Disclaimer: All things Star Trek belong to Paramount. No infringement intended.
Note: This story is day six of the 2003 “Twelve Days of Christmas” fanfiction series on JCFicHaven.

Six Geen A-Laying

by Mizvoy

Kathryn Janeway peered into the birdcage at a tiny quivering lump of gray feathers that was about half the size of her thumb. “What is it? A bird?”

Neelix giggled. “Actually, Captain, you’re looking at six female geen.”

“Six?” She looked up in surprise. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. The Rellata group them in ‘pods’ of six because of their small size. The birds prefer to cluster together in the wild, and their proximity facilitates the production of eggs.”

“The eggs must be microscopic.”

“They are tiny. All six eggs together are barely half the size of a pea, but they are much easier to spot when piled together.”

Janeway studied the feathers closely, trying to determine where one geen stopped and the next started. “You’d need an entire flock to make one person’s meal.”

Neelix giggled again. “Actually, geen are not very tasty. The Rellata grind up the shells of their eggs to form a spice that greatly enhances the flavor of leola root.”

Janeway winced and reached for her tricorder. As she scanned the cage, she thought to herself that the last thing they needed was leola root with more flavor. “I’m not getting a clear reading.”

“Another curiosity, Captain. They are almost symbiotic in nature, and so their readings fluctuate, showing up as six, three, five, or even one being from one moment to the next, which the tricorder ignores as an anomalous reading.” He lifted the cage from her desk and gazed at the geen lovingly. “Once they reach full maturity, they have a distinctive song, as well.”

Janeway snapped her tricorder shut. “Let’s keep them in the mess hall for the time being,” she replied, wondering if their birdsong would be as distinctive as leola root. “Are you sure they can’t squeeze through the bars of the cage?”

“I anticipated that, Captain, and reinforced the bars with a force field. Once the birds are acclimated to the ship, in a week or so, they should start laying eggs. And the singing will happen at about the same time.”

“Six geese a-laying,” Janeway said with a chuckle.

“Captain?”

“It’s a line from an old Terran Christmas song,” she explained. “It just popped into my head.”

“I’ll have to look it up.” Neelix started for the door, and then paused. “I sent a thank-you to the Rellata, but . . . if you think of it . . . .”

“I’ll thank the Prior for their generous gift before we leave orbit.” She watched Neelix as he left the Ready Room, cooing softly to the tiny lump in the cage. Returning to her work, she found herself unable to get the song out of her head. “Five golden rings! Four turtle doves . . . .”

As with all new acquisitions, the geen were a focus of curiosity for the first few days, but soon the novelty wore off. Neelix found that a small container of food and water lasted nearly a week and programmed the computer to remind him to check on them regularly. Naomi quickly tired of waiting for the lump to stop quivering and separate into six recognizable birds. In just a few days, the birds’ presence in the mess hall was taken for granted and forgotten.

No one could be blamed for what happened next. Naomi had just filled the food and water containers that morning; the Bordani attack that afternoon put the galley out of commission for the next forty-eight hours. The mess hall was deserted while the crew ate emergency rations at their duty posts or in their quarters. No one stopped to think that the loss of power on deck two would also affect the force field around the geens’ cage. No one knew that the geens’ natural habitat was the dark tunnels and caves of the Rellata home world.

And so, it was almost four days before Neelix checked on the geen again.

“Neelix to the bridge.”

Janeway put down the PADD she was studying, grateful for a chance to do something besides grapple with repair schedules. “Go ahead, Mr. Neelix.”

“Captain, I’m afraid the geen have escaped.”

The bridge grew quiet. “What?”

“I’m guessing that the force field in their cage fluctuated during the Bordani attack, and they flew somewhere to hide. I should never have left them here unattended, Captain. This is my fault.”

Janeway closed her eyes. Six geen were flitting about somewhere in her ship doing who knew what kind of damage. Her memory of the photonic flea fiasco gave her a chill. “Well, Neelix, it doesn’t help to fix the blame. We need to fix the problem. We’ll find them soon enough. Janeway out.” She turned to Harry Kim at ops. “Ensign, calibrate internal sensors for the geens’ life signs and begin a deck by deck search.”

Before Kim could reply, Chakotay leaned toward her. “Internal sensors won’t be online for twelve more hours, Captain.”

She turned to him with a groan. “I forgot. Suggestions?”

“Perhaps we could have off-duty personnel scan each deck with tricorders?”

“That won’t work,” she sighed. “I couldn’t get my tricorder to pick them up when I was holding it within two feet of the cage.”

“Then, I suggest we put the internal sensors on a higher priority for repair.”

