Lieutenant JG Kaito Moore - Oh Vole No, Not Today!

[Lieutenant j.g. Kaito Moore]

((Robin Hopper's Apartment, Beijing District - 0950 hours))

Wong: =/\=Sorry. It’s one of Orrey’s stupid vole—er— weasel things jumped out at me. You know it occurs to me that I don’t think we ever settled on a proper name for these things yet. But anyways, side note - we have a rodent problem. Apparently, some of them made their way to engineering.=/\=

That right away sent up a red flag. He tapped his comm badge.

Moore: =/\= Those aren’t the conduit-eating kind, are they? =/\=

Vanlith: ::Looking at Lael::. If so we are going to have issues if they get into engineering properly. They will cause this place to shut down if they chew the wrong conduit.  But it has the highest energy reading for them to want to feast from.

Saavei: If they sever the conduits leading to our makeshift Ops level here, we will likely be unable to restore control before the storm arrives.

Rosek-Skyfire: ::frowns:: =/\= There's different kinds?=/\=

Wong:  =/\=These are absolutely the conduit-eating kind.=/\=

He continued to monitor the life signs around Wong.

Moore: =/\= Well, have we tried shooting them? I am seeing a few more around you, and we really don’t need anything chewing on the EPS relays or causing a fire.=/\=

Char gave him a look, he knew the look, it was the “we’re going to have a talk about this later, Mr., and you are making me a special dinner with custard…” kind of look. He would gladly take that punishment if it meant they both got out of this alive.

Rosek-Skyfire: =/\= Shooting them may not be the best option, depending on how many there are. Is there possibly a way to put them to sleep without putting the lieutenant to sleep? Induce hibernation or something? Or we can just beam them somewhere else where they will be less trouble? =/\=

Char spun back to her terminal.  

Vanlith: Isolating a spot but unless we can beam all of them and find them all it may not make a lot of difference, we currently know the location of one of them. 

Saavei: =/\= Strongly recommend against weapons fire near sensitive systems.=/\= ::then to Moore:: Lieutenant, perhaps it would be easier to flood that level with anesthizine, while we still have the power to do so?

Wong:  =/\=I’m a medical officer, NOT the chief of security, Moore!=/\=

Moore: =/\= ::Unamused sounding:: Last I checked, you’re a Starfleet Officer; basic phaser training is a required skill to retain. =/\= ::He looked over at Saavei speaking quietly:: He’s on the mezzanine; while I doubt he would hit anything vital there, since it is a civilian area… given his response, I suspect a lack of practice. So, agreed. Maybe not.

But he would make note to double-check Wong’s phaser qualifications after this was over. TAC110, Small Arms, was a core class, meaning no matter what your major was, be it Science, Engineering, or Medical, everyone learned to use a phaser, and keeping qualified was a requirement.

So Kaito looked forward to dragging Wong out to the range. It could be fun!

Rosek-Skyfire: =/\= Whatever we're going to do, we need them someplace where they're not going to cause damage that we just don't have time to fix. We can't afford to lose any power right now. We need everything we've got. =/\=

Vanlith: One of the Cargo Holds in the shipping and customs department, we transport this one there and then find the others?

Saavei: It would contain them for the moment and we would know where they are, before they could escape once more.

Moore: Put them in one of the innermost cargo holds; we don’t want the storm to fry them.

Wong: =/\=If anyone has any ideas, I’d like to hear them right now!=/\=

Rosek-Skyfire: ::to Vanlith:: What do you think? Will it work without turning us into sitting ducks?

Charlena’s fingers danced across her station.

Vanlith: They have unique enough bio-signatures to run an internal transport of just those bio-signatures to the cargo hold. They can eat until they are stuffed there off the metal and we can deal with repairs and damages later but they shouldn’t be able to impact main systems unless they somehow get out again. 

Saavei: Believe we would still have enough power to utilize the gas and prevent them from leaving the cargo hold.

He couldn’t agree more and was already thinking of a few ideas to knock them out. The second was the gas, something easily enough done through life support. The third part was keeping them asleep. Once again, easy enough: just lower the oxygen levels to keep them under. But first they had to get the creatures out.

He started typing away at the security console, feeding data to Operations.

