Messing with Changelings

“We had been assigned to Deep Space Nine,” Starfire started as she showed them a vibrant orange flower and a photo to the gathered harem members. The photo was of the trio drinking at a bar while an alien with large earlobes was crying over the pile of gold bars James had sitting next to him. James had his arms around both Starfire and Mariner as they got hammered. James also had the same odd flower on his pajama-like uniform that was facing a stern looking man nearby.

“What do the two of you have to say for yourselves,” Sisko scolded the two ensigns in front of him. The two ensigns in question looked to be struggling to stay standing and were leaning against each other.

“I–I like, think Mariner is… very pretty, “ Ensign Gardner replied, half slurring out his words and staring vaguely in Mariner’s direction.

“And Jambear tastes like blueberries,” Ensign Mariner giggles as she tries to lean over and bite James only to stumble and fall on him. They fell into a giggling and squirming pile. Sisko stared at them for a second before turning to Bashir.

“What did they get exposed to?” Sisko had called for Bashir as soon as he heard that people had been found acting strangely at the replimat. The two ensigns had been trying to unclothe each other while also throwing food around by the time Odo arrived with security.

“I am not sure, it’s some kind of unknown organic compound,” Bashir reported as he took scans and samples. “I’ll know more when I run some tests.”

“Um Commander, sir?” Spoke up a cute voice from a bit to the side. Sisko looked over at the voice and found the third to the terror trio, Ensign Star Fire. “James was showing Mariner his latest project when they started playing.” Ensign Fire pointed to the small pot with a dandelion-like flower inside.

“Bashir can you check this flower for the compound?,” Sisko asked, grabbing the pot and holding it out to the medical officer. Bashir gave it a scan.

“Yes, it’s absolutely soaked in the compound, be careful not to sniff it,” Bashir said, carefully covering his nose and setting the flower on a nearby table.

“I’ve warned Gardner multiple times not to take his experiments out of his lab,” the exasperated Sisko shook his head. While Ensign Gardner was a brilliant botanist and was a great help with Mrs. O’Brien on her expeditions but he was consistently careless with his personal projects. Considering the maintenance staff had a “days since Gardner doomed the station” sign, he really should be more careful. Though Sisko would admit that Gardner or one of his friends would usually be the solution to those same incidents in turn. “Do we need to quarantine them?”

“I do not believe so, it doesn’t appear to be transferred between people,” Bashir replied.

“Odo why don’t you take the ensigns to the brig to sober up?” Sisko requested.

“Gentlemen,” Odo waved at security team members who struggled to pull Ensigns Gardner and Mariner apart and drag them away, still giggling and flirting. Odo stepped closer to Sisko and Bashir and in turn closer to the flower itself.

“If you need me, I’ll be in my offi—OW!” Odo was about to leave when James’s flower grew thorns and a pseudo-mouth out of its petals. The now hostile flower lashed out and bit Odo on his hand. Odo jumped away and the flower blew him a raspberry before returning to its previous state.

“Are you okay?”

“I think so,” Odo held up his bitten hand and saw the transformed hand partially shifted to a see-through state. “I think we need to talk to Gardner about his experiments.”

“Agreed.” Sisko said as Bashir carefully approached the flower with a container and it thankfully didn’t change when he contained it. Odo was able to get his hand back to normal and soon went back to his office. Starfire followed soon after to see her owner and friends.

“What the?! Break it up!” Odo shouted as he passed by the cells. Starfire looked inside and saw that Mariner was pressed up against the cell wall, half naked with James fucking her pussy and making out with her. One hand was Mariner’s breast while Mariner used her reach to squeeze James’ ass.

“If James was so close with this Mariner, why isn’t she here with us?” Asked Gaige.

“She was Starfleet through and through, if she found out about Prime World and how it works, then James believed that she would not want to see us anymore,” Starfire explained sadly. “He felt it would be better if she stayed in her home universe and we could occasionally visit.” The group got quiet for a bit of time before Kyouka spoke up.

“James doesn’t still have that flower around anywhere correct? We don’t have to worry about a contact high from the garden?” She asked nervously.

“Well…” Starfire started saying.

“Commander Sisko!” Odo, the shapeshifting constable of Deep Space Nine shouted as he walked into Sisko’s office. Starfire looked up from her station close to Sisko’s office. The Starfleet officer looked up from his datapad and looked at the visitor.

“Hello Odo, what seems to be the matter?” Sisko asked as he noted the strange stains on the constable’s uniform and how Odo was sniffing a lot.

“It's those Ensigns Gardner and Mariner again, achooo!” Odo sneezed.

“What have they done now?” Sisko sighed thinking of all the minor pranks and incidents the terror trio have done or gotten themselves into. While Ensign Fire was very much a follower and held back the trio’s impulses, she couldn’t stop the shenanigans all together. Ensigns Gardner and Mariner were highly skilled but could not seem to be able to keep themselves out of trouble.

“I found them fornicating in cargo hold three again,” Odo explained.

“I don’t think what the staff does in their free time is my concern, unless you think it's a resurgence of the previous incident,” Sisko coughed a bit, recalling the incident where Ensign Gardner and Mariner became high and got amorous with each other. Of course it could just be Ensign Gardner’s usual activities; Ensign Gardner’s intimate activities are well known to many people on the station and he has been caught with various companions in the most unusual of places.

