Asterisk Computer Voice: Alert Alert! Alert Alert! Alert Alert!
What was this new danger? It turned out that Starship Asterisk* had actually collided with asteroid 2012 DA 14, although on closer inspection the ship had suffered only a minor dent. The reason for the collision was that Margarita wanted to take a closer look at the asteroid that has been filmed from the observatory of Tenerife, so she had snuck onto the bridge and steered the ship toward the asteroid. Unfortunately the ship got closer to the asteroid than she had intended.
Now a lot of upset asternauts entered the bridge and decided that Margarita would be temporarily demoted from her position as the ship's Helmsperson and Engineer. Someone else would steer the ship for a while now. But who would it be and where would they go?
"I want to go to the Horsehead Nebula!" said emc.
"A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" said Neufer.
"I want to go to the Owl Nebula!" said owlice.
"I want to go to the Moon!" said Moonlady.
"You know I've always wanted to go to Mars," said Rob Stevenson.
"On second thought," Rob added, "the Ring Nebula will suffice. It's a cosmic donut."
"I want to go to Saturn," said saturno2.
"I'm good at flowers!" said Orin Stepanek. "I want to go to the Rosette Nebula!"
"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," said Neufer.
"I want to go to constellation Hercules", said Boomer12k.
"I want to go to constellation
Lacerta," said Geckzilla.
"I want to go to the
Coathanger," said bystander. I've mislaid mine.
"Let's go to the North America Nebula!" said BMAONE23.
A lot of people began nodding. The North America Nebula seemed like a good idea.
But while no one was looking, Ann had made her way to the bridge. She wanted to go to the Pleiades! She wanted to swim in a cosmic sea of blue!
Being an accomplished pickpocket, Ann had stolen some Ultimate Quotidian Quotational overdrive fuel from one of Neufer's oversized pockets. She had previously bought some highly illegal Infinite Improbability drive from a most disreputable character from Neptune. She had also managed to come by one of those birds of blue that fly over the rainbow. She now stuffed all of this ultra-dangerous contraband into Starship Asterisk*'s unsuspecting fuel container. Barely had the ship's engines smelled the mixture than it bucked wildly, put itself in Warp 117½, and dived straight for the nearest black hole.
"Don't panic," said Chris. "First of all, we have towels for everyone."
"Second, even though we are now technically inside the event horizon of the black hole, so that we have theoretically been cut off from the universe forever, and even though the laws of science say that we are doomed to plunge to our deaths inside the singularity of the black hole, we are actually in a Star Trek version of reality where the laws of physics say that Starship Enterprise must always survive. That probably goes for Starship Asterisk*, too. Therefore we can expect a wormhole to appear at any moment to carry us safely away from the black hole and send us somewhere more interesting. Indeed, here it is!"
As Chris was finishing his speech, Starship Asterisk* plunged into the wormhole. But where will the intrepid ship appear again? Stay tuned for the next episode!
Ann