Fred 71

Issue 71

Magazine

CA                         Editorial

Phew.  It's hot.  Really really hot.  I'm melting into a purple
liquid.  It's quite unpleasant actually.

Anyway, hello.  I'm back in Evesham now (sarcastic hooray).
It's back to walking six miles to get to the nearest, erm,
library (ahem). It's back to the hilariously fun (at the time)
game of playing tunes on the doorbell in the early hours of the
morning and then remembering mum lives in our house (she doesn't
seem to see the fun in it).  It's back to the really foul smell
of country air - how that stuff can be good for plants is beyond
me.  And let's not forget the constant scratching I have to do
because we own a stupid flea-ridden cat.  Ahh, to be home...

On the good side, it gives me time to catch up with FRED
deadlines (which are about three weeks out now - oops).
Actually, a certain editor of another magazine which I had
better not mention told me to sneakily miss out a month!  How
dare he!  If people knew he edited Crashed, then that magazine
wouldn't last long.  Tish.  Miss a month?  Never.
CA                         Editorial

Another good thing about Summer is holidays!  Hurrah!  A chance
to waste hundreds of pounds drinking yourself silly with a bunch
of mates in a different place to normal!  Not that I do,
because that's a bad example to set and drinking kills you.
Sigh.  But never mind that, I'm off to Newquay this year (for a
change) with university people (twenty eight in all).  That
should give me a chance to destroy my insides drinking lots of
lemonade (sigh) and destroy my body by paddling in the ever so
slightly unclean sea that makes Britain such a popular holiday
resort...

Colin MacDonald said that he wasn't planning on doing much this
Summer.  He said he was just going to go on a bit of a forty day
cruise around Europe, Africa and Asia.  But nothing special.  He
said he'd save his cash for a decent holiday next year, by which
time he hopes to own an airline company.



CA                         Editorial

Now that I'm back home, I'll be missing the luxury of e-mail,
so please don't send hundreds of messages to my account.  I know
it'd be really funny to clog up the system and get me banned
from the computers next year, but don't.  Please.

Being back home also means that I'm going to have to cook for
myself (I always thought that mums were put on this earth to
cook for you, but if I ask I get a right earful).  Looks like
it'll be back to microwave curries and jacket potatos.



I've just spotted something that's great fun to watch and play
with.  If you go to page 6 and flick between pages 6 and 7, at
the top the letters Fantas stay!  Woooooo - spooky!  Who says
FRED isn't the most exciting thing ever??



CA                         Editorial

Argh!  Ohmigosh!  Speaking of foreign countries (!), my mum is
getting a new job in Stirling!  Stirling in SCOTLAND!  Shudder.
Panic.  I can't live in Scotland!  This is what happens when you
become editor of FRED.  Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing
against Scottish people - they're top notch, and the county is
wonderful (in places), but I can't go there.  I'll have no
friends (if anyone says "What's different", they get a smack in
the mouth).  I'll have to go out and sit on my own.  I'll get
beaten up for being English.  I won't be able to understand
anything anyone says.  I'll grow wings and turn blue.

My mum starts work on August 12th and I can't go to my new
house in Nottingham until the 1st September.  I'm just hoping
that the house doesn't sell.  I'm thinking of walking about
naked and urinating over things when people come to look round.
That should do the trick.  Oh deary me, everythings going wrong.
Firstly I have to leave Nottingham, then I find out that my
local has closed down, then my mum moves to Scotland.  Whatever
next?  
CA                         Editorial

By the way, if anyone cares, I passed my exams.  So did BigMac,
but he's probably gone on about that in the newsletter.

Hey, didn't Colin speak highly of the editorial and letters
sections last month?  I was expecting a good telling off again
for the content of the letters section, but when I asked him why
he hadn't said anything he told me that I was a lost cause!
Wahoo!  I can get away with anything!  Let's have a try...

**** ******** **** **** ******** ******* [Edited by CM - sigh]

Tee hee, Colin Macdonald is gonna kill me when he sees that!

