Somebody's Knocking...

Posted on Fri Jul 24th, 2026 @ 2:10am by Lieutenant Tyler Malbrooke & Lieutenant Stormy Knight

1,119 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Friends and Traitors
Location: Stormy's Quarters

Stormy hadn't quite fallen asleep when she heard something in the wall behind her head. It was an odd noise. Well, odd for a starship. It sounded like something was moving behind the wall. But that wasn't possible. Not on a starship, anyway. She had to be imagining it.

She rolled over on her side and tried to get comfortable. She'd already stayed up far later than she expected and she had to get up in a few hours. But after a couple of minutes, she heard the scratching again. This time, she knew she wasn't imagining it. She wondered if she should call someone. Or, better yet, she rolled over and shook the man next to her.

"Tyler. Wake up. I hear something."

Tyler Malbrooke's fatal flaw perhaps was that he slept like a log. Pretty much nothing ever woke him up. There was a grunt, and a slight snort. Then a mumbling that sounded something like "What? Huh? Go back to sleep." His eyes didn't even open. It was evident that he may have simply talked in his sleep.

Stormy dropped back onto the pillow. Maybe she'd imagined it. Dreams could do that, right? But she couldn't get to sleep. And then the noise came again. Closer. Right behind her head. She shook Tyler harder. "Wake up. There's something in the wall and it's trying to get out."

He was operations and noises in walls fell under his department, right? Still, she could do a little investigating herself. She rolled out of bed and padded over to her tricorder and began to scan the wall.

Tyler was not a morning person, most regretted waking him up. This was no different as he rose from the bed and began to get his bearings. Tyler rubbed his eyes and waited a moment for his vision to clear. He saw Stormy scanning the wall. "What do you hear?"

"Moving? Maybe a scratching or rubbing noise? It's intermittent, so it's hard to pin down where and what it is."

"It could be simply voles that were picked up at our last port, perhaps a small variance in the power output of the environmental systems is causing a noise in the air vents." Tyler made his way toward Stormy and glanced at her readings. At the moment it did not seem to be anything wrong.

"Not the air filtration system. That has its own little sounds." She glanced at her tricorder, frustrated that it showed nothing and the sounds were gone. Of course they were, just because Tyler was now awake to hear them. "If it was a vole, why was it crawling through the ship?" She sighed and set her tricorder on her nightstand. If whatever it was came back, she wanted that close enough to grab. She would not miss locating the source of the noise again. She hoped.

"Set the tricorder to wide band, full life sign scan. That should give you the life signs on anyone and anything within four decks. If there is a creature there you will know it and then perhaps we can go back to sleep." Tyler said with a yawn. This was most likely some sort of creature that they picked up at the last station. Stormy was right about the air filtration systems now that he listened a bit closer.

Why hadn't she thought of that? "You're brilliant," she said, giving him a quick kiss. She did need to get to sleep, and this would give her some peace of mind. She set her tricorder to a wide band detection of life signs and waited just long enough to check that it was working. then she cuddled up to Tyler to see if she could go back to sleep.

"Yes, I know." Tyler replied to the comment about his brilliance. "Now, please bring yourself back here. It is getting cold." He said with a wink.

Chuckling softly, she climbed back into bed and kissed him. "Getting warmer?" she teased.

"I think that should do it." Tyler said as he nuzzled her neck. Just as they got comfortable as the saying goes there was a knock again. "Now I heard it. It almost feels like that one was done on purpose."

"I heard of a chief engineer who like to crawl through the access tunnels for fun. She even eavesdropped on the crew in their quarters. I don't know if it really happened or the story's been exaggerated out of all recognition, but it does make me wonder sometimes."

She knocked on the wall. "Maybe that will make it go away." She didn't want to deal with whatever it was right now.

Tyler agreed with Stormy about hoping it would just go away. However, he had to make sure. So, he made a note in both the Operations and Engineering logs that come morning, someone should check this out and see where it goes. "Yeah, I don't want to deal with this right now. This sounds like work for the morning crew. In the meantime, I have better things to do." He laid back down and put his arms around her.

Morning would definitely be a better time to deal with whatever this was...or wasn't. She really wasn't sure. She snuggled into Tyler's arms. She would not let herself dream of bugs in the walls. Not tonight, at least. And, hopefully, not tomorrow night, either. She just hoped it was simply a random set of noises caused by a short somewhere.

When they woke the next morning, Stormy checked to see if her science tricorder picked up anything. She both hoped it did and it didn't. Still, she was disappointed when the scan showed nothing conclusive.

"So, did you get anything?" Tyler said as he stumbled out of bed. He looked at Stormy with a smile. Regardless of whatever this is in the wall Tyler felt he was a lucky man for being with Stormy.

"No. The scans were inconclusive. If I hear it again, I'll do some digging, but for now, I'm going to consider it a brief anomaly." She smiled at Tyler. "I'm glad you were here. I generally don't mind odd noises, but after recent events..." She let her voice trail off.

Then she got dressed. "So, changing the subject, how about breakfast?"

"Breakfast is always the first order of the day." Tyler said as he put his uniform on. The night was a bit iffy. But today was getting off to the right start. He woke up next to Stormy and a hearty breakfast was on deck.

A post by

Lieutenant Stormy Knight
Chief Science Officer
USS Thunderbird

Lieutenant Tyler Malbrooke
Chief Operations Officer
USS Thunderbird

 

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