Upper Decks

This time the story follows the Cerritos's senior staff through a single hectic day while the ship studies buhgoons, self-cloaking space creatures living in a planetary ring system. Captain Freeman squeezes in crew events before an anniversary dinner with her husband, Admiral Alonzo Freeman. Ransom's gruelling workouts turn out to be a deliberate way of bonding with the crew. Billups and Ensign Meredith race to stop overheating plasma canisters causing disaster, Dr T'Ana tests painful treatments on herself to improve her pain management, and Shaxs battles visions tied to his past on Bajor. Then the Clickets, who want the buhgoons' cloaking organs for their own ships, attack after slipping an agent aboard disguised as a scientist. Freeman remembers a detail from her morning briefing: Clickets cannot stand compliments. She drives them off with praise, every crisis is resolved, and the lower deckers, busy carving pumpkins, never notice a thing.