Planet of the Zombie Creditors
by Chuan Chee
Kirk: Captain's Personal Log. Stardate 8976.4. Due to certain incidents
resulting in my demotion to Captain, the Enterprise has been reassigned
to less provocative duties. I haven't summoned up the courage yet to
tell the crew that the ship is now assigned to the Collections Department
of American Express. I have tried to prepare them for that fact by
distributing the new little Roman gladiator badges and by walking up to
various crewman and saying "Hi! Do you know me?..." So far these methods
have had little success. We are now approaching our first assignment.
I'll have to do my best to bluff my way around it.
Kirk: Standard orbit, Mr. Sulu.
Sulu: Aye, sir.
Kirk: (whispering to Uhura) Lt., open a channel and send the following
message. "Mr. Quortlewester, we regret to inform you the your account
is hopelessly overdue. You have ten minutes to remit your balance via
subspace credit. If you fail to comply, then we have no alternative
but to confiscate your Pontiac Space Buggy and your microwave."
Uhura: But, sir! I don't understand.
Kirk: It's ..uh... a new Federation ultra-secret code.
Just send the message Lt.
Spock: Captain, I've conducted a full sensor sweep of the planet and
while there is evidence of a large civilization, I've failed to detect
any life readings.
Kirk: That's odd. What do you make of it, Bones?
McCoy: Well, the lack of life readings would suggest a Zomboid civilization.
Kirk: Then you mean, Quortlewester....
McCoy: Yes, he's undead, Jim.
Sulu: (whispering to Chekov) Who's Quortlewester?
Chekov: I don't know. Perhaps he is a Romulan agent?
Kirk: (to Uhura) Any response, Lt.?
Uhura: No sir, there is no response.
Kirk: Open a hailing frequency.
Uhura: You're on, Captain.
Kirk: Alright, Quortlewester, we know you're down there.
Are you going to come up with the money or do I have to get nasty?
Quortlewester: (on viewscreen) Just try and touch my microwave, Kirk.
I'll send you to the very fires of Hell.
Spock: He has a valid point, Captain. Zomboids have tremendous psychic
powers at short range.
Kirk: Hmmm. Perhaps we can intimidate him from here. Mr. Chekov, prepare
the Video Effects Generator.
Chekov: Chroma-key locked, sir.
Kirk: Now Chekov!
(Various unflattering images appear on Quortlewester's tie and then switch
to his shirt and then to his jacket. Meanwhile, the bridge crew is in
hysterics.)
Quortlewester: No! Stop! You are humiliating me. Arghhhhhhhhhh!
Kirk: Had enough?
Quortlewester: Alright, alright! I'll put a check in the mail first thing
Monday morning!
Kirk: Not good enough! Chekov, prepare to overlay his image onto the
last scene of The Harlem Globetrotter's on Gilligan's Island.
Quortlewester: No! No! I'm transmitting the credit transfer now!
Kirk: Captain's Personal Log. Stardate 8976.9. To prevent any embarrassing
questions from the crew, I have declared the Quortlewester incident as Top
Secret to be discussed on penalty of total credit annihilation. Meanwhile,
as we proceed to our next assignment, I have scheduled a few sessions with
the ship's psychologist in the hopes of discovering why I'm beginning to
like this sort of work.
Announcer: Next Week: Kirk and Co. go after those notorious late payers,
Mr. and Mrs. Schmidlapp of Arpus XII, while Spock seems to have mis-placed
his Gold Card.
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