Posted by Commander Garinder’Jen th’Jir (Executive Officer) in XO’s Office: An Uninvited Guest

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Valerie Ashford (Chief Science Officer) in XO’s Office: An Uninvited Guest

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Valerie Ashford (Chief Science Officer) in XO’s Office: An Uninvited Guest
Posted by… suppressed (5) by the Post Ghost! 👻
“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)

One of the things that was a nice ‘perk’ with regards to this vessel was that Jen’s morning ‘commute’ was simply not far. In this case he had brought some work home with him in the form of a PaDD that he wanted to continue reading up on - a concise (he liked that) history of the last few years of ground military conflicts that Starfleet had been engaged in, some known and some not so known. As a prior Marine Colonel he still had access to some things. The ‘need to know’ was still alive and well in all facets of Starfleet. He had, however, forgotten to bring it back to his office and he wanted the extra accessories in his office to make plotting these locations on a star map much easier there than in his quarters.

And so it was that he had gathered it, noted that his bonsai tree was in need of a little work and, not having any appointments for the next half hour, thought to attend to that lest it bother him the rest of the day. And so it was that he exited his quarters to find a cluster of nervous looking people outside his office, one with a small cage in hand. They must have hit the chime as they were noticeably waiting. “Another vole problem?” he asked, antennae shifting curiously. He did dislike voles.
- Jen, XO

Almost all at once, the group turned around to face the voice. Startled, the two Ensigns yelped and moved to stand behind their Department Head, while the oldest of the three JOs, Lt. (j.g.) Morales, was more graceful in his jump even though he took a step back. Ashford was the only one that seemed unfazed, greeting the ship’s Executive Officer with a polite smile.

Somebody’s nervous .. Jen thought. His eyes flickered to the cage which by any standard didn’t seem that big. Weren’t critters of sorts dealt with somewhat more fatally than put into a cage? He had known one staff sergeant that had stuffed the heads of the ones he had hunted and decorated his tent with it. As eerie as it was it did show he was effective. He supposed the ranking woman was the new science officer. Not entirely of the scientific bend he wasn’t quick to chat with her and had procrastinated on that. perhaps that was a wrong move given, well, now.

“Good morning, Sir. Not quite.” Despite the semblance of ease, this was not the ideal situation for the new Science Chief either. When coming on board she had reported in and met directly with Captain Bordeaux, but after almost a week on the job she had barely had any contact with the XO altogether, and the present situation was definitely not the one she had imagined for their first formal meeting. “It’s more of a chinchilla problem, Sir.” She cleared her throat, trying to maintain the confidence in her tone. “And, from my officer’s reports, it’s a very particular one at that.”

“Chinchilla?” he asked. That didn’t fit into the standard critter roster that he knew of. It sounded like a Mexican side dish than a .. chinchilla.

“It’s a teleporting chinchilla, Sir.” The shyest of the three JOs blurted out. Just like his female colleague, the young Ensign seemed fresh out of the Academy as well.

“Teleporting chinchilla?” Now that was getting interesting if no less boggling. He had the image of a .. taco (how he had been talked into going to that restaurant! though the tequila was nice) .. just up and disappearing from his hands and reappearing somewhere else. Was this some kind of Frankenstein like creation that biologists seem to have a knack for trying out?

Ashford successfully suppressed a sigh, but a hint of frustration blinked through her features, even if almost imperceptibly. Her gaze, however, never left the Andorian’s eyes. “I know it sounds preposterous, Sir, but the data seems to corroborate that assessment.” From what Valerie had been able to ascertain from the two Ensigns, they had been working on a teleportation project in one of the labs when the chinchilla had accidentally interacted with it. Further research would be necessary to figure out what had truly happened to it, but right now, Ashford’s priority was to secure the animal and bring it back to the lab. “Like you, I just came on duty, so I wasn’t able to see it for myself, but the latest scans show the current location of the chinchilla to be inside your office. We brought a special cage equipped with a containment field to capture it, hopefully before it does any irreversible damage. You know how rodents are…” Valerie let the implication hang in the air. Rodents chewed through everything there was to chew, though this particular chinchilla, not being a regular lab specimen but rather a pet left behind by a former lab member, seemed to be quite spoiled on the chewing toy front, so if they were lucky, it hadn’t touched anything crucial. “I am really sorry, Sir…” Ashford added. “This was not how any of us had intended to spend our morning… or, evening, I suppose.” She said motioning to the three officers with her. “We should be out in a blink, no pun intended.” She smiled apologetically.