Anyway, I've said enough.  I still haven't got a proper job, my
life is falling apart, I've probably just got myself sacked from
FRED - what more do you want to know??

Hey, I know what you want to know.....

CA              All Your Fantasies Revealed...

   Team Name                               Manager        Score

01 The Crashed Crusaders               Allan Clarkson       038
02 Frank Broughton Appreciation Soc.   Mark Sturdy          033
03 I'll Cheat If I Start Losing...     Colin Anderton       027
04 "Headless"                          Stefan Drissen       023
05 What's In A Name?                   A. Francis           022
06 Crikey...My Wig Is On Fire!         Andrew Chandler      022
07 Scorpion Soft Productions Team (?)  Paul Dudley          020
08 Scotland                            Colin Macdonald      018
09 Crap Games Co.                      Dean Nicholas        017
10 Team Mango Chutney                  Matt Vowles          014
11 Real Nice World                     Andrew Collier       013
12 Happy Slug Productions              Tim Paveley          013
13 James Curry's Team Of SAM Wierdos   James Curry          012
14 Har Har Har                         Sylvia               012
15 Death By Electricity                Doug Young           012
16 Blue Foot United                    Stewart Skardon      010
17 Children Of Satan (ahem)            Stephen McGreal      010
CA                       Fantasy That!

18 NewZealandStory                     Howard Price         008
19 Some Dead Good People               Graham Goring        008
20 I Still Use My Sam, Honest..        Dave Handley         007
21 The Kick Butt Crew                  Mark Bennett         007
22 Sentai Power Sammers NL             Robert Van Der Veeke 006

        Manager of the month: Colin Anderton - 21 points

Thanks to issue 70, we've seen a much more exciting week.  Even
though Clarkson grips to first place, his and Sturdy's
commanding lead has been reduced to just a few points, mainly
thanks to a surging run by both Anderton and Drissen.  After a
huge mick-take last month, congratulations have to go to Andrew
Chandler who leaps from last to 6th with a cracking 20 points.
Nicholas amazingly stays in 9th place!  Some huge drops from
McGreal (11 places) and Bennett (13 places) cause havoc with the
bottom half of the table.  Bennett is the first to get NO points
in a month (tee hee, how stupid), but manages to avoid bottom
place by 1 point to Robert Van Der Veeke.  Cor, how exciting!
JE                  C How To Write A Game...

The definition of a function has the following format:

type function name (type parameter1, type parameter2 etc)
 {
  type variable names;         // declaration of variables

  body of function
  execuable statements
 }


The type preceeding the function name relates to the result
returned by the function. It can be one of the normal types e.g.
int, char or if no result is returned void is used. If no
parameters are passed to the function then (void) or just () is
used. Note there is no ; separator at the end of the line, it
will cause some odd error reports at compile time if you put one
there. The remainder of the function is enclosed within curly
braces {}.
JE                          C Guide

Lets begin with main(). It can be large or small but there must
be a main() as it is from here that the program will start to
run. It is common practice to keep main() small and simple by
putting any complexity into other functions. In our case main()
will end up looking very similar to the psuedocode of the high
level description we worked up earlier.

                            Stage 1
                    Initialisation functions

As we will develop the program in stages we will need to modify
main() as more functions are added. First we are going to write
a function called initialise() to do some initial setting up, so
main() should look like this:


                     (Please turn the page)


JE                          C Guide

main ()

{
 initialise ();
}

The approach I'll use is to list the function definition and
then discuss particular aspects of the code. The Initialise
function will call two other functions. One will print
instructions the other will print a title banner for the game.
The title will also be used for the instructions, so lets look
at the function definition for title () first.







JE                          C Guide

void title ()

 {

   paper (0);     // make paper and border colour black
   border (0);
   cls (0);       // (0) means clear the complete screen
   paper (14);    // set paper and pen colours
   pen (0);       // for title banner
   printf ("\a\000\010*** MINEFIELD ***");   // print at 0,10

 }

This is a nice simple function to start with. As the title is
required by both the instructions and game screens, setting the
background colour and clearing the screen is done here to avoid
writing the same code twice. Note that the parameter 0 passed to
the cls function tells it to clear both top and bottom parts of
the screen. The printf function allows print data to be
JE                          C Guide

formatted. The \a\000\010 is the equivalent of AT 0,10 in BASIC.


