The USS Cerritos was drifting gently through space as she waited for her next mission. It was not expected to be a complicated one, what with Captain Freeman having been called away to Starfleet Headquarters back on Earth. She had elected to catch a lift rather than take the ship with her, leaving the ship in the care of Ransom as a "learning experience". Rutherford however didn't mind this time at all, as it meant no one disturbing him while he worked on infinitesimal improvements to various parts of the ship's engineering systems.
He was once again fiddling with the transport systems. Sadly, he was alone as no one had agreed to be a test subject after that time Boimler had become a one man see through sound system. He was having to settle for a block in the meantime. He wasn't sure if he was irritated at the distraction or grateful when he heard Tendi's footsteps clatter into the room.
"Hello!" She jumped up on a box and swung her feet as she greeted him brightly.
"T'Ana kick you out from helping at med bay?"
"Yes, she told me to, quote, get the fuck out of here and go take a fucking break, unquote."
"I mean, she's not wrong. You get so jumpy when you're waiting for another mission to come through. You need to rest if you want to be in tip top shape to help!"
"I really hope I'm on the mission, we've been stuck on ship for so long now."
Rutherford grunted a reply past the tool he was holding in his teeth.
Tendi continued undeterred. "Maybe something with cool surroundings, like getting some stray humans out of a zoo. Oooh, or an escort mission for one of the old Enterprise crew. I would love to spend some time talking to Troi. Checking out a mystery is also good - that usually involves at least something memorable."
"If you mean something like turning into a puppet, or losing both your hands, I guess you're right. Most things we end up doing are memorable then. I'm just hoping for something basic like "fix this communications tower"."
Tendi took out her PADD and started tapping away at something while Rutherford continued his task. They were both quite happy to sit and enjoy each other's company in silence for the next couple of hours, albeit with Tendi's non stop fidgeting. Time crawled along for her until they were due to head to lunch.
Mariner, Boimler, and T'Lyn were already at a booth when the remaining two arrived. The former pair were bickering over Mariner deciding that something blue and sparkly was an appropriate choice of drink for both of them at lunch. T'Lyn held a plain water as usual. They slipped in next to her.
"Good to see you, Tendi, Rutherford. Perhaps you can put an end to this odd argument." T'Lyn was staring into the middle distance with a haunted look. Starfleet knows how long she'd been listening to this go on.
"We don't need them - it's not like we're gunna get anything else done with all this down time. C'mon Boims, have some fun! Down these, we'll grab seconds with food, then head to the holodeck and fire up one of the Western programs. I still need to show you how to ride a horse."
"Didn't you get stamped on by a horse not that long ago?"
"That was one time!"
"I think I'll get myself a sober riding teacher thanks."
"Stupid simulated horse…"
Tendi interrupted. "It doesn't matter. We're going to get something good today, I can feel it. I already asked Ransom when I passed him earlier to please give it to us."
"You need to get that energy out girl. Fingers crossed." Mariner sipped, then blew bubbles through the straw into, her drink.
"Well Ransom's just been called away from his food. Quick, let's get something to eat." Rutherford said, motioning for Tendi to get up and head to the replicators.
The five friends now moved to wolfing down their various meals, eyes fixed alternately on the doors and their PADDs. Rutherford's was the first to go off. He let out a quick exclamation, fist pumped, and stood to leave.
"I'll see you guys in a couple of minutes then!" He trotted off out the door.
T'Lyn was called next, Tendi just a couple of seconds behind. Boimler's eyes were fixed on his PADD while Mariner idly sipped her drink. This situation continued for a few minutes.
"That's three gone. Holodeck riding is looking more and more likely for us."
Boimler kept his eyes on the PADD. "It's coming. Just give it a second."
Ding!
"Yes! That's away mission time for me, baby!" He bounced to his feet and turned to the door. "I'll catch you after though. Maybe we can do some Crisis Point brainstorming?"
Ding!
Mariner slung the arm not holding her PADD around his shoulder. "We can discuss it on the walk over to the transporter room."
Ransom rolled his eyes as the last pair to arrive walked through the doors. Tendi was shuffling foot to foot with excitement on the transporter pad, T'Lyn and Rutherford were standing more sedately near Ransom.
"It does not take that long to get her from the mess hall, Lieutenants."
"It does when you're this cool, sir." Mariner hopped up beside Tendi. "Let's get this party started then!"
"Sorry, sir. She means, what needs doing?" Boimler joined the stationary group.
Ransom then addressed the group. "Simple mission today everyone. I have assigned it to you all mostly to keep Lieutenant Tendi from bouncing off of my walls for any longer. We should be coming into orbit around the planet Zygos II - this planet has dense forest, with its inhabitants living on the opposite side with better conditions. They don't go into the forested part at all, and so have agreed to have a Starfleet Communications station set up there.
