Tribble Repercussions (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on 12 Feb 2015 @ 7:31pm by Rear Admiral Lirha Saalm & Admiral Myrkul Sharr & Admiral Ajon Mox & Captain Jonathan Holliday & Rear Admiral James Hurin & Admiral Nathan Hawke

2,296 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 07 - Sojourn
Location: Starbase 84 - Deck 24, General Conference Room
Timeline: MD 43 - 1020 hrs

[ON]

With her debriefing PADD clutched firmly in her emerald hand, Lirha nervously paced back and forth outside of the starbase's conference room doors. She'd been treading across the same section of carpet repeatedly for the past five minutes and quite possibly was beginning to wear the upholstery down. It wasn't every day that she was summoned to appear in front of a Starfleet Command review panel for a mission debriefing -- especially not in-person -- and it was a very uncomfortable feeling. Perhaps the worst part was the anxiety leading up to the official review, and the longer she and John were kept waiting, the more and more her mind began to ponder if she was actually in line for some sort of disciplinary procedures.

"Well, it is not as if we did anything wrong," she justified to herself while also glancing at Holliday out of the corner of her eye. "The entities we discovered seemed very fond of the tribbles and we did not have much choice considering the level of infestation aboard Galileo."

Lirha wasn't quite sure if the treatment of the tribbles would be scrutinized, but even she had to admit that it'd been a questionable call and one which any animal right activist would have been up in arms over. More importantly, the commodore wondered what the fate of the Lyshan III mining colony would be and how it would affect Cardassian-Federation relations going forward. Gul Verrok had not been very pleased to learn of the temporary shutdown to the uridium extraction facilities, but all things considered, it had been a necessity in order to prevent further bloodshed. Hopefully the Cardassian captain had not submitted some sort of scathing report against Lirha or filed an official complaint to the Federation council.

John said nothing, instead simply taking a sideways glance at his former commanding officer. A discussion they had previously came to his mind, one that involved Holliday wanting to depressurise the ship and blow the tribbles out into space. He had been more than a little annoyed with Lirha at the time, but shuddered at the thought of how the Admiralty would take it if they found Saalm's results a little unsavoury.


Meanwhile, inside the Conference Room...

Admiral Sharr sat between Admiral Mox and Admiral Hawke in the conference room, Rear-Admiral James Hurin was at the table but Admiral Sharr was engrossed in more reports from SF:I. Each of them sat with a glass of water before them, a PADD and nothing else. Sharr had made sure his water was of a thicker consistency, blue and more potent than expected, a bottle of his 2306 sat to his right just in case he needed a top up.

"Before we take this any further let us be very clear" Admiral Sharr started, his deep voice rolling over the others in the room, "We have all the questions and information we need, I do not want to be sidelined by anything that may arise in the coming interviews." He looked over to Hurin, Hawke and then to Mox to get their input.

"Questions, yes. Information, I'm not so sure." Mox waited for his colleague's nod of concession - he's still drinking that early 2300s varnish? - before giving a shake of his head, his own way of conceding a point. "Agreed on not letting this turn into the mission review, though. We'll be spending enough time on that without letting it bleed over into this meeting, too." With a glance to Hurin, he added, "Besides, I do believe James is rather happy to have missed out on having to deal with the consequences of the Galileo's mission to Lyshan III."

James grinned and gave a nod. "You could say that, yes. I'm all for focusing on the primary subject of this meeting. I'll leave the Lyshan-Three mess to the, ehh, experts."

"Very kind." Although Mox inserted his usual dry tones into the response, the truth was he actually liked Hurin. The man knew how to get things done and to find people who did likewise. That was why they were all here, after all. Well, part of it, at any rate. "We've left her stewing. Perhaps we should invite Commodore Saalm in."

Nathan nodded at the suggestion of his colleuge and turned to the yeoman who was standing by to assist with anything the top "brass" might want. "Please have Commodore Saalm come in," he said.

