Dear David,
       The Rabbi still isn’t pregnant. It certainly isn’t for lack of trying. The whole engineering department’s in on it. You should see the chinese fire drill that used to be a duty roster. It was much like this when Scotty was refusing to stay sober, but now everyone’s switching shifts to give Dav and Judy a chance to conceive. Dr. McCoy is not optimistic of their doing it the natural way but they're determined to give it a shot. My money’s on McCoy.
       Yes, the rumor is true – all we ever do on the Enterprise is screw. And gamble. And other vices so horrible that Starfleet has classified them and is testing them for use as weapons against the Klingons. Have I mentioned that there are those on board who now believe that the entire Great Separation was a hoax to get the Klingons to think that Mensch and Cajun were deserting? Talk about your sacrifices for the cause! She always lands on her feet, no matter what. First, she marries everybody’s favorite wet dream (well, not mine, you know how awful I look in green – or in this case how awful green would look in me) then she screws around and now for some strange reason she’s got his Bossness back and she’s being considered a hero by those who don’t know better. Not that I didn’t feel sorry for the nebesh when Spocko was hunched over a computer instead of her… but how does she do it?
       Never mind that. It’s your family, you figure them out. Have you met your cousin-in-law yet? Ruth keeps saying she has to take him home to meet abba and savta, but sighs with relief every time we get assigned somewhere that isn’t near Terra. Her in-laws were inflicted on her, I don’t see why she doesn’t jump at the chance to get even.
       Enough of your family gossip. On to gossip about people you’ve never met and aren’t likely to. I haven’t told you about Kilpatrick yet. He’s a nice boy. Really. He’s my new assistant. Have I mentioned that I’m the Chief Chemist on this boat? The last two we had got killed on landing parties, the one before that bought it at a conference when a pack of ravening scientists didn’t take kindly to her latest paper. (Why are they called ‘papers’ anyway?) And you think you have a hard life doing security for capitalist swine. You want danger? Join the cut-throat world of modern science.
       Where was I?
       Oh yes, Kilpatrick. Very nice. Pretty. Smart. One small problem. He thinks he’s a werewolf. I keep telling him that he’s perfectly safe since we hardly ever go near full moons, but he’s the nervous sort. Fleet usually weeds out the loonies early on, but they tend to have a higher twitch rating for the Science Section. I suppose that’s because so many of the more brilliant ones are the mad type. But back to Kilpatrick. The Chief of Science does not know about him. I suppose she should. But he’s such a good chemist and perfectly normal except for this little aberration that doesn’t even affect anyone else. I’ve contemplated telling Bergmann, but he’s such a serious lad, not unlike my Pavel. Besides which he’s got as bad a case of ooh-I-want for his Superior Officer (isn’t she wonderful) as she did when she was trailing around after Spock. Of course, maybe Kilpatrick is a werewolf. Maybe I can coax a computer to talk to me about his med records. Nurse Dwight owes me a favor.
       Blast, there goes the red alert. Better go. Here’s hoping you don’t get this posthumously.
       Love, Daffy.

Dear David,
       The Rabbi is. Of course, that means she’s going to be stuck at a Starbase soon but she and Dav are hoping to get transferred to SanFran so they can help work on the Nests. Guess where they’re planning on raising the kid? Aprilists, the both of them. You civilians are all in favor of this new-fangled raising babies on ships nonsense, aren’t you? At least those of you who aren’t paranoid about Fleet becoming a separate power (as if it hasn’t been since the founding of the Federation). There’s a lot of cultural bias against it inside Fleet. It isn’t a Human idea, and all these Human admirals don’t like uppity non-Humans. Sometimes I wonder why it’s called a Federation. You know, there’s a rumor going around that the Enterprise is going to be scrapped. Where will Scotty go, I ask you? Anyway, about the Rabbi – it seems the old-fashioned way worked after all.
