I Didn't Fade Away

The items were too heavy to move with the accessible manpower and muscles. Even Fade had no hope of moving most of this stuff, no matter how he gripped it, or leveraged himself. The workaround path cleared to move the cargo originally slated for cargo transporter two was possible, but tight. The loaders helped, but they had limits. In short, Fade wanted to take out a few walls, but that kind of thinking and problem-solving was not eloquent or subtle. Oftentimes there was a lot to be said for the direct, brute force method. Today, however, Fade wanted to show he could do his job without unnecessary destruction or remodeling of the ship.

"Lieutenant Fade to Lieutenant Commander Know MySss." The commander responded. "If you are still on board, could you all come by heavy storage?" The response was in the affirmative.

The horde soon came in, and Fade had already changed his appearance. He couldn't compress his mass into a small enough shape to perfectly duplicate a singular copy of MySss's species. However Fade had had dealings on the station with them, and the commander responded much better when Fade tried to simulate his appearance. The compromise was for Fade to morph into his own mischief of about a dozen or so, with all but the forward-most one being mute. They were joined, a necessity, at the tails, a somewhat Siamese-esque approach to getting really really small. If Fade worked at it for some months, he could conceivably pull it off, not unlike a human training his muscles to lift more weight. It was on Fade's list of things to experience, but that list was longer than the Arcadia.

"I need some equipment moved. The humans are too puny," Fade said to the cluster of mice-looking beings. For some reason the more faces you addressed and still made eye contact, the more they responded. They agreed, and Fade crawled over to a PADD he had placed on the ground, and pointed to the layout. With a burst of activity the small creatures spread in all directions, and the work started. Fade was tempted to help, but a new call made him revert to his normal shape.

The text-based message was clear enough. The science officer, whose name was near impossible to say, was not going to be arriving any time soon. Fade knew how important it was to have a well-staffed science department. The tactical/security guys kept them safe, the doctors and nurses kept the crew well, and engineers/operations kept the missions going. But the point of their work was to learn, explore, and grow. This was important enough to pass along immediately.

"Fade to Captain Gray."

"We have a slight problem."

"Our senior science officer is on a leave of absence. Someone needs to take their place."

"Yes Sir."