Who You Gonna Call? Munkbusters!

Posted on 18 Jul 2018 @ 9:46pm by Lieutenant JG Shay Mitchell & Lieutenant Reginald Hawthorn

3,218 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: The Search Begins
Location: Various
Timeline: MD 2 || 0945 Hours

Once she left Science, Shay found herself in Engineering, and thanks to access to personnel files, the young woman knew exactly who she was looking for. Sure, it was likely best to involve Operations in this expedition as well, and that was likely still a possibility, but she wanted to see if the Engineering Chief had any ideas on how to best catch the little creatures that seemed to be plaguing the ship. She had her own ideas, but as the saying went, two heads were better than one, and hoped that would be the case in this instance.

Since she wasn't used to being in this part of the ship, and not seeing the man she was looking for, the Security officer reached up to take her combadge. Ensign Mitchell to Lieutenant Hawthorn... I was wondering if I might have a few moments of your time in main Engineering for a pow-wow. I normally wouldn't bother you if this wasn't something that was a bit time sensitive.

"Pow-pow?" said a muffled voice from behind her. Reggie was sat behind an engineering console, feet up on the console and a wide-brimmed hat covering his face. He reached up, plucked it off and frowned at her. "Why don't ya just ask for a hoot-nanny instead, get all manner of folk involved. Singing, dancing-"

A flashing red light began to blink on the console. Expertly he tapped the heel of his boot against it, silencing the alarm.

"-and all that good stuff. Sure I could get the fella's and gals in Op's to make some lanterns, they're awfully good at art's and crafts. Think its the glue paste that gots'em all twitterpated," he grinned, and the gestured with the hat at her. "To what do I owe this visitation? If it's about that part I borrowed from the Flight Deck, well Chief Griffin and I came to a gentlemanly arrangement on that. Shook hands as such things should be done."

"Pow-wow... pick your brain... ask for your help..." Shay said, unsure what to think of the Chief Engineer just yet. "The ship seems to have an infestation, and the Captain asked that I take care of it. I thought you might be willing to help me. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure who else to go to about any of this."

"Infestation?" Reggie said, feet off the console now as he sat up to regard her. "Given the number of chewable wires and filters that things can clog up, I am rightly predisposed to march up to the Cap'n's day cabin and give him a sermon on the finer points of not blowing us all to the Here After cause some fuzzy wuzzy got sucked into the wrong air vent."

Spleen suitably vented to keep a vitriol breach contained, Reggie stood up from the chair and settled the hat back upon his brow.

"I'd be right pleased if you could do me the kindness of filling me in on things I should have been told about long before," he growled. "What sort of varmit we talking about? Andorian ticks? Rigellian algae fleas? Betazoid psychophagic mites?"

"Woah..." Shay said, raising a hand in his direction. "Calm yourself. First, infestation is the wrong word considering I'm not even sure if there are any others on the ship, or how many there are. Second, the Captain doesn't require a sermon about anything. He's well aware of what can and can't happen. And third, I don't know what they're called. They appear to be half spider, half chipmunk. Our job is to catch however many there are on the ship and bring them to the science labs since they've never been seen before now."

"Half spider half...what?!" Reggie tilted his hat back and gave his brow a rub. "How in the great glorious plan of the Maker did we let tarantumunk's on board? Did the guys in Op's decide to upend a biosensor and turn it into a roulette wheel? And when you say half spider half chipmunk, which half? Cause I ain't predisposed to bringing these things in alive if their have eight legs. That ain't cute and fuzzy, that's just scuzzy."

He walked around the console, and gestured to the main pool-table display.

"Bring up everything you have on these things, sightings, life sign data. If we're gonna hunt, need us a native guide," he tapped then terminal. "This here will be ours. Its loyal, well spoken, and blessedly knows how to make coffee just the way I like it."

"The bottom half has eight legs, and they don't look as bad as you think they would. I carried one all the way from the bridge to Science," she stated, moving over to the console he was already near. "Sightings haven't been reported. I only just saw the one I caught because it was on the Captain. We do have life signs, however, which will make finding them easier. I got that before I left the labs."

She stopped and looked toward Reggie. "We can't kill them. No matter how creepy you think they might be."

"One of those things get's sucked into a heat exchanger, or lays a webbing between a bank of capacitors you are gonna change your tone right quick," Reggie said without looking at Shay, his hand's moving over the display table. It was the work of moments to find the shared science lab files containing the tarantumunk's bio signs, and then feed them into the ships internal sensor grid.

"Critters in space cause disasters. They can't read signs, don't know what's dangerous, they're like Academy fresh cadets. Only you can't shout at'em," the Chief Engineer looked up at Shay. "My recommendation, is we locate what compartment they're in, seal it off, and vent. We don't risk alerting them to what we're doing and running into deeper darker corners of the ship."

"But... venting them will kill them," she said, stating the obvious. That was the last thing she wanted to do, but even if she wasn't exactly familiar with the workings of a ship like he was, she knew the little creatures could cause some very serious damage. "There has to be another way. Forcefields... something..."