Moore: Char. I am linking internal security sensors to your console; they should get a more accurate read on the creatures.

He continued to feed data as Char began typing away. 

Vanlith: =/\= Confirm the weasel is gone and you are still in the turbo lift? =/\=

Wong: =/\=They are NOT gone! Definitely NOT gone!=/\=

Char let out a slow breath.  

Saavei: One must respect their tenaciousness, if nothing else. However I believe it would be a tragedy if Lieutenant Wong were to be devoured by Voles. Re-directing power to internal sensors...

The lights flickered again in "Ops".

Moore: Recalibrating the sensors to focus on their biosigns.

Risky, because it meant the internals were sensitive to the rodents, but not as accurate to other threats. Granted, unless a Romulan strike team was sneaking around Amity — unlikely — then it wouldn’t matter. Plus recalibrating the calibration was easy enough.

Rosek-Skyfire: Response

Wong:  =/\=They really don’t like me very much!=/\=

Vanlith: =/\= Preparing mass transport of the bio-signatures to the cargo hold. =/\= ::to Saavei and Moore:: Can you make sure the turbolift is running and check that the cargo hold is locked down?

Kaito snapped to it, bringing up the security for the cargo bay. He began activating defensive measures.

Saavei: Turbolifts are... ::her brow furrowed a moment as she worked for a three-count ::... running. There is a parasitic power drain on the system, I believe from the storm. I cannot maintain them for long.

Moore: Doors are locked, and force fields ready to raise once you transport them in.

Rosek-Skyfire: Response

Wong: =/\=You’re doing what?!=/\=

Kaito watched the sensors closely, pinpointing and marking various weasel vole signatures. He just hoped he didn’t accidentally target someone’s similar pet, but he was fairly certain his scans were good. Besides, Charlena was a more than capable engineer; he trusted she wouldn’t make that mistake.

Vanlith: Transport complete, did I get them all? Do we even know how many there should be there?

Saavei: I am unsure. Their social behaviors while hunting Lieutenant Wong would suggest they would all be in close proximity, however.

Moore: Brings up the question: why would a species that sustains off of metal and energy even think about hunting an organic? Some kind of inorganic-organic omnivore?

Rosek-Skyfire: Response

Wong: =/\=I’m in the turbolift and on my way…..=/\=

Saavei: =/\= Recommend you proceed directly, Lieutenant. Turbolifts will not be functional for long. =/\=

The lights flickered again; no doubt the engineers shifting power around. He was surprised by how badly the station was holding up — they weren’t even in the thick of the storm, and already having issues. Maybe there was already existing damage, or perhaps overzealousness in restricting power? Nevertheless, that was their domain; he had his, and his right now was the threat assessment and neutralization of the unwanted pests. He had activated the force fields around the cargo hold, but he knew that wouldn’t hold them if they could chew through the floors.

Rosek-Skyfire/Vanlith: Response

Wong: =/\=Dear sweet zombie Spock….. You’re not going to believe this….=/\=

Kaito frowned and raised an eyebrow, glancing over at the others.

Saavei: ::clearly confused, looking to the others:: Dear sweet zombie Spock?... I am concerned the doctor may be suffering from radiation poisoning if he is seeing the ambulatory corpse of Ambassador Spock.

Moore: The "not going to believe" part is what we should be worried about…

Rosek-Skyfire/Vanlith: Response

Wong: =/\=I managed to get a scan of those creatures and I can say that this is the most… uh…. Cursed combination of DNA I have ever seen. I see tribble, Cardassian vole, and a third unknown species.=/\=

Kaito just paused and looked up from his screen. Tribble, vole, and something else hybrid that eats metal. This went from an annoying major problem to a critical “we’re all going to die” problem. If they had the breeding ability of tribbles, then the station was doomed, because an unfixed tribble could have ten babies every twelve hours… the eleven tribbles become one hundred and twenty-one in twenty-four hours, one thousand three hundred and thirty-one tribbles in thirty-six hours, fourteen thousand six hundred and forty-one by the two-day mark… and so… they would not have a station left if that was the case.

That was not going to happen.

Moore: Oh hell no… handling the rodent problem.

Kaito’s hands danced across the tactical console as he got to work.

