The Mylar Cat: Star Trek Voyager (Complete)

Star Trek Voyager: The Mylar Cat (Chapter 13)

A few hours later, the survey team returned their findings and had deemed the area completely safe, with glowing reports regarding the abundance of wild edible foods and other resources.

Aki emerged cautiously from Voyager alongside several other crew and made his way down the fairly steep ramp, which was a little difficult to navigate in the skinny flip-flops Tom had replicated for him. He was also wearing his new Hawaiian shirt and short pants after Tom had showed him how to adapt any type of clothing to accommodate his long fluffy tail.
At the bottom of the ramp a big grin formed on Aki's face as he stepped out from under the shadow of Voyagers port nacelle and felt the delightful warmth of the sun soaking into his whole body.

A while later, Tom, B'Elanna and Harry wandered down the ramp, all dressed in beachwear and holding surfboards they had replicated. As they made their way toward the ideallic white sandy beach, they soon spotted Aki in the distance. The cat-eared-boy was enthusiastically running around in an area of longer grasses, chasing what appeared to be this planet's equivalent of butterflies. He was bounding rapidly toward the brightly-coloured insects, then jumping up in the air to try to catch them in his hands. He was clearly extremely happy and completely in his element. They could hear him laughing and giggling, with a huge grin on his face as he ran.
"That's adorable," grinned B'Elanna, "he's acting just like a playful cat."

A while later, Aki was sat on the pristine white sand, soaking up its warmth, half dosing, half watching as his three friends were out on the surf catching waves.
Several small groups of crew were also sat around on the beach nearby. Some were swimming in the ocean, others playing various games like volleyball or playing catch with flying hover-discs.
Some of the younger lower deck ensigns who were sitting in a group near to Aki's position were getting a little rowdy. They had started picking each other up and dumping each other in the water, much to their own amusement.
Aki watched on, enjoying how much everyone seemed so relaxed and were all having fun.
After a while, the ensigns rowdiness began to spill over and escalate to other nearby people as they began targeting friends and colleagues for unwanted dunkings.
It was all done in good spirits, even Neelix ended up having an unplanned swim. He protested at first as the ensigns carried him the short distance to the shoreline, but by the time they dropped him in the water, he was laughing as much as they were.

As the cat-boy sat quietly on the sand, half-dozing, he failed to notice several pairs of mischievous ensign's eyes turn towards him.

———

Janeway strode with purpose into sickbay and immediately saw three ensigns sat on bio beds in their beachwear, awaiting treatment.
Each of them were peppered with what looked like sore-looking and somewhat bloody cuts and scratches.
"Alright, what happened?" Demanded the captain in a slightly unsympathetic and curt tone, "doctor, what caused these injuries?"

On seeing the captain's somewhat irked mood, the doctor opted for diplomatic discretion, "I believe the ensigns might better provide an explanation in this case, captain."

Janeway stepped closer to the first ensign, "Ensign Farley, I'm listening."
The young ensign looked sheepishly at her, "it was a mistake, a misjudgment, totally our fault, captain, you mustn't blame Aki, this wasn't his fault in any way."
"Aki did all this to you?!" She gasped in astonishment.
The ensign nodded, "but it wasn't his fault," he admitted, "we had no idea he was so afraid of the water!"
"Tell me exactly what happened."

Ensign Farley explained how the high spirits and horseplay had got a little out of hand and how they had been dunking some of their fellow crewmates in the water for laughs.
"It was all done and taken in good spirits, captain, but in all the excitement, we failed to register how scared Aki became when we tried to put him in the water too."
The second ensign chipped in with more information, "he was struggling and hissing as we carried him towards the shoreline, but we just thought he was playing along, you know, just joking, doing it for effect, we didn't think the struggling was real."
Farley continued, "but when we got close to the water, Aki really started to panic, and that's when we realised. We stopped right away, but we were too late. Before we could even put him down, he suddenly transformed into his cat form and the next thing we knew, all three of us were fighting off a hurricane of hissing fur, teeth and claws.