The Lost Kitten

Posted on Wed Apr 29th, 2026 @ 7:45pm by Lieutenant JG Caitlyn MacRae & Lieutenant Daltom Vesper

2,899 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Friends and Traitors
Location: Corridor Near the Gymnasium
Timeline: late morning

Fight Me…

Those two words seemed woven into the baseline of the music, the favoured playlist she had curated for workouts in the ship’s gymnasium. Typically there were other early birds around and the music not only helped her maintain a steady and demanding pace but allowed her to drown out distractions.

And she had many distractions. Although, with the ship docked for a few hours yet, at least she had the gym mostly to herself. Until now.

She heard the sound in the brief millisecond of silence between tracks, sounding so odd and out of place it brought her up short and made her pause the music and reach out to steady the punching bag… listening.

There it was again! A little clearer now. Frowning she peered around the bag, her blue eyes drawn to a small grey and white ball of fur with equally blue eyes. Probably not any bigger than the palm of her hand and every now and then uttering a little meow.

Eyes met for a moment and then it shot up, running for the door which led out to the ship. Caitlyn groaned as in a moment of perfectly bad timing, one of the regular faces she saw here arrived - the kitten darting through her legs and making a bid for freedom. With a “please watch my stuff!” MacRae set off after the ball of fluff, hoping to find it before it managed to get into something it shouldn’t.

But as it turned out she ran around the corner straight into not any kind of cat, but a person. Thankfully she had registered he was there to slow down - although not by much.

Daltom had ironically been on his way to the gymnasium to work out. One could never be too prepared for any eventuality and working out kept him fit and his mind clear. He was wearing some black shorts and a black T-shirt that was insufficient to hide his toned body. In one of his hands he had a water bottle and a white towel was hanging around from the back of his neck.

He was about to turn the corner when someone nearly ran into him. What is it about this ship and people running into you? Perhaps I should talk to the Captain about making some of the walls transparent or installing some traffic control devices. "Excuse me, madam. I see that you and your feline appear to be in a rush somewhere. I merely was heading to the gymnasium for a workout. Let me make way for you." He then stepped over to the side.

“So sorry,” Caitlyn apologised, peering past him but seeing no sign of the kitten. “I was trying to catch it before it got hurt or damaged something… totally not mine. Don’t suppose you saw which way it went?”

"Not yours?" Daltom asked curiously. "It seemed rather comfortable with you. Also, you seem to be coming from the gymnasium area. Why would akitten be there?" he wondered. "Unfortunately, I have no idea which way it went. I was too busy avoiding yet another collision on this ship." He stopped for a moment before saying, "We probably should locate this kitten and either find its owner or remove it. By the way, my name is Daltom Vesper. I'm the new counselor."

After a moment or two, he lowered his head for a moment and asked, "And you are...?"

“Caitlyn MacRae,” she answered after a slight hesitation. A new counselor. Starfleet had moved fast… “second officer. Welcome aboard… and no, definitely not mine…”

Even as she spoke she was moving, searching for any sign. While he was on route to the gym, she realised she had to look exactly like someone who had spent almost ninety minutes working out. As she rounded the next corner she groaned, spying the open hatch just above floor level. With no sign of the kitten, it seemed a good bet it was a tempting hide out for the little fur ball.

Kneeling down she peered inside, soon spotting the runaway in the far bottom corner - staring back with wide eyes. “Any good with animals, Counselor?”

That depends on whether you consider the Cloud people as animals. If she is the second officer, then I should definitely get to know her better. "I'm trained in all sorts of behavioral recognition, so I should be useful regardless. However, as a tracker, maybe not as much. That said, it should not have gotten far." He noticed the hatch and asked. "Do you think it is up there?"

“Not up,” Caitlyn replied, keeping an eye on the kitten, “more like cowering down in a little void space in the corner. Can imagine a ship and all the people must seem a little scary…”

Rather empathetic, isn't she? I wonder what caused that. Did she suffer some sort of trauma? "Actually, yes I can imagine that. However, would that not imply that we have a stowaway and not a pet on board?" Daltom answered.

“Possibly,” she conceded. “There is an ensign in engineering with a cat, but it is male and pretty old. Maybe some food will convince them to come out? If you don’t mind keeping an eye on the kitten, I can use the replicator in the gym?”

"I certainly can do that for you," Daltom confirmed. "As neither of us are on duty, how should I address you?" he wondered aloud.

