Staring down into his replicated breakfast, McCoy mustered whatever strength he had left to make sure his face did not end up in the food. A dire emergency had come in during gamma shift, (some idiot engineer had been showing off to his sweetheart how the warp drive worked, and had burned his hands drastically) and the doctor had painstakingly performed surgery on those hands all night long. McCoy, never a morning person by nature even when he had slept, was ready to bite anyone's head off if they so much as looked at him wrong this morning. Hoping that everyone would get the message of leave me alone, he began to eat his breakfast in sullen silence. Of course, the only person on board who could not read messages very well or just ignored them strode up and sat across from him.
Captain Jim Kirk was in a chipper mood, and having slept all of nine hours, began eagerly,
"Hey, Bones! What a great morning, huh? Even the bland and tasteless replicated food seems to have some flavor today!" Kirk flashed a grin, which McCoy returned with a malicious glare. Kirk's eyes widened as he realized that Bones was not in the best of moods, and tilted his head to ask,
"Whoa, is something wrong, Bones? Someone needs an attitude adjustment it seems!"
"Attitude reflects leadership, Captain," McCoy mumbled to the table. Sighing, he continued eating the bland pseudo-eggs. He kept his eyes glued to the table, crossing his fingers that Jim would get up and leave him in peace. As the silence stretched on, his conscience began to eat away at him, and he looked up to a thousand watt smile spreading over Jim's face. McCoy shook his head in disbelief and thought,
"Good grief, you'd think he was a kid on Christmas morning with that smile of his. I can't believe he cares that much about how my day's going. I'll never understand this kid fully."
"I've got some good news for you, Bones; and it seems like you will appreciate it greatly. I'm sending you and Uhura down to Deep Space Station K7 for shore leave. You deserve some time for relaxation. While you are down there, could you also check on those guards I posted around the quadro…something…?" Here Kirk paused, a perplexed look crossing his features.
"Quadrotriticale, the special grain that we are escorting to Sherman's Planet?" supplied McCoy, with a bit of hopefulness entering his voice at the news of shore leave.
Kirk snapped his fingers and smiled, "That's it! Quadrotri…Whatever you said! Those guards shouldn't even have to be down there, I think, but if Nilz Baris needs them there, Starfleet has left me no choice in the matter," Kirk remarked, annoyance tingeing his words. He had had a brief encounter with Baris, and the two had gotten off on the decidedly wrong foot and had never gotten on the right one. Hearing of the encounter from Spock, McCoy was proud that Jim hadn't punched Baris in the face; McCoy was not sure if he would not have, in the same circumstances.
"All right, Jim, I can't really refuse a chance at shore leave, now can I? I'll check on the guards for you as well; we wouldn't want any Klingons getting to the grain. At what time are we beaming down?" McCoy asked as he began to finish his food hurriedly.
"When you're done eating, actually; Uhura's ready to go," Kirk replied absently.
McCoy's eyes widened as he began to eat even faster. "A lady's waiting on me and you didn't think to tell me about it? I would have been done by now!" Forgoing any remaining table manners, he shoved the rest of the food in his mouth, grabbed his now chilled coffee, and washed it down. He grabbed the tricorder beside him and rushed towards the Transporter Room.
Kirk, chuckling all the while, followed his friend and walked in to Uhura and McCoy already on the pad, with McCoy frantically pleading,
"I'm so sorry, Uhura, I didn't know you were waiting for me. I would've come sooner if I had," McCoy shot a glare in the Captain's direction at this point.
"It's all right, Dr. McCoy, I wasn't waiting too long," Uhura replied sweetly.
"Have fun down there, you two! Energize!" Kirk grinned and waved at his annoyed friend.
Spock walked in to their dematerializing forms and asked Kirk, "Why did you select those particular two as the first to embark on shore leave, Captain?"
Kirk smirked, "Isn't it obvious, Spock? Besides you, Bones and Uhura are the ones who have to put up with me the most!"
Having materialized on the space station, McCoy and Uhura checked on the guards first, to find everything in perfect order. They then ventured to the space station bar where most of the people on board congregated. Being early in the morning, neither ordered a drink. Meanwhile, an obese, short man with a long trench coat wheedled up to the bartender. McCoy and Uhura looking on with interest, the man began conversing with the bartender.
"What do you say to some Spiken Flame Gems?" The man inquired.
"I already have enough Spiken Flame Gems thanks to you," the bartender replied.
At this juncture something moved in the man's trench coat and made a cooing sound. Uhura's eyes widened and she asked,
"What's making that noise in there?"
"Ah, my dear lady, my name is Cyrano Jones, and this," Cyrano pulled out a small, furry puffball, "is a tribble."
"A tribble; is it alive?" Uhura asked wonderingly.
"Why yes, my lady, it certainly is! A most affable creature, most gentle of all animals I have come across in my travels, excepting yourself," Cyrano interjected smoothly.
"It's a good thing the hobgoblin isn't here; otherwise, this Cyrano Jones would have more than he bargained for," mused McCoy as he heard Cyrano's last comment.
"May I hold it?" Uhura asked. Clasping the tribble, she smiled and laughed as it purred and cooed in her hands. The bartender, seeing her interest, bought the tribble from Cyrano for six credits and tried to sell it to Uhura for ten. Cyrano, however gave it to her for free. As Uhura and McCoy made their way to the pad, Uhura stroked her new pet.
"Isn't it adorable?" she asked McCoy.
"It is a cute little thing, I'll admit; it'll be the envy of the Enterprise, no doubt," he replied as they beamed back aboard.
