"And that's species number eleven," a Ferengi Operations ensign clad in Starfleet yellow declared, pressing the seal cycle on the replicator control panel for Cargo Bay 3's primary paddock. "Lukarian Azure Wolves. Fed and, soon enough, happy."
"And most importantly... sleeping soon," his Nausicaan Security escort added gruffly. He peered through the shimmering level-ten force field, his fingers white-knuckling the grips of a heavy phaser rifle held tight against his chest.
Inside the paddock, eighty silvery-blue, six-limbed canines lunged at the freshly replicated biomass that had materialized across a steel, bison-shaped feeding rack. The pack engulfed the frame in a frenzy of snapping maws, flashing claws, and the terrifying sound of razor-sharp fangs tearing through meat. The noise echoed off the four-story bulkheads of the cargo hold.
The Ferengi yelped, taking an involuntary step back, half-disgusted and half-terrified. "That is a lot of very sharp, very pointy teeth behind a single energy grid..."
Even the massive Nausicaan officer looked taken aback by the sheer velocity of the feeding frenzy, a sea of azure fur and thrashing tails completely obscuring the metal rack. "The vitamins, minerals, and—most importantly—the sedatives were added to the replicator recipe, correct?"
The Ferengi double-checked his datapad, nodding quickly. "Yup! Standard Xenobiology protocols. In about an hour, we'll have eighty 'fed, fat, and happy'—and most importantly, completely knocked out—Azure Wolves."
"Good..." the Nausicaan grunted, blinking as he stared at the churning mass of flesh-ripping carnivores. "Only one more species left, right?"
"Uh-huh." The Ferengi shuddered, shaking his head to clear the image of snapping jaws before tapping his padd. "Last one on the manifest. A harem species: the Lukarian Spine Raptor."
They walked through the heavy blast doors into Cargo Bay 4. Mounted in the center of the bay was another floor-to-ceiling containment paddock.
Inside were eighty bipedal, teal-and-purple reptilians. They stood roughly three feet tall, featuring oversized heads, narrow snouts, and a row of luminous, neon-magenta spines running down their backs from nose to tail-tip. Long, three-inch curved talons tipped their upper limbs, while their powerful hind feet bore massive, sickle-shaped kill-claws.
The Ferengi froze in his tracks, a cold shiver running down his spine. "I saw an ancient Earth film back at Starfleet Academy... about creatures that looked just like these. Also called Raptors. In a zoo-style theme park, of all places. Ever since I watched it, I swore I'd never want to see one in real life... and here we are with eighty of them."
The Nausicaan shifted his rifle, his eyes locked on the twitching, hyper-reactive reptiles. "Just cycle the replicator and let's get out of here. Lock the doors and we're done."
The Ferengi glanced down at his datapad to initialize the feeding sequence. Tacked to the top of the screen in flashing, bold red text was a warning note:
CRITICAL PROTOCOL: STRICT PORTION CONTROL. DO NOT OVERFEED.
He looked up at the Nausicaan. "Uh... the Xenobiology notes explicitly say not to overfeed this group..."
The Nausicaan scoffed. "Well, the Captain explicitly said 'fed, fat, and happy,' didn't he? You want to be the one to explain to Captain Praxas why species twelve is the only hungry group on the ship?"
The engineer hesitated, then shrugged. "Fair point. Just following the Captain's orders!"
He pressed the cycle button. A massive, herbivore-shaped metal feeding altar materialized inside the paddock, laden with synthetically replicated meat. The frame dwarfed the three-foot raptors, offering substantially more biomatter than the pack would ever encounter in a single wild hunt.
Both officers took an instinctive step backward as the eighty small reptiles swarmed the altar in a blur of motion. Through a deafening wall of screeching, wailing, and tearing metal, the meat was stripped clean in a matter of seconds. The bare steel frame hissed, picked clean down to the polished metal.
"Gah!" the Ferengi yelped, his large ears twitching in shock at how instantly the food had vanished.
"Uh... better run a second serving," the Nausicaan suggested softly, his voice dropping an octave. "They gulped that down... unnaturally fast..."
"Agreed!" The Ferengi hastily tapped the button again.
The bare rack dematerialized in a swirl of transporter sparkle, replaced by another identical, meat-laden altar. Just as fast, the eighty raptors lunged, snarled, clawed, and flayed the fresh yield, swallowing massive chunks of vitamin-rich flesh whole.
"Holy Grand Nagus of Ferenginar..." The engineer stood in utter disbelief as the second altar was stripped completely bare in under ten seconds.
"Uhhh..." The Nausicaan's hand hovered nervously near his phaser holster. "I think they might need another one... They ate that one even faster than the first." He looked down at the Ferengi. "Fed, fat, and happy, right? Do they look fat and happy to you yet?"
The Ferengi nodded rapidly, desperate to finish the task and leave the hold. "Yeah! Yeah, one more should definitely do it!"
He slammed his thumb onto the replicator pad a third time.
The empty rack vanished and a third full one materialized. Once again, the paddock erupted into a chaotic storm of screeching, snapping, and thrashing neon spines. The pack tore the flesh off the rails in seconds.
When the third rack was finally cleared, the raptors backed away from the bare metal. This time, they moved with a slightly slower stride, their bellies visibly distended.
"Okay!" The Ferengi grinned, flashing his sharp teeth at the Nausicaan escort. "Fed, fat, and happy! Works for me! Let's lock up and get out of here!"
"Agreed."
The security officer and the engineer turned on their heels and bolted out of the cargo bay. Behind them, the heavy blast doors sealed shut, the ambient lighting dimmed to night-cycle levels, and the ceiling-mounted automated stun-turrets hummed to life, watching over the thrice-fed Lukarian Spine Raptors.
As the Ferengi and Nausicaan completed their shift and retired to their quarters, similar scenes were playing out across the rest of the ship.
—
All through the lower decks, cargo holds, and reprogrammed holodecks of the TGC Nexus, twelve designated holding zones were filled with apex predators of every shape and size. They were all deep in the clutches of profound, sedative-induced food comas—tongues lolling out, fat bellies rising and falling, snoring softly as their bodies processed the massive meals. From the smallest Quilled Weasel to the massive alpha of the Lukarian Pantheras, the ship was filled with fed, fat, and happy passengers, exactly as Captain Praxas had ordered.
Save for one.
In Cargo Bay 4, the Lukarian Spine Raptors were not sleeping.
While the other eleven species drifted into unconsciousness, the raptors' hyper-metabolisms reacted to the massive surge of replicated vitamins, minerals and added nutrients in a way no one on the science team had anticipated. Their pupils were fully dilated, their eyes bloodshot, and their neon spines glowed with erratic, pulsing energy. They paced and darted around the paddock like a pack of hyper-intelligent reptiles fueled by a lethal cocktail of espresso, pre-workout, and pure adrenaline.
And the most explosive, hyper-aggressive breeding frenzy that the species—and the TGC Nexus—had ever seen was officially underway.