       The party was great. I was blind for two days and I lost my shirt on the wagers but it was truly a magnificent celebration. We’re going to miss Judy’s cooking. Speaking of parties, you should have been here for the one we threw when Beloved Leader announced that he’d found Former Beloved Leader. There were a couple of dozen people who’d come on board since Kirk disappeared. They knew about the HERO OF THE FEDERATION, but having never known him personally weren’t as impressed by the news of his survival as the rest of us (yeah, even me). We gave them the job of running the ship while we got completely wasted with joy. We even invited the Captain, and guess what? He came! He didn’t stay long, but he came (and you should be ashamed of yourself for the double entendres that are racing around your deviant little brain). Now, if you’d been around him during the months preceding this party – well hell, we didn’t have real parties then. And we certainly would NOT have invited him to what meager celebrations we did have. From the mood he was in you wouldn’t’ve known he was married to the best lay in Starfleet. (What? You don’t get testy when it’s been a while?) Anyway, we left no regulation unbroken at the Jim’s Alive party. Our morale rating has gone up again – for a while there it was pit city – but life has resumed its dull-except-for-the-occasional-threat-to-life-and-limb-hurry-up-and-wait pace. Speaking of dull, have I mentioned Pavel Chekov lately? We’re still seeing each other, but nothing even semi-serious anymore. Serious is the problem. He’s in straight-laced-career-officer mode and that life is not for me. A couple more years in Fleet and I’m off to join a circus, if only because your cousin will follow me there and I’d love to see Spocko in tights.
       I have to go, there are some reports that have to be written by somebody before her Valleyness starts kicking ass and I don’t let anyone kick my people’s asses but me.
       Love, Daffy

Dear David,
       Me and Mensch and Gypsy were sharing a pipe of Rigellian the other night and the conversation turned to His Highness. In the course of things, we came to realize that LeRoi had not yet been put through THE TEST. Now you, my dear civilian ex-Racer, wouldn’t know about this. It’s something special for Racers who end up wearing baggy shirts with wavy stripes on their sleeves (or in a female Racer’s case, unfashionably short dresses with ill-designed boots. Ah, the joys of military life.) It’s the stripes, the number of them that pose the problem in Clavist life. You see, you silly Racer people have this juvenile code of honor(?) that you tend to carry with you into real life. In Fleet this code might cause a problem for a Racer who’s in command of other Racers. See what I mean? No, probably not.
       Now Lieutenant Commander Mensch is a bitch (and how she ever got so military I will never know). She’s proud of it. Not that she doesn’t break rules, ignore them or find ways around them when they get in her way, but no one would ever question her ability to treat everyone with equal bitchiness be they Clavist or normal, sane being. Kamikaze, on the other hand, has never been messed with by a Clavist. At least, we couldn’t recall any instance of it. Of course, being His Royal Majesty for something going on forever in Clavist years might have something to do with that. I mean, what Clavist messes with royalty? But the question is what would he do if some Clavist did mess with him? And this, for our tin-soldiery life, is an important question. He’s bucking for a Captaincy, and Captains can’t have soft spots. At least not in their heads. Too many people depend on them. You civilians are lucky. The kind of life we lead is not for sane people. Sane people do not wander out into nothingness inside a thin-shelled, tiny little boat actively hunting for trouble and loyally obeying one fallible being. This is not normal behavior. Which is, of course, why I do it.
       So, we wondered in our Rigellian-induced haze, should we take it upon ourselves as good Clavists to administer THE TEST, and which of us should be the sacrificial lamb? As a mere Groupie (and what would you horny Racers and Makers do without us?) it was not my place to offer my life for the cause of whatever we were about to do. Mensch looked pained but said she supposed she should. Then Gypsy spoke up and volunteered. Considering how the Silver Streak feels about Sakura, due to the fact that Sakura is who Kam goes to for tidbits of Asian wisdom (since Cobra isn’t here and it wouldn’t be Asian wisdom but Silver Streak sure would have a lot more to worry about then) none of us were sure it was a good idea. But then Mensch and he are good friends too, and Gypsy pointed out that it would be easier for a yeoman – Chief Yeoman though she may be - to survive the deserved trouble if Kam should actually pass THE TEST – seeing as how Mensch is not only Chief of Sciences, but married to Big Green Boss-man Top-Of-The-Heap and King-Of-The-Mountain. This being undeniably true, we wished her luck, smoked another pipe and went our separate, conspiratorial ways.
