Chapter 2

In the room Mike and David watched as the door opened and Patricia walked in followed by 2 guards.

“Well are we free to go?” David asked.

“I’m afraid not. You are to be put to death,” Patricia said.

“But you said we’d be free to go!” Mike yelled.

“Those are my orders,” she said. She motioned for two of the guards to take them away and told the other two to wait in the room.

“Yes mam” they all said. With Patricia in front of David and Mike and the 2 guards behind them she led them down the corridor to a room. She punched in a code and the door opened, revealing an empty room. Looking at the 2 guards she instructed them to carry out the executions in the room

“Yes mam” they responded and she waited by the door while the guards led Mike and David into the room. Patricia then carefully looked around to make sure no one was looking. When the guards told David and Mike to stop, they took their aim to prepare to fire. Patricia suddenly pulled out 2 pistols she had concealed in her coat and shot both guards, both fell lifeless onto the floor. The two otters turned around and looked at her in confusion.

“I said you would be let go and I’m going to make sure of it,” she said. Pointing to the guards’ uniforms, she motioned for them to put them on.

“This should give you something to wear,” she said. Both David and Mike took the guards uniforms off and put them on, making sure to cute holes in their pants with their claws for their tails to fit through. Now dressed, David walked up to her and thanked her.

“So now what do we do?” he asked.

“There’s a hangar two levels down with a weapon ship we’ve been working on. We had planned to attack Starfleet HQ with. I was opposed to it, but have kept quiet fearing they’d put me to death. We can use the ship to get out of here. I do have one request, take me with you.” Patricia said. David thought about her request for a minute then nodded. Him and Mike each picked up a rifle from the guards and asked Patricia what the quickest route to the hangar was.

“Follow me” Patricia, said.

As they walked down the corridor, an alarm sounded. Patricia swore under her breath.

“We have to hurry, they know about your escape,” she said. As they turned left at a junction into another corridor, 3 guards who were walking down it opened fire on them.

“Take over!” Patricia yelled. Quickly jumping back into the junction, they used the corners as cover as they guards walked down the corridor.

“On the count of 3 we jump out and fire! We must hurry they will be tracking us and converging on our position” Patricia said. Mike and David nodded their heads. Patricia looked at them both and them counted.

“1…. 2…. 3”. All three of them jumped out and opened fire on the guards, each striking one.

“Lets go!” Patricia said as she motioned for them to run down the corridor. The three of them ran down it, stepping over the 3 guard’s bodies. They weren’t half way down when 4 more guards walked into the corridor from an upcoming corner.

“Duck and fire!” Patricia yelled as the guards opened fire. The three of them fired their weapons striking 3 of the 4 guards. The 4th one jumped into the other corridor around the corner.

“Damn!” Patricia said. Slowly the 3 of them crawled down the corridor. When the 4th guard finally turned into it to fire on them all 3 of them fired at him and all hit him, slamming him against the wall. Pointing to the door at the end of the hall, Patricia indicated that the door was towards the stairs they needed to descend to get into the floor with the bay.

“We must hurry,” she said. All 3 got up and ran towards the door when David and Mike heard commotion from behind. Both otters turned around and fired their rifles, striking 2 guards that had planned to ambush them from behind.

“This enhanced hearing comes in handy!” David said, to which mike nodded his head. When they reached the end of the hall, Patricia typed the code to access the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Shit!” she said. Mike and David could hear guards approaching their left and right.

“What’s wrong?” Mike asked.

“They’ve locked me out. Were going to have to do this the hard way! Stand back” she said. Placing one of her pistols on the ground she set it to overload.

“Common!” she said. The 3 of them ran down corridor to their left to get clear of the coming blast. They could hear the guards getting close and ducked into a room that thankfully wasn’t locked.

“Should be any second now!” Patricia said. 2 seconds later they heard an explosion.

“That’s it, let’s go!” said.

