Space Relations Pt. 26

While Cammie typed in the suggestion, Cruz manhandled her boobs. Once she'd finished up, she sat straight in her chair and allowed the provocative man to lift her shirt. When her bra was nudged aside so Cruz could play with her nipples, Cammie had enough of it. She set the ship on autopilot and manhandled him right back.

Margo Muldren, the ship's cook, was having a very strange dream during her bunk time. She imagined herself as a big buck with a square jaw, and being very popular on a U.S. Navy ship full of men. Margo didn't like being cast as a man at all, and so she went looking for a female to bunk down with. The greater part of Margo's dream was of her roaming that ship to and fro, traveling across the deck, through the chow hall and bunk section, past the armaments and all the way down to the engine rooms. It was such a strange dream, with Margo passing hundreds and hundreds of men who were winking and making salacious comments at her. Somewhere down the line, Margo realized that none of these horny sailors were wearing any clothes. When she looked down at her dream self, she discovered that she too was naked. It was bad enough that all of these sailors were leering at her, but when they started crowding around Margo she saw how a lot of these men were sporting hard-ons. That part freaked her out. Margo ran away in panic, pushing naked sailors out of her way, jumping through hatches and slamming them shut behind her, and desperately trying to find the safety of her bunk.

As Margo went from the dream state to waking up, she imagined her mouth opening up to scream. Nothing came out of her, however. In fact, she realized she was having a tough time moving. Something heavy was lying on top of her body. At first she assumed that Cruz or Mary might be playing a trick on her, but Margo was a big girl and those two were lightweights that she could easily toss around. Not only that, but there was a definite tingling of electricity around her. She couldn't decipher if this electric field came from her dream or from reality. The next thing that crossed her mind was sleep paralysis.

In space, no one can hear you scream.

She'd heard that line before, somewhere, but it hadn't meant anything to her until now. Margo tried to force her body into tossing and turning. She thought she might run out of breath if her nose and lungs weren't working. Images of the rest of the crew finding Margo's corpse on her bed made her even more terrified.

Finally, Margo became aware that her arms were flailing around. She sat up so abruptly it made her dizzy, taking in the quiet ambience of her little sleeping chamber. She was alone in there; her sleep paralysis was gone.

"That was a fuh-fucked up dream." Margo trembled. "What the hell, man? Where the fuck did that come from?"

The woman thought back to what she'd eaten before she went to bed. She wondered if maybe Cruz had slipped some hallucinogenic into her drink, like a Roofie, for some secret science experiment he was conducting. Nothing obvious came to mind, to help explain what she felt was a very scary and very realistic dream.

Margo's bladder was calling for her attention. "I need to take a piss."

Dressed only in her long sleeping shirt and thong, she slipped off her bunk and made her way to the hatch. The thong was riding her balls something fierce, so she pulled it around until the strain was alleviated. The lavatories were only a short stroll down the catwalk. Instead of sitting on the throne as she usually did, she tugged her thong down and pissed into a urinal.

"Oh, shit." Margo grumbled. She'd leaked onto her fingers like a clumsy ox. To clean herself off, she went over to the sink to wash her hands.

Everything was automated in the restrooms. The lights over the mirror, the soap dispenser and the faucet all sensed her proximity and did their job. It wasn't until Margo was drying her hands with a towel that she really got a good look at her reflection. The face that looked back at her kind of looked like her face, but it wasn't. The sight of it was bad enough that Margo started backing up away from the mirror, as if her odd reflection might leap out and chase her.

She thought of how she'd scratched at her lower parts, and of how she'd just used a man's urinal. When Margo reached down between her legs and felt around at what was there, what should not have been there, she gasped and fainted to the floor.

Captain Washington was in a chipper mood. He and his new systems analyst, who also happened to be his gorgeous redheaded wife, were having bagels and coffee in the dining area. They were getting ready to start their shift in a few minutes.

"I'm really glad you're back on the ship." Washington said.

"Don't even start." Barbie dismissed his comment with a wave of her hand. "You were romping around with six furry cat-women while I was involved in one of the most boring trials I've ever had the bad luck to be a part of."

"But did you see those cat-women?" The captain kidded. "I'm tempted to go back to planetoid Zeus to look for more of them."

"What if we find some cat-men instead?"

