"Say What?"

[LeftEar JoNs 0]

04.30.08

USS Excalibur NCC-2004C

“Say What?”

 

“Yeoman, could you please repeat that last statement? Say what?”

 

Commander Left Ear JoNs had temporarily retreated to the Captain’s Ready Room set just off the main bridge in order to field a couple of reports from the lower decks that apparently involved her little cousin Mrrett running around and tackling unsuspecting crewmembers – as unlikely as that seemed. The gossip and the official announcements and reports had already spread like wildfire throughout the ship about their current predicament. There was nothing like being caught between several converging alternate universes to bring out the so called ghostly sightings as well as the sightings of the more physical variety. Left Ear had no doubt that Mrrett had in fact been on board the ship long enough to pounce somebody, or several people, but it certainly wasn’t her godchild. The real Mrrett. Meaning, the one from this universe.

 

Universe overlap theory had always given her a temporal sized headache.

 

The Caitian executive officer was sincerely hoping that the plan proposed by the senior engineers would work out as they hoped. She was a security grunt who had come up through the ranks, and anything beyond “the warp engine makes the starship go zoom zoom” was decidedly not her field of expertise. But, from what she had been able to ascertain from her conversation on the bridge with Mister Admiran, the engineering department hoped to use the engines to create a bubble about the ship in order to shield it from the temporal eddies from the alternate universes that were prevalent in this sector of space. Once the Excalibur had been shielded, then they would make their way out of the area into a more normal stretch of space.

 

The enlisted yeoman sighed on the other end of the comm line. Why must these senior officers be so dense? “…as I had stated sir, the big gold feline came tearing around the corner and then proceeds to jump me right there in the corridor. I may have a case of rug burn. When the security patrol swept the deck, there was no sign of the cat. Did I mention the rug burn?”

 

The panther like feline placed both paws flat on the surface of the desk that she stood behind, and glanced upward in supplication. Once she was sure that she could speak with only a minimal amount of growling, JoNs again spoke into thin air, allowing the communicator system wired throughout the ship to pick up her purred voice through the communicator badge she wore on her uniformed chest area. “I see. Well, Yeoman, this may come as a shock, but we have not yet perfected an action gun that can control the temporal overlaps in this sector. In the meantime, all I can suggest is that you learn how to duck. And we are Caitian’s, not a common housecat. Remember that and use the correct designation name. Commander JoNs out.”

 

At that moment, another disruption wave from the gods forsaken Ion storms that were the banes of their existence sent an energy wave rippling outward to whack at the right aft side of the Excalibur, again sending the big warship lurching upward. JoNs had already been walking away from the desk, and feline balance or no, she temporarily lost her bearings when the wave hit. The slight tilt to the deck flung her toward the desk and the right side of her face smacked into the top surface, splitting her lip on a lower fang.

 

The Caitian commander ended up flat on her rump (and there was another bruise, but let’s not go there). Bleeding and sore, the brown furred feline began a scathing verbal discourse on the state of the universe in general and what it could go do with itself.

 

The purred voice of Helm Officer Khal interrupted the tirade, filtering in over the bridge to ready room wireless connection. “Commander JoNs, please report to the bridge.”

 

She swiped a paw at her communicator badge. “Bridge. I’m on my damn way. JoNs out.”

 

The feline picked herself up, and wiped the blood from her mouth with a paw as she limped out of the confines of the ready room and onto the bridge, as ready as she would ever be to handle the next small crisis that engulfed the Excalibur.