Ligorian mastodon
December 4, 2121
Leonard Fitzmurdle's personal log
It's been a few weeks since my last entry, as I haven't had much leisure time with Admiral Jelamino aboard. It is strange to meet her in person after all these years of delayed interface recordings. Briswald and I have manned this ship together for so long that I think we've fully adapted to each other. Now this tiny, ferocious newcomer has waded into our midst, disrupting all standard procedures. And seeing the ship through her eyes has brought my attention to things that long ago faded into the background: The Denubian lemur's nest in the maintenance conduit. My paints and brushes covering the damage control console. Briswald's fire snake underpants left to dry on the gravimetric field displacement manifold.
Since her secondary purpose for being aboard is to evaluate our vessel's long-term spaceworthiness, she's been putting us through our paces with mechanical audits and drills. Briswald has taken to this with boisterous enthusiasm; he sees every request as a chance to display the excellence of our ship and selves. Between her barked orders and his cries of "Man the stations, good show!" it has been far from peaceful.
So much so that when I ventured off the ship to seek out the elusive Ligorian mastodon, I discovered that even with the hatch closed I could still hear their muffled voices through the hull. In the end I surrounded the ship with a makeshift auditory dampening field. Only then was I able to hear the faint whisper of the mastodons moving through the trees.
I tracked them in silence for many miles. At last my patience was rewarded. The mastodons gathered around a waterhole and, one by one, decloaked. What a wonder it is to see these massive creatures shimmering into being! After drinking their fill, the mastodons checked each other carefully, looking for injuries, hitchhiking fauna, and other potential threats. Only when their elaborate grooming rituals were complete did they slip back into silent invisibility.
As I am now back aboard, I only wish I could do the same.
Other mentions: Dax compared their rustling to the trail of ionized gases left by the cloaked Defiant. (VOY)