She smiled. “Good idea, Commander. Janeway to Torres.”

“Yes, Captain?” In the background, they could hear one of the engineer crew swearing like a boson’s mate.

Suppressing a smile, Janeway said, “The geen have disappeared and need to be found as soon as possible. Could you move internal sensors higher on the repair list?”

“All right, Captain. If we do them next, they should be up in two hours.”

“Perfect. Let me know when they’re operational. Janeway out.” She glanced at Chakotay, who was barely repressing a smile. “What?”

“I was remembering the photonic fleas Seven discovered,” he said softly, his eyes twinkling.

“I thought we’d agreed to ‘forget’ that entire incident,” she whispered, giving him a cautionary frown.

“I’m talking about the fleas themselves, Captain, not what happened later. I’m thinking that they might inadvertently disrupt ship’s functions the way the fleas did.”

“Ah, good thought.” She turned to the ops station. “Harry, in the meantime, watch for any unusual readings or fluctuations that might be a clue to the geens’ presence.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Janeway leaned toward her first officer. “Any other good ideas?”

“Maybe later,” he said with a wink. “If you’re willing to listen.”

She laughed. “We’ll see about that, Commander.”

Nothing worked. They tried a series of internal scans and then several deck-by-deck searches with tricorders. It was as if the six little birds had simply evaporated into thin air. Janeway finally ordered a continuous scan on rotating settings, and the crew went on about its business, the location of the tiny birds an insignificant concern.

Two weeks later, while on the bridge, the captain came across the usual unsuccessful geen scan on the daily ops report. She handed it to Chakotay with a scowl. “Still nothing,” she complained. “They’re so tiny, I’m thinking we’d have to be within inches of them before they’d show up.”

“Plus, they’re moving targets,” he pointed out, scrolling through the data. “I had a thought, though.”

“What? Tell me!”

“Neelix was a little fuzzy about the geen when I asked him about them, so I took the liberty of contacting the Rellata for more information.”

She couldn’t help but feel a tiny spark of hope. “And?”

He handed her a PADD. “I got this reply a few minutes ago.”

She took it from him reading relevant parts aloud. “They like dark tunnels and caves, and elude hunters through camouflage.” She looked up at him. “Camouflage?”

“I think they must be like a chameleon,” he said with a shrug. “They can blend into their surroundings so that a tricorder would see them as part of the deck or ceiling.”

The captain visibly paled. “The Jeffries tubes.”

“They are a little like tunnels and caves.”

She closed her eyes, imagining the many Jeffries tubes that honeycombed the ship. “They could be anywhere.”

“But, they prefer to lay their eggs in open spaces. We just have to be looking for them.”

Janeway snorted. “What are the chances that someone will be looking in just the right direction when the geen enter an open area. Besides, some of the junctions are pretty open, too.”

“Well, there’s also the singing.” He took the PADD back from her. “When they lay their eggs, they sing a song that sounds like this.” He activated the PADD, filling the bridge with a screeching trill that quickly ended. “Most of it’s outside our ability to hear.”

“Like a dog whistle.”

He smiled at her. “Count on you to think of that, but yes.”

“Program that trill into the computer so we can begin to map them when they start singing. Maybe we can find a pattern or discover their favorite locations.” She shook her head. “It’s ironic, isn’t it, that the only reason Neelix accepted these geen was to ‘enhance’ the pungency of leola root?”

“Is that what they’re good for?” Chakotay asked, a look of terror on his face. “And you let Neelix keep them?”

She wilted. “I thought they were too small to pose a problem. And you should’ve seen how much he doted on them.”

Chakotay shook his head. “Sometimes, Kathryn, I think you’re too indulgent of your crew.”

“You never complain when you’re on the receiving end of those indulgences, Commander,” she murmured, giving his hand a gentle pat.

Their conversation turned to other issues, and soon the captain excused herself from the bridge to read reports in the ready room. Picking up a cup of coffee from the replicator, she collapsed into her desk chair for some quality work time, only to be interrupted a few moments later by a strange odor. Frowning, she sniffed her cup first and then surreptitiously ducked her head to check on her deodorant. Nothing unusual.

“What is that smell?” she said as her eyes began to water. “Commander Chakotay, please report to the ready room.”

Her first officer took one step through the door and stopped in his tracks. “Kathryn, what is that awful stench?”

“I wish I knew. I got a cup of coffee, sat down to read, and then this smell arrived. I’m about to throw up.” Her last words were nearly drowned out by a short trill that seemed to come from inside the wall behind her desk.

“The geen!” they said simultaneously.