We have identified an appropriate area of the forest, which you are to clear, and install basic arrays. They should be down there waiting for you. Some larger ships will then bring in the rest of the materials needed. There are no known dangers beyond those you would expect as standard in an alien forest, but this of course leaves room for unknown ones. Keep your phasers and wits ready and you'll be fine."
"Sounds simple enough, sir. Don't worry, we're on it!" Boimler said to Ransom as Mariner dragged T'Lyn and him bodily onto the pads, going back for Rutherford. The ship swiftly blurred out around them, their vision coming into phase again to reveal a vibrant green forest. Logs and lower lying flora littered the area the group had arrived in.
T'Lyn went straight to work inspecting the area while the others took a few moments to admire it instead. Currently only flora was visible, branches gently swaying in the breeze. It was almost odd, the lack of animal sounds.
"I'll take first watch for random forest nonsense while you guys get started on the clear up." Mariner started to prowl the outer edges of the clearing they were to create. Boimler and T'Lyn set to work blasting out obstacles while Rutherford and Tendi prepped some of the mechanical systems.
Despite her enthusiastic hunting Mariner couldn't seem to locate anything that wanted to eat them. The closest something appeared to come to harming the away team was a falling branch that scared Boimler and some random ooze dropping onto some of the machinery Rutherford was working on. He just brushed it off with a leaf and kept working.
With the area now clear, Boimler took over watch from Mariner while she and T'Lyn marked out the correct positions for everything in the now open space. He didn't notice much apart from the fact that these trees seemed to be pretty leaky - small droplets kept falling around the team from the canopy around them. One nailed Rutherford right on the implant but he just swore and brushed it away with a tissue he pulled out of seemingly nowhere (How did engineers always have bits of cloth on them? Was it just a hangover from when oil used to be in everything?).
It was only when he saw one of the droplets seemingly change direction slightly to aim for T'Lyn that he called out an alarm. "T'Lyn, move!"
And move she did, shooting forward three steps which was easily enough to get her clear.
Whatever this was, it wasn't fast but it was persistent. The team had frozen to look up and around, meaning Boimler was able to dodge out the way of another dollop of ooze. This shocked them into motion again.
"Cerritos, beam us up, now!" Mariner punched her combadge. "Cerritos!"
"Why aren't they picking up?" Tendi twisted to avoid some more.
"I am sure they will get us momentarily." T'Lyn stepped back. It was becoming a bit like rain.
"They need to- Whoa!" T'Lyn deftly swung Boimler out of the way mid sentence.
"It's building up." Rutherford sounded tense. "Get under this."
He held up a large piece of the metal they had been working with flat above his head. Luckily the foreign sticky rain was coming exclusively from high angles. T'Lyn easily ducked in from nearby, taking Boimler with her. Unfortunately for Mariner and Tendi they were on the other side of the clearing. Both women were swift to try and rectify that issue, working their way through to join the group with speed and precision. Rutherford did wish he had their grace sometimes.
Right after he had this thought Mariner stumbled. The three already under the shelter had no time to react. Tendi, who was running behind her, did. She turned her running into a dive, shunting Mariner forward beneath the shelter and leaving the two of them plus Boimler, who they had run straight into, in a heap.
Someone on the Cerritos had finally woken up from buffer time and decided to beam them back on board. As soon as they were clear Rutherford dropped to his knees to join the others surrounding Tendi.
"Tendi, did it touch you at all?"
She had pulled herself up to sit on her knees, hands still on the floor in front of her. "I..I don't know. I feel okay?"
"Tendi, your neck." Boimler had been anxiously scanning over Tendi with his eyes. Mariner grabbed his wrist to stop him as he reached out to touch the gloop on the back of Tendi's neck.
"Do not touch it. We need to head straight to sickbay." T'Lyn spoke tightly as she pulled Tendi to her feet and started to guide her to sickbay, ignoring whoever had beamed them back. Rutherford studied Tendi as he followed behind the science buddies. All of her vital signs seemed standard and her walking was stable. Besides, he'd got some of this stuff on him and he felt perfectly fine.
"Fuck's sake ladies, what do I have to do to get you out of here?" T'Ana greeted them as they walked in.
"Doctor," T'Lyn spoke first, "Lieutenant Tendi is in need of attention. She has acquired an unknown sticky liquid on her neck."
T'Ana huffed. "Who hasn't? I'm sure it's nothing, but I'll check it out. Hop up."
Tendi sat on the bed she had indicated and leant over so the doctor could scan her neck.
"Well, I don't recognise it…how are you feeling, kid?"
"Good, I guess? I feel a little tingly, but that could just be from all the excitement."
"Okay. Do you know anything about this planet? What this could be before I just scrape it off?"
"I'll fetch Ransom." Boimler darted off to find the commander.
T'Ana went in for a second scan to be sure. "Well, just looks like some random- oh shit! Get it off, get it off now, and don't let it touch your skin!"
Mariner, not being one to follow correct medical bay protocols, whipped off her jacket and roughly scraped off all the gloop before tossing it in the incinerator. T'Lyn followed up with a more traditional cleaning, everything involved still ending in the same place. Tendi's face took on a more worried look. Rutherford agreed with that sentiment.
