Summary : His flawless perm floating softly in the breeze, Captain Kirk bulged his Apollo torso. With his gaze lost in the distance, his arm pointing to the firmament with an august gesture, he proclaimed: "Our domain is space, the final frontier,..."
.oOo.
The cabin door slid with a soft hiss. The young woman's blue uniform wrapped around her slim waist and molded her graceful hips, which slowly waved to the captain's bedside.
Kirk raised a weary and suspicious eyelid:
- Ensign Charnell? What are you doing in my quarters? Is the ship under attack?
The young woman glanced languidly at the captain. She put down her tray next to the officer's communicator and carelessly disconnected the device:
- Medical urgency, Captain! Relaxing massage, upon Dr. McCoy's recommendation!
This girl had fairy fingers! A few exquisite rubs on his temples had been enough for her to dissolve his headache into a fluffy apathy. Now the girl was prancing on the captain's bare back, abolishing his pain with large and gentle squeezing movements.
- Hmm... I feel we're not done with that painfull stiffness of yours, the girl in blue whispered at his ear while sweeping over her patient's waist, with expert and sweet gliding palms.
The captain, captivated under her gentle tumbs and the light touch of her phalanxes, barely managed to articulate:
- Coco, so you never give up? You know I blame myself for breaking Starfleet Directive N° Sixty-Nine!1
The oiled forearms of Ensign Charnell slowly awakened the muscular tone of the sole master on board after the Council of the Federation:
- You say that every time! Relax, Jim, we're on our own! she purred with a tender and irresistible wrap.
How did she manage to be everywhere at the same time? The Commander of the Enterprise turned around, ready to rebel. But his anatomy protested for him…
- I have the solution! his partner whispered, freeing him from the strained fabric. Here is a temporary promotion order! Once in the same hierarchical position... we can turn the protocol with complete peace of mind … and indulge in all the positions we like !
Coco ended her demonstration by circumventing his reluctance with an overwhelmingly sweet caress.
- Coco, I… I'm appointing you Co-Commander! whispered Kirk with a knowing grin.
Surrendering to the urgent summoning, he feverishly sighed and signed the release.
Just in time.
.oOo.
The ship's siren was hooting in all the passageways.
As Ensign Chekov rushed to find the captain, he almost knocked down his superior, who was coming out of his quarter, somehow shakily.
- We've been trying to reach you, Captain! Is your communicator malfunctioning?
- Mm-hmm, it must be! See what you can do about it!
- Captain on the bridge ! Spock greeted Kirk with his usual inexpressive face. Avoiding the perceptive gaze of his first officer, Jim sat down at the command post and asked for the report.
With a confident smile on his lips, but his watchful eyes going from officer to officer, the captain orchestrated a long-rehearsed ballet. Lieutenant Uhura had picked up some strange signals. She refined the location of the transmission point. Navigator Mr. Sulu spotted the planetary system on the fleet charts. Mr. Spock analysed and summarized the information that could be gathered about that world. And the verdict was: another unexplored world, worth a visit! According to the Vulcan archives, the planet Lemnya IV seemed to be populated by humanoids with strange matrimonial habits...
Kirk was already rubbing his hands when he noticed that his communications officer, who had kept on tuning the signal, was waddling slowly on her seat, her eyes blurred, as if hypnotized by her headphones' broadcast. Spock, his face imperturbable but his eyes sharp, turned a knob on the communication board.
A haunting melody rose on the bridge, mixing the purity of soft whistles and the fullness of majestic chords. The ever-changing rhythm had plunged Lieutenant Uhura into a gentle trance. This harmony of human voices and sea chants seemed to remind some of a hope of yesteryear, while others glimpsed a moment of serenity lost in longing dream. The entire bridge, won by grace, would abandon itself to the songs of these galactic sirens. Only Mr. Spock, victim of a violent migraine, protected his long ears with his hands and slipped to the ground, overcome by syncope. The last man still lucid on deck, Captain Kirk rushed to the console of his communications officer, and restored the silence!
Well yes, that's no coincidence he's the captain...
The crew looked at each other, a little haggard. There was a call, full of promises and tainted with melancholy. Yet a warning oppressed all hearts.
Kirk had made up his mind. He quickly assembled the unbeatable team to check what it was all about down there! Spock, McCoy, Sulu and Scotty would join! Along with some guy in red suit, as an armed escort...
Just before departure, a beautiful ensign approached the captain. Mr. Spock could have sworn that the blue skirt was way shorter than standard, and he couldn't understand why an epidemiologist from the medical lab was repairing the transmitters. But the Vulcan had to admit that the finesse of certain human rituals still eluded him. So he did not object, simply raking in the facts with his usual phlegm.
