One of the first things they teach you in Starfleet Academy is that you should be ready to face anything, anything at all, when you are out in deep space. Especially on this ship. Everyone knows that, from the Captain to the newest ensign.
You can never tell what you may have to face in deep space, be it soul devouring octopi (yeah, that really did happen once) or an invasion of tribbles (everyone is trying to forget that really did happen). And any crewmember of Enterprise is ready to face it.
Unfortunately, the one thing the science and engineering ensigns currently in the Mess room were not prepared to face was a scenario where the Captain walked in on their impromptu Red VS Blue food fight.
Worse, the captain was flanked by the very grumpy Chief Medical Officer and the very Vulcan First Officer. There were several expressive swears in Klingon, Andorian and Standard as the startled ensigns dived en masse for the nearest Jeffries Tubes.
"As you were!" the captain shouted, the moment he was sure he could open his mouth without laughing (or worse, giggling – Jim had been trying to cure himself of that annoying tendency, to little avail). The remaining fighters froze, steeling themselves.
"Gentlemen" the Captain's tone was steely, but sort of reassuring, at least to those familiar with the superiors' body language and tone cues. This was the only-obligated-and-not-motivated-to-haul-you-over-the-coals tone. " Would someone care to explain exactly what was happening here?"
A moment of looong silence followed, everyone staring straight ahead, the blue shirted figures doing their level best not to look at their chief (whose eyebrow had practically disappeared into his hairline). Finally Turner gulped, mentally screamed out to any deity who may be listening, and croaked out, "Food fight, sir. Red Vs Blue."
McCoy chuckled. The Captain managed to hold on to the stern-Boss image a moment longer.
"Who was winning?"
"We, sir. Engineering."
Well, they were in the lead before the interruption. And it wasn't like the Science team was going to protest. Most seemed to have temporarily gone mute, with the Commander glowering at them like that. And he would remember every single one of their names too, and most likely those of the faster ones who had gotten to the Jeffries tubes. One of the drawbacks of having a commanding officer with eidetic memory.
Turner could see that the Captain was not going to be too hard on them. Food fights were hardly dignified, or approved behavior, but everyone understood the need to let off steam, especially when the ship was on one of the interminably boring star mapping expeditions.
Starship crews function perfectly under pressure – it's boredom that's the problem. Stuff like food fights and hide-and-seek in Jeffries tubes were ways to work the adrenaline out of the system. (From what yeomen reported, the captain's way of letting of steam was playing practical jokes – mostly on the pair currently flanking him.).
"How long has this been going on?"
"Uh…Ten minutes or so, sir."
The Vulcan let his gaze sweep the room. "Ten minutes? "
Turner followed his gaze and winced. Um, well, the place did look like...
"We always clean up afterwards, sir!"
"Whose idea was to modify the Replicators into…artillery?"
The captain did chuckle at that.
"Food cannons? Seriously? I must speak to Scotty about his creative engineering course."
"Uh, that was the Science team, sir"
The CMO snorted. The Science Department Chief glared at the few unfortunate Blueshirts who remained. The Captain didn't notice. He was already moving towards the nearest modified replicator. The ensign positioned there skipped out of the way.
"So you managed to rewire –"
"Sir, that's the trigger button!"
The warning came too late, as the curious captain had already pressed what was, on an unmodified replicator, the menu button. Vulcans have exceptional reflexes. Grumpy CMOs don't.
"JAMES TIBERIUS KIRK!"
The ensigns almost made for the Jeffries tubes again as the captain got a (weirdly adorable) wide eyed I'm-so-dead look on his face.
"Um, sorry, Bones?"
Dr McCoy could somehow manage to look as threatening as a klingon on steroids, even with ice cream pie dripping down his face. Mr Spock was the one to react first..
"Ensigns. Back to your departments. You will be informed of the disciplinary action at the end of this shift."
The food-fight teams didn't need to be told twice. In less time than it took to give the order, the mess hall was deserted except for the three senior officers. Turner was the last out of the room, having tripped over a chair on his way, so he was the only one who caught a glimpse of the furious CMO grabbing a piece of pie off the nearest table and flinging it at his giggling captain..
"I said sorry, Bones!"
"Of all the juvenile…Try this!"
"Hey! That's good apple pie!"
Spock dodged the icecream sandwich that was flung at the irate doctor (The captain was an exceptional marksman with phasers, but apparently that talent didn't extend to…less conventional projectiles) and placed himself carefully out of the line of fire to wait it out, with an expression that screamed your-illogic-is-frying-my-brain-cells.
The actual fighters who had been put on clean-up duty in their off-duty time was somewhat surprised to find a portion of the mess had been cleaned up. Turner grinned. After all, someone as fair as the captain would probably insist on all the fighters doing their share of clean up…
…..
Turner was having an exceptionally bad day. It hadn't exactly started out good (Scotty had caught him heating his coffee on the warp coils – hey, he had been in a hurry!), but it took a very rapid turn for the worse when the Red Alert Klaxon began to blare.
In the lower decks, he was too removed from the scene of action to know what was going on, but enough got through to know it was definitely not going their way. Whoever the hell it was could apparently transport through their shields with no problem.
At no time is the ship grapevine faster than when under fire, so by the time a bunch that looked like overgrown armadillos began rounding up crew members and locking them up in various rooms, Turner knew that these guys were some kind of slavers and had taken over the ship…for the time being, at any rate.
He was not sure by which criteria the space-armadillos decided who should be put where, but he found himself locked in one of the Rec rooms along with a bunch of other command and science guys of varying ranks.
A few minutes later the armadillos dragged in the captain and the first officer. There was a general rush made for the armadillos at the sight of the limp forms, but the slavers were apparently quite used to uncooperative merchandise. Fortunately, it seemed that they had no intention of seriously damaging the merchandise either – the two COs had only been stunned, and in less than half an hour, both were awake and alert.