"Look at this!" T'Ana shoved the tricorder in their faces as Boimler reappeared with Ransom.
T'Lyn was the first to spot something that made sense to her. "This organism is rewriting her DNA?"
"I think so."
"There's nothing about anything like that for this planet!" Ransom was frantically flicking through pages on his PADD. Boimler has pulled out his own but his face gave no indication he was having any luck either.
"What!?" Mariner grabbed the tricorder for a closer look and was slapped away by T'Ana.
"It's slow, but it's there. Looks like there is something secondary going on that's more widespread, but so far that seems benign."
Rutherford jumped a little as Tendi grabbed his hand to squeeze as she took some deep breaths. "So…what happens now?"
T'Ana patted her arm. "I'm sure something like this has happened before. I'll go look through the Starfleet logs and you'll be back to getting stabbed instead soon. Did this shit touch anyone else?"
"Uh, yeah." Rutherford nervously stuck his other hand up. He was then promptly and thoroughly scanned by T'Ana.
"You seem fine," she frowned, "where did it get you?"
"Up here." He tapped his implant.
"Guess it only affects live flesh. Lemme know if you start to feel fucked up, but you look fine. I'll be back soon."
"I'm sure it'll be fine and she'll come right back with the cure." Tendi said, laughing nervously. Rutherford squeezed her hand.
"We will solve this, don't worry Lieutenant. But to get some more information, I'm going to call our contact on the planet." Ransom put on an air of forced relaxation as he dialed the correct number.
What appeared to be a vaguely humanoid crab picked up. It was closer to the colour of Tendi's skin than one might expect a crab to be, with little pinchers near its main jaws. They clicked as it spoke. "Good afternoon Starfleet. How may Fred help you?"
Before Ransom could speak, Mariner leant into frame with one eyebrow cocked. "Your name is Fred?"
Ransom shoved her back out but Fred answered anyway. "Fred is aware of how unusual a name Fred is, but it is the one Fred's parents chose."
"It's a lovely name," Ransom reassured, "but we are here to see if you have any information on a problem we found while on the surface. Some green sticky stuff touched one of my staff, and now appears to be making slow modifications to her DNA. Would you happen to know anything about this?"
"Oh dear, oh dear, that's why we don't go into the forest. Who knows what's in there?"
"You're a warp capable planet, but you don't know what's on the other side of your damn planet?" Rutherford wondered what on Earth they were playing at. Surely exploring and studying was the first thing you'd do.
Fred made a louder clacking sound. "It is not important to us. We have not been there for centuries. Even the traditional stories we tell our children warn them to stay out of there."
"Could you please transmit all these stories about the forest to us?" T'Lyn chimed in with a good idea. Rutherford was always up for reading a good book but he thought reading fairy tales while his friend was being mutated would not be as relaxing as usual.
"Fred will do so right away. Fred is sorry to not be of more help." Ransom hung up on Fred.
"Well, little use there. Maybe T'Ana has had more luck."
T'Ana did not have more luck. Rutherford tapped his fingers nervously while she explained that although DNA alterations had been seen before, this type seemed unusual, changing what was seen completely. Propagating the problem fast but making the transformation slowly. She wasn't even sure what it was mutating to exactly. He was running through all his previous training and his implant's logs but not finding a case like this before. Shit. At least it was slow.
Mariner was pacing back and forth. "Someone has to know something. I'll send a message to Earth, as well as one to both of my parents. T'Lyn, you have those stories from the planet. Boimler, search through all the records we have on the planet internally. Rutherford, um, help Boimler? Tendi, just sit tight. We've got this."
Ransom had his mouth open with one finger up like he'd been expecting to say something. Tendi beat him to it. "Mariner, if I just sit here I'm going to end up jumping out the airlock with frustration. I'll be helping T'Ana to see if we can learn anything on the medical side."
"I believe I should also be joining that effort." T'Lyn was the next to get in. "Rutherford should be quite capable of taking on the task you assigned me. I will also see if any Vulcan colleagues can provide additional information."
"Of course, it's not a problem!" Rutherford wasn't sure if he should be offended by that or not.
Mariner nodded. "Right, so everyone knows the plan. We don't know how much time we have, so let's make this as quick as possible. Lower decks on three."
Five hands all went into the centre of the circle they had formed. "LOWER DECKS!"
In the background of this, T'Ana turned to Ransom. "Fuck us then I guess."
"Hey," Ransom replied, "you've seen the shenanigans those five get into. I feel if I did any kind of mission with them I would be immediately turned into a cat or something while they ran around for thirty minutes trying to work out how to undo it."
"Careful there, or I will work out a way of making that happen. Cats are great. Now, it's a dog you don't want to be. Mud loving gremlins."
"Please don't leave me as a cat if that actually happens. At least give me opposable thumbs!"
"Don't worry, the ladies will love you. I make no promises."