CHAPTER 5

Two weeks had passed since Hoshi had brought Warp Core and Torpedo on board. The cats had settled in, making themselves at home in her cabin.

They were the center of attention for numerous visitors who found their way to Hoshi's door for one transparent reason or another. She could have done without her cabin being referred to as the "cat house," however.

The cats also developed an annoying habit -- they kept getting out of the cabin when she wasn't there.

The first time, Trip had called her on the bridge from Engineering to tell her Warp Core had shown up there. The only thing Hoshi could think of was the cat must have slipped out of her cabin when she'd left that morning.

She'd asked Captain Archer for permission to retrieve Warp Core and take him back to her cabin. Embarrassed, she'd promised she would be more careful about keeping the cats in her quarters, but she'd seen the doubtful look Jon had given her as she exited the bridge.

The second time, Hoshi was eating lunch with Travis in the mess hall when Malcolm strode in, spotted her, and walked over.

"Torpedo is in the armory," he said bluntly.

"Isn't that where the torpedos are supposed to be?" Travis asked with a straight face.

Malcolm glared at him. With exquisitely precise pronunciation, he said, "Torpedo the cat."

Hoshi was puzzled. "How could he have gotten in the armory?"

"I have no idea how he got into my armory," Malcolm said, "but it wouldn't have happened if he hadn't gotten out of your cabin."

Hoshi shook her head. She'd been taking extra care to make sure the cats didn't slip out when she left each morning.

She pushed back her chair and stood, picking up her tray. "I'll go get him."

"Of course you will," Malcolm said testily. "The armory is no place for a cat."

Hoshi disposed of her tray and left the mess hall, Malcolm following her. As they walked down the corridor to the turbolift, she said, "I really have no idea how they get out. I've checked everything."

"They must be slipping out when you leave," Malcolm said, reaching past her and pushing the button to summon the turbolift.

"Not today," she said. "I know because I checked where they were before I went out the door. They were both curled up napping on the bed."

The turbolift arrived and they entered. Malcolm punched the button for F deck.

"I can't help wondering if someone's letting them out as a joke," Hoshi said thoughtfully. She glanced slyly at Malcolm. "Then again, there are only a few people who have access to entry codes."

Malcolm glared at her. "Letting animals run loose on the ship is not my idea of a joke."

The turbolift stopped and Malcolm led the way when the door opened. He strode off rapidly, and Hoshi had to hurry to keep up. Entering the armory, she was in time to see Malcolm fall forward and hit the deck with a thud as a gray streak ran between his legs.

"Bloody hell!" Malcolm yelled, rolling onto his back and clutching his knee.

Hoshi had the presence of mind to grab Torpedo as he shot toward the open door. Holding the squirming cat firmly against her chest, she asked Malcolm, "Are you OK?"

"That damn cat tripped me!" he said between clenched teeth.

"He didn't mean to," Hoshi said. "Besides, you should watch where you're walking. It's not Torpedo's fault he blends in with the deck plating."

"He could have at least made some noise to let me know he was there," Malcolm persisted.

The commotion had attracted the attention of the armory staff. As Foster came over to offer his boss a hand up, Hoshi reflected that Torpedo and Malcolm had some things in common. They were both usually rather quiet and both could move with an almost unnatural speed when the need arose.

With the crewman's help, Malcolm stood and gingerly put his weight on the leg. Satisfied it would support him, he looked accusingly at the cat.

Wrapped protectively in Hoshi's arms, Torpedo was hiding his head in the crook of her elbow. Hoshi herself was looking at Malcolm with wide, apprehensive eyes.

"I think I scared him more than he hurt me," Malcolm said, relenting. "Is he OK?"

"I think so."

Hoshi stroked Torpedo's head reassuringly and he purred faintly. To her surprise, the cat turned in her arms to look at Malcolm and silently mouthed a meow.

Hoshi held the cat out to him. "I think he's trying to say sorry."

Malcolm's expression clearly showed he thought she was daft as he took the cat from her. Torpedo immediately snuggled up, bumping the top of his head against Malcolm's chin. Hoshi was relieved when she caught Malcolm trying not to smile as he rearranged his grasp, holding the cat out in front of him so he could look him in the eye. Torpedo dangled limply in the air, staring back, not even his tail moving.

"We ought to classify you as a dangerous weapon," Malcolm said. "You're certainly living up to your name."

Grumbling about a backlog of work, Malcolm returned Torpedo to Hoshi.

On the way back to her cabin, there was another surprise. The turbolift halted on E deck, and in stepped Trip, a docile Warp Core draped over one shoulder.

"Look who I found in Engineering again," he said, stroking the orange fur.

"I can't believe this!" Hoshi said in exasperation. "How are they getting out?"

"Somebody's got to be letting 'em out," Trip said as she hit the button for C deck. "There's no way they could get out by themselves, not the way this ship is constructed. There aren't any uncovered vents in your quarters, are there?"

"No," she said. "That's the first thing I checked when Warp Core got out the first time."

The turbolift arrived at Hoshi's deck and they disembarked. Hoshi was walking ahead when a blur of orange rushed past her.

"Hey!" Trip called out. "He got away from me!"

Hoshi started to run after Warp Core but slowed when she saw him stop in front of her door. The cat hunkered down on his haunches and then jumped into the air. At the height of his leap, he made contact with the access control panel with both front paws.

When the door didn't open, Warp Core repeated the performance, but the door still didn't open.

A huge smile lit Hoshi's face and she gave Torpedo, still nestled in her arms, a squeeze.

"You're never going to get back in that way, Warp Core," she said. He looked up at her expectantly as she approached the door. "That only works from the inside."

"So that's how they're gettin' out," Trip drawled when he came up beside her. "Too bad Warp Core doesn't know your access code. Now that would have been a sight to see."