Washington's beaming faced twisted into confusion. "I hadn't considered that. Would you hump a cat-man if we had one on board?"

"I wouldn't, but I know Mary would. She'll hump anything!"

"Well, even if you don't believe me, I'm still very happy to see you back in my ship." The captain stood up, taking his small plate of bagels and his cup of coffee with him. "Let's finish these up on the bridge. I want to see if Cammie has come up with a good place for us to lie low while that mess on the Neptune gets cleared up."

Barbie picked her edibles up as well. "Most starship captains don't want anyone chomping down on their bridge."

"In case you hadn't noticed, we're a little less formal here on the Space Relations." Washington went to push the hallway door open, to allow his wife to step out first.

"Why thank you, Captain." Barbie flirted. "I know you just want to stare at my butt while I walk in front of you. I didn't even have to read your mind to know that."

Deliberately so she would know it, the captain did visually assault her swaying ass cheeks during the walk down the hallway. In short order, the husband and wife walked onto the bridge. Ensign Thor and Science Officer Mary were sitting in the forward command chairs, while the captain's chair was empty.

Mary stood to give up her seat to Barbie, as that was the redhead's newly assigned spot as Systems Analyst.

"You can stay there until I finish eating." Barbie said, taking a secondary seat.

The blonde gave Barbie a mock salute before she sat back down.

Washington made his way to his seat. He was about to turn around and plop his narrow butt down when he saw a wet spot on his cushion. After setting his bagel and coffee on the armrest, he put his finger directly on that wet spot.

"Thor, why is my captain's chair sticky?" Washington asked, growing irate.

"It wasn't me, Captain." Thor answered. "Mary and I were fooling around in the lounge when that happened."

"Well, who was fooling around in here?"

"That would be Cammie and Cruz, Captain."

"That's nasty!" Washington exclaimed, as he wiped the stickiness off on his pants.

"Cammie has programmed a route out to the GJ 667 system." Thor went on. "I've forwarded the route to your computer, Captain."

"I don't care about that right now!" Washington barked. "Somebody needs to clean this jizz off of my chair!"

"Well, I'm not doing it." Thor answered.

The blonde started giggling.

"Mary!" Washington snapped at her.

"Don't go into hysterics, Captain." The blonde replied. "Let me just call out to one of them and they can clean their own mess up." She put her index fingers up to her temples. "Calling all Cruz, calling all Cruz. We have a spill on aisle eight. Bring a mop and bucket, buster, because you're going to need it." She started laughing, only to halt a half-second later. Her face went from joking to alarmed. "Captain, there's something going on in the lavatory!"

Right after uttering those words, Mary jumped out of her chair and ran to the bridge doors. The moment the doors slid open, the blonde streaked through them.

Before Washington could do anything else, the comm on his chair went off. He reached over to respond. "Washington here."

"Captain, we have a serious problem." Cammie's strained voice came through. "I suggest you activate the lavatory camera so you can take a look."

"Is this an emergency?" He asked, suddenly alarmed.

"I don't know." Cammie answered. "It's very strange, that's for sure. I think you should see this for yourself."

"Our lavatory is now on the main screen, Captain." Thor spoke up.

All three people still on the bridge turned in that direction. First they saw Cammie's worried face. The older woman was biting on her nails. On the floor, they saw Cruz crouched behind a dazed man and attempting to revive that man further.

"Who is that?" Washington asked.

"I'll zoom in closer, Captain." Thor announced.

As the camera panned and refocused, Washington observed how small Cruz was compared to the man he was helping. That was a big guy, with broad shoulders and thick arms. He would have been hard to miss if he was a stowaway from the Starship Neptune.

"Who is that man?" Washington repeated. "How did he manage to get on my ship?"

"His face looks familiar." Barbie said.

"From the Neptune?" Thor asked.

"Maybe." Barbie shrugged. "I think I've seen him before, but I don't know who he is. It was recent, though."

As the man looked to be becoming lucid, he opened his eyes enough for the remote watchers to get a good look at him. Washington stood there stunned, because that man had Margo's eyes.

"Captain..." Thor might have been about to say the same thing, except Mary's excited voice started crowding up the intercom.

"Something's happened to Margo, Captain! Something's happened to Margo!"

This unnerved Washington even more. "Mary, where is Margo? What's happened to her?"

