Disclaimer: I don't own all the things I didn't own in the last chapter. Including the title. I stole this one from David Gerrold too.
No comments regarding David Gerrold? Well, let me explain. David Gerrold is the one we can blame for all the insane tribble jokes. Who is he? The guy who wrote The Trouble with Tribbles! "You Think You've Got Tribbles—?" was an early title, but Gene Coon hated it. And how do I know this? My uncle gave me a book by David Gerrold about the writing of The Trouble with Tribbles. So don't worry, I don't just happen to know random trivia about every Star Trek episode. They were originally called Fuzzies, which explains this chapter's title.
Terribly, terribly sorry this took so long! Bad Tavia, leaving the nice reviewers hanging! But it's here now, and it's nice and long too.
Chapter Forty-One:
A Fuzzy Thing Happened to Me…
As I was saying…
"We have a slight problem. Specifically, the Romulan Bird-of-Prey decloaking off the port bow."
Kirk felt the urgent need to comment. His first comment is unsuitable for a G-rated story. His second comment was "You call this a slight problem?!" (To which Spock responded, "Yes, 0.397 minutes ago.) His third comment was "Sound red alert, I'll be right there." His fourth comment, made over the din of wailing sirens and directed at those in the Mess Hall, was "Can't you move tribbles any faster?!"
But, impatience aside, Kirk did get out of the tribbles in only a minute or so, and set off at a run for the bridge. He was in such a hurry (and understandably so) that he didn't even notice the pink tribble clinging to his shoulder. Apparently it had developed a liking for him.
Kirk arrived on the bridge within three minutes of Spock's call. As it was, he was already too late. Not that it would have been likely to make much difference. And not that they'd been destroyed and the bridge wasn't there anymore. It was. So was the bridge crew (including Sulu, who, circumstances notwithstanding, still couldn't resist commenting that Kirk had a very nice-looking tribble. Kirk, succumbing to temptation, threw it at him. Sulu caught it.), and so was the main viewscreen. Minus any Romulan ships.
"Well?" Kirk demanded, dropping into his chair. "What happened to the Romulans?"
"They have cloaked, Captain," Spock explained.
"Wonderful," was Kirk's comment. "Are they responding to hails?"
"I'll try, sir," Uhura said. She tried. And they did. Respond, that is.
Within moments the Romulan commander had appeared on the viewscreen.
"I'm James T. Kirk, captain of the starship Enterprise," Kirk snapped. "You are in Federation space. I demand an explanation."
"I am Commander Trajen, of the Romulan Bird-of-Prey Vulture. We are here to kill you, Kirk."
Nothing quite like a blunt Romulan, except maybe a blunt Klingon. Kirk was not in the mood to be impressed though. And besides, he'd heard it a few too many times. "Don't tell me. I destroyed your honor, right?"
Trajen blinked. "How could that be possible? We've never met."
Kirk grimaced. "Believe me, it's possible. So why do you want me dead?"
"I have decided to be praetor of the Romulan Empire."
"I see. The relevance is?"
Trajen looked at him as though it were painfully obvious. "You are aware that you are hated and reviled in the Romulan Empire?"
"I had some inkling of it, yes."
"Defeating you would greatly enhance my bid for power."
Not only blunt, but ambitious too. Great. "I hate to be the one to point it out, but there's a slight hitch in your idea. Your one ship won't be able to destroy us."
Trajen smiled. "I have a plan."
"Of course you do," Kirk agreed. They always did.
"Captain," Spock said in a low voice. Kirk waved a hand at him, still focused on the Romulan.
"Cloaked, you cannot find us to fire on us," Trajen went on.
"Cloaked, you don't have the power to fire on us," Kirk countered.
"Captain," Spock repeated, no louder but with more emphasis. Kirk shot him half-a-glance, an "if the ship's not exploding don't bother me" expression, and looked back at the Romulan.
"We cannot fire," Trajen agreed, "but it doesn't matter. Vulture out."
