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Redshirt has a minion!

Quadrotriticale the Zibble

Redshirt
Legacy Name: Redshirt

The

Graveyard Terracoon
Owner:

marvel

Age: 5 years, 5 months, 3 weeks

Born: October 30th, 2018

Adopted: 5 years, 5 months, 3 weeks ago

Adopted: October 30th, 2018

Pet Spotlight Winner
August 4th, 2019

Statistics

Level: 1
Strength: 16
Defense: 18
Speed: 17
Health: 16
HP: 10/16
Intelligence: 0
Books Read: 0
Food Eaten: 5
Job: Unemployed

"We'll have to beam down to the planet to investigate," Captain Kirk says. "Mr. Spock, Lieutenant Sulu, you're with me; we'll pick up a few security officers to go with us. Scotty, you have the conn."

"Aye, Captain," Commander Scott says, stepping up to sit in the captain's vacated chair. Kirk and the two bridge officers he's chosen to accompany him to the planet's surface head for the security office to collect the rest of the landing party.

"All right," Lieutent Giotto, head of security for the USS Enterprise says to his collected subordinates, "we've got word from the bridge that the captain's forming a landing party. He's going himself, and bringing Commander Spock and Lieutenant Sulu, so you all know what that means."

A collective groan rises from the assembled crew.

"Uh, what does that mean?" asks Lieutenant Fletcher, confused.

Giotto looks at him like he's grown an extra head.

"Fletcher just transferred from the Saratoga," Martinez explains, hastily. "He doesn't know."

"Oh, right, you're the new one. Well, it's time you learned about the way things go on this ship, Lieutenant." Giotto takes a deep breath as he decides how best to phrase it. "All right. On most of the other ships in the 'Fleet, the bridge crew, especially the captain and the first officer, usually stay on the ship, right?"

Fletcher nods; that is how things went on the Saratoga.

"And if they do join a landing party, it's usually only one of them at a time, and definitely not both the captain and the XO, right?"

Fletcher nods again.

"The Enterprise isn't like that. Captain Kirk's a great captain, no one's denying that, and we all like Commander Spock in our own way, but the thing is that Kirk likes to do everything himself, and he and the Commander are basically joined at the hip."

"...Sir?"

"Now, I'm not saying that there's anything going on between them, but I will say if you want to join the pool it'll cost you thirty credits, and more than that if you want to try bribing Doctor McCoy for information --" Giotto clears his throat. "Anyway, my point is that most of the landing parties we send down are made of the captain, the XO, one or two of the other department heads from the bridge, and a couple of us. And since part of our job is to keep our superior officers from dying in the line of duty, and since our superior officers are always putting themselves in danger..."

Giotto looks at Fletcher expectantly, waiting for him to put it together.

"You mean whoever goes with the landing party is probably going to die?!"

"Kind of. I wouldn't say probably, it's just that if anyone dies down there it's not going to be the guys in the golds and blues. I mean, didn't you wonder why there was an opening for you on this ship?"

"Uh, not really, sir, I just thought someone had transferred."

"Nope, you're taking over for Crewman Darnell, since he had all the salt sucked out of him a couple weeks back and died."

"The...salt?" Fletcher is starting to feel a little faint.

"Yeah, we ran into an alien who needed it to survive and got it by sucking it out of other lifeforms. It happens, you get used to it."

Martinez and the other Enterprise veterans nod solemnly.

"So, the captain and company are on their way down here and said they need three of us. I'm going to ask for volunteers first."

"And if no one volunteers, sir?"

"We run a lottery," Giotto says, pulling up an application on his data pad. "It randomizes the duty roster and spits out the names of who has to go. If you volunteer for one, you get your name taken out of the next lottery."

Fletcher really needs to sit down.

"Volunteers?" Giotto asks the room at large.

"Do we know what the mission is?" asks Green. He likes to try to play the odds by volunteering for missions that sound less dangerous.

"Eh, not really. The Commander found some kind of scientific anomaly he wants to look at, and you know how the Captain is."

Green decides not to volunteer, but Davis does.

"Lottery starts now, you all missed your chance," Giotto says, programming his tablet to provide two names. "And the winners are: Radcliffe and Newman."

Two of the officers wince and go to stand next to Crewman Davis just as the office doors whoosh open to reveal Captain Kirk and the other bridge officers.

"Captain," Giotto acknowledges with a salute."

"At ease, Lieutenant," the captain says, smiling.

"These are Crewman Davis, Ensign Newman, and Lieutenant Radcliffe," Giotto says. "They'll be beaming down with you to the planet. Some of my best."

"You always say that, Mr. Giotto."

"They're all my best, sir."

"Indeed they are," he says, and then turns to the detail who will be going with him to the transporter room. "Don't worry about this one. Mr. Spock just wants to look at the soil composition of the planet; there's not even any wildlife in the area. Should be an easy day."

Green makes a small frustrated gesture upon hearing that.

"We'll get you all home in one piece."

"Yes, sir," the landing party says.

For once, he's actually right. A freak storm sets in while the landing party is down on the surface, but Lieutenant Kyle manages to beam everyone up through it before anything worse than some minor hypothermia can set in, and Doctor McCoy can patch that up with very little trouble.

Once they come back from sickbay, Giotto tosses each of them a tiny bottle of Saurian brandy as a prize for surviving.

"To not being just another redshirt," Davis says, and the others clink their bottles with his before downing them.

Fletcher groans. This is going to be a very long five-year mission.

CREDITS
Story, profile, and background by marvel
Background template made by cairovercoat.tumblr.com
Information from Memory Alpha
Fonts by Astigmatic and Christian Robertson via Google Fonts
Redshirt is a fanpet of Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry