SD 10/18/03 - "When Anime Attacks" What in the blue blazes happened?
To start off with since last entry, I finally made a decision about Brundle. Considering our combat situation, he'd be liable to blow something up - on our ship, and as his position as counselor is irrelevant at these times, I ordered him confined to quarters for insobordnation. M'Rander approved when I brought it up with her, regretting only that his arm wasn't broken in the process.
Then came the task of finding Riit's cloaked ship. We couldn't just fire randomly as our supply of photon torpedoes was low. We scanned around, finally getting the idea of focusing on Ennin's wheelchair's frequencies. Somehow, we also picked up frequencies identical to the Cloud of Censorship. Between the two, we were able to find Riit's ship, and disable it.
While searching for the ship, Kura, acting as Acting Comm officer, noted some other smaller ships, with some odd frequencies. When M'Rander ordered "Barney" music broadcasted to disable them, they seemed to actually enjoy it! Their transmissions seemed strange. It was when we disabled the main Kzin ship, they moved in. We tried to stop them, but they managed to avoid our shots and latch on and start boarding. Some latched on to Riit's ship as well.
The boarding was most untypical of Kzin. Their broadcasts were claims that they wanted to be friends, and the weapon of choice was nonleathal gas. Security responed the best they could, and the Barney hologram was unleashed. But they just joined along in the singing! In hindsight, I should have noticed the voices were female, Kzinrettes. But at the time, all we knew was we were being boarded. M'Rander ordered the self-destruct sequence set as a last resort. If they didn't leave, we'd all get it.
But just as Lera gave the third code, the boarders knocked the door in. We responded with phasers on stun, but the gas grenades got us. My recollections of what happened are very hazy to say the least. When I came to, I found Lera and I in the Cloud of Censorship naked and cuddling! I promptly put my pants back on, and tried to leave, but Lera was clingy. But the boarders were gone and Lynx, Tarra, and Cosmo were back aboard, thank God! M'Rander and I barely had time to shut off the self-desrtuct.
Reports of what these strange boarders were are scattered, Lynx and Tarra giving the best descriptions. These Kzinrettes were not with Riit, but said they were from what we called the "Dark Mirror" universe. The opposite of our universe's Kzin, they were friendly and playful, wearing uniforms resembling cheerleaders on roller skates, and needed male Kzin to help make inteligent males. Riit was taken along with all the others. Somehow, I have a feeling his fate will be less pleasant than it seems at first glance. In any event, we have Cosmo and the girls back, and Riit is out of our hair for at least a while, possibly forever. If they were after Riit's entire War College, we may not have to worry so much about the Kzin Hedgmeony for some time.
In any event, our mission to Planet Cid to recover research on the Zenth-Trad has been called off. Between the delays caused by Brundle and Riit, as well as the planet turning out to have inteligent life, we were ordered to go on to our new assignment. We are now headed to Planet Mynesia. This may be for the best, as the planet's First Contact turned out badly due to Riit showing up. However, I doubt this will be the last we have seen of these "Cidi." Although there was no sign they could make use of our transporter technology, they seemed adept at just about anything else. Warp drive, considering we left a warp-capable shuttlecraft (though the transporter was taken out for repairs) down there in all the chaos with Riit, we may not have to wait very long.