Deep Space
Earth Sector
The Windward Passage 145,90
ISS Belfast Windfall

Commander Biggs O'Rouke Hilsfar waded through dreams of Walter Koening's and Leonard Nimoy's faces bubbling up from an opaque sea of vanilla malt until he surfaced in the groggy reaches of hangover consciousness. He picked his head up from his dented desk -- and a small pool of drool -- and looked around the bridge of his worn, rust bucket of an interstellar caravel.

Good. Status readout.

Okay. It's September.

September.

It's not September. His mind snapped into clear, painful focus.

"It's September!" Biggs fell out of his chair. "Grix, what the hell did you do?!"

The Bug pulled his lightly armored head up off his navigational console and looked around, clueless as to where and when he was. His name was also foggy. His antennae twithced and his head fell back down.

Biggs rubbed his temples, wishing for a cup of black coffee with reflexive gusto.

"Coffee? Oh, no!" He spun around to look at the small, unsanitary pantry at the rear of the bridge. There it was.

The multiflex fooderator had a pot of coffee in it, the answer to Biggs' last urge for caffeine. The readout, however, did not read sixty seconds of reheating. Rather, it clearly displayed the last command it had received--six months of cryogenic stasis.

Damn that bug! We've drifted for 180 days!

Several months earlier, Ux, ISS Belfast Windfall's engineer had dredged up the brilliant idea of building redundant control panels into appliances so the ship could still function when damage started piling up.

"Grix, wake up!"

Biggs threw his empty coffee mug across the bridge and hit Mack, his "extra officer."

"Wake up, damn it!" No avail. Biggs stood up and stumbled to the rear hatch and off the bridge.

Need a hot shower. What's a few more minutes' drifting time?

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[Curio: This story was written in Gotemba, near Club Sexy.]