Starship Armstrong - Season 3

Part 18 - Mitzner's Card Game (V) (Wagner's Story)

"I want five cards," said McAfree.

"Stop pretending you don't know how to play," demanded Gul. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me- wait how does that go?"

"Just ignore her," said Takahashi.

"Maybe that's exactly what I want you to do," said McAfree, needlessly rearranging the cards in her hand. "You're playing right into my hand by ignoring me."

Then to Mitzner she added, "I want seven cards now."

Mitzner held out her hand.

"Give me your three cards you little weasel," she said.

McAfree handed her three cards and Mitzner dealt her three more.

"Who's next?" asked Mitzner. "Come on. Don't make me start putting people on the spot."

"Alright, I'll go," said Wagner.

"That's the spirit," said Mitzner.

"I don't have any cool stories from a long time ago but I can tell about when I came aboard the Armstrong."

-Wagner's Story-

I first came aboard the Armstrong when it was still in the Jovian Starbase Cluster, fresh from being refitted back into an exploratory vessel. I got there probably about a week before we we launched. Dr. Kang and McAfree had already been aboard for two months.

Right away I could tell my presence in the Science Department was resented. Dr. Kang was surprised when I arrived, I guess he had no idea that running a department would involve having people working under him? Or he just thought a graduate student without Foundation membership was going to make up his entire department?

First he just kept telling me I had the wrong department and sending me away. He had me wander the halls for a while. That worked until Commander Gibson brought me back personally.

His next idea was to send me to get a tool that doesn't exist from a room that doesn't exist on a deck that doesn't exist. When I figured that out he had McAfree trick me into a closet and one of them locked it. I choose to believe this was Dr. Kang.

McAfree was a little bit better, but she was still kind of... completely horrible to me. I'm sorry McAfree but you were. It was definitely Dr. Kang and her against me. She was still better than Dr. Kang though. I'd take her sneering disdain over his active sabotage any day.

This continued for a week or so. Dr. Kang would plot to get rid of me, and then when he couldn't he and McAfree would simply exclude me from whatever they were doing.

Finally one day Dr. Kang and McAfree wanted to start messing with the relativity drive. The Captain told them they couldn't but Dr. Kang felt that because he had been on the team that designed the particular model of relativity drive the Armstrong uses that meant he could overrule her.

Since they were trying to do this stuff without the Captain finding out they had to work around the Engineering Department so they needed a third set of hands. So I was in.

The entire time I was working with them they treated me like a particularly clumsy child with a long history of screwing up, but even doing nothing but grunt work under harsh supervision I learned more about relativity drives in three days than I learned in five years studying at the most prestigious school in the known galaxy. I couldn't believe it.

At the end of the third day, after we had finished what we were doing, McAfree pulled me aside to talk. This was literally the first time she had ever spoken to me without being directly told to by Dr. Kang, and the first time she had anything to say to me that wasn't criticism.

She told me that Dr. Kang was the worst person in the galaxy, and that she wasn't being hyperbolic. She said he was guilty of war crimes. She said he was incapable of anything resembling human feelings with the possible exception of seething indignance. She said he has literally driven people insane before.

She also said that he was worth all of it. That he earned the right to be the worst human being in history, because he was probably also the smartest and most talented human being in history.

She told me, and this was what really stuck with me, that this was my trial by fire. That I would learn so much from just being in his presence while he works that it will be worth all the pain and indignity. That I should realize what an incredible privilege I had been given. That better people than I have had to work hard to be in my position.

And she was right. Working with Dr. Kang has been the worst thing I've ever gone through but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Takahashi booed him.

"That shouldn't count as a story," she said.

"Leave him alone," said Mitzner. "Everyone gets to decide what story to tell. You're not allowed to criticize."

"Your weird story poker game sure has a lot of rules," said McAfree. "I fold."

She put her cards down.

"Fine you can criticize but you'll just be yelling at clouds because it's my card game and I say the story counts," said Mitzner. "I'm also making a new rule: if Dr. Kang features prominently in your story then it has to be one where he gets hurt."

"That's the best rule I've ever heard," said Gul.

"I know, right?" agreed McAfree.

"So that means Wagner's story is stricken from the record?" asked Takahashi.

"I'm grandfathering it in," said Mitnzer. "Let's move on."