Fantasy Making of a Starship Captain

Taylor took a breath, and activate the drive.

The ship thundered with power.

"It worked! Sarah, it worked!" Taylor cried.

Taylor was speaking to the Indomitable over the holocom.

"I repaired the drive, using the control circuits from the weapons array."

"Using the control circuits from the weapon's array?" said Captain Willowby of the Indomitable. "That's impossible."

Taylor smiled and spread his hands, as if to say, "Look, it's happening." Then he said, "But first I had to deal with the Ramadhan Corsairs."

"The Ramadhan Corsairs?"

"Didn't I mention that? We were attacked and boarded by pirates, ha ha," said Taylor. He had been doing more and more of that lately. Laughing at odd moments, just like Stratford. Was he starting to get the sickness?

"No you didn't mention that."

"Well sir, we were boarded by pirates. But don't worry, Mark Stratford and I took care of them. And then I blew up both of their ships."

"You, alone, blew up two Ramadhan Corsairs?"

Taylor nodded, smiling happily. "The first one was easy! Embarrassingly so. But the second one was harder. Don't worry, sir, The Charleston didn't get a scratch on her!"

Willowby gave Taylor a concerned look. "Ensign, tell me again, how many other people are there left on your ship who are not incapacitated by the virus?"

"Well, let's see," said Taylor, concentrating. "There's Mark Stratford, who works in the kitchen. And then there's... there's...." For some reason, he was having difficulty thinking. "I think that's everyone, sir!"

"So you, running the ship entirely alone, repelled a pirate boarding party, and destroyed two warships?"

"Yes sir," said Taylor. "Sorry I haven't had time to write a report yet. I've been busy fixing the engines."

"I see," said Captain Willowby, and even Taylor could see that Willowby didn't fully believe him. "Taylor, I can see how tough this has been on you. But we're going to rendezvous in four days. Just hang on."

"Yes sir," Taylor grinned.

Captain Hauslohner had his pants off and his ass facing his mirror when Taylor entered with his meal. "Do you ever wonder why our asses are so big, Taylor?"

"All the time, sir!" said Taylor. He was no longer humoring Hauslohner. Something in him was changing. He was actually starting to find Hauslohner amusing. He was actually starting to find everything amusing.

"It started with the apes," said Hauslohner, wiggling his ass in front of the mirror. "They used their asses to establish dominance. The bigger ones sat on the smaller ones, until they yielded their women. Gradually they learned not to mess with the monkeys with the big ass cheeks."

"I wouldn't either, sir," said Taylor, grinning.

"The cave men did it too. They sat on the women so they couldn't get away, while their penises recharged between rounds of intercourse," said Hauslohner.

"Fascinating, sir! How do you know all this?"

"I've always made assology a pet study of mine," said the Captain. He turned to the mirror again, "Tell it true, Taylor. Is this the ass of a Captain?"

Taylor stared at Hauslohner's big, flabby ass. "Definitely, sir." He turned to go, his sandwich having been delivered.

"Wait!" Hauslohner cried. "Is it the ass of a Captain of a destroyer? Of a cruiser? Or merely a frigate captain's ass?"

Taylor scrutinized Hauslohner's big, sagging ass and thought hard. "Sir, I'd say that's an admiral sized ass."

"Thank you, Taylor!" said Hauslohner, and the look of gratitude on the Captain's face was priceless. Taylor felt really good about himself.

"They totally misinterpreted the Bible," said Doctor McCrae, as Taylor delivered two sandwiches to him. Doctor McCrae still thought he was God. "They even got the biggest one wrong. Thou shall not kill. I never said that!"

"You didn't?" Taylor said.

"No! That was a typographical error."

"A typographical error, Doctor?" Taylor laughed. McCrae didn't seem to notice.

"Of course!" said McCrae. "I gave you guys hands! What did you think I thought you would do with them? Knitting? Of course there would be killing! It's a natural part of the species, an evolutionary winnowing out of the lesser of the breed!"