       Several days went by and it came to pass that Yeoman Sakura Tamara became insubordinate, disobedient and argumentative towards the First Officer. And he, dear man that he is, tried to put up with it for a while. Then he tried to talk to her. Then he gave her extra duty. Then he put her on report, confined her to quarters and finally put her in the brig. Ruth and I stood by watching and keeping score. I, for one, was scared to death. Clavists are crazy. Clavists put their careers on the line for other Clavists, and do it out of a loyalty left over from teenage lunacy. Kam could be risking his life and livelihood and it would be all my fault (see, I’ve never slept with him – unlike either Sakura or Mrs. Captain – so he’d be able to blame me with a clear conscience – and did you really want to know that?). This is dumb, David. Finally Mensch and I went to Kam and confessed. He was furious and we almost ended up sharing Gypsy’s cell. He even threatened to call the Captain. (I thought that should’ve been an automatic disqualification, but Mensch said THE TEST was over when we admitted that’s what we were doing, so it didn’t count against him. This is stupid, but if you’re going to go with stupid, I say go all the way.) He seethed, yelled, and was deeply wounded that we’d thought so little of his abilities – especially after Captain Bastard – and it was only after a heart-to-heart with Mensch that he finally remembered that this was the Clavist way of approving a Racer as a ship’s commander. Hell, we were paying the man the highest compliment we knew how to give! Once that got through his touchy samurai pride – and it took a few tense days and an emergency call from Cobra as well as the intimate chat with your I-can-talk-anyone-out-of-or-into-anything cousin – he settled down, dropped the charges and thanked us for our upholding of Clavist tradition.
       Apparently the Captain figured that something was going on, but the missus convinced him to stay out of it. After the whole Flower-Loonie escapade, he knows more than is good for us about the Clave. Mensch swears she hasn’t told him any more, and that he hasn’t asked (while subtly not mentioning that they’re both telepaths)… but he spent far too long as First Officer, and First Officers have to know everything. Then they have to decide what to tell the Captain. Geveult, Captains are so pampered! Is it any wonder Kamikaze wants to be one?
       Love, Daffy

Dear David,
       Meanwhile, down in Engineering… The Rabbi has morning sickness. The stuff McCoy gives her doesn’t seem to work, she has allergies to lots of the wonders of modern medicine. Mensch claims that what she needs is a Jewish doctor and promptly turns up at Judy and Dav’s quarters every morning to take care of it. Wonder if I could hire her to do the pregnancy for me should I ever decide the universe needs more Gollubs. Can you imagine what my father would say if I were to someday bring home a kid? Probably nothing flattering. Unless I also brought home a serious, straight-laced, career officer husband and father of aforementioned kid. Oy God, don’t get all lathered up. I’m not. Anyway, my relationship with my father has mellowed now that we’re no longer sharing the same solar system. And besides, kids will have to wait. None of this Aprilist shit for me.
       Where was I? Engineering. Right. Routine patrol is nice. Dull. Safe. A lot like… never mind. We’re supposed to pick up some civilians and take them somewhere classified that no one knows about. That usually means the (section deleted for security reasons), but we aren’t due at Starbase Whatever for the rendezvous for a couple of weeks. Scotty has decided to take this brief period of peace and quiet to put his section through hell. He’ll have crews out dusting the warp nacelles soon. And Ryan’s doing the same thing for the red-shirts. You know, I’ve always wondered why red for Security. It’s an invitation to get shot, in my opinion. The red-shirts, however, seem to be rather proud of this. Red-shirts also tend to have very thick heads. What? Was I talking about you? No, David, of course not. You have a very nice head.
