaft wall. Climbing out and onto the shaft ladder embedded into the shaft, allowing the TL's to travel freely. Reaching the top of the overweight L, they opened the roof top escape panel and gazed down at the mess. Twisted mangled people were in all sorts of positions.

"So who's going down?"

"Paper Rock Scissors?"

The two losers climbed into the TL straight on top of the pile, reaching under armpits and pushing people up towards the ladder and those above.

"Hey that's my boob." A female voice complained when a foot made contact.

"Then you should remind yourself of that fact next time you're being so bloody stupid. Turbolift's don't like this much weight." An unsympathetic Maintenance worker stated pushing her none to gently towards the ladder. "Climb!"

"My arm hurts."

"It's still attached, so either use it to climb or get out of the way and let some one else climb."

"Get out of the way Colleen, I want out of here." Riley pushed her out of the way and into the wall, as he reached for the ladder.

It took more than forty minutes for them to get everyone out, before sending the stopper and the TL slowly back to the Turbolift Holding Center. "We're going to have to replace the grav stops."

"Then we might as well do it now." One DCE stated.

"We're going to have to check the stopper and that TL." Maintenance stated. "Do you want the grav stops and we'll do the stopper and the TL?"

"Sounds like a plan." Another DCE answered.

"It's a wonder we're not combined."

"Who says we can't be. We just both turn up at the same events."

"I think someone will need to address the CEO. Let's suggest it to our separate bosses and let them take it up the chain. Gotta do it by the book."

"Fair enough, let's text them."

"Done. Now we're off to the Turbolift Holding Center."