Animal cruelty

[SabrinaPandora]

“How many times do I need to tell you people that I do not belong on a starship! Look at me!”

“Lieutenant, I realize that you may have some misgivings about spaceflight-”

“Misgivings I have many, petty officer-”

“Lieutenant commander, actually. Look, Lieutenant,” he stressed the word, emphasizing the difference in their ranks, “there’s nothing I can do about this. Orders are orders and assignments are what they are. You’ve been assigned to another starship.

“I am nearly four hundred kilos, commander!” the braying alien anatomist stomped one of her rear hooves on the deck, and even with the sturdy rubber coatings she wore to muffle her impact with the deck, the reverberations still cavitated outward from the point of impact. It tended to reinforce a point, and in the case of one Lieutenant Rhiannon ‘Doc’ Ironhooves it came quite naturally.

A centaur, with the entire body of a horse save the neck which then graduated to a secondary torso with redundancy systems which appeared to be a humanoid from the waist up. Long and wide pointed ears accentuated her alien appearance. A long mane of shaggy chestnut hair shot through by a few streaks of silver was restrained behind her head in a great twist, while her stout and wide three fingered hands planted themselves on the lieutenant commander’s desk. The glossy black flanks advanced a bit, and the desk moved a few centimeters.

“I’m supposed to be in a hospital. ON THE GROUND, Lieutenant Commander. Not on a starship. Or just station me as the liaison to my home planet, but I am not...” the desk scraped back another centimeter.

“A good match...” The desk scraped back a few centimeters more.

“For a starship,” the spirited granddam snorted, then exhaled in a remarkably equine expression. The lieutenant commander calmly folded his hands atop his desk and smiled placidly.

“Take it up with Starfleet Command. You can send a request up the chain of command and wait for an answer, but in the meantime, orders are orders. Are you refusing to report as ordered, Lieutenant...?” There was a bit of a twinkle in his eye as the routing officer waited for the impotent rage to set in. This was the good part of his job, after all.

There was that moment where she considered just bashing his skull in, but she didn’t have anything within arm’s reach that would serve as a decent cudgel. Of course, she could always reverse then buck up to kick him with both hooves. Probably at least crack his skull if not dash his brains out. Though while she found both thoughts to be satisfying, in the end she chose civilized behavior.

Another starship. Another life in cramped quarters, jamming into turbolifts while trying to keep sickbay up and running. Trying to find a treadmill that could hold her. Trying not to get claustrophobic because she could never see the sky nor feel the wind on her face. Never being able to run with all of those sharply angled corridors or the endless stream of people in the way.

“There should be provisions in Starfleet for assignment of alien life forms that are not like you humans to posts that would count as animal cruelty,” the cranky centaur muttered, her tail flicking in annoyance. “So what’s the name of this starship again...?”

“The USS Legacy...”