Kirk turned. "What is it, Spock?"
"We seem to have a slightly larger problem, Captain."
"Don't tell me. He brought friends!" Kirk said sarcastically. "Khan, perhaps, or Apollo. Or better yet—Trelane!"
Spock gave him a slightly odd look. "No, Captain. But we have been boarded."
There was silence on the bridge for a moment. Then Kirk said, very slowly and quietly, "No. No, we haven't."
Spock gave him a slightly odder look. "Internal sensors very clearly show fifteen beam signatures—"
"No, they don't," Kirk said firmly. "They don't, because we've already done this plot. Less than ten chapters ago. And I'm not doing it again! Sure, it was all fun and games the first time. Fill my bridge with smoke, point a disruptor at my doctor, call for the Klingons to destroy us. Well, it was enough trouble the first time, I'm not doing it a second time. I refuse! In fact, I want to talk to the author," Kirk demanded.
He did what?
"You heard me! The author, I want to talk to the author! I have a grievance."
Uh…okay, shoot. Not literally, Spock.
"Hey, you're talking to me here, I'm the one with the complaint. I don't like this plot, and I'm not doing it," Kirk insisted.
What's wrong with it? It's got action, humor…
"It hasn't got originality."
Okay, that I take exception to.
"The whole Klingon saga. Aliens beam aboard and wreak havoc. Romulans just beamed aboard, and I'm betting they're here to wreak havoc."
Well, yes, that is true.
"Are they going to Sickbay next?"
No.
"The auxiliary control room?"
No. Remember? You left orders for the door to be locked after last time.
"True. But it's still too similar. You need to rewrite it."
I do not. I like it.
"I don't. And I refuse to participate."
You don't have a choice. I'm the one at the keyboard, remember? We're only having this conversation because I thought it would be amusing.
Kirk frowned. "Okay, this is fast approaching regions completely lacking in fairness."
I'd say life isn't fair, but I hate it when people say that. Anyway, this'll be good, I promise. It's branching into a completely different direction. And you've been kind of silly looking for two chapters now. You get to be brilliant, if you let me go ahead with the plot.
Kirk was doubtful. "I have doubts."
How about shore leave? You can have shore leave afterwards.
"It's about time, it's been twenty chapters now."
Okay. Cooperate, and shore leave it is.
"I'm thinking Risa…"
I'm thinking G-rating…
"All right, whatever. But this better be good."
It will be.
At which point the actual plot came back, after that completely random and probably unnecessary divergence. Everyone, Kirk included, immediately forgot or ignored that he'd been carrying on a conversation with the narration for the last page and a half, and all firmly believed that only a matter of seconds had gone by.
"Internal sensors very clearly show fifteen beam signatures emanating from the Romulan ship and culminating somewhere in the saucer section. I am uncertain precisely where."
"Thank you, Mr. Spock, you're always a font of good news." Kirk didn't notice Spock's eyebrow rising, too busy turning the circumstances over in his head and searching for what he knew had to be there. A brilliant plan, that only he would be able to find and initiate.
The problem was direr than one might think. What were fifteen Romulans, when you had 430 crewmembers? Nothing, really, and he suspected Trajen of having delusions of grandeur. The trouble was the same trouble they'd had before. Whether the Romulans knew it or not, they had several million furry round allies. The tribbles had no reason to help the Romulans, of course, but they had a way of breeding chaos, which could only hamper efforts to capture the Romulans.
A pity they couldn't use the tribbles against the Romulans somehow.
Use the tribbles? Kirk sat bolt upright. Now there was an idea. But how…his eyes lit on Sulu, who was absently petting the fluorescent tribble on his console.
Use number one.
Kirk flipped a switch on his chair arm, and hooked into the speaker system. "This is Captain Kirk speaking, we seem to have something of a problem. Specifically, fifteen Romulans have boarded. There is no doubt that they will be apprehended shortly." That was as much for the benefit of the Romulans as for the crew. "Some strange things are going to be happening. No one panic, everything is completely under control. Kirk out."