“They were found with a case of Romulan Ale and hostile plants; plants similar to the ones from before,” Odo said as he pulled a long thorn out of his arm. Where he pulled the thorn out, his skin became see-through.

“Bring them here,” Sisko demanded as he gave Odo his full attention. Odo gave him a sly smile and shouted out the office.

“Bring them in!” Soon four security officers frog marched James and Mariner.

“Ensign Gardner and Mariner, what do you have to say for yourselves this time?” Sisko demanded of them. James and Mariner looked at each other and tried to explain themselves.

“It was just a box of Romulan Ale, I got it as a gift,” James explained hurriedly.

“Plus we’re technically on a Bajorian Station, it's not illegal to have Romulan Ale on Bajor,” Mariner gave her best winning smile. Sisko considered their explanation before responding.

“Those are good excuses but that is not what I was referring to,” Sisko said, causing the Ensigns and Odo to look at him confused. “I was referring to the vicious plants that attacked Odo.”

“Oh…those,” James said, scratching his head nervously.

“Exactly, those,” Sisko said with a scowl. “Why is it that you have continued to produce plants that target and attack Odo? Despite my telling you to get rid of them after the incident on the replimat?”

“Well, I’m not sure why the plants are going after Odo, I was hoping to recreate a plant from my homeworld,” James explained hurriedly. “It’s just supposed to produce an amazing scent when strangers are nearby.”

“Hmmm” Sisko made a noise indicating a bit of disbelief; with the run ins Gardner had with Odo, it's a bit suspicious that James’s plants attacked Odo. “Well I suggest you dispose of this plant and the related research; I won’t have it threatening station security however unintentionally.”

James opened his mouth to protest ruining his research/hobby but a look from Sisko said that he had **** in the matter. “I will sir.”

“Dismissed,” Sisko said. “Oh and Mariner, you are still Starfleet; for the Romulan Ale, the both of you are assigned to scrubbing the carbon filter and Quark’s biofilters.”

“James listened and destroyed most of the samples he had created,” Starfire said and was a little upset, recalling much of James' hard work being destroyed.

“Most?” Asked Aelita.

Bashir, Garak and Martok had just returned from escaping a Dominion Internment Camp when the Romulans, Federation and Klingon forces were having a conference to discuss the war against the Dominion. Ensigns Mariner, Gardner, Fire were all in the back with other personnel.

“There must be something we can do to prevent more infiltrations,” Martok shouted as he pounded on the desk. “It’s only thanks to Ensign Fire that we found out how the Changelings have bypassed the blood test.”

“Agreed but their unique abilities allow them to circumvent conventional scans,” the Romulan representative complained.

“If only there was a plant that could detect Changelings and had a compound that stopped their shapeshifting,” James said as he stared directly at Sisko.

“Can you recreate your project?” Sisko asked, ignoring the Ensign’s tone.

“Wait,” interrupted the Romulan representative. “You had a method of neutralizing Changelings and kept it hidden from us?”

“It was a side project to create a new scent that incidentally messed with Changeling transformations and had the flower attack,” James explained. “The flowers may have caused issues around the station as I experimented a little with the effects; nothing really relevant.” James did his best to wave off the issues the flowers caused.

“But can you recreate it?” Sisko said to get the meeting back on track.

“Not sure, some of the plants I was crossbreeding from behind enemy lines and I don’t think we can crossbreed them to the point I was at before. That took months and I’ll be starting from scratch again.” James explained as he started pacing around. “Plus, I never found out exactly why it was hostile to Odo and detected his transformation.”

“Dedicate all your time acquiring what you can and get working on the project,” Sisko ordered.

“Get us a list of the plants, the Romulan Star Empire has methods of acquiring such things,” the Romulus representative requested earnestly. Quark, who was serving some drinks, shared a look with Mariner before they cleared their throats.

“We might not necessarily need to start from scratch,” Quark spoke, getting the attention of everyone in the room. Mariner pulled out the flower from inside her shirt and set it in a vase on the conference table. The flower quickly revived in the vase's water and it produced a sweet scent.

“We might’ve been keeping some around, just in case,” Mariner said looking down.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Sisko said before he turned to Quark. “There are more?” Quark chuckled nervously.

“I’ll have Rom bring the others around,” the Ferengi said before he shuffled away.

“I’ve been wondering why I haven’t been able to catch you recently,” Odo grumbled as he cautiously approached the flower. It started glowing and when Odo got within a foot it grew a mouth and bit at him.

This got the crowd very excited and talking about sharing the plant and getting samples spread across the quadrant to find infiltrators. They didn’t notice the Klingon soldier sneak out the back.

“Soon after, we used James being sent to continue his research away from the frontline as a cover to return from the vacation. An ambush by the Dominion had us return sooner than expected,” Starfire explained to the harem. “James was very happy that Mariner and Quark saved his flower and we had gone to Quark’s bar to celebrate and play the Dabo.”

“And you haven’t been back there since?” Katara asked as she didn’t find any newer photos.

“No, soon after the universe had been closed off due to an issue with its time; I do not recall but it’s been 4 years since we’ve been there.”

“Mariner must be missing her friends,” Hinata said empathetically.

“I’m hopeful after the wedding we will be able to visit her though maybe if we are careful, she could be a guest,” Starfire wondered out loud with Aelita nodding with her.