After taking a twelve hour nap with the rest of the allotted shore leave time, McCoy awoke feeling refreshed. He strode to the recreation room, noting that it was that time of day already. He arrived to a surprising sight. A large number of crew members were gathered around Uhura, whose one tribble had multiplied into ten. Kirk and Spock were also present.
"Where did these all come from, Uhura? You only bought one!" McCoy asked in shock.
"Well, I woke up to find that he is a she, and that she had had babies," Uhura explained.
"Seems you got a bargain, then," McCoy commented.
"Are you running a nursery, Lieutenant?" Kirk remarked snidely.
"No sir, but it seems the tribble had other plans," smiled Uhura.
"A most curious creature, Captain," Spock stroked a white tribble contemplatively as he stood behind Uhura, "its trilling seems to have a tranquilizing effect on the human nervous system." He held the tribble questioningly up to his ear. "Fortunately, of course, I am immune to its effect," Spock trailed off, continually stroking the tribble. Feeling everyone's eyes turning to him, he reluctantly put down the tribble.
"Uhura do you mind if I take one of these down to the lab, see what makes it tick?" McCoy asked.
"Well all right, Doctor, but if you are going to dissect it, I don't want to know!" Uhura replied.
"I won't harm a hair on its head; wherever that is!" McCoy promised as he strode down to the lab.
A few hours later, McCoy was in the lab inspecting the tribble (or more like tribbles) when Kirk walked in.
"Bones, what do you have for a headache?" Kirk asked exasperatedly.
"Let me guess; the Klingons, Baris!" McCoy snapped his fingers as he reached for the good old aspirin.
"Both. How many of these did Uhura give you?" Kirk asked.
"Just one."
"But you have eleven in there!"
"You noticed that, huh? Here that ought to take care of it!" McCoy handed the aspirin to Kirk.
"How do they? How do they?" Kirk motioned with his hand.
"I haven't figured that out yet. Almost fifty percent of their metabolism is geared for reproduction. Do you know what you get when you feed a tribble too much?"
"A fat tribble," answered Kirk.
"No, you get a whole bunch of hungry little tribbles. It's like they're born pregnant!"
"Well, Bones, all I can suggest is that you open up a maternity ward!" Kirk remarked as he strode out of the lab.
While Dr. McCoy was hard at work to discover how to get the tribbles to stop breeding, they infested the Enterprise with an astounding rapidity. They made their way into the food replicators (and Kirk's chicken sandwich and coffee) Captain Kirk could not even sit in the captain's chair without sitting on a tribble! McCoy finally figured out how to stop the tribbles reproduction, and went to tell Jim about it. Learning he had beamed down to the planet, he beamed down and rushed to the quadrotriticale storage compartment. Before he was fully in the compartment hallway, he excitedly pronounced,
"Jim, I think I've got it! All we have to do is quit feeding them! We quit feeding them, they stop breeding!" That was when McCoy realized that Jim was chest high in a pile of tribbles, looking very unhappy, directly underneath the storage compartment which had housed the quadrotriticale.
"Now he tells me, after they've eaten the quadrotriti…oh, who cares about this ridiculously complex name for some grain hybrid! The point is that the tribbles have eaten it all!"
"Captain, this tribble is dead, and so are these," Spock observed, holding one in his hand.
McCoy whipped out his scanner and pronounced, "A lot of them are dead. A lot of them are alive; they won't be for long."
"The logical assumption is that there is something in the grain," Spock replied.
"Thank you, Mr. Spock, I will bring that to Baris's attention. Now Bones, could you help me out? I'm in a pile of dead puffballs!" Kirk wailed.
"Okay, Jim, just hang on for a second," McCoy put his hand out to grab Kirk's, but the weight of the tribbles was too much to stand against. In a matter of seconds, McCoy was headfirst in the pile with Kirk.
"Fascinating. It seems the tribbles are more lethal dead than alive," Spock raised an eyebrow outside of the pile.
Kirk gave his best death glare to his First Officer, who then moved to help the Captain out of the pile. Despite his Vulcan strength, the tribbles mass was too much for one man to move. Any outsider observing would have laughed at the sight: Kirk looking extremely frustrated, Spock absently stroking a tribble, and McCoy's legs straight up in the air with a muffled grousing of "I knew these things were too darn cute for ya".
"Storage Compartment to Bridge. The Captain, Doctor, and I require your assistance," Spock spoke into the communicator.
Back on the Enterprise Mr. Scott, (or perhaps Mr. Spock; neither would take credit for the idea) thought of sending all the tribbles to the Klingon ship; tribbles hate Klingons.
"Well that's a swell idea! I'm sure they won't start a war with Starfleet over it…" muttered McCoy darkly on the Bridge.
Spock bent over and picked up the last tribble on board. He began stroking it softly unconsciously.
McCoy scanned the tribble and asked, "You do know that it's dead, Spock."
Spock's face formed its closest approximation of mortification, and he chucked the tribble into the lift.
"What is dead, Doctor?" Spock replied with the smallest hint of a smile.
McCoy, irritated, stuck his hand in Spock's face and yelled, "I saw you throw that! Don't play dumb with me!"
Spock proceeded to turn around and tried to walk away, but McCoy was right on his heels, shouting at the top of his lungs,
"Hey, get back here, you annoying, full of yourself hobgoblin!"
"I would like for you to cease following me," Spock replied smoothly.
Kirk, watching from his captain's chair, remarked sarcastically, "Another peaceful day on the Enterprise."
A/N: Well, there you have it; any drabble would not be complete without the tribbles…and yes, some of the lines are familiar because they are so good one can't not use them! I elaborated on the plot somewhat, however, and I actually wrote a comic for this chapter (Unleashed111 drew it; will post the deviantart link when it's complete!) Gave you guys a nice, long chapter as a thank you! Hope everyone's IC!