He could sense Spock's eyebrow going up somewhere behind him. "'Strange things,' Captain?"
"Yes, Mr. Spock, very strange things," Kirk said briskly with no hint of an explanation, and called engineering. "Mr. Scott, may I have a moment of your time?"
"Aye, Captain, is it about the Romulans?"
"Yes, it is. I need a few things from you." Kirk considered carefully, his mind going a light year a second. "First, some red paint, preferably in spray bottles or cans of some kind."
"Er, red…paint, Captain?"
"Yes, as close as you can get it to the color of your shirt. Also, some nets. Butterfly nets, I think they're called."
"Butterfly…?"
"And I need you to do one other thing for me. Turn off the lights."
"Turn off…Captain, what…?"
"Every light on the entire ship, Mr. Scott, I want them all off. And send out some kind of signal to disrupt all belt lights too," Kirk added. "You can do that, can't you?"
"Well, yes, Captain, but how're we going to see? It's dark in space!"
"Of course. And it'll be nice and dark for the Romulans."
"And for us," Scotty pointed out unnecessarily.
"Not at all, Mr. Scott, not at all. You have an excellent source of completely natural lighting sitting in a pile right in your engine room."
"Captain…you don' mean…"
"I do. We're going to use the fluorescent tribbles."
Within a matter of minutes the ship was dark, and engineers with armfuls of fluorescent tribbles were wandering the ship, passing out the new lighting source. Kirk reclaimed the pink tribble from Sulu, and he and Spock set off for engineering, leaving the rest of the bridge crew to secure the bridge.
* * *
It was a strange thing walking through the corridor by the light of a pink tribble. Kirk held it up like a lantern, and it cast a rosy glow around them in the deep blackness. It made Spock's blue shirt look almost purple, while Kirk's took on an orangish tinge.
Once they got to engineering, it was lit much better than the rest of the ship. Partially due to the glow from the warp reactors, but also because of the pile of fluorescent tribbles. It was not an inconsequential pile. It was a massive mound of many-colored fur. Hot pink, electric blue, lime green, shining yellow, vivid orange, casting a strange light on the goings-on.
Passing in every direction were engineers carrying armfuls of brightly colored tribbles. With a couple of exceptions. Scotty and another engineer trailing behind him were carrying such interesting things as butterfly nets and spray cans. Kirk and Spock appropriated those, with a couple of extra fluorescent tribbles.
"I still dinna see it, Captain. What are you goin' to do with butterfly nets and paint?"
Kirk grinned. "First I'm going to net some tribbles. And then I'm going to net some Romulans."
* * *
In a different section of the ship, a few Romulans were having difficulties.
"What happened to the lights?"
"How would I know?"
"Maybe they had a systems failure."
"Yeah, those happen a lot. Random system failures with no relevance to the plot, or anything else. Just random black outs."
"So what are we gonna do?"
"Use belt lights, of course." A clicking sound, and no lessening of the blackness. "Or maybe not."
"Maybe we should just stand here until they come back on."
"Think there's a light switch around?"
"I don't know…ow."
"What?"
"I just found the wall."
They went on like this for some time. In fact, they were so involved in their dialogue that they didn't turn and notice the faint pink light just around the curve behind them.
Kirk concentrated, listening to the discussion. "I think there's four of them," he said in a low voice. (There were. How do I know? I'm the author.) "Hard to tell, what do you think—?"
"Captain. Four people approaching. Rapidly," Spock said quietly, nodding in the opposite direction to the Romulans.
Kirk turned his attention that way. Now that he was trying he heard faint footsteps, and a distant shout. He couldn't be sure, but he thought it a good bet that the shout was something along the lines of "carnivorous tribbles."
"Back against the wall, quick," Kirk said.
