Furry Culprit
Posted on Tue Jul 30th, 2019 @ 4:56pm by Captain Luka Mahone & Lieutenant Commander Sofia Nikedoros & Lieutenant Theodore Winslow & Lieutenant JG Lillian James & Lieutenant Gunnar Arnason
2,554 words; about a 13 minute read
Mission:
Deep Freeze
Location: Science Lab
Timeline: MD10 0500
Sofia sipped her tea, reflecting that the creature now stirring behind in the forceshield cage looked far too innocuous to be the source of so much trouble. It was cute and fluffy and not even a half meter long! If she hadn't seen it with a piece of generator housing held lifted to its mouth like a slice of pizza, she'd never have believed it.
She glanced at the others examining their furry culprit, particularly the one alternately peering at the creature and a scanner readout, while taking gulps from an extra large coffee. "I'm sorry to have gotten you up at this hour," she apologized. "Until the repair crew gets Scigram fully back on line, you're closest I could think of an expert on animals."
"My fault for having been raised by a vet," Gunnar joked good-naturedly. "Besides, I was more lying in bed than asleep, and while this isn't like any domestic animal I've ever seen, it certainly is interesting."
The call Luka received half an hour ago had him start into action, waking him from his slumber a whole two hours before he was set to wake up to begin with. Not that he was getting much sleep anyway, with how cold it had been, but he had just been drifting off...
As he entered the scene, Luka drowsily gazed around, eyes narrowed from the light change from outside. "... So what's this I hear about you catching our culprit?" he asked sleepily, "... Why are we in the science labs for this?"
Leaving explanations to the experts, Sofia decided to prioritize practical matters. She went to the lab replicator and retrieved two large coffees. "Here," she said, handing one to Luka and one to Gunnar, who had somehow managed to inhale his first one already. "I think you could both use more of this before you start discussing xenobiology."
"Oh..." Luka gratefully took the coffee mug, brow knitting as the thought dawned on him. "Xenobiology? What... did you find?"
"Yes, thank you," Gunnar said earnestly as he took the cup, and a big swig of the black coffee before addressing Luka. "This is your culprit, sir." He pointed to the ball of fur inside the forcescreen cage. "Yes, it's cute, but don't be fooled. It may look like a cross between an artic fox and persian cat, but it's digestive track is closer to a horta's."
"It is amazing." Theo finally spoke up a stupid grin on his face. He might have been called out of bed himself but he was starting to like the little furry animal that he was tossing nuts that he had replicated now it was awake in an attempt to calm it down. "Watch." He said tossing a few of the metal nuts through the top of the forcefield cage that he had deactivated to allow them to see how the digestive track worked. "No waste with this one."
"Wanna keep him chief?" Lillian asked as she watched Theo feed him.
Luka peered into the field as the creature powered through the metal it had been given. "... Does it just eat hardware like that? Metal and metallics? How did you all find it?"
"I think they evolved to eat minerals from rock, but they seem to have no difficulty eating, or digesting, refined metals and even alloys," Gunnar replied, and couldn't help but chuckle at the creature jumping up to catch a nut in its mouth like a dog catching a tossed biscuit. "In fact, he might regard them as special treats."
Sofia pursed her lips. "Like a child preferring hard sugar candy to fruit. Which might explain why they're coming into the colony to snack. We found this one because it broke into the generator room. And either he, or one of his fellows, shutdown power in my building by eating the generator pump."
"I see."
Luka crouched down to get a better look at the creature in the field. It looked like something his siblings would have kept as a pet back in Hawaii - about as destructive too. "Is there any way we can analyze this?" He squinted around at the science labs, curious as to why they couldn't get the hologram to work. It took him another moment to realize the obvious conclusion. "... What do you all think? There has to be a way to keep them out of everything."
"Since they haven't eaten down to the planet's core, I assume there must have some barriers they can't get past," Sofia remarked, perhaps a bit more sarcastically than was her wont, but her ability to appreciate this marvel of creation had been much eroded by being woken in the wee hours by its antics.
