This was a post on the Ranger-L list that just had to be archived.

Subject: Re: An Introduction
Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 08:26:04 -0400
From: David McMillan <wmcmillan@LAKERS.LSSU.EDU>
Reply-To: Galaxy Rangers <RANGER-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU>
To: RANGER-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU

> I am currently petless. My folks owned dogs all throughout my
> childhood, and I'm currently considering getting a ferret. But
> I'm just not all that interested in cats.
>
> Now CatGIRLS, OTOH, that's a different story!
>
> Richard Ryley

_______________________________________________________

>Well, Niko didn't HAVE to run around in a super skimpy outfit to
>look sexy...
>
>Richard Ryley

_______________________________________________________

"RYLEY!" Zach roared, levelling his blaster across the length of the laboratory. "Give it up now and no one has to get hurt!"
The mad scientist laughed hysterically. "NEVER! You can't stop ME, Galaxy Rangers!" He leaped towards his control console, by some miracle evading all three Rangers' fire, and slapped his hand down on the large green button. "Ha! It's too late -- nothing can stop the process now!"
Goose covered the ten meters between them in one enormous leap, pinning the madman against an electrical cabinet by the throat. "Get her OUT of there, or I swear I'll--"
"Goose! Back OFF! Doc--"
"Already on it, mon capitan." Lifeline and Pathfinder were already vanishing into the main control board. Goose flexed his hands around Dr Ryley's throat. "How do we stop it? HOW?!?"
The geneticist, glasses askew, blinked at the Ranger for a long moment before giggling insanely. "You can't. *I* can't. No one can. Not even God can --"
Goose freed one hand, snagged his right blaster, and brought it to bear on the glass cylinder that swirled with dark vapors, obscuring the figure within. Ryley's insanity cut off like a light, and he grabbed for Goose's gun hand with desperate strength. "NO! You mustn't! If you damage the equipment or stop the process before it completes, she'll die for certain -- no one will be able to help her, not even me."
"He's telling the truth, Boss" Pathfinder piped up from the main screen. "We can't find any way to stop this thing without killing Niko. Once it starts, it has to finish."
Goose's blaster swivelled around to touch Ryley's temple, as gently as a butterfly. His voice was as quiet as falling snow. "If anything happens to her...." He didn't need to finish the sentance. The geneticist, looking much more connected to reality, shrank away from his gaze, completely cowed.
"Doc," Zach snapped, "I want these computers sucked dry. Every program, every journal entry, every circuit diagram. I want Longshot to be able to completely recreate this entire..." His jaw worked dangerously as he glared around the laboratory, searching for an appropriate phrase. "This entire Frankenstein setup, down to the molecular level. Goose, cuff the doctor and help me search this place. We're going to need every reference text, magazine article, and cocktail napkin -- *anything* that he might have jotted--"
The Rangers spunh towards the cylidnder as a loud, shrilling alarm went off. Goose hoisted Ryley off the floor by his jawbone, eyes going feral. "What is that? What's WRONG, you son-of-a-"
"Nothing!" the geneticist strangled out. "It's -choke- done! -gurgle."
"Pathfinder! Lifeline! Get her *out*...of......" Doc's voice trailed off in shock as the cylinder opened on its own, revealing...Niko?
Goose's numb hand dropped Ryley to the floor. The madman stared worshipfully at Niko for a long moment, then prostrated himself on the floor like a man before an idol, giggling, drooling, and muttering in a cracked, broken-record voice. Zach, after a moment of staring in disbelief, snagged a long lab coat from a nearby hook and handed it to her.
She looked...feline was the only word to desribe it. Her reddish- brown hair had yellowed in sections to match the fine, short tiger- stripped fur that now covered her body from head to toe. Her eyes, while still the same color, now had vertical slit pupils and were larger in relation to her face. As she took the coat from Zach, a detatched portion of Doc's mind noted that her her knee and hip joints looked different, and her arms seemed longer, with hands that could double as forefeet. Ryley's design, it seemed, was inteded to allow for both high-speed quadreped running and normal bipedal locomotion. The retractable claws, he supposed, would make it easier to use a computer after a hard day of running down wildebeests on the savanna...or whatever the nutacase *had* had in mind for his "new race."
