Captain's Writing Challenge

Posted on Thu Jul 5th, 2018 @ 4:05pm by Commander Rita Paris & Captain Enalia Telvan
Edited on on Fri Jul 6th, 2018 @ 10:50pm

Mission: Holographic Horrors
Location: Captain's Quarters

1 - Bathed in a sea of tribbles

"Computer, where's the Captain?" Rita Paris asked, tapping her comm badge as she stood outside the turbolift on Deck 24.

=^=Captain Telvan is in her quarters on Deck 8=^=

Pressing the button to summon the lift, Paris reviewed her proposal and walked herself through the opening a few times just to see if it sounded insane or just crazy. As the lift arrived she continued this reviewing and editing process in her head as she strode forward to officer country. Coming out onto the outer edge of the curved corridor, Paris noticed something odd on one of the walls. A puffball, seemingly clinging there in defiance of gravity.

"Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me..." she asked of the universe as she moved in to inspect the grapefruit-sized brown furry mass.

It trilled soothingly in her direction, prompting her to reach out to pick it up.

"Ohhh no no no, you're just holographic, so you- I got work to do," the leggy lieutenant grumbled as she pointed accusingly at the adorable furball. As she pressed on toward the captain's quarters, she ran into more tribbles... dozens of them, in fact. They were starting to pile up in doorways, and there were even a few on the observation ports.

"Aw, c'mon, not a tribble infestation...!" Paris started sprinting down the corridor to the captain's quarters, the tribbles becoming more plentiful the closer she approached.

As she approached the Captain's door, she found it wedged open with the vast amount of tribbles simply flowing out of it into the hall. From inside could be heard the muffled sound of a woman loudly cursing, followed by the sharp sting of a phase pistol being discharged. Then more cursing as it apparently had no effect.

"Captain Telvan? You in there, ma'am?" Rita called from the corridor, and hearing a muffled reply, she rolled her eyes skyward and sighed. She knew what had to be done, she just wasn't excited to do it. Taking a deep breath, the hard-luck heroine tapped her comm badge then called out to the computer.

"Computer, replicate and beam a hundred pounds of wheat grain with no container here in the corridor next to me." While it might seriously count against her replicator rations, Rita figured she would deal with that later. For now, as a large pile of grain shimmered into existence next to her, making her take a step back nervously, Paris hatched her plan.

"Gonna get you two out of there ma'am, just bear with me!" the leggy lieutenant called out before scooping up a handful of grain and tossing it at the doorway overflowing with tribbles. Tossing a few more handfuls, she kicked the pile with her black chunky-heeled explorer's boots, spreading it across the corridor a bit even as the tribbles, sensing food, began rolling over one another to get at the grain. When she could see some of the ceiling over the tribble pile, the unconventionally uniformed underdog took a few steps back, then took a running start to dive into the doorway, trying to swim the sea of tribbles.

"Captain? Mrs. Telvan?" Paris called out, hoping that her navigational skill would enable her to get the couple back out of here once she located them.

Enalia did her best to make her way through the tightly packed sea of tribbles towards the voice calling to her, but it was slow going from across the room. At least it seemed they were a little less tightly packed now at least. "I'm over here!" she called out, trying to yell over the cacophonous cooing of the multitudinous tribble symphony all around her.

As she did her best to body surf the dense mass of purring and cooing little lifeforms beneath her, Paris started talking. It would give the Captain something to hone in on, and it might keep her focused enough to resist the soothing vibrations and sounds that the tribbles were producing. "So I guess you still have tribbles in this day and age, huh? I hadn't looked them up because I figured either someone figured out how to neuter them and make safe pets out of them or they all got wiped out by the Klingons by now."

"You still with me Captain?" Paris started to call out for Mrs. Telvan and debated calling her by her first name, then she remembered the captain's wife was holographic as well. Given the current crisis, she might not exactly be in any shape to answer right at this moment. Bringing it up probably wasn't the best of ideas either.

