I probably should have known better, I’ll admit it. What is it they say about mixing business and pleasure? But it seemed that since my little secret was exposed anyway, that there was nothing to lose. Right? Wrong.

It all started to go sour at the last Star Trek con I attended. The elevators got stuck -- like they always do, every con. Some mundane on the staff called the Fire Department. Just my luck, it was guys I knew that answered -- Station 51. It’s not that I’m not used to being the laughing stock of the Department, it’s just that I’m not used to it while I’m off duty and indulging in a little roleplaying with my fellow Trekkers. To them, I’m Admiral Bellingham, whose fictitious extraterrestrial exploits are second only to Captain Kirk’s. Well, his are fictitious too, but I’m not sure how many of my fellow roleplayers remember that at all times. A little harmless fantasy never hurt anyone, right?

I was prepared to face the music, or should I say the merciless teasing, when I got back to work after my vacation. What I was not prepared for was that idiot Chet Kelly bugging me to take him to the next con I went to. I tried to ignore him (about as easy as ignoring the sudden introduction of matter to antimatter). So, against my better judgement, I relented and agreed that he could come with me to VulcanTrek 3 that was to be held in a Holiday Inn at a highway exit in some one horse town just outside Bakersfield. It was the middle of nowhere but the rates were cheap enough for the many unemployed students who made up the bulk of Star Trek fandom.

So it was that I found myself with not one but two passengers to the con. Chet had insisted that Mike Stoker also come, since he spoke Klingon and all. My Pacer was already pretty well packed with all of the things I had to bring along with me to the con (admirals are not allowed to travel light in Star Fleet). So it was a tight squeeze for three guys to fit into for a fairly long drive.

The trip up went relatively smoothly, considering that I don’t have air conditioning and we were traveling in the desert. Chet babbled the whole way about how long he’d been a Star Trek fan. He was a typical newbie. A typical Trekkie. Stoker had little to say in either Klingon or English. I was pretty sure he was only here because Chet had worn him down as he had me.

The trouble began when we finally got to the hotel. It was a lot smaller than we had been led to believe by the con committee and they were completely overbooked.

“From the look of this place they are used to renting out rooms by the hour not the weekend anyway,” Chet griped. For the last hour of the trip he had been telling us that his first stop was going to be the pool.

Due to the room shortage we were now all going to be rooming together. So much for my plans to lose them in the crowd. As we got ready to trudge up to our third floor room (no elevators to get stuck at this con), Chet asked the slightly stoned desk clerk where the pool was.

“Oh right outside your room almost. You can’t miss it. It’s that big hole in the ground with the yellow crime scene tape around it.”

“Crime scene tape?! Why crime scene tape?”

“Someone like died in the pool.”

“You mean drowned?” Chet demanded.

“No. The management has done everything to prevent drowning!” The clerk declared. “I mean it’s not like there’s ever been any water in the thing as long as I’ve lived in town.”

“Your sign says you have a pool!” Chet argued.

“And we do. We just don’t have any water in it. As, you know, a safety feature,” the clerk assured him proudly.

“If it’s so safe, how did someone die?”

“That was a bad scene, man. High dived into concrete. Can’t imagine why.” A glazed look came over the young man’s face.

“Come on, Chet, let’s go to our room.” I stepped in. I hoped the room A/Cs were more functional than the pool. We were all hot and sweaty by this time. Well, Chet and I were. Stoker looked cool as a cucumber.

The room was small and overwhelmingly beige. Everything was bolted down. Beds, furniture, TV, pictures on the walls even the Kleenex box.

“There’s only two beds,” Kelly astutely noted.

“You guys can each have one. I never waste con time sleeping. There’s too much to do,” I assured him. “I only get a room so I have someplace to store my stuff.”

The AC was nearly adequate. The room never achieved cool but it wasn’t hot anymore either so I figured we were ahead of the game for the moment. We decided to go grab a bite to eat at the Burger King across the street and then it was time to register for the con.

I never told anyone that they were my staff but somehow word got out and was all over the con before it even officially opened. Stoker agreed to let me introduce him as an emissary to the Klingon Empire (that is, he didn’t say I couldn’t -- not that he said anything at all, come to think of it.) Chet was a little harder to fit into my orderly Admiralship. We finally settled on his being a cousin of Kevin Riley who was temporarily attached to my office. He flatly refused to sing I’ll take you home again, Kathleen, however, saying he’d spent his formative years in the company of a certain Cathleen who was a thorn in his side to this day. It didn’t make much sense but it did seem very KevinRileyish so everyone just let it go.

By the time we’d done a quick perusal of the dealers’ room, film room, art room and con suite, none of which were opened yet, we decided to head for a room party. This one was given by my flagship The Foxfire, so I had to go. My staff just naturally came along. Thinking back on it this was probably my first of many mistakes.

