Star Trek: Erin

Part 64: Everyone Gets a Pet

     Striding through the halls, I passed a number of tribbles stuck to the walls. I stopped. The fuck? I snagged a lower officer of the appropriate shirt colour. "Ensign. What the hell are those doing there?"

     He looked confused. "They're tribbles, ma'am."

     "I can see that. Why isn't someone cleaning them up?"

     "They're pets, ma'am."

     "What, everyone has a pet now? Get a team together and return them to their owners. Or the cargo hold, if that's the point of them. This is no way to transport livestock." I kept moving without waiting for a response. Are they livestock? Do tribbles produce anything? Milk? I gagged a little at the thought of tribble milk.

     I finally found Michael in hushed conversation with Lieutenant Whitting. The former's shoulders were rigid, but Michael seemed relaxed. I only caught the last bit of what Whitting was saying. "—that again, understand?"

     Michael briefly acknowledged me with a nod before returning to Whitting, loosely folding her arms. "Understood, lieutenant. There was urgency with the red alert. I made a mistake. It won't happen again."

     "I'm glad that's all straightened out." Whitting raised an eyebrow at me. "Did you need something, Cobos?"

     "Not from you, sir." I let that statement hang long enough to piss him off before continuing in a smoother tone. "I wanted a word with Michael, sir."

     Whitting's lip twitched in distaste. "That's Junior Lieutenant Michael to you."

     It's really not. I kept my mouth shut that time. He left a moment later.

     "He sucks, I know," Michael said as soon as he was out of earshot. "Occasionally things work out well though. What's up?"

     "Feeling bored. Anything interesting happening?"

     Michael laughed. "You're bored? And here I thought security was having all the fun with that blue wheat."

     "Speaking of that, noticed any suspicious stuff? More people around than usual, you know?" The blue wheat's not my section, but if there's a problem, I want to know.

     "Completely understand." Michael leaned closer. "To be honest, there's a pair of ensigns, trim-looking blueshirt and redheaded redshirt. Fiddling with wiring. No one seems to know who they are. I have eyes on them, but Watley can only be noticed by them so many times before they might become suspicious."

     I blinked a couple times. That's... thorough. "You should've gone into security, Michael."

     She shrugged. "I have an eye for detail."

     "Yeah. Last position?"

     "Turbolift 7. Haven't been able to get eyes on them since."

     "I'll look into that." I glanced the way Whitting had gone. "So what's Whitting's deal? Seemed a bit of an asshole, but there's a number of those around."

     "He's just pissy about not getting promoted after Tycho IV. Keeps going on about his 'heroic actions,' but no one will vouch for that." She dropped her voice to a stage whisper. "It's because he didn't do anything heroic."

     I lifted an eyebrow. "Does this happen a lot?"

     "Often enough." She snorted. "He's mostly harmless. Likes blustering around. Taking his many frustrations out on underlings."

     I decided not to press any harder. Not many good signs for him though. "That sucks."

     "Yeah. Lucky you, getting your awful superior killed off. Heard Nowak's a serious improvement."

     My jaw clenched. "Marple was murdered, Michael."

     She studied my face for a split second before raising her hands. "Sorry, Cobos. Didn't know it was still sore for you." She gave an apologetic grimace. "Coping mechanism, you know?"

     "Sure. I've got work to do." I left.

     Is it me? Am I being too sensitive about this? My scowl grew. I don't want to be desensitized. I want every death to hurt and keep hurting. Rounding a curve, I noticed crewmen were giving me a wide berth while passing. Gradually I relaxed the scowl. That way I always remember what's at stake. I snapped open my communicator. "Nowak, have you heard anything about a red-blueshirt pair acting suspicious? Last seen in Turbolift 7."

     "I have now, although I did hear about a redshirt and a yellowshirt performing scans in various locations." My face went cold as he voiced the same realization. "There may be an infiltration in progress."

     "Can you get a line to command? I want to lock down—no, they'll just hide. We need to keep this quiet until we have eyes on them."

     "And Parra has orders from above to ensure investigations are out of sight. K-7 command is... stressed at the moment." Nowak's voice grew farther away for a moment. "Leong, contact Fitzhugh for an emergency shift. High alert until Junior Lieutenant Cobos or I relieve you." He returned at full volume. "There is a decent angle on my pair near Engineering ten minutes ago. Do you have a placement for yours?"

     "One sec." Accessing the cameras and tracking Watley to her interaction with the pair took a moment, but I relayed it to Nowak.

     "Meet with Klove on Deck 5, search that and the deck below. I will speak with Parra about teams for the other floors."

     "Yessir."

     "Be careful, Erin."

     "When am I not? Out." I closed it and set off. My heart was pounding, the good kind. This was what I was meant to do. I checked the footage on the way. The redshirt was a tall, handsome lady who seemed to be the pair's lookout, while the equally good-looking goateed yellowshirt played with wiring. I didn't like it.

     I was nearing the turbolift when a shorter woman in a trim redshirt lieutenant uniform pushed off the wall and fell into step with me. "Hello, Valencia."