Was that Rita? Asking about tribbles? "Yeah, the Klingons almost did but we brought them back! And yeah, there's a neutered variety! Have to be registered though!" It seemed like she was only a few feet away, so if she could just stretch out through the tribble-sea...

Hearing the captain's voice, the lost navigator changed course, working toward the sound. "Well, that makes a lot of sense, ma'am. Hey, I'm just glad I'm not going to be blamed for this one. I definitely did not bring tribbles with me from the past, I promise!" Distributing her weight across the tribbles was enabling her to stay on top of them and move, but the tribbles were also filling in behind her, which was going to make this more challenging. "Stay with me Cap'n, I'll get you out of here!"

Of course, Paris had no idea just how she was going to accomplish that feat, but diving in and making it up as she went along was something of her specialty, and she was doing so literally in this case. "For the love of phloog, where the hell is she? Stupid stadium quarters," the plucky explorer muttered.

Enalia reached out again, this time grasping something that was round but wasn't furry and hanging on. "I think that's you! That is you, right? Not some other holographic glitch? Please tell me that's you and not my wife!" The last thing Enalia needed was another issue with the emitters with this going on. It didn't feel like her wife so hopefully her system hadn't gone completely haywire yet at least. Squeezing a bit she couldn't tell though. The volume and elasticity was amazingly close, if it wasn't her.

"Ah, yes ma'am, that's, ah, that's me all right," Paris muttered, marveling at just how the captain had instinctively managed to latch onto one of the two parts of her anatomy that in the dark might genuinely be mistaken for Maica Telvan. Taking the wrist of the seeking and probing hand, Rita tried prying it loose, but the captain had a grip like a drowning woman. Eh, what did it matter as long as she accomplished her mission, she decided. Maybe they would have a good laugh about this later, assuming married Orion dancer girls weren't the vindictive type.

"Come on Captain, let's get you out of here," Paris boldly declared with a confidence she did not truly posses, looking for the tops of doorways she had been using as landmarks on the way into the specious quarters so that she could reverse direction. Tugging at the wrist she had hold of, Paris began trying to turn about atop the sea of furry trilling lifeforms that threatened to bury them both. Rolling onto her back kept her from going under while she insistently tugged, trying to drag the captain to the 'surface of the furry sea of tribbles. "We probably need something for leverage to get you on top of them, ma'am."

"Thank you!" Enalia didn't want to let go, but she forced herself to and hang on to Rita's wrist instead. It wasn't her wife, after all. "When we get out of here, I owe you a drink!" Trying to swim through the sea of tribbles was no easy task, but with two of them it was a bit easier and the door was open now, letting a considerable number of the furry troublemakers out of her quarters. She just hoped they hadn't made too much of a mess. She knew the fecal matter was holographic, but she was more worried about broken artifacts and irreplaceable items that she had collected and chosen to keep on the Hera rather than sent back home. They were also trying to eat the furniture and drapes, holographic or not. The little guttersnipes had even taken a few bites out of her uniform.

Hauling the captain out of the worst tribble infestation she’d ever seen, Rita decided humor was the way to deal with this. “Remember, in case of a tribble crash landing, Lieutenant Paris may be used as a flotation device,” she quipped as she lay on her back atop the pile of purring and trilling furballs, trying to use her body as a platform for the captain to gain leverage. In doing so, even with the limited amount of her uniform she could see from this angle, Paris realized the little biters were making her uniform look as though it had been hanging in a closet being attacked by moths for the past 130 years.

Trying to swim through the sea of tribbles, Enalia felt a tearing sensation as part of her uniform gave out. Apparently they had eaten enough of it that it was now falling apart at the seams. "I think I'm going to need more than a flotation device," she replied, as she clung to Rita. They weren't too far from the door at least. Unfortunately, she was only wearing the top half... Another tearing sound... And there went the rest of her uniform...

