Suddenly Small

Posted on Fri Aug 21st, 2026 @ 2:34am by Captain T’Kal & Lieutenant Commander David Erickson & Lieutenant Commander Valerie Novis & Lieutenant Commander Clay McEntyre & Lieutenant Karane Inda & Lieutenant CASTIEL 'Cas' Johnson MD & Lieutenant JG Annika Johnson & Lieutenant JG Renata Novotná & Ensign Blaine McCray & Petty Officer, 2nd Class Kevra Tharos

2,621 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: ARYL 1X07: Feeling Like a Kid Again
Location: Main Bridge
Timeline: SD 8988.8 (20 November 2290, 1655)

It was nearing the end of a standard and uneventful shift aboard the bridge. The USS Ark Royal was on course for Neural. The alpha shift had had a long day; most were eager to hand over their stations to their relief for the next shift.

Annika was relaxing in her seat, just enjoying being on the bridge. Though end of shift couldn’t come soon enough so she could spend time at home with Cas.

"Captain," the new Yeoman, Kevra Tharos, walked over to the Captain's chair, offering over the departmental reports from the previous day's shifts for her approval. The Andorian's eyes were gentle, the hint of a smile on her lips even as her antennae moved with the easy conversations around her. She was...getting used to being on a new ship, with new crew, and serving a new Captain. "Just need your signature on the status reports from the different department so I can process them."

T’Kal took the tablet from her Yeoman and glanced over the reports. They seemed to be well in hand, and could be reviewed more thoroughly later with Valerie as needed. She signed with the stylus and handed it back. “There you are, Yeoman.”

"Thank you, Captain," Yeoman Tharos gave her a small smile as she took it, moving back to the edge of the bridge.

Valerie stepped over as the Yeoman stepped away and placed a hand on the back of the Captain's chair, "She looks like she's settling pretty nice, Captain. I think she'll help keep everything running a bit smoother."

“It is better having a dedicated Yeoman to handle these things,” T’Kal agreed. “And Ms. Tharos is finding her footing very quickly. I expect she will improve our efficiency by a fair margin.”

"That's a dangerous game to play," David said.

T’Kal raised an eyebrow, expecting to know where this was going.

"And why would you say that, Commander Erickson?" Valerie asked, dreading the response.

"Well," he said, slowly, "if things run too smooth, then T'kal won't have enough on her mind, and she'll start giving me more things to do, which will cut into my time with a certain someone, which gives her more time to tinker with the ship and risk knocking things out of alignment. Plus, if we all start running smoothly, the counselor's going to get bored and might have to transfer to a new ship where she has more to do, which means the Doc will want to transfer with her. Now we've got half the senior staff either gone or discombobulated, and while that'll give the captain more to worry over, it'll be in the exact opposite way she wants."

He looked back at the faces staring at him and T'kal's raised eyebrow. "Just saying, it could be too smooth."

T’Kal leaned forward and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Eyes on your charts, Mr. Erickson,” she said, with a trace of amusement in her voice.

"Aye, Captain, course running smoothly," David said, grinning and turning back to his boards.

"Gotta admit, I get a bit nervous when things go too smoothly for too long. Just means one of the horses is figurin' a way to get hurt or get outta the pasture," Blaine said quietly as David turned back to his console.

David did his best to hide his smirk from T'kal and subtly gave Blane a thumbs-up gesture.

Valerie groaned to herself. shaking her head with a slight smile, "I, for one, wouldn't mind things going smoothly, at least for one or two days."

Renata felt pretty bored at the science console, and occasionally let out a loud yawn, letting the people sitting nearby know how she feels. However, she reminded herself of the universal law of wishing for something, in this case, something eventful to happen, and then soon after, wishing she'd never wished for it.

Kevra kept her attention on the PADD in her hands as the conversation carried on behind her, although one antenna had gradually turned towards the command chairs. She managed to keep her expression mostly neutral until Commander Erickson started explaining how her doing her job too well might eventually result in half the senior staff leaving the ship. The corner of her mouth twitched and she looked down again, scrolling through the reports she still needed to process. She had only been aboard a short time, but she was already getting a better idea of what a quiet shift on the Ark Royal apparently looked like.

Suddenly, an alert began to chime on the Chief Science Officer’s console.

“Report, Lieutenant,” T’Kal ordered.

And, well, damn, it happened! You had to wish for it, hadn't you? Renata quickly gazed at her console, where the tic-tac-toe game she was playing with the computer, suddenly got replaced by an alter sign and some pretty unusual readouts.

