Re-born – The little package.
by HoD Ro' Matlh & Soghla' Terri (Tell) Hope & Soghla' Jared & Soghla' HIchop Matlh & Soghla' Marie St. Helene & Sogh Marla Varquis & Sogh Thor'nan Mal'Kor & Ensign Jason Hawk

Post Details

Title		The little package.
Mission		Re-born
Author(s)		HoD Ro' Matlh & Soghla' Terri (Tell) Hope & Soghla' Jared & Soghla' HIchop Matlh & Soghla' Marie St. Helene & Sogh Marla Varquis & Sogh Thor'nan Mal'Kor & Ensign Jason Hawk
Posted		Thu Dec 01, 2011 @ 2:25am
Location		Bridge

The Fhew had completed its search of the wreckage, and found nothing else of salvageable interest. Jason had set course to rendezvous with Starbase Sonora, the closest Federation outpost. They were now back to Warp 5 to rest the engines, which had survived surprisingly well. Tell and Jason still shot dark looks at each other. Marla had returned to the bridge and was serving at the front as Communications officer while May'bel was taking a turn at Navigation on her right. Jason stood over Ro's Right shoulder on Helm while Thornan stood over his left on Tactics. Jared had free run of Science, Computer Control and Operations consoles on the rear starboard side of the bridge. Opposite him were HIchop on Life Support and Tell on Engineering and Damage Control stations.

The rear door opened allowing Marie and the Human girl to enter. Ro' glanced over his shoulder and then stood quickly. He pointed an accusing finger at the child and demanded of Marie, "What's this?"

"This is a child," Marie stated flatly.

Ro' growled, "I can see it is a child. What is it doing on my ship?"

This was stupid. Surely Ro' could see what was in front of him. The only explanation Marie could come up with was that Ro', faced with an infant on his ship - basically a burden who contributed nothing to the FHew and bled precious resources - chose to lay the blame on someone else. Be damned if it was going to be her.

"It is female. She is a girl. A human girl. She is here because you ordered her to be 'on your ship'. Don't you remember, Sir: you ordered the survivour to be brought on board. For my own part, I apologise for following your orders."

Ro' was about to blurt out something like, "That's the survivour?", but stopped himself. It was obvious she was. Why had he expected it to be a grown human. The small size explained the faintness of the readings Jared was getting.

"This is not a Federation ship. We do not have comfort for children," here he glanced momentarily at Thor'nan.

Ro' was a simple man. The world fell into four categories; things to fight; things to fight and eat, things to fight and mate with, and rocks. Now against all probability, he had found a talking rock that everyone expected him to treat nice. He summoned up all his limited experience at talking with children and approached it with the same awkwardness of adults of any race around children.

"Hello there... girl. What is your name?"

It probably would have worked better if he hadn't yelled it at the child.

Huge dark eyes looked at him almost brimming with tears. If she could have she would have turned and run there and then but she had no where to run to.

Ro' looked around desperately, his eyes again falling on Thor'nan, "You have children. Find out where it lives and what it... she eats."

Thor'nan nodded and approached the girl, dropping to one knee.

"Hello, child. What is your name? " he asked, in a gentle voice. Though he was a human raised by Klingons, interacting with his wife had taught him a thing or two about small children.

The girl stared back at him, unsure of him. Her glance took in the others around the bridge. They all seemed to be waiting for her to talk. She bit her bottom lip,she had always been told to answer adults and be polite. She mumbled something at first and then cleared her throat by coughing. She hadn't spoken for a long time. She stared long and hard at Ro' afraid of speaking in case he shouted at her.

"Oh, don't worry about him; he has a loud voice, but he means well. He is the one who saved you from that escape pod. He just doesn't know much about little girls," said Thor'nan.

Marie squeezed her shoulder in confirmation of Thor'nan's quiet words. When the girl looked up at her, Marie nodded. "Go on, tell the nice man your name."

"Hope" she replied. Though her voice was barely audible they all heard it. Straight after that they heard a clatter of something falling heavily to the floor from the direction of engineering. Tell bent to pick up a wrench or two she'd dropped whilst someone muttered a comment and laughed.

