Tribbles on the Loose

Posted on 09 Jul 2014 @ 10:45pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Cadet Sophomore Grade Alenis Taban & Nesh Saalm

2,601 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 1, Captain's Ready Room
Timeline: MD 04 - 2245 hrs

[ON]

Now Nesh was sweating more than an Orion Mind Slug in heat. They had gone through most of the channels by now; Science, Operations, and the XO. Their next stop was quite possibly the stop that Nesh was dreading the most, if only because of the horror stories she had heard. John Holliday had a reputation that was quite possibly worse than the dreaded human pirate, Blackbeard. It might not have been as bad as the rumors had made Holliday out to be, but Nesh was dreading the anger that would have come from the knowledge of tribbles all over the ship.

She paused outside of Holliday's door, smiling weakly at Taban through her stress. "Thank you."

The Bajoran gave his roommate a sideways glance and, with a small dip of the head, which could have been taken as a mini-bow, he gave a small nervous smile. He was amazingly surprised she hadn't sold him out yet, but then again, this was the meeting where the proverbial really might start hitting the fan. "It's okay." He finally muttered. "End of the day it's at least just as much my fault..." he sighed. "Maybe I should just go back to the Jian'Karra... maybe I'm not cut out for this after all..." The huge part-Cardassian locked eyes with Nesh for a moment and with an utterly pathetic look in them the eyes didn't seem like they belonged to a Starfleet Cadet, but instead those of a child whose entire life had been hardened by disappointment and loss.

"Well... here goes everything?" Smiling sheepishly, Nesh pressed the chime button. Maybe it wasn't going to be as bad as she thought.

"All else fails I can site-to-site transport us straight to the brig and save the hassle of the middle-men." Muttered Taban dryly before giving the girl an encouraging nod as his eyes focused on her hand hovering over the button.

The two cadets of course would not have to ever lay a hand on that button, as before they could make contact the doors to the office flew apart as John made his way onto the Bridge with the intention of heading below decks to his quarters. Needless to say after nearly tripping over the Orion and the Bajoran, he stopped dead and looked down at the pair of nervous looking faces.

"Cadets....to what do I owe the pleasure at the end of my day?"

"S-sir, I-.. uhm..." Nesh squeaked, nearly diving behind Taban as the door opened. She stood her ground, but remained absolutely speechless.

Taban, seemingly less surprised by the man's sudden appearance than his companion, began the explanation "Well, Captain, err... one of Cadet Saalm's tribbles is missing. And it may have had access to food."

John's eyes went wide at the mention of a tribble infestation aboard his ship. Every Starfleet officer was educated in why exactly those small bundles of fluff should never be allowed to roam free, and certainly not allowed anywhere near a food supply. The captain's face turned a slightly paler shade as he thought of the image of a vessel stuffed to capacity with tribbles before continuing.

"How..when....in my Ready Room - now"

John turned on his heels and marched back into the Ready Room - he had been intending on getting some sleep but it seemed such a luxury would be beyond him for the meantime.

Sighing as he slipped back behind his desk and waited for the two cadets to make their way inside, the Captain knew he really only had one choice, and with yet another sigh tapped his combadge.

=^=Commodore Saalm...would you join me in my Ready Room please?=^=

A few short seconds passed followed by Lirha's distinctive voice which sounded through the comm channel. "I will be there shortly," she replied from her quarters which were located on the same deck.

"Sir I take full responsibility." asserted Taban once he stood at the , for once locking eyes with a superior. "I think the tribble must have got into my bag while I was on duty and then, when took my bag to the mess hall after my shift without checking it, it must have gotten out." The part-Bajoran could hardly believe the words coming out of his mouth, but somehow this just seemed the easy way. It was probably going to happen anyway, so why not just 'fess up straight up."

"Cadet do they not teach you about Tribbles in the Academy any more? About quite how many problems they have caused over the centuries?"

John felt himself slipping back into his old ways as an Academy lecturer, and had to stop himself from completely going down the path of a full lecture as to why exactly a Tribble had no place on a starship.

"And I would have thought that as the sister of a Commodore you would have already been told the same Miss Saalm?"

