Disclaimer: None of this is mine.

A/N: My response to Tom's line from the episode "Prey": "I once chased a mouse through Jefferies tube 32."

Historian's Note: Takes place very early in Season 4.

Mousehunt

It had all started out innocently enough. He'd offered to go down to Cargo Bay 1 and help B'Elanna get the parts that she needed to improve the warp coils on their way to duty shifts. He had a few minutes, and if he was a little late for shifts with the Doctor it was never a big deal. A sarcastic remark or two was all he got, provided he wasn't over five minutes late.

The problem was, instead of opening the bin with Arkolian parts, he opened the bin with Arkolian grain.

Actually, that wouldn't have been a problem if a mouse hadn't hopped out. Apparently it had eaten so much grain that it's biosignal was almost identical to the reading they got on the grain. He found that out later. His first thought was Neelix better not try using that grain.

Just then Neelix walked through the door. "Good morning, Lieutenants! You're not trying to hide the leola root, are you?"

"Oh, no," Tom groaned, jogging out the doors. "Neelix, whatever you do, don't use that Arkolian grain!" he called on the way.

"Where are you going?" asked B'Elanna, who'd apparently found the parts without his help.

"I'm pretty sure a mouse just ran out the corridor." Yep, there it went, off to the left. Considering how far they were from Earth, rodents must look pretty much the same on a lot of planets.

"A mouse?"

"It was in with the grain."

"Great. Just what we need."

"You're not afraid of mice, are you?" he teased.

"I wanted a pet mouse when I was seven, but my mother wouldn't let me get one," she said by way of reply. "A mouse could cause a lot of damage to Voyager. We have enough going on with the coils without adding rodent damage to the list."

He hadn't thought of that.

"Paris to Sickbay."

"Yes, Mr. Paris?"

"Um, Doc, I'm gonna be a few minutes late. There's a mouse I need to catch before it snacks on anything important."

"Very funny."

"I'm not joking. Ask B'Elanna."

"I see it, Doctor," vouched B'Elanna, who turned off to go to Engineering. "And if that mouse messes up anything, someone is going to be very sorry." The way she said it, Tom got the distinct impression that he was that somebody.

"That's quite unsanitary."

"With that in mind, can you jettison the Arkolian grain it was in on medical grounds?" It would be bad enough to chase a mouse; much worse to eat grain it had been living in for a month.

"Good luck," called out B'Elanna.

"For once you've found a good reason to be late for your shift. It almost makes me suspicious."

"I'm running down the corridors like a maniac and you think I want this?"

"You could use the scanners to locate this mouse."

"I know where it is. I just don't know how to catch up with it."

"Very well. Please don't take any longer than necessary. Sickbay out."

Tom rounded a corner behind his prey in time to hear a piecing "Eeeek!" and then, a moment later, "Oh, damn." That didn't sound promising.

Crewman von Meeger looked at him apologetically. "Sir, I just let that thing in the Jefferies tube."

"You're kidding."

"I'm really afraid of mice, and I thought I'd hide in there, but he beat me to it." He groaned. The crewman was nice enough, but she'd just made his day a whole lot harder. Why hide from a mouse in a Jefferies tube? Well, there was no rationalizing fear. Tom climbed in. He didn't like Jefferies tubes much, and the prospect of chasing the mouse through one was unappealing. Obviously, he'd gotten up on the wrong side of bed this morning.

The little devil was a few meters ahead of him. "Don't even think about eating anything."

Crawling along as fast as he could wasn't going to get him close enough to catch the mouse in the next millennium. He'd have to outwit it.

Outwitting it meant spending the next fifteen minutes following it until it reached a dead end. Lunging at and finally catching the mouse was less satisfying than he'd hoped.

Crawling out of the Jefferies tube, he hit his commbadge. "Paris to Janeway."

"What can I do for you, Lieutenant?"

"Permission to transport one rodent into space, Captain?"

There was a chuckle on the other end of the comm. "To join the grain the Doctor told me about?"

"It seems fitting."

"Permission granted."

As he carted his quarry to the transporter room, getting several strange looks in the process, Tom came to the conclusion that he really hated mice.