[Blake Warren]

1200
Laboratory
Vedas Base

He'd been asked down to look at a find that had caught the interest of the engineering team, but the writing on the hardware had left them stuck. Blake had two reference dictionaries in hand as the doors slid open in front of him and he walked in. "Alright, my presence was requested and I am here. Show me the text."

Blake checked the inscriptions against the reference texts. "Well, it's for studying, this means 'life,' but yes, right, 'animal' and 'plant.' But it seems completely inert, are we sure this isn't broken?"

He set aside the book and peered at the device itself. The only sign of action from the device was a single glowing crystal within the cylindrical mystery.

<<Tag Robert "Bobby" Oxford Jr , Isabelle Cooper , Evan Cross >>

[Steve Hamrick]

1200
SV-3 Office/Network Admin Office

Steve was carefully sorting the different emails. Some were from Shiva's new CIO, who was getting the ropes of the ship's system. Some were network issues on base and then there was SV-3 business. Not thinking about anybody in the social sciences section right now.

And yes, they hadn't had breakfast together this morning, and that was completely not related to the fight last night. No connection whatsoever. Nope. He had another folder that he dropped the engineering team email in, requesting Steve's presence to try to activate a piece of equipment they'd found. He'd be there, he wrote back.

[Robert "Bobby" Oxford Jr]

1200
Bobby's Quarters

Something needed to be brewed, Travis mused as he plopped himself on Bobby's bed. It had been a while since they pi$$ed Matt off for trivial reasons. Then again he was certain that his older brother was waiting on them to goof up sooner or later. They were being lazy with their brotherly duties by not giving the Admiral a reason to whoop their behinds, "My dear Cuz," Travis began, "I hope you have come up with something to pi$$ Matt off with. As I'm all out of ideas."

Bobby swung in his seat, "How can the Wizard be out of ideas?" Bobby gaped at the Army Officer, "You are the master of pranks, Trav."

Travis snorted, "Since going back and forth from here to Earth, my groove is messed up. And besides, it's your turn." When Bobby threw him a long look, "Come on, do it as a favour."

It was that moment Matt choose lean on the frame, "I'm more than curious as to what the two of you are going to cook up and wonder if I should be afraid." And watched both wince.

"That's not..." Travis sat up, "uh...I meant." He was avoiding looking at his elder brother. As it was so easy to get in trouble with Matt.

Walking in, he took a seat beside Traivs, "Well why don't the two of you enlighten me?" He looked at Bobby and then Travis, "So I can be prepared."

All Bobby could do was to throw a cold daggers at Travis, "You might want to ignore him."

<<Tag: Blake Warren , Steve Hamrick , and whoever is going to be posting as well>>

[Steve Hamrick]

1210
Laboratory
Vedas Base

Steve walked in, stretching his arms as the scientists needing the device activated for further research peeked up, reminiscent of meerkats in his mind. And he froze when Blake turned around from his translation work. The anthropologist's tone was brittle as glass. "Colonel."

And Steve, knowing he had done nothing wrong on Pandra, whatever certain big mouths had said, answered in an equally cool tone. "Doctor, what can you tell about what it does before I try turning it on?"

"It's for zoological study, 'to read the minds of animals' is the rough translation of the Hindi."

Dr. Brady, lead of the engineering team, very carefully ignored the tension of a couple currently on the outs and pointed to four glowing crystals as a control pad. "If you could place your hand here, Colonel, fingers on the contacts specifically. Once it's on we should have far more information output for its functionality."

Steve followed instructions and looked back at where Blake had his reference book on a shelf built into the wall and was deliberately not looking at him. Well, fine. The jealous twat could spend as many cold, lonely nights as he wanted. He thought 'on' at the hardware and as the device powered up, Steve removed his hand from contact.

Then light bathed the room and Steve's last properly coherent thought was a rather blasphemous phrase.
______________________________

The somewhat bigger peacock beat his wings in panic, while nearby milled a clutter of confused cats. The thinner but no less brilliantly colorful peacock flapped up onto the shelf over his head, knocking a book down to the floor as the peacock shrieked.

Then the thinner peacock spotted the larger one and leaped toward him, squawking angrily. The bigger peacock, choosing the better part of valor, hiked up the brilliant feathers of his train and took off running for the door. Just on the other side of the door, the two Marines who'd been working with the engineering team startled as the pair of angry peafowl run past them, the thinner one seemingly shrieking at the bigger one as their claws went tap-tap-tap on the floors. The sergeant pointed at the birds and ordered his corporal. "Try to get those back here, I'm going to check on the engineers."

The automated door allowed the cats to spill out, meowing and leaping on each other. The two Marines looked at each other and tried helplessly to account for all the engineering team among the playful cats. The sergeant got on the radio. "Hoskins to control room. We've got a situation in the labs. Dr. Brady and his team activated that zoological device they were studying. I think they've been turned into cats."

Meanwhile Corporal Dannard was grabbing up cats. Five engineers, five cats of various coat patterns. And so the peacocks had to be Doctor Warren and Colonel Hamrick, right? That one just kind of figured, even if Dannard had enough sense to never say anything like that in front of the colonel himself.

Meanwhile, the larger peacock got a straight corridor and a running start, leaping into flight to get away from his angry mate, who was still squawking, and ignored people looking up in surprise at the peacock.

<<tag Robert "Bobby" Oxford Jr >>

[Robert "Bobby" Oxford Jr]

1210
Bobby's Quarters

They had banter and pretty much relaxed in each others company, after few crazy months which had showed no signs of slowing down. Travis had kept them entertained with stories from his time one Delta. It had been too long since any of them had this sitting around and catch up. Even Matt had chimed with the story when Travis had called him at 5 am Cali time, pretty much waking him up and had him falling off the bed in shock. The rumble that was being felt had all three on their feet.

Travis looked at his eldest brother, "You stay here," he told the Admiral, "One step out of this room and I'll zat you." He would deal with the consequences later from this. He was ordering his own Commanding Officer. Then with Bobby took off. Turning the corner, they both saw something.

"You see that right?" Bobby asked, not daring to look at Trav. A sparkly blue hue was waving across the corridor.

"You have that right," Travis agreed, "I wonder that they touched now."

Instead of a reply the wave passed the two and moment before where the Colonel and Captain stood were now a replaced with a horse and goat. The two animals stood there making sounds that belonged to their respective species.

Matt was certain that he was hearing noises, but when the control room contacted him, about cats and peacocks, he slowly and carefully left his cousin's quarters, then followed the sounds only to find a horse and a goat in the hallway, "What the hell...." he trailed off.

<<Tag: Steve Hamrick /All>>