He and Spock backed up, and it was a good thing they did, because a moment later a black and red tornado thundered by. They went around the curve, and Kirk listened with satisfaction to the sound of several people crashing into several other people, a lot of curses in Romulan, and continued footsteps moving away.
"What was that?" came a dazed voice from around the curve.
Spock started to step away from the wall. "Not yet," Kirk warned.
Four seconds later another man came running by shrieking about fanged tribbles. The Romulans had been pretty well scattered by the last herd, but Jones still managed to knock over at least three. He shouted a hurried "Sorry!" and kept running, probably unaware that he'd encountered Romulans.
"What kind of lunatic asylum is Kirk running?" one of the Romulans demanded. Probably the single one Jones hadn't hit. The other three were too busy getting to their feet again.
"Interesting," Spock commented, again beginning to move out into the corridor.
"Not yet," Kirk repeated.
Three seconds later a large mass of furry bodies passed at knee height. Kirk's smile was a trifle malicious as he listened to the mingled sounds of purring, cursing, and crashing. When the fanged tribbles passed, quiet fell. The quiet of people who are resigned to their fates.
"You all right?"
"No."
"Not really."
"Anybody going to get up?"
"Wasn't planning on it."
"Me neither."
"Who knows what'll come at us next."
Kirk smiled. "Four down, eleven to go."
And, incidentally, the next thing that came at the Romulans were several personnel in gold shirts who broke off tribble-collection long enough to drag the Romulans down to the brig.
* * *
It has to be admitted that Kirk and Spock didn't have to work very hard to catch their first four Romulans. Didn't have to work at all, really. The next batch took more effort, and a multi-step plan. First came a trip to Rec Room Three with the butterfly nets (go ahead and check back two chapters, it says what kind of tribble it is. Or you could wait and find out as this chapter proceeds.), then onto an empty storage room. And then Kirk went in search of a few Romulans while Spock kept an eye on the trap.
Kirk found three Romulans only a few corridors over. Actually, they saw him first. Seeing as he had pink light around him, and they were in the dark.
"Hey look! A Starfleeter!" one of the Romulans shouted. "And he's got light!"
"Follow him!"
Kirk turned and ran for it. Not too fast; he didn't want to actually outdistance them. It wasn't hard. The Romulans were following light, true, but Kirk could see where he was going and they were still running in the dark. Consequently, they tripped and bumped into each other fairly often. You'd have thought they were red-shirts. But they managed to follow Kirk somehow, by following the pink light.
Closing in on the storage room, Kirk reached the tricky part of the plan. He hoped it really was as dark on the ship as it looked from inside the pink glow, and that the Romulans really were more interested in the light than in him.
He picked up speed as he approached the doors. They wooshed open on his approach. He threw the tribble inside and cut a sharp right angle to the left, disappearing into the black. The Romulans stumbled blindly onwards. They were momentarily confused by the disappearance of the pink light, when the doors shut, but they moved forward anyway. Soon the doors opened on their approach, revealing the pink light again. They rushed ahead.
The doors clicked shut behind them.
They discovered almost immediately that the room wasn't empty. It was rather full in fact. With fast moving balls of fur. Who seemed to feel the need to fly at top speed at the Romulans.
"I've been hit, I've been hit!" one of the Romulans shrieked. The fact that what hit him was soft and furry didn't seem to matter.
"What are they launching at us?"
"Can't tell, it's some new form of projectile!"
"Hit the deck, here come some more!"
It was rather chaotic. Kirk and Spock listened from the outside, by the light of an electric blue tribble.
"Who would've thought flying tribbles could be so useful?" Kirk asked, grinning.
"This is certainly an…unusual way to use tribbles, Captain."
"Seven down, eight to go."
* * *
Before Kirk and Spock could get to work on the next batch of Romulans, there was a new development that had to be adjusted for. Specifically, the sight of three Romulans walking along by the light of several fluorescent tribbles. They appeared to be holding them at arm lengths with definite expressions of dislike, but the fact remained that they had them. Kirk called Scotty and had the lights turned back on. If the Romulans had light, there was no good reason to leave the ship in darkness. Which would make the next couple of schemes slightly easier.