"Tribble can lay out a litter of seventeen pups in a day. Those seventeen can make another seventeen the next. You passed the Starfleet Academy entrance exam, do the math. Gotcha!" He tapped the screen, which had zoomed in close to the back of the Black Hawk to show a huddled mass of tiny red dots. "Their right above the secondary life support carbon filters. Warm, humid, dark: perfect spot if you want no people and a place to be safe."

He placed his hand on a cleared section of the table, and an identification scanner flickered under his palm. New options appeared on the table display, and he quickly began to erect pressure hatches and sealing the vents and Jefferies tubes lead to the inhabited crawlspace. All except one that led straight to the hull. Next too the palm scanner a blinking red button appeared labelled 'Emergency Vent'.

"Far be it from me be telling you how to do your job, being a Security yellow jacket and all. But when dealing with spiders, best thing you can do apart from finding a can of rain is open a window," he pressed his thumb down hard on the vent command.

"=/\=Ensign Soban here.=/\="

Reggie eyed the ceiling as the chirpy voice echoed across engineering, causing folks to stop in their tracks.

"One moment Ensign," Reggie frowned, looking at the table display as a error code appeared next to the command. His frown deepened as he pressed the vent command again, and a new pair of errorcodes appeared.

"=/\=....Oh...kay. Well it's still super neat you called me! You know, the paleastrology lab rarely gets many calls. Well, none, really, cause its just me and some really old red shifted scanning data from the galactic core. But still, so nice you keep calling me! I...I didn't even know people knew I was here! I mean the Captain knows I'm here, cause he's super cool, and knows a lot. And I know a lot about him, cause he's like a personal hero of mine, and we share a lot in commo-!=/\=" Keth's excited voice said, tumbling over the words as Reggie cut the comm link.

"Your damned tarantumunk's gone damaged a half dozen processor hubs! Nice, big old warm things that don't much like getting nuzzled and furred with hair" Reggie said, pointing at the error codes. "Intership communications, command line interlinks. I hit this button and it fires up a comm link to Schrodinger's Scientist. We're gonna have to do this the hard way."

He eyed Shay.

"And we're gonna need a medic."

"What... are we going to need a medic for?" Shay found herself asking. "And yes, we would find a few issues here and there. I've estimated they've been on the ship since sometime before we crossed into the Zone. I can't pinpoint exactly when that was, though. Perhaps since Deep Space 15. Also, Lieutenant Brixx, the Assistant Chief of Science, offered his help if we needed it. I can call for him and Lieutenant Road to help us out. She's Medical. They're both aware and have seen what one looks like first hand."

"Hey, sure, call'em in let's turn this pow-wow into a shin-dig," Reggie growled, tapping controls trying to find a bypass around the damaged processor hubs. "And the reason we're gonna need a medic, is cause we're gonna need to catch'em. And given the predisposition of Starfleet Officer's towards peaceful outcomes, given doing what’s proper with vermin is just 'mean' apparently, we're gonna need to knock out these tarantumunks. Bundle the whole lot up in a box with plenty of itty bitty air holes. And a firm, lockable, bite proof lid."

Shay nodded her head. Mitchell to Road and Brixx, your presence is requested in Engineering. She looked toward Hawthorn. "They should be on their way shortly."

"Great!" Reggie said with a just a sprinkled hint of sarcasm. "Hey, when we're done with this, if we meet any Klingons or what not out to kill us, is it okay if I kill them back? Or would that just be cruel? I want to know what my options are?"

The young woman tried to keep her head as level as she possibly could, but he was making it really hard. "As Starfleet officers, we try not to kill others unless we're given no other choice in the matter. So, if you're looking for an answer to your question, stun only. That gives you more than enough time to call for someone from Security," she replied, looking thoughtful. "Why don't we do something along those lines? Gas them. It won't kill them, and it will immobilize them long enough to be rounded up and brought back to Zoology."

Unbeknownst to the sensors in a shielded part of the ship on deck four, a secondary nest had already been formed, but the new batch of spidermunks had yet to hatch. Only two adults were present and had been stockpiling what food they could forage but never strayed far from the eggs for fear of not being present when their offspring hatched.

Engineering, now? All right, whatever. Abbey grabbed a medkit and headed out right away. It didn't sound like an emergency, but she couldn't be sure, so she didn't waste any time in getting there. After only two minutes had passed, she walked into main engineering and began looking around for signs of trouble. Seeing none, though, she located Ensign Mitchell talking to the chief engineer. "Wotcher," she said as she approached.

“Yeah she is watching out for the littlest of folks ain’t she,” Reggie grumbled, giving Road’s the eye, “You’re one of Doc Kidge’s bonesaws right? Or a needle merchant?”

"Bonesaw!" laughed Abbey, half incredulous. "Needle merchant?!?! Where'd ya come up with these things, grease monkey?"

"Er... could we please focus on what needs to be done?" Shay asked, looking between the two of them. "There are more important things that require our attention presently than name calling. I mean... maybe if we were twelve, it'd be okay."

"First off, you're the one making this more complicated than it need be. See the ships got a case of the fuzzies with some tarantmunks. They've already gotten into the wiring, and I am a might concerned they're gonna chew through something we need. Ya know, like life support, or maybe the main's cabling to the magnetic bottle keeping the antimatter away from our three-dimensional universe," Reggie said, eyeing Shay. "So the Sec Goon here wants us to knock'em out with gas or harsh language."