Niko buttoned up the lab coat, her new fingers only slightly clumsy. Her hands reached up to touch the sharper bones of her reshaped face, and moved back shakily to feel the pointed, triangular ears that flicked away from the touch.
"Z-zach? Doc? Shane?" Her voice was only slightly unsteady, but the increasing agitation of her long tail betrayed the true level of her anxiety. "What....What did he *do* to me?"
Goose, forgetting Ryley entirely, stepped forward and wrapped her in an enfolding hug. "It's all right, babe. Everything's going to be all right."
Sensing his opportunity, the geneticist tried to scurry away on all fours. Zach rather absentmindedly placed one heavy boot on the back of his neck and pinned the insane doctor to the floor.
"Guh!" Ryley said intelligently. No one paid any attention.
Niko, sagging in the shelter of Goose's arms, flinched as the wavering tip of her tail passed into her line of sight. She grabbed it, seemingly be pure reflex, and stared at the twitching point, her eyes going very wide. Her free hand reached back and felt around till she found the root of the tail where it emerged from her coccyx.
"I have a tail," she said numbly. After all she had been through, this seemed likely to be the straw that broke her tattered self- control. Her eyes travelled up to lock onto Goose's face. "I HAVE A TAIL!!!" she wailed and collapsed back into his arms.
"Uhh....well, if it helps, *I* think it looks pretty good on you," Doc commented.
She stared at him for a long moment, the began to snicker helplessly. The snicker ascended upwards into a nearly hysterical gale of laughter, which quickly segued into a series of long, gulping sobs as she buried her face in Goose's shoulder. The blond Ranger glared over her head at the hacker, who had the good grace to look abashed.
The crying jag lasted only a minute, although Goose looked inclined to spend the next decade as her tear sponge if necessary. She stood away from him and pulled herself to the closest approximation of attention that her modified spine would allow.
"What do we do now, Captain?" she said to Zach.
Zachary handed her a handkerchief, which she accepted gratefully.
"We call in a tech-forensics team from Longshot and have this placed stripped down to the last bit. And while that's going on, we take our prisoner --" he glanced down at the geneticist still twitching under his boot "-- back to BETA for a complete debriefing and psych exam. Once we have a complete picture of how he did this to you, we can reverse the process." His voice and eyes betrayed no trace of the doubts that must have been lurking somewhere in the back of his mind.
Niko's eyes followed his gaze down to the mad scientist. Her mouth opened and her tongue ran over the small but sharp fangs in an alarmingly predatory fashion. "Oh, I'm suuure we'll get all the answers out of him that we need," she purred. Goose tried to convince himself that it was the resonance of her ribcage vibrating against his that made his stomach clench up.
Zach and Doc looked suddenly wary. "You're...probably right."
Zach grabbed Ryley and cuffed him with casual efficiency. "Let's go." It seemd merely coincidental that Goose and Zach were between Niko and the prisoner as they walked out the door.
"So," Doc inquired, "just how *does* it feel to be...furry?"
Niko considered for a moment. "Not...bad, actually. I feel like I could run from here to BETA and not get tired. Or set a new long-jump record. To be honest, I'm kind of interested in seeing what this body can do. Although I *do* have this strange desire to start licking my--" she broke off suddenly. "Oh, that *tears* it! All right, you bottom-feeding, boot-licking, self-centered insult to the Hippocratic Oath! I want this *reversed,* and I want it reversed NOW!!" She snarled at Ryley, dropping into a predatory crouch. The claws extended from each fingertip, looking sharp enough to make human mincemeat. The geneticist cringed away from her.
Zach sighed as the Rangers kept the prisoner out of reach of the irate teammate. *Why me, God? Is just one month or two of *normality* too much to ask?* God, as usual, did not deign to reply.
*This is going to be a long day.*