“Caitlyn is fine,” she told him as she climbed to her feet. Thanking him she took off, unsure how long the kitten would stay in one place. Soon she was back, with a small bowl of milk and a small plate with little bite size pieces of tuna.

“The computer suggested these…” she explained as she retook her spot on the floor. “Hopefully these smell better to the cat than to me. Maybe a trail of breadcrumbs will work?”

Before she began she lay down a spare towel she had lifted on her way back out of the gym. She did not want maintenance teams hating on her because she left the carpet smelling of tuna for the next week. Placing the small plate and bowl on the towel, she wrinkled her nose and picked up some of the small pieces of fish and reached in as far as she could to start leaving a trail back to the open hatch.

“I guess now we wait?” She guessed as she cleaned up her hand. “Or I do, you really don’t have to. My workout was almost done, I feel bad keeping you away from yours.”

"No," Daltom decided. "I'll wait along with you. That way you will not have to bear the smell of the tuna alone," he told her with a small chuckle. Besides, how am I going to figure out your motives and why you are so empathic?

The counselor made himself comfortable by sitting on the floor in a lotus position, absent his arms hanging from the sides. Settling in, he asked, "Well, Caitlyn, I will get to my work out a little later. What exactly were you working on today, if I may ask? Do you have a regular schedule?"

She had watched him sit, curious as to why he would want to stay. There had to be more interesting things to do, yet here he was. “Not so much a schedule, I just like to start my day with a workout. Makes me feel better if I eat junk food later on,” she confided. And it was true. “Mostly cardio. You?”

Hearing that it made her feel better if she ate junk food later on, caused Daltom to give a short amused laugh. "Wouldn't it just be easier not to eat junk food rather than to do cardio first?" he asked logically. "I have a rather strict schedule for workouts. Upper body on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. Lower body on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. Core workouts everyday. They just last about an hour, though. I do enough to stay fit."

“I could….” She reasoned, “but where would the fun be in that? Sounds like you have a well prepared schedule. I’m not so strict. Stay fast, strong and healthy… that’s the goal.”

"Those are good goals. I have the same ones. The consistency gets me to the goal," he explained to Caitlyn. "So, you have a sweet tooth and you don't want to give that up. Makes sense." He thought about the situation and continued, "Well," he replied putting his hand on his lap, carefully avoiding slapping them to startle the kitten, "tell me about your junk food of choice."

“That’s easy,” she grinned but kept her eye on the hatch. “Chocolate.”

Daltom chuckled at that. It was somewhat predictable. "There are many types of chocolate and many different ways of serving it. Certainly you must have some sort of preference and please tell me it is unusual. After all, you are a rare breed. Certainly you must know that redheads with blue eyes only make up less than .2% of the human population."

“Not so rare where I come from,” she shrugged. “I’ve never found a chocolate I do not like. Hot chocolate used to be a favourite when I was younger but not so much these days. I try to not eat too much, and never touch replicated chocolate. I’m sure this is giving you fantastic insights.”

That made Daltom laugh heartily. "Goodness. Do you think that I'm trying to diagnose you?" The second officer also had spunk, he made a mental note.

“It would be kind of odd if you weren’t, being the counselor and all. New ship full of new people and a crew who - most of them - have had a couple of difficult missions back to back.”

Daltom approved of Caitlyn's theory. She suspected everyone too. "So, a counselor cannot just get to know you in your world?" he countered with a mischievous smile. He let it sit before he would address anything further.

“They would be welcome to try,”she smiled. “And I appreciate the company regardless. This ship, and serving as part of a proper crew is something of a new situation for me so I’m still learning what my world looks like these days.”

"Oh, I'm trying," Daltom responded in relation to trying to get to know her. However, he was shocked when he said that she had never been a part of a proper crew. "Can you explain that to me? Have you never served on a crew before? And how did that get you to be a 2XO as a junior grade lieutenant? That's quite the achievement. It makes me both higher and lower ranked than you at the same time," he informed her with a small chuckle.

Caitlyn grinned, tilting her head in an amused acknowledgment of the somewhat unusual disparity between her rank and position. “Good thing I don’t worry about rank,” she told him. “But in answer to your question, while I can’t provide much detail, I’ve pretty much gone from one undercover assignment to another since I graduated.

And then I came here, during the last mission. Again undercover. Which was a strange situation. I’d never been assigned to a Starfleet ship, let alone using my own name and just an edited service record. Getting injured was not part of the plan, and I hate that it maybe changed how the situation with Trynn played out… Anyway, when it was over, the Captain offered me the opportunity to stay. Obviously, I accepted.”

