This is a repost of a story posted yesterday under the name of To Boldly Go.
The story suddenly had 0 words and I deleted it, only to find that other stories had suffered the same fate. I wonder, in passing, if a certain out-of-this-world intelligent life form had something to do with it...

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before!

Captain's log, stardate 4153.7

We have entered an unknown quadrant of our galaxy. Our instruments have not been able to ascertain why this has not been discovered before. Mister Spock is of the opinion that there may be wormhole aspects to this discovery. We are investigating…

Captain Kirk was on the bridge, as usual.

He smiled to himself, remembering the previous evening when he entertained Nurse Armstrong in his quarters. They had a good time. He was, as usual, marvellous in bed and he was sure that the nurse felt privileged with the attention he had given her. Of course, she was sworn to secrecy and would have to be transferred at the earliest opportunity as Kirk did not like to keep his conquests on board after he had finished with them. There were several women on this trip who would have to be transferred, but that would allow him to have fresh faces in his bedroom.

He looked at his reflection on the monitor and was concerned that several grey hairs had appeared and also, alarmingly, a few lines around his eyes. Was this significant? He wasn’t sure. He would see Bones later as long as the good doctor wasn’t too drunk on Syntho.

Mister Spock raised one eyebrow, then the other several times. This was the only exercise he permitted himself outside the confines of his bedroom. He looked across to the communications consul. He would have sighed if that was in his nature, which it wasn’t. He had illogical feelings for another officer. He put this down to the human part of his life form; something that he did his best to suppress. He was well aware that his Vulcan half was vastly superior to his human one. It was something that he had learned to live with.

Nyoto Uhura, the token female Communications Officer sighed. She sighed a lot, wondering why she was the only female officer on the bridge and believing that she had more intelligence in her little finger than most of the other crew put together. She had no idea that Spock had any feelings for her and would have been surprised had she known. This did not mean that she would have spurned his advances though.

However, she rather fancied Chekov, the navigator but he didn’t swing her way and was having a steamy affair with Sulu, so Uhura was out of the picture.

‘Scotty,’ said Kirk suddenly, ‘how are the engines?’

‘Bearing up Captain, but I canna say how much more that they can take.’

As the Scottish engineer said this at least twice a day and three times on a Sunday, the captain ignored his warning.

They were on the way to a newly discovered quadrant beyond an area that was rarely visited. There had been a garbled message from an outpost on the edge of that area, only there because of occasional activity by the hated Klingons. The garbled message mentioned the words, ‘Oh hell,’ a few choice profanities and then there was a cutoff scream. Starfleet ordered The Enterprise to investigate with all expedience.

All in a day’s work, according to Captain Kirk. How many times had he saved the day and completed missions deemed to be impossible? He had lost count of the number of human-shaped monsters, beings and blobs that he and his crew had come across in their five-year mission. Regrettably, some of those entities had died, but that was how the cookies crumbled as his grandmother said.

Hence they were travelling at warp factor 7, on the edge of safety and the engineer didn’t like it one bit.

Scotty, the chief engineer and syntho-haggis lover, had a love affair with his engines that was far from healthy and he was known to sleep next to them hugging a depleted Delithium Chrystal he called Stella…

There were several other members of the crew dotted about on the bridge, looking busy and fiddling with dials. A few of them were security guards, dressed in red. These were expendable, although they never knew it, and regrettably had the highest death rates of any of the crew.

Suddenly, alarms went off and the captain dropped the mirror that he was using to have a closer look at himself.

‘Mr Spock, report!’

‘The alarm has gone off Captain.’

‘I know that, why?’

‘Unknown Captain. I cannot compute at this stage.’

‘Mr Sulu, Condition Yellow,’

‘Aye aye Captain.’

‘Lieutenant Uhura, anything?’ the captain asked, chewing a fingernail as everywhere went a shade of yellow.

Uhura, who was reapplying some lippy, looked up, reached over her console and pressed a button on her earpiece.

