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The entire universe winking out of existence? Just one of the usual Enterprise Weirdnesses.
Her cup of coffee toppling over and spilling across her desk when the universe winked out of existence and caused a shipquake?
It's that moment when Lieutenant Charlene Masters knows that this would be a long day.
Of course, it has to be her last cup of coffee, a tiny one made with the last few grains of coffee practically scraped out of the bottom of the container. Of course it couldn't be the second-to-last cup.
On the Enterprise, coffee, real coffee, is Serious Business. Black market deals had gone down over those precious containers picked up during their infrequent and always-delayed visits to Starbases. No matter how carefully one rations, those containers always manage to run out before the next visit.
Before she has time to find something to clean up the spillage, the Captain's voice comes over the intercom, calling all stations to immediate alert status. Lieutenant Masters stands up, spares one glance back at the precious black liquid slowly trickling over her desk, and then heads to Engineering.
It doesn't take her long to check the energy levels of the dilithium crystals, write up her account, and report to the bridge. In that time, both the Captain and the First Officer had beamed down to the planet, leaving her with no idea who to make her report to.
So she just awkwardly stands around the bridge, pretending that she's doing something useful by looking down at her report every so often. Mr. Spock comes in, but tells her to make her report to the still-missing Captain. And finally, the turbolift door slides open and Captain Kirk walks in.
She intercepts him before he makes it to his chair and starts spouting one of his poetic speeches. "Report on the dilithium crystals, Captain."
"Yes." He seems a bit distracted by Mr. Spock's backside.
"Whatever that phenomenon was, it drained almost all of our crystals completely. It could mean trouble—"
She's about to request permission to begin the re-amplification process when Kirk interrupts her. "You have a talent for understatement, Lieutenant."
Then he proceeds to lecture her about the effects of drained dilithium crystals on the ship, even though one of her jobs on the Enterprise is working with dilithium crystals and knowing these kinds of things. Then he orders her to go begin the re-amplification process.
"Aye aye, sir." It's the only thing she can say.
The Enterprise's synthesizers have three flavours of coffee: industrial waste, raw sewage, and poop water. Lieutenant Masters deliberates very carefully before selecting raw sewage, which also has the consistency of tar. She then spends at least ten minutes staring down into the cup.
"Hi," comes the voice of her assistant Technician Ferguson, leaning over her table with his usual happy-go-lucky grin. He's a new transfer to the Enterprise. Young and very eager. Maybe too eager. Some part of her liked him anyways.
"Hi," she says back, then holds up her cup. "Coffee?"
While Ferguson is new to the Enterprise, he's a very quick learner. He laughs. "Is that an order, Lieutenant?"
She chuckles. "I know what you mean. It's… an acquired taste."
"A bit of an understatement there. It's crap."
She conceals a wry grin. "Re-amplification finished on the dilithium crystals?"
"Yes." She swears she can hear his spine snap, he straightens up so quickly. "Ready and waiting!"
Very eager.
Then again, she's also very eager to leave her cup of raw sewage behind.
Her attacker could've waited fifteen seconds for her to get off the intercom with Captain Kirk. But he hadn't. When she'd been hit with a fast-acting neural paralyzer, she'd been able to call for help before toppling to the floor.
Apparently the neural paralyzer was just as equally fast-unacting, because by the time Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy burst into the room, she's attempting to sit up, but really only managing to half-slump against the console. Dr. McCoy comes over and stabs her with a hypospray.
She hears Technician Ferguson somewhere behind her groaning and attempting to stand up. She then hears him yell and a crash as he falls. She then hears Dr. McCoy swear and run over to stop him from breaking his neck.
Captain Kirk just stands there, looming over her. After a moment, he crouches down and continues to loom over her. The man sometimes has no sense of personal space.
"Do you think you can stand up?"
"I think I'd better wait a bit."
She can hear McCoy threaten to invoke medical authority and haul her assistant away to sickbay. Then another crash as Ferguson falls again.
Kirk hears it too.
"Yes," he finally says. "Good thinking, Lieutenant."
