dang ghosts

Hans....Third Rate H. Benz.....had galley duty again....well, it didn't amount to much....all you had to do was kind of wipe up around the food processors and dispensers and smile at the others as they wandered in and out on their off watch hours, looking for something to eat .....Hans would just as soon lie low and take it easy anyway, this lost in space thing had his stomach in knots....it was one thing being on board the flagship or one of the carriers....that was like being back on a station, or even a city on one of the new worlds....but this being stuck with a hand full of other ratings and the crazy Chief on the smallest spaceship he had ever seen or heard tell of was something else....and they were telling him that they had left normal reality, and were in the realm of Ghosts.....

Hans dialed up a doughnut, and left it on the table on a paper napkin while he went to get a cup of coffee....turning around to get the doughnut, he saw a silvery blob suddenly appear out of nowhere, and glom up the doughnut! As quickly as it had appeared it was gone.....Hans started shaking and screaming.....

The Chief had to hold a briefing, and explain to the hands that, yes, ghosts were going to act like ghosts you might see in old cartoons or something....they could come through the hull of the ship and do pretty much anything they fancied.....they probably wouldn't hurt anybody or cause much trouble really....but if they sensed that you wanted something....like a doughnut, say....then the ghost folk might very well just take that....just to see why it was thought to be something desirable....Chief said he knew this, because he had been here before....but nobody had heard of this much, since Fleet had classified all reports of cross-dimensional experience....at the express order of Treaty High Council.....

Second Rate B. Scanlon, Bobby-Boy to the females aboard, had difficulty adapting to the current situation....he started acting a little nuts, looking scared and anxious, ignoring his duties, acting angry.....it came to a head shortly after the Ghost briefing.....Bobby-Boy started yelling at the Chief .....calling him a damned ass-hole who had gotten them all screwed by acting like a shithead and getting them all damned to some kind of bizarre Hell.....he hurled his coffee cup across Commons, aimed poorly at the Chief......

The Old Man ordered him to his bunk, under disfavor.....Scanlon told him to get fucked....military orders couldn't mean anything outside of reality! The Chief said "Systems, two gravities for Rate Scanlon." Bobby sat down real quick.

"You see how it is now don't you?" stated the Chief...."Systems control all objects on board this vessel, including human objects. And I control Systems.....by voice command if need be. I doubt if any of you can get our asses out of ghost space, so you all better just go along with my way of thinking....OK?"

Later, back on the bridge, the duty pilot asked the Old Man if he thought they could get back home somehow.....

"Affirmative on that son, all we have to do is find us a Casper."

"A casper?"

"A friendly ghost."