       Kamikaze has been overseeing it all and smiling benevolently. And this is all very well for efficiency ratings, but where am I supposed to hang out when I’m not playing with my allotropes? I haven’t had a good bull session or poker game all week.

       No, instead I’ve had long, soulful talks – well, okay, he talks, I listen – with Geoff Redford. He’s a pianist and assistant to the Assistant Engineer. He’s a nice kid with a not-so-nice problem. He’s in love. Yeah, I know, we do that a lot. You keep 430 people cooped up in a tin can for extended periods of time and you get lots of biological urges. Unfortunately for poor Geoff, his are focused in the unrequitable direction; his immediate superior, better known as the person with ‘property of Kamikaze Takeda’ stamped all over her (knowing his habits it’s surprising the labels aren’t – never mind, you never did fancy knowing too much about Upstairs). I don’t think anyone’s ever noticed how resilient the Silver Streak is. Maybe that’s how she does it; she seems so fragile that most people don’t see the toughness until it’s too late. She’s a survivor, that one. If she had anything to do with the demise of Ensign Steamroller Seductress, I for one don’t blame her. Still, she is Indiian, and Indiians are pretty touchy about marriage, sex, fidelity and stuff like that. I wouldn’t want for Geoff to get into any trouble with her – or with First Officer Don’t Touch My Woman. He does seem to know it’s all hopeless. I just hope he recovers. He doesn’t get moody very often, but when he does… And I seem to be everybody’s maiden aunt. Don’t they know I use this stuff for blackmail material?
       Love, Daffy

Dear David,
       You know, Boss’s style of command is a lot different than Bwana’s was. Our present Beloved Leader acts more like a real Captain – he sits up on the Bridge where it’s safe and lets them what’s expendable get expended. Not often, but… The survival rate for landing parties has gotten better in the last year.
       And speaking of landing parties (pardon me while I growl), I recently had the rare privilege of spending most of a week on one. You know how I feel about setting foot on a planet that doesn’t have shore leave facilities. It’s obscene. And now here I sit in Sickbay recovering from it. I do not suffer well, David, regardless of the fact that I’m Jewish and should come by it naturally. But a chemist was needed and it had to be a female chemist and Mrs. Spock has the rest of the Sciences Section to worry about so…
       There is definitely something Going On. When we got diverted from the routine patrol to go negotiate with a newly-discovered hunk of dylithium that just happened to have people living on it, Spocko did something he hadn’t done before. He gave Uhura command of the female half of the landing party. Kam got the male half.
       You remember Uhura. I introduced you to her that last time on Lorelei. Where were the two of you when you were both three hours late meeting me at the casino? And should I tell your wife?
       Personally, I hate the way we ignore the Prime Directive every time we find a planet that has something on it that we want. Officially, if we follow careful guidelines, we aren’t, but isn’t the very fact that we show up and say, “Hi, can we have your rocks?” influencing the development of the native culture? What would have happened if somebody had shown up on Terra a thousand years ago and bought up all our uranium? Or oil? Or coal?
       Anyway, I’ll bet you’re wondering about that ‘male half, female half’ of the landing party. It was due to the highly segregated society of our newest dylithium depository – what the natives call home. Men and woman live apart, getting together only for sex and the exchange of babies. I wouldn’t want to live there, but it seems to work for them. So Uhura had to negotiate with the women and Kam with the men – though if you ask me, it would’ve worked much better the other away around – except that Silver Streak would’ve had to kill the entire female population if anyone happened to take advantage of his natural charm. But then again, with Kam, the male half wasn’t much safer.