Lets look now at the function to print instructions.

void instructions ()

 {

   title ();
   paper (0);
   pen (6);
   printf ("\a\002\005\Instructions:\n\n");
   puts (" Clear the Minefield and mark");
   print (" the mines without hitting one.");
   at (7,2);
   print ("Controls:");
   at (9,1);
   puts ("Cursor Keys SPACE=check Q=Quit");
JE                          C Guide

   print (" M=Mark Mine or Remove Marker");
   pen (15);
   at (14,0);
   printf ("Select E-Easy M-Medium H-Hard");

 }

The function title () is called to clear the screen and display
the title banner. For demonstration purposes three different
ways of screen printing are used, printf(), print() and puts().
The most versatile is printf(), which allows formatting of the
data to be printed. In this case the print position is set and
the \n means newline i.e. move the print position to the start
of the next line. Functions print() and puts() can only print
strings of characters. The difference between them being that
puts() includes a newline after the text has been printed. Since
print() and puts() don't allow print formatting the at()
function is used to set the print position. I find that I often
need to use printf() because print() and puts() don't respond to
JE                          C Guide

changes to paper and pen colours unless cls() or printf() has
been used.

Both of the above functions instructions() and title() are
called by initialise() which is itself called from main() on
program start up.

void initialise ()

 {

   int r, c;         // declare variables local to this function
   char key;

   mode (4);          // use screen mode 4
   instructions ();

// Get difficulty level to define size of minefield.

JE                          C Guide

   rows=8;        // default size will be Easy
   cols=8;

   key=getch ();
   if (key=='m' || key=='M')
    {
     rows=10;                // size for Medium
     cols=20;
    }
   if (key=='h' || key=='H')
    {
     rows=14;                // size for Hard
     cols=30;
    }

   title ();

   // centralise box and window in top part of the screen

JE                          C Guide

   r=rows/2;
   c=cols/2;
   pen (14);
   box (128-c*8-3, 100-r*9-4, cols*8+5, (rows+1)*9+8);
   window (16-c, 15+c, 9-r, 9+r );
   total = (rows*cols)/6;
 }

This function is a bit more involved. The variable key is
assigned the value of the key pressed, obtained by calling the
function getch(). By using the if construct we can determine
which level of difficulty is required and set the size of
external variables rows and cols which determine the size of the
minefield array. No check is made for 'E' as Easy will be the
default level used when any key other than the M or H keys is
pressed. Note the use of 'M' and not "M". This is because C
treats characters as strings and appends a zero as a terminator.
Using 'M' tells the comiplier we are dealing with the single
byte character M. Note also the difference between (= assigns)
JE                          C Guide

and (== equals).


Apart from the slightly different appearance if performs just
the same as in BASIC. The C format is:

if (condition)     // e.g. condition being m or M key pressed.
 {
  statements to be processed;
 }

The functions box() and window() are included from external
libraries as declared at the start of the program. The
parameters passed in the parameters list provide co-ordinate,
width and height information to place the outline box and the
window in the centre of the screen. Graphics co-ordinates are
used by box() i.e. pixels and character co-ordinates are used
for window(). To avoid repeated calulation, the variables r and
c are assigned the value of half the rows and columns. Note that
JE                          C Guide

as well as fixed values and the value indicated by a variable
name, a parameter can also be the result of a calculation
defined in the parameter list.

Before we compile the code, the function prototypes as shown
below should be declared at the front part of the source code,
(i.e. after the external function prototype declarations). The
prototypes look very similar to the first line of the function
definitions but note the ; separator.

void initialise ();
void title ();
void instructions ();

Now we are ready to use the Compiler, so press ESCAPE to exit
the Editor, SAVE the source code then select Compile and DoIt.
Providing everything has been typed in correctly there should
be no errors. If there is a problem, use the error message
inserted at the appropriate point in the source code to help.
JE                          C Guide

When succesfully compiled and assembled, select Run and the
instructions should be printed. Press a key and a yellow
outline box should be displayed, the size of the box depending
on the key pressed.

