Tribble Reporting

Posted on 25 Jul 2014 @ 12:53am by Commander Norvi Stace & Lieutenant Asahi Kita & Lieutenant Min Zhao & Nesh Saalm & Cadet Sophomore Grade Alenis Taban
Edited on on 25 Jul 2014 @ 1:29am

1,553 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo - Conference Room, Deck One
Timeline: MD 04 - 2250 hrs

ON:

Stace had said nothing to Lieutenant Kita and Zhao about why she had called them both into the conference room at 21:30hrs. Her awkward glances and deflective comments were even starting to wear a little thin on herself and so she decided to take herself off to the replicator for a hit of strong coffee whilst she painfully waited for the arrivals. As she turned from the wall mounted device, the blue ionised hue having dissipated from the steel-like cup she now held in her grasp, the doors to the conference room opened as Nesh and Alenis entered with bowed heads.

"Lieutenant Kita," Stace proffered, gulping down the hot liquid with a pained face and attempting to speak with a burnt mouth as she made her way across the room, "these are cadets Saalm and Taban. Lieutenant Zhao, I trust you know Cadet Taban already." She paused and then indicated to Saalm again. "Cadet Saalm. Apologies for not being forthwith about this meeting but the cadets have stumbled upon an issue that they may require our help for. Cadets?"

Asahi already had a few cups of coffee downed by the time he had arrived at the scene, and was nursing a rather large mug of it by the time Nesh and Taban had arrived, mumbling Denobulan obscenities into his mug as he watched the pair of cadets closely.

Min nodded at the two cadets. She'd spoken with them earlier so the issue at hand was known to her.

Nesh sat in the rather uncomfortable-growing-more-uncomfortable-by-the-moment seat, looking between the others in the room before finally opening her mouth. "Well, we've uhm... We've let XO, the CO, and Li-... the mission advisor know what's going on, and what we had planned. Uhm... And uh... I'm... uhm... not sure what else to say..." She glanced over at Stace hesitantly.

Looking over to Nesh, Stace shook her head, and then outstretched her hand over to her, as Nesh then reluctantly put the mapping device into it. She placed it in the middle of the conference table and then activated it. "If Lieutenant Zhao can somehow use the internal sensors to detect the blight that has now infested the Gally, we can use this to collect them all. She's a small ship but this is going to require the combined efforts of everyone and every trick we have at our disposal."

Min looked at Stace. "Using the sensors is no problem for most areas of the ship. There are a few areas we don't have internal sensor coverage but that's mainly because no humanoid can be present while systems are in operation. Those areas we have to turn the internal sensors inward and that requires re-tasking the equipment off the mine investigation."

"And we don't want to do that," Stace smiled, walking over to the control panel. She tapped the console a few times as the familiar trill of its workings sounded through the room. "Computer," she then spoke into the middle distance as it answered her, "feed Galileo's internal sensors into the 3D blueprint device and overlay any organic heat signatures to it."

"Working," came her monotone reply. The computer then softly beeped three times as it then confirmed her request.

"Now eliminate any Starfleet personnel or civilians from the map."

Another non-verbal tone sounded as a significant amount of coloured dots disappeared from the display.

"And there we have the tribbles," Stace nodded.

"That's a neat trick." He might have been absolutely annoyed at the word 'tribble,' but the sight of the odd device lit Asahi's eyes up, and he suddenly became much more attentive to the situation. "I'll have to confer with some of my old crewmates, but I distinctly remember one of them had engineered a method of luring tribbles out of the jeffries tubes without having the whole crew crawl in there after them. That also assumes the tribbles are more in number than oh, say... two... say, what're these little dots up here? Near the mess hall, I mean."

"I imagine," Stace replied, zooming the device in to deck two, "that that is the initial nesting site of them. It might be a good place to concentrate the cleanup efforts."

