SD 02/05/05 - "Wolf in the Fold" aka "The Wrath of Ironbottom #8" The strangest thing about it, I had a craving for bones for hours.
The last thing I remembered was being in the Kzin ship's medbay with the security team. The next, I was on the ground in some hallway, Half, Orlan, and Lott looking at me, and me covered in grayish fur with a bit of a snout. They slowly faded before our eyes, but Orlan loaned me the shirt off his back to keep the Cloud of Censorship away. On the way back, we ran into what looked like some kind of big weasel. Melvin shot it with the antidote, and it turned and sprayed him with a foul musk. Must've been part skunk or something. We took it back to the hangar bay with us where the Protomorph effects faded, and it turned into Ben Dover. Ironic considering the opinion some have of him around here.
It had been a real mess earlier. Several of the crew were also affected by the Protomorph Syndrome. Worse, some began going after other crewmen! Seeing a badly injured Redshirt, I was told "something" from the shuttle, where Lynx was, grabbed him and dragged him aboard, screaming. Lynx and her two older kids had transformed into what looked like crosses between a gorilla and a saber-toothed beast. If not for the quick action of several nearby, he might not have made it. He suffered a broken back, and will need implants to walk again. Full recovery is not expected. Tarra was transformed too into something similar, but was kept at bay by Yeoman Banner who changed into some huge green humanoid, everything but his purple boxers ripped away. In the middle of it all, Lera was grabbed by some kind of "tentacle beast." Her being naked, it was easy for those suction-cupped tendrils to get hold of her. It didn't seem to be interested in eating her as the "Cloud of Censorship" came up after it began fondling her. Quite heavily too.
Eventually, Cosmo found a cure, and began handing injectors out to innoculte those infected, starting with Lynx and her kids as they were the biggest threat. Then came the others. When the tentacle beast was cured, it changed back into ... Droolin. The final irony, when he made another pass at her, she punched him hard enough to knock him out. At least that's what the redshirts have been snickering. Before she could be given a cure shot though, she up and hid again, even though the crisis in the bay was over. When she was found, unconscious, she was covered in a coat of gray fur and her ears had gotten large and round: a mouse-like appearance. Ironic, considering her desire to have many kids and her fear of being eaten.
About the same time I was coming to, Lott somehow managed to restore full power to the carrier from the Ferrengi Marauder, which their Damion christened the Moneybags. All the time being harassed by Ferrengi and humans devolved into cavemen. She thought one caveman didn't act too badly, all things considered. The perils of an female engineer. You try to get some work done on an engine, and some perv wants her to work on his "engine."
After all that mess, we've been going through both ships, finding and curing the remaining infected crewmen, both ours and Ferengi, cleaning things up and getting them working, and getting a good look at this carrier, the Gutting Claw as it's called. The Redshirts have given it the pet name, "The Gutter," which I get the feeling will stick. As for exactly who built this and why it was abandoned here, we're in the middle of going through the logs for answers. So far, we know Char Ritt, Lynx's brother was invovled to some extent. He may have been the one behind it's construction. He certainly had the means and opportunity.
Getting things in shape has been a bit of work. Besides those de-volved Ferrengi making quite a mess of things, which might have been worse if there hadn't been rations aboard, there's also a rodent problem. Lynx mentioned seeing something called "space herpes" aboard, which she called a problem on some Kzin ships and would likely mean we'd not be permitted to dock until the last one was gone. It seems strange that Kzin would have a problem with rodents on their ships. Perhaps that says something about the resiliance of the little buggers. They've made quite a mess of communications both on the Gutter and the Moneybags. The only way we can pick up anything is on the shortwave on the shuttle, which means we can't send a message to anyone outside scanner range.
The engines were also damaged, and have been a higher priority. If the Borg show up again, or the Kzin as some have been wondering, it's doubtful the radio will be as much good as our ability to haul it out of there. A number of weapons systems are now online. This includes the carriers' drones and attack shuttles. Unlike the sterotypes of thin-skinned one-manned ships built for suicidal close-range fighting, these are ships that can be piloted by one or two, and seem fairly armored with decent-ranged phasers and smaller drones. It seems the sucess of the "Defiant" class ships has carried over into Kzin combat shuttle design. A carrier of mini-Defiants ... An exaggeration, but not by much. Let's hope Ritt, or whoever built them, was keeping this secret from the rest of the Kzin.
There is one problem if we do get into a scrap - manpower. The carrier is much bigger than the Freedom was. Although we have enough to keep it running, the size has made it longer to clean up the damage from the Proto-situation than a similar mess on the Freedom. If we get into a fight, we do not have enough people to man all the guns and shuttles, and have personel on by to deal with any dammage the ship occurs.
Speaking of personel, the "people problems" between crew members continue, notably involving those who got hit bad with the Protomorph Syndrome and tried to chow down on other crewmen. The Redshirts had been skittish before of her, but now more are going out of their way to avoid her. I even overheard a whispered conversation "Maybe Lera wasn't completely wrong about Lynx. Maybe right now she really could eat someone." Even Tarra has been talked about in hushed tones. This reminds me of when Lera came down with that Vulcan virus and battered Lynx. Crewmen who were once cheerful to her began avoiding her. Now, after the tentacle attack the redshirts are talking about her in a much better manner, although more as an object of sympathy rather than "Romulan Sex Goddess," at least for the moment.
Although many crewmen find Ensign Benjamin Dover hard to sympathize with, between Lynx's beating him up and that unfortunate redshirt, the concern among the crew has gotten bad. I ought to order medical exams anyway to clear her as Lera was after Risa.
And oh yeah, we found "Demian." Seems he had beamed enough circuitboards to hold his data over to the shuttle into a place where he couldn't be spotted soon. Well, some redshirt spotted the energy emissions. We're keeping him disconnected from the main computer. Still, we have to go to him/it for data sometimes. Complicated situation.