After a mischievous glance to Kirk, Coco graciously handed him his communicator, with a knowing comment:
- Here's your equipment, Captain. It's been completely overhauled! I am at your disposal whenever you feel the urge for personal tool upkeep...
- Uh-hum, thank you, Ensign Charnell!" Kirk cut short as he pocketed the communicator and headed for the transporter cabin without further delay.
.oOo.
The transporter! What a technological miracle! Sure, it seemed somehow lame budget, it lacked emphasis, it was less impressing than a spectacular landing in a roaring shuttle, or a sparkling alighting under the colors of the fleet! But it was discreet, fast and cost efficient, and above all it avoided the endless ballistic calculations and thorny negotiations about the fuel for the return trip! No, it didn't sound like much, but it was a truly considerable advance in the daily comfort of the star trek adventurer! And it worked like clockwork! Or almost. All you had to do was stand over that little cell in the transporter room. Otherwise you might miss a few bits and pieces when you got there. Or even get some awkward mix-ups. Anyway, the obese's union of the fleet had complained.
But no problem this time, the dream team had felt that old little tingling in their fingertips, that short latency of thought and, in the time of a heartbeat, the space patrollers had been propelled into the unknown.
And as usual, the computer had done it right, rematerializing the delegation in the right place, the exact spot that captured the essence of the planet and the originality of its civilization. Kirk and his companions stood on a sort of open-air stage in the center of a large amphitheater. Rudimentary decorations of canvas and pasteboard evoked an antique atmosphere of irresistible kitsch. At the other end of the stage, a bunch of natives were waiting for them. Women, only women, and rather pretty if you ask, in togas, sandals and convoluted hairstyles!
Followed by her ladies-in-waiting, the most eminent advanced, and hailed with a regal tone:
– Who are you and where do you come from, proud visitors?
His flawless perm floating softly in the breeze, Captain Kirk bulged his Apollo torso. With his gaze lost in the distance, his arm pointing to the firmament with an august gesture, he proclaimed:
– Our domain is space, the final frontier, towards which voyages our starship Enterprise. Our five years mission : to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, and to bodly push the boundaries of the unknown!
His back stiff, the first officer turned his long inexpressive face towards his superior. His left eyebrow arched little more than the right to underline a tiny semantic disapproval:
– "If I may say so, Captain... The manifesto of the galactic fleet states the official wording "... to boldly go where no man has gone before!"
The captain held back a sigh of impatience and was about to bitterly thank the second-in-command for the arguable relevance of his linguistic rectification, when a small round man stepped forward, his arms folded behind his back but his hands restless, visibly greedy to experience contact with the local population:
– "Yeah, and with all these detours and delays, it's been a while we've been wandering in the cosmic depths! ... well over five years, if you ask me! Because we must admit these icy spaces of the intergalactic void are not very busy!"
Dr. McCoy's disillusioned leer detailed the opulent charms of the welcoming committee. The brilliant humanist was eager to explore the local culture.
Captain Kirk stepped forward too, overtaking the good doctor again—he liked him, but he wasn't going to leave the show to that op-room butcher! The intercultural protocol, "en finesse", was his thing! The senior officer adopted his famous three-quarters pose - bold but open, just right - and asked, with his fists on his hips:
– "Our ship has picked up a message! Your signal sounded like the song of a distraught ship... to which a gentleman officer cannot remain insensitive!"
The ambassador looked at Kirk's sparkling smile, Spock's impenetrable mask and McCoy's ruddy face. Behind them stood their companions, overloaded with equipment. What a strange roster, but what a diversity of genes! She glanced approvingly at her ladies-in-waiting and replied:
– "Indeed, gallant strangers, in our distress, we have addressed a lament to the stars, without imagining the cosmic vault would send us the utmost intergalactic virility!"
The long eyelashes blinked twice, and the whole Enterprise delegation began to posture.
– "The customs and sensitivity of the explored planets should be respected," mcCoy hummed as for himself.
Spock raised an eyebrow, if that were possible.
– "The federation expects everyone to do their duty!" the captain cleared his throat, moved by the expectance of duty.
And that's when things got out of the way.
.oOo.
Flowery palmettes gently beat the fragrant steam of the baths. The members of the Enterprise delegation dabbled in the basin or loathed on soft benches. A young woman, adorned only with her gentle smile, lay a tray of invigorating treats in front of the resting visitors.