                            Stage 2
                      Setting up functions

Hopefully flushed with success you are ready to add some more
functions. We will need to make an addition to main().

main()

{
 initialise ();
 setup ();
}

Both initialise() and setup() do tasks in preparation for the
JE                          C Guide

game. The difference is initialise() performs tasks which only
need to be done when the program is first run and setup()
performs tasks needed before the start of each game.

void setup ()

 {
  int i;

  cleared=mines=bang=finished=0; // reset counters and flags.
  xx=cols/2-1;                   // make cursor co-ords
  yy=rows/2-1;;                  // centre of minefield.
  paper (BACKGROUND);
  cls (1);                   // (1) clear top of screen only.
  prn_mines_left ();
  pen (15);
  for (i=0;i

Letters

CA                          Deary me

Erm, a bit of an empty letters section this month, I'm afraid.
Hopefully it's just down to the fact that the last FRED was so
late.  Anyway, it gives me a good chance to fill you with guilt
and beg you for some more letters, screens, e-tunes and tenners.

Right, I'll let you read on....













                    Letter From Alan Groves

Dear Colin,

    It's me again, this time putting finger to keyboard rather
than pen to paper.  The time has come around once again when I
must re-subscribe, so I decided it would be time to write.

As another of your older readers, the "confrontation" between
John Saunders and yourself interested me.  Although I agree that
your humour is, how can I say this, beyond me, I understand it
is a necessary thing and must confess to laughing at a couple of
remarks last month.  Never mind, I was pleased to see an amiable
ending to everything!

Unfortunately I am not a great programmer and so must apologise
for the lack of crazy games on my part.  My elder grandson is
becoming something of a computer whiz and was showing me your
program, SAMSprite last weekend.  Although the whole concept was
new to me, I was most impressed by how easy to use it was and
managed a (badly drawn) Garfield animation.  Sixty seven and
                    Letter From Alan Groves

still learning!  Whatever next?

I must say that I agree with your remarks about extra articles.
An article I would be particularly interested in would be one
comparing the various word-processors on the SAM at the moment.
Obviously, the words would need to be explained (I do not even
understand what Insert does), but it would be very useful for me
to know which word-processor is preferred.

I'll type off now!  Keep up the good work and high standard of
FRED.  Many thanks.

                          Alan Groves






CA                   Reply to Alan Groves

Glad to have you re-subbing again, Alan and thanks for the
comments about SAMSprite.  First you master SAMSprite and before
you know it, you'll be programming Doom in machine code.... erm,
maybe!

The word processor articles are a very good idea, and if someone
reading has enough of Spell Master, Outwrite, The Secretary and
the one on FRED (Protype), then I'd be grateful if you could
write something for me.










                    Letter From James Curry

Dear Colin,

    Sorry I haven't written anything for you over the past year,
but I'm a lazy sod.

    Congratulations on doing an incredible job despite this, and
I promise I'll get something written when Graham and I go on a
romantic holiday together next month.

                                 James R. Curry


CA                    Reply To James Curry

Apology accepted.  Have a nice holiday.




                 Letter From Samantha (aged 16)

Dear Colin,

    I love you and want to marry you.  You are really hunky and
good looking and I've printed pictures of you out and they're
all over my bedroom walls.  I want to rip your clothes off with
my teeth. Please please say you love me and you'll marry me.

                  Loads and loads of kisses,

                           Samantha









CA                     Reply To Samantha

Cor, blimey.  See the sort of things I have to contend with?
This isn't a one off either.  I get sacks of the things every
day.

Erm, look Samantha, I'm sure you're very nice but, er, I'm
already married.  I'm sorry.

Oh, and stop sending me flowers please.  Tsk.