       Anyway, these people had never heard of the idea of men and women actually working together. And there was beginning to be a rather obvious disparity in the ratio of female to male babies born. So the whole system was breaking down: raiding parties on both sides, castration of males, forced breeding of females. All very nasty and distressing to our delicate sensibilities, but really none of our damn business.
       So, of course, we walked right into it.
       These people figured out real fast that we weren’t some other tribe from over the far hill. Less than twenty-four hours into the mission, we – the female half of the landing party – were attacked and taken prisoner. And contacting his Bossness didn’t initiate the grand rescue we’d hoped for.
       To make a long story short, Spocko had arranged the whole deal. We were negotiating with the highest-ranking females, and Kam was with the highest ranking males – to whom the captured prisoners were taken. Thus, with the leaders of both factions in the same place at the same time, His Green-Skinned-Wonderfulness beamed down a security team, surrounded the place, and talked until trade agreements were made. Separate but equal may have been their credo, but they aren’t stupid, and could see that the future of their race depended on changing their ways. Beloved Leader was very pleased with himself. In talking to Kam, I overheard him saying something about the (section deleted for security reasons). So I’m guessing we won’t be prosecuted for breaking the Prime Directive after all.
       But… I was injured in the initial attack. I was sent to Sickbay as soon as the Captain could arrange it. I will be in Sickbay for another two days. So why am I telling you this? Simple. Being in Sickbay has given me the opportunity to look up Ensign Kilpatrick’s medical file – after a little judicious bribery and calling-in-of-favors owed by certain of the nursing staff. Guess what? The son-of-a-bitch really is a werewolf!
       Love, Daffy

Dear David,
       Left you hanging, didn’t I? Regarding the werewolf, get your filthy mind out of the gutter. Ensign Doyle Kilpatrick is a real, honest-to-god, no-shit, oy geveult lycanthrope. At least, that’s what his medical history said. So I took it upon myself to find out just how much danger we were all in from the great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Lon Chaney.
       Turns out that what the esteemed physicians meant by ‘lycanthrope’ wasn’t the oh-my god-it’s-a-monster-RUN! kind of thing one would assume. It’s actually part of a religion. (Don’t ask me. What do I know from non-Semitic mythology?) If I understand it right, it has to do with some kind of holy trance in which the person – Ensign Kilpatrick – goes to some other place that isn’t on any starmap you’re likely to see and finds things out by talking with wolves. In order to do this, he naturally has to look like a wolf. So his psychic body (whatever the hell that is) shifts into the form of a wolf because in this place that isn’t on any starmap you’re likely to see people can do that. Or, at least, priests can do that. And that’s what he is; a priest of some primitive, aboriginal religion (and I didn’t know they had aborigines in Ireland, of all places. But I’ve got to admit, that explains a lot about Kevin Riley). Now how someone who’s a priest of some primitive religion becomes a chemist is something I don’t entirely fathom – but he claims he became a chemist in order to create some kind of substance that will allow anyone to be able to visit this place that isn’t on any starmap you’re likely to see without decades of religious training.
       Well, I figured this was right up Mrs. Spock’s alley, seeing as how she’s a priestess of a pretty damned odd religion herself (and she claims to be Jewish! Hmmph!). So I went to her CSOness like a good little departmental chief and carefully explained all I could about Ensign Kilpatrick and lycanthropy.
       Do you know what your insane cousin said? She started talking about becoming a courgat and flying butterfly kites and said she’d have to talk to the boy and compare notes. Compare notes! So now nice, smart, pretty Ensign Kilpatrick is going to spend some quality time with the longest legs in the galaxy and I’ll never get him interested in poor, serviceable little me.
       I knew there was a reason I wasn’t telling her about him.
       So I guess I’ll go call Pavel and see if I can get him interested in a game of a bird in the hand. He’s nice, smart and pretty too. I just wish his terminal case of the serious didn’t always make me forget that.
       Love, Daffy

END TRANSMISSION

The End