Rosek-Skyfire/Vanlith: Response

An alarm sounded. Kaito glanced over but kept focused on dealing with their vole-tribble problem. He could already see the creatures exploring their new habitat.

Saavei: Turbolifts are failing. Reading disruptions in the power supply. Lieutenant Vanlith, are you able to compensate?

Rosek-Skyfire/Vanlith/Wong: Response

Saavei: =/\= Lieutenant Wong, we are attempting to keep the lift operational. Power is intermittent. If you remove the maintenance panel in the lift, you may be able to augment power with your scanner battery =/\=

They were having power issues, perhaps because of these creatures. Kaito was tempted to vent the cargo hold into space, solve the problem that way, but he knew he would get the couch for that. Instead, Kaito brought up the life support systems, putting in his emergency override code.

A warning flashed up on his screen; he bypassed it. Command would get a nice report about his access, as per security protocol, but he would be ready to answer any questions about his actions. Such as why he was mixing up a chemical cocktail in the local life support systems…

Rosek-Skyfire/Vanlith/Wong: Response

Saavei: We may need to transport him if this does not work. I would rather apologize for scrambling his atoms than have him risk exposure to the radiation.

Moore: How bad is the power loss?

He needed to know, both for his plan and if they were going to save Wong. He kept working on his rodent problem.

Rosek-Skyfire/Vanlith/Wong: Response

Saavei: Thirty-two percent degradation in power supply.

Moore: That seems worse than projected. We must be losing or using more power than expected… I have an idea.

He started typing away, mostly watching the security image of the rats.

Moore: Let’s start with grav plating. That takes up a lot of energy, but also has backups. Cut the grav plating in unimportant areas, and transfer the backups’ energy to where we need it.

Which Kaito started doing — but just in the mostly empty, rodent-infested cargo bay. He first cut the gravity plating for the entire bay, and then reversed the polarity for a second to cause a slight push on everything in the room. Right away the rodents were flung up in the air, and then mostly suspended, slowly moving towards the ceiling. The poor things wiggled and squirmed as they tried to adjust to zero gravity.

Saavei/Rosek-Skyfire/Vanlith/Wong: Response

He let them focus on their problem — they needed power, and Wong transported up here. But Kaito had his issues with the rodents. He noticed one struggling to hold onto a conduit, the beast biting into the exposed cabling; it was near one of the doors. Fearing an escape, Kaito got into action. The life support injection was nearly ready, but he couldn't risk it. He typed away activating the gravity plating at the center of the room, slowly all the rodents started to float towards the center of gravity. Except the one hanging on to the conduit cable.

Moore: Hmm. That one’s giving me a little bit of trouble.

He really said it to no one but himself; he was locked in, laser focused. He activated the singular gravity plate under the oversized rat, turning it on and off, on and off, shaking the devil, hoping it would let go.

Saavei/Rosek-Skyfire/Vanlith/Wong: Response

The rat went up and down, up and down, over and over, until—snap… the conduit cable gave way. The rodent fell to the ground, and then right away, Kaito did the same trick, reversing polarity, causing the vole-weasel-like creature to float up into the air. Perfect timing too, as the atmosphere injection was ready — the perfect mix of knock-out drugs to subdue the creatures.

Moore: Not today! Satan!

He said as he practically slapped the button to first fill the cargo hold with anesthizine gas, and then lower the oxygen levels to force the creatures to hibernate. Kaito smirked a little as he felt triumphant over his Devil Rat Foes!

He then looked around at his crewmates, realizing what he said in front of them, a phrase that he had learned years ago as a kid from a crewmember on his dad’s ship — shouted out after fixing a particularly annoying problem… No doubt as annoying as this. But given that he said that suddenly out loud, and on his screen was a floating ball of sleeping devil rats in a cargo bay, he now just kind of felt awkward.

Saavei/Rosek-Skyfire/Vanlith/Wong: Response

Moore: Sorry. Got a little excited… Oh hey Wong?! When did you get here?

He hadn’t even noticed them transporting him in, or maybe he just ran from the turbolift. Truth be told, he was kind of overly focused.

Saavei/Rosek-Skyfire/Vanlith/Wong: Response

Lieutenant JG Kaito Moore

Tactical Officer

Amity Outpost

A240006KM1