EDIT: Somehow I chopped part of the end off. Fixed that now.
Sniffles didn't know where to go once he started his adventure, so he did what any friendly little spaceborn rodent would do and just followed the sound of voices echoing through the ventilation shaft. He followed them to the crew's personal quarters where two crew members had retired to after completing their shifts.
"So then when I finally regained consciousness, there was grape jelly everywhere, a turian was on fire in my bathroom, and they somehow got a krogan wearing my mother's clothes," a voice was overheard saying.
"Can you ever throw a party that doesn't result in disaster and mass felonies?" another voice asked. "I'm beginning to wonder if I should bother attending the next one or just watch it when it comes on the news."
Kenneth was about to answer when he heard a light squeak. A moment later, a tiny rodent fell out of the vent duct and landed on Gabby's head. She froze up as a look of sudden panic formed on her face. "Ken...what's in my hair?" Gabby asked warily.
He looked closer and saw that it was a tiny rodent, smiling at him. "Oh! It's a hamster!" he said fondly. Gabby visibly relaxed now that she knew it wasn't something like a rabid space bat or whatever. "I used to have one of those, until I forgot where I put him and accidentally sat on him! I think I still have some of his stuff, actually." He untangled the hamster from Gabby's hair and handed him to her. "Hang on, let me check..."
"Aren't you wondering where he came from? Space hamsters usually don't live free range on ships," Gabby pointed out while he dug through a footlocker of his personal items. Sniffles started turning in her hands, likely curiously trying to see what everything was around him.
"Maybe someone brought him on board as a pet and lost him. Aha! Here it is!" Ken pulled out a hollow plastic ball with air holes in the sides and twisted it open. "You just put the hamster in here, and..." He snapped it shut again and set the hamster on the floor. Sniffles started excitedly running around in his new ball. Everything in view was tinted light red from the color of the plastic and it was like viewing the world from a whole new perspective.
"What's the point of that?" Gabby asked. Sniffles crashed against her foot and turned around before doing the same to a table leg.
"It gives him exercise while keeping him relatively safe from harm and making him visible so you don't lose him," he replied. Sniffles moved away from the friendly strangers to go exploring in the new ball. He rolled right up to the door and surprised Ken and Gabby when it actually opened for him. Either the hamster was best friends with EDI or the motion sensors were getting really sensitive these days.
"Shouldn't we go catch him?" Gabby asked with reasonable concern.
"No. He's in God's hands now," Ken replied before returning to his previous story.
Shepard had trouble sleeping that night. It was weird. He'd kill for a chance to sleep on the Normandy since he usually got about three hours of sleep and then had to get up again, but now that he actually had the chance for an uninterrupted night of sleep, he was struck with a bout of insomnia. He kind of missed his skylight. And that low whirring sound his private terminal tended to make. And the bubbling sound of the aquarium. He wondered how his hamster was doing without him. Did Sniffles notice he was gone or was he too busy hiding to realize?
Tali rolled over in her sleep and draped her arm across him. "Are you still up?" she asked sleepily.
"Think I should call Garrus and see how everything's going?" he asked.
"Shepard, we're going home soon. I'm sure if anything was wrong he would have called you," she replied. "Now get some sleep. You don't want to spend our last day with your mom sleeping in."
"Hmm...I guess you're right."
He looked out the window as though hoping to see a brightly burning gas giant some distance away, but only saw the dull and lifeless looking building next door. Why put a window there if you were going to obstruct the view with something ugly anyway? Well, he guessed he had starwatching to look forward to when he got back on the Normandy. For now, he should just be grateful for the chance of eight to ten hours of uninterrupted sleep.
Garrus was making quite a few people suspicious by his poking around. "Nothing! Nothing at all!" he blurted out when Miranda called his name.
"Aren't you supposed to wait until I start asking you questions to start denying you did anything?" she asked in confusion.
"Oh...um...ignore that. I didn't say anything," he quickly backpedaled. "So what did you want?"
"I just wanted to ask you...what are you doing?" she interrupted herself as she watched him crawling around on the floor under a table.
"Looking for clues. I think I may have found one. Garrus picked something up from the floor. He held it close to his face and smelled it. "Cardboard..."
"Did you really need to smell it to tell it was cardboard?" Jacob asked.
Garrus climbed out from under the table and stood up. "Yes. It could have been a wood chip," he replied.
"Wood chip?" Sudden realization hit both Jacob and Miranda like a truck full of krogan. "Oh no, Garrus...did you lose Shepard's hamster?"
"If I can't find him again, do you think he'd notice if I replaced him like I did with the fish?" Garrus wondered out loud.
Jacob groaned. "Garrus, you killed the fish too?! You had like one job!"
"Hey, I replaced them! I just hope he doesn't notice that these fish are smaller, younger, and more vibrant than their predecessors..." Garrus added.
Miranda sighed. "We'll help you look for the hamster. We just need to find him before Shepard does."
Garrus hoped they had time. Last time Shepard lost Sniffles, he was gone for a week. He later turned up in the medical bay eating cotton balls. "Alright everyone," Jacob addressed everyone else in the room. "Shepard's hamster is missing! Start searching!"
"Wow, for once something's missing and it's not my fault," Kasumi pointed out. "This feels so weird. I'm not used to this." Everyone turned their heads to the door when Mordin entered and glanced around the room as though he were looking for something. "Hey Mordin, care to help us look for Shepard's hamster?"
"Already looking for something," Mordin replied, "but will keep an eye out for hamster during search." They were about to question what he was looking for when he quickly added, "Any of you experience any strange burning sensations? Itching? Swelling? Unexplained pain in groin or stomach area?" He held up his omnitool and started scanning the room for something.
"Uh...no?" Garrus shook his head. "Why do you ask?"
"No reason. None at all." Mordin turned back out of the room and walked back the way he came. A few feet down the hall, he stopped and called out, "Maynard!"
Miranda was standing on a table within seconds and everyone looked around for any sign of something that should not be. "Well this should make our search more interesting," Jacob sighed.
Gardner tasted his stew and looked at it thoughtfully. It was perfectly okay and safe to serve to the crew, but it seemed to be missing something. He turned around and was digging through the seasonings when he heard a loud and sudden plop. Sauce from the stew splattered the counter and floor around the pot. He spun around, assuming someone had thrown something into the pot (it wouldn't be the first time someone tossed a rubber ball or something his way while he was cooking) and was prepared to yell at the first person he saw. Instead he was surprised to see a pinkish, plastic ball with a hamster inside it sitting in the stew, scurrying about in an attempt to escape as it slowly sank. The hamster had evidently rolled off a nearby shelf and landed inside. He quickly rescued it and recognized it as the one that Commander Shepard owned. Normally when he saw the hamster, he was hitching rides inside of Shepard's pockets around the Normandy and poking his head out as they passed people. Sniffles, Shepard might have called him.
"I'm pretty sure what my stew was missing wasn't hamster," he sighed as he cleaned off the plastic ball. He noticed that something else had fallen in along with the hamster and retrieved the spilled container of seasoning. "Hmm..." The hamster watched from the counter as he stirred in the spilled contents and tasted it to make sure it wasn't ruined. "Huh...that actually tastes better! You're a culinary genius, Sniffles!" He looked around to make sure no one was looking and whispered, "Oh, and you might want to keep the fact that you were swimming in the crew's lunch to yourself..." Sniffles squeaked a response and rolled off the edge of the counter before carrying on his way.
Editing just got harder because my grandmother just came home and put the TV on...