More Troubles Than Tribbles

Posted on 05 Jul 2014 @ 5:10pm by Commander Andreus Kohl & Commander Norvi Stace

2,930 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Planetary Development Lab
Timeline: MD 06 - 0819 hours

[ON]

Norvi, despite the Tribble troubles, was in a surprisingly good mood as she sauntered down the corridor on deck 4 with a song in her heart. As a child, she was rather fond of whistling out in the fields beyond her family home. There was something peaceful about a tuneful melody cutting through nature's silence. No one around to hear it but herself and the birds. And yet, since being joined, Norvi had since lost this artistic talent. Instead, a high-pitched cat-call resulted from her lips whenever she attempted to launch a tuneful whistle. Nothing but air, a little spittle, and an SOS call of death.

From the passageway, there was no sound to signify the change. At most, one might have heard a hiccup in the environmental system. It was only for a moment, and then the white noise of circulating air returned to normal. Another twenty seconds passed before an unremarkable doorway slid open. The markings on the door indicated compartment 1575 of deck four; the entire Science department knew it was the Planetary Development Lab. From within, Andreus Kohl trudged out to the passageway. His hair was slick; his face, his uniform, his entire body was coated in sediment-filled green sludge.

"Norvi, hullo," Kohl said brightly. He quick-stepped far enough from the doors to let them close behind him automatically. As if the two of them were only meeting at the water cooler, he said, "I've been meaning to talk to you."

She stopped, snapped out of day-dream and then cocked her head back as she looked upon him. "Lieutenant, you do realise that you're covered in goop and," she leaned in inhaling a little bird's breath, "you smell terrible. What have you been up to down here?"

"I do..." Kohl said hesitantly. "Yes, I do realise that. I'm not, uh, we don't need to talk about that right now." --Kohl shook his head nonchalantly and his tone took an offhanded mien-- "The lab will be fine by the end of shift."

Kohl cleared his throat. "No, there was," Kohl said, "something else I've been meaning to tell you..."

Placing a hand on her hip, she jovially narrowed her gaze on him, tilting her head to the side. "Now, you know I'm not worried about whatever is going on behind that door, Kohl." She started with, a grin now inching its way to the corners of her mouth. "But... if you're having fun without me, then that's a completely different matter. And if you're not, then I don't want to know about it until whatever it is is out of every inch of that carpet." She paused, smiled widely and then changed hips. "What's on your mind, Andreus? Besides the overwhelming desire for a sonic shower right now."

Raising one hand, Kohl gestured away from himself, as if to ask, you were headed in that direction, yeah? He began to walk in the direction he was pointing, and he thanked the Starfleet Engineering gods that his boots weren't squelching on the deckplating as he did so. "I need you tell you," Kohl said haltingly. "Yesterday morning. I was inspecting my EV suit. And I thought I was hallucinating. I thought I saw a tribble."

"Well," Stace replied, about to put her arm around him as though she were a big sister and, noticing the state of his uniform, halted and punched him in the belly of his arm instead, "that's what I've actually come down here to remind you of. Remember?" She paused and then smiled an artificial grimace at him; a mock enthusiasm injected in her demeanour. "You unfortunately weren't hallucinating! Hurrah for sanity! But actually two of the cadets, one of them ours in fact, have unwittingly allowed their tribble pets to escape into the air ducts. So whatever is going on behind that door that you don't want me to find out about will have to wait. We've got furrier problems on our hands." Her face dropped somewhat. "Don't you remember me telling you this yesterday?"

"Yes-- I mean, No, I know now I saw a tribble. I know there are tribbles on board," Kohl said. He was struggling more than usual to get his words out, but he wouldn't be deterred. "But I believed I was hallucinating. I can't-- I don't know how I got to a point where I would believe it."

Stace's eyes widened with feigned shock as a smile spread across her lips. "Well, Crazy, whether you believe it or not, we still have kilometers of Jeffries Tubes and ventilation shafts to comb. All it takes is one missed blighter and it's Groundhog Day all over again." She stopped for a beat and saw a blank look waving across the Argelian's face. "I don't know," she waved it off, "I heard a human refer to an ever repeating event by that expression. Something to do with a two-dimensional projection they used to amuse themselves with in the nineteenth century or something. Anyway, you need a quick shower and to start helping me."

"All right," said Kohl simply. And then he injected it with a mirror of Stace's enthusiasm, when he said, "All right!" He palmed the tricorder hanging on his hip, and it was nearly as green and slimy as he was. When he touched the control contact, it beeped and chirped in all the ways he was expecting it to do. "So, where do we start looking?" Kohl asked.

"Dude," Stace replied, almost uncharacteristically manly, "I am in no way crawling around in confined spaces either in front or especially behind you in your current condition. Shower. Change. Get moving. Considering how much time has passed since they were released 'into the wild' and now, another ten minutes won't make a blind bit of difference." She stared at him with a serious glare in her eyes. "I will frog-march you to your quarters if you resist."