"It does make you wonder about what drove their evolution," Gunnar mused, and took a pull of coffee as he considered the problem. "But whatever it was, given their dietary preferences, there must be something keeping the population in check. If we can identify a natural predator we might be able to use whatever signals its presence to them as a deterrent..." a slight smile creased his beard "...or maybe domesticate it as a guard animal..."
"I'm not sure that I would want an animal that eats through metal as a pet Gunner." Lillian said, "I mean, he is cute and fuzzy but those teeth are something I don't want to mess with."
Gunnar laughed. "No, not these little guys - domesticating them would be a terrible idea. But if their natural predators are something like hawks or foxes or wolves..." He smiled more broadly, thinking about the potential for native canids that might become working companion animals.
"That's an idea, maybe we could program different animals on a holodeck or something to see what he reacts too," Lillian suggested.
"It might be worth a try," Gunnar said uncertainly. He couldn't help but think of T'Ango complaining that Starfleet holoprograms tended to be lacking when it came to the olfactory dimension. "But I won't be surprised if sight isn't his primary sense. We might want to try different scents or sounds or even low level electrostatic signals."
Luka squinted at the thought. "Holographic simulation is not a bad idea, but we're on low power reserves," he pointed out. Curious, he set the mug down and peered in through the opening at the top. The creature seemed just as curious, staring up at him with a wide, doe-eyed stare. "But at the same time, we need to find out how to keep them away from our power areas - preferably without harm to them or us. Hm ... I'd suggest we go on a trip to find predators now, but it's too cold out ..."
After giving Gunnar a knowing glance, Luka turned to Theo. "The reports you've gotten in, have the creatures eaten everything? Down to the ends? What would have stopped them from eating through the walls?"
Theo didn't notice for a moment that it was him being spoken to him. He stood up a little straighter and stopped throwing pieces of different metals through the forcefield. "At the moment nothing has stopped them. They eat pretty much everything and electricity doesn't seem to stop them or worry them. I am not just chucking him food in the hopes of domesticating the cute little thing. I'm testing out metals in the hope that one of them won't be appeasing and we could possibly paint or spray our buildings with something made from it." He held out his hand to show that it was different metal materials.
"That's brilliant!" Sofia said, smiling at the security officer. "It looked like something had come in through the vents in my building, so maybe they don't like the taste of the paint or some component of the prefab walls."
Gunnar nodded, giving an admiring look for the idea, but felt he should sound a note of caution. "Before we start chucking other materials in there, let's do some additional scans. The creature might avoid eating certain substances because they're harmful, but that doesn't mean it won't eat some foreign substance that's poison. Dogs will eat chocolate even though it can be toxic to them."
"Yeah, and we don't want to kill it, just see what it won't eat." Luka mumbled, resisting the temptation to just pick the creature up and take a closer look. Unaware of himself, he reached over to the nearby console, calling up the xenobiology programs he was used to seeing. It didn't take him long before he removed his hand, cheeks flushed in realization. "Lieutenant James, you're the point person at the moment for a science scan. Would you... like to do the honors?"
"Aye Sir," Lillian replied as she took over, after running the scan she took another one, just a different type. Looking at the scans, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion and question, "Hmmmm..... Any idea on how long Scigram comes back online, some of these readings are beyond my capabilities to understand. Unless Gunner or you, Commander Mahone care to take a look and understand this."
The Security Officer stopped throwing food and looked at the creature with a shrug. "Sorry." Was all he murmured not sure if he was saying it to the creature or the people around him.
Gunnar looked over the scans, his brows drawing down and the previous smile fading. He opened his medscanner, ran it over the creature, adjusted and then readjusted settings, and then ran it again. As he studied the results, the smile disappeared entirely. "You should check me on this, sir, but if I'm reading this right the problem may solve itself - albeit in a way I don't think any of us would like. It looks like their natural method of digesting metals uses an energy release process very much like natural oxidation. But all of our metallics are treated to prevent corrosion - and that treatment is nullifying the necessary gastric enzymes." The corners of his mouth turned all the way to frown - he may have been speculating about using natural predators to control these creatures, but he didn't like the idea of harming them, particularly in a way that would lead to a slow wasting death. "In short, the more of our metals they eat, the less able they'll be to absorb nutrients. This little guy's stomach may be full, but he's starving to death."