“Wait.” Mike said, sniffing the air and nodding at David. David nodded back and they opened the door, Mike going left and David right, both firing their rifles, hitting the two guards who were waiting on either side of the door.

“Nice catch” Patricia said. The 3 of them ran towards the door to the stairwell.

“Good” Patricia said when she saw that it had been blasted open. The 3 of them then ran down the 2 flights of stairs. Patricia stood at the door that was the entrance to the floor they needed, breathing heavily.

“This is it, we’ll be able to see the ship from the windows, were getting close, we just need to run a short distance now” she said.

“Were ready” David and Mike said. Patricia typed her code in and was surprised that this door opened so easily. As soon as she opened it, they saw 3 guards that were waiting for them. Patricia, David and Mike each jumped for cover in the landing at the bottom of the stairs by the door. One of the guards ran though the door and Patricia shot him, sending him flying backwards. Mike used his sense of smell to locate the 2 remaining guards and rolled towards the open door and in front of it and shot both of them.

“Lets go!” Patricia said and they ran into the floor. The floor had corridors going left and right that were lined with windows and a short corridor in front of them which had windows at it’s side that led to a stairwell down to the hangar. As they ran down the corridor towards the stairwell, 3 guards ran up it after them, they each ‘took’ a guard and fired each striking their target. When they got to the stairwell, they were able to fully see the attack ship in front of it slightly in the distance along with several ships, which looked like fighters.

“There she is!” Patricia said. Alarms began to blare loudly as they ran down the stairs. As they reached the floor of the hangar and began to run towards the weapon ship, Mike and David heard more guards coming at them from behind. They quickly turned around just as the guards opened fire on them. There were six guards and they strafed back and forth, managing to hit 5 of them. The remaining guard managed to hit Patricia in the right leg. Yelling, she clutched the leg as she fell to the ground. Mike managed to pick off the guard as David attended to Patricia’s wound.

“How bad is it?” David asked.

“You have to leave me behind” Patricia said.

“We can’t just leave you here!” David said.

“I’ll just slow you down. Use the ship, you have to stop them before they attack. I’ll hold the guards off. Please” Patricia said. Mike and David could hear the reinforcements coming and knew they were running out of time.

“Thank you for rescuing us, you saved our lives” Mike said. Patricia managed to stand up but was clearly in pain from the wound.

“You can stand, common we’ll carry you if necessary!” David said.

“I’ll try, please, take the lead. At least one of us has to make it,” she said. Just as the reinforcements began to run down the stairs, Patricia opened fire, striking 2 of them. Mike and David ran backwards, firing as best as they could until all of the guards were down. The 3 of them began to run towards the weapon ship when one of downed guards managed to lift his rifle with his ounce of strength. With his final breath he said the word

“Traitor” as he fired on Patricia, hitting her in the back. She fell to the floor limp.

“Noooo!” Mike said as he fired on the guard. David ran over to Patricia and checked for a pulse, he found none. Mike ran over to them. David looked up at Mike.

“She’s dead,” he said solemnly.

“Then we have to make sure she didn’t die for nothing!” Mike yelled.

“Time to make these sons of bitches pay” David said as they resumed running towards the weapon ship.

They reached the ramp to the door into the ship and the door opened and a guard ran out of the door and opened fire on them. Mike fired his weapon, striking the guard, causing the guard to fall to the ground below. They ran into the ship through the open door and closed it before running towards what they assumed was the front of the ship. They found the door to the bridge, pressed the button to open it and ran in. As they entered the bridge, 2 guards tried to stop them. They dodged and Mike shot the first one while David jumped the second, sitting on him and hitting him multiple times before standing up and grabbing the guard by the collar of his shirt and slamming him against the wall. The guard turned out to be one of the leaders of the groups.

“So what are you going to do to me now you son of bitch?” he said as he spat on David.

“Either you tell us how to fly this thing or” David said.

“Or what? You’ll kill me? I’m afraid you’re too late my furry friend,” the man said.

“And why is that?” David asked.

