Chapter Six

The senior staff were deep in discussions about how to rid the ship of the tribbles. Malcolm and Trip were all for exterminating them like vermin. But Hoshi, Travis and Phlox wanted a more humane way of dealing with them.

"Well, T'Pol," Archer asked. " you haven't said anything. What do you think?"

"I think that some of you are forgetting that this is a sentient species. They have as much right to life as we do. Therefore we must find a way of getting them to a suitable planet and re-homing them."

"What?" spluttered an indignant Trip, "And just how do you propose we do that? How do we catch them, and get them all in one place, huh?"

"That's something we're going to have to work on, Trip," Archer replied, trying to keep the situation reasonably calm, "And T'Pol is going to have to find a suitable planet."

"It would have to be an M class planet," suggested Phlox, "preferably unpopulated, as I can't see many types of beings wanting these animals on their homeworld. They would take over in short order."

"Right," Archer seemed to come to a decision, "T'Pol, get to work finding these creatures a new home. Malcolm, come up with a plan to get them into one place, so we can land them safely. You have twenty-four hours. Get to it."

Malcolm left the ready room wondering what he had done to deserve this. He had to come up with a plan. Twenty-four hours, and he hadn't a clue where to start, there were so many of them. Far too many for the brig. He would much rather shoot every single one of them personally – and his phase pistol would not be set to stun!

He thought he'd enlist Trip's help, so went down to engineering. Trip, however, was in no mood to indulge Malcolm, and whilst he was telling Malcolm to do his job and secure the ship, there was a loud bang followed by hissing and crackling from one of the consoles. Then lights were flashing and people yelling and running around.

"Get outta here, Malcolm," Trip shouted angrily. "Go do your job, and let me get on with mine. They'll have the warp engine off line if we don't get rid of them soon."

Malcolm left quickly, jumping over a gaggle of tribbles as he did so, deciding he'd go to his quarters and do some thinking.

Heading towards the turbolift, he saw the Captain coming his way, followed by a multi-coloured rolling tide of tribbles.

"Captain," he asked, "you do realise what's following you, don't you?"

"It's Porthos!" He sounded frustrated. "They seem to like him rather a lot. I brought him out for a walk, and we were immediately surrounded."

Malcolm looked into the mess of fur and spotted Porthos, who blended in very well with the brown gold and black colourings, apparently having a great time with his friends.

"I think he's having fun," observed Malcolm.

"Thats as may be, but I'm going to have a job getting him back inside my quarters without having a load of them in, too."

"Do they follow him every time he goes out?" Malcolm asked, casually.

"Yes. Why?"

Malcolm clicked his fingers. "I've just had a brilliant idea, Sir. Must go," and he turned and sprinted towards the turbolift.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Are you enjoying this? If so, please tell me.