‘I am getting a disturbance in the quadrant ahead Captain of unknown origin.’

‘Not helpful. Can it be put up on the screen commander?’

‘I will try Captain,’ said Spock raising an eyebrow an eighth of an inch. A sure sign that he was worried.

The screen flickered into life and everyone gasped, except Spock who didn’t gasp at anything.

It appears to be some sort of green fog Captain,’ he said.

‘I can see that Mr Spock,’ said the captain, somewhat testily.

‘Mr Sulu, if you could stop playing footsie with the navigation officer, what do our sensors say it is?’

‘Sorry, Sir. The sensors are saying that the fog is made up of an unknown chemical makeup.’

‘Captain.’

‘Yes Spock? I hope that you have good news for me. And turn that damned klaxon off, it’s giving me a headache.’

Suddenly it became quieter, and the captain could finally hear himself think.

‘Mr Spock. Any sign of the outpost that gave out the warning?’

‘No sign of it Sir.’

‘Hmm, anything else that might be useful?’

‘I looked into historical computer records that indicate that the fog may be similar to the one that surrounded Terra in the mid-twentieth century…’

‘You mean Earth?’

‘Yes Captain.’

‘Well call it that please Spock. Continue.’

‘As I was saying Captain, the fog may be the one experienced on Earth.’

‘Did it do any harm?’

‘Details are incomplete, but there was much loss of life and cases of change of gender.’

‘Explain.’

‘Males to females Captain, normally children and adolescents but also adults too.’

‘Reversible?’

‘Not known Captain. Records for that time are incomplete…’

The engines changed their pitch and there was tremendous acceleration, causing all crew members to sway backwards alarmingly. Two of the redshirts fell over and broke their necks.

A communication call was received from the engine room.

‘Captain,’

Scotty seemed to be somewhat upset.

The captain sighed, then sat up as straight as he could, wondering in passing if his hair was okay and not mussed up too much. He then pressed a button.

‘Yes Scotty, what’s happening down there?’

‘I canna believe it Captain. I have no control over the engines and the Delithium Chrystals are going inter overload and will go apeshit if we don’t do something.’

‘What speed are we at Mr Chekov.’

‘Warp speed eight and increasing.’

‘Can we go round, erm, this thing?’

‘Negative Captain,’ said Spock, ‘it appears that our controls are locked in we are no longer in control. We do not have any way of circumnavigating the fog.’

Kirk looked at the screen which showed that the Enterprise was getting closer and closer to the strange green, pulsating fog.

One of the redshirt guards had a heart attack caused by the stress of the situation, but there wasn’t time to deal with it and he regretfully died.

‘How far are we away from the fog Chekov.’

‘Approximately 50000 kilometres Captain and closing fast.’

‘Uhuru are you trying to communicate with it?’

‘That assumes that it is a sentient entity Captain,’ interjected Spock.

‘Do you know if it is or isn’t sentient Mr Spock?’

‘Negative Captain.’

‘No help, Mr Spock. Lieutenant Uhura, talk to me.’

‘About what captain?’

The Captain muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

‘Uhura, you are the Communications Officer. Are you communicating with that…thing?’

‘No Captain, there is just a continual hiss noise that is somewhat annoying and giving me a headache.’

There was a call from Sickbay.

‘Captain, Bones here.’

‘Yes Bones, give me some good news; I could do with some.’

‘What the hell is going on Jim? That damned acceleration has caused no end of casualties, especially redshirts. They’re dropping like flies.’

‘Never mind that Bones. We have a situation here. Patch up whoever you can and let me get on with saving the ship. Out.’

‘How close are we now, Chekov?’

‘40000K and closing Captain. We are still accelerating, and our controls are not responding.’

‘Captain.’

‘Yes Mr Spock.’

‘Have you any orders?’

‘Well it doesn’t seem like there is anything we can do, so I suggest that you all pray to any deities that you may have.’

