Ships and Stings and Wedding Rings

Cover of Ships and Stings and Wedding Rings

### **Synopsis**

*It’s Christmas again at St Mary's and time for Max’s obligatory illegal jump. On this occasion, however, they’re right up against it. A loaded gun has been left behind in Ancient Egypt and it’s up to St Mary’s historians to retrieve it before someone accidentally  blows their own head off, thus affecting the timeline for centuries to come. And as if that’s not enough, Max has inadvertently poisoned Mr Markham. It’s hot, they’re running out of supplies, they can’t find the gun, and it’s all going horribly wrong. Again.*

### **Plot Summary**

It's Christmas at St Mary's and the latest assignment has concluded. Elspeth Grey, Tom Bashford, Messrs Cox, Gallaccio and [NAME] are back from observing ancient Egyptian ship-building somewhere along the Nile in c. 1470 BCE. Max notices something's off immediately, and confronts Grey in Sick Bay, where the latter confesses that she had taken a Glock with her to Ancient Egypt and subsequently lost it, as well. She's in big trouble should anyone find out.

Max and Markham plan their annual illegal Christmas jump to shadow the other historians, but after Markham shorts St Mary's electrical framework and he and Max arrive in the paint store, Peterson indignantly tells them he's coming, too. Or else he'll grass the both of them up to Dr Bairstow. Max, Markham, and Peterson make the jump.

For six days the trio follows Grey and her team around wherever they go, during which time Markham is stung by practically every single bug in all of Egypt, but Grey keeps her pack containing the Glock very close to her chest at all times. It looks as if the retrieval mission is a bust, until the ship is launched. Crowds of people run around, and in all the unrest someone knocks into Grey who drops her pack. The Glock is seen skittering across the ground and coming to a halt beneath a barrel.

Max hesitates to grab it - since Grey and her team can't see Max and her boys, otherwise everything would unravel immediately - and is beat to it by a young boy. The boy runs away with the Glock and when he sits down to study it, gets hit round the head by what Max presumes is his older brother, who relieves him of the cool metal thingamajig. He takes it to a busy market and is in turn hit round the head by one of the salesmen, who sends him on his way and keeps the gun to sell it.

Max, Peterson, and Markham - who is throwing up by the mile and looking absolutely dreadful, presumably from all the insect stings - pose as buyers to get the Glock back. The salesman eyes Max's wedding ring and Max reluctantly hands it over in exchange for the gun. Back at the pod, Max and Peterson figure out that instead of spraying Markham with insect repellant, she'd been using a can of WD40. They dunk him in the Nile to clean him up a bit, then jump back to St Mary's.

Max takes the Glock back to the armory, where she's surprised by the presence of Major Guthrie and Leon. She asks to speak to Guthrie alone, and an indignant Leon leaves the armory. Guthrie is confused and saddened by Grey's apparent need to bring a Glock on a bread-and-butter jump, and Max tells him to talk to her and make some decisions. Guthrie loosely quotes Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz: 'I think I'll miss you most of all, Scarecrow,' indicating that he'll be leaving as well as Grey.

Leon visits Max in Sick Bay, where she has to stay for the mandatory twelve-hour observation, to talk to her. She confesses exchanging her wedding ring for the Glock, and he in turn gives her an early Christmas present. It's an old rugby sock - sorry, Christmas stocking - in which he's concealed a paperclip-box with her wedding ring. He'd taken one look at her, saw the white mark on her finger, checked his pod's jump log, and made a jump to follow her, Peterson and Markham following Grey's team. In the end, he tells her he managed to get her ring back by offering the salesman three rolls of St Mary's standard issue toilet paper.

All is well again at St Mary's - for some people, at least - and a happy Christmas awaits.