Janeway stood up and grabbed a tricorder so that she could scan for them, only to hear Chakotay chuckle. She looked at him over her shoulder. “What are you laughing at?”

“Your trousers,” he grinned, pointing at a tiny wet spot on the seat of her pants.

She reached back and brought the odiferous goop to her nose, nearly gagging in the process. “Dear God. The Rellata didn’t happen to mention the disgusting odor, did they?”

“There are no words in Federation standard that would have adequately described it, Kathryn.”

She rolled her eyes and tapped her commbadge. “Janeway to Neelix.”

“Neelix here.”

“I’ve just discovered the first geen eggs in my ready room.”

“Captain, that’s wonderful news! But be careful not to break them. The Rellata say their aroma is offensive to some species.”

“Offensive, Mr. Neelix, is an understatement.”

“Oh, dear. Then you’ve already broken them?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I sat on them.”

There was a moment of silence as Neelix mentally imagined what must have happened. “Would it be possible for you to scrape up what’s left of the shells?”

She glanced at the chair, noticing a complete absence of shell fragments. Chakotay struggled not to laugh as she twisted around trying to look at the seat of her pants. “It would seem that most of the shells adhered to my . . . .”

Chakotay laughed out loud.

“. . . to my uniform.” She glared at him as she put considerable stress on the last word, even though her mouth twitched into a grin.

Not about to be easily defeated, Neelix said, “Did I hear Commander Chakotay in the room with you? Perhaps he could scrape the shells off of your uniform?”

Chakotay bit his lower lip as he tried to imagine himself kneeling behind the captain scraping shells off of her rear end. He looked up to find a huge grin on her face as she emphatically shook her head. “Oh, no, Mr. Neelix. I’m afraid this crop of shells is a complete loss.”

“Very well, Captain.” Neelix sounded depressed. “There will be other eggs. Once they start laying, they’ll produce the eggs every two hours for the next two weeks.”

Chakotay did the math. “That’s over a thousand eggs.”

“Are the eggs easier to detect than the geen?” Janeway wondered aloud.

“They are when they’re sat upon,” Chakotay joked, only to grow serious when he saw the flash of anger in the captain’s eye. “If you can scan your . . . the residue, Captain, I’ll have Harry program the smell into the internal sensors.”

“That will be all, Mr. Neelix,” Janeway said, breaking the connection as she eyed her first officer. “You are enjoying this situation far too much, Commander.” She gave him a crooked grin as she opened her tricorder and waved it at her posterior.

Chakotay laughed again.

The captain felt certain that they would catch the geen during their egg-laying frenzy. They would be vulnerable when they left their hiding place every two hours to lay eggs and their trills of triumph would help Harry narrow down their location until the tiny flock could be captured.

She was wrong.

During the first day, the tiny clumps of eggs appeared on Decks 1, 3, 4, 10, 11, and 15, one on the top of a console in engineering, one on the deck of cargo bay 1, one on the rung of a ladder in junction 10A of the Jeffries tubes, one in a turbolift, and others in tiny crevices that were nearly impossible to see. The eggs were so delicate that by the third day the ship reeked of broken geen eggs. Even worse, Janeway suspected that at least two dozen eggs had not been discovered.

“We know all six are hens,” the captain said during a staff meeting. “But since there isn’t a male to fertilize the eggs, won’t they gradually disappear?”

“I hate to burst your bubble, but these geen eggs were already fertilized,” Chakotay replied. “The gestation is a little under ten days.”

Janeway imagined the dozens of eggs they had been unable to locate. “Are you telling me that we’re going to have more and more of these pests hatching and laying eggs as time goes on?” The panicked look on the captain’s face was reflected in every other face at the table. “We have to do something.”

Chakotay consulted his PADD. “The Rellata say that the adolescent males must be separated from the flock because they seek out and eat the hatchlings. Since we can’t cull them out, they will eliminate the problem over time.”

“How much time?” Tuvok asked. As a Vulcan with superior olfactory senses, he had suffered from the stench more than anyone else on the senior staff.

“The eggs hatch in ten days, and the males reach adolescence ten days later.”

The captain nodded, “At least there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Let’s just hope these young geen are very hungry.”

The days dragged by. The crew learned to look at every surface they walked, worked, or sat upon to avoid breaking the tiny shells. Once in awhile, a member of the crew who was crawling through a Jeffries tube would suddenly be surrounded by a half dozen fluttering, screeching dots of feathers that evaporated as quickly as they appeared. And the aroma of the broken eggs became as familiar as the odor of leola root stew.