"Obviously," he told her with a knowing grin. "But, you were injured on your mission here?" he asked making a point of looking Caitlyn over. "You don't seem any worse for the physical wear, but what about the mental wear?" He shrugged at Caitlyn. "OK, this part is the part where I shift into counseling mode for a bit," Daltom confessed.

“Flawless transition, ten out of ten, no notes,” Caitlyn complimented. “Doctor Ryan worked his magic so got me back on my feet in no time although it still felt like an eternity. When I say injured…”

She paused, considering the best way to explain. “The previous mission included transferring former prisoners back to Bajor - essentially a prisoner swap. What nobody knew was that one of the prisoners wasn’t actually Bajoran. He- It - was a type of shape shifter. It was moving through the ship, taking on the forms of crew members to avoid detection, One person died, the others mostly rendered unconscious.

I encountered it in a store room not far from Sickbay. We fought. It isn’t in my nature to back down from a fight, ever. It was… intense. I was eventually knocked out. Could have been worse. Whoever it really was could have killed me. They didn’t.”

"Why not?" Daltom inquired simply, waiting for Caitlyn to share more of her story.

“Perhaps time. They wanted off the ship,” Caitlyn told him. “But if I ever get the chance to find out, I’ll let you know.”

"I appreciate your willingness to share," Daltom claimed with a wry smile. "And that's a lot of trust given that your last counselor turned out to be a spy."

“Nothing you couldn’t easily find out on your own,” she pointed out, “and she wasn’t technically my counselor- I came aboard suspecting pretty much everyone and everything I told her during the mandatory check in was …. Shall we say not entirely true?”

"I see," Daltom answered. "So, should I be hooking you up to a polygraph for a mandatory check in since your last one was not entirely truthful?" He raised an eyebrow somewhat impressed with Caitlyn thus far.

She flashed him a mischievous grin, “Sure, if you think that would work….”

With a flat expression he told her, "Alright, I'll book that appointment with you soon after we get this kitten to come back out and to its rightful location." He then subtly stuck out his tongue towards her. "So, basically what you're saying is that you're inherently untrustworthy. I have to appreciate your forthrightness about it."

She held her hands up in a gesture of innocence, “guilty as -“

A sound caught her attention and she fell silent, tilting her head as the sound grew louder. And louder. She grinned as a tiny paw came into view. And then a little meow as the tiny kitten jumped out onto the towel and began lapping up the milk. Caitlyn grinned as she watched the tiny thing, careful not to startle it as she reached in and gently lifted it, warning some pitiful sounding complaints from the creature.

"Well, it seems that you have your friend back," Daltom observed, keeping his voice purposely low. "I do not see a collar on it. Computer can you scan for implants that might indicate the owner of this kitten?"

There was a brief pause, and then the familiar tones of the computer replied with a single word. “Negative.”

Caitlyn frowned as she gently stroked the kitten, “guess you really are a little lost soul, huh? I should probably get them checked over and find a good home. Unless you want a cat?”

"No," Daltom answered. "I don't want a cat at this point in my career. I have a good deal of obligations and while cats are low on the obligation scale, it is a complication that I don't need. So, do you know how long we're docked? We could put out a shipwide message and see if it belongs to anyone. Otherwise, I think it is adoption time for it."

“As soon as everyone is back, it was a brief stop, a chance to regroup, a little break and then back to work. Alright, let’s see if anyone claims you,” she told the kitten as she stood. The little thing didn’t seem particularly concerned, “or try and find you a home before we leave the starbase. Have to admit, did not imagine this would be how the day would go.

Thank you for helping,” she added to Daltom. “I’ll sort this little guy out and come back to clean this up and pick up my gym bag. Are you sure you wanna say no to this adorable little face?”

"Your face or the kitten's?" Daltom asked, clarifying with a mischievous grin, as he stood back up, towel around his neck.

“I guess that’s a question for your polygraph test,” she suggested, resisting the to roll her eyes. Instead she had the kitten do a small wave of its paw. “Thanks again for helping.”

"I guess it is," he responded. "However, I will clean this up, as I was at least half of a participant. Which gym bag is yours? I can also take your bag into the gym and watch it while I work out."

“It’s fine, I got it,” she called over her shoulder. “Go have a good workout.”

"As you wish," he responded with a light wave of his hand with his back turned away from her.



Lieutenant Daltom Vesper
Counselor
USS Thunderbird

&

Lieutenant Caitlyn MacRae
Second Officer
USS Thunderbird

 

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