McCoy and Scotty, a towel around their waists, had sat in front of a crystal service. Grabbing the carafe with his eyes shining with envy, the Scotsman poured a green liquid while commenting on his night:
– "These twins give everything they have! They don't fear overheating!
– "There were two of them?" the doctor asked with an incredulous accent and a jealous pout, while appropriating the first glass.
The chief engineer took a sip with a grimace of approval and stretched out on the cushions with a falsely modest look:
– "Oh, I couldn't really count! How about you?"
– "Well ! Dolophone is the high priestess of knowledge, or something like that" the doctor said. "I learned some amazing tricks... anatomically speaking!"
Scotty sipped his alcohol as a connoisseur:
– "They nicknamed me "Monty Scotty"! These twins love riding, that's for sure!"
The doctor could not stay behind:
– "She called me Bones... since all night long she thought it was a bone!"
– "Now that's a nickname we'll remind you of, Doctor! Scotty assured and refilled.
The guy in red bathing suit - where did he get that? - was swimming laps, tirelessly, under the disapproving gaze of Sulu, who tried to serenely finish his kata.
Sitting at the edge of the pool, Mr. Spock leaned over to Kirk, who was recovering from the night's prowesses:
– "Captain, I have given a lot of thought to Directive 14!"
– "Mmh? It's amazing, I have no back pain at all any more! What did you say?"
– "Directive 14 - An officer must never act unseemly or indecently, neither offensively nor immodestly to other forms of life."
–"And how, Please, Mr. Spock, is it indecent or unseemly to respond to the canons of local hospitality? On the contrary, refusing would have been offensive! As for modesty, you must consider that the most brilliant diplomatic victories are those where both sides keep a dear and lasting memory!" Kirk retorted with a slightly pretentious smirk. "But I hope that on your side, you have been valiantly brandishing the flag of our fleet?"
– "I beg your pardon, Captain?" ... Oh! It's a metaphor! ... Well I guess the honor is safe, the Vulcan articulated while smoothing his ears with an unusual and quite inappropriate sensuality.
When he saw that, Kirk preferred not to ask for details:
– "But then, what is it that upsets you?"
A trace of commiseration lingered at the corners of the Vulcan's lips:
– Grief or libido aside, Captain... I guess by accepting... so enthusiastically... the invitation of our hostesses, we would incur the wrath of the other part of the population. Triggering a casus belli with half a planet cannot be a viable policy in the eyes of the Federation!
This evidence finally entered the captain's brain:
– "Husbands!"
– "I managed to chat with Anastasia... It appears that fornication promotes human communicability, in the aftermath, since during the act itself, I had trouble following her rumblings and moanings!
Kirk's venomous gaze brought Spock back to his comment:
–"It's more serious than you seem to think, Captain! This people lives constantly separated, men on one side, women on the other! But something happened to the husbands, I'm positive! Something terrible, the extent of which I do not know! Here is my most plausible hypothesis: this particularly welcoming embassy is due only to the urgent need of our hostesses, to make up for their lack of men!
– A thousand planets! Hypsipyle fooled me! They're after our chromosomes! We are being used, and no doubt the fate of the black widow's lovers has been appointed for us, as for the husbands!
.oOo.
The captain gathered his men, having them hastily put on their uniforms. The fine team, abandoning their bulky equipment, rushed to the theater stage.
The women waited for them there, blocking the way. A crowd of dresses and cotillions surrounded the platform, peasants, servants, dignitaries, artisans, all had gathered to embrace the hope of their queen. But there were no juvenile minions to rejuvenate their ranks. These women united in one prayer: to give them a future.
The guy in red, duly briefed, made a clean sweep. The crew of the Enterprise sliced through the crowd, overlooking the pleas. Kirk's companions, torn between fear and embarrassment, were able to reach the stage without even using their phasers.
Their one-night companions were waiting for them there. Their dresses, completely renewed, had become lighter, gaining in glitz what they had lost in modesty. Milky skins, breathtaking curves, blushed complexions, velvet eyes full of regret, nothing was spared to hold back our adventurers. But there was not only duplicity in these begging looks.
Hypsipyle stepped forward. Her sober tunic revealed the nobility of her features. Her pure profile did not stoop nor beg for forgiveness after lying to the heroes. Her queenly brow did not bow when she begged for help on behalf of all her people. But she pleaded long and hard for generations to come: send more men, let the crew take a season off…
The men had reached the transport point. Torn between fear and pity, they couldn't make up their minds. Spock, despite Epanastasia's pleading caresse, kept his mind cool:
– Captain, Directive 3 instructs us to use all means to protect the life of an intelligent being, even if it's dangerous to ourselves! So the more in the case of a civilisation…
Kirk hesitated, his mind disturbed by Hypsipyle's magnetic gaze. But he decided:
– "Our peril is immediate! The danger weighing on this planet can wait a few days for us to see things more clearly! Beam us up!"
