The Stage is Set

 

The stage was set. It just wasn't going to get any better than this. Ravenna would come out with the girls all dressed in their grass skirts and leis. This would be distraction enough. The Miranda would be powered on and the music would start, loud and rhythmic. Booming drums and loud singing with some background guitar, bass, and bells. Two bars in and Miranda starts the "DSA Boarding" announcement. The holographed  officers appear at the rear and front of the galley. Heshy opens the arms cabinet and starts to distribute the weapons as planned. Only it doesn't go like that! Miranda is, after all, an electronic program. She's not real. She plays the music and then;  "you are always getting into fixes Jimmy, my little friend."...It stuns everybody. Heshy must have pushed a wrong button somehow. In the history of man and space, of theatre and art, no one has ever recovered  quicker than Captain Wallace. In a split second he screams at Heshy. "Lieutenant Hereschoff what is going on? You moron! Open the weapons cases. Do as they say!" Captain Wallace is screaming louder than he ever has before in his life. "Distribute the weapons now." Meanwhile the girls are moving in a frenzy of loud music, dancing, fear, loud screaming and confusion. "Take these men below", to lieutenant Hereschoff, and "we've been boarded", in the manner of a director getting a play back on course. The oddity was that everyone, including the pirates, seemed to know exactly where to go. 

"C'mon" , Nathan Stokes, prodded one of the pirate crew hard in the middle of his back with the weapon muzzle. Hard alloy that could become white hot in an instant pushed him through the brig opening. "Ya'll stay there now you scum", he sounded like an old sea story. It must have been the Miranda program catching up with the action. Heshy watched in amazement as the saga unfolded, and he was a key player. It was odd all right, but what was imporant was that all the pirates were now effectively locked up.

Meanwhile, Miranda was piping in old sea shanties, that had all the crew smiling broadly despite any fear or confusion. "God Bless Ya Miranda! - drink up me hearties", Captain Wallace joined right in.