Ferguson had ended up getting hauled away to sickbay, lucky bastard. He didn't have to listen to the crazy hobo caught prowling around Engineering insisting that it'd actually been his world-destroying enemy that had attacked two crew and stolen some dilithium crystals, which only confirms her suspicions about the intelligence of the person who apparently attacked her while she was still on an open intercom with the Captain.
On the list of Enterprise Weirdnesses, this was downright mundane.
The only reason she's even there in the briefing room is to answer a few questions, but about the only thing useful she can say is "yes, someone attacked me" and "no, I didn't see who it was." So she's glad to finally get dismissed and head back to work.
Technician Ferguson joins her an hour later. She doesn't ask whether he'd been released from sickbay or escaped it.
And of course, just when she thinks that everything is going smoothly, the energizer shorts out. She spots the smoke, yells at Ferguson to go sound the alarm as she goes for the emergency shutdown.
But Ferguson, overeager and young and gallant, decides to be heroic and drag her out of the room, an enormous plume of smoke billowing out into the hall behind them.
By the time Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock arrive, the entire section is filled with smoke and there's firefighters in hazmat suits running everywhere. Kirk runs up to her at full speed and nearly collides with her, waving his hands around and blinking a lot to try to get the smoke out of his eyes. "Report, Masters."
"Fire, sir. The energizer shorted out. I think it's under control now. Uh, except for the smoke."
"And you didn't use the emergency shutdown." A statement, not a question. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Ferguson's face change from his usual lucky-go-happy grin to an 'oh crap, the Captain's about to kill me' look. Mr. Spock raises an eyebrow, then enters the room.
"There wasn't time, sir," she says. "It happened too quickly. We barely got out of the room."
Kirk says nothing, just looks at her for a moment, before turning and running after Mr. Spock at full speed and nearly colliding with him. Lieutenant Masters follows at normal speed.
"Captain, the crystals are missing," Mr. Spock says. "It would appear that Lazarus tampered with the energizing circuit and caused a short in order to provide a distraction."
Suddenly Captain Kirk shouts something to Mr. Spock about organizing a security detail and runs out of the room at top speed, nearly colliding with one of the firefighters. Lieutenant Masters looks at the energizer, coated in fire suppression foam and fused into a black lump of slag that smells of melted polymers and fried circuits. Smoke continues to pour out from it.
"This might take a while to repair," she says glumly.
Mr. Spock raises an eyebrow again.
"Quite the understatement, Lieutenant Masters."
Lieutenant Masters looks over the sticky mess that was all that remained of the coffee she'd spilled earlier that day. Then someone buzzes her door. She tells them to come inside.
"I, uh," Technician Ferguson steps inside. For once, he looks almost awkward. "Wanted to apologize. And thank you for covering for me. I can't believe you lied to Captain Kirk!"
"And I won't do it a second time. Go over the technical manual again. Particularly the chapter titled 'Emergency Shutdown.' I do not want another repeat of this, Technician."
"Aye aye, ma'am." He nods, and drops something on her desk. "I've finished up the report."
"Good."
"I also brought you something. To thank you for what you did!" From behind his back, he pulls out a tiny paper cup. A very tiny one, made with the last few grains scraped out of the bottom of a container. Grinning, he places it on her desk.
"Wait, is that—" her eyes widen.
"Coffee. Real coffee."
She knew there was a reason she liked him.
She spends most of the turbolift ride up to the bridge simply savouring the smell emanating from that precious little cup. When she steps out of the turbolift onto the bridge, everyone else turns to savour the smell emanating from it.
Except for Captain Kirk. (Well, okay, neither does Mr. Spock.) He's sitting in his chair, spouting some poetic speech about being trapped with a raging madman at your throat for eternity. She waits for him to finish before walking over to him in order to give her report.
"Thank you, Lieutenant." He takes the coffee from her hand and drains it in one gulp.
She simply stands there.
Then she clears her throat. "The dilithium crystals are recharged and reinstalled, Captain. The energizing circuit will, uh, require additional time to repair. It's... melted."
"Thank you." He spins his chair around to look at her. "How are you holding up?"
She has to choke back a laugh/sob/something. "It's been a… long day, sir."
"You have quite the talent for understatement, Lieutenant. Take tomorrow off. Dismissed." He spins the chair back around. "Let's get out of here, helmsman. Make course for Starbase 200. Warp factor one."