I made the introductions all around. Most of my bridge crew was not overly impressed. All but my Navigations Officer, Kenika, a half Klingon, half human woman who had never shown any previous interest in human males. I lost track of both her and Stoker within an hour. Well, it’s not as if I didn’t have important Star Fleet business to attend to. Besides, Stoker was a big boy. He could look after himself.

If I hadn’t been so busy with reports of the skirmishes that had been going on between innocent Federation settlers and the Pirates of Orion, I would have checked up on Chet sooner. He’d been helping make up vats of Saurian Brandy for the party. Who could have imagined that he’d decide to sample so much of it?

By the time the party was in full swing, so was Chet. Good thing my technology officer always brings his expensive video recorder and camera to capture all the highlights of every convention. The party became mobile as we traveled from room to room to greet old friends. At midnight, I had decided to go to the filmroom for a private showing to watch a pirate copy of The Cage that someone had smuggled in. I guess that was were I lost Chet in the shuffle.

After the film we headed for the bar to warm up. I don’t care how hot it is in the rest of the hotel or the universe, for that matter. Filmrooms are always at the optimum temperature to store meat. I’ve often thought that a person could make a fortune selling blankets in filmrooms. There was a piano in the bar and sure enough, there was Chet accompanying himself to a rousing version of I’ll take you home again, Kathleen. It was hard to say who was more out of tune, Chet or the piano. About a dozen females from many different planets were around the piano gazing lovingly at Chet, who seemed to be answering to ‘his cousin’s’ name without hesitation.

I decided this was a harmless enough pursuit till his overly loud voice wafted through the air to where my crew and I were discussing which diversionary tactics were the most successful when your shields became disabled. It seemed that Chet’s earlier plan came back to him about taking a dip in the pool. He and his groupies planned a skinny dipping party. I was more amused than disturbed as they all left the bar giggling.

The long drive must have tired me out a little because it was a full ten minutes later that I remembered that there was no water in the pool. I had my yeoman sound red alert (yes he does carry a portable klaxon -- doesn’t your yeoman?) and we all ambled out to the pool area as fast as our legs could carry us.

It was a really ugly scene. No one had dived into the pool but Chet and ten or twelve women in various stages of undress were in the parking lot, caught in the glare of the headlights of the local sheriff's car. It took all of my diplomatic efforts to keep the lot of them out of the local jail. Of course, Chet’s throwing up probably helped sway the cop from loading them into his cruiser. In the end, my bridge crew and I took the culprits into custody and they were each escorted to a place to sleep it off. I took Chet back to the room and let him pass out across the bed. Let him explain to Stoker later where his clothes were. Let him try and remember even. Luckily I would be in possession of photographic evidence of the whole event to use against him should he try and bully me into bringing him to the next con. I didn’t get to be an admiral for nothing.

After spending the rest of the night watching Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy on 16mm film (which had more cracks and splices in it than the desert along a fault line) my bridge crew and I were the first in line for the breakfast buffet. After a quick run through the dealers’ room, the paramedic in me insisted I go check on Chet. The Starship Commander in me wondered where my navigator and Stoker had gotten to. So I headed back to the room.

There was no sign of Stoker but Chet was on his deathbed. Actually, he was on the bathroom floor insisting that death was imminent. I started pumping tomato juice and alka seltzer into him. He wanted me to let him just die in peace but I assured him that I couldn’t do that.

“Because you’re a paramedic?”

“No. Because I might need to use the room sometime over the weekend and I don’t want the police cordoning it off like they did the pool.”

“I don’t know why but I don’t want you to mention pool to me again.”

“You shouldn’t want me to mention police to you again either.”

“Police? What about the police?”

“You don’t remember your little encounter with the local Sheriff?”

“What for?”

“Oh something about being naked and intoxicated in public -- although in your case I’d think they’d have to go hand in hand.”

“You’re so full of it, Bellingham. I’m not buying that!” He was getting surly. The hangover medicine must have been working.

“You don’t have to buy it. I’m sure there will be lots of people in the Department who will be happy to buy it -- or the tape of it anyway.”

“I don’t believe you. Besides, a Star Fleet Admiral would never stoop to blackmail,” he said in his most pleasant, phoney voice.

I knew he believed me and that he was going to behave himself for the rest of the weekend. That was worth more than money to me.

I sent him in to take a shower while I changed into my Star Fleet dress uniform. I didn’t plan on coming back to the room and the formal banquet was tonight.

Chet looked a little more viable when he got out of the shower so I told him that if he hurried he could still make the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet (although I doubted there would be much left by this time) or he could walk over to Burger King. He didn’t seem interested in food but he did pick up his program to check the film schedule.

