Red Alert

The red alert buzzer awoke Buck from a terribly odd dream which he instantly forgot upon waking. He grabbed his suit and pulled on it while making his way for the door and got the shirt over his head just in time to bang into it.

“Bloody open, already!” he screamed at it and the door complied all too slowly for his taste. He tripped over his pants while running down the hallway and barreled into Craft just around the corner from his quarters. Craft fell to the ground with his head in the sleeve of his shirt and landed with a loud “oomph!”

“What in the-“ he spluttered, yanking the suit off his head and looking up at Buck who, by this time, had gotten his pants safely on and was looking down at him with a bemused expression.

“Oh, it’s you,” Craft blustered. “Wonder what the nit’s got us up for this time?”

“Probably intergalactic plague penguins,” Buck said as he reached a hand down to help Craft up. Craft took it and was yanked up far quicker than he anticipated. He complained about Buzz pulling his arm out of it’s socket while fixing his shirt on correctly and running after him as they both headed for the deck. They met several other crew members along the way, all in various states of undress and all taking bets about what ridiculous drill they would be executing this evening.

“I bet it’s gonna be regenerating mechanical iguanas with the ability to emit EMP bursts!” Lex offered excitedly.

“No way! Invisible genetically engineered rats- hard to find, hard to kill,” Mouth countered.

“I was betting on intergalactic plague penguins, myself,” Buck joined in.

“Whatever it is it’s getting bloody old,” Craft complained.

“Oh come one, man- this is our thing! Don’t you get it? Every crew has something crazy on the ship that they have to deal with. Falconers get the constantly malfunctioning cloaking device, Orbs get the space-time rifts, and we get the absurd drills at all hours of the evening. This is what makes the Eagles the Eagles!” Lex explained.

“You are entirely too perky for this time of the evening,” Craft replied.

They all got to the deck just in time to hear the captain announcing tonight’s drill: shape-shifting psychic lemmings. Mouth reached into his pocket and begrudgingly slapped a 20 phine bill in Lex’s hand.