Trouble with... Tribbles?

I was on a survey team, or a recon team. We'd slipped into a run down city and were making our way down through the ruins of a hospital. (It had a place on the roof to land our helicopter.) as we got closer to the bottom levels of the hospital, we began to see signs of habitation.

In one room, I noticed that there were sealed food containers left out, but instead of food, they looked like they were full of swatches of fur. I prodded one, and the furry scraps took off, racing across the room in all different directions and vanishing into various vents and conduits.

"You shouldn't disturb them while they're sleeping, they get hungry."

I turned around to find a slender woman, hair pulled back, dirty clothing, but her face and hands looked clean. I offered her a water bottle, which she took, and then she refused food, saying "We can't open that here." She gestured for me to follow her. I called the rest of the team to let them know we had survivors. We followed her to a surgery, she led us in, checking our clothing in the "airlock" before allowing us into the room. There was a wind up generator in the room and she gave the large hand crank a few turns and then turned on some LED lamps.

She indicated that it was okay to open up the food here. We gave her the container and she eagerly ate its contents, nervously eying the the conduits above our heads as something rattled through them. One of my colleagues reached up to open a pipe before either the woman or I could stop him. A fluffy ball fell out of the pipe and I quickly sealed the ends back together before more could fall out. It warbled pleasantly. "Are you afraid of this?" the hazard suited leader of our group asked.

"No, just...."

As we watched the critter rolled into the food container and the crumbs vanished. A few moments later, the woman was petting it, and four little puffballs fell from its back. She showed us that if you picked up one of them and petted it, it would also pop out four smaller fluff balls. "They're born pregnant."

"Well, that saves some time."

The woman gathered them all up and stuffed them into the container (not too gently, either.) "They're not all bad, though." She scanned the room and with a last look at the conduit led us out and down the hall to the Physical Therapy gym. She had the food container full of critters tucked securely under her arm. Despite being squished all together in the container, they were all trilling or cooing a very relaxing chorus of happy little noises. I couldn't help but smile, even though I had the feeling that things were going to take a less happy turn.

In the PT room, there were a couple of injured folks, the woman put the box in the lap of one of an injured woman. The baby critters were released. They climbed over the woman, each of them stopping over her injuries. Soon they were warbling a different song, sadder, somehow, then each of them began to glow. The woman lurched back and the creatures seemed to fuse with the patient. After a moment the woman opened her eyes and gently brushed the now loose fur from her body. It looked like she had gained a few pounds during the process. Her injuries were gone. Lumps began to form under her skin, and a few minutes later, the lumps began to glow. Our guide and another thin gentleman in a lab coat held her down . The gentleman , mopped her sweating brow.

"It will all be over in a few moments, hang in there."

The glows were suddenly suffused with pink, and then with a small shake, each lump separated and puffed out. The woman yelped or groaned with each separation, but when it was done there were six little fluffy warbling creatures, their hair the same color as the woman who they'd been extracted from. Each of the "births" left a half dollar sized mark on the woman that looked like a second degree burn.

The man in the white coat bandaged up the woman's new, but less severe injuries while our guide rounded up the changed babies and stuffed them back in the box.

Our leader wanted to take some of the creatures back to our airship for examination, but our guide recommended against it. She indicated that we could help them best by helping clear the creatures out of the nearby fields and farmland, so they could reliably plant and harvest before they ran out of sealed foods.