The first involved Kirk being captured by Romulans, while Spock went in search of the running amok red shirts. But we'll focus on Kirk for the moment. It wasn't hard to be captured by the three Romulans he located patrolling the corridor. It was a little harder to get them to 'direct' him the direction he wanted when they pointed the disruptor at him and said, "Move, human." The fact that they didn't seem to recognize him made the next bit not too hard though.
"You know, this isn't going to work," Kirk said conversationally as they walked down the corridor.
"Shut up and walk," the Romulan with the disruptor growled.
'I'm just letting you know. You could save some effort. Even if you capture everyone, they won't tell you the codes to work the bridge controls, and the auxiliary control room is the only other place you could access vital controls."
They continued on for a moment, Kirk hoping they'd caught the bait. They were slow, but they did get it.
"Wait," a Romulan said, halting. "We don't need codes in the auxiliary control room?"
Kirk managed a fairly creditable expression of guilt. "Did I say auxiliary control room? Sorry, no such thing, never heard of it," Kirk said rapidly. It had precisely the desired effect.
The disruptor was jerked at him. "Take us to the control room."
Kirk shook his head. "Think I better not. Captain wouldn't like it."
"Would he prefer that you be shot?"
Kirk hesitated. "Well…somehow I don't think he'd be very happy about that either." He heaved a sigh. "All right, this way."
He led them down a couple of corridors, stopping next to the hatch he'd taken note of before. It was positioned identically to the one that had dropped tribbles on him two chapters ago.
"Up there," Kirk said, pointing.
The Romulans looked at him doubtfully. "Up there?"
"Well we didn't want it in an obvious place," Kirk said matter-of-factly. "Intruders open doors, not hatches."
One Romulan frowned at him. "And how do we know you're telling the truth?"
Kirk shrugged. "You're pointing a disruptor at me. If that's not a control room, you'll fire. Where's the advantage in lying?"
The Romulans seemed to accept this. One went over to the hatch, and started to tug.
"You better pull together, it sticks," Kirk advised.
A second Romulan joined the first, and Kirk crossed his fingers that it really would stick. It really did. The third Romulan, with an irritated expression, went over to help.
Kirk discreetly backed up.
The hatch came off.
And out poured a torrent of giant tribbles. The Romulans were swamped, flooded, drowned.
"I am going to kill you!" one Romulan roared from the middle of the pile.
"How?" Kirk asked politely. The disruptor was buried somewhere under the purring mass of tribbles.
"As soon as I get out of here, I'll…I'll…" The Romulan came to the unhappy realization that getting out wasn't all that easy. "Get me out of here!" he shouted.
But that wasn't to be. The other two Romulans were equally stuck, and Kirk certainly wasn't going to dig them out. He had to go find some gold-shirts to drag the Romulans to the brig. And, of course, he had to locate Spock and report the numbers at ten down, five to go.
* * *
Kirk and Spock walked down the corridor, carefully tailing the group of five Romulans walking down the corridor.
"Judging by speed and trajectory, Stage Two should be at most advantageous position in six minutes," Spock said quietly. "I recommend putting Stage One into play in four-point-five minutes."
"Fine with…" Kirk started to agree, than stopped. He had just realized something. "We can't wait that long."
Spock looked at him quizzically.
"I just realized where they're going. Sickbay. We've got to head them off."
"While it will be a bit more difficult to execute if the Romulans are in Sickbay, acting prematurely is just as likely to disrupt the plan."
Kirk was shaking his head. "It's got nothing to do with that. If they were going anywhere else I'd say wait. But if they go to Sickbay they're bound to take hostages, and knowing Bones he's bound to tick them off, and one of them will be bound to point a disruptor at him, and I'll be dead."
"I am not following your chain of events. It appears to me that in this eventuality the Doctor would be dead."
