Captain’s Log: Stardate 2266.48.
On the border of Klingon space we find ourselves travelling through a large nebula. The surging magnetism has been interfering with the ship’s navigation systems and we are on a course directly through it. It will be a few days before we reach the other side, but all that’s left to do is watch and wait.
Many systems had been turned off. Instead of a bright white light, a sombre red hue washed the helm. Power had been reverted to backup leaving the ship cold and dark, its long halls dim and harrowing. Screens still chirped and beeped softly, and the ambient hum of the engines still provided a familiar comfort for the crew. Though drowsy, the ship was still alive.
Nothing was happening. Visibility was low as the Enterprise cut its way through the gas cloud. There wasn’t much they could do until they left it, so there was downtime to be enjoyed between monitoring and maintaining critical systems.
Captain James Tiberius Kirk sat in his hair, his legs spread wide and his head resting on a fist with a bored expression on his face. From behind him the door to the helm opened with a swoosh and a squeak and Spock strode in with his usual purposeful gait.
“Mr Spock, status report.” Kirk ordered.
The Vulcan stood by his side, staring out into the nebula.
“Warp drive is still non-functional. Power is at twenty percent. Given our current speed and trajectory I estimate that we have three days left in the nebula.”
With communications down and no life signs anywhere in the clouds, Uhura’s mind had wandered to life back home on Earth. By her reckoning, Halloween would soon be rolling around. It might not be the exact date, but time was always relative.
Leaving her post for a second, she made her way over to Kirk and Spock.
“Captain.” She began coyly. Her stance was submissive and polite, she knew she was going to be asking for a favour and wanted to give herself the best chance she could get at success. “Right now I have a lot of spare time. I was thinking, perhaps, I could use some of that time to… raise morale and share our culture with some of the other species aboard the Enterprise.”
Kirk hadn’t noticed the time of year back at home on Earth. Uhura was right though, a communications officer with no communications was going to waste.
“Raise morale? What did you have in mind?” He questioned.
“Back on Earth it’ll soon be Halloween. I was thinking we could bring that to the Enterprise.”
Spock had heard about Halloween, being the first mixed species Human-Vulcan. It hadn’t ever made much sense to him.
“Captain. A Halloween party while travelling through a Nebula storm could prove dangerous. Having people leave their stations for revelry would prove a most illogical way for us to meet our end.”
Kirk was dismissive of this. The nebula storm had been consistent so far, and while the electromagnetism was interfering with many of their systems they would come back online as soon as they made it back out. Perhaps there was a more turbulent pocket of the storm out there waiting for them, but it didn’t really seem that bad. His instincts told him everything would be fine. He gave it some thought, looking at Uhura and Spock, then back out at the storm.
“It would be good for crew morale. It would give us something to do while we wait out this storm too.” The captain answered. “Make it happen. I’m putting you in charge of this, Uhura.” He had heard her sing in the mess hall with Spock accompanying her on his Lyre, and she always had the type of personality to bring people together. Her diplomatic prowess would perhaps make her a good captain one day, but for now Kirk was assured she would do a good job.
“Permission to leave my post?” She asked.
“Permission granted.”
She smiled deeply and left the bridge, making her way to recruit people to help her put the party together.
“Captain, I really don’t think a party is logical given the present circumstances.” Spock protested.
He knew where Spock was coming from; drunken helmsmen and a nebula weren’t a good mix. Were something to happen, he’d need them fit for duty.
“I understand your concern, but we can man the ship with a skeleton crew.” Kirk winked at Spock and gave him a playful nudge. This was met with a disapproving look and raised eyebrow from his Vulcan counterpart.
Uhura managed to recruit Christine Chapel first, who also found herself with a lack of work. She agreed to make some outfits using spare medical supplies and other bits and bobs she had lying around and seemed very much on board with the whole thing. She didn’t expect her romantic rival to ask for her assistance, but she knew this wasn’t just about them and Spock.
While she was in the infirmary she attempted to recruit Doctor McCoy. He was in favour of the idea for those who wanted to take part but indicated that he’d rather not bother. He had his own things to be doing in the downtime. “I’m a Doctor, not a swamp monster!”
Next up she made her way to engineering and recruited Scotty, who was always down for an excuse to drink. She tasked him with engineering animated decorations to spook the crew.
Finally she made her way back to the bridge. After expressing her intentions to the bridge crew, Sulu agreed to make Halloween themed food. He told her about his time growing up in San Francisco and how he would make themed cakes and desserts every chance he’d get with his parents, with Halloween allowing him the greatest artistic freedom.
Chekov agreed to help with the decoration alongside Scotty, and Spock and Kirk would watch the helm while the arrangements were made. Uhura herself made her way around letting each department know about the upcoming party, organising who was doing what.
With the ship on reserve power, everything was spookily dark and quiet. It made the perfect time for a Halloween party, and the Klingon members of the crew found particular delight at the idea of such a festival.
Realistic looking cobwebs hung from the ceiling and a mist covered the floor, generated from a few fog machines in the corners of the room. In the middle was a fantastic spread of cakes and desserts made by Sulu with a little help from Nurse Chapel. There was a giant spider cake, jellies that were made to look like eyeballs, spanakopita made to look like entrails, among many other things. Some of his depictions were a little too realistic; a cake made to look like Kirk’s decapitated head sat right in the middle of the table as a centrepiece.
Scotty and Chekov were sat at a table drinking together, arguing over who has the superior alcohol. “Scotch?” Chekov scoffed. “That was invented by a little old lady from Leningrad!”
The majority of people had come dressed up, and their outfits in the dim red light had a spooky quality to them. Nurse Chapel had managed to rope McCoy into wearing a Tribble outfit, much to the delight of Captain Kirk. Kirk himself had dressed up as James Cook complete with a curled grey wig and had somehow managed to convince his friend Spock to dress up, despite the illogical nature of it all. He made a fantastic Peter Pan with his long ears.
As the night went on with people joining and leaving the huge crowd, the food vanished and the drinks ran dry. Kirk’s head went untouched; the realism of cutting open your captain’s head overrode the need for chocolate cake.