Ironing out the Tribble Trouble

Posted on 15 Aug 2014 @ 1:58am by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Nesh Saalm

1,136 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 1, Saalm's Quarters
Timeline: MD 04 - 2310 hrs

[ON]

Nesh had made every effort to tie up the loose ends with the department heads, XO, and CO, before finally making her way back to Lirha's quarters. Everyone seemed to either be completely not okay with the tribbles, or completely amused by the whole experience. That left people on opposite ends of the spectrum, which made this a very tense situation.

At least Nesh knew how Lirha felt about the situation. Now that Taban had been set to helping the others, or back to bed, depending on what her roommate's stance on the matter was, it was time for Nesh to face the music.... so to speak.

Taking a deep breath, she poked the chime on the door. Hopefully Lirha was in a better mood now that she had had dinner.

"Enter," Lirha called out from inside her quarters when the sound of the door chime softly echoed through the room. PADD in hand while casually browsing through several recent Starfleet intelligence reports, the commodore was curled up comfortably on the couch with a blanket draped over her lap and a small glass of brandy sitting on the table in front of her. She suppressed a small yawn with the back of her hand then placed the slim silver device down on the cushions next to her before looking towards to door to see who her guest was.

It didn't take long for Nesh to shuffle in and stand herself in front of her sister, already ready for the verbal smack down she was about to receive. Sure, this would have been a good story to tell in ten years, assuming she made it past this point, graduated Academy, and became an officer, but until then...

"Y-you wanted to speak with me?" Nesh paused for a very short moment, before continuing. "There was a short meeting between Science, Engineering, and Operations. I wanted to make sure everyone had the facts before coming to see you."

Lirha watched her sister come into her quarters then relaxed a bit and sunk back into the couch. "Oh. Hi," she said, haven partially forgotten that she'd told Nesh to stop by following the recent lost tribble complication. "Thanks for doing that," she added in Orion, then motioned with her hand to the vacant seat on the couch next to her. "Join me. Are you hungry?" Right now Lirha didn't have her commodore hat on and her temper was much subdued from earlier in Holliday's office. "There's leftovers on the kitchen counter if you want any."

Nesh shook her head, letting her stress roll off her shoulders as she plopped down on the couch. "Thank you, but no thank you. I'll grab something later, before Alpha Shift." A shift she was dreading, if only because she knew she would be on deck with Holliday, unless they all had to go down to the mines again and the CO decided to run off with them, which was highly unlikely. "I'm going to see what I can do to help Lieutenant Stace with searching out the tribbles too, but I didn't want to get too involved... I'm really really sorry, Lirha. I thought I had them handled, but I didn't know he was going to escape like that..."

The older Orion eyed the younger one for a long moment in silence, then finally spoke albeit in a light tone. "This is a big deal, Nesh. You do know what tribbles are capable of if left unattended? They could cripple this ship and force us to abort our mission and return to space dock for decontamination." Her words were blunt but Lirha saw no reason to beat around the bush at this point.

Nesh nodded solemnly. She may not have known the full severity of the situation, but she knew enough to know that nothing good could have come from this. Slowly, she looked up to Lirha, uncertain as to how she was going to respond to this. "I know, and I don't really know how Pup escaped, but I'm going to help fix it."

"I appreciate that," Lirha said in return before letting out a soft sigh and rubbing her tired green eyes. "I know it was an accident. Just...try and not do something like this again? Please? The last thing I want is for you to get in trouble with Starfleet and be sent back to Earth to live with mom."

There was a sudden, nearly inaudible sigh of relief as Nesh realized Lirha wasn't going to reach down her throat and pull her still-beating heart out of her chest. Trouble as she still may have been in, the thought that her older sister being furious at her was more petrifying than anything else she could have imagined. "I'll make sure this never happens again, Sis."

"I hope so." Especially for her own sake, Lirha thought to herself. This was the real world now with real-world consequences, and despite Lirha being a flag officer in Starfleet, there was little she could do to protect Nesh should she ever have another, possibly more serious blunder during her time aboard Galileo. "Is your cadet friend helping you look for your tribble?" she proceeded to ask.

With most of the initial stress now behind her, Nesh focused herself on the details. So much had been happening lately, that she had missed Taban in the shuffle, so Lirha's question brought a slight twinge of guilt to Nesh's mind. "I'm... not sure. He sort of got lost along the way, but it's not really his fault that the tribble got out to begin with, so I won't hold it against him if he doesn't.

Her sister was right, it technically wasn't Taban's fault but Lirha hoped that he would at least be willing to help, if for no other reason than the spirit of cooperation. "He does work in Operations, I believe. Maybe he will be nice enough to offer a hand and coordinate the search with the rest of Ops?"

"I hope he'll do that." If for no other reason than the tribbles would soon prove to be more than a nuisance in a few days. She had a slight feeling the Cardassian Cadet wasn't going to be all for talking and collaborating with her because of this. "If he's not too sore about it."

"Let's hope for the best, yes? A little cooperation goes a long way on a small ship," replied the commodore.

[OFF]

--

CDRE Lirha Saalm
Mission Advisor
USS Galileo

Cadet FG Nesh Saalm
Scientist's Mate
USS Galileo
[PNPC- Kita]

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