“I’m already dead,” the man said as he pressed a button inside of his uniform and his body went limp. David lowered his body to the floor.

“He committed suicide,” he said.

“These controls seem useable, I think we can manage.” Mike said.

“Then we’d better get this thing out of here” David said.

“You take the weapons, I’ll take the helm” David said, as they each walked over to the consoles in question. They ship started to shake from that appeared to be weapons fire from other guards.

“Now I know whose uniforms those are,” David said.

“Who’s?” Mike asked as David activated the start-up sequence for the engines.

“They’re a terrorist group. They opposed the founding of the federation, and for years have planned on destroying Starfleet HQ on Earth. They have staged attacks of bases all over the sector.” David said.

“We have to stop them,” Mike said.

“Were going to. Were going to let Starfleet know of this base of theirs. Who would have thought it’d be so close to Earth” David said.

“We need to take it ourselves, if we don’t then they might escape. We can’t let Patricia’s death be in vain,” Mike said. As the engines finished powering up, David realised that he agreed with Mark.

The weapon ship lifted off from floor of the bay. Mike fired one of the ships missiles, which flew up and blasted the hanger bay doors open before Mike slow lifted the vessel up vertically, eventually bringing the ship into and up the shaft to the surface which led outside just behind the base. David turned to Mike.

“Can you patch us through to Starfleet command?” he asked. David typed away at the controls.

“I think so,” he said. Suddenly the ship shook rather violently.

“What was that?” David asked.

“Those fighters, they’ve launched them and their firing on us” Mike responded.

“If we run we run the risk that they’ll get away,” David said.

“Dave, this ship has shields!” Mike said.

“I thought those were only experimental?” David asked.

“Either way, this ship has them.” Mike said.

“Go ahead and raise them” David said. Mike did so, and the shaking from the fighter’s weapons was reduced significantly.

“Shields holding” Mike said.

“They seem to be hailing us,” David said.

“Should we talk to them?” Mike asked.

“Why not?” David asked. Mike pressed a few buttons and the image of the leader appeared on the view screen.

“Return our ship immediately! We will destroy it before we let you have it!” the man said, it was unfortunately too dark to make out who he was.

“We know who you are. We know you were planning on using this ship to attack Starfleet HQ” David yelled as the ship was rocked.

“Shields at 75% and holding. Dave they’ve got at least 2 dozen fighters coming out of the hangar I’m not sure how long we can hold out against that” Mike said.

“Then I suggest you surrender.” The image said.

“And allow you to continue to attack innocent people?” David asked.

“Once we finish off Starfleet, the federation will fall and we will have no need for attacks anymore” The image of the man said before flickering off. A shower of sparks suddenly emerged from a console on the other side of the small bridge as the ship rocked yet again.

“I suggest we return fire.” Mike said. David looked at him questioningly.

“Well this is a weapon ship,” Mike said. David nodded his head in acknowledgement. Several turrets emerged from the wings of the ship and fried particle streams at the fighters. Multiple fighters were struck each erupting in a massive fireball.

“3 down! I have Starfleet on the com” Mike said.

“On screen, continue to fire!” David said. The image of an admiral appeared on screen.

“Who are you?” the admiral asked.

“My name is David Peters. It was on a delivery mission to Alpha centari when my ship was heavily damaged by an ion storm, we had to abandon ship. Somehow the particles in the storm did this to us. We were forced to land on one of Jupiter’s terraformed moons and were captured by terrorists. We have managed to escape and have commandeered their weapon ship, a ship they planned on using to attack Earth” David said. The ship was again rocked, this time very heavily, smoke poured from a ruptured conduit on the other side of the bridge.

“Shields down to 50%, I’m not sure how much more of this we can take” Mike said.

“I’ll send ships, they’ll be there soon, try to hold out,” the admiral said.

“Yes sir” David responded. The weapon ship climbed high above the terrafoming station and continued to return fire against the onslaught on enemy fighters. But they were too much for them and the ships shields were failing.