Lt. Cmdr. Ashford, CSO

Jen glanced at his office as if to suddenly see smoke slipping out through the cracks or something crashing. Then he looked at the science folk there. They didn’t look fearful of the critter. Him . perhaps. He paused to scratch his cheek as though to add some drama to this situation that was partially amusing and partially disturbing - a randomly teleporting creature may be only a nuisance a part of the time but what about if it got somewhere critical like the computer core? “Okay, lets go hunting .. chinchilla.” Somehow just saying that name felt wrong. Moving up to the door his hand touched the plate, chimed in response to recognition and .. opens?
- Jen, XO

OOC: Will leave it up to you to see if it opens :)

The three JOs stood still behind their Department Head, hands holding on tightly to the cage and other instruments they had brought with them. Ashford, on the other hand, was trying her best not to think about the headaches that her subordinates’ accidental experiment could bring to the ship and to her own job. As the XO’s hand came into contact with the plate, the four Science officers watched expectantly, eyes trained on the door, breaths held in anticipation of what they were going to find, until…

With a soft swoosh, the door opened just like anyone familiar with it would expect it to. No creaks, no stutters, no delays, just the same ordinary sound and motion that any other door on the ship would make. Inside, however, the room was in complete and total darkness, and the moment the door had opened, it let out a draft of noticeably colder air — cold enough that the temperature around them seemed to drop a few degrees.

For a moment, the four scientists seemed to have been frozen in place before Valerie broke the trance.

“Alright, the good news is… it hasn’t gotten to the door connections.” The words were uttered to everyone present. “The bad news is… it might have gotten to the room environmental controls.” She turned to face the ship’s second in command. “My apologies if this question is out of line Sir, but… is there any chance you might have turned down the office’s temperature?” After all, as far as Valerie could tell, the man was likely from Andoria, a planet famous for its cold climate. And if there was anything that Ashford’s upbringing had taught her, it was that everyone had their own preferences — as the list of known species grew, so did the myriad of preferred environmental settings each species considered ‘normal’, so she usually tried not to assume anything.

Behind her, the three JOs seemed more scared than before, hoping that the current mess wouldn’t warrant the wrath of either of the two senior officers present. Ashford was well aware of their fears but outwardly she didn’t show it. In the same casually polite tone than before, she added “Also, do you mind if I try to turn on the lights?”

Lt. Cmdr. Ashford (and three JOs)

OOC: Sorry for the delay! Also, I hope I didn’t take too many liberties, but if I did let me know and I’ll void them and take a different path. I don’t want to go breaking too many things, but I promise whatever happens it’s completely fixable! 100% money back guarantee! :p – Joana

bump :)

OOC: Break things? Isn’t that what engineering is for? <G>
IC:

At the soft whoosh of the cold air Jen breathed it in and smiled. His antennae shifted curiously at their first comment about ‘hadn’t gotten to’ and wondered just how efficient this creature was that, while small (at least according to the crate), was so efficiently destructive. “That would be like asking a Vulcan if they kept their quarters at Vulcan standard hot.” He mused for a moment. “Maybe that’s why we didn’t like them so much. They blow hot. We blow cold. Ah well. Yes, if I don’t have any appointments I have it programmed to a cooler level.” He looked at Ashford and winked. “Good for the sinuses you know.”

As the lights had not come on, Jen suspected that there was one issue that needed attending to. Touching the entry panel he said =^= Computer hold door open =^= That would at least give a little bit of light from the corridor into the room. Stepping just aside a little he said to Valerie, “Normally I would go first, however, in this instance I will appropriate that Terran term of ‘ladies first’. You know what you are looking for. I have a clean desk policy so there is nothing official that anything could chew on that would be tragic.” Jen was glad that he had never moved his Andorian bonsai here but kept it in his room. Yes it was surrounded by a light forcefield to keep the temperature Andorian cold and the icy branches and leaves intact which he would hope would thwart a creature not likely wanting to become frozen from any lingering time in there. As it was the only personal items he kept in were replicated; the originals were on Andor. He had learned that in the field and in space things could happen and he wasn’t vain enough to think that he required the originals with him.
- Jen, XO

OOC: Precautionary bump .. Gene