Machinations between Colleagues

Posted on 15 Oct 2014 @ 9:25am by Lieutenant Asahi Kita & Commander Norvi Stace

2,007 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, CSO's Office
Timeline: MD 08 - 1109 Hrs

ON

In all of his career, Asahi never thought he would find himself yelling at a pile of fuzzballs. Granted, during his career, he never thought he would have had to deal with a tribble infestation, especially not one of this magnitude. Through all of his research and contacts, he could have sworn there was at least one good idea amongst his engineering peers. He even made a desperate call to someone he never thought he'd have to call, nearly pleading for some form of solution.

Most of the solutions he had come back to, however, resulted in 'why don't you just exterminate them?' One particular member, the now current CEO of the Fargo had even gone so far as to say 'abandon ship and destroy it.' Asahi knew Klingons weren't all that fond of tribbles, but he hadn't realized how far down the grudge had gone until he found himself yelled at for being in such close contact with the little 'menaces.'

The lack of humane solution had left the engineer at a loss. He knew there was a more humane solution, but the only end he could have thought of involved using the pattern buffers as a clean way to wipe them all from the ship. As far as he knew, they wouldn't have felt a thing, and wouldn't have been any the wiser to it. But, the more he thought of the idea, the more it made his stomach churn. Just because the tribbles were causing trouble didn't mean they were awful.

There were too many ethical lines being skirted, and he wasn't sure which lines he was willing to cross to have the Galileo function.

As he stepped off the thankfully still-working turbolift, he found the hall nearly clean of green messes, save for the few that came piling out of the lift with him. He frowned, nearly hissing at the menaces. "You have something up your fuzzies, don't you-and get off of me, I'm not a jungle gym!"

After... gently placing... the pair of tribbles on his shoulders into the mass of green, he stormed off toward the direction of the Science office. He may not have had a solution, but the scientists must have had something, or so Asahi had assumed by the time he was outside of the office door. Someone in Ops had made a point of asking whether he was just trying to devise another reason to speak with Stace again, but Asahi waved it off with a mild glare and a pointed statement about how he wasn't going to be solving the tribble thing all on his own.

Smoothing out his uniform, Asahi pressed the comm button, hoping that Stace's office wasn't as plagued as his was.

And in fact, it wasn't. Stace had managed through diligence and manpower to keep the little blighters from breaching her own office. They were of course still lining the other labs but for now Stace had her peace. She walked over from her desk and answered the door personally, safeguarding her sanctuary. "Ah, Asahi!" she exclaimed, stepping back to let him in. "Please, come in!"

Asahi beamed at the sight of the Trill, almost unable to help himself. He nodded, stepping into the office and marveling at the sight of the fur-free environment Stace had so painstakingly made for herself. "It's refreshing to see they've managed to stay out of at least someone's office. I have all the tribbles attracted to Main Engineering all holed up in mine... but that's what I've come to talk to you about." He paused. "Tribbles, not Engineering, I mean."

"It's by no means been an easy ride to keep them out of here," Stace replied with a smile, walking back to her desk and plopping herself down. "But I am grateful for it. I don't think I could get anything done with the way they have taken over the rest of the ship." She paused and then shot a sideways glance to the corner of the office. "I try not to think what's just thirty centimeters from the bulkhead. Anyway," she broke back, looking directly at Asahi. "Shoot! What can I do to help you?"

"I'm surprised I can get anything done on the ship at all." Asahi's thoughts flickered back to the PADD full of piling paperwork, none of which he had been able to touch since the infestation started. "... But that may just be the nature of our jobs." Chuckling, he hooked his thumb in his belt, giving a shrug. "I'm having a problem figuring a way around these tribbles. One of your scientists had a brilliant idea to store a bunch in the pattern buffer, which will happily suspend them without fear of them reproducing many times over... but that solution won't last forever. Eventually, we'll be out a good number of storerooms, and the cargo bay can't hold them all..."

His shoulders rose, tension building within his already stressed mind. "I'm not sure what to do with the rest of them. I keep hearing wind of potential possibilities out of both Medical and Science, but I haven't seen any cohesive results. I don't... really want to mass execute a bunch of them, but... soon, there'll be more tribbles than there is deuterium in the warp core... and I don't think that's gonna end well."

"At the end of the day," Stace replied with raised, open eyebrows, "they're creatures. Living things. Despite how detrimental they are to the ship and our performance - and safety, actually - these talks of extermination give me the chills." She relaxed and picked up her own data padd. "That then leaves us to come up with an alternative. Honestly, the best course of action is to call in help. Get someone who can transport them safely to a cargo vessel and then re-home them."