“So I’m guessing that I’m… hey, get outta there you little critters! Guessing that I’m not going to get in trouble for a uniform violation today, ma’am,” Paris quipped as she backstroked quite literally out of her uniform, the hungry tribbles apparently deciding that velour and polyester were on the menu if there was nothing else to eat. She hadn’t managed to get the Captain completely out of the mass of furry little adorable aliens just yet, but she had at least prevented her from smothering to death as they struggled toward the exit.

"Now isn't the time for that, Rita! They just ate my undies!" Enalia relied, trying to at least keep some shred of dignity as she swam towards the door on the warm, trilling, fluffy ocean of tribbles. "My wife gave me those! They weren't replicated!"

"I promise I'll provide an alibi, ma'am," Paris grunted as she finally made it to the exit, only to find the door closed. "Hold my boot please, ma'am," the the hourglass heroine ordered as she braced one foot on the ceiling while the rest of her dove for the door controls. The captain now knew her grooming preferences, but Rita figured they were a ways past modesty here. Fumbling blind in the mass of furry lifeforms, the lost navigator's hands slid along and probed the wall until she found the door chime. As she tabbed it, the door slid open, bearing both Rita and the captain along on a wave of trilling furry creatures.

Looking around, with the feel of the cool tile and the fixtures, Paris realized she'd managed to get turned around, and they were now in the captain's bathroom. Flopping over onto her back, the sweaty starship pilot took a moment to gather herself. Swimming tribbles was not like water at all, and now her boots were nearly gone as well. So it was she and the captain sprawled on the floor of the captain's quarters bathroom, both panting for breath as their sweat-soaked bodies had bits of tribble fur sticking to them.

"Well, if we're here, I'm guessing you know the way to the front door from here, ma'am?" Eyeing the naked captain's athletic build, Rita figured it was time to take a chance and break the mood. She gave the captain a once over, and smirked. "So the spots really do go all the way down..."

Enalia shrugged of the scraps of her silk bra and looked herself over, then checked Rita for obvious injuries. While she too was top heavy, she was no match for the voluptuous human with her, who had surprising core definition. Despite her curves, which appeared to be based in bone structure rather than fat placement, Rita seemed to have a runner's build. Except for her high-set breasts which looked suspiciously surgically developed, save that Enalia had felt one, and it still felt natural. "They do, and tribble fur makes them itch. At least Maica should be safe. She retreated into her core unit until we're out of this storm."

"So that's a good thing," Paris guessed. Another question to ask her photonic psychiatrist sometime in the future, but for now it sounded like the captain's wife was safe. Bracing herself against the sink, the leggy lieutenant levered herself to her feet, than leaned against the vanity counter to remove her boots. As she pulled off the remains of the chunky-heeled explorer's boots from her era, tribbles were still clinging to them, gnawing away at the synthleather like adorable piranhas.

"Thex told me to beam my entire uniform, everything I owned, into the replicator. Good thing," Paris observed as her stomach growled loudly. Holding up one finger, Rita fished the three tribbles in the sink out and ran some water, bending over to drink from the faucet in a rather unladylike fashion. She drank for a good 12 seconds before standing back up and wiping the back of her mouth with her hand.

"Confession, Captain?" Without waiting for assent, the naked navigator shifted her weight to one hip and started talking, illustrating with her left hand as her right draped on her hip like an unaware pinup model. "Food already tastes off here... I haven't said anything, but most things have a tang to them, like chewing aluminum foil. In a dark matter ion storm where the holographics are going haywire because of dark matter short-circuits in the ship's computer, I don't care. I'm not eating anything that comes out of those replicators until we're clear."

Having said that, Paris' stomach burbled again and she self-consciously covered it with her hand. "So, ah, which way to the exit from your lavoratory, ma'am?"

"When we did our slingshot maneuver back to the 2160s my tastebuds were off as well. Everything tasted like copper for days. Let's hope your taste corrects itself in time. For now..." Opening up the cabinet behind the mirror, Enalia pulled out a ration bar and handed it to Rita. "Pirate rations. Better than Fleet rations. As for the exit... It's just past the bedroom and to the right. The tribbles seem to have eaten the room divider though, so there's no way to tell where the bedroom ends."

