A/N: WOO ANOTHER CHAPTER PROBABLY TO BE FOLLOWED CLOSELY BY MORE MESSAGEBOARD

ALSO I GOT MY COMPUTER BACK SO LOOK FORWARD TO BOLDED USERNAMES MAYBE

Kirk figured he got another chance to retaliate. The Enterprise had quite turned his last prank around on him. Of course, she might not feel the same way, and might actually be out to get him.

Kirk was well aware of his disadvantage; she could track him everywhere he went, and use her transporters to keep him out of mischief. So he had to be sneeeaky.

His last prank would have worked very well, except... Kirk shuddered. At least he knew that setting something up would work. Now he just needed to do something while she was distracted.

Later that day, Kirk overheard Sulu complaining about a pest problem in Botany.

"They're everywhere," he told Chekov. "If we miss even two, then within a week there's fifty more tiny ones."

"But zhere are so many being kept as pets!" the young navigator exclaimed.

"Those are just some of the ones we've found," Sulu said grimly. "There are still enough that we're overrun. I hate to kill them, but they're eating everything!"

"Why not set up a smaller garden just for zhem?" Chekov asked.

"We have one. It's even more crowded than the main Botany greenhouses, because whenever we find one, we put it in there. I swear," Sulu said, leaning back, "We've almost started carrying jars around to collect them!"

Chekov grinned. "Zhat vould be more efficient zhan valking back to zhe special garden ewery time you find one."

"Yeah, but the jars would probably fill up just as fast!"

Kirk grinned. Perfect.

A few hours later, the Captain of the Enterprise was seen careening through the hallways with a large cardboard box, a slightly manic smile on his face.

Kirk had enlisted Bones to help him in his task. Despite his protests of "Damn it, I'm a doctor, not a malacologist! Or an electrician, for that matter!", McCoy was begrudgingly attaching small, brightly-colored lights to button batteries and placing them in a pile, next to Kirk's duct tape.

"How are you going to pull this off?" he asked for the hundredth time.

"I'm going to sneak into her quarters, when she's asleep, and I plan to have the ship's internal sensors disabled for a few minutes, and maaaybe hit her with a sedative-"

"And where are you going to get that?!"

"-Which is why I need your help!" Kirk finished with a smile.

"Jim, I swear, one day you'll be the death of me," McCoy grumbled. "But I'll see if I can give you- NOT get her with- a sedative that'll make her sleepy after a few hours, then knock her out for a couple hours."

Kirk positively beamed.

McCoy reached into the box of batteries, and his hand brushed against something slimy.

"Jim, they're escaping!"

Kirk spent nearly an entire day trying to figure out how to get the Enterprise the sedative. Finally he figured he would put it in her coffee (decaf only, after the Incident) and then keep tabs on her until she fell asleep.

It took a little bit of sneaking, (and possibly bribing Chekov to distract the entirety of the mess hall but nobody needs to know that was Kirk's doing) but the Enterprise's coffee ended up with a mild, delayed-action sedative in it. (The starship slept sporadically anyways. It wouldn't look suspicious.)

Now Kirk only had to call in to Sickbay for the blackmail files, and activate the inter-ship surveillance system he'd built around the Security department.

Reliable reports were coming in ten minutes later.

When Kirk walked into the Enteprirse's quarters, the starship was sprawled face-down on her bed. He noted with glee the blue residue on the wall, but quickly set down his cardboard box, opened it, and exited just as quickly as he'd come in.

The Enterprise woke somewhat groggy. In her room, the lights were off, but hundreds of tiny, multicolored lights danced across her vision. She laid there, staring at them, until the grogginess left. But the lights stayed.

Whaaaa... She thought, still tired. Something wet touched her hand. Quickly she brought the lights up to 10 percent. Crawling innocently across her hand was... A snail. A common Earth garden snail, with a small blue light taped to its back.

"Yech," the Enterprise said, picking the creature up by the shell and placing it on the wall... Next to the others. She looked up.

"Oh... Shit."

Scotty caught up with the starship later in the day. The Enterprise was sitting alone at a table in the mess hall, a sour look on her face.

"What happened?" Scotty asked, sitting down.

"An interesting development in the prank war," the starship said. "I was drugged and my internal sensors disabled, and when I woke up the walls of my quarters were crawling with snails."

Scotty blinked. "Snails?" he asked in disbelief.

"Snails. Large ones. With little... Lights on their shells."

"Are ye sure ye're nae still drugged?"

The Enterprise let out a snarling noise and pulled something from her pocket, plopping it on the table.

A snail with a red light on it poked its head out of its shell, and set off slowly for the lettuce of Scotty's sandwich.

"Ah." Scotty gave the small creature a piece of lettuce and watched as the Enterprise's face contorted.

"Please just get rid of it," the starship said exasperatedly.

"Ye don't like them?"

"No I do not. Get rid of it. And its four hundred and seventy-two friends."

"Four hundred and-"

Sulu was really regretting giving Kirk a box full of snails. They had reappeared in Botany, without the box, but with small lights on them. Nobody had seen them appear, and the rapidly-diminishing pile an ensign had stumbled upon was crawling away from the deposit point. Luckily, the little lights were still glowing strong when the Great Snail Hunt began. It was then a simple matter of turning out the lights.

Everyone helped catch the loose snails, and it soon became a contest- most snails, most complete rainbows in the lights, most creative use of snails on one's body, etc. (The last one had some interesting entries.)

Sulu sighed as the last basket of snails was placed in the snail-garden and the creatures came crawling out. He silently vowed to never give large amounts of snails to anyone as immature as the captain again.