“It did… what!?” Valerie was struggling to keep the calm demeanour in her tone as the three Delta shift JO’s looked fearfully at her across from her desk.

“It uh… teleported…” One of them said meekly. He was the shift supervisor, and he hadn’t been involved in the initial incident. Ashford didn’t envy his position at the moment. The other two nodded shyly in agreement.

Valerie sighed. After almost a week on board she had just finally settled in… and everything had gone smoothly so far. Of course, as luck would have it, she couldn’t even have one single full uneventful week before things went haywire. “And you’re absolutely certain that it teleported to the XO’s office.” She asked, frustration seeping into her voice.

The three of them nodded again, this time more decisively.

“Every time it changes location, it leaves a small residual subspace signature behind. That’s what we have been using to track it.” Jameson Morales was the young man’s name. Valerie had familiarized herself with the different shift supervisors but she wasn’t yet acquainted with the other two officers involved. Morales showed her the results of the shipwide scan on his PaDD, and pointed to a specific blip in Deck 3.

Ashford sighed again, rubbing her face while pondering the best steps to take next. “Can’t we shoo it somewhere else?”

Morales turned to face the two Ensigns who exchanged concerned looks before shaking their heads. He looked tired. If what he had reported was true, they had spent the past few hours running around the ship, trying to deal with the situation, but to no avail. It was well past the end of their shift. “No Ma’am… we haven’t been able to identify what makes it move. We could only speculate that it does so when it’s startled, so we can do nothing from here.” One of them gathered the courage to say. A girl, seemingly fresh out of the Academy. “All I could say is that it is likely hidden somewhere, or Commander Jen would have already noticed it… Assuming he’s in his office, of course.”

“I see.” Ashford drummed her fingers on the desk. From her point of view there was only one solution. “Alright.” She said getting up. “Come with me. And bring the cage.” She added pointing at a small box one of the young officers was carrying. Without any further words Valerie walked out of the office. The three junior officers glanced at each other before hurriedly following suit.

The route to Deck 3 didn’t take long, but the awkward silence made it seem like an eternity, though more so for the three young scientists than for Valerie. Closing the short distance between the turbolift and the XO’s office, she stood at the door and waited for the small group to gather next to her.

With one last deep breath, Valerie pressed the chime, wanting nothing more than a quick resolution to the matter at hand. Imagining the paperwork alone was already giving her a headache. Most of all, however, Ashford was really hoping the ship’s second in command hadn’t noticed the chinchilla hiding in his office.

Lt. Cmdr. Ashford, CSO (and three scared JOs)