Taban's eyes narrowed and he had to repress the urge to turn his frustration on Nesh. It wasn't his fault someone had let the Commodore's little princess keep tribbles aboard; it wasn't his fault he'd had to bunk with her; it wasn't his fault she'd let one get loose in their room. All that was his fault was not checking his bag before leaving his room. Straightening up even further, to the point where it looked like his spine might snap he barked in rapid reply "No excuse, Sir. The Academy and life aboard a freighter have taught me well about tribbles. Knowing Cadet Saalm's were present in our room I should have checked my belongings before leaving regardless of other safety precautions which were present. The fault lies with me, Captain."

Nesh would have piped in with an attempt at covering herself with a million excuses, but Taban managed to jump in front of her with anything but excuses. Had she been in front of her sister, she would have probably managed a good babble of them out. But she held her tongue until Taban was finished his tiny speech, leaping in to a different sort of babble as soon as she felt the chance, eyes cast downward to avoid the gazes of the pair. Livana would have had words about her body language, none of which would have been good.

"I was in a hurry to get down to the teleporter room this morning, Sir. It's not an excuse, but it's the only explanation I have to give. I was given multiple instructions on tribbles when we purchased them from the tribble dealer on Rigel, both from Lirha and one of the engineers, which I... I was following up until this morning." She glanced upward, in a pathetic attempt at confidence. "Sir, whether Taban noticed there was a tribble in his bag or not, it wouldn't have mattered if there wasn't a tribble loose in the room to begin with. That, sir, is my fault."

"So to add insult to injury what you are both telling me is that you were full aware of the regulations but were simply too busy to follow them?!"

John let out a sigh of indignation as he tried to figure out exactly how he was going to deal with this situation. No doubt by now there were tribbles in most of the major parts of the ship, and even worse likely in behind the bulkheads, in the jeffries tubes, and anywhere else just about big enough to accommodate their fluffy mass.

Without bothering to ring the chime, Lirha entered into the ready room with a swish of the door, then paused in her tracks when she saw her sister, another cadet, and Holliday all assembled together. "What is going on?" she asked in a rather annoyed voice. It was late -- already close to 2300 -- and she couldn't think of any good reason why she had just been summoned from her quarters while she was attempting to cook dinner.

"Commodore. I apologise ma'am...we have a...situation of sorts. It seems your sister and her fellow Cadet here didn't fully grasp the enormity of looking after tribbles."

"What?" she paused and felt the soft hairs on the back of her neck rise. "What are you saying?" Lirha furrowed her brow and looked over at the two cadets, her green eyes eventually settling on Nesh with a narrowed and judgmental gaze. Although she wasn't sure what the specifics of Holliday's statement had meant, she was smart enough to begin to put the pieces together and realize something had probably gone wrong with her sister's pet tribbles. "What happened?" she demanded.

John said nothing, instead allowing his superior officer to take control of the situation. He could have tried to explain what had happened, but he knew full well that any cadet needed to learn how to take responsibility for their actions if they were going to have any sort of career within Starfleet.

Nesh squeaked, now afraid of her sister's wrath. "I lost Pup." She blinked, scrambling to find the rest of her words before Lirha could react. "Just before the planetary survey. I was catching up on my studies the night before, and missed my alarm, so I was sort of in a hurry when I went to feed Pip and Pup. I could have sworn I put the lid back on the terrarium, but Pup must have gotten out through the room somewhere down the line... and eventually out of the room itself."

"You lost one of your tribbles?!" the commodore almost yelled in Orion, then threw her arms up into the air and glared at Nesh. Lirha couldn't believe it. Actually, she could, which was the saddest part considering she should have known her sister was capable of something like this. And ultimately, that meant she herself was partly to blame for trusting a 17 year-old with the responsibility of caring for a tribble aboard a starship. Her first starship.

Sighing and returning her arms to her waist, Lirha slumped her head down and rubbed her eyes with frustration. "Have you told your department head about this? Or are we the first ones to find out?"