‘That is not logical Captain, but I do have a suggestion.’

‘Would you like to share it with us?’

‘As you wish Captain. We could try to use a photon bomb.’

‘Hmm, why didn’t I think of that? Mr Sulu, do we have control of our weaponry?’

‘I don’t know Captain, the little light on my control consul is showing green so it might work.’

‘Make it so.’

‘Make what so, Captain?’

‘Sorry, wrong thing to say. Aim it on that green blob and press the damn button.’

‘Aye, aye Captain.’

Sulu pressed the button and there was a bit of a jolt and then the bomb's trajectory was followed as it approached the green fog.

There was a bright, blinding light on the screen and then after a few moments, the screen cleared.

The green fog was still there and it looked somewhat larger than before.

‘It appears Captain, that the fog has absorbed the explosion and is even larger than before.’

‘Thank you for stating the obvious Mr Spock.’

‘You are welcome.’

‘Bridge, engineering.’

‘What is it Scotty.’

‘The engines canna take much more!’

It sounded like he was close to tears.

‘Pull yourself together Scotty. Can you pull out a plug out or something?’

‘Ye canna be serious Captain!’

‘Any fuses you can disconnect?’

‘Not with tragic consequences Captain. Hang on, the engines are slowing.’

The green fog now filled the screen.

‘We are just 1000K from the fog Captain.

‘Opinion Mr Spock?’

‘We are slowing down sir.’

‘Thanks for that insight Spock; very helpful.’

‘500K.’

‘400K.’

‘300K.’

‘200K.’

‘100K,’

‘Mr Chekov, stop counting down, it’s getting on my nerves.’

‘Sorry Captain, erm, we have stopped.’

It was the case that the Enterprise had stopped all forward motion and the engines died.

‘Mr Sulu, Condition Red,’

‘Better late than never,’ mumbled Sulu, ‘Aye aye Captain.’

Everywhere, lights went red.

‘Stop that damned klaxon.’

‘Yes Captain.’

All was quiet apart from some pinging noises and the sound of the coffee machine percolating in the background. The ship was never normally this quiet and it was so unnerving that a redshirt started running around the bridge flapping his arms and squawking like a chicken.

A member of security phasered him. Unfortunately, it wasn’t set on stun, but kill and he regretfully died.

‘Oops.’

Not paying attention to the unwanted interruption, Kirk looked at the screen, his hands gripping the arms of his command chair, his knuckles white.

‘The fog is closing in on us Captain,’ said Sulu.

‘I can see that.’

He flicked a switch on his chair.

‘This is the Captain speaking. As you may be aware, a green fog is fast approaching. We do not know if it is intelligent and we are unable to communicate with it. As you all know,’ he continued rather pompously, ‘The Prime Directive prohibits Starfleet personnel from interfering with the natural development of a society for good or bad. We have no idea what we have in front of us. Apart from taking over the controls of the Enterprise, it has not harmed us. We will just have to wait and see what happens. Out.’

‘Captain, you ordered us to fire a photon bomb at it, that appears to be aggressive and possibly against the prime directive.’

‘Thank you Spock, your opinion is noted…’

Just then it happened.

The green fog enveloped The Enterprise.

The pulsating mass entered the ship covering everything and everyone. All the crew breathed in the green fog and changes were made, unusual changes…

Everyone on board lost consciousness.

How long they were asleep was not known. The ship's computer had temporarily stopped functioning.

In the sickbay, Bones was in his office, slumped over his desk, a bottle of whisky still clutched to his hand. Several nurses were lying on the floor or slumped at their desks, including Nurse Armstrong, the captain’s latest conquest.

In Engineering, Scotty was slumped against his control panel, one hand on his favourite, depleted Dilithium Chrystal.

On the bridge, everything was quiet. No pings or klaxons disturbed the peace. Spock just sat at his station, expressionless and bolt upright, but fast asleep.