Enalia then looked down and realized something else. Her weapon belt wasn't around her waist anymore. "Shit! The little cocksuckers ate my holster! My phase pistol is somewhere in that mess!"

The hungry helmsman's eyes lit up at the ration bar, and she had the wrapper torn and the corner of it in her mouth before the captain had finished describing it to her. Chewing rapturously, Paris sighed, then covered her mouth since she was talking with her mouth full. "All of these scenarios and situations the computer has been putting out- it's like it is trying to see how we react to certain stimuli. I think the storm might be studying us, ma'am. It's a silly theory, but it's a big universe in my experience and silly is sometimes true."

Swallowing, the Starfleet siren continued. "Using a phaser on a mass of tribbles does mow them down, but the disintegrated mass is just filled in again by more of them. And it runs the phaser out of charge quickly doing a wide beam that powerful, so that must be why the scenario stole it." Pausing to look first herself then the captain over, Rita shrugged comically. "Why it wanted us to end up naked in your bathroom, I got nothing. But it must have some rat maze it wants us to run here, some way we can outsmart this."

Snapping her fingers, a light went on in Rita's eyes. "The transporters! We can use the transporters on holographic tribbles because if they transfer dimensions in the ion storm it's irrelevant, they're holographic! Yes?"

Thinking things over a bit more, one hand on her hip and one hand tapping her chin, Enalia hatched a bit of a plan. "No, the transporters can't target holographics without specialized pattern enhancers and even then it would just dissolve the hologram. What we need is something to disrupt the emitters, even for a moment. the system is based around one core emitter in the pylon and micro-emitters scattered around every room of the ship. Most showers, turbolifts, and maintenance crawl-ways don't have them though. The core emitter covers them well enough as well as the surface of the hull."

Grinning wickedly, the well toned Captain turned to the leggy Navigator. So then we force the system to transfer this program from the micro-emitters to the core emitter. To the hull of the ship. I just need..." Looking around the bathroom, she tried to find the hidden maintenance panel for the holographic systems that her wife had been tied into so she could appear across the ship.

"Here it is." Prying the panel open, she immediately unplugged a red and green coupler that looked very out of place. "That's one of my wife's data links. We don't want her disrupted. Now then... This area is local control and monitor, while this area is all core matrix relays. Now I just need some sort of tools..."

As if on cue, Paris produced a pair of metal ‘bobby pins’ from her hair. While her hairstyle did not seem to need them at all, still she pulled them seemingly out of nowhere. “They’ll strip you of weapons and strip off your clothes, but you would be genuinely surprised how many times Sonak would end up getting us out of a jam because I still had a few hair pins…” Cheerfully she handed them over to the curvaceous captain.

Taking the pins, Enalia grinned like a vivver cat. "Perfect. Can you grab my sonic toothbrush as well? I might be able to use it as a screwdriver." Leaning in to the panel, she started working on it with the bobby pins, more often than not getting rather negative sounds from the console, but sometimes getting normal sounds as well, which was encouraging.

Handing off the sonic device, the nubile naked navigator eyed the pile-up of tribbles filling the doorway. “Not to be a nag, ma’am, but our opponent is definitely putting in overtime trying to drown us in soft, cuddly furballs. Anything else I can do to speed this along?” As she lacked the technical skill to help with the hotwiring, Rita started scooping armfuls of the tribbles up and tossing them into the shower stall to buy them some space and time to work. "Those also serve who shovel tribbles," she muttered.

As the Captain's shower had micro-emitters, the tribbles remained. After all, she was married to a photonic life form so obviously she'd want to shower with her. "I almost have it I think... I just need to... With one more press, and shoving the toothbrush into the relays on high, she stepped back and hoped it worked. "It might get a little cold in here for a few seconds. I rerouted the life support to the holo relays."

With a building high pitched whine and a blast of cold air from the life support vents, several sparks shot out from the panel, causing the tribbles to flicker for a moment before vanishing. Enalia then reached out and clicked the toothbrush off, preventing further damage to the system. Glancing out of the bathroom, she saw all the tribbles floating outside the bedroom window. And that, holographic or not, they had indeed eaten most of her quarters.