Sighing wistfully, Kohl remarked, "It's been far too long since I've been wrestled into a sonic shower..."

Stace knitted her eyebrows together and shook her head. "It would only be to the door, Andreus. Don't get your hopes up." She smiled and led him in the direction of his quarters.

Thirteen minutes later, Kohl was stepping out of another door on deck four. This one didn't smell so funny. His uniform was impeccable, his hair was clean, and his beard even looked trimmer. Standing ready, with a tricorder between his hands, Kohl enthused, "Where to, boss?"

She picked out her tricorder and scanned the local vicinity. "I think Engineering are concentrating on Decks four through six. And deck seven is smaller for a two-man team." She looked at her tricorder again and sighed. "I know as a scientist I love patterns more than most people, but there doesn't seem to be any discernible pattern at all. They're not concentrated in any particular place, just wide-spread and plentiful. What do you reckon?" She quickly showed the Argelian her instrument. "Have you sprayed cologne?" she then asked, leaning in for another smell.

Kohl raised one arm above his head, and leaned his nose in close to sniff at the crook of his elbow and then his underarm. Dropping the arm to his side, Kohl shook his head in the negative. "No," Kohl replied. "That's what I smell like when I'm not wearing fragrance."

Stace rolled her eyes at Kohl with a half-cocked smile. She enjoyed the banter that they shared. She trusted him, despite his sometimes goofy exterior.

Drifting back to Stace's earlier question, Kohl turned his neck at an awkward angle to look down at the display on her tricorder. "Why are you expecting to find much of a pattern?" Kohl asked. "Tribbles care for nothing but eating and reproducing, eating and reproducing. Do you identify discernible patterns when you take leave on Risa?"

She shot him a glance. If her expression didn't say it, then she backed it up with a grimaced retort. "Risa? Please! What do you take me for?" She shook her head at him and then continued to walk down the corridor to the turbo-lift. "Four quadrants in this universe and you think I'd 'merry-make' on somewhere as vacuous as Risa?" In truth, she rather enjoyed the planet and had spent many a shoreleave skinny dipping in the Southern lakes; but she liked to be contrary at times and Kohl had somehow initiated it today. She pressed the button on the lift and it opened. "Even when I am 'eating and reproducing, eating and reproducing' I have my preferences. And that's what I'm looking for. Asahi mentioned yesterday the notion of instead of hunting them, luring them. I'm simply looking for my cheese. Deck Seven," she then said as the doors enclosed them both.

Standing by her side, Kohl asked, "Do tribbles have preferences?" --He shrugged at her, and his eye-brows raised in a questioning expression-- "I would have thought they eat just about anything. I can't say I've read about a tribble getting indigestion."

The turbolift shot through the shafts quickly, and as it halted to change direction the lights flickered. Stace flared her eyes at Andreus. "Oh no," she said out loud as the pod they were in shuddered and the sound slowly whirred down. "That doesn't look good."

The turbo lift stopped as quickly as it started.

Reaching one hand out, Kohl braced his palm against the pod's upholstered padding. He needed the support to maintain his balance on wobbly legs, but also, he was feeling for changes in vibration. After the came to an absolute halt, Kohl took a step forward towards the doors. He reached his hand for the control panel, but the discrete contact points blanked away, and the panel turned red. "That's. Not. Good," Kohl said, "Either."

"This is the last thing we need," Stace whispered more to herself than to Andreus. She inspected the panel herself and went on bended knees. The same red glow faded in and out, washing her face in a red wash. "Dammit!" she cursed, haphazardly tapping away at the control. Then tapping her badge she sighed. "Stace to Engineering. We're in a downed turbolift between decks four and seven. I think it's deck five but can't be sure. Can you get us moving again?"

The voice through the intercom sounded unfamiliar and yet unconcerned. "Engineering to Stace. Bear with me while I check." The intercom went silent for about twenty seconds as Stace rolled her eyes at Andreus. "There's a power outage throughout that whole section, sir," he replied after a beat in the same nondescript tone.

"Let me guess," Stace replied.

"We're running on a skeletal crew here, Lieutenant," came the now more concerned voice. "It's going to be an hour before I can send anyone to you."

"Where's Lieutenant Kita?" Stace asked, frustration now welling inside of her.

"Looking for tribbles, ma'am."

Kohl breathed out a sigh between his teeth. He leaned against a wall, even lolled his head against the upholstery. "An hour," he echoed sourly, "and me without a drink..." Turning to Stace, Kohl cocked an eyebrow at her. "Do you imagine we can prise the doors open?"

"Perhaps," she replied, placing her back to the wall and sliding down it until she was sat on the floor. "But it would depend on where we are as to whether that would be any use to us." She motioned up to the manual release above the door and smiled. "All yours, Lieutenant."