"But the Bible says-"

"A transcription error! It should actually read, 'Thou Shall Not Grill.'!"

"Thou Shall Not Grill?"

"One of the most unhealthiest things you can do! Grilling fills food with deadly carcinogens! This was before we had perfected nuclear grills. They used charcoal varieties, and gave themselves cancer. I tried to warn them, but did they listen? No! What did they do? They grilled relentlessly! It's a good thing they ignored the mistranscribed rule entirely. At least people continued to kill each other. Can you imagine a world at peace?"

"No, that would be really bizarre," Taylor laughed.

"They got nearly everything wrong," McCrae fumed. "Here's another rule, totally misinterpreted. 'Thou shall not covet your neighbor's wife.' People took it to mean that they couldn't covet anyone's wife," said McCrae.

"It doesn't mean that?"

"No!" McCrae looked outraged. "I was speaking literally. Don't covet your neighbor's wife! If he finds out, he'll get really angry! But if, say, you live some distance away from the woman you're having an affair with, well, that's all right, as long as you're both discreet. Her husband is much less likely to find out about it."

Taylor laughed. It was all so funny to him.

But McCrae wasn't done. Far from it. "Another thing--people keep killing each other because of different religions. The last page of the Bible provides a list of the approved religions, and the unapproved ones, but no one pays attention to them! And then, when they pray to me in the wrong religions, it only makes me madder and madder! I mean--Laquinta? The God of Blood? Come on! What the fuck is that all about?"

Taylor chuckled, but that only seemed to encourage McCrae.

"Or to believe in Aura, an environmental goddess? A goddess? Since when did I grow a set of tits and a pussy? And the Equalitarians are almost as bad. They covet everyone else's shit. I clearly told them not to covet their neighbor's possessions, but they ignore it, like the assholes they are. One day I'm going to use my Godly powers and give them all giant moles on their faces."

Taylor laughed again.

"But the biggest thing that annoys me is that people no longer pray to me," said McCrae. "Oh, they pray in my name, but they have built a new religion on top of my own. They call it social justice. They say, in my name, that it's evil to drill for natural resources, or to cut down trees and build farms or houses or factories. How dumb is that? It's evil to mine uranium? Why do these idiots think I put uranium in the ground in the first place? Why do they think I created millions of square miles of fertile soil? For fun? For amusement? For birds and squirrels? No, it was for people, for people to use and live on."

"But the social justice types don't get it. They think they are sinning just by breathing air and going to the bathroom. They really do! They use my name in horrid ways, to recommend people go back to living like cavemen. I'd like to see them do it, to get naked and walk around totally bare assed in a cave! They wouldn't last a day without bras, or sonic ass cleaners, or an extra large pack of nuclear tampons."

McCrae's eyes were as wide as saucers. He truly believed he was God. Taylor should have been worried for him, but he wasn't. It was all a joke to him now.

"And whoever wrote that I didn't like idols? I love idols!" said McCrae. "I want a giant 500 foot tall statue of myself, in every major city on earth, made of impenetrable durasteel, with my hands wide out, having me standing on a big pedestal and holding a giant flaming sword! I want people all around the world getting down on their knees and worshiping me day in and day out! That's what being a God is all about Michael! And yet, when you look, how many statues of me are there on Earth, Michael, how many?'

"Not too many, I think,"

"None at all. They have a giant monument to equality. An even larger one in the shape of a nuclear tampon. And a giant earth fist as a tribute to Mama Earth. I created that bitch, Michael, they should be making statues of me!"

"Well, when we get back to Earth, you can tell them that!"

"I will!" said McCrae, his eyes blazing.

"Hey, bro!"

Chief Ashanti was all smiles, now that she thought that Taylor was her half brother. She was much more talkative now, especially in her hallucinogenic state.

"I know nothing about engineering, you know," Ashanti confessed as Taylor served her lunch. She held nothing back now. None of them did. The virus removed all inhibitions. Ashanti smiled as she enjoyed the reaction on Taylor's face.

