"So, guys, guys, I have to tell you this." The talkative, little blonde Mario was saying, as the entire crew sat around the dining table. "I was walking around the ship, right. And then I saw down on this giant wad of used bubble gum that had hair all over it. It took me about ten minutes to figure out those were my new balls!"
Half of the people at the table laughed, while the other half made disgusted faces. Captain Washington, who was about to put a fork full of omelet into his trap decided to set the utensil back down on his plate. He glanced down at his food, which was indeed tasty. It consisted of an omelet with four eggs, two kinds of cheese, peppers, onions, cilantro and some other stuff he couldn't even name. Another twisted crack like that by anybody else was bound to make him lose his appetite.
"Excuse me, but some of us are trying to eat here." Cammie said, mirroring the sentiments of her superior officer.
Mario reached up to pull his long blonde hair back and fluff it around with a shake of his head. That same motion on Mary was very appealing, but on Mario it was, well, awkward.
"You guys can all suck it!" Mario said, giggling in what was also a very odd way.
Sitting next to him, the extremely curvy and female version of Officer Cruz was uncharacteristically closed-mouthed. Cruz sat there picking at her food and covering her extra large fun bags every time Mark walked by behind her. Stimulated by the new woman's shyness, Mark would occasionally come around and pinch at Cruz's tits, as he was attempting to do now.
"Stop that, you dirty lesbian!" Cruz snapped, slapping away at Mark's offensive and reaching fingers.
"You can't call me that anymore." Mark stuck his tongue out and teased him. "You're the lesbian now!"
"I'm not a lesbian, I am now and will forever more be a straight man!" Cruz retorted.
"Think about what you're saying, you dork." Mark reminded her. "If you were a straight man, you'd be into chicks. Since you're a chick, if you were straight that means you're into guys now. I just happen to be a guy, know what I mean?"
Cruz stared back at the big man, before he lowered his head. "I'm so confused about my sexual identity right now!"
"Do you still think you're straight?" Mark kept ribbing her.
"I don't know anymore!"
Mark set his hands on his hips. "Do you remember all those times you gave me shit about being a lesbian? Do you remember all those times you said you'd hump the lesbo out of me? Well, payback is a bitch, buddy! Bend over, baby, because this train is coming through!"
Aggressively, the much bigger Mark reached over and grabbed Cruz around the waist. Since the big man had such a weight advantage, it was easy enough to pull the new, smaller woman to her feet and to carry her toward the ladder. In female form, Cruz was not strong enough to do anything except for slapping away at Mark's arms.
"Captain, you must put a stop to this!" Cruz pleaded. "It is an abomination!"
"Mark, put Cruz down." Washington said. "That's an order."
"No, I won't." Mark refused. "You let Cruz talk his little shit about me being a lesbian. You've seen him try to hump it out of me. I say what goes around comes around."
"Put her down!" The captain stood up.
"Make me, Cappy."
"I'll handle this, Captain." Freya stood up and walked over to face off with Mark.
Slowly and deliberately, the strong blonde pried the cook's hands away and released the captured Hispanic woman. Afterward, the two giants bumped chests against each other, much as they had in the past.
"I can take you." Mark threatened.
"Is that right?" Freya asked, shoving forward with her large tits.
"I've taken you before. I've had you on your back, bitch."
Freya considered this. In their original sexes, they'd wrestled Grecian style a few times. Usually she won because she'd been a very muscular man back then. They hadn't wrestled at all since they'd changed bodies. "Let me put in my plate in the oven. I can finish it later."
"Okay." Mark grinned. "Your place or mine?"
"Oh, I'll be coming to you." Freya menaced. "With my hands of steel!"
The moment the big blonde turned around, Mark reached out and slapped her hard on the ass. After that, Mark scurried up the ladder and out of sight.
"Captain, crew, if you'll excuse me." Freya said, obviously embarrassed at being manhandled like that. "I have an errand to take care of."
A minute later, she was gone as well.
With his elbow, Mario started prodding Cruz in the ribs. "We should go and watch."
"Why would I want to watch an abomination?" Cruz frowned.
"Because it might loosen you up for what I'll be doing to you later."
"Don't speak to me like that, baby." Cruz lamented. "I refuse to be a lesbian, but now I can't be a straight man either. I don't know what I want out of life anymore."
"Oh, stop being such a fuddy-duddy." Mario started pulling at her arm. "We'll go watch, you'll get horny, and then I can bone you. I know how you think, buster!"