Trip told her he could rework the access panel so Hoshi could switch off the inside panel when she left. Unfortunately, he was still working on the injector problem and it could be several days before he could get around to performing that task.

The very same day, Hoshi returned to her cabin after her shift to find Torpedo in the cage. Malcolm had found him outside the armory and brought him back, taking the precaution of putting him in the cat brig, as he called it. It was the only sure-fire way to confine the cats.

The next morning, however, Hoshi didn't have the heart to cage the cats before she left. If her cabin was small enough that they felt the need to get out, she could only imagine how they would feel being cooped up in the cage for eight hours.

And so the cats continued to perform their Houdini routine. Warp Core almost always went to Engineering, but Torpedo developed a penchant for roaming, despite having a more cautious disposition than his brother.

One of Torpedo's unscheduled jaunts took him to the galley, where Chef informed her that the cat "was a perfect gentleman," waiting patiently for a treat and not once trying to jump onto the countertop where meals were being prepared. The incident reinforced Hoshi's belief that the cats had been pets aboard another ship, trained not to get onto counters in the galley.

Another time Torpedo visited sickbay. Hoshi arrived to find the doctor trying to soothe his creatures, which were screeching and hissing under the cat's watchful eyes. That the feline was sitting on one of the highest shelves seemed to anger Phlox's bat in particular, and it was shrieking at the top of its little bat lungs.

"Perhaps if the cats were more frequent visitors to sickbay," Phlox said over the din as he helped Hoshi climb up onto a countertop to retrieve Torpedo, "my creatures would get used to them."

"The captain said to keep them confined," Hoshi said, stretching out her hand toward Torpedo.

"That's rather an unnatural condition for cats," the doctor said. "They need a certain amount of room to move around, and two cats in a cabin the size of yours makes for a rather stressful situation. Their inclination to explore their surroundings is understandable. I believe there is an Earth saying about curiosity and cats."

"It's what kills them," Hoshi said flatly, stretching a little farther, "if I don't do it first out of frustration."

Torpedo deigned to sniff her hand, then leaped off the shelf to land heavily on the floor.

"Cats do have a perverse sense of humor, don't they?" Phlox said as he helped Hoshi down.

Hoshi brushed back a stray strand of hair as she blew out a breath in exasperation.

"What am I going to do with you?" she said to Torpedo, who was sitting in the middle of sickbay, one hind leg extended in the air as he groomed his nether regions.

"I wish I was that flexible," Phlox said.

Hoshi gave the doctor a disgusted look before gathering up the cat and heading back to her quarters.

Later, on her way to Engineering to retrieve Warp Core yet again, she reflected on the doctor's words. If it weren't for the captain's orders, she'd probably let the cats roam if they were so inclined. They seemed perfectly content to remain in her cabin so long as she was there. It was only when she was away that they became bored, or curious, or both.

Other than the hassle of chasing after them every time they got out, they hadn't caused any harm. Well, except for the time Torpedo had tripped Malcolm, but that had been an accident.

She entered Engineering to find Warp Core balanced on the platform railing at the warp engine controls, looking for all the world as if he were supervising Trip. The engineer was giving a running commentary on what he was doing and since there were no people near him Hoshi surmised he must be talking to the cat.

She crossed the deck to the bottom of the platform's ladder.

"Warp Core, you've been a naughty boy again," she scolded.

Warp Core looked down at her, his tail waving a languid greeting as his eyes squeezed almost all the way shut.

"Hey, Hoshi!" Trip said. "It's OK. He's been good the whole time he's been here."

"How long has he been here?" she asked as she climbed the ladder.

"About three hours."

"Three hours!" she said in dismay. "Why didn't you call me sooner?"

Trip grinned as he ran a cloth along the edge of the control panel. "Seems like you've been spendin' an awful lot of time chasin' after your cats, and I thought you could use a breather. Besides, Warp Core here has done me a big favor."

"Oh? What's that?" Hoshi asked, leaning against the railing. Warp Core, walking as delicately as if he were on a balance beam, came to her and bumped his head against her arm.

"You know that problem we've been having with the injector system?" Trip said. "Warp Core here solved it. Might even go so far as to say he helped us avert a major 'cat-astrophe.'"

Hoshi groaned at the bad pun and said, "I know some things about cats. And one of those things is that they don't have engineering degrees."

"Had nothin' to do with engineering," Trip said. "Look over there."

He pointed down to the main floor. At first she didn't know what she was supposed to be looking at, then she saw the open box on the maintenance table. There was a small, rodent-like animal in it.

"What is that?" she asked, both fascinated and repelled.

"Heck if I know," he said. "It's not from Earth, that's for sure. I figure it's some planet's equivalent of a rat. It was back behind one of the injector assembly housings, and Warp Core here sniffed it out."

"I hope that's all he did to it."

"One of the crew got it away from Warp Core after he snagged it. I don't know how long we woulda kept replacing parts before we figured out it wasn't some sort of metal fatigue. All along it was corrosion from that creature."

At her puzzled look, Trip explained. "It wasn't chewin' on anything. Far as I can tell, it has some kind of acidic secretion that was eating through the alloy. Phlox will be able to tell for sure."

Hoshi picked up Warp Core. "We'll have to see about getting you something extra special for dinner tonight as a reward," she said.

She hefted the big cat over her shoulder and began climbing down the ladder. Warp Core calmly endured the process, his head swiveling to look at some of the crewmembers working on the main floor.

When she reached the bottom, Trip called out.

"You know, you really ought to talk to the captain," he said, peering down at her from the platform. "Who knows if there are any more of those critters on board? The cats might be able to hunt them down."

She smiled up at him. "I've been trying to come up with a reason to persuade him to let the cats out. That's the best one so far."