"You're looking at her!" Mary jumped into the camera's view. "This is Margo!"

Between Cruz and Mary, they managed to get the big guy up and onto his feet. Now that the man wasn't crumpled up on the floor, the personnel on the bridge could see that he was tall and broad enough to approximate Margo's size. Washington gulped. That man was wearing a long sleeping shirt of the same type that Margo used.

"They have the same hairstyle, Captain." Thor added.

"Is that even possible?" Barbie asked.

"She's a man, baby!" Cruz was shouting in the lavatory. "This can't be good, Captain! Margo's become a man!"

"I can't process this." Barbie shook her head. A moment later, the voluptuous woman was seen scurrying toward the doors.

"Barbie, where are you going?" Washington called after her.

"I'm going to grab some wipes from the kitchen so I can clean up your chair."

Washington had almost forgotten about that. He went to sit at Barbie's post, as he too tried to understand what was taking place on his ship. "Thor, I want you to call everyone to the hub. We need to get to the bottom of this immediately!"

After setting the ship to stay immobile, the entire crew convened in the lounge. Margo, the male Margo, was sitting crying and shivering on a couch with a shock blanket around her. Barbie and Mary were at either side consoling her.

"I don't want to be a man." Margo sobbed. "It doesn't feel right!"

"There, there." Mary wiped Margo's tears away. "It has to be temporary, just like what happened to the captain of the Beagle. I'm sure you'll change back into your normal self before you know it."

Captain Washington stood there pensively, rubbing his chin, his neck and his head at times. He noticed that both Cruz and Thor were keeping away from the distraught Margo, because neither of them knew how to react to the sudden change of sex.

"I don't like this, Mary." Margo was blubbering away. "I really don't like it!"

"Captain." Cammie caught her superior's attention. The older woman had been busy at a computer console for that last few minutes.

"Go ahead, Cammie."

"I'm afraid I have some bad news. No personnel from the Beagle left their ship while they were docked on the California. Do you remember that they told us they were going to have physicals done when they reached the Neptune. They never made it to the Neptune. Instead, they updated their proposed schedule and abruptly flew off into space."

"Where are they now?" Washington asked.

"According to their updated schedule, they're currently investigating the orbit of planet Nibiru."

The captain frowned upon hearing this. It was a well-established fact that Nibiru's orbit around Sol lasted thirty-five hundred Earth Standard years. He suspected that the crew of the Beagle wanted to get away from civilization as fast as possible, the same as his ship was doing. "Have you tried to hail them?"

"They're too far out of range already." Cammie answered.

"It will be a bitch and a half to track them down." Washington grumbled.

"Our ship is faster than theirs." Thor mentioned.

"Yes, but we don't know where to look. If they refuse to answer our long distance hails, then our only other option is to cross our fingers and ping them. The Nibiru orbit is too vast for us to even begin to guess which way they're going. It will be like trying to find a needle in a million haystacks."

"Captain, do you think that what happened to Margo is still happening to them?" Mary asked. "Could they be trying to hide it by running away?"

"It is possible, but I don't really know." Washington shrugged. "We know they were hiding all sorts of things from us the last time we spoke with them. Margo, I can turn this ship around and head back to the Neptune right away."

"Are you shitting me, Cappy?" Margo balked. "I don't want anybody to see me like this! I'm a fucking lesbian, for crying out loud! I can't be a man all of a sudden!"

"Look at the bright side, baby." Cruz tried to soothe Margo. "At least now your bad lesbian habits are cured."

"You shut up!" Margo rumbled. "I happen to like being a lesbian!"

"You're simply misguided, baby. Nobody really likes being a lesbian."

"I like it sometimes." Mary nodded. "Oh, yeah, I like it a lot!"

"Mary, you stay out of this, baby. I'm simply trying to explain the merits of being biologically sane, the way god intended for human beings to be."

"My god says it is okay for me to be however the fuck I want!" Margo snapped.

"Blasphemy!" Cruz retorted.

"I'll show you blasphemy with my fist, little man!"

"Relax, everyone, relax." Washington held his arms out. "Margo, are you positive you don't want to go back to the Neptune?"

"I don't even want you guys to see me like this, let alone all those people on the Neptune!"

Mary got up and flashed her boobies at Margo. "What do you think of that?"