"Well, Maica was wanting to redecorate anyway..." the semi-marsupial Trill commented glumly as she headed towards her now abandoned NX era phase pistol and spare cartridges, scooping them up. "She's going to love hearing how this happened..."

“I’ll be happy to provide an alibi ma’am,” Paris offered, looking around at the ruined, seemingly eaten quarters. “Assuming the two of us standing around like this isn’t going to get you in more trouble.” Given her experiences with green-skinned Orion women so far, Rita most definitely did not want the captain’s wife on the warpath over her and the captain creatively wrestling atop a pile of tribbles buck naked.

“I should probably see about replicating a uniform, come to think of it… or at least some underwear…” Paris muttered, suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious as she considered Maica Telvan chasing her around with one of those big needles with the poison tip. Plus there was the way that the captain was checking her out, which definitely lent credence to that ‘angry wife trying to kill the blonde’ syndrome Paris had gotten a bit used to over the years. She tried not to lead people on, but tastes were tastes, her curves were what they were and biology was going to have its sway.

"Yeah, I'll have to make it up to her somehow. She'll be jealous I got to see you naked before her. It's also best to tell the truth. She's too good at telling when people are lying." Enalia then set her phase pistol on the remains of her dresser and snapped her fingers. "As soon as this is over you need to schedule a full nude spa treatment with her. She's the ship's masseuse, after all. Promise?"

“Ah… uhhh… “ Just as Rita thought things were awkward, the captain cranked it up to 11. A full body blush started, discussing taking a full body massage with the captain’s wife. And how she’d be mad that she didn’t get this chance to see Rita in the altogether. In truth, the curvaceous cosmonaut could probably use a real massage, given that her life of late had been stress compounded by more stress compounded by internal anxiety and life-or-death pressure. And her usual method of stress relief was now forever denied her, as Sonak was lost to the past, a hundred years and a few dimensions away. Which in turn reminded her of her rather strong and active libido that she’d been working hard to ignore since arriving on the Hera. Realizing that the captain was still watching her expectantly as Rita worked out her internal process, the neurotic nubile navigator smiled, a somewhat uncharacteristically bashful expression on her face as she squirmed a bit.

“Ah, sure, ma’am…” Paris squeaked out. “I could, um, do that, I guess, if you want…”

"Excellent! I know she'll be excited. Now about some clothes. I don't have any of your patterns loaded locally, but I think my wife's clothes should fit you almost perfectly and she has some cosplay items you might like." Picking up a PaDD with a few teeth marks, Enalia scrolled through it and tapped a few buttons. "This should at least work until you get back to your own quarters," Enalia added as the bedroom clothing replicator started humming, producing a silk replica of a red Enterprise-A era female miniskirt uniform... But as a robe obviously built for Maica. It even included some knee high silk boots.

“Well, this is interesting,” Rita observed as she wrapped the robe about her and tied it off. “They certainly went in another direction after our uniforms… not bad, even if they are a little more military-minded than in my day.” Leaning against the wall, she worked the silk boots on so that she wouldn’t be caught barefooted in the forty paces between her quarters and the captain’s. Besides, she had the sneakiest suspicion that the captain was watching her get dressed, which, while still awkward, Rita had to admit it was nice to be considered attractive by someone. In this enlightened day and age with so many exotic lifeforms on board, Rita had been feeling about as sexy as a comm panel of late, she realized.

“Good enough to cross officer country?” Rita asked, spinning in place to make the hem of the robe twirl out a bit. The silken fabric did basically nothing to hide anything, instead putting it all on display quite boldly. But as a blonde, Rita looked good in red, and as her figure and that of the captain’s wife were remarkably similar, it fit precisely the way that it was supposed to- tight, clingy and revealing.

