Everybody Knows This is Nowhere

Part 16 - To Whom these Presents Come, Greetings!

The idea to get more dogs circulated throughout the ship. At first, the captain was in mourning. Then he was apprehensive. Waffling a bit on the decision, he called a meeting of the senior staff, even though it was Christmas.

Lili wheeled in a cart with snacks and sodas. "You don't have to do that anymore. The serving, that is," Jonathan told her. It was just the two of them.

"Oh, it's no trouble," she explained, "don't tell anybody, but most of these are leftovers I'm trying to get rid of."

"Aha."

The others filed in and sat down. "Who's on duty?" asked the captain.

"Karin Bernstein is holding command," reported T'Pol, "Diana Jones is at the Science station. Ethan Shapiro is at Tactical. Maryam Haroun is at Communications, and Colleen Romanov is piloting."

"Jenny Crossman MacKenzie's in Engineering," reported Tripp.

"I've got Frank Todd in temporary command of the MACOs, sir," reported Julie.

"And Andrew Miller is in Sick Bay," reported Doctor Phlox.

"All right, let's get down to business," began Captain Archer, "I've had a few people talk to me about dogs."

"An excursion to Earth risks all manner of temporal contaminations," T'Pol pointed out.

"Not necessarily," Aidan stated, "what about taking the Ikaaran shuttle? It can be cloaked."

"It's also as slow as molasses," Travis complained, "It'll take forever to get there and back."

"Actually, I've been runnin' that problem over in my mind for a while now," Tripp mused, "and Dakiza and I've got an idea. We ran it by Lemnestra and she thinks it could work."

"Oh?" asked the captain.

"Yeah, I, um," Tripp looked a little apologetic, "I miss the little guy. And I kinda wanna do something to honor Chang's memory, too. I mean, we all know his history, both now and in the other iteration. But he gave his life so's we could keep that Ikaaran shuttle. It'd be a cryin' shame not to use it. It, uh, it cost too much to just let it sit in the bay."

"So you've been thinking about this a lot, I see," mused the captain.

"Yes," Tripp allowed, "and it's like this. Actually, can Lemnestra and Dakiza join us? I think they might be able to explain it better than I can."

"All right. Hoshi?" asked Jonathan.

"Right away."

"While we're waiting, let's talk about our food stores, Shelby?"

"Yes, well, we're doing pretty well with growing food on that planet. Can we name it at some point? I bet I'm not the only one who's getting a little sick of just calling it 'that planet'," she pointed out.

"We'll run a contest," the captain suggested.

"All right," Shelby continued, "Sandra and Tristan are good at managing the crops. We're fine with most things. We even have space in case we ever want or need to build settlements."

"That's wonderful news," replied the captain.

"Meat is a lot more problematic," stated Lili, "Craig tells me that the programs for replicating chicken and shrimp were already done by the other version of the NX-01. We faked the crab cakes by using replicated shrimp and breadcrumbs, and extra salt and bay seasoning."

"I don't remember noticing anything off," reported Aidan. There were murmurs of agreement.

"Well, I appreciate that," answered Lili, "but I knew they were off. Anyway, we've got very little real variety. Sure, I can dress it up anyway you please, but it all boils down to just being either replicator shrimp or replicator chicken. I mean, it's Christmas and I have turkeys, but this will be the last year for that unless we do something drastic."