"Nothing doing." Margo shook her big head. "I'm not in the mood right now, Mary."

Because she wasn't quite done, the perky blonde pulled her shirt over her head and took it off. She even wiggled her C-cups a bit. "What about now?"

Margo sighed. "I've never had a pecker before, but you're giving me one."

"Captain, I think Cruz and I should run an extensive battery of tests on Margo." Mary decided. "I want to make sure her hormones are in balance, besides all the physical changes we're looking at. Come on, Margo. Let's head over to the exercise nook. Cruz, are you coming or not?"

"I'll help you, baby." The man said, as he assisted Margo up to her feet. "You're much more intimidating as a man, I'll tell you that much. Let's see if we can transform you back into your original body, darling, so you can stop frightening me."

For the next few minutes, the rest of the crew watched as Margo stripped down at the end of the room. Cruz went around taking several pictures while Mary set up the exercise machines and medical equipment. When Mary put Margo on the treadmill, Cruz had a video camera to record it.

Washington was very unnerved to see his cook in a man's body. Margo was still pale all over, with beefy buttocks and a thick waist. Her face had changed so that it was partly the same as before, but also more manly and handsome. Margo's chest was half flab but also half muscle, mostly because the science officers forced everyone to try and keep in shape. Margo's gut was the same size, but as for the areas further down than that, Washington refused to speculate.

"Thor, baby, will you be a good sport and bring us a pair of your boxers?" Cruz asked. "I'm afraid we'll have to keep Margo away from her thongs for the time being."

Thor strode across the lounge. He was gone for a few minutes. By the time he came back, Mary had set up a table where she had Margo and Thor start to arm-wrestle. Both Cruz and Mary were taking notes.

"It could be worse." Barbie commented, after several minutes of silence.

"How do you mean?" Washington asked.

"Well, it could have happened to more than one of us, for starters."

Now that, the Captain thought, was a scary thought indeed.

Unfortunately, Barbie's prediction turned out to come true. Cammie and Thor had retired to their bunk at the end of their shifts. They slept in the same room, with Cammie on the top bunk and Thor on the bottom. After only about an hour, a mysterious electric discharge had woken them both up. Only Thor had been affected, however. Cammie was still the same after it.

The result was that Thor had run out of the shared bunk yelling and screaming. He'd very nearly gone over the second floor rail as he clambered down into the kitchen. With the rooms being largely soundproof, it wasn't until he reached the lounge that the others saw what had happened to him.

Instead of the big and powerful man-muffin the science officers and cook were used to seeing, Thor had turned into what looked like a tall and beautiful fitness instructor. His golden locks were longer, reaching to the shoulder blades. He had grown a set of fine C-cups and his hips had widened out for a perfect hourglass figure. As with Margo's case, Thor wasn't very happy with the changes.

"I'm in hell!" The formerly muscular man cried out. "I'm in hell now, I tell you!"

It took the combined forces of the three people in the lounge to settle the big man down. Manly Margo straddled Thor's waist, while Cruz and Mary did what they could with his powerful arms and legs. In the end, Cruz subdued the lower limbs while Mary smothered Thor's face with as many Happy Kisses as she could create under such short notice. The kisses failed. Both Margo and Thor started crying and clung onto one another, while Cruz and Mary looked on exasperated.

Cruz started pulling his hair. "It's going to happen to us as well. Don't you see, Mary? This curse won't stop until it's taken us all!"

"Get a grip on yourself!" Mary tried to calm her lover, as the last thing she wanted was for a third person to go into hysterics. Her mind was already getting overwhelmed in trying to keep Margo and Thor emotionally restrained before they both went nuts.

"I don't understand, baby." Cruz wondered. "What does masturbation have to do with any of this?"

"I didn't mean get a grip that way." Mary explained. "I meant go to the comm and tell the Captain what's going on."

"Right, Mary, I knew that." Cruz nodded, before he strode toward the console mounted on the hallway door. He saw Cammie standing there, looking as shocked as he felt. Cruz reached out and pulled the older woman close to him. "Are you all right, baby? I have to call the Captain now. You just hold on to me until all this blows over." When the older woman did this, he pressed the intercom button.

"You have reached the bridge." Barbie's bouncy voice came back. "I'm sorry, but the Captain and his wife have stepped out and are not currently available. Please leave your message after the beep."