The whole situation was growing increasingly absurd and surreal. Two thirds of the crew, melted down and reformed as each other's younger selves by... whatever it was they were dealing with, all coincidentally as the opposite sex, except possibly whatever alien thing was that looked like a young Carson. And now of course, here they were, preparing to lie around naked in glass tubes for however many months or years it'd be before their attention was required again. At least they were all being fairly professional about the whole thing. Of course, going right back into deep freeze after all these incidents still meant none of them had really had time to process any of this, and likely wouldn't until they were back on earth, being studied in quarantine.
The next time Carson came to, it was in a haze. Someone was pulling him out of the pod, shouting about Kim and shoving a pressure suit into his chest. Why did that feel so strange? What was wrong with Kim? And why was the wind so loud?
Everything snapped into focus. Carson was "Kim" right now, and there'd been a hull breach. One of those rare cases where some bit of debris was just too small and just too fast to be caught by the sensors in time. Things weren't too bad once the situation became clear. The actual holes were sealed by the time Carson was fully awake, and none of the ship's vital systems had taken any damage. The same could not, however, be said for O'Neil's pod. The glass was smashed in, and she was losing a lot of blood. "Schultz and Rogers" were working to get her out and onto a table, but things didn't look good if they couldn't get her any real medical attention. Her pod was useless too, but fortunately they were close enough to home now they could do without.
Davis was already on the radio explaining the most recent updates. This close to Earth, he might even get a reply soon enough to be useful. Carson was still too far out of it, watching Schultz and Rogers do their best to save O'Neil without any training, the two men whose real body Carson was borrowing, or two women really. The woman? Carson went looking for the bourbon.
Nerves settled, Carson went to check on the hold. "The puddle" was in the form of an inverted tetrahedron now, spinning furiously in place. Carson started to wonder if it might pierce the hull again, when all of the sudden it came to a sudden stop breaking apart into hundreds of small globules that pulled together to once again form a puddle on the floor.
Meanwhile, things were looking grim for O'Neil. They'd stopped the bleeding, but she still wasn't conscious, and these sorts of pod failures didn't usually end well. Acting perhaps a bit too impulsively, Carson pulled her off the table while the others were discussing their options, dragging her to the puddle. The Carson in the pod was free of scars after all, and getting either the real Schultz or Rogers back would be a huge help at a time like this. Sure enough, the dying woman melted away, leaving bandages and torn uniform behind, and out rose her perfectly intact and healthy younger twin.
Carson grinned with relief as the young woman sat there, naked and confused as she examined her new body. Normally the sight would have been quite the a turn-on. Carson'd always had a bit of a thing for redheads. At the moment though, it didn't seem to be doing anything for him. Granted, he wasn't exactly a "him" at the moment, plus that had to be either old Dr. Schultz or balding Rogers in there, and that just made the whole thing weird. Of course, this lead to Carson thinking back to the younger Schultz and Rogers, either one of which... Carson shook his head and returned to the bottle of bourbon.
Once it was clear what had happened, Davis ran his hand down his face in a resigned fashion before asking, "OK, so which are you in there? Schultz or Rogers?" The red haired woman just returned a somewhat worried look, and nodded in response.