“I’m not sure how much more of this we can take” Mike said as the ship rocked heavily and an explosion rocked the bridge, knocking both David and Mike to the ground. The lights started to blink on and off and the ship shook constantly.

“She’s coming apart. It seems this ship was designed to dish out abuse but it can’t take it.” Mike said.

“Status?” David asked.

“Our shields are gone and we have multiple hull breaches. We’ve destroyed at least 18 of their fighters but they keep launching more of them.” Mike responded.

“Can we get into space and out of here?” David asked. The ship as rocked again and a huge hull breech opened on the side of the ship, sending debris flying everywhere. Both David and Mike held on as best as they could.

“She’s coming apart! One more hit and were finished!” Mike said.

“Then prepare to fire whatever weapons are left while I take us directly towards the group of fighters in front of us! If they take us out at last we’ll take them with us!” David said. Mike nodded in acknowledgement as David brought the ship closer and closer to the fighters.

“They’re firing!” Mike yelled. Just as the fighters fired, the light of a transporter beam surrounded Mike and David, and they both were transported onto a Starfleet ship that can just entered orbit. 2 seconds later, the weapon ship broke apart and exploded.

Mike and David stood found themselves on the transporter pad of a Starfleet ship.

“Welcome” the operator, said. The first officer of the ship greeted them as they stepped off the platform.

“Sorry about the uniforms, they took our clothes” David said. The ship shook and the first officer walked over to the COM panel to ask for a report.

“The remaining fighters have opened fire on us, but the explosion of that ship appears to have damaged them. They are no longer a significant threat,” the voice said.

“Prepare to take their pilots and the rest of the terrorists on the planet into custody” the 1st officer said.

“Yes sir” the voice responded. The 1st officer turned to them.

“Great work down here guys, we’ve been looking for these guys for a long time” he said.

“Thank you sir” David and Mike said.

***

A few hours later after having been briefed by several different Admirals on their experience and having had several different medical exams, David and Mike had finally returned home.

“So do they know for sure why this happened to us?” Mike asked.

“They were able to recover the flight recorder from our ship. They were able to obtain more information about the particles in it. Since we had been in contact prior to encountering them, we had small amount of DNA on each other. Somehow those particles integrated the different DNA into the DNA of every one of our cells before altering all of our cells to conform to the new pattern.” David said.

“Sounds a little convenient, a bit too convenient. How could a natural thing do such a thing?” Mike asked.

“They don’t know, the only explanation they can come up with is that is wasn’t natural” David said.

“A weapon?” Mike asked.

“It’s about the only explanation, perhaps designed by that very same terrorist group we fought” David said.

“It’s awfully convenient that we just happen to hit it and then had to abandon ship and just happen to land near their base” Mike said.

“According to the flight recorder, just before we hit the storm there was a strange energy reading in a crawl space below the bridge. Just before the ship exploded, the reading vanished. It appears that the ships auto navigation was sabotaged and the warp core was triggered to explode.” David said.

“But where could it have come from? There’s very little room to fit a person in there, how did they get past all the safety lockouts and fail-safes? And where did they come from?” Mike asked.

“They don’t know. Whoever or more likely whatever was down there could have been there for days or even weeks,” David said.

“So what happens to us now? Is there a cure for this?” Mike asked. David took a sip of his drink and folded his hands.

“It appears that this is permanent,” he said.

“Well, it won’t be so bad.” walking over to David, Mike petted the fur on his shoulders before continuing,

“You’ll get used to the fur, it will keep you very warm. You’ll find that the enhanced sense of smell and hearing come in handy to” he said.

“You’re probably right, although getting used to being half otter is going to take time.” David said.

“As it will for me, getting used to speaking your language, wearing clothes and living like you is going to take some adjustment” Mike said.

“In the meantime, what do you say we go out to the lake and see how these bodies perform in an environment more suited to them?” David asked.

“I was worried you never ask!” Mike responded. In a blur, both of them ran outside and into the lake by their house, where they swam and played for hours.