Star Trek: The Useless Ones

                  STAR TREK : THE USELESS ONES

                     PRIME EXAMPLE (part 1)
                                      By Robert Brady

"Captain's Log. Stardate 46386.3. Took on most of the crew today
at Starbase 47. We have set course for some stupid space station
near Bajor in response to some dumb emergency request from them
about some Cardassians threatening to violate the provisional
treaty. Deep Space Nine, I think it's been designated. Some
rubbish about a stable wormhole."

Ten-forward was unusually quiet that day. This is, of course,
totally irrelevant, because the USS Enterprise is not where this
captain's log recording was made. It was made on the bridge of
the USS Grapefruit, NCC 1702, an experimental Soya-class vessel,
in early 2369. The odd name was the fault of solicitor Ralph
Phines who won a competition in 2368 to name a Starfleet
Starship and the class. After using up all the good names,
Starfleet were rather desperate - there were over forty thousand
Starfleet ships in existense at that point.

He had seen the competition in the 'Federation Chronicle', one
of the few surviving newspapers. He was the only person to
enter, and the editor (whose decision is final), was forced to
declare him the winner, even though he got two out of three
questions wrong, and had a lousy tie-breaker.

For some reason, he called the class Soya and the ship the
Grapefruit. Normal practice would dictate that the first ship
would be named after the class, for example, the first
Galaxy-class ship was the USS Galaxy, but this was beyond Mr.
Phines, who also won a trip on the first voyage of the
Grapefruit. Which is where he was when the log-recording was
made. Why I mention this I do not know, as I have little
intention to introduce him to the story.

Ten-forward was so-named because it was at the front of deck
ten on the Enterprise. The Grapefruit main lounge was called the
'main lounge'. They had no need for stupid terms for places
everyone knew about. Even they weren't radical enough to call
the Bridge something sensible as well, though, which made their

attempt at calling the main lounge the main lounge rather
pitiful.

The main bridge was where Commander Colin Anderton was at the
moment that the hail from DS9 was recieved.

It appeared to the bridge crew as a light blue button on the
Tactical section of their control panels. On the Tactical
station, it got a whole section allocated to itself, including
information about the source of the hail, whether it was visual
or audial and what text was broadcast from it.

Lieutenant Matt Round noticed the appearance of this new
section, and announced to the bridge that they were being
hailed.

"On screen," said Anderton.

The image on the viewscreen, previously displaying a starfield
screen-saver, was replaced by Commander Benjamin Sisko.

"This is Cmdr. C. Anderton, USS Grapefruit. What can we do for
you?"

"I understand that you were requested to come here by my crew
when the Cardassians were being threatening towards us," said
Sisko.

"Yes."

"Your presense will not be necessary."

"Fine."

"Good. Sisko out."

Sisko's image was replaced by the screen-saver, only this time
it was not a starfield, but flying replicators.

"Anderton to MacDonald."


"What is it now? Can't you see I'm busy?"

"Busy, sir? How?"

"I'm planning my redesign of your face. Leave me alone."

"But sir, it's important."

"Oh get on with it then and stop faffing around."

"DS9 have cancelled their request for us."

"They've what! How dare they! Dragging us across half the known
universe, just to tell us that we aren't needed. Where is our
next scheduled stop, anyway?"

"Golgafrincham One, sir."

"Where's that? I'm not the A-Z of Federation Space, am I?"


"No, sir. It is in that bit trapped between the Klingon Empire
and the Cardassian Empire."

"Right. How far have we deviated from it by going to DS9."

"We've lost about 3 seconds, sir."

"Is that all?"

"Yes. DS9 is on the line between Sol and Golgafrincham."

"Hmm. How much does that fuel cost?"

"Sir, don't you think you're pushing it a bit."

"No. I think however, that you're ready to be court-martialled
for insubordination. How far are we from it?"

"We're just there now, sir."


"Good. Ready an away team."

"Hmm, yes. I think we should have me, White, and Drissen in
midfield."

"Not that sort!"

"Right. Yeah. Cookie and me."

"Beam down then. Do I have to tell you to do everything on this
ship!"