"You're a man, baby!"
"But you're not. Come on!"
"No, baby. I'm not doing it. What I need is therapy."
"You're in luck." Mario kidded. "I just happen to have almost six inches of therapy right here. I measured it earlier. Too bad I'm not bigger, but I am kind of a short guy."
"Stop it, Mary! I mean, stop it, Mario! Captain, tell her I said no."
"Mario, leave Cruz alone." Washington said.
"Oh, fine." Mario relented. He started toward the ladder. "I'll go watch by myself. I may even jump in while they're going at it. See you guys later."
Cruz sighed, as her usual love partner left the room.
"Do you really think the same thing will happen to me?" Washington asked.
"I'm sure it will." Cruz replied. "If you discount Willow, the rest of us went into Saturn's sheath and spent time on the surface of planetoid Zeus. Somewhere down that rabbit hole, we picked up what is at least a semi-intelligent, non-visible, electromagnetic entity. It has had enough time to study our genetic pattern in a way that it can duplicate that pattern into the opposite sex without causing any negative repercussions. I know we threw out the idea that this could be a virus at first, but I'm inclined to revisit that hypothesis in light of recent events."
"Why would it attack us one at a time, instead of all at once?" Washington asked.
"Think about that." Cruz rationalized. "Who are the two biggest people on this ship but Freya and Mark? Our invisible entity can hit us up only a few at a time, and it hit the strongest physical specimens first. Perhaps that somehow made the entity weaker for a time. Now that it has regained its strength, it went after another pair of humans."
"But there is no other pair left, of our original five that went into Saturn, that are still present on this ship." The captain reasoned. "That means I should be safe, right?"
"Not necessarily." Cruz refuted. "If anyone is safe, it would be Barbie and Cammie because they weren't on the ship at the time. The viral entity hasn't had the time to fully study them as it has the rest of us. If it gets to that point, then maybe they will suffer a similar fate. I doubt this, however. I think that maybe the original mechanism that started all of this was left back on Saturn. What we are going through now could be only the lingering after-effects."
"But you're not positive?" Washington asked.
"Of course not." Cruz shrugged. "I'd have to know what sort of entity we're dealing with first. Get me some better analysis of our unknown entity and then maybe Mario and I can figure something out. In the meantime, all we have is a guessing game. Keep your fingers crossed that we can make this happen, for the sake of us all."
"You aren't in any pain, are you?" Cammie wondered. "You've been making that same hurt face ever since you changed."
"It's my ego, baby." Cruz explained. "I've noticed that myself. You saw how Thor felt when he turned into Freya. I'm going through the same thing now. I have a feeling that the Captain will go through the same sort of frustration when it happens to him."
"If it happens to me." Washington spoke up.
"Do you see how defensive he is about it?" Cruz pointed out. "He's afraid of having his masculinity taken away from him, but he's afraid ahead of time. When Margo turned into Mark, there was something similar going on with her, him, but it was very minimal because Margo has always been manly in her persona. Margo eased into being Mark because she already behaved masculine before the change. Look at Mary. She wanted it to happen, so to her this is no big deal."
"I just can't believe that Thor seduced my husband." Barbie admitted.
"But he didn't." Cruz shook his head. "It wasn't Thor that did that at all. It was Freya. This idea that Mary had, that we should invent a new character the moment we change sexes, it is a very valid idea. Thor went from Alpha Male to Alpha Female. As an Alpha Male, Thor gladly took his place by the Captain's side as a manly combat tech. As an Alpha Female, she immediately sought out the attention of the most powerful man on this ship and seduced him."
"Well, I think my husband enjoyed being seduced a little too much!" Barbie growled.
"You'd have to ask him about that." Cruz replied. "Also, you have to adjust your mind into understanding that sooner or later, the Captain will become a woman. Will you be able to cope when that happens?"
Barbie crossed her arms and gazed at her husband.
"Stop doing that." Washington said. He went back to eating his omelet.
"I'm imagining you with breasts." Barbie said.
"Don't!"
"Cruz has the biggest tits on the ship, now that Margo is a swinging Joe."
"Thank you so much for reminding me." Cruz grumbled.
"The sex ratio is uneven now." Cammie mentioned. "We have four females and three males. If we get one more girl on our side, it will really become lopsided."
"We'll have all girls on the bridge." Barbie said, almost gloating.
