I don't own Star Trek, any of the canon characters, nor do I make any profit from my writings. That's so irritating. I should at least get chocolate.

Irritation

Dr. McKenzie had encouraged Rachel to take a few days off.

"You may not realize it, Silverstein, but you've been through a traumatic event. Sometimes a person needs a little time to readjust to civilian life. It's common to experience feelings of impatience or even anger with others who haven't been through the same thing. I remember that I had a tough time returning to my "normal" life after the Herken bombing incident. I took my frustrations out on the wife and kids. Even the dog started to hate me."

"I was the Chief Medical Officer aboard the USS Excalibur three years ago when it had responded to a distress call on Melenia V. A radical religious group known as the Herkens had bombed a temple on the Melenian's most holy day. Hundreds of people had died and hundreds more had been maimed. The terrorists had planted their bombs in the nursery and toddler areas of the temple. The children who had survived the blast suffered unbelievable agony. We weren't able to save many of them."

"When I returned home, my five-year-old son Stevie had whined because it was too cold and wet out to play baseball. I flew into a rage at this.

"Be thankful you still have arms, you ungrateful brat!"

"Stevie didn't understand why his daddy was so angry at him. After Margie calmed him down, she gave me a good talking to. We had several more such incidents over the next few days, and she nearly kicked my butt to the curb!"

Rachel was about to argue with him when she remembered wanting to scream at the "birthday" family at Wong's. How could they realize how precious food was if they had never seen a hungry person? Before her interactions with the Fursian Famine victims, Rachel wouldn't even have noticed anyone wasting food. Rachel decided that her boss knew what he was talking about. She gathered her PADDs and texts and went home. She hoped she wouldn't find herself irritated with her family.

Spock was looking forward to the flora and fauna survey of Gareth IV. It was a small planet, with a semi-tropical climate. The initial probes revealed large jungles, forests, and fresh water lakes. There were also several large predators that appeared to be feline in nature.

Chief Engineer Garrison was hoping that the survey team would take its time checking out Gareth VI. There was a small problem with the warp core. She wanted to take the engines off line to investigate under peaceful, non-stressful conditions. Hopefully there would be no giant orchids to flee from.

Commander Tjiena had pulled a muscle during her morning aerobic workout, so Dr. Ames put her on light duty. This meant that she would put Spock in charge of the survey team.

"I have every confidence in our abilities, Spock. A word of warning, though. Lindner is the only person Engineering feels that they can spare right now. Be careful which team you assign him to. When he works with either Delest or Hermes, he manages to get himself in trouble."

"As we have only six positions on the team, it would be most logical to assign Ensign Lindner to be my partner. However, he also gets into trouble when he works with me."

Commander Tjiena just laughed at him.

"Lindner can be irritating, however you control him better than anyone else, Spock. He means well. His instructors at the Academy seemed to believe that he had great potential. One of these days he'll prove himself."

Sirin was not having a good morning. Rachel was at home with their son and Esther, while he was stuck at the office. Dr. Kroger had left a mountain of work, including the search for Simon Burke's replacement. Sirin had candidate interviews scheduled with three hand surgeons.

He also had a meeting with the hospital's legal representative to discuss the pending lawsuit against Burke. San Francisco General intended to prosecute him for harassment of Sirin and several other staff members. Burke had informed several nurses of his "impending" promotion. He had tried to obtain sexual favors from them by promising them better jobs. The more Sirin learned about Burke, the less he liked him.

The first candidate, Carter Jones, a female surgeon from Texas, had excellent qualifications. She had also worked at a teaching hospital before. She interviewed well. However, when Sirin checked into her background, there had been some questions about her billing practices.

Dr. Pierre Le Mieux from Quebec City was also quite gifted. Unfortunately, he had been released from his last position for failure to keep up with his documentation. His laxity had resulted in a lawsuit, as the hospital was unable to prove that certain life-saving measures had been taken when a patient took an unexpected turn for the worse. His family was awarded several million credits.

The lady surgeon from Havana, Leticia Gomez, was well-qualified. Her surgeries had a 98.5% success rate. However, she was also overbearing and arrogant. The nursing staff would be most annoyed with Sirin if he hired her. He would have to keep looking for another candidate.

Suddenly, Sirin was not so certain that he wanted Dr. Kroger's job. Administrative duties were proving to be quite irritating.

Rachel made several additions to her syllabus for the Shipboard Diagnostics class she would be teaching. These involved the detection and treatment of stress-related sleep disorders. Several members of Marie Curie's crew had developed severe insomnia after their experiences on Fursia III. These had not all responded to sleeping pills, so other methods had to be found.

