With some irony, I present...

A Christmas Story

The courier ship "Angel" was in a polar orbit over a small, inhabited planet near the rim of the galaxy. And it was stranded.

"Come on, Hector. How much longer?" Antonio demanded.

Hector looked up at his shipmate and shrugged.

"As long as it takes, man. We aren't going anywhere until I get this thing fixed. What's your problem, anyway?"

"This is an interdicted system. We're not even supposed to be here."

"Who's gonna' know? The inhabitants of this place are one step up from bear skins and stone knives,"

"But there aren't any suppressor fields here. Our drive flare will be visible and the time dilation effect will keep it that way for a couple of years local time."

"So they'll have a new star for a while. Most of 'em won't even notice and any that do will just chalk it up to the supernatural," Hector quipped, then mumbled quietly to himself.

"What?"

"I said we shouldn't have broken down in the first place."

Antonio looked puzzled as he asked, "What are you talking about?"

"Look, these transducers are foolproof. They're basically just a block of quasiridium, power goes in and comes out phase matched to our drive coils. Foolproof, see?"

"Well this one certainly wasn't."

Antonio scowled so darkly that Hector finally had to ask.

"What else is on your mind, man?"

"Where we broke down. It's stranger than why."

"Now what are you talking about? You're this buckets astrogator."

"I know, but we just shouldn't be here. Our course shouldn't have brought us within fifty parsecs of this star."

"Then how the devil did we get here?"

"I don't know, man, I just don't know."

"Well, we'll be out of here soon enough. Hand me that circuit isolator, will you?"

A couple of hours later the ship's drives energized, twisted space and time and propelled the small courier craft on its way. Hector, however, had been wrong.

On the small planet below the new star flared in the night sky just as a was born in a primitive stable.

"And there were in that same country, shepherds watching over their flocks by night."

End