Tribble Science

Posted on 31 Jul 2014 @ 5:14pm by Lieutenant Oren Idris Ph.D. & Petty Officer 1st Class Threxa Shroll

1,946 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 4, Multi-purpose lab
Timeline: MD05 - 1600hrs

ON:

Oren expected many things to happen on his first day working on Galileo - excitement, new acquaintances, maybe even a well informed, scientific debate. What he wasn't expecting was to find a tribble in the turbolift. Completely ignoring the man who was also inhabiting said turbolift, Oren felt the familiar buzz of excitement go through him at the adorable sight.

"Aww...and who let you out?" he asked the tribble, cooing at it. As the turbolift doors shut and the journey upwards began, Oren knelt down by the tribble and scooped it up. "Well aren't you a beautiful boy...or...girl or...either," he gushed, petting the fluffy fur, completely oblivious to the weird look he was getting from the other man. "Did someone leave you here?" The tribble began to purr and Oren felt his heart positively melt. It was so cute!

The turbolift doors swished open and the other crewman left in a hurry as Oren realised he hadn't said which deck he wanted to go to. Once that was out of the way, he turned his attention back to the tiny, helpless bundle of fun in his arms and that was where his attention stayed until he got to the labs.

Abbey sat at her desk in the science labs brushing the hair out of her face she squinted at the screen as another Tribble rolled down the smooth surface into her lap. Picking it up with an annoyed sigh and placing it on the counter once again with the others she had accumulated. She now regretted feeding them the bit of food she had left over form breakfast and now understood why her father disliked the cute bundles of annoyance.

While the others were running about and doing their business in the labs, the Aenar zoologist found herself herding a small group of them toward her lab workstation, carrying what looked to be a pair of enlarged Earth candy canes. She had all intentions on feeding the creatures what looked to be a sugary treat, what with the way she was cooing and mothering them along into her own space. "It's okay little buddies, I'm gonna settle you all in nice and comfy, and you won't have aaaaaany worries at all!"

It was this scene that Oren finally walked in on, Tribble in hand. Coming to a full stop just inside the room, he finally took his attention away from the fuzzball and surveyed the scene.

"Um...excuse me?" he called, trying to finally get their attention. Once he had it, he held up the Tribble. "I found this little cutie patootie in the turbolift. Is he one of ours or...." he trailed off, figuring that, with the small army of Tribbles currently in the lab, they probably hadn't notice a runaway.

Abbey looked up from her station and sighed "Put him where there is space, we're a little under the weather at the moment" She said pointing out the main concentration of tribble groups. "I dont think we have met before" She added.

Oren looked down at the tribble and then looked around the lab. Finally, he set the little guy near the others. "There you go, fuzzy," Oren said, giving it a little scratch. He then turned his attention to Abbey.

"Hey, I'm new. This is my first shift, actually," he said, going over to her station. "Oren Idris," he introduced himself. "Anthro and archaeology."

"Welcome to the Galileo! I'm relatively new to but its really nice to meet you Oren" She put her hand out for him to shake "Archaeology huh? What got you into that?" She asked.

Taking her hand, Oren gave it a gentle shake before letting go. "Well, Anthropology was my first love because I absolutely adore learning about people and cultures. Archaeology seemed like a natural progression. Learning the past helps to understand the present and all that."

Abbey liked the idea and nodded with agreement "Thats a really nice way of looking about it, I wish I had such a similar story" She took a quick second to think why she actually wanted to become a scienist and other than her dad wanting to keep her away from anything dangerous, which hadn't worked so far.

"What about you? What's your field?" he asked curiously. She looked very young so he was curious. Judging by her uniform, he assumed she was a Cadet, so there was a lot of potential there.

"I am one of the scientist mates aboard the ship, it doesn't sound very interesting but I assure, with the deepest meaning in my heart that it kinda is" She smiled "Seriously though tt has its perks I like zoology and Xenology because I like studying other species but to tell the truth I'm still at that stage where I don't know what to do."

Oren nodded with an understanding smile. "I've always considered Zoology to be a noble field of study. With so much emphasis constantly placed on humanoids, it's easy to forget the universe doesn't belong to just us."

"Zoology's difficult if the creatures are ornery and don't get their normal cycle of food." Shroll emerged from her pile of tribbles, holding a hand out about three inches shy of where Oren actually was, and where the Aenar assumed him to be. "Threxa Shroll. I'm the zoologist on Gamma shift, but I thought I'd work a little extra over time, because tribbles need love and care, or they'll get temperamental."

"We wouldn't want that," Oren agreed, taking the woman's hand as he wondered what a temperamental tribble would look like. "It's a pleasure. So, what's with the tribbles anyway? Are you running some kind of experiment? I've been seeing them everywhere around quite a bit."

