“Toe Pick”

By Joseph Manno

On a sparsely-manned bridge, Brett King watched from his vantage point at the ops station as his friend finished her task.

“Parihn, I’m not so sure about this…”

“I am. He’s got to come out of there sometime.”

On cue, her hypothesis proved correct: The ready room door slid open.

Her balance was usually impeccable. Her timing, though, had been better: Caught red-handed, literally, the Orion squeaked, overbalanced and fell from the anti-grav disk…

…into the captain’s arms.

Mantovanni searched her guileless, doe-eyed face.

“Explain, Ensign.”

She smiled and pointed. He glanced up…

…and saw the mistletoe.