Twit's Concerns

[Cptn Elias Moore 0]

MCPO Twit's first command was proving to be quite strenuous. With only a skeleton crew left on board Challenger by the diplomatic party, it was his responsibility to keep affairs on the ship running smoothly. Likely to be easy enough, he had assumed, with Challenger merely maintaining a synchronous orbit above the planet Cait. But problems began to creep up when several crewmen reported hearing strange noises coming from the ship's airducts... yowling... clawing... banging type noises.

 

And then the tiger cat in the science lab escaped again, going on another rampage which caused widespread destruction of equipment and materials. It took four security crewmen and a medical technician with a sedative to restrain the animal, which was described in reports as being "overly hyper and aggressive." Its cage (bars bent and torn by the beast's escape) had to be reinforced in anticipation of another outburst. No one could explain the animal's behavior.

 

Still, the airduct noises persisted. Crewmen on the investigation trail managed to trace the noises back to several officers' quarters. There, the officers' feline pets were found behaving in much the same manner as the tiger cat... running about frantically, slamming into doors and walls, clawing at anything in sight (including pillows and mattresses, many of which were already in shreds), and shrieking loudly, until taking two or three hours to sleep before repeating the whole process. When the door to Williams and T'Parek's quarters was opened, Crewman Dolt was immediately and without warning pounced upon by two ravaging felines. He required seven stitches on his face, and was still recuperating in Sickbay.

 

"We've got to get away from this planet." Twit remarked to his helmsman, Crewman Jeb. He had been able to at least surmise that the Caitians were responsible for the behavior of the ship's feline passengers. All of the cats on board had been collected in Sickbay and put under sedation, but the problem would eventually have to be corrected at its source.

 

"We can't just abandon the diplomatic party." Crewman Zed, the communications officer, pointed out. "And I don't think the Commodore would authorize a departure from orbit just because of some crazy cats."

 

Twit mumbled incoherently, assured that he would not go contacting the away team with such a trivial concern. He wasn't completely inept.

 

"Chief, this is interesting..." Twit looked over at Crewman LaPierre, who was manning the science station. "I've only just noticed."

 

Twit got up and walked over to science. "What is it?"

 

"Look... the two moons of Cait." LaPierre pointed to the astrometric chart on his screen. "They're about to align perfectly with the Caitian star. I ran it through a projection to confirm... and it checked out. In about 24 hours, there's going to be a... hmm, total bi-solar eclipse, I guess you'd call it."

 

Twit raised his eyebrow at the diagram. "Well, that's interesting. This sort of thing can't happen too often, can it?"

 

"I'd estimate that it hasn't happened in a few hundred years." LaPierre replied. "But it gets even more interesting, sir. Guess where the shadow of the eclipse is going to be cast..."

 

Twit took a closer look at the projection, and found that he was immediately disturbed by what he saw. Not only were the two moons going to be aligned with the star, so was Challenger. "Right on the city where the away team is staying..."

 

LaPierre looked up at Twit. "Well, they're going to get quite a show down there. I wouldn't worry... I mean, the only danger of an eclipse can be avoided by not looking directly at it..."

 

Twit shook his head and looked at the Crewman Zed. "Notify the party. This can't be a coincidence, there's got to be some significance to it."

 

"That would be *some* significance, alright." LaPierre said. "That city looks like it's been down there for a while. But it's right in the shadow of this eclipse... that means whoever built it may have been anticipating this very event..."

 

Everyone on the Bridge looked up as a particularly loud, sustained, almost tortured howl echoed through the air ducts. Twit found the hairs on the back of his neck sticking up at the long silence that followed. He looked back at the comm crewman tentatively. "And get in touch with security, notify them that there's still a cat on the loose..."