"I was an enlisted crewman. The Survey Service felt pressure to diversify the officer ranks, so they gave me special engineering courses, and then gave me a field promotion and made me an officer."

"I had heard that," said Taylor. Mark Stratford had told him that part of it

She leaned forward, and tickled him under the chin. "But did you also hear that I failed my exams? All of them?"

Taylor looked surprised.

Ashanti cackled and wiggled her legs. "Oh, man, you should see the look on your face, Mikey!"

"But... if you failed your exams, why did they-"

"Promote me? They were under heavy, heavy pressure from the World Government. The World Government found out that only 4% of Survey Service engineers were black women, and decided the proper percentage was 12% The WG was threatening to withhold funding if the Survey Service didn't do better," said Ashanti. She bit down on an apple. "At first, at first it didn't matter. They sent me on a speaking tour, to go to schools around the globe, in my fancy officer's uniform. I told little girls who looked like me that they could succeed, just as I did! Oh, what an inspiration I was to the little sistas, Mikey, you should have seen it! But even that didn't satisfy the WG. They said that I didn't count as a black woman engineer for their quota unless I was actually doing some black, woman engineering."

Ashanti laughed hysterically and clapped her hands together. "And so... they put me on the Thunderstorm, as deputy engineer. I think I lasted... four days there. I had no idea what the fuck I was doing! So then they gave me some desk work, until they figured out the solution."

"Which was?"

"To promote me, of course! Once I got my half braid, I became Chief Engineer, as you see me now." She held out her arms triumphantly.

"But... if you know nothing about Engineering-"

"Not a thing," Ashanti said happily.

"Then how do you-"

"Ensign Fisher," said Ashanti.

"Ensign Fisher?"

"The mousey white guy! Ever notice him in Engineering some times? He's the guy. The real engineer who fixes things. Me and Velma and Shannen, all we do is play Space Hearts all day." She clapped her hands and laughed. "Oh, the expression on your face is priceless, Mikey!"

Taylor didn't know whether to believe her. He didn't think the Survey Service would make an unqualified person Chief Engineer, even to satisfy the World Government's dictates.... or would it?

"Did I ever tell you how I got my half braid?" Missy Burns grinned at him, even as she lay back exhausted in her bunk.

"No," said Taylor, opening his sandwich bag. "But I have a feeling I 'm about to find out."

"I started as an Ensign on the Arleigh Burke, and I was as wet behind the ears as you are now," she grinned at him. "I wasn't very good at... the science stuff, you know?"

"I can guess."

She grinned at him. "So after a while, I noticed all my friends were getting promoted, and I wasn't. So I went to speak to the Captain."

"What did he say?"

Missy grinned. "He said if I wanted a promotion, I had to earn it."

"And did you?" Taylor asked.

Missy nodded, and her grin went wide. "On my back. Oh, Captain Tolliver was quite a fuck! I enjoyed it almost as much as he did. He said I was even better than his wife! Michael, he fucked me and he fucked me and he fucked me, and before long I became Lieutenant Missy Burns!"

"That's moving up in the ranks," said Taylor, laughing. "So did he make you a Lieutenant Commander eventually?"

"No," said Missy. "After fucking him blind for another year, he still wouldn't promote me again. I asked him why. He told me that being a good fuck only earned a Lieutenant's rank."

"So what did you do?"

"I transferred, of course! When I got here, I found Captain Hauslohner much more amenable to upwards mobility for his junior officers." She grinned at him.

"So you slept with him and he promoted you?"

Missy nodded. "I had to suck his dick every day for six months." She made a face. "His cum was slimy, and tasted weird. It was from all that fish he eats, I think. I complained about it, but he told me that 'a good Survey Service commander always swallows' and 'in the Survey Service, we don't leave cum behind', and so I did."

"And then he promoted you?"

"Eventually. I had to do other things for him too. Sometimes he liked to use all three holes. He said it made me 'a well rounded officer'." She laughed, and it was contagious, and so Mike laughed as well. "And that's why I'm the only supply officer who's a Lieutenant Commander in the entire Survey Service!"