"No, I'll rescue him. But then he'll kill me. This would be so close to being like last time that you could pretty easily call it a next time, and Bones was very specific about what he'd do to me if there was ever a next time," Kirk concluded, just as though it made perfect sense.
Spock blinked. "I see." You decide if he meant it.
"Good. Let's go."
The Romulans were more than a little surprised when two men in Starfleet uniforms came running at them carrying silvery canisters. Streaks of red shot out and struck the Romulans, sweeping across all five. And then they disappeared around a bend in the corridor.
The Romulans hit the floor on instinct, convinced that they'd been hit by phaser fire and were dead. A moment's consideration reminded them that they bled green blood, not red, and therefore the liquid all over them couldn't possibly be blood.
One swiped some away from his eyes, and looked at it. "Red paint?"
"Why shoot us with paint?"
"This place is a lunatic asylum, not a starship! Balls of fur everywhere, lights going on and off, red paint spraying around…"
"Come on, let's go look for some water and get rid of this stuff."
Under the close but unobserved eyes of Kirk and Spock, the Romulans had the good fortune of finding a sink behind the first door they tried. (You'd be surprised how many sinks there are on the Enterprise.)
They had bad fortune as soon as they turned the water on. It didn't come out. Something seemed to be blocking it up. The Romulan at the faucet turned the water up higher, increasing the pressure.
Out plopped a tribble.
The Romulan picked it up with two fingers, and looked at it distastefully. "Figures Starfleet would have vermin in their plumbing." The tribble purred. The Romulan tossed it down disgustedly. "Forget the paint, let's just get this mission over with."
At that moment outside, four men in red shirts ran frantically by from the direction of Sickbay, past the door the Romulans were behind, then past Kirk and Spock.
"Straight ahead, then turn right please," Spock ordered.
The red-shirts must have been paying some slight attention, because they followed the order.
The timing couldn't have been better. Jones had gotten lost somewhere along the way, leaving nothing at all between the herd of carnivorous tribbles and the newly emerged, red-spattered Romulans.
The tribbles charged.
The Romulans fled.
Kirk and Spock watched.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Kirk said happily.
"I see no way in which this is particularly aesthetically pleasing."
"Not the view. The score."
"The 'score,' Captain?"
Kirk nodded. "Tribbles 15, Romulans 0."
* * *
In a matter of hours things were quiet on the Enterprise. Kirk sent the Romulans packing, and we can pretty well bet that Trajen won't make praetor.
McCoy noticed something else of even more interest, and commented on it to Kirk, who had come by to see if he was on any hit lists (he wasn't; they called it even between the tribble pile and the Romulans). "So, Jim, what happened to all the tribbles?"
Kirk assumed an expression of almost philosophical thought. "It's a funny thing about tribbles. They like humans. They also like Vulcans. And since tribbles aren't big on nuances, they like Romulans too. It could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, except for one thing." He smiled serenely. "Romulans don't like tribbles."
McCoy shook his head, grinning. "You beamed every tribble to the Romulan ship, didn't you?"
"All but one." Kirk flourished a single pink tribble.
"Don't tell me you finally got attached to it?"
"Hardly. No, I have a plan," Kirk said, eyes gleaming. "I am going to find a very, very large box. And I am going to put the tribble inside the box with lots and lots of grain. And then I will mark it fourth class and ship it to Mars by way of Rigel. It'll take weeks to get there."
"Why Mars?"
"Because the Federation has a penal colony on Mars. With one very special occupant."
Comprehension dawned. "Oh."
Kirk nodded. "One could say that I'm sending the tribble as a little gift to Kagon." He grinned almost maliciously. "Except that it won't be little by the time it gets there."
And so ended the saga of the tribbles. Except for one small little thing. A dialogue McCoy had that afternoon with his cabinet.
"Jones, come out of there!"
"No!"
"I told you, the tribbles are gone."
"I don't believe you."