"Sensors show that it's a type 3A spatial anomaly, sir. A quite unusual one, actually." she spoke up. "It's coming straight at us. It's likely to cover the whole ship in just a few seconds." That didn't sound too good. "If it's really a type 3A, it might, I repeat might, not be harmful for our structural integrity, but... I have no idea yet what it might do to the ship."

She did a quick computer check to see if the computer can identify what kind of weird anomaly they'd just ran into. Or more likely, it ran into them. She got the answer almost immediately. "Weird." she shook her head. "The computer says the anomaly emits an energy which is perfectly alien to our known universe. Only once did a Starfleet vessel encounter a similar phenomenon. The USS Enterprise, twenty years ago, sir."

“Fascinating” Annika grinned as she looked towards T’Kal.

"One word for it," David muttered under his breath, plotting escape routes and sending them to the helm as quickly as he could extrapolate them.

"Shields up!" Valerie ordered from the tactical station, which was where the shields would be going up from as she keyed the command into the system, the power running into the emitters, the hazy shields coming up rapidly.

"Ready for evasive maneuvers on your order," Blaine called out. "But it's movin' so fast I can't guarantee anythin'."

"Cas to sickbay, prepare for injured." Cas replied tapping the com link from a secondary console. When the help says they cant guarantee anything, it usually means a rough ride, and rough rides create casualties.

Annika gripped hold of her seat, she wasn’t planning on being thrown out of her seat.

A bright flash of light blanketed the entire bridge as the anomaly passed over and through them, enveloping the ship in an energy not of this universe. An intense sound rang through everyone’s ears.

Their senses came back slowly as the light and sound faded. T’Kal blinked rapidly and forcefully to get her vision back to normal and shook her head to help with her ears. “Report!”

Huh. That didn’t sound right. Why was her voice such a high pitch?

The Captain looked down at her arms, noticing that her uniform jacket was suddenly quite big. It felt loose on her shoulders and the sleeves kept going past her hands.

“Fascinating,” T’Kal said, agreeing with Annika. “Actually… oh. Oh no.” She looked around at her crew… her much smaller, shorter crew. “Report!”

"Nothing on sensors that wasn't already there." Valerie said as she put one hand to her head and regained her balance. The initial sound was still ringing in her ears and her head hurt, though she hadn't fallen. But she had to have, even if her feet still felt like they were on the ground. Or maybe the console had grown by a lot. She stood on her toes to get a better look at the sensor, then stopped. "Nothing odd, ma'am." She rephrased it in a higher voice than normal and looked around. "Oh my gods..."

Blaine rubbed his eyes as he tried to clear them from the blinding flash. Nothing felt right. His uniform seemed to swallow him, and his feet no longer touched the deck plates. "What in the Sam Hill is goin' on?" he asked as he looked around, trying to get his bearings again. The voice was his, but it wasn't.

Clay was up in the nacelles housings, inspecting for security concerns when the light flashed and stopped. He looks around, checks himself before getting out and looking around. Barely anyone in the corridors. Odd. He thought. He headed for the bridge, accessing the nearest turbolift.

It took him a few moments before he arrived on the bridge. Stepping off the turbolift he stops as he sees everyone.

"The Fuck?" He says as he observed everyone on the bridge.

"Language!" Valerie snapped out in a voice that seemed to be one that was familiar to her. She hastily turned her panel off, spun and took two steps (it should have only taken one) to the chair that went with her panel and with some effort hauled herself up onto it and looked into the polished, but darkened, panel. Staring back at her was her red mane, but her features had changed. She reached up, shaking her sleeves back past her hands and to her wrist and felt her own face. It was smaller. Her uniform was super loose and the skirt was nearly a dress, going past her knees. "Oh shit! What the hell is going on?"

"Language, Young Lady" Clay retorted as he looked down at her before he turned to the science station. "Ms. Novotná, what exactly happened?" He asked in a commanding tone. Given that the bridge crew are kids.

David had checked his charts, trying to figure out where the ship might have come from and hadn't been paying attention, but he spun in his chair and looked towards T'Kal. "Captain, I think the ship--what the holy hell happened to all of you!" he said, looking around at the children around him. He then paused as his own voice sounded like himself, but not quite as robust. He looked down at his hands, smoother, softer, and felt his uniform. He'd always been tall, but he'd been somewhat scrawny as an early teen, and while his uniform mostly fit, it was far looser. "Okay, so, good news, we can still get things off high shelves."

