The Council-floor Part 1

Grak misheard The Commissioner.

"I can take down a queen bee sure, but don't you think it's a little strange to send an officer 20 lightyears away for that mission?" Grak said, holding a glass of boiler sludge.

"No, no," said The Commissioner. "Not th--"

"I didn't say 'th.' I said Queen Bee," said Grak. The video feed cut out. "Fleeg, he didn't have to hang up." Grak downed the glass of boiler sludge, before spitting it out and reaching for the intercom. "Grak to James, plot a course to Barnard's Star." Grak stared at the text report of the mission for a few seconds, and reached for the hot water tap again.

Eight more cups of spat-out boiler sludge later, The UPPPM Belief In A Lower Power was rapidly approaching Barnard's Third Planet. Travelling faster than the speed of light is generally bad manners within a solar system, but Belief is not generally considered to be a very polite ship. For the brief instance during the transition between space/warp and space/normal, Belief In A Lower Power would have the same luminosity as a small star. Needless to say this can be disastrous if the transition is not fast enough. Belief is not a fast ship. It's not eager to gain any speed either. By the accounts of one of her previous captains, it was described as 'a ship which might actually lose in a race between a jetpack, an ion drive, and a snail.' However, it is worth noting that Belief's apparent hatred for speed has led to one upside: its warp drive will turn off faster than any spaceship in the Sirius Sector.

From warp drive turning off to orbital insertion around Barnard's Third Planet was an easy enough transition, expending only 70% of the ship's propellant reserves. Belief In A Lower Power resisted every drop of course, but the engineers had expected this and worked around it. Their solution: filter out the steam from the ship's boiler and force it through the rocket engines at high pressure.

Grak reported to the shuttle room. His orders told what latitude and longitude to land at. Very useful unless you're fine with landing in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately, there was no precisely decided upon prime meridian for Barnard's Third Planet, not one that Grak could find in the database anyway. Grak clambered up the ladder from the shuttle room and back to the bridge.

"James, Tean, we have a problem," Grak said.

Tean spoke first. "Oh for god's sake Grak what is it now?"

James followed swiftly. "He probably just can't get his space suit on again."

"In actual fact," said Grak, "it's a problem with our mission parameters. We were given a latitude and a longitude--"

"So what's the problem then, did you forget how to use the computer again?" Tean said, stifling a laugh.

"OK first, you guys are being real... how do you say... shuckwads."

"Fuckwads," corrected James.

"Whatever, the point is this," Grak said, and explained the Prime Meridian problem.

"I suppose that is a problem," conceded James. "What is it you're landing at anyway?"

"It's a complex with some sort of beehive in it."

"We can solve this problem," James said, "we just have to access the InterPlaNet and find what the popular definition is." James clicked a few button presses into the computer console. Belief In A Lower Power's computer fans whirred into action, putting into effect some software that had been out of date for a good fifty years.

"Unable to comply," the Computer decided, "No Internet Connection."

"Well that's torn it."

"OK, we will just have to find out what the Meridian could possibly be given the information," Tean said. "Maps of the planet show that the ice caps cover exactly 50% of the planet. It makes sense to set the Prime Meridian at the longitude of the ice cap. There are two longitudes it can be, but since temperatures are too low on one half of the planet to support infrastructure, we rule out that hemisphere. Therefore," she said, pointing a finger at the map screen, "the complex should be right about here." Tean's finger was pointed at ocean. "Or perhaps here," she said, correcting her finger's position northwards. "That's a nice island."

"Now get out of here, Grak, you're stinking up the place," said James.

Grak complied, and went back down to the shuttle room.

"Those guys are real jerks," Grak thought to himself.

"Man, I love Grak," said Tean. James nodded in agreement.