SD 10-5-02 - "Oh, Rats!" - And I thought things were going to be peaceful after my meeting with Ironbottom...
As expected, my meeting with Ironbottom went badly. He accused me of extreme negligence and basically everything that went wrong. The incident with the Ferrengi in particular drew his ire, saying we should have been more wary and our engineers able to get the ship running right away no matter what the dammage. Then there was crossing the border to get Lera and K'Lynxyl. He breated me for nearly causing an interstellar incident, saying "That Romulian and that cat" knew what the risks were when they signed up for their assignments. At least Dammers was talking about the safety of the ship. Ironbottom's attidude was more like 'they were expendable' once they were past the border. I reminded him Captian Picard had done similar things when his crewman or Federation citizens were in jeapordy. Ironbottom didn't care, "You're not Piccard, and that garbage scowl you call a Starfleet vessel isn't the Enterprise. "
The meeting ended with him stating he would personally reccomend my removal as Captian of the Freedom. He expressed if he had his way, he'd assign me to some garbage scowl, or a planetary toxic waste dump.
Is it just me, or does this man have some kind of grudge?
Anyway, I had gotten a message we had a new crewman, so I went over to meet her, a Lott Tadtasi, whom was assigned to Engineering. She is a Tiburon, a bald humanoid with cauliflower-like ears. She appreciated the greeting by both me and Lera. Flare came by, and when she expressed interest in seeing Engineering, and Flare was happy to show her along. Lera expressed interest in going somewhere, so I thought about going to the zoo since the computer stated Chief Engineer Tempres was there, and we could inform him of his new assistant.
We heard some squeaking noises, which I assumed correctly were some new rodents. Unfortunetly, those were the shipment of Mungian Phirana Rats I heard a little about, and had gotten loose. Dammers ran passed us being chased by some, and as we retreated a few landed on me and bit HARD. These rats like their namesake are carnivores and eat greedily, and I wount up with several bites before knocking them off. Lera found a closet and the two of us went in. But the door closed on my hand, and a rat chewed it up before we could get it in and toss the beastie out. A rat had landed on her and while she was unhurt her uniform was shreds. She used some of them to patch up my wounds.
After a few minutes, we heard Dammer's voice, so I stepped out - and got pounced on by more rats. I got rid of them with Lera's help, though got bit more in the process. I then got a phaser and despite Lera's pleas to go to medical I joined in the gathering "rat hunt" as Dammers and the zookeepers began fighting back. Then I heard K'Lynxyl cry out. I made my way over with Dammers and Lera, and found her and R'Merr confronted by the zoo's Capellan Power Cat, a feline predator with organs like an electric eel's. Uses them too. R'Merr tried something, and got knocked across the room. Dammers then brought it down with phaser fire, hurt but still alive. With all that blood on her, I thought at first the rats had been after K'Lynxyl. It turned out to be the other way around, her getting them with her claws. Aside from her concerned tone of voice, this was one of the few times she reminded me of a Kzinti.
By this time, Starbase security had arrived, and the tables had turned on the rats. They were no longer chasing anyone and were trying to hide. I saw no more out in the open, but heard a phaser shot once in a while. Looks like they're mostly gone. Time to go to K'Lynxyl in Medical, but why is Lera trying to keep me away? I guess the blood on the doctor spooked her or something.