Annika was speechless to say the least, she was a married woman but now she was back to being a child again. “What in the hell just happened!?”

“Captain, I fink this is kind of a dream. I fink I’m back when I was four.”

He carefully climbed down from the seat, his little legs dangling for a moment before his feet touched the floor. He tugged at his pants, which seemed much too big for him, and waddled around the bridge.

When he reached the captain’s chair, he stopped and stared up at the Vulcan sitting there. The chair seemed enormous now.

He pulled out his tricorder with both hands and began scanning the captain.

“You’re really tall,” he said, looking up at him.

He moved from one crew member to the next, scanning each one with great seriousness. Then he stopped.

There was a young girl sitting nearby.

He stared at her for a moment, his eyes widening.

“Annika?”

He took a few little steps closer and leaned forward.

“Is that you?”

He tilted his head, studying her face.

“Are you really Annika?”

Annika nodded. “It’s me, but you’re so…small.”

"Am not." Cas replied rapidly. "Im this big." He made a gesture to a height that clearly was exaggerating. Upon realizing what he was doing, he stopped. Started fidgeting. "You said I was a big boy at home last night." He turned and angrily walked away from her clearly upset.

"Ty vole!!!" Renata cursed, when she got herself together and looked around the bridge. She felt... different... everything was weird... everything was... larger... She looked at herself... her uniform was... way too big for her... her boobs disappeared... her voice was high and squeeky... she was... a child! "Kurva...." she uttered in sheer shock.

"Report... yes... yes, sir..." she responded to Clay's request. It took her a minute to be able to reach to her console, and tap a few commands. "The anomaly which passed through our ship... Damn, I hate this voice..." she shook her head. "So, the anomaly which passed through our ship emitted high-density chroniton particles of unknown origin... As utterly weird as it sounds... it's as if time had been flowing backwards on board... and it affected every living being on this ship... Not only humanoids, but animals, plants, everything..." She made a short pause. "Apparently, our minds weren't altered, however our bodies... they were literally taken back in time straight to childhood." She sighed. "I need more time to do a full analysis and figure out what the hell happened exactly..."

Blaine stared at the board he could no longer quite reach without straining, kicking his feet as he tried to wrap his brain round their situation. He saw his reflection in the black acrylic of his station and his eyes went wide, his brain reeling as memories from his early childhood flooded his brain: two men in the blue-grey and white command dress uniforms of 2273 Starfleet marching up his grandparents’ footpath to tell a six-year-old boy that he would never see his parents again. ‘Shai?’ His brain called. “How? How do we fix this?”

David watched Blaine struggle and wanted to help, but another worry gripped him. "Captain," he said, turning. "Permission to report to Engineering and make sure someone can reach the warp core controls."

“Go,” she said.

David locked his station and stood up, tightening his belt a bit and then running quickly to the turbolift.

Annika was trying hard to keep a reign on her Betazoid abilities, she was back to being 11 years old and at that age her abilities had been active for just about a year, a lot earlier than they should have developed.

Kevra had gone very still at the edge of the bridge, staring down at the sleeves hanging past her hands before slowly lifting one much smaller blue hand in front of her. Her antennae had drawn back sharply, the reports she had been processing forgotten as she looked around at the equally diminished bridge crew.

“Captain, can we go get some clothes that fit us?” Cas asked, still holding his pants up tightly around his waist. “These ones keep falling down.”

He glanced down at them before looking back toward the captain.

“Then I need some people to come down to Sickbay with me so we can do some scans.”

He paused, then added with complete seriousness, “’Cause we gotta find out why everybody got little again.”

“Mister McEntyre,” the Captain said, a small amount of fear creeping out of her control, “something happened to the ship.”

Clay just shook his head. "Oh boy"

END


Captain T’Kal
Commanding Officer
Somehow now ~12 years old

Lieutenant Commander Clay McEntyre
Chief of Security
Second Officer
USS Ark Royal
The only Adult left in the room

Petty Officer, 2nd Class Kevra Tharos
Yeoman
Somehow now 11 years old?

Lieutenant Commander Valerie Novis
XO/Chief Tactical Officer
13 years old with a migraine

Lt Cas Johnson
Chief Medical Officer
4 years old

Lieutenant jg Annika Johnson
Chief Counsellor
Now 11 years old

Ensign Blaine McCray
Helmsman
Somehow now 6 years old

Lieutenant Commander David Erickson
Chief Navigator
Thirteen going on Thirty

Lieutenant JG Renata Novotná
Chief Science Officer
Apparently around 8 or 9

 

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