Jason stood up and knelt down next to the girl. "Hello there Hope. I'm Jason Hawk nice to meet you." He smiled warmly at her and thought to himself he would find a way to get revenge on whoever did this to the child. No child should be without their family.

She nodded silently at him, a small gesture, nothing more. She was not supposed to talk to strangers, it was a rule. Yet she had told them her name, mum and dad would be so mad at her.

Tell sighed and watched the efforts of Jason and Thor'nan to coax a frightened small child to talk. The engineer was at odds with herself wanting and not wanting to walk over to the little girl who shared a simple common bond with Tell. A name, that was all and yet it had stirred a crater full of memories that Tell had long since buried, or so she had thought.

A hand reached out to Hope. "Why don't we leave the boys to play nicely with the ship and us girls can go and get some ice cream." Tell asked her whilst looking at Marie hoping that some how she had managed to get some.

Hope looked up at Marie as if seeking permission - or so it appeared to Marie. Gods help me, I hope she's not turning me into a mother figure. That's all I need. Then a thought occurred to her. "Yes, let's do that. You take the Chief Eng...Tell's hand and we'll go down to the cargo bay. I think I can rustle up something nice. What flavour do you like? Waffle or ordinary cone, or would you prefer a tub?"

As the girl looked up at her something moved. A lump formed against the side of her face as if she had stuck her tounge in her cheek but it moved rapidly up to just under the eye. Before she could react the skin split just enough to allow a metal object to poke through and burst apart, splitting into a star shap and attaching itself to the girls face.

May'Bel smoothly drew both disruptor pistols in a second, training them on the girl from where he stood. He flicked the power settings with his thumbs, cranking both weapons up to full power. Those nearby could hear the faint whine of the weapons upshifting.

He didn't fire yet, but stood ready to at any moment.

Jason was startled by the Borg tech that burst from the girls face. He was torn between his burning desire to wipe out all Borg from the universe and his compassion for this girl. Without realizing it his hand had begun to drift toward his phaser. "No She's just a child dammit. She's a Borg she needs to be put out of her misery. She's only a Child! Damn why does this have to be so difficult?! Why do I have to care for this child! Why did I make it personal? Damn Damn DAMN DAMMIT!" Jason argued with himself. He had forced himself to not draw his phaser and fire on the child. He stood up and fought to keep his face impassive as his hands continued to fight him to draw and fire his phaser. "I can't, I have to but I can't. I should but I can't dammit, what do I do now?!" He again argued with himself.

Marla had been avoiding the child. She had never dealt with a child before, and didn't want to scare it, but what she saw made her realize, she couldn't avoid the child anymore.

Hope saw the the look in Tell's eyes as the engineer quickly withdrew her hand. It was the same look her mother had given her when she had last seen her. Her bottom lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears. What had she done wrong? Her hand reached up to Tells, she just wanted a hand to hold but the engineer had taken a step back.

"Have I done something wrong?" Hope asked her pitifully "I'm sorry."

Tell controlled herself and kept her voice calm so as not to alarm the child. "Just stay where you are Hope for a moment. It'll be fine you'll see."

Thor'nan's hand instinctively went for the disruptor at his belt, but he couldn't bring himself to draw it. It was a child. So he ran for the medical kit kept on the bridge, and pulled out a hypospray, dialled up a sedative, and ran for the girl. Maybe, if he was fast enough, he could put her out before the tech could counteract it.

Terrified the child looked around her and couldn't understand why this was happening. Her hand still reached out for comfort. "I don't understand, what have I done?" she asked.

Jason took her hand in his. "You haven't done anything. Everything'll be all right." He tried to comfort the child but thought maybe if there were less Klingons around she would be less scared.

Ro' watched but made no move to protect the girl or fight her. Hope put her hand up to her face in fascinated horror. It was obvious she did not realise what was happening.

Thor'nan pressed the hypo against the child's neck. The girl fell to the deck.