Rachel would be using two of these on Jason. He would be receiving warm, lavender scented baths and soothing back rubs. Thus far her attempts to keep Jason in his own bed had failed. He would start the night out in his crib, but refuse to return to if if he woke up in the night for any reason. If Rachel or Sirin placed him in his crib, he would scream until he was placed in the bed between them. Everyone was losing sleep and becoming irritable.

Fred was the first to find the fruit trees. The jungles of Gareth IV were full of a particular mango-like fruit. The small ones were chartreuse in color but as they grew and became fully mature, they achieved the same size and color as eggplants. They were safe for Human (or Vulcan) consumption and absolutely delicious. The landing party had enjoyed them and then sent bushels to the ship for the entire crew to enjoy.

There were many other edible plants and several that showed promise as therapeutic agents. The insect life was also plentiful. As Fred climbed a large palm tree, a fly the size of his comm unit bit him on the cheek. At first the bite was merely an irritation. However, after several minutes, Fred began to have difficulty breathing. Fearing for his comrade's life, Spock gave him a hypo-spray of adrenaline and ordered that they both be transported to the ship. Dr. Ames was waiting from them and gave Fred anti-histamines. He was rushed to Sickbay.

"Don't worry, Spock. You got him here in time. This kid sure knows how to find trouble."

"Yes, Doctor, he certainly does."

Tariq had found a perfect gig for Menace, two hours on a Saturday night at Shirley's Bistro in the Castro. Unfortunately, Sirin wasn't able to attend any of the practices. The band kept to their old standards so he was able to fake it. Rachel enjoyed her night on the town, a pleasant break from her class preparations.

Sirin had needed a distraction as well. He was coming to grips with the reality that his life would change dramatically if he took the Head of Orthopedics position. Sirin would either have to reduce the number of surgeries he did or cut down on his family and recreation time. Even a Vulcan who only slept a few hours every other night would not be able keep up the pace Sirin had been maintaining for long.

Jason was waiting up for them when they got home from Shirley's. He was working on cutting another tooth and had been irritable all day. Esther had given him a pain reliever as a last resort. Now he was all smiles and wide awake. His parents set him down on the floor. Jason got up on his hands and knees, as he had been doing for several weeks. Sirin placed the chroma ball that Spock had given Jason just out of the little one's reach.

Jason stretched out his hands for it, but could not grasp it. In frustration, he pushed himself forward. He had finally crawled. In his surprise, the toy was forgotten. Jason turned himself around and crawled to his mama and then to his daddy. After about twenty minutes, he was completely worn out. He slept the night through in his own bed. His parents got to do the same.

Spock and his team finished up the survey of the small jungle. The wildlife was abundant but not as diverse as they had expected. They had only encountered a few thousand species of insects and a few hundred animal species. They would begin to survey the small forest in the morning. When Spock reached his quarters, he found that Fred had been released from Sickbay. He still had a large, irritated sore on his face from the insect bite. Otherwise he was just fine and would be able to resume his duties in the morning.

Spock gave Fred copies of the mission findings that he had missed. The insect that had bitten Fred had injected him with a small amount of neurotoxin. Any future colonists on Gareth VI would have to take care to avoid the enormous and potentially deadly insect.

Rachel had not seen much of her husband for the last few days. She had been very busy at the Academy Clinic and he had worked long hours at the hospital. When Sirin finally made it home, Rachel greeted him enthusiastically. He was glad to see her as well and gave her some surprising news.

"I have finally found a replacement for Simon Burke. I believe you might know her. Dr. Andrea Powers, who was in your graduating class at Stanford."

Rachel practically groaned.

"You hired Andi Powers? She had the most irritating habit of trying to steal other women's husbands and boyfriends. She had better keep her grubby paws off of my Vulcan!"

"Rachel, I would never permit such a thing to occur."

"That's good because I wouldn't want to have you witness a display of Terran possessiveness."

Sirin embraced his wife.

"So you would be willing to fight to defend my honor?" he asked teasingly.

"Honey, I would scratch her eyes out and pull out all of her hair by the roots, one by one if necessary."

The forests of Gareth IV were even more beautiful than the jungles. The deciduous hardwood trees were over sixty meters tall and ten meters in circumference when fully grown. Several species bore edible nuts. Fred was scanning a variety with a walnut-like shell when a large, predatory cat made a lunge at Spock. Fred pelted the beast with nuts and encouraged his roommate to climb up the tree with him, standing on a different branch.

Apparently the large cat could not climb trees. However, it was not going to abandon such interesting prey so easily. It decided to lie down at the base of the tree and wait.

Spock found the situation most irritating. He really did not want to contact the ship for another transporter rescue. Such things were becoming embarrassing.