"We've gone to Lieutenants Stace and uhm... Zhao about the situation, and Lieutenant Stace was going to gather resources and butt heads with Ops and Engineering, see if there wasn't something we could do. That's where we're headed next. It... just didn't seem right to not tell you-S-sir!"

At least Nesh appeared to know she was in trouble. It was a start, in Lirha's book. "Fine," the older sister replied. "But you are not getting a minute of sleep until you find your tribble... I don't care if that means staying up all night and crawling through Jeffries tubes. The average tribble can reproduce once every ten hours, and that means your friend could establish an entire tribble colony on this ship just by itself."

John's own expression became more and more exasperated as he tried to crunch the maths of a tribble's reproductive cycle. Had he been a little more Vulcan in his approach he would have calculated the volume of a tribble and divided it into the volume of the ship, but decided he had far better things to sweat over.

"The senior staff will need to be informed - we are going to have to sweep the entire ship from stem to stern - every access hatch, Jeffries tube, hell even the plasma conduits might be infested!"

Lirha rubbed her forehead in frustration. John was right, of course. The entire ship now needed to be searched, and even with all of their technology and resources available to them, it would still be very hard to guarantee Nesh's tribble hadn't gotten near a food source and reproduced in the short time it'd been missing.

"Very well," she conceded. "Captain, inform the senior officers and do whatever is necessary to find my sister's tribble." This was perhaps the very last thing the commodore wanted to have to deal with right now.

John thought for a moment on how exactly he was going to sort out that kind of memorandum or briefing to his senior staff - 'find the commodore's sister's pet' wasn't exactly the job for the command staff of a starship but when said pet could quite literally eat them out of house and home it became a little more urgent.

"Yes ma'am" He replied, turning to pick up a PADD and begin work on the statement - it would be short and sweet and hopefully catch the tribble before it could start interfering with their daily operations.

Lirha's attention then turned to Nesh as she attempted to answer a question which was now burning in her head. "How exactly did you lose Pup? Even if you left its cage open...how did it manage to escape from your quarters?"

And this was where Nesh's information got a little foggy. She soon found herself not only in trouble, but also finding that she never wanted to be in Command ever. Being in such a spot made everything very intimidating, almost from both standpoints. As much of a teenager as Nesh was, she understood that there was some stress behind organizing a ship full of very different personalities.

But her understanding didn't make her any less afraid for her life right now. "I uhm... Taban and I think Pup got out by stowing away in his bag when he made his way to the mess hall."

Dear spirits... Lirha thoughtfully groaned, then gave Nesh a disappointed shake of her head. Was this really happening? Taking a deep breath and rubbing her green forehead in frustration, Lirha wanted nothing more than to return to her quarters right now and finish preparing dinner. The lost tribble, while certainly problematic, was fortunately a job for the ship's commanding officer, who fortunately was not her at this point in time.

"Come to my quarters later and we can discuss this more," she quietly said to Nesh in their native Orion language.

"Yes-... ma'am." Nesh could feel her voice nearly quavering in it's silence. There were things she could have said about this, but there were times and places. This time and place fit neither of those specifications.

Lirha then turned towards Galileo's captain to inform him of her immediate plans. "Thank you for telling me of this, captain. Sadly I must return to my quarters for the evening and finish cooking dinner which I left in the oven. I trust you are capable of handling this lost tribble without me?"

John wasn't sure if the Commodore was taking a snipe at him - entirely possible given the late hour, and the fact that he had interrupted her dinner plans to deal with an escaped furball.

"Yes ma'am." He replied with a slightly deflated tone to his voice, turning his attention to trying to contain this menace before it could spread any further - he could see now why the Klingons had declared war on the species previously.

"Very well." Lirha gave both her sister and Holliday a subdued nod, then turned on her heels and exited the ready room leaving the younger Saalm, the Bajoran cadet, and Galileo's captain alone again.

[OFF]

--

CDRE Lirha Saalm
Mission Advisor
USS Galileo

CAPT Jonathan Holliday
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

CDT(SO) Alenis Taban
Operations Officer
USS Galileo

CDT(FG) Nesh Saalm
Scientist's Mate
USS Galileo
[PNPC - Kita]

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