Lirha straightened up when she was summoned and did a final check of her uniform for any unsightly creases or folds. Smoothing her hands down across her lithe torso and tugging her uniform top down, she then took a deep breath to calm her nerves. "Here we go," she mumbled to Holliday before heading inside of the conference room. The double doors swished shut behind her and suddenly she felt very alone and vulnerable. Her green eyes scanned the admiralty in front of her -- not one, not two, not three...but four of them. Wonderful...

She moved forward and stopped in front of them, then stood firmly at attention. "Admirals," she greeted with a polite nod in their direction.

"Commodore." Mox noted her stance, but thought better of setting her at her ease, at least immediately. Sometimes, you could learn a lot from how someone behaved when they thought they might be under fire. He indicated the empty chair directly across from Sharr. "Take a seat, if you would."

As instructed, Lirha moved towards the vacant seat and sat down. She made sure to sit up straight but also delicately crossed her legs into a comfortable position. She had no idea how long she'd be here for, and suddenly her stomach began to growl. Out of all the days to skip breakfast, today was not the most prudent.

"If everyone's in agreement, we'll convene the meeting." Mox looked down the line, and received nods of agreement from his fellows. He turned back to Saalm. "Commodore Lirha Saalm, this panel has been assembled to enact a decision made by Fleet Command in the wake of your command decisions during the Galileo's mission to Lyshan III as well as previous missions."

"Yes. And...what about them?" the Orion answered while fidgeting her toes inside one of her boots. "Is this regarding the tribbles, the colony, or the Cardassians?" she attempted to clarify.

"Commodore Saalm," answered Hurin as he sighed slightly while placing his PADD back upon the table after a quick peek at it. "every one of them, as those decisions all reflect upon you, the fleet, and ultimately Starfleet and the Federation."

A short moment of silence passed while Lirha's mind wandered. "...Yes.." Of course she knew that; the commitment to responsibility and accountability while wearing the Starfleet uniform had been ingrained into her through a heavy dose of Starfleet indoctrination during her time at the Academy. Now, however, she wasn't quite sure what the admiral's preface was leading up to. Quite possibly a reprimand, as she had been surmising before even entering the conference room.

"To say that these situations have raised a few eyebrows would be an understatement." And ruffled a few feathers, too, Mox thought, but sometimes that was for the best. The formal complaint from Cardassia had been especially annoying. "Without getting bogged down in the details, Commodore, did you believe the Galileo's recent missions wouldn't go unaddressed by us?"

"Well....they have been rather--" she paused and stroked her chin to think of the most diplomatic word to describe recent events, "adventurous," she admitted. In all fairness to her crew, however, she'd always assumed it was simply a matter of happenstance. Being in the wrong place at the right time. Or perhaps the right place at the right time, depending on how one viewed it. "We have made quite a few discoveries along the way as well. Hopefully the Planetary Science Division approves?"

"Yes," Hurin stated while staring down at a PADD, "not to mention your ship's unexpected Borg encounter."

The Orion simply nodded, not quite sure what to add regarding that particularly interesting investigation. She vividly remembered the events leading up to the discovery of the cubes inside the Setisar Nebula as well as the first contact mission with the Rojarians -- but she'd also suppressed a good deal of those mid-mission memories following the Borg's botched assimilation attempt on her. The last counselor she'd recently visited surmised her brain was naturally working to protect itself from reliving unpleasant and traumatic experiences, which made sense to her. And aside from the occasional nightmare or unpleasant daydream, her mind seemed to be doing a good job at it.

Having remained quiet since the Commodore entered, Sharr was watching her body language and taking mental notes of things she said, how she said them and if there was a mask over her words. Slightly sitting up and adjusting himself he looked directly at her, "None of that concerns me, Commodore" he started, his deep toned voice rolling over the room demanding attention without sounding harsh or sinister, "I want to know about the Tribbles, from start to finish in your own words and omit no detail."