"... What?" Luka had his mug picked up and was drinking from it again by the time Gunnar pointed out what the scans had detailed. He frowned at the empty mug as he gave the medic a frown. "So we're not only upsetting the ecosystem, but they're..." he trailed off, peering at the small creature again. The creature's paws were at the edge of the force field, sniffing at the air around him. "... No, we can't have that. There has to be a way for the population native to the area doesn't have to go extinct."
Sofia nodded emphatically. Whatever destruction they had caused, from her point of view these creatures were made by a Deity who cared about them and put them here by design. "Surely there's something we can do?"
"We may be able to find a therapy to help this one, but that's a only an solution for him," Gunnar said, nevertheless resolving to find it - he hated seeing any animal in distress and wasn't going to give up on helping it. "And it won't make much difference if we can't keep him and his kind from eating more of these metals."
Luka went to set down the mug again as he thought, knocking it against the top of the field. He quickly made an attempt to grab at it as it clattered into the cage they had set up, making a panicked face as it spun about in front of the creature. He did not give it another thought, hurriedly trying to get his jacket off to wrap it around his arm and reach in for the potentially hazardous mug.
As he did, the creature, already pressed against the forcefield wall in surprise, leaned over to sniff the mug, before letting out a high pitched hiss, pressing itself further against the field and as far away from the mug as possible. Luka stopped his scramble, eyeing the creature in confusion. "... What... what is it doing?"
"Yes!" Gunnar exclaimed, and then paused just short of bouncing with glee when he caught the puzzled looks around him. "That's a classic aversion reaction," he explained. "I don't know if he's reacting to the coffee or the mug, but he is trying to get as far from it as possible."
Sofia, who did not believe in coincidence, shot a silent thank you to God. "That should be easy enough to work out, though I'd bet on the mug. I didn't notice the creature pull back when you were studying it earlier - and if it didn't like the smell of coffee, it would surely have reacted to yours, given how strong you take it."
Now with his jacket wrapped around his arm, Luka reached in to pull out the mug from the confines of the cage. He gave the creature one final look of concern, pleased as it seemed to calm down. "... Then we should analyze what's in this and see if we can find a way to make a shielding... either a protective shell or coating." He looked to the others. "And maybe see if we can repel the creatures that are in here?... I should contact Lieutenant Commander Bray..."
Sofia nodded. "I know repellent infused aerogel coatings have been used effectively to keep deer and squirrels out of things back home. I'll talk to engineering once we isolate the components."
"And I'll see what we can do to help this little fellow," Gunnar said, looking sympathetically at the creature that was now back to sniffing and begging for more metallic 'treats'. "Once we have remedy, we should at least try to round up any others that are affected."
"Do we have any coffee plants? It would seem as we need to test the plant with this little guy once he's better," Lillian asked.
Sofia saw Gunnar's brows rose questioningly and imagined that he was thinking that if there were plants for real coffee he somehow hadn't heard about it. But in the next instant he shook his head fractionally, apparently coming to the same conclusion she had; that the seemingly non sequitur remark was likely a symptom of lack of sleep.
"Well, what we can gather," Luka stated, "Is that we have a fix. We can have more extensive tests done when the rest of the science crew are awake - and when we have power back to our facilities... I'll have to get in touch with Ops as well... There is much to do." He folded his arms against his chest. "Lieutenants Winslow and James, make sure we take stock of the damages these creatures have caused and where we can put the repellant that engineering will have to make up. Hm."
Luka stroked his chin in thought. "Just keep me appraised if anything comes up. I'll see what I can coordinate from my angle, make sure the civilians are aware of what we're about to do."
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