Title directly inspired by/ripped off from

"AUSTRALIA GETS DRUNK, WAKES UP IN NORTH ATLANTIC"  (Collision, you
should have been warned by the post's title and .. well.. _me_ posting it)

http://web.archive.org/web/20020201204726/https://www.satirewire.com/news/jan02/australia.shtml

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With Nikov having short-circuited data-based complaints by the expedient
of having every ship independently scan down Teapot, the convoy
proceeded outbound, beyond the claimed trailing border of the Terran
Confederation.

The jump aboard Das Boot wasn't much to write home about - Drake pissed
another 8 weeks of work on Leadership up the wall (to general player
lulz), Nikki knocked over Diplomat 0, Old Joe notched up a level in
Awareness, and Bert (because dingus thought it was funny) knocked over
Profession: Basket Weaving 0.

They dropped out of Jump approx 10 million km out, finding Whipsnade had
again dragged them off at the lights (to no one's surprise) and the
_Caerbannog Rabbit Fancy_ well planetwards. _Like A Record_ and
_Batteries Not Included_ also beating them was a bit of a shock.

Curly DRIVE BOOT GOOD, with a perfect touchdown in one of Teacup's
hangars.  The station captain, Roy den Burger, made everyone else wait,
much to Whipsnade's grumbling and Hightower's amusement.  Although
second out, the lab ship's low engine power and poor agility worked
against it, docking shortly after the _Butcher's Paradise_ landed. The
support ships and the _Caerbannog_ had to dock alongside.

After docking, den Burger invited the ship's crews to a celebratory
booze up - they were the first non-construction-related ships to turn
up.  When El Capitane asked him where the red light district was, den
Burger said that was on the list but not yet built.

Hearing word of a booze up that they were _expected_ to turn up to
(somewhat of a new experience for this mob) and not having to BYO booze,
Drake and Bert decamped to Medical, managing to avoid spotting the
missing chunk of medical explosives they had been looking for.  They
were planning to spike the booze and really liven the party up.

Nikki took up the offer of a station tour, and learned that their
earlier stop had been very similar in at least one respect to Lt J.
Cook, RN, lobbing in Australia ~350 years earlier.

Both ships had assumed the conditions (skimmed fuel contamination in Das
Boot's case, climate in _Endeavour_'s) would be as bad as they got,
leaving some other poor bastards (Capt. R. den Burger et al, Capt. A.
Philip, RN, et al) to find out some time later that they would be the
_best_ things got.

Due to Teapot's internal dynamics, the fuel the station had been
skimming had been not merely unrefined, but so severely contaminated
that it required, on average, _triple_ the refining time of ordinary
unrefined fuel.

As the station's refiners had been sized around the earlier report (two
passes needed), that left Teacup's current refining capacity a third
short of spec.

"Moustache's gonna be peeved" - Nikki

"At least we found out before starting work on Teacup 2 and 3. That's
what prototypes are _for_" - den Burger

"Much bloody bigger scale than I was expecting.  The Old Man doesn't
think small." - Nikki

Nikki finished the tour somewhat impressed at the job the station
designers had managed - everything, including comparatively luxurious
crew accommodations, two boozers, hangars, fuel systems, medical, total
life support via aquaponics and very high intensity hydroponics, traffic
control, sensors, beacons, etc fitted into somewhat less space than she
had expected.

While each ship was docking and sorting out refuelling, Bert had whipped
up a mix of LSD and the Vilani combat drugs that he still had a stash of.

Come party time, Old Joe parked on the bridge, having sealed Das Boot's
hatches.  Nikki got some kip, as did the prospectors - one of the latter
saying he "was too bald for that level of shenanigans."

For some weird reason, the party _really_ went off.  El Capitane, Bert,
and Curly (poor sod) all overdid it.

Next day, the bill came due.

The station's infirmary plus most of the docked ship's sickbays were
filled with alcohol poisoning cases, along with a few drug overdoses. 
Bert (pissed as parrot + bad drug interaction), Curly (straight-up
overdose) and Nikov (unspecified) were among them.  5 ships' crew
(including Jim Ladone, Das Boot's assistant engineer, Piotr Yakunin, Das
Boot's assistant pilot, and Fred Ramen, captain of _Echo Papa 507_) were
in intensive care.

El Capitane was found, with a doozy of a hangover, by station security
in the company of a well-travelled traffic cone that had last been seen
in his quarters aboard Das Boot.  When he called the ship, Joe (who had
gotten a full night's kip) WTFed at exactly _how_ the traffic cone had
gotten loose.

Bert didn't get discharged from the station's infirmary - he made such a
pest of himself that they kicked him out.  "Physician, bugger off and
heal thyself!"

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