"Have I ever lied to you?"
"Yes."
"I have not!"
"That time I had the stomach pains, and you took a blood sample, you told me it wouldn't hurt. It hurt."
"That doesn't count. All doctors tell their patients things won't hurt. No one believes them. Anyway, that's got nothing to do with anything. The tribbles are gone, you can come out."
"I won't."
"You ought to be ashamed. A grown man, scared of little balls of fluff. What are you, Klingon?"
"My family has bad luck with tribbles."
"You what?"
"Tribbles wrecked my cousin's life."
"They what?"
"Couple years ago. My senior year at the Academy. He wrote me. Tribbles multiplied all over a starbase, and he got stuck picking them all up."
A pause. "Your cousin wouldn't be named Cyrano, would he?"
"You know him?"
"We've met."
"Well, he said some real jerk of a starship captain with a big ego assigned him to pick up the tribbles. It's gonna take years."
Another pause. "Word of advice. I wouldn't mention to Jim that you're related to Cyrano Jones."
"I can't tell him about Cousin Cyrano anyway, I'm not leaving, remember?"
"Oh come on, Jones, be reasonable!"
"No."
"This is ridiculous!"
"I won't."
"Jones, get out of my cupboard!"
Jones came out eventually, but it took awhile. All in all, it was a rough day for everyone. Fortunately, shore leave was due next chapter.
Anyone even remember what they wrote? Oh well, I'll reply anyway.
Alania: No, no, no, you have to see that episode! Doesn't matter if I've explained it all, you have to see it for the simple reason that it's The Trouble with Tribbles! And it's funny. And why is Kirk carrying a fluorescent tribble? Because I wanted a lot of random people to comment that he has a very nice tribble there. No, really, that's why. In the context of the story, it's because he picked it up to look at it in Engineering, and than he was so distracted by fanged tribbles who don't like red that he forgot he was still carrying it. Y'know, stuck it under an arm and forgot about it. And he didn't want to just leave it in the middle of a corridor later in case it got forgotten, and started multiplying, and…well, you get the idea. And a funny note about Friday the Thirteenth is that Nemesis opened that day, back in December. And don't ask me about Romulan/Klingon ships, I can't follow them. Seems like half the time they have identical ships.
PearlGirl: As stated above, yes, you all need to see Trouble With Tribbles. It does seem to be a lot of people's favorite. Personally, it comes in second to Amok Time. Which has, oddly enough, as many memorably funny lines, and you can't beat a sappy ending. Another chapter as soon as I can manage it! They had a memorial? For RED-SHIRTS? What is the world coming to?
Shameeka: Wow, how did we jump from girly tribbles to comments regarding a love interest? Well, okay, I guess. Anyway, sorry this chapter took awhile.
Whatshername: Yeah, Simmons got a reprieve because I needed someone to answer the phone. Comm. Whatever. And come to think of it, that is what T'Pol lacks. She needs to raise her eyebrow more often, I think.
Wedge Antilles: Funny you should mention Disney, because…well, you'll see.
Taskemus: Ah, random rambling…I enjoy reading it so much. : ) And as you can see, Kirk never did make it to security. But then again, why would anyone want to, really?
Emp: Yeah, Kirk had a rough time. But I was nicer this chapter. And I'll be even nicer next chapter.
Nev: I think there's an untapped market out there…someone should be selling multi-colored tribbles…
Silverfang: I can't reply to yours because I'm in hiding from the SPCR. I'll be nice to Jones sometime…soon. I think. Not this chapter…and not the next one…or the one after that…but maybe after that I'll do something nice! It's not my fault I've got things planned way in advance!
Unrealistic: Spork? Spork? Outrage! Give your brother whatfor for me. Everybody knows Kirk is much better than Picard. But I do find Archer to be a close second. Well, not that close, but a respectable second.
These things just keep getting longer. Not that I'm complaining, mind you! You keep reviewing, I'll keep typing!