"No, sir. Anderton out."

Colin Anderton and Simon Cooke beamed down to the planet's
surface straight away. MacDonald emerged from hiding shortly
after, and sat down in the command chair of the bridge (note
silly name).

The screen in front of Lt. Goring, an alien from Golgafrincham

Five, lit up in a manner not much like a Christmas tree.

"Captain. Sensors detect a large mass of evaporated water
condensing and attacking they away team by falling towards the
ground."

"Red alert. Bridge to Transporter room. Beam the away team
back. Report when done. Bridge out," barked MacDonald.

Attacked! That's all they needed. They couldn't have the away
team standing around wet all day, could they?

"Transporter to Bridge. They are aboard," came a voice from the
Comm system.

"Very good," replied MacDonald. "Send them here."

Moments later, a soggy Cooke and Anderton ran through the door.

"You were fast," remarked MacDonald. "What did you find?"

"We didn't have any time sir, what with that water falling on
us," replied Anderton.

"And your analysis of the hostile?"

"I believe," interjected Cooke, "that is was a thunderstorm."

"A thunderstorm?" asked MacDonald. "What's that?"

"It consists of rain and thunder and lightning," replied Cooke.

"Rain? That's some kind of weather-related thing isn't it?"
asked Anderton.

"That is correct," replied Lieutenant Commander Cooke. "It is
evaporated water condensing and falling."

"Oh, yes. We did that in the third year of Planetary Sciences
at the Academy," said MacDonald.


"Well, I'm glad we've sorted that out now."

"Not yet," shot back MacDonald.

"Oh?"

"We want that as a weapon. It might come in useful against the
Cardassians and the Romulans - if we ever need it."

"Oh, sure," said Cooke. "I can have that up and running within
the millenium. Probably."

"Good."

Another of those panel things lit.

"Captain," said Tactical Officer Round, "we are being hailed by
Starfleet Command."

"On screen," ordered the captain.

The advert for White's waffles was replaced by some stupid
admiral in San Fransisco, stuck behind a desk.

"Greetings, Admiral Nechayev. How may we be of assistance?"
asked MacDonald.

"Destroy Romulan outpost at the following location :- KNB.
Sector 2-1-7. Stellar Zone 13-19-4. Planetary location 3c.
Code-named Gololololililik 3. Proceed at maximum speed. Maintain
subspace silence until back into Federation Space. Starfleet
out."

"Set course for those co-ordinates," ordered MacDonald, just as
the advert for White's waffles came back on.

"They're waffly delicious," the main speakers chanted out
inanely, just as the ship went to warp.

"Stop!" shouted MacDonald. "Did I say engage?"


"No, sir," said Ensign Hikaru Sulu, grandson of Demora Sulu.

"In future, I would prefer the warp engines not to be engaged
without orders."

"Understood, sir," replied Sulu.

"Engage," said MacDonald.

"Aye, sir."

"Captain's Log. Stardate 46390.6. En route to that Romulan
place, now nicknamed Golfoholic by my crew. Still have not been
able to track down a reliable supplier of chairs."

The Captain's chair was the worst of the Grapefruit problems as
they headed uncloaked into the Neutral Zone at warp 9.6. The
Romulans were clearly not paying attention. But why had they
been sent to destroy a listening post that was not working
properly? MacDonald flicked channels on the main viewscreen with

the remote control to catch the 1800 news on FBC 1.

"And now, the 1800 news, with Richard J'koliko, and Slikip,"
announced someone.

"The headlines today," said J'koliko. "Federation President
Gashop announces new legislation designed to combat
directed-energy weapons. Peace on Bajor at last as a Wormhole is
found. But first, Slikip with Sport."

"Thanks, Richard," continued Slikip. "The Federation was
subjected to a humiliating defeat by the Klingon Empire at
football this afternoon. The Empire were one and a half goals up
by the first quarter, but the Federation were able to narrow
that to the reciprocal of Pi by the end of the third quarter.
However, the Federation lost it in the last quarter, and ended
ten goals down. Richard."

