Ridley looked up from her station, "Captain, I'm detecting signs of my decoy plushie on this planetoid's surface. I suggest we go down and retrieve it. It's been missing from the time-space continuum for months now, and there's no knowing what havoc it has wrecked since it went missing."

The captain sighed and put his hand to his chin contemplatively. "Very well... but... take the EMH... with you... she's good at... finding the decoy."

Ridley nodded curtly and and sashayed from the bridge with her usual over abundant amount of wobbling. She hummed to herself as she took the turbolift down a few deck to head for sickbay.

Ridley paused at the door and braced herself as it hissed open. She stepped past the threshold. Instantly the EMH popped into being, the curvaceous female moss dog filled out her uniform far further than Starfleet standard would have ever allowed and was pressed quite intimately close to the taller squirrel. Her holoboobs tangible enough to force the squirrel's own up into her face. "Please state the nature of the medical emergency," she practically purred as her hands started to inspect Ridley.

Ridley had to bite her lip and hold back a sigh of delight as the holo dog greeted her with her usual overly friendly bedside manner. "No emergency, we've got a mission and you're coming with me. We've detected signs of the decoy on the planetoid we're currently orbiting."

Salix's eyes practically flashed with glee, "Oh good, it's so nice to get out of sickbay from time to time, and how I've missed my little plushie Ridley. I have such a hard time sleeping without her. Of course if the real one helped I wouldn't have a problem..." she said letting her voice grow husky as she leaned ever more heavily against the squirrel.

Ridley rolled her eyes and took a step to the side, rolling away from the moss dog. The top heavy hologram staggered and fell forward, tumbling out the sickbay door and vanishing with a fizzling pop. Ridley snickered and then the holo dog reformed back inside her office.

"Rude!" Salix called as she snatched up her mobile holo emitter and fixed it to her arm. She gathered up her gear and then swatted Ridley on the backside as she wobbled out the door. Ridley just smirked and shook her head before following.

One transporter trip later the two stood on the rocky surface of the planetoid. Salix stretched her arms over her head with a quiet groan, which made all sorts of jiggling occur. "Transporting always makes my photons feel all tingly," she complained before pulling out her tricorder and giving the area a once over. "Not a lot of life on this rock," she noted. "Where do you think we should start searching?"

Ridley swished her massive tail and silently pointed towards the large yawning cave entrance they had materialized near. She quirked a brow at the EMH. "Ah, of course. Well, after me, then!" the dog hopped forward and wandered into the dark, hips swaying in a manner befitting the streets of a red light district rather than a exploratory excursion. Ridley cautiously pulled her phaser from it's holster (which was of course, her cleavage) and followed slowly after.

The entrance to the cave became a speck of light behind the two when finally the holo moss dog stumbled across something. The white light of her tricorder fell upon the tan fur of a small plush doll. "Here it is!" she proclaimed as she bound forward to collect it.

"I don't like the feel of this place," Ridley murmured as a dramatic and foreshadowing sting played in the background.

Salix reached for the doll and it leapt away from her on a thin purple strand. "Get back here, you!" she pounced for it again causing cataclysmic levels of jiggling across her holographic figure, the fabric would not have survived had it been real. Her fingers just brushed against the doll before it was yanked away again, flying high into the air.

A rumbling moan filled the cavern and the walls shook, bits of rock and dust rained from the ceiling as the doll wavered in the air. That narrow purple strand attached to it started to glow, the tendril pulsed with light, shooting down it's length and spreading... wider and wider. "I really don't like this!" Ridley said, backing into the moss dog. The luminescence revealed the cavern to be full of writhing purple tentacles that thrummed with light as they wriggled their way towards the duo.

"What a fascinating creature," Salix murmured, her medical tricorder beeping and whirring as she scanned the writhing mass. "It used the decoy as a decoy. How did it even know what we were looking for?"

"Now's not the time, Doc! We have got to move!" Ridley shouted as she fired a stunning bolt at a tentacle as it caressed against her thigh.

"Oh pshaw, I'm a hologram, it can't do anything to me."

"You're on the mobile emitter, you can't go intangible."

"Oh... right. Hrm, well maybe this will be fun!"

"Salix! RUN!"

The EMH sighed, "Okay, but I'm gonna make a holosim of this situation and you're gonna run it with me."

"FINE! GO!"

The tentacles surged forward!

Salix and story belongs to and by me

Ridley belongs to  Flexus

Art by  KaboozleFA