Abbey stifled a laugh "If only, the Commodore Lirha brought some back with a couple of others and well tribbles are tribblee..." She said rolling her eyes remembering her dads warning when she to decided to adopt on and keep it in her room, she smiled at the thought of Jacob being overrun by the cute little critters. "Want one?" She joked.

Oren shook his head but looked disappointed. "No, my dog would probably end up eating it," he said seriously. "They should really find some way of sterilizing tribbles without killing them."

Laughing at the dog joke a light bulb went on in her mind "That would be a great idea!" She said sitting down at her desk "If we could control the breeding of the tribbles just enough we could find a way of putting them somewhere before... well before you dog eats them" She turned on her chair "I love dogs by the way!"

"Well, I'll be sure to bring her to meet you sometime," Oren said with a smile before turning to the Aenar. "What do you think, Petty officer Shroll? Is there some way to control the breeding? I heard that low temperatures would slow it down."

"Low temperatures and a controlled diet slow their breeding down, but there's no real way to remove their reproductive organs without causing serious harm." Shroll nodded solemnly, ignoring the tribbles attempting to crawl all over her. "Tribbles are mostly reproductive organs and stomachs. Cute as they can be, they're not really useful as much more than a pet. So, it's highly advised that a watchful eye is the best thing to keep tribble breeding at bay."

"If they get to out of control my dads going to start going all gun ho on them, sometimes I think he was raised by klingons" Abbey joked.

Oren grinned at Abbey's comment. "Sometimes I think it's the Tribbles' secret mission to just drive every other species into a bloodthirsty rage and for us all to kill each other so they can take over."

"That would very much explain why the Klingons are so temperamental about tribbles and just about everything else." Shroll nodded in agreement. "I wonder if it's an evolutionary thing, like the Klingons were, at one, very early point in their history just cuddly and peaceful, and the tribbles came in and made it all difficult for them."

"You mean they out-cuted the Klingons and threw them into a rage?" Oren grinned. "They weren't the alphas of cuteness anymore so they sought out revenge? Sounds plausible," he concluded with a nod, giggling.

The Aenar joined Oren in a tiny giggle, smiling wide. "And that's when they shed their own large amount of fur and revealed their ridges underneath, and now they're known for being grumpy and angry at everything."

Shaking his head at her, Oren leaned back to rest against one of the tables. "So, what are you going to do with them?"

Abbey looked to Shroll and shrugged "I Guess we'll have to put them somewhere unless we have tribble stew for the next month?" she joked.

Shroll frowned. "Tribble stew isn't very fulfilling. I'm not sure what we're going to end up doing with them. If they had caught the infestation earlier, this would be much easier to determine. They may all end up dying..."

Oren looked over at the little buggers, feeling an intense pity for them. "There has to be something," he said. "We can't just kill them all off because their presence is inconvenient. Maybe we could put them on the planet. No, the miners would probably kill them," he reasoned with himself, then fell silent, thinking.

"It depends on how many of them there are." The Aenar turned sullen, nodding. "If there are too many of them, it may come to pass that we have to kill them simply because they'll endanger themselves as much as the crew. Mines are no place for tribbles... and the planet itself wouldn't be able to sustain life for them."

"It's a sad truth that we may have to face but we may have to simply kill some off but it'll be human as possible I imagine and the very last resort" abbey chirped in.

Oren frowned, wondering if there was a better way. It was probably something his therapist would have a field day with, but Oren couldn't really see the difference between himself and the little Tribble as far as life worth was concerned.

"That is a sad truth," he agreed. "Well, I guess we'll just have to make them as comfortable as possible until we figure out what to do." Even as he said it, Oren's mind wondered if there was some other way.

"Luckily, tribbles don't require much comfort. So long as they're all in one location, they can usually find some way to amuse themselves. And they can go on pretty long without food too. Hm... Oh well, something to think about!" As caring as Shroll was about animals, even she could agree that too many tribbles were too many problems.

"How long can they go without food?" Oren asked curiously, just to keep it in mind in case something came to him later on.

"I don't think there is a definite answer, they're over usually relocated and forgotten about or killed by the time they naturally day I can imagine they could last for weeks even months possibly longer without food, they need food to reproduce that we know but to live... I have no clue" abbey said thinking about the question.

"Well, it's something to think about at least. But hopefully they won't get out of hand before we figure something out," Oren hoped.


[OFF]

Crewman Aprentice Abbey Wyatt
Scientist Mate
USS Galileo

Oren Idris, Ph.D.
Archaeologist/Anthropologist
USS Galileo

PO 1rst Threxa Shroll
Zoologist
USS Galileo

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