"For half a million years, Bajor has had a fine and noble
culture. A culture savaged by the Cardassian Empire by their

invasion earlier this century. However, following the end of the
Cardassian war two years ago, the Federation have been able to
negotiate the withdrawl of Cardassian forces from Bajor. The ore
processing station orbiting Bajor, Terok Nor, designated Deep
Space Nine by the UFP, has been taken out of Bajor orbit in
response to an astonishing discovery : a stable wormhole linking
the Bajoran system to the Gamma Quadrant, seventy thousand light
years away. We spoke to Commander Benjamin Sisko earlier."

The picture of the news studio cut to one of Sisko being
interviewed by lots of journalists.

"Commander Sisko, what significance does this wormhole hold for
the future of Bajor?" asked one journalist.

"There is going to be a lot of commercial trade through this
system now," replied Sisko. "This will have long-term benefits
for Bajor's economy. We've put Bajor on the map."

It cut back to the studio. "But fundamentalists on Bajor are

not so impressed by the Federation's arguments."

It cut again to OB, but this time, of a Bajoran woman, with a
Vedek's clothes on. 'Vedek Winn', read the caption at the bottom
of the screen.

"We spend all our lives getting rid of the Cardassians," she
ranted, "and invite the Federation in instead. And this
wormhole! We find the Sacred Celestial Temple of the Prophets,
and what does the Provisional Government do? We call it a
wormhole, set up commercial traffic through it. It is
blasphemy!"

Back to the studio, again.

"But that's not it - Winn has sympethisers to her cause in the
increasingly unstable provisional government. Minister Jara, for
example, was heard yesterday, to voice his opposition to
Starfleet administration of Deep Space Nine. With many Bajorans
now experiencing freedom for the first time in their lives, this

is a problem only time will solve."

The newsreader paused for a while, and then continued.

"News is just coming in that the Romulan Empire has detected a
Federation Starship entering the neutral zone. The starship, the
USS Grapefruit, is on a mission to destroy a Romulan listening
post near the neutral zone."

MacDonald turned round to Tactical, and said "record this,
please."

"That was the 1800 news, with me Richard whatsisname, and that
vulcan."

"Damn!" exclaimed MacDonald.

"It would appear that the Romulans are aware of us now. We are
just about to enter the neutral zone." said Round.


"Full stop. Hail Starfleet," ordered MacDonald.

"Aye, sir. I have Admiral Nechayev on screen."

"You destroyed it quickly," said Nechayev.

"It has not been destroyed. We must ask why news of this ship
is being broadcast throughout the galaxy," asked Anderton.

"Well go on, then."

"Why is news of this ship being broadcast throughout the
galaxy?"

"Oh", thought Nechayev. "I know why - It's not there. It's not
Gololololililik 3, its Golololilililik 3. Sorry about, that. I
wasn't feeling too good yesterday. The Federation Council were
suggesting that the refined treaty with the Cardassians was a
little unfair on the inhabitants of the proposed neutral zone,
but I pointed out the long term benefits to them, and I think

they agree with me now."

"Golololilililik 3?" mused MacDonald. "Right then. Helm, set
course for Golololilililik 3, warp 9.6. Engage."

"Aye, sir," said Sulu.

"Anything else?" asked Nechayev.

"No, nothing. See ya. MacDonald out," replied MacDonald.

MacDonald switched the viewscreen back to FBC news.

"We have a correction to make. USS Grapefruit is not entering
the neutral zone. It is heading to an unknown location near the
neutral zone at warp 9.6. More on that story when we have it,"
said the newsreader.

"How do you think they knew so quickly?" asked Anderton.


Cooke did a little tapping away on his Ops panel, and found out
the answer. "FBC News is based on a satellite orbiting
Golololilililik 4. They have several long-range sensors."

"Let's just wait, shall we. See what happens," said MacDonald.


YES, LET'S WAIT...  UNTIL ISSUE 72 OR 73 INFACT, WHEN WE SHALL
PICK UP THE STORY ONCE AGAIN....