Turner was one of the new ensigns, and not a particularly brilliant one at that – he had little to contribute to the rapid, whispered discussion that was being held between the senior officers and a few others they had called into the impromptu war council. That didn't stop him from hovering as near as he could.
The armadillos (Mr Spock did mention their actual name, but you'd have to be one of the armadillos or a Vulcan or maybe lieutenant Uhura to pronounce it without permanent vocal cord damage, so armadillo it is) were apparently planning to rendezvous with a larger ship in a couple of hours time.
"We have to regain control of the ship before that. We're already outnumbered bad enough."
"Our options are somewhat limited, captain."
That was something new to Turner – he had not been aware there were any options at all
."Their physiology renders them vulnerable to Argon gas."
"Argon?"
"One of the inert atmospheric components-"
"I know what Argon is! It's effect?"
"For human, Vulcan, Andorian and Caitian physiologies – the four species we have aboard as crew- it is completely harmless in small amounts. The Andorians may experience mild euphoria, nothing more debilitating. However, a slight rise in the normal atmospheric levels of Argon would be enough to induce loss of consciousness in our hi-jackers."
"We'll have to get to the Environment Control. Or can you do it from another computer?"
"Any computer tied into the mainframe will do, captain."
Uh, none of the Rec Room computers were connected to the mainframe…
"We can get to one of those right down the corridor."
"The guards-"
"We can cause a distraction, Captain!" one of the Command ensigns declared enthusiastically.
"Would have to be some distraction, to keep them from noticing the highest ranking prisoners sneaking off!"Several glared at the pessimist who pointed this out, but the girl was right. Mr Spock isn't exactly inconspicuous..
"We'll have to take down the guards. Any idea how many are out there?"
Hiddleston, who had been brought in last, said there were about a dozen – overkill, much? Ah, they definitely had the personnel to maintain that watch. There were about a dozen of the Enterprise crew in the room, but all were unarmed.
"We need weapons…"
Every eye wandered over the Rec room. Maybe some of the furniture..
"Ranged weapons."
"Not the sort of thing we have much use for in here.."
"There's some cutlery, we can use that.."
The Captain frowned, not particularly liking the idea. Suddenly, his face lit up with a grin.
"Of course! Ensign Turner!"
The ensign in question, perched on one of the nearby tables to listen, shot to attention so fast that he tripped over his own feet and would have face-planted to the floor if his neighbor hadn't grabbed him and set him back on his feet.
"Yes sir! "
"You were in one of the Red Vs Blue foodfight teams, right?"
"Uh..Yes sir."
"Remember enough of the replicator modifications?"
An echo of the captain's grin appeared on several faces around the room.
"Just give us five minutes, sir!"
…..
It took seven minutes (Turner was pretty sure the commander timed them), but finally they had their artillery. The captain nodded approvingly as each of the replicator/food cannons were declared operational.
"Right, then. No ice cream this time."
"Soup, then, sir?" one of the science department ensigns suggested (she had been one of the masterminds of the food fight's creative engineering). "We can program it to deliver it on the 'Extremely Hot' setting, hose them down with it."
"Great minds think alike" Kirk remarked with a markedly school boyish grin. " Spicy, too. If some of it goes into their mouth, it'd only be a bonus point. Spock, what was that Vulcan dish we dared Bones to try?"
" Vexedeen soup, sir. And may I add that it was not 'we' who dared the doctor, but you alone."
Turner couldn't help but let out a muffled chuckle at the Vulcan's affronted look. Fortunately, he was not the only one.
"Right, then! Vexedeen soup it is. "
Quickly the code for it was programmed in, and the cannon-operators in position. Turner grinned appreciatively. He had been in the Mess hall on the occasion the doctor had accepted the dare – if the CMO's reaction ( a startled yelp, a frantic grab for the nearest cold liquid- which happened to be an orange juice Lieutenant Riley seated at the next table had been drinking, spilling the said juice all over himself and the gleeful captain , and a veritable flood of very creative profanity which, in it's linguistic skills, would have impressed lieutenant Uhura) had been anything to go by, the armadillos were in for a good round.
"Everyone in position?"
"Aye, sir!"
The artillery operators were positioned ready, the captain and Mr Spock positioned right near the door so that they could make a break for it easily in the chaos. Lieutenant Packard headed near to the door.
"Hey? You guys? Can we get one of the doctors in here? Hey?"
The oldest trick in the book, but the slavers were not likely to ignore potential damage to merchandise. Besides, the one who called out was a young female.
The very well-armed guards at the door was not willing to risk whatever punishment may come their way if it turned out some of the merchandise had been damaged needlessly, especially if the damage was to the captain or the Vulcan – klingon or Romulan ships would be glad to pay much more for two senior Starfleet officers than any price the normal merchandise would fetch.
The slaver who opened the door had expected the captives to make a rush for him – after all, such attempts were not unexpected, and one could hardly expect trained star travelers to meekly surrender to their fates. He had been prepared to hold off such an assault. He most certainly was not prepared to get hit full in the face by what seemed a barrage of liquid fire.
….
Turner grinned as he detailed exactly what had happened to his envious crew mates – especially Ensign Chekov, who, with his Bridge posting, was way more likely than any of the gathered group to be in the thick of the action.
But this time Pavel hadn't been that lucky – stuffed into one of the smaller store rooms, the Russian had had no clue what was happening till the armadillos were all safely locked up and the security/Maintenance teams came around to release the captive crewmembers.
"So basically the xenthi…xenet'hi…The space armadillos got into a food fight?"
"First time in their history, I bet."
"Not sure about that, but I do bet this is the first time a Vulcan got into a food fight."