Spoccer276: Thank you for the nice review! I hope you continue to read as I update.


The next morning, Doctor McCoy went into sickbay early, to see how the cleanup was going. Things looked a lot more normal than they had the day before. Smiling to himself, the Doctor went into the next room to check on Sid.

The sloth's cage was sitting innocently on the floor. McCoy knelt down next to it and looked inside. "What the-- IT'S GONE!" he shouted, standing up.

Nurse Chapel poked her head into the room. "Is something wrong?" she asked.

"Yes, something is wrong! That sloth--Sid--it's gone! GONE! I locked it in that cage myself! How could it have gotten out?"

"Oh, well... er... Actually, Doctor, I let it out..."

"You WHAT?"

"I... er, it wanted to, uh, stretch its legs for a minute... I didn't think there could be any harm done! But it ran away before I could--"

"Do you know where it went?"

"No. It took off so fast I couldn't tell which direction it went."

McCoy glared at her a moment longer, then called the Captain. "Jim, we have a problem," he said.

"Please tell me it's not the sloth," Captain Kirk responded.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but it's the sloth. It's escaped again."

"I thought you had locked it up!"

"Don't blame me! Nurse Chapel let it out of its cage!"

The Captain sighed. "All right, all right. I'll let the security teams know to keep an eye out for Sid, and I also want you and some of your people to start looking for it."

"How am I supposed to find a 3-foot sloth on an enormous starship?" the doctor exclaimed.

"Simple. Follow the trail of destruction," Captain Kirk replied. "Kirk out."

Disgusted, McCoy ordered some of the medical people to start searching the ship for the missing sloth.

Meanwhile, Captain Kirk had just returned to his private quarters. He had barely gotten one foot in the room when he noticed the mess. Well, actually, mess was probably the understatement of the century. The entire place had been torn apart, turned upside-down. Nothing was even remotely near its proper place. The bedsheets were lying on the floor in a heap, torn and ruined. The pillow had been destroyed; feathers covered everything. The computer's screen had been smashed and its memory erased.

Captain Kirk hurried out into the hallway and called one of the security members. "Kirk here," he said. "Any luck with finding the sloth?"

"Not yet, sir," the security officer replied.

"Well, I know somewhere you might start looking..."

The Captain had barely finished giving instructions to the security officer, and was heading to the bridge, when he was paged over the com system. "Kirk here," he said into the nearest com link.

"Spock here," came the first officer's voice. "Captain, I have found the sloth."

"You have! Great! Where?"

"I stepped into my quarters and discovered that it had been ransacked. I immediately suspected the specimen because of its previous reputation for reeking havoc, and decided that the specimen might still be hiding somewhere nearby. Upon conducting a thorough search of the room, I discovered the specimen hiding amid a pile of my possessions, which it had dragged under my bed."

"Ah, yes... Well, have you restrained it somehow?"

"Yes," Spock replied. "I rendered the specimen unconcious by employing the use of the Vulcan nerve pinch, which proved most effective, as usual."

"Yes, of course, that's a very handy trick you've mastered," Captain Kirk muttered. "All right, well, I'll get a security team and be there in just a minute. You keep that sloth under control."

"Yes, Captain. Spock out."

Captain Kirk called for a security team to meet him, then hurried on toward Spock's quarters. When he arrived there, the security team was waiting for him. Sid was in a cage, still unconcious.

"Oh, good," the Captain said. "You have the sloth."

"Yes, sir," one of the security officers said. "What should we do with it?"

The Captain shrugged. "Put it in the brig."

The security officers looked at each other.

"Just do it. And make sure he's locked in tightly."

"Whatever you say, sir," the security officer said. The security team headed away towards the brig.