If you are seeing this paragraph, the site is not displaying correctly. You can see the content, but your current browser does not support CSS which is necessary to view our site properly. For the best visual experience, you will need to upgrade your browser to Netscape 6.0 or higher, MSIE 5.5 or higher, or Opera 3.6 or higher. If, however, you don't wish to upgrade your browser, scroll down and read the content - everything is still visible, it just doesn't look as pretty.

To My Charles

Author - TheCursor | Genre - Challenge: POV | Rating - G | T
Fan Fiction Main Page | Stories sorted by title, author, genre, and rating

“Clipping Clue-Pons” POV CHALLENGE

To My Charles…

By THECURSOR

Rating: G
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Genre: Cutting Clue-pons entry.

Author’s Note: In the image gallery I noticed that Trip’s first love is his ship, well the feeling is mutual. Set after Trip leaves for the Columbia.


He takes care of me and that is why I love him.

There are others who take care of me and I care for them too but he is the only one who truly loves me. Everyday he rises before the rest of the crew to check my engines and realign my transmitter array by hand. Only he knows that I like having my Warp Manifold Converter set at exactly 34 and that the plumbing system has to run on a different side of the Jeffries tube then the electrical systems or the wires might get condensation. He is my Charles and of all the beings that live on me he is my favorite.

She is my least.

She touches me with cold hands and pounds on my keyboards with no respect. Most beings treat their inanimate objects with a certain reverence; she just treats me as a tool. Even the food that the Chef makes for her on my stoves is bland and cold. She’s not very nice. Still she is part of my crew and I have come to respect that. A ship does not get to choose who she carries.

At first when I realized they had joined together I was a little annoyed, perhaps jealous. She monopolized his time too much, once he was so busy seeing her that he didn’t oil my valves for nearly a week. I reacted badly, malfunctioning in places I don’t normally malfunction, bringing the environmental temperatures down several degrees in her quarters, even making this hissing sound every now and then. I was “misbehaving” he would say and come running to my side whenever I did it.

The one day I noticed the change in both of them. They had just returned from Vulcan and something about them was different. He walked around with this sad look on his face as if something had hurt him deeply. He seemed to be in a daze at times and every now and then I caught him leaning against the warp core just staring into space.

What surprised me was that she was feeling far worse. She seemed slow and dejected; her footsteps on my decks fell heavily and without the same passion that I had sensed in her before. I tried to make her feel better. Once my environmental system “malfunctioned” and caused the temperature of her room to rise, getting as hot as her native planet. She had enjoyed that but it didn’t seem to cheer her up. In fact it actually seemed to remind her of something painful.

Things continued like this for some time until my computer heard something very sad: Charles was leaving. He had requested to be transferred to another ship and was passing on duties to Mr. Kelby. I was crushed but not as crushed as the woman was. She was so sad and late at night I can feel the weight of her sadness when she lays down in my bed or meditates on my floor. I feel her pain; I really do because I have the same pain. Each day is now lived without my Charles.

Kelby is not a bad engineer but he isn’t Charles. I can see that the woman feels the same way. I don’t think she likes Mr. Kelby at all and I am beginning to agree. He sets my Manifold levels to 42 and rearranged my inertial dampener systems to save space. It is not the way I want them, I’m not working to my optimum capacity. I may be moving more efficiently but not in the way I was designed for, Charles understood that and it’s why he didn’t simply upgrade everything all at once like Kelby wants to. He thought I should grow into my new components not have them shoved inside of me.

Recently I have decided to misbehave again, driving Kelby a little crazy. I hope it drives him out of a job and that my Charles comes running back to me like he did before. The woman feels the same way. I think she likes it when I misbehave, maybe takes a little pleasure in seeing the man that replaced our Charles tearing his hair out.

I will continue to misbehave until the Captain is forced to return him. Maybe when Charles does come back I’ll let the woman help fix me. That will be fun, the three of us working together for once.

Please come back Charles.

Back to Fan Fiction Main Menu

Have a comment to make about this story? Do so in the Trip Fan Fiction forum at the HoTBBS!


A whole mess of folks have made comments

Now THAT'S an original POV, LOL! Good one, Cursor. Poor Enterprise!

Yes, that was an original story. Very neat!

Really nicely done! And very very original! Neato.

Man, they keep making these ships better and better don't they? An absolutely original POV, Cursor, and extremely well written! Great job...

Nice one, welll written and completely original. You've given Enterprise an amazingly vivid personality in such a short story. My favourite line? "She is the least."

Cursor, you are always a joy to read! Thanks. I love this.

That has got to be the most original take on this challenge! I loved it!

Awesome story! I enjoyed it very much. Original and so entertaining...

Once again, I got here too late. All the adjectives are taken. Anyway, very impressive.

Great, original and CURSOR IS WRITING AGAIN! *writer squee* ;)

Very original and absolutely hilarious.
I shall treat my pc with a little more respect from now on. A friendly word or a little pat on the hardware never hurt anyone...

"I will continue to misbehave", LOL. I agree with others, this is a highly original, perhaps the most original, POV in this group. This POV challenge was a stroke of genius: a great short exercise for writers. I can feel the writers playing of each other, being inspired by each other! Bravo, Cursor.

Bwahaha! Verra nice!

The above comment was by me.

That was sweet. I guess his ship would act that way to his leaving. I like how it didn't like her at first too. Nice Job. T.

wow. :) funny and original. wasn't expecting that POV!

Very cute!

LOL! Nice one. :)

Hilarious, but oh so true... Creative POV, I loved it...

Is it weird to emphathize with a ship? Great stuff, I loved it! :)