But many hugs held them, many caresses lingered on their uniforms, many kisses tortured them, leaving on their skins, on their retinas, in the depths of their souls, the memory of these women.
In a flash, the whole delegation suddenly disappeared from the stage!
.oOo.
As the teleportation began, the control panel lights in the Enterprise room began to crackle and flare like semaphores. A gloomy alarm sounded as thick smoke filled the transporter room.
Security staff quickly brought the fire under control, as is customary for an elite crew.
One by one, members of the delegation emerged from the dissipating fumes.
A tall redheaded woman stepped forward, stiff in her blue leotard. Hardly a shadow of surprise crossed her listless gaze when she discovered her feminine silhouette.
Like Venus rising from the waters, a sumptuous woman appeared. Her gaze pierced your heart. Her delicious curls rolled down to her perfect shoulders. Her golden jumpsuit drew fascinating rotundities. This girl embodied beauty through the centuries, and that was in addition to her many responsibilities.
The third survivor followed, amused by the fate of the previous two... Her hilarity froze when the small plumpy girl realized that she had undergone the same transformation as her sisters.
But her hysterical laughter resumed when a strange creature emerged from the smoke, similar to a woman, but with two rows of breasts! Giddy and dizzy, the girl threw with a Highland accent:
- I need something strong!
Then followed a huge girl in red tights, her hair cut like a brush, who seemed to experiment for the first time the peculiar back posture imposed by a considerable breast volume.
Only the navigating officer, Mr. Sulu, had retained his masculine build. His fine face marked by stupor, he contemplated his comrades, as incredulous about their transformation as dubious about the persistence of his own sex...
.oOo.
The captain, exasperated by the lioness hairstyle that kept coming back in front of her face, harassed the engineering officer:
– "But how could this malfunction occur?"
– "We are not sure. It seems that too many foreign elements got mixed in."
– "But the computer should have detected the problem and stopped the process!"
The engineer was sweating in his red tunic, disturbed by his captain's pulpy plastic, that every humour move swinged with suggestive jolts:
– "First the computer recognised you, then its memory became saturated with unknown elements. Unable to separate the original from the alien, it sent back to the planet what it could, or had to…"
Spock, whose new appearance in no way deprived her of her unassailable logic, stuck her rebellious streaks behind her ears and formulated her own hypothesis:
– "Once the data were mixed, the computer probably sent back what it thought was necessary to ensure the survival of all parts: first the majority components in memory, which is us, and then the other components still present on the planet, which is the Lemnians!"
– "You mean that the computer accidentally mixed us up and then teleported us here in the first viable state it found!"
– "Exactly!" articulated the imperturbable Spock, whose outrageously green-rimmed eyelids reminded of a famous witch-mother-in-law from pre-stellar Earth years. (1) "The computer couldn't reject us as the memory stack stated without killing us, so it bypassed the failsafes to roll back."
– "But how could it have misrecognized our chromosomes?"
Dr. McCoy finally intervened in the debate, glaring obliquely from under her long eyelashes:
– "Unfortunately a virus seems to have altered our deep heredity. This is probably what caused the initial computer error…"
– "Has there been any damage to the transporter room?"
– "I'm afraid it will take several days to repair! Only Mr. Sulu's cell is still operational."
– "Do you have any explanation about his peculiar condition, Dr McCoy?"
– "I don't know," she protested. "I'm a doctor, not a tele-swinger! For the moment, the only hypothesis that comes to mind is that the virus did not affect him... or that Mr. Sulu was already a carrier!"
.oOo.
On the bridge, a little unsettled, the crew was getting used to the womenly command. The captain had ordered the Lemnian communications intercepted. Of course, it was necessary to protect the worthy communications officer from the hypnotic effects of the Lemnian songs. Scottie had provided her with quite a fitting earpiece.
So the planet was being bugged all the time. The messages of complaints and appeals to male compassionate continued, but there was also another activity: on Lemnya IV, babies were being made again, frenetically!
How was that possible?
The experts from the scientific services worked day and night on the subject. Eventually it became clear that Hypsipyle, Dolophon, Epanastasia and their sisters, who had sneakily seduced the brave embassy of the Enterprise, had been rematerialized on Lemnos IV with the attributes our heroes were missing! And vice versa, if you follow me! They were now taking advantage of their masculine condition to spread their genes widely among the Lemnians!
