Night Before Christmas

Author: Margaret

Parody: c/o sillyfic

Rating: PG13

All the usual disclaimers apply. seaQuest is the property of Amblin Entertainment. No copyright infringements are intended and no money is being made from this. It's just a parody; enjoy!



NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
By Margaret
(Teaser)

We are in a deserted corridor; facing a door. We hear the voices of men, approaching. That must be the real Refit crew. We open the door and go quietly into a empty cabin. Pulling back the blanket of the bottom bunk reveals a hard-cover book. The cover is badly scuffed and the label, "The Private Diary of Lucas Wolenczak", has an ugly brown stain.

"Pick it up - go on, the cabin's empty. Open it - look, considering what our Section did to that kid so far, reading a private diary is nothing - right? No, not from the beginning. Go to December. We know what happened up until the 24th. According to the computer, they were in some kind of fire-fight. There's some evidence of Macronesian subs. They seem to have got clear - up to a point, anyway. They were trapped on the surface with the bioskin torn in several places, too near the enemy, unable to submerge, when the memory banks failed. Now, if this is going to tell us what happened next we need - here it is, 24th Dec.


The Night Before Christmas.

''Twas the night before Christmas
and all through the boat,
Just one scanner was sounding,
a sharp single note,
a sound like an Asdic, a series of blips,
that seemed to make mock of the sound of the drips.

The combat crew huddled alone in their beds,
with thoughts of the day to come stark in their heads.
Elsewhere Maintenance crews fought to heal-seal the leaks
In the hope that we still might escape to the deeps.
and I worked at the console and hoped I could save,
any programmes the blasts hadn't sent to the grave.
The corruption was spreading and just wouldn't stop.
That's when Dagwood came in with his bucket and mop.
I'd have left if I could, for some fool at the dock,
Had told Dags if he hung up a stocking or sock,
and he really was sure he'd been good all the year,
then some time in the night Santa Claus would appear.
Dags can be like a child, he's been asking all week,
If St Nick just delivers or might stop to speak?
It's not just the gifts, Dagwood wanted to know,
How a sleigh could get in? Where a chimney would go?
in an undersea dome, how the kids of today,
get the things he was told Santa brings on his sleigh?
How it only takes 12 hours to get the job done?
and why kangaroos pull the Australian run?
In the past, we'd have filled up that stocking all right,
but I hadn't the patience to listen, that night.
I was gesturing "Go" when I heard Darwin chitter,
and saw that Sea Deck seemed to glimmer and glitter,
As I went to the dolphin some tiny dark streaks,
Seemed to fall to the Moon Pool from one of the leaks.
and I saw in the pool, like a fantasy wish,
a bullet-shaped thing in a frothing of fish!
It grew as I watched and I thought it meant harm,
and I turned to the console to sound an alarm.
Then the top hatch went back, and although it sounds weird,
There's a tiny fat man with a white bushy beard!
The manikin looked just as Santa Claus ought
and I wondered in shock who had drugged life support!
The fish had seemed hooked to a jingling thong,
Then I saw they were dolphins, a finger-length long!
and I looked through the glimmer as though in a dream,
and I saw they were harnessed, and moved as a team!
Santa whistled and chittered to stay in their tow
(In the language of dolphins no human can know)
As they swung through the air something spilled from the pack,
Dagwood caught it, and reached out to give the stuff back,
but the team swung away as though playing a game,
Santa stood in the capsule and called them by name,

"Now, Leaper! Now Diver! On, Dancer and Deeping!
We must make the run while the sea-domes are sleeping!
Come Seafoam and Starjumper! Haul with your might!
For this boat is the gift for lost children tonight!"
Santa went through the leak with his team and his car,
and the rent closed behind him with barely a scar!
The few sensors working then gave us a sight,
of some huge cables grappled to us and stretched tight,
and I flinched in surprise at the flick of a tail.
There was something out there that was big as a whale.
The sensors said there was a small boat too near,
and the thought of the enemy filled me with fear.
Then I felt the boat lurch and it started to sway,
and the glitter came down and the world went away.

We woke with the boat in the same battered state,
But in UEO waters a mile from the Cape!
We'd got 20 plus refugee children, to boot,
and it seems that we picked up boat-people en route!
There are drugs that will make people see things, I know.
If they're added to food, surely something will show?
There are psychics around who can easily project.
In a world where that happens, what can you expect?
Though I wrote the above memory's faded away,
Maybe I was in stasis again, for a day.
Perhaps it's the aliens we have to thank.
I've checked the computer, there's no memory bank.
Now that seaQuest's in dock for refit and repair,
I've got shore-leave for Christmas, which seems more than fair.
Tim and Tony and Dagwood will all get a break,
(But I wish that I knew, for my sanity's sake,
Why the boat's bio-skin bears the marks of a rope,
and where Dags got the scarf and the kaleidoscope.)
There's a party on shore and it starts at twilight.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!


..............

The book closes, sharply enough to make a clap. The intruder walks quickly out of the cabin and along the companionway, flashing a Section 7 pass at the Security man at the head of the gangplank. "The kid's crazy! Santa Claus!! Projective telepaths!!! I can't put in a report like that..."

The Security man watches as the stranger with the pass walks quickly along the pier towards the lighted buildings, talking incomprehensibly to an invisible companion. The pass was in order, best not to get involved. He watches the stranger drop the book, trip and kick it into the turgid water under the pier. There had been fireworks earlier, and something that could have been a last rocket, so distant that it could barely be seen in the dusk, moved across the sky....



END