"Initial... nesting..." Asahi paused, holding up a hand for a short moment. "... Tribbles. I never thought I'd be dealing with tribbles on a Nova class vessel..." He took a deep breath, before leaning forward and giving the area a look. "We will. It's likely we'll have to carry out the clean-up in teams around hotspot areas too, to stave off whatever large number of tribbles are running about. Maybe monitor the internal systems and the external ones too, see if anything else pops up. What do you think, Min?"

Min looked at Asahi, a smile on her face. "We'll definitely need teams for the more concentrated areas. If they get into any key systems we're looking at some delicate extractions *if* we can't lure them out."

Min paused. "Sorry. Maybe it's just the hour but somehow, as serious as this all is, I can't help but be amused by the language we're using. It sounds like we're trying to clean up a hornet's nest, not a pile of little tribbles."

"Which does bring up a question, how are we going to dispose of the creatures once we capture them? Somehow killing them seems cruel but unless anyone can suggest something better, we may have to resort to that."

"'Dispose,'" Stace question, a smile now lilting on her lips. "Now who's getting into the spirit of it?" She paused and then her face fell a little serious. "I know that it seems a little drastic but unchecked Galileo could be overrun because of these 'little tribbles'. If we don't get on this at the start then it'll be more like a Borg infestation than hornets. They get everywhere and multiply ten fold every twelve hours. In three days, one mere tribble becomes almost two million." She raised her eyebrow. "I think, at last check, we brought four on board. On an eight-decked ship, that doesn't leave a lot of room for the rest of us."

Asahi was less that enthused at their combined spirits, but he wasn't the type to kill anyone's good mood. He tried a smile, but failed it miserably as he piped in. "I would have another suggestion, but we're too far away to send them at a circus, or somewhere that could use a large number of fuzzballs in some sort of juggling act... but by the time we get back to anywhere like that, we'd be overrun by them, and two million would look like a small number..."

Nesh, on the other hand, seemed a little more shocked by the thought of killing anything at all. She knew the dangers, yes, but that didn't necessarily mean she agreed with it. Without another suggestion, however, she had no real room to talk. "Four's about right, ma'am. That's how many we purchased from the farm on Rigel. If there are other tribbles aboard, I don't know about them."

"Well," Stace continued, "let's stick with that assumption at the moment. Four. If we pool everyone together, we can stop this before it becomes a problem."

"I'm thinking that's a good idea." Asahi crinkled his nose in discomfort. "I can get some guys down to the Mess Hall right now, see what they can dig up while we keep knocking heads. There's gotta be something we can do about it."

"Absolutely," Stace smiled. "I'll coordinate efforts with my department." She began to make for the door and before leaving called out, "If you need anything then just contact me. I'll do the same with you both."

Nesh was first to respond, immediately standing up and muttering a few words of apology before nearly bolting out of the room. Lirha mentioned wanting to talk to her, but all Nesh could see out of that was yelling and 'do you have any ideas?' It was a wonder her sister survived past the age of seventeen herself.

"Yes'm." Asahi nodded in her direction as she left, making to get up and do the same. "Time to scramble the men, yeah? Min, I'll keep in contact and let you know what's going on on our end. If we start hitting random power outages and stuff like that, it won't be pretty."

"I'll dispatch whoever I can spare to give you extra manpower for the search. We'll keep a close eye on the EPS relays but tell your men that scheduled EPS work is cancelled for now. I don't need to be rerouting power and find out my secondaries are down for work."

"If I have any crew left to do EPS work, I'll make sure they're aware of it." Asahi clicked a few buttons on his PADD, before smiling and turning on his heels. "Off on our great tribble hunt, then?"

"Worthy of Story and Song," she said, a smile creeping across her face.

OFF

Lt. Asahi Kita
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

Nesh Saalm
Scientist's Mate
USS Galileo
[PNPC Kita]

Lieutenant Norvi Stace
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Lt Min Zhao
Chief of Operations
USS Galileo

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