I managed to avoid him all day except for a brief encounter in the dealers’ room. He was being fitted for a Star Fleet uniform by one of the gigglers from last night. I wasn’t sure if he recognized her but she sure recognized him from all the blushing that she was doing. It’s amazing how different things look when you’re sober. He told me that he had bought a ticket to the banquet and then he’d found out that you had to come in costume. I doubted it. I think he’d wanted a Star Fleet uniform all along and was just using the banquet as an excuse.

I noted he had a lot of other goodies and I imagined that he’d left money at many of the tables in the dealers’ room. Fully employed people with disposable incomes are treated like gods by the hucksters. Chet was an easy mark.

He showed me some of his treasures. Not that I could really knock him. I owned most of the things he bought myself. “They got these things called fanzines. People are actually writing their own stories about Star Trek. Can you imagine people writing stories about a show years after it went off the air?” he asked with disbelief.

I assured him that I couldn’t imagine such a thing and made good my escape before he found any of the fanzines that had any of my stories in them. As well as chronicling the adventures of The Foxfire, I also have a running character who is a Federation Security Officer who has a most annoying Vulcan for a partner, my own partner being the perfect inspiration. The stories are probably therapeutic. I’m told I’ve lasted longer as Brice’s partner than anyone else in the history of the Department.

The banquet was the highlight of the con for me. After 24 hours of nonstop Star Trek related activity, it was a chance to sit down and even eat. Not that the food usually resembled anything like Earth-type cuisine, in this case that made it all the more fun. Everyone was in costume so any shyness or inhibitions that anyone felt usually disappeared in the spirit of the event. I made my way to the table that had been reserved for The Foxfire crew. Chet was already seated. He was engaged in a hot argument about who was the most vital character on The Enterprise. This argument had been going on since Star Trek began. It wasn’t likely to ever be settled, least of all here and now. But it kept Chet occupied and out of my hair.

I looked around the table. There had either been a terrible transporter malfunction that had combined two people into one or Kenika and Stoker were doing some serious making out at the far end of the table in a darkened corner of the room. I wondered how much Saurian Brandy they had consumed.

I went over and tapped Stoker on the shoulder, glaring at my navigator meaningfully.

“Admiral, I’ve been instructing Ambassador Stoker in the finer points of Klingon relationships, in the interest of peace between our worlds,” Kenika assured me. Klingons, even half Klingons, didn’t grovel but my rank did force her to make some sort of explanation.

“Diplomacy is a wonderful thing, but I expect a modicum of decorum among my crew, Lieutenant,” I said evenly.

A snort from Stoker reminded me that he had heard that line from Captain Hockrader just as I had but I ignored him and went back to the head of my table. Kenika was in full Klingon dress uniform and Stoker wore a quilted gold-colored Nehru jacket over his black jeans. It did actually look like something a Federation emissary might wear. I recognized it as something that belonged to Kenika but said nothing about that.

The usual long winded speeches had started to welcome us to the con. A skit involving people in Battlestar Galactica uniforms being driven off by Star Fleet Academy cadets followed the speeches. I was really getting hungry by that time. The con organizers were glancing nervously toward the kitchen door but food didn’t seem to be forthcoming. Finally a gofer was sent to check on the meal.

A thin girl with mousy brown hair and large glasses, who was dressed in a blue Star Fleet shirt, left the dias. She headed for a door that was all but hidden behind the thick navy blue velvet stage curtains that were draped around the room. I thought it looked a little grand for our banquet. I wondered if the drapery was supposed to muffle any noise that revelers might make during the banquet that would disturb other hotel guests. Not that there were any guests that were not con members anyway, as far as I knew since they were so overbooked. But I wouldn’t complain about any of that as long as food was soon to find its way out of the kitchen and into the banquet room. I watched the girl intently, as if that would hurry things along.

But all thoughts of food left me the instant she opened the heavy door. A burst of flame roared into the room at ceiling level. I knew what had caused that to happen. Oxygen from the banquet hall gave the fire new energy and yanked it into our room with the speed of an explosion. The draperies near the door immediately ignited.

Our table was the closest to the girl. She was frozen in place unable to do anything but scream. Her screams were initiating panic. Chet ran to her. He pushed her out of the way and shoved the steel fire door closed. It cut us off from the blaze in the kitchen but this room was now also alight.

I pulled the girl toward me and gave her a quick once over. Her hair was singed but she did not appear to be badly burned. The fire lapped the ceiling and spread along the curtained wall with amazing speed. “You’re alright,” I told the girl in my best Admiral’s voice. “We have to evacuate the room.”

I couldn’t be heard over the growing clamor in the room. I hopped up onto the dias and grabbed the mic. “There is NO need to panic. Everyone just make your way to the exit on the right. It leads right outside.” I didn’t want them to try the other exit that led to the hallway of the hotel since I didn’t have any way of knowing how far the kitchen fire had spread.

As I did this I glanced back to toward the kitchen. Chet and Stoker had found the fire hose. Chet broke the glass with the ax provided. They worked like a well oiled machine and as soon as the hose was unrolled they charged it and went to work on the fire.