The only person on the crew who seemed unaffected by the smell was Neelix, who cheerfully toured the ship collecting the eggs and grinding the shells into a powder he could use in the galley.

After a month, once the geen became the favorite food of the adolescent males, the trill and eggs gradually faded into a bad memory, bringing the entire incident to a satisfactory close.

One evening, not long after the last geen had disappeared, Janeway and Chakotay walked into the mess hall together for dinner, only to find the room empty except for the unmistakable odor of leola root that filled the air.

The captain stopped in her tracks. “We forgot to check today’s menu.”

“I did check it. It said ‘cook’s choice,’ which I thought would be the usual leftovers,” Chakotay replied. “I should’ve known better.”

“Maybe we can just turn around and leave?”

But, it was too late. Neelix spotted them and came out of the galley at warp speed. “Captain! Commander! I’m so glad you’re here. Tonight I’ve prepared a very special dinner that I’m sure you’ll enjoy.”

“Oh, Neelix,” Kathryn protested, “I don’t even know why I’m here. I’m still full from lunch.”

Chakotay leaned over and whispered, “I thought you said you skipped lunch.”

“Quiet!” she hissed, giving him a quick jab in the ribs. She turned to her chief cook. “But, I’m sure the commander will more than make up for my lack of appetite.”

Neelix positively glowed. “The surprise is that this is the first leola dish that’s been enhanced by the geen shell spice.” He leaned toward them as he shepherded him into the room. “You’ll find the leola much more pungent than you remember.”

“Oh, boy,” Chakotay replied.

They followed him to the serving line where he filled their trays with a liberal helping of the stew, and then they turned to look for a seat in the nearly deserted mess hall.

“Looks like everyone got the word but us, Chakotay.” With a sigh, she led him to a secluded table near the window and sat down, staring at her stew as if it were a plate of poison. She looked up bleakly as her first officer sat down across from her. “Enhance? Is that the right word?”

“It’s open to interpretation.”

“To me, enhance means to make something good even better. What’s the term for making something bad even worse?”

He smiled. “Geenify?”

She laughed, spearing a lump of the stew with hasty determination. “I might as well get this over with.”

“Lead on, Captain.”

Kathryn Janeway closed her eyes and took a bite.

Author’s note:

The preceding story was reconstructed from the official and personal logs recorded during the relatively harmless “geen incident” that took place during the sixth year of Voyager’s exile. In spite of a detailed study of every available log from the crew, I was unable to ascertain the captain’s reaction to the geen-enhanced stew. It was not mentioned in her log or the first officer’s, nor was it discussed in Neelix’s records. Apparently, these three were the only individuals in the mess hall at the time the incident occurred.

I had the opportunity to interview Captain Chakotay a year or so after Voyager’s return and asked him specifically about the incident. He smiled, pulled his ear, and studied the floor in front of him before he finally said that some comments are better lost to history.

Admiral Janeway neatly sidestepped the question some months later. I found myself sitting beside her in a Starfleet cafeteria on Jupiter station and took advantage of the opportunity to ask her directly about the taste of the geen-spiced stew.

The admiral smiled, staring absently into space as she considered the question. Finally, she asked, “Have you ever heard the song ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’?”

Since I grew up in Missouri, I said that I knew the song by heart, although I also admitted that it was quite repetitive and a little silly.

Janeway agreed. “To this day, Chakotay irritates me by singing ‘six geen a-laying’ instead of the correct word ‘geese.'” Before I could restate the question, the admiral sat up straight and waved at a tall man who had just entered the cafeteria. “Speak of the devil! There’s Chakotay now. If you’ll excuse me.” She was gone without another word.

My last chance for a straight answer was to address the question to Neelix through the continuing Pathfinder project. I submitted the query to Reg Barclay and forgot about it for a few months until one day a reply arrived. Neelix’s answer follows:

“About the question on the geen shell spice, I can only say that the captain was kind enough to send the entire supply with me when I decided to leave the ship and remain in the Delta Quadrant. It’s been so popular with the Talaxian colonists that we’ve acquired breeding stock from the Rellata to keep up with demand.

“As to her comment when she tasted the stew, well, I’m not sure I remember her exact words. She said something about refraining from using the geen shell spice again as long as she was captain, and then she suggested that I store the rest of it in place where the sun doesn’t shine.

“At first, I thought the captain might be making a joke, especially when Commander Chakotay nearly choked on his drink, but I followed her advice and discovered that keeping the spice out of the direct sunlight extends its shelf life by nearly forty-five percent. Captain Janeway was always a fountain of useful knowledge.

“Let me know if you have any other questions.”

The End