With one hand on her hip and still buck ass nude, Enalia licked her finger and pantomimed touching Rita, making a sizzling sound. "Hot as a Talaxian chili cook-off and twice as tasty. If you like spicy food, look up some of the dishes in the replicator's menus under the name Neelix. He has quite a few vegetarian dishes in there. Bajoran hasperat is good too. It's a spicy vegetable roll." Sighing, she just shook her head. "And now you've got me hungry, running around naked like this... Go on, get out of here or I'll have to talk you into a three way with my wife and I. I'm going to take a quick shower, get dressed and head back to the bridge as soon as I get some rations in me."

“Hahaha!” Rita laughed nervously. “That’s a good one, ma’am…” she started, then she realized from the captain’s expression that she wasn’t joking.

A career in a short skirt in Starfleet had gotten Rita accustomed to being hit on by most anything that walked on two legs, which she had learned to take in stride. When it came to a gal built like her, after all, everyone assumed was sleeping her way up in the ranks and that such a woman was of loose moral virtue. While she was no prude, Rita was in fact very selective about whom she slept with, and in her own day she’d had to guard her reputation fiercely. After all, one could not be a flirt then be a prude, but one also did not wish to become known as the ship’s gymnasium, where everyone got a workout sooner or later.

But here in this place and time so very far from all that she knew, cut off from her past with a future that was not exactly rosy, being clearly propositioned by her female commanding officer and invited to a threesome with said commanding officer’s exotic wife was not something she had expected at all, and she found herself in one of those rarest of occasions- tongue tied and unable to form a clever, witty or even a reasonable response.

“Ummm… ahhh…I, uh…” the old school officer stammered, turning a red not quite as bright as her borrowed cover-up, but edging close. She didn’t want to offend the Captain, but she also did not know how to process the invitation, either. Stuck between a rock and a hard place- a come-on from the captain, a lady captain no less, was a dangerous proposition to refuse or accept, and in that moment of exhaustion Rita simply didn’t know what to do. Which was when her inner officer came to her rescue.

“The graviton generators!” she blurted out. “I had, I have an idea to, uhm, use the generators, the ah, the graviton generators to generate anti-gravity and push the cloud back so that we can form a menage- ah, form a um a way to repel the dark matter so that we can form a warp bubble and get out of here.” Paris was babbling and she knew that she was blowing it, but she was as flustered as a schoolgirl by the casual proposal and this was her best response.

Enalia nodded thoughtfully, having finished enjoying playing with Rita for now. Humans had such funny notions about sex - even the human pirates she grew up with were like that. "The idea has merit. Run it by science and see if they can flesh it out. If so, I know Thex can make it happen."

“Y-yes ma’am. I’ll make sure they Science is onboard and send a full proposal to your for authorization. I’ve already discussed it with Thex and she’s onboard, and got her backup power system in place since Engineering has suffered damage from the holographic attacks. I think we’re ready to move forward with it.” Back on more familiar ground, Rita was relieved that she had at least remembered to ask the captain about her plan, as that had been her actual purpose in coming to the now ruined quarters.

“Any, ah, anything else, ma’am?” Paris asked, mildly worried what the next words might bring forth.

"Yeah, one more thing." Enalia popped open her lingerie armoire and pulled out two sets of skimpy undergarments, holding them up to her as she posed with each one in turn. "Tholian silk or Telarian cotton?"

Like a busty deer in headlights, Paris stood stunned for a second. Then she blinked rapidly a few times before her characteristic smirk re-emerged. Running her finger lightly across the latter selection held against the captain’s skin, the blonde bombshell breathily explained, “Cotton. It breathes better and doesn’t bunch up like silk when it gets… hot.” With that said, she half-turned and made her exit from the captain’s quarters, being sure that her exit was worth watching.

And watch is what Enalia did, with her characteristic lopsided grin. She'd have to leave any seduction to her wife, but they'd have plenty of time for that during shore leave. Maybe Maica could arrange an Andorian orgy between the three of them and Thex...

Shrugging it off for now, she tossed the silk undergarments back and headed off to shower off her itchy spots.