Tribbles and Tempers

Posted on Thu Jan 8th, 2015 @ 12:40am by Commander Angelica Fairchild & Lieutenant Ventarus Nosplet

Mission: Devotion of Time
Location: Officer Quarters
Tags: Writing Challenge, Purple 2

Angelica yawned as she walked the short distance from the turbolift to her cabin; she'd worked late into the night, trying to make sense of the information Aewia had given them and comparing it to intelligence reports. She hadn't had much success, aside from giving herself a whopper of a headache and some significant eyestrain from looking at too many screens. Already dreaming about a hot bowl of chili with sweet cornbread, she opened the door to a deafening purring sound as a pile of fluffy balls rolled out into the corridor. Not quite sure what was going on, she stared at them in shock. Tribbles? Fucking tribbles in my cabin?!? Somehow, she kept from screaming in incoherent rage.

There was a whole damned sea of them! And more kept rolling out into the corridor, like dumb fluffy marbles. She couldn't even get through the door... or get the door to close to head them off. What was she supposed to do?! She hardly knew who to call about this either. Engineering? Operations? The chef, so they could be turned into soup?

"Fairchild to... uh... Nosplet," she decided finally, figuring the chief of operations could find a way to beam all the little furry bastards off the ship.

Ven was, as typical crawling threw the tunes of the ship checking on relays and interfaces. He pressed his com badge when he heard the call. "How can I help you this evening?"

"I have a... logistical problem." That was a hell of an understatement, but Angelica was not telling anyone over an open comm line that some joker had filled her cabin with tribbles. "Can you meet me on deck eight, near my cabin?"

Ven sighed, "yeah...give me ten minutes."

Yeah, he sounds thrilled, Angelica groused to herself. "Ten minutes is fine. Don't rush."

"Roger that..." Ven said and closed the com line. He finished tweaking the plasma relay he was messing with and closed everything up. Then he started making his way to deck eight.

Angelica tried to wait patiently... tried to ignore the tribbles rolling and crawling around in the corridor. The requested ten minutes ticked back agonizingly slowly, and she gazed wistfully in the direction of her replicator.

Ven came strolling down the hall, his overlaiden tool belt swing from his hip with a clank every step he took. His huge goggles were pushed up on his head into his wild and messy hair. His uniform what rumpled and dirty from his day crawling through the ship.

He came to a halt as soon as he saw the huge pile of tribbles in the hall. "Awww hell!"

"My thoughts exactly. How do we get these... things out of my cabin and off the ship?"

Ven pointed at his chest. "Chief of operations, not zoo keeper. I'll help clean up the mess but I don't know what to do with this orgy."

"We don't have a damned zoo keeper, so if that's your excuse you can stuff it. Beam them all out into space, for all I care. They're a nuisance."

Ven looked at her for a long moment. He was getting tired of being pushed around on this ship. "Okay then. As soon as they start messing with things that affect my area I'll deal with it. Good luck." And he turned and started storming off down the hall.

Dumbfounded by his reaction, Angel stared after him for a few long seconds before following him and catching him by the arm. "What the fuck is your problem, Nosplet? You've been throwing me attitude since I called, and I'll be damned if you're going to turn your back on me and walk off."

Ven looked like he was about to go off, but his anger deflated as fast as he did. "I'm sorry..." he he said as he leaned against a wall, looking back at the writhing pile of fur. "It's just I'm under so much stress and I'm not use it. I don't know what I'm doing anymore." Ven pulled the goggles from his head that he was always wore and ran a hand through his crazy hair. "None of this is your problem though...I'm sorry."

"We're all under a lot of stress, so you'd damn well better get used to it. That's called 'life' out here." Maybe she was being hard on him, but damn it Angelica was tired. All she wanted was to eat dinner and go to bed, but no. The tribbles had other ideas. "You can mope later. Right now I need your help."

Ven nodded. "You're right. But we are not just going to beam them into space. That's cruel." He pushed himself off the wall and replaced his goggles. "We need to figure something else out."

Angelica sighed. "I know it's cruel, but I'm tired and hungry and these furry little bastards are keeping me from doing something about it."

Ven snapped his finger and git a wicked grin on his face. "I got it! Let's just beam the lot into Nexi's room!"

Angelica grinned a little. "Hey, you want to screw with her, go for it. We'll have to round the suckers up though."

"She would probably kill me nice and slow." Ven said as he started pushing the tribbles back into the room. "Let start by grabbing the stray ones and making a big pile so the transporter can lock onto them all...then...I don't know. Cargo bay?"

"Wherever they'll fit. I just want my cabin back." Angelica scooped up some of the escaping tribbles, putting them back inside and nudging others back into the room.

Ven gently pressed his badge and it chirped. "Nosplet to transporter room two."

=/\="Ensign Blackwell here." Was the responce.

"Ensign, we have a room full of tribbles at my location. Will you please lock on to the and beam the lot to cargo bay three?" It was the one place that Ven knew was empty.

=/\= "Rodger." And a second later the writhing pile disappeared in a soft blue light, leaving behind a huge mess in the room. Ven looked around the room. "Oh...that's not pleasant. I'll send a few guys up here to help you clean all this up." Ven certainly was not going to scrub the tribble droppings. "If there is anything else ops can do to help let me know. But be aware, if there are tribbles on the ship we are likely going to be very busy."

"Oh come on. You're already here." Angelica gave him a dismayed look.

Ven sighed, he was almost off duty. This was the last thing he wanted to get stuck doing after hours. He rubbed the back of his head looking at the mess of a room. Then he got an idea. "Why don't the two of us go to the lounge and relax while my guys take care of the room?" They could both kick back and have a drink while neither of them had to deal with the mess.

"Hmm." Angelica thought about it for a moment. "Yeah, let's do that. Have a drink, maybe grab dinner... don't worry, I'm not trying to steal you from your girlfriend. I'm not on the market anyhow... too damned busy."

Ven laughed a little. "I'm not worried." He adjusted the goggles on top of his head. "After you."

"You look silly with those on your head." Angelica smirked a bit, escaping into the hallway away from the mess the tribbles had left behind.

Ven followed her out in into the hall. "Maybe...but they are very useful."

"Considering what you greasemonkeys do on this ship, I can imagine. I could never do it... I hate tight spaces." Angelica shook her head slightly, finding the nearest turbolift shaft and pressing the button to call the car.

Ven laughed, "Yeah, and compared to some of the places I crawl through the tubes are spacious!"

"Jefferies tubes. Spacious. Only you techie types would ever say that." Angelica snickered a little as the car arrived and opened its doors.

Ven let her enter first and stepped in behind her. "It's not for everyone that's for sure. But same goes for security. I mean we would be in a world of hurt if I was in charge of protecting everyone. I'm really glad for people like you to shoot the phasers while I run for my life."

Angelica shrugged slightly, though she did smile a little. It was pretty rare for her to hear that people appreciated what security did; usually they wanted to complain about their friend in the brig or something crazy that wasn't her fault anyway. "The danger never bothered me."

"Good!" Ven said with a little laugh. "You keep the bad guys away and I'll keep the sonic showers workin for ya."

"Sounds like a deal." Angel smiled a bit more. Maybe Ven wasn't such a jerk after all.