"Mmm..." Asahi had been spending quite a bit of time researching Federation ships and tribble infestations. Most of the reports he had access to detailed complex methods that ended in mass tribble death. He had the answer, but he wasn't entirely positive it was the best answer for the Galileo. There were too many who thought of tribbles as more than a pest. Despite the heavy conversation topic, Asahi found himself smiling weakly. "... Do you know anyone who'd take an ever-multiplying supply of earless, multi-colored rabbits?"

It was only a split second before he had a hand through his hair, smile disappearing. "I'm glad I'm bringing this up with you before I end up running off to Command about it. Captain Holliday wants to see results, but we can't do anything more than store them and hope they magically stop breeding if none of us really want them to die..." He muttered a dismissive 'I told them tribbles were bad pets', before giving Stace another attempt at a weak smile.

"You just run into all kind of ethical complications when you start talking about destroying them, or for lack of a better work, neutering them." She paused and then smiled weakly too. "I understand their danger. Especially on such a small vessel as this, but there must be a way we can all survive this." She paused and then thought a little. "Bugger, there must be something we can think of," she remarked frustratingly.

With a defeated grunt, Asahi flopped into one of the nearby seats. "The fact that our options are limited by all of the variables in front of us doesn't help." He gestured a hand forward, as if grasping for some invisible solution to their problems. "If we effectively neuter them, we could harm them or change some other course of action... if we keep them all on the ship as is, they'll end up killing everyone-including themselves... but doing away with them like interstellar exterminators is about as out of the question as just letting them run free. Damned if we do, damned if we don't..." His smile turned bitter. "... And I don't know if I want to think about what we'd do if we could give them to the weird energy tentacle things. Do the tribbles keep their free will? Is the mine even safe for them?"

Another grunt escaped his throat. "I miss the days when I could just fix a warp core."

"Welcome to middle management," Stace shot off with a smile, but then relaxed into her chair with a bigger sigh. "I don't even know what to suggest. It's not as though the tribble population have a choice or higher level of thinking to agree if we do decide to off-load them to Lyshan III. And then what happens anyway? There's no natural predators to keep the population under control. They'll suffocate themselves."

"Ethics questions!" Asahi nearly fell over in his chair, exasperated and quite clearly frustrated, arms flailing upward. He stopped himself from continuing a rant, pausing and letting out a sigh. "I'm sorry. We have all these options but too many... things getting in the way of us actually finding a solution. I don't suppose we could find a nice moon for energy-creature-possessed tribbles to worm about on. The energy-creatures might get a little miffed at that..."

"That's not to even consider if we did introduce them to a moon that there would be any natural predators on that either. Or if there are, whether the predators would over-run and wipe out the tribble population and destroy the non-corporeal beings entirely." She offered this line of thinking merely to highlight to the engineer that there were reasons why the top brass had to consider these weighty decisions and not department heads of a small Nova class science vessel. She smiled and then shrugged. "There are too many variables. But those kind of decisions are for the captain and SFHQ to consider. All we can really do is advise our opinions and help execute the command."

Asahi settled in the chair, nodding along with Stace's thoughts, but then he found himself stopping as a sudden realization came over him. He had spent so much time worried about what the decision was actually going to be, it slipped that he wasn't going to be the one actually making it. The foolishness rose in his chest, and his smile turned sheepish to match the red twinge on his cheeks. "That's a good point. I really hadn't thought about that. I guess there are too many people bustin' down the door and demanding answers, huh?"

"What's best for us to do," Stace replied softly, "is organise our departments to react as quickly and efficiently as possible when the order does come. Demanding answers isn't going to help anyone if there's no one around to carry anything out."

There were times during their random chats that Asahi felt the sudden urge to sit himself in Stace's lap and cling to her in admiring appreciation. He always managed to suppress the urge, remembering that that sort of action was a tad bit creepy and could have led to weird messages and an extremely awkward professional relationship between the pair. Or, he thought it would have. "... You're always so level headed."

She smiled at him affectionately but narrowed her gaze, entering them both into a harmless conspiracy. "That's not entirely the case, Asahi," she said, now flicking her eyebrows upwards. "Especially when it comes to my temper. But I can keep a lid on it most of the time when needed." She leant in further. "Most of the time," she emphasised.

Instinctively, Asahi leaned forward curiously, eyebrows raising. His lips curled into a devious smile as he wiggled in his seat. "I'll keep that in mind, though I hope to never see that temper of yours'."

She winked back at him. "I'll keep it under wraps in your company!"

OFF:

LT. Asahi Kita
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

AND

Lieutenant Norvi Stace
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

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