Lt. JG T’Fearne - Age Before Beauty (Part 1)
Teayl Thorn
((Corridor inside The Lid, Moon Sigma in orbit of Gas Giant A, Ross 580 System))
She could hear Ian faintly as though they were under water.
O'Connor: T’Fearne, Hey, Hey. You o- ::he voice caught in his throat awkwardly:: -kay?
T’Fearne: ::high pitched, through clenched teeth, forcing control:: Ian…I’m—here. But something’s wrong.
She looked down. Small gloved hands. Too small. Her fingers barely wrapped around the phaser. The sleeves of her suit bunched awkwardly at her wrists.
Realisation hit harder than the pain. She’d de-aged. Based on how small she felt, her cells must have de-aged to about that of a twelve-year-old—give or take.
oO This is problematic! Oo
Drawing a careful breath, she lifted her gaze, wide dark eyes seeking out Ian to make sure he was unharmed. He sounded off.
O'Connor: Yeah, uh you don’t …you…::he cleared his throat again::
T’Fearne: Yes, unfortunately, I think I just de-aged about 17 years—give or take. Are you alright?
O'Connor: Yeah, yeah, I think so. Thanks to you. :: He looked down at himself:: I don’t think I…umm…de-olded as ::his voice cracked as one’s does during puberty:: as much.
She lifted her brows skeptically at him. The smile he gave her was awkward. They were in an unfortunate predicament.
O’Connor: We should go back. Have the doc look us “rascals” over.
Ian offered a hand. T’Fearne accepted, letting him pull her to her smaller feet carefully as her body felt achy all over but lighter than normal. If she had to guess, she thought she was about 5”2’, nearly 8 inches of height and 17 years of bone growth and muscle definition lost. As she rose what used to be a comm badge fell to the floor in chunks of raw metal, alloys. It had been made more recently. But the Hazard suit remained intact and most of her gear was still present. Her weapons were intact, standard starfleet service models that had been in circulation for a long time. The tricorder had turned to a handful of raw components.
T’Fearne: It’s a good thing these hazard suits are an older model, I wonder how long they have been in circulation. But my comm was new, and wren’s tricorder disintegrated. We need to go carefully.
She had to walk a little faster to keep up with Ian than she was used to, heading back towards Shortrith, Wren and the babies.
Something caught her hearing, a slight skittering. She slowed her pace and grabbed Ian’s hand to slow him, but whatever was making the noise had clearly caught his eye as the gangly green teen whipped up a torch, pinning a creature in a beam of light.
A small creature crouched in the hallway, there were legs, too many legs and glowing pits where eyes should be.
T’Fearne stood for a moment frozen in fright and shock as she recognised a Tholian from her encounter with the species at the stand of thirty-three. But this one was worse somehow, small, wriggly, disgusting! Ian seemed to reach forward curiously.
O’Connor: Oh, hey there little guy.
Tholian reared back, made an incomprehensible shrill sound and leapt forward crashing into Ian and knocking the gangly teen to the ground.
T’Fearne let out a piercing shriek, stomped up and down on the spot making a panicked little puff of dust in the hallway, managed to get a hold of herself, no small task in a hormonal teenaged Vulcanoid body.
O’Connor: Ahhh,Get it offf…Get it off me
He flopped around like string bean and the little critter fell off while Ian rolled the other way.
Reaching out with the protective hazard suit gloves that swamped her, she grabbed the back of the baby tholian, clamping it with her not inconsiderable Vulcanoid strength. She held it out at full arm extension like a rabid targ. It wriggled, hissed, clacked, but couldn’t get free.
She made a half wretching noise.
T’Fearne: Oh…it’s disgusting! Ian, are you hurt? Get up!
O’Connor: ::straightens himself up and tries to restore a slight sense of dignity:: Uhhh, thanks.
T’Fearne: ::glaring angrily:: Why did you try to pet it! Has your de-aging made you completely lose your wits and training Lt. Commander?
O’Connor: I don’t know. I guess, let’s take it back to the nursery room
She sighed and marched back in front of him in a huff.
((“The Crèche” - Inside The Lid, Moon Sigma in orbit of Gas Giant A, Ross 580 System))
A few moments later they had almost made it back to the crèche when a startlingly tall shadow leaned out of a room. T’Fearne nearly dropped the wriggling critter in surprise. But she registered almost immediately that it was just her very very tall Klingon friend Renaie Shortrith, and Wren was both a sight for sore eyes.
It was clear that both officers' smaller stature drew immediate attention.
Shortrith: I heard non-human footsteps… What happened?
Wren:........::as non-casually as possible:: Did you guys find anything interesting?
O’Connor: Nothing much, Just a de-aging wave and this…
T’Fearne held up the tholian with both gloved hands at arm's length.
T'Fearne: ::high, light voiced:: We were caught by the edge of a temporal shear, bisecting in the corridor, I assume that’s what happened to this enemy combattant ::holding the Tholian out at arms length to Ian, shuddering:: Here, you take it now! This baby is detained until we can figure out what to do.
Renaie said something in Klingon but the universal translator on someone's tricorder censored the word. That at least was slightly amusing about the situation.
Wren: Oh, I’m sorry, I uh, the computer is set for the babies, I don’t know if we can curse. ::to T’Fearne and O’Connor, but not able to look directly at them:: Where’d you find that little Shrimp?
O’Connor: It was scuttling around the corridor. Might be more so yet another thing to be careful of:: his voice cracked and he looked away slightly embarrassed.::
[No Tags / TBC in Part 2]
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Security Officer
USS Ronin - NCC-34523
R240107T14