Lirha figured as much. The cute fluffy balls of fur were adorable yet a pestilence if left unchecked, and unfortunately the latter had occurred aboard her starship. "I suppose it started a few days into our mission," she began to explain. "We had just arrived at the Lyshan system to begin our investigation of the mining facility when one of our crew members' pet tribbles was accidentally left unattended and managed to...escape. Into the ventilation system, to be precise. Apparently it made its way to the mess hall and began to gorge and reproduce, and within a few hours....well, we had many more tribbles. We tried our best to locate and contain them over the next 48 hours, but it proved more difficult than expected." She paused to consider her next words before continuing.

"Our investigation of the Lyshan colony continued on the planet's surface while we were also attempting to contain the tribbles aboard the starship. Eventually the tribble infestation became so profound that we were in danger of losing control of Galileo's primary ship functions. And...luckily for us, our planetary investigation revealed a race of non-corporeal entities inhabiting the subterranean caves beneath the colony's uridium mine. As it so happened, these beings showed an immense interest in one of the tribbles that had hidden itself inside of one of our away team members' expeditionary kits, and they somehow inhabited the tribble with their life force energy during our first contact with them." Lirha briefly wondered how all this sounded as she spoke -- outrageous, most likely.

"So, as our contact with these non-corporeal entities advanced, we learned they longed for a form of corporeal existence they had long abandoned when they evolved beyond the physical form. The tribbles seemed to provide that tactile contact they desired, and so I made the call to deliver the tribbles we had aboard Galileo to the aliens. A libation of sorts, and a compensation for the disturbance the colony's mining activities had had on their secluded civilization."

"And the fate of the Tribbles?" Sharr asked coldly, his expression unchanged.

Glancing to the left and then to the right with a bit of apprehension, Lirha admitted to herself that she didn't really know what had become of them. "I...assume they were taken care of and looked after by the entities. After all, why would this advanced species show an interest in the flesh -- specifically tribbles -- and proceed to harm them?" In truth, Lirha had no idea what had become of the tribbles. Perhaps they had been transformed into some sort of super-intelligent race of furballs, or perhaps they had been digested as energy substance for the non-corporeals. She really hadn't given it too much thought.

Mox raised a hand to stay further comment. "We're getting sidetracked here." He felt the others' eyes on him, but he focused on Saalm. "We'll go over the specifics of the Tribble situation at the formal review, but this isn't a debriefing. This is a quick interview to determine whether our opinion of you is right." He glanced towards Hurin. "And your TFCO's, for that matter."

Lirha stayed quiet for what seemed like an eternity while she registered the admiral's words and looked across the faces of the present command staff. "I do my duty for Starfleet, sir. To the best of my ability." she quietly said.

"We know, Commodore." Mox picked up the PADD on the desk before him. It contained the most recent information on the operations currently being undertaken by the Ninth Fleet's Wolf Star Squadron. He held it out for Saalm to take. "Specifically, Task Force 21 needs you to do your duty by it."

Another long pause ensued from the commodore. "Task Force...21?" she slowly repeated with an inquisitive expression played across her green facial features. "I apologize. I do not understand? Galileo is assigned to Task Force 72..."

"No longer," Mox said, with a silent "Sorry" for Hurin. "You've been assigned to 21, effective immediately. Or, rather, it's been assigned to you, Rear Admiral."

Admiral Sharr gave a smile to the newly appointed Rear-Admiral, "Congratulations, Rear-Admiral. Task Force 21 certainly needs you."

To Be Continued

[OFF]

--

RADM Lirha Saalm
Mission Advisor
USS Galileo

CAPT Jonathan Holliday
Commanding Officer
USS Galileo

RADM James Hurin
TF-72 Commanding Officer

Admiral Myrkul Sharr
Joint Fleet Command | Obsidian Fleet

Admiral Ajon Mox
Joint Fleet Command | Obsidian Fleet

Admiral Nathan Hawke
Joint Fleet Command | Obsidian Fleet

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