Uhura who had been fiddling with her in-ear wireless device, was also unconscious.

Sulu and Chekov were in a slumbering embrace, drooling on each other’s shoulders.

You get the picture. Everyone was asleep apart from a redshirt who fell down some stairs at the time of the incident, unfortunately losing his life.

It was as if everything was frozen.

The green fog, after infiltrating every part of the vast ship, eventually left and carried on through space leaving The Enterprise somewhat different to what it was before, as far as the crew was concerned anyway.

Kirk eventually woke up. He was slumped in his chair. He gradually came to his senses. He felt strange, very strange. He brushed some hair out of his eyes. He didn’t know how his hair had gotten so long.

‘How long have I been out of it?’ he thought.

He sat up. His chest felt strange and tight up against the fabric of his jersey. He put his hand on his chest and stifled a scream. He had breasts!

Being the man that he was, he felt his trousers and noticed a void.

He screamed again, although more loudly this time; not a manly scream but a high-pitched and distinctly girlie one!

The noise he made seemed to trigger the others on the bridge to wake up.

‘Captain,’ said Spock in a voice several octaves higher than before, ‘we appear to have changed into females.’

‘I haven’t,’ said Uhuru somewhat smugly.

‘Obviously Lieutenant, although why you have not changed your gender is open to speculation…’

‘Bridge, this is Scotty, what in the name of Rabbie Burns is goin’ on, I’m a girl and so is every man in my department. I canna understand it!’

‘Captain, Bones here. Something strange has happened. My dick has gone walkabout and I have a chest the size of a…’

‘Enough everyone.’ said Kirk shrilly, ‘all departments report on your condition.’

One by one all of the ship’s many departments reported similar things. All the men had been changed into women and the women had apparently not been affected in any way.

‘Speculation Spock?’

‘Insufficient data Captain. The ship's computers appear to have been offline during the incident. I can make a guess, if you wish?’

‘Do so.’

‘I believe that the green fog caused this.’

‘Not helpful. Anyone else have any thoughts?’ he asked, picking up his mirror and noting in passing, how pretty he was.

One of the few remaining redshirts, now a pretty young girl, once known as Bert, spoke up.

‘Er, Captain?’

‘Yes, whoever you are?’

‘Captain, I’ve been with you for eight years and you don’t know my name?’

‘You’ve lived that long? Must be a record for a redshirt. Never mind that. What’s your theory?’

‘I believe that the green fog altered our bodies to that of girls…’

‘I know that…’

‘Please Captain, let me continue. I am a history graduate and I read something about this. Back in the mid-twentieth century, a green fog infiltrated Earth’s atmosphere causing death and destruction…’

‘I mentioned this before Captain,’ said Spock in his now new soft feminine voice that sounded almost human. Uhura noted how pretty the half-Vulcan was and began to have strange feelings; feelings that she had never had before…

‘Let him continue Mr Spock. Chekov and Sulu, please stop fondling each other like that, you are both on duty remember…’

‘It would be illogical to call me Mr now Captain…’ interrupted Spock, raising a now shapelier eyebrow.

‘Never mind that Spock, continue Ensign, whoever you are.’

‘Thank you sir. I was Bob but I think Bobbie would suit me now,’ said the new girl, flicking back her blond hair and smiling prettily, ‘A lot of records were destroyed in the mayhem caused by what was considered to be an alien invasion. It was estimated that seventy-five per cent of Earth’s population died. The fog mysteriously disappeared after a planetwide storm of epic proportions. The people left were predominately female and it was touch and go as to whether there were enough males left to re-populate the planet.’

‘Hmm, interesting,’ said the captain, looking at his previously bitten-down nails and noticing that they had grown back and were somewhat longer than before. He wondered what colour he should have them…or was that she?

‘Captain, what are your orders Sir, I mean Ma’am,’ said Spock, looking at Uhura and wondering why she, as a she obviously now was, seemed strangely attracted to the Communications Officer…

The captain thought for a moment.