"So what's next? How do get to be a full commander?" Taylor asked.

"I'm not sure," said Missy, putting a finger in her mouth. "I'd have to find someone open minded in the admiralty, I think."

Taylor entered Nurse Temple's quarters to find her completely naked, and staring at her vagina in horror. "What is this? What's happening to me?" She said, clearly distressed.

"Take it easy," said Taylor. He had her sit down, and tried to cover her with a blanket. But Nurse Temple pushed it away. "No! This is not my body!"

"What do you mean?" Taylor asked.

"This!" She said, pointing to her pubic hair. "I have someone else's body!"

"Why do you think that?"

"Are you blind, man?" She said. She touched the hair on her head. "What color is this?"

"Blonde," said Taylor.

Then she touched her pubic hair with her other hand. "And what color is this?"

"Brown," said Taylor.

"Someone's done something to my body! They came in the night while I was sleeping, and switched my body with someone else's! Mike you have to help me!"

Taylor tried to calm her down as best he could. He gave her a sedative hypo, which he carried with him for the more hysterical cases. Once she was calmer, he encouraged her to eat. Then he told her that he would do his best to find her missing body.

The Charleston was being pursued.

Taylor could see the blips on the long range sensors. They were Ramadhan Corsairs, three of them. The Charleston's weapons were no longer operational, as Taylor had had to use their control circuits to make the engines work again.

"What are we going to do?" Mark Stratford asked.

Taylor did a quick series of calculations. The Corsairs would intercept them almost twenty hours before they were to rendezvous with the Indomitable. Help would not arrive in time.

He checked the sensors. The Magellan Smaller Cloud was nearby, and was almost parallel to their course. They were skirting along the edges of it because of the Cloud's potential to interfere with ship's systems... as well as their sensors.

The answer was obvious. Taylor changed course immediately.

"But Mike, we're supposed to meet up with the Indomit... Indomit... Indomitable," said Mark, laughing. "You should contact them."

"No, I don't want to tip the raiders off to what we're doing."

"But... they won't be able to find us in the cloud."

"Not to worry," said Taylor. "We'll go into the cloud and come out precisely at the point which is closest to the Indomitable's flight path."

"You can do that? You can compute that reliably?"

"Sure! I am brilliant! I am a genius! This is very easy work for a genius of my super genius caliber, my friend!" Taylor said, smiling broadly. "Do not worry, my friend!"

Mark laughed. "Do you see me worrying?"

Mark was becoming more and more affected. He was becoming less and less diligent about preparing meals, and was more easily distracted. Taylor felt it too, an odd giddiness at times, and an inappropriate desire to laugh and to think things were funny. He had thought he was immune to the virus, but apparently he wasn't. And if he got incapacitated, there would be no one to take care of the others.

He tried to drive that thought out of his mind, and continued maintaining the ship, and delivering meals to the crew.

"I'm not really Missy," Missy grinned at him as he delivered lunch one day.

"Of course you're not," Mike agreed, snickering.

"No," she said, reaching out to grab his wrist. "I'm not Missy Burns. I'm Michelle Burns."

"What?" said Taylor.

"We're identical twins, Missy and I. I enrolled in the Academy, but Missy took the entrance exam, not me. And when I got here, Missy came by periodically and took all the exams for me."

Taylor's eyes narrowed. He was very tired and Missy, or Michelle, if that was really her name, wasn't making much sense. "What? Really?"

Missy (who might really be Michelle) nodded. "I wanted to join the Survey Service more than anything. To see the stars, you know, and to have adventures."

Michael's tired brain tried to process this. "So your sister... who you say is your identical twin sister.... took the entrance exam, and periodically came to the Academy and took all your other exams for you as well."

"You got it!" Missy laughed.

"Why would she do that?" Taylor asked.

"Let's just say I did Missy a really big favor," said Missy, rolling her eyes.

"What kind of favor?" Taylor asked.