My attention was drawn back to the exit. People were bottlenecking there.

“We can’t get out. It’s locked!!”

Locked?! I couldn’t believe it. None of the people on the dias had moved. A guilty look came over one of them. “I didn’t want people sneaking into the banquet. It’s one of the few things that turns a profit so we can pay for the con,” she wailed.

“Chet, throw me that axe,” I hollered into the microphone. He obliged and I pushed my way through the crowd. The room was filled with black smoke by this time and it was incredibly hot in there, which served to add to the panic.

“Stand back,” I commanded. I was amazed that this door did not have a panic bar as was required by law. Even if a door is locked to prevent entry from the outside, they are supposed to have a bar that people inside could use to get out. I used the blunt side of the ax and smashed the plate glass windows in the door. I knocked all the shards out of the way and people started pouring from the room to the parking lot.

“Take it easy. One at a time.” I remained in command and forced them to exit in an orderly manner. “Stay low under the smoke,” I told those waiting to exit. I acted like fires were an everyday occupance and nothing to worry about. Well, they were for the Fire Department and I relied on my training to make sure everyone got out. Once they were all out I stepped out for a minute to get a breath of fresh air. I saw a maintenance worker in tan coveralls.

“Did anyone call the Fire Dept?” I demanded.

“Yes but they’re all volunteers so it might take a while for ‘um to get here.”

“Is everyone out of the kitchen?”

“Looks like. But it’s a regular inferno in there.”

“Did anyone shut off the gas?”

“Don’t think so they all just ran when they seen it was out of control.”

“Well, you go turn it off from the outside then,” I told him. I was still using my Admiral-in-command voice and he ran to it.

I went back into the room. I could see a lot of white smoke now and no flame. I went over to where Chet and Stoker were wetting linen napkins and tying them around their faces like the bandits in the Western movies. I knew they were trying to filter the smoke.

“It looks like this is pretty well knocked down but the kitchen is fully involved. If we don’t stop it the whole place could go up,” Chet panted.

I nodded in agreement, wet a napkin and tied it in place myself. We opened the door much more slowly that the unsuspecting girl had. I was ready to shove it closed if the fire was too big. The kitchen had been fully involved but the truth is that commercial kitchens are designed so that there is not that much in them that can burn. Now that the gas had been turned off it was running out of fuel. The three of us cautiously made our way into the kitchen. Chet and Stoker worked the hose. I grabbed a fire extinguisher that was hanging on the wall unused by the kitchen staff. I went to work on the stove while the others doused the rest of the room.

By the time the local fire department bulled into the kitchen, the fire was all but out. We needed to get outside and away from the smoke so we left them to do mop-up and made our way out into the parking lot gasping for breath. We never expected to hailed as heroes but that was what happened. The local fire captain made his way through the crowd of trekkies to talk to us. I had my breath back by that time so I explained that we were off duty LA County firefighters.

He took a long hard look at us. “Well you boys do good work and you sure have purty uniforms,” he commented as he made his way to his own men to inspect the damage to the hotel.

I had forgotten what we were wearing. We were too hot and tired and hungry to really care what the local guys thought of us. We moved with the crowd over to the Burger King and finished our banquet there till we got the go-ahead to go back into the hotel.

Other than a little smoke and water damage in the hallway, only the kitchen and banquet hall were affected. The fire was well out so the con was allowed to continue. We were the guests of honor at many parties that night and I have to admit that part of the weekend is something of a blur in my memory.

We slept in on Sunday morning. I crashed in a friend’s room whose original roommate hit the road right after the fire. There isn’t much doing at a con on Sunday. Things are starting to wind down. People are tired. Everyone has to get ready to go back home, back to their jobs and back to reality. Reality and our jobs had actually put in an appearance at the con. I have to admit that as much fun as it can be to pretend to be a Star Fleet admiral, I’m really glad that my real job is what it is and that the firefighter in me and Chet and Stoker came to the forefront and prevented what could have been a real disaster.

After stopping in at a talk given by a NASA scientist and seeing some amazing space photos, we took a final run through the dealers room (this is the time for real bargains) and then went back to the room to pack.

We finally got everything crammed back into the Pacer. Chet started bitching right away about how anyone could buy a car with so much glass and not pay the extra for AC. In fact, he didn’t know why anyone would have gotten a Pacer to start with.

I didn’t tell him that it was because it looked like a space shuttle to me. Didn’t he notice how many Pacers were parked in the hotel lot? I’m not the only one who thinks so.

I just gritted my teeth for the long drive back to LA. To make matters even worse, my dreams of this being the last con I’d have to attend with Chet evaporated when the three of us were invited to be the Fan Guests of Honor at a con to be held the following month in Long Beach. Maybe it was time to find a new hobby......................

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