‘Bones, Captain here…’

‘Yes erm Captain,’ replied Bones in a high-pitched voice.

‘What is the status regarding the crew.’

‘Well Jim, is it Jim now?’

‘Keep it professional Doctor.’

‘Right, well it appears that we have lost several members of the crew…’

‘Redshirts?’

‘How did you guess? Yes, they were male Redshirts, security guards, in fact. The cause of death is unknown until I do an autopsy. All the rest of the crew appear to be healthy. The females are unaffected, but all male members have changed to females. Caused by that damned gas, I think. I could do with a whisky, Jim, Jane or whatever you call yourself now.’

‘Doctor, get a hold of yourself. Remember, you are on duty.’

‘Sorry Jane…’

‘I am not Jane, well talk about names at a more appropriate time. Let me know the results of your autopsy as soon as you can. Out.’

Kirk rubbed her chest. The uniform she was wearing was not designed for women and her breasts felt uncomfortable against the male-type confines of his tunic.

‘Would I have to wear a bra?’ he speculated. He was more used to taking them off women than putting one on himself…

‘Captain.’

‘Yes Uhura?’

‘I have an incoming signal.’

‘Where from?’

‘Unknown Captain. It’s holographic in nature.’

‘Proceed.’

Suddenly, a vision appeared in front of them. It was in human form. A beautiful lady in long flowing robes. The figure was green, slightly translucent and faintly glowing and pulsating.

‘Greetings mortals. We are the Orthnoids, an ancient species that has roamed through space and time for millennia. I appear to you as in human form rather than my true form so that you might relate to me.’

‘Captain, this appears to be some sort of recording,’ said Spock, ‘we cannot communicate with it.’

‘You may have seen somewhat slight changes to some of you,’ continued the green lady.

‘You’re not kidding,’ said Sulu, feeling in her uniform trousers and going cross-eyed and breathless for some reason.

‘Quiet, erm, Miss Sulu,’ snapped the captain, testily.

‘We have seen through our travels, the mayhem caused by many lifeforms on their respective planets. The vast majority of the deaths, destruction, wars and subjugation are caused by the males of the species. We have pondered for aeons whether we should intervene, and we decided that we could not allow all this unnecessary harm to happen and threaten time and space.

‘For thousands of years, we have roamed the galaxies and when we have found a planet that needs our help, we have intervened and, using our unique form and our ability to infiltrate, we alter your rather primitive and fragile bodies to make some much-needed improvements. We have been able to alter the very structure of individuals down to their DNA. We have changed males into females. Unfortunately, not everyone was successfully transformed, and they have stayed male or regretfully died. We have now improved the technique used and many fewer lives are lost. However, looking on the bright side, as one of your amusingly primitive sayings goes, we have improved the lives of billions of beings throughout the universe.

‘As a vastly superior species that have evolved over millennia, we have no need to reproduce as we are genderless and reproduce by the mitosis or put simply, the splitting of cells. However, many life forms including yourselves, require a rather primitive and different method to reproduce. As males of your species are now effectively extinct, we have, as part of your transformation, made you able to reproduce using parthenogenesis or to be simple, you do not now need a male sperm to have babies.

‘What about sex?’ blurted out Kirk; instantly regretting saying it.

‘You might be wondering about what you amusingly call your sex life,’ continued the being as if it had heard the captain, ‘you will obviously not have the means to have male-to-female coitus, but I’m sure that you are aware that there are other ways to do things that can be enjoyable and perhaps, using one of your quaint terms, orgasmic.

‘When you receive this message, we will already be light years away from you. We have many galaxies to be explored and countless billions to be transformed. I wish you well. Have a nice day.’

With that, the vision vanished in a puff of green smoke.

All was quiet on the bridge as all of the crew present took in what the being had said. It seemed to be incredible that there was no longer a male alive on board and the crew was now exclusively female, without any hope of them being changed back again.