"Hunter Swenson."

"What kind of favor is a Hunter Swenson?"

"The kind who marries my sister," said Missy (Michelle?), laughing out loud.

"How did you persuade someone named Hunter Swenson to marry your sister?"

"Missy was craaaazy for him in high school. Her first love and all that. She wanted him. Wouldn't take no for answer."

"So?'

"Hunter gave her no for an answer," she answered promptly. "Wouldn't even look at her. He was seeing some skirt named Melissa Chamwell."

"So what did you do?"

"I impersonated Missy, seduced Hunter, fucked him blind, made him fall in love with me-"

"And once he was hooked, your sister came in and took your place?"

"Precisely!" said Missy, cackling wildly.

"So... you impersonated your sister to seduce a husband for her, and she impersonated you to get you into the Survey Service."

"Uh huh," Missy smiled, putting a finger in her mouth and looking like a very, very bad girl.

"But... when you got your first posting, you knew nothing about shipboard procedures, right? How did you keep from being discovered?" Taylor asked.

Missy waved a hand dismissively. "Missy and I worked it all out. As Missy said to me, "Michelle, you don't know a hyperspanner from hyperspace. But you sure know how to fuck! Fuck your Captain's brain out, and the rest will come easily." Her eyes got wide again she touched Taylor on the elbow. "And Michael, she was right! When I came aboard I didn't know a plasma cannon from a megajouler." She frowned. "I'm still not entirely sure what the difference is. But I sure know how to suck a cock! And look at me! I'm the galaxy's first Lieutenant Commander Supply Officer!" But then another thought occurred to Missy. "But it's all a secret! You can't tell anyone!"

"Of course," said Taylor.

As he left her quarters, Taylor wondered if her story could be true. Missy was delirious. They all were. And yet her story sounded like it had a ring of truth to it. Taylor remembered the two Chinese brothers, Ming Wa Ching and Ming Wa Chang who had gotten caught taking exams for each other at the Academy. But the Survey Service had detected their subterfuge; could Missy and her sister have gotten away with it, years ago?

The nebula they had entered was starting to worry Taylor. They had gone into it to escape detection from the pursuing Ramadhan vessels. The nebula was essentially a cloud of gasses with charged particles that gave off a strong EM field. But this EM field started to play havoc with the ship's systems. More and more of them were malfunctioning. Taylor, who already had his hands full helping Mark Stratford prepare and deliver meals twice a day, found himself doubly busy making spot repairs and recalibrations of the ship's systems. The guidance system failed twice in one day. The sensor array was acting up. Even the computer was starting to be affected. Taylor was also worried about his calculations. If they came out of the nebula too soon or too late, they could miss their planned intercept with the Indomitable.

He was worried, but at the same time, he was also chuckling about it. He felt the virus starting to get a stronger and stronger grip on his mind. He knew that if he got incapacitated, the crew would stand no chance of survival.

"Do you think I'm fuckable?"

The question caught Taylor by surprise as he delivered the daytime meal to Nurse Temple. The tall blonde was looking at him avidly, as she ran her hands down her smooth pantyhose thighs. Like some female crew members, she opted not to wear the unisex uniforms, instead wearing the optional miniskirt, pantyhose, and tall boots that was the traditional garb in the Survey Service before the World Government complained about sexism, making the female dress uniform wholly optional.

Taylor looked at her long, slender legs, her firm bust, and her angular face. She was a little too tall and rail thin for his tastes, but except for the weird beehive she had put her blonde hair in, she did look somewhat attractive.

"Why... why do you ask?" Taylor asked.

"It's Bill," said Nurse Temple.

Taylor looked momentarily confused. "You mean, Doctor McCrae?"

Nurse Temple smiled. "Bill." She paused. "I've been trying to get him to notice me for six months. I wear the shortest skirts. I'm always bending over when he's behind me so he can see my ass, or bending over when he's in front of me so he can see down my uniform. He doesn't so much as blink."

"Well, you're very pretty, Nurse, but..."