The discovery caused a great stir on the Enterprise. There was no longer any reason to stay, the call of Lemnya IV had lapsed! Kirk had given assurances that he would tolerate no harm to any crew member. The captain intended to quickly get his entire self back into his own hands- in every sense of the word. But an ethical question was hanging over her head. Kirk called the delegation together to take their opinions into account.
To tell the truth, the viewpoints were pretty diverse.
Scotty felt the most affected, lamenting that he could no longer "give it all he had," at least in the sense he was familiar with.
The girl in red explained, in her own colourful way, that it was intolerable for her to "know that the phial and cruets were happily waltzing around behind the sacristan's back! »
Spock, who had made progress in metaphors, stoically remarked that this form of dissociation was not alien to humans, who were too often ruled by their zippers in place of their caps. For his part, he took the opportunity to re-calibrate a number of cognitive paradigms that his recent sex change had brought back into new perspective
Dr. McCoy, as a pragmatic practitioner, confined herself to recalling the testimony of a certain Dr. Tyresias, whose work - which he had pushed to the point of blindness - proved the immense superiority of female pleasure over men's enoyment.
For his part, Sulu was hanging back. He could not explain why he had escaped the fate of his companions and wondered about his own nature.
After listening to all of them, Kirk sighed and asked Lieutenant Uhura to stop recording of the proceedings. After a moment's reflection, the captain said:
– "We cannot give the impression to our female colleagues - the real women of the Enterprise - that we feel diminished by this transformation. The Directives are clear: we must get back on course, since none of us is in danger any more and everyone is in full possession of one's human faculties - even Scotty! The crew murmurs that the Command has just taken a big step towards parity. We can't go back!"
And that is how they boldly went ...
.oOo.
– "Have you lost your mind with the rest? shouted a blue tigress, stunning with her phaser the watchman in red who was blocking her way."
Ensign Charnell, flanked by a dozen young women of all ranks and fields, burst onto the bridge, weapons in hand.
McCoy rose to her feet and, throwing her frige to the side, intoned the aria of outraged authority:
– "Where do you think you are, Ensign? You're an epidemiologist under my command! Return to your laboratory at once, or I'll have you court-martialed!"
The lovely phalanx had now occupied the premises, determined to recover the captain in the functional state that suited them. Spock stepped forward to subdue the intruder with a Vulcan neck pinch, when Ensign Charnell wielded a perfectly valid mission order under the redhead's long nose:
– "By order of Captain Kirk, I command the Enterprise as his equal!"
The whole bridge turned to the captain, who was squirming in her command seat, checking the varnish on her nails.
– "I hereby relieve Captain Kirk of his command, and ask him for a time, to refrain from interfering with our little stewardship problems!"
Spock, fidgeting furiously on his communicator, searched the directives and jurisprudence of the fleet for evidence to support his objections and reservations.
– "You have a discretionary right, Captain," she stated coldly. « All you have to do is to object..."
But one of the young women escorting Coco approached the captain, simpering:
– "Give me some of your gentle pretty nice gesture, Jimmy Pie! She whispered in her ear, tenderly and mockingly, and loud enough for the whole bridge to hear it.
The other conjured women, with a pretty smirk, were obviously lining to do the same. The entire crew would laugh endlessly at the nicknames attributed by her former conquests... Her heart and body swayed for a moment. But Kirk couldn't force her glossy lips to give her assent.
– "By the powers vested in me, I cancel your appeal for castration!" Coco forced the decision.
.oOo.
In one day everything was settled: each involuntary transgender was sent back to Lemnos IV and re-matched with his original gear by the care of the updated computer. The Lemnians regained their femininity, the dream team regained their virility and Kirk regained his command. But Coco Charnell made a small farewell gift to the deprived planet: a withdrawal from the bank of the Enterprise!
And that is how they boldly went…
.oOo.
NOTES
(1) Stop right there, purist! The author knows there are only 24 Directives or so. But in a Crackficy, anything goes! Therefore, directive 69 attempts to regulate love and sexual relations within a ship in the fleet. As one suspects, the officer commanding the ship is bound to the strictest abstinence. But still, it's gorgeous Kirk...
1 Stop there, you purist! The author knows there are only about 24 directives. But in a Christmas fic, anything goes! Therefore Directive 69 attempts to regulate romantic and sexual relationships within a ship. As you can imagine, the commanding officer owes the most rigorous abstinence. But hey it's gorgeous Kirk here...