After a few moments of hushed silence. There was a communication from Engineering.

‘Captain, what the hell is goin’ on?’

‘Scotty, is that you?’

‘Ye know it is Captain; I’m a damn’ wee girl and I donna like it. I have breasts and they keep getting in the way and are jiggling aboot like they’re doin’ the highland dance and ma meat an’ two veg have gone, leavin’ a damp slit. All my men are now girls. Some of them are crying and others are talking aboot clothes, makeup and changin’ the engine room colours to pink. I canna stand it! At least ma engines are working as sweet as a nut.’

‘We all have our problems Scottie. Go check your engines again or whatever you do.’

‘I need a stiff scotch…I mean, aye aye Sir… erm Ma’am.’

Kirk frowned. He wasn’t sure about being called Ma’am. He had rather liked being a man with all the female members of the crew swooning over him. He had the pick of the pretty ones to, shall we say, entertain in his cabin. He or shall we say she now, had a swoon factor of zero at that moment. Something the captain did not like one little bit.

Lieutenant Uhura looked around the bridge with a slight smile playing on her lips. For too long she had been the token female there and it was nice to see all the women around her. Already, some had approached her quietly, asking for help and assistance after their dramatic change of gender.

She did not know it, but the Orthnoids had not only transformed the men on board into females but they had also assisted the original women members of the crew. In addition to subtle body changes that allowed them to self-inseminate, for lack of a better word, they had also boosted their intelligence far beyond the normal.

The new women had been radically changed physically and to a certain extent, mentally, but there were still vestiges of unacceptable male behaviour in them that would take years to completely eliminate.

Soon, the ex-male crew would come to rely on the now super-intelligent Uhuru and the others who had been born as women.

She and the others like her would be ready.

Would they take advantage of the situation?

Probably.

She looked at the now female Spock, The Vulcan, her face softened by her new femininity, appealed to her and she wondered if she could get more intimate with her. She would do her best to make it so.

Staring into the distance, Spock was trying to come to terms with who she now was.

Spock had feelings and emotions that she had never felt before as a man. Perhaps her mother’s human attributes were finally becoming dominant. She did not know it, but her previously green blood was now more of a pink colour. A sign of things to come?

‘Lieutenant Uhura?’

Reluctantly, she looked away from Spock and turned to Kirk.

‘Yes Captain?’

‘Please contact Starfleet. We need to return to base as we have a severe shortage of female uniforms and erm, underclothes.’

‘You mean, bras, panties and possibly also period products such as tampons and pads?’

She smiled as the captain’s face turned red. The macho captain who liked to put notches on his bedpost after every female conquest looked vastly different now.

She had a feeling that she would enjoy the future.

Captain's log, stardate 4162.1

Having explored the unusual green cloud, as ordered. Things for us have changed in a way that cannot fully be explained. All male members of the crew that survived the encounter have been transformed into females. The green entity communicated with us and informed us that they consider that males were the cause of many of the problems of the past and therefore changed us, in their opinion for the better. Their argument being that females are superior to males and are better able to govern sensibly and wisely. Only time will tell if this is the case…

Back at Starfleet Command HQ, a junior communications officer was looking at his scanner whilst eating a Weenie Syntho Burger. He was looking forward to going off duty. He had a date with one of the pretty nurses that he had been trying to get off with for quite some time. He knew that he would eventually have his evil way with her, as he had with countless others. Girls were so predictable…

Suddenly he stopped chewing.

There appeared to be a green cloud in the far distance coming towards them at an incredibly fast rate.

Sensors could not tell what the cloud was constructed of, and the thing had some sort of blocking mechanism that the probes could not penetrate.

At extreme magnification, the cloud was glowing, shifting and pulsating, almost as if it had a life of its own…

With a shaking finger, the officer stabbed at a big red button and the klaxons started…

Please leave comments if you have time. Oh, and if you can, please do the kudo-thingie... thanks! ~Sue