"But what?" Temple said.

"But he's your immediate superior. It would be inappropriate for him to have a relationship with you."

"That's what he said," said Nurse Temple. "And yet, a few weeks ago, I walked in on him giving Nurse Gallaway a very thorough physical."

"I'm sure it was a very professional examination."

"With his penis?" Nurse Temple asked.

Taylor realized that this virus was bringing a lot of hidden feelings to the surface, and loosening inhibitions. He was quickly finding out who was attracted to whom. He had found out that Missy Burns may or may not actually be Michelle Burns. He had heard the wild story that the ship had a Chief Engineer who knew nothing about engineering. He also learned that Captain Hauslohner was very insecure about his body. Taylor was glad that he hadn't been as badly affected, to reveal his innermost thoughts to the rest of the crew. He thought it ironic how humiliated he had been in his first few weeks on the ship. Now the tables had turned, and everyone was humiliating themselves in front of him... but they just didn't realize it.

"Am I operating, or am I eating?" Doctor McCrae asked, looking down at his sandwich. He honestly was not sure which he was doing.

"You're eating, Doctor," Taylor assured him.

"If I'm operating, where's my scalpel?" McCrae asked.

"You're eating, Doctor, not operating."

"Scalpel!" McCrae snapped.

Taylor sighed and rooted in his bag and handed him a plastic knife. McCrae took it in one hand and held it up, as if he were preparing to operate. Then he said, "Retractor!"

Taylor rooted around again and handed him a fork.

"About time, Nurse," said McCrae. Evidently McCrae no longer believed he was a God. Merely a surgeon.

"Watch closely, and maybe you'll learn something, boy," McCrae snapped. "The key is to make the initial incision as narrow as possible." He carefully cut a piece off the sandwich, making "zzzzzz" sounds as if he were using a laser scalpel to burn through the skin. "What a beautiful incision! Have you ever seen anything more artistically done in your life?"

"No Doctor. I've seen a lot of sandwiches cut, but nothing like that," said Taylor. "You have a finesse with roast beef that I never seen the likes of."

"Boy, you haven't seen anything yet," said McCrae. He used the fork to carefully lift off the bread. "What do you see inside the wound?"

"Cooked beef."

"Exactly! See that red spot, right there? I don't like the looks of that. Let's take a sample and put it in the analyzer." McCrae speared it with a fork, put it in his mouth, and made electrical humming and buzzing sounds while he chewed. "Ummm... Errrrr..... Ummmmmm....."

The entire crew had gone crazy. The USS Charleston was an insane asylum, and Taylor was the warden.

There were only two days left. He just had to hang on for two days longer.

And then he lost Mark Stratford.

He found him shaking on the floor in the kitchen. He looked like he had totally lost his mind.

"Mark, what's wrong?" Taylor asked.

"Look at me, Mike!" He said, lifting a trembling arm. "Just look at me!"

"What, Mark, what?"

"I'm...." His voice almost choked up. "I'm WHITE!" He gasped.

Taylor looked at Mark's arm. It was as black as ever.

Mark had entered the final stages of the virus. He had lost his mind.

"No, Mark, you're not white," said Taylor, trying to reassure him. His friend was shaking like a leaf.

"Just look at me! How can you say that?" He fairly yelled, holding up his arm.

"Mark, Mark, listen to me!" Taylor spoke in a commanding tone. He looked Stratford in the eyes. He saw the fear, the panic, the confusion.

"Mark, you are black."

"Am I?"

"Black like coal."

"Really?

"Black like pudding."

"Truly?"

"Black like the darkest night," Taylor assured him.

Mark didn't look fully convinced, but he started to visibly calm down.

"Come on, let's get you to your quarters. I think you need some rest."

'Thanks! Thanks," said Mark, almost sobbing, as he let Taylor help him up. "You know, you know Mike... you're... you're a good friend. You're my real GWF."

Taylor looked at Mark and gave a thin smile. "Thanks Mark. I really appreciate that."
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