After pushing off the wall, Kohl took the small strides necessary to reach the doorway. He rubbed his hands together, while he sized up the manual-release panel as if it were an opponent. Reaching out for it, he pulled the panel off the wall with both hands and he discarded it on the floor. He took hold of the manual-release lever inside and gave it a mighty tug.

The double doors pulled apart.

Even with Kohl's tall frame standing in the doorway, even Stace could see there was only a bulkhead on the other side.

"I think," Kohl said airily, "you made that happen with your pessimism. You weighed the car down with your pessimism."

"That," she replied, a mock frustrated frown now smearing her lips, "or my bladder." She shook her head and closed her eyes. "I knew I should have gone before we left." She then looked to Kohl. "Might as well make yourself comfortable, Andreus. I can imagine that we're going to be here for a long, uncomfortable while." Stace squirmed where she rested and placed a hand on her belly. "Know any distracting games?"

Kohl repeated the question aloud, while he reached up to push the lever in the opposite direction. The doors closed again. As he replaced the panel over the lever, his face was scrunched up in concentration and he was shifting his weight from foot to foot. He was drawing a blank. Kohl came to sit on his own patch of floor, and he stretched his legs out. "I grew up in a particularly materialistic era back home. All of my games had gadgets and accessories," Kohl said, "And, of course, the Academy only taught me drinking games, like I Never."

"Well, since we're down the alcohol, that's not going to be very interesting, is it?" She sighed and then scrunched up her nose. "This is going to be painful."

"It would have been a predictable game anyway," Kohl remarked cheekily, as he folded his arms over his chest. "I can't imagine a joined Trill has anything she's never ever done."


FORTY MINUTES LATER

"Are we there yet?" Banging his head on the side of the turbolift car, Kohl asked, "Are we? Please ask them if we're almost there? I don't see how it could hurt to ask."

"What's the point in asking them again?" Stace questioned, a look of severe discomfort now brimming on her face. "They said ten more minutes and I imagine that they mean ten more minutes," She huffed and then looked to him. "If anyone wants out of here more it's me. I've given birth three times previous and I'm sure it wasn't as uncomfortable as this!" She squirmed on the floor but then had to stand up to afford some relief. As she did she, clutching her abdomen in discomfort, she rested her head against the lift. "What's... what's that?" She leaned in closer. Listening again, she moved her hand to the hatch on the roof of the lift. She tried to pull it but it was jarred. Pulling it harder, the weight of what was resting on top flattened her as tidal wave of fur tumbled on top of her.


EIGHT AND A HALF MINUTES LATER, TWO SECTIONS ACROSS, AND ONE DECK BELOW

Beside a turbolift doorway on deck six, half of the bulkhead panels had been removed from the walls and neatly piled on the floor. The passageway was only lit up by emergency lighting and hand lamps. Engineers Slak and Brauer were buried head-first into the bulkhead, all the way up to their shoulders. Brauer was handling a wide EPI capacitor, pulling it out from one port, and plugging it into another. Slak, meanwhile, was programming the capacitor with a widescreen PADD.

PO3 Brauer looked away from the capacitor to examine the coding on the PADD's display. Her aim slipped as she did so, and the capacitor banged against a pipe, rather than slot into place. "Is that-- are you sure that's the subroutine you want to use?" Brauer asked. She cocked a questioning eyebrow at Slak before she returned her attention to the capacitor.

"We've come too far now," Slak replied in his Canadian accent. He waved the PADD emphatically. "I've been working on this particular subroutine for twelve minutes. I'm running on momentum here. It's too late to change paths or ask for directions. Far, far too late."

"Then smile about it," Brauer said, rather insistently. The EPI capacitor was locked in place, and she took a step back. She watched as Slak continued to work the PADD. "Your bearing looked more uncertain than the coding itself. Commit to your decisions gladly. There's no point to being all the way out here, doing what we do, if this isn't what you love. We'll solve this out. And then I suppose we'll just go on."

As if on cue, the overhead lighting returned. The LCARS panels on the bulkheads flickered with startup iconography, and there was a whirring sound in the walls. Slak and Brauer set about returning the bulkhead panels to the bulkheads.

Brauer dropped the one she was carrying when the doors to the turbolift started to move. The doors were achingly slow, as if under extreme pressure, and then they yanked themselves all the way apart. And it became apparent what kind of pressure they were under. That tidal wave of Tribbles came pouring out of the turbolift car. Amid the rolling and tumbling balls of fur were Norvi Stace and Andreus Kohl, both of them gasping for breath. They stumbled to the deck face first, and landed on the piles of writhing fur.

Kohl sat up, coughing. He looked around. And then, blithely, Kohl said, "Brauer, hullo! I've been meaning to call you..."


[OFF]

Lieutenant Norvi Stace
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant Andreus Kohl
Assistant Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

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