He then took a breath, and looked at Road's.

"And secondly I learned my words in school, along with my numbers and such same as you. Ain't no fault in mine you're upbringing didn't bring a smidge more colour to your vocabulistics."

Abbey was attempting not to laugh, but failing miserably. "Vocabulists," she repeated, stifling her giggles poorly. "That's certainly a crumulant word." She turned to Shay. "Don't worry, we'll avoid killing them if at all possible," she reassured her. "After all, they don't mean to hurt anything. They're just doin' what they know."

"When one of those fuzzy critters blows us all to the Here After, I'm gonna remind every single bit of you floating next to me of what you said," Reggie grumbled and threw his hands up. "Fine. Fine! This here Chapter of the Intergalactic Animal Welfare Society is in session. Now, how do we 'humanely' knock these things out so I can get my folk's to fixin'?"

"Well, from my scans, they seem very similar to most arachnids, but with dual spines not unlike most mammals' spines," put in Abbey. "We could try a small amount of anesthasine gas and see what happens."

"I was thinking the same thing," Shay said, looking toward Doctor Road with a smile. "We can gas them long enough to get them immobilized, vent it out, then have more than enough time to get in there and retrieve them safely. And there's also the possibility that there's more than one nest, too, which means we'll have to scan for them."

"Why don't we just release the gas across the whole ship?" Reggie asked. "I mean theyre tiny, right? Figures a lower body mass index will react to a small amount of the gas. We release enough to knock out the critters without affecting a full grown mammal like us. Save's on hunting'em down and relying on systems that might not seal off what we need sealed."

"But, some of us have pets with a lower body mass that can be affected, too. I'm one of those pet owners, and I'm not comfortable with my cat possibly being affected as he's never been exposed to it before and could suffer adverse effects," the young Ensign said. "I know I'm not the only one, either. It will take more time, but a shipwide scan will locate any nests, then we can target those specific areas using forcefields to keep the gas from getting anywhere else. Forcefields will also keep the spidermunks from trying to leave any areas they might be in. I can go in once the gas has been vented and retrieve them."

Abbey nodded. "Besides, if we knock them out ship-wide, it'll make them harder to find," she pointed out. "It's easier to detect active animals."

Shay turned her attention to Abbey. "So, what do you think? Find all central locations, use forcefields to keep them confined and pump just enough gas in to do the job?"

"That'd be my vote," agreed Abbey. "Might take awhile, but should work."

"As you're the doctor here, and know more about this kind of thing than the rest of us, I think that's what we're going to go with," the young Security Ensign said as she looked toward Reggie. "Do you have any issues with that, Lieutenant, or can we proceed?"

"I ain't got none worth mentioning. Seal'em in, put'em to sleep, get'em out form the places vermin ain't meant to be," he rubbed his eyes. "Just so long as where they're put don't leave'em a way to get back into the guts of my ship."

"Then, let's get this show on the road," Shay said, looking toward Abbey. It helped that they had a spidermunk in their care already, so they'd be able to get the proper units ready to put the little critters to sleep. "Do you need time to prep or anything? While you're doing that, we can locate any nests and start working on getting them boxed in so they won't be able to run anywhere."

"Just gotta get the gas and load it into 'bombs'," answered Abbey, adding air quotes. The 'bombs' were technically just timed release modules, but bombs was shorter, so most medical technicians used that term. "I'll contact you when I've got them set," she added.

"Okay. By the time you have that ready, we should have found all known locations. Maybe this won't take too long to get done," the young Ensign said, looking hopeful.

With a tricorder ready in his hand, the Bolian science officer entered Engineering and looked around. It didn't take him long to spot Ensign Mitchell so he headed over to the small group. "Excuse me, it took me a while as I first had to finish a little experiment in the lab", he nodded towards the fellow officers. "So, have you found out where those little creatures are?"

"They're not hard to spot when you know what to look for. They seem to like hot and humid areas, so we're seeing'em bunching up around the processor cores and what not. Easily isolated with pyhsical and forefield barriers when needed," Reggie said, and tapped a finger against the main display table. "Though if I'm honest I'd rather we locked down the sections on a local level. We tried to do something similar from here, and the data lines 'tween here and there got turned about. Reckon local strutural and enriomental controls should be solided."

"Then let's do this. We don't have much time," Shay said. "Doctor Road, once you've gassed the necessary areas, I'll go in and collect them."

"Sounds like a plan," answered Abbey. "Let's get moving before they spread. I'll contact you when I've got the gas ready to go." And with that, she turned and headed out the door to do just that.

"I'll round up some crewman so we can get this done fast. Don't want'em all run here and there," Reggie said.

"Then, I'll go ahead and get the forcefields in place. We'll meet at the first point," Shay said, indicating the area they'd start in. "This shouldn't take long. Let's get this out of the way so I can report back to the Captain and let him know his ship is clear." With that, each individual went about doing what they needed until the ship was clear and all of the little critters were safely in the labs.

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