Fred 71
Disk Magazine
Submitted by Dan Dooré on Wednesday, May 23, 2018 - 11:36.
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Release Year
1996
Copyrights
Copyrights Granted
Copyright Provenance
Description
Issue 71
Item | Author | Description |
---|---|---|
Menu | ||
Magazine | Ffl, C Guide, News | |
Letters | Samsprite, Word Pros | |
Stax! | Wayne Coles Graham Goring Nicholas Bay David Sanders | Columns-Like Game |
Pc Viewer | Robert Brady | Fred Magazine Viewers For The Pc |
Sam The Man | MJD Productions | Games Master Manic Miner Clone |
Iff Converter | Adrian Francis | Amiga IFF Screen Converter |
E-Tunes | David Sanders | E-Tracker Music |
Useless | Robert Brady | Start Trek-Esque Story |
Sam Screens | Gloucester Show Piccies | |
Submarine | Robert Brady | Submarine Game |
Modules | None this month | |
Fred Game | Robert Brady | Guide The Fred Letters |
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....