Escape from the Nursery Planet (Commission) - Chapter 4

...and now the conclusion of our story.

Stephen walked beside the captain through the halls, glad to have her as a guide, since he felt quite lost in the ship now. The familiar turns he remembered had been obscured since the nanobots had redecorated the ship to fit a nursery theme. The captain knew the way to engineering, though, so he was happy to follow her lead even if she had insisted that he hold her hand as they walked.

He had expected to feel out-of-place as a 10-year-old boy on a starship, but the ship had changed so much that, if anything, he felt a bit too mature for it. The abundance of children in the halls might have been one reason why. Everywhere they turned there were kids playing schoolyard games. An epic game of tag ran along one hallway, while the floor of the next hall had an extended hopscotch game printed on it in bright colors. Echoing everywhere was the sound of laughter, accompanied by shouts and giddy squeals.

Conspicuously absent were any actual adults in Starfleet uniforms, aside from the captain and one other female crew member, who appeared to have been given a chest enhancement similar to what had happened to the captain.

Stephen wondered who some of the children around him had been before being transformed. Had he known them? Were any of them officers he had served under? The hard truth was that whoever they had been, they were that person no longer. Could they possibly even be returned to normal? Who knows? Certainly, not the children playing around him.

Before Stephen realized they were even getting close, they walked through the door to engineering.

While the basic layout of the room was unchanged, Stephen was amazed by the overwhelming rainbow of colors that now decorated every inch of engineering. The vital control consoles for the reactor and warp drive were looking more like young children’s toys. And, sure enough, there were young children operating them. Before one would hear, at most, a subtle beep or alert. Now there was a cacophony of bells and whistles and nursery rhyme tunes. The youthful engineers giggled and squealed in delight as they worked.

Stephen was faintly horrified by it all, wondering if these former adults had any memory of how to actually run the ship. He doubted that the nanobots would want to destroy the ship and themselves along with it, so he hoped that they would not erase the knowledge of how to keep the ship running.

“Captain?” a child cried out. “Captain!” A Klingon boy came running up to them. The kid was almost a head shorter than Stephen, but he felt an instinct to give the boy his full attention.

“Hello, darling one,” the captain said to the child. “Report your progress on repairing the ship’s engines.”

“Well,” the boy said. “We’ve got more power now than before. Should be working again soon. Just need a little more time.”

“Time is running out,” the captain said. “I’ve brought my son here to help. Can you direct him to a place where he is needed?”

“Sure!” the boy said. “C’mon,” he added, waving for Stephen to follow him.

Stephen walked behind the smaller boy, who talked as he walked. “You’re Stephen, yeah?”

“I am,” Stephen said.

“My name’s Bergh,” the boy said. “Now, I’m the one in charge here, and don’t you forget it. I don’t care if you’re bigger than me. Okay?”

“Um,” Stephen said, shocked at the diminished state of his former commander. “Yes, sir.”

“Yeah,” Bergh said, sounding pleased. “That’s right. I like being called ‘sir.’ Makes me feel all grown up.”

They walked up to what had been the consoles for the warp drive, which had been given a childish makeover, like the rest of the room.

“Sit here,” Bergh said. “I’ll let you know when to start up different systems when we’re ready to test them. Do a diagnostic thingy as you wait, I guess.” He started to walk away, but stopped and turned back to say, “Oh, if you need a diaper change, just call for Kelly. She’s the mommy ‘round here.”

“Kelly?” Stephen said.

“Yeah,” Bergh said. “But, I’m still in charge! I don’t care if she changes diapers and feeds us. I’m in charge. Not her. Not anyone else. Even if you are taller. Got it?”

Stephen nodded.

Looking satisfied, Bergh went back to working on the warp drive.

Turning his attention to the toy-like console, Stephen took a minute to figure out the controls. Then, he started a diagnostic.

“Hey, Stephen?” said a kid’s voice from behind him.

Stephen turned around to find a boy who looked slightly younger than currently appeared. Not recognizing the kid, Stephen replied, “Yes?”

“How’re you doing?” the boy inquired. “Is your mommy still around?”

“Um,” Stephen said. “I think she’s probably on the bridge now.”

“Aw,” the boy said. “That’s too bad. I wanted to tell her something.”

“What is it?”

“I think I might be able to make us remember stuff again like we used to. I’d just have to turn off the nano-thingies somehow.”

Stephen looked more closely at the boy, recognizing him at last. “Richardson?” he asked.

“Uh huh,” the boy said, nodding. “I’m a scientist, and I study important science stuff. Neat, huh?”

Stephen sighed, realizing that pretty much all the adults on the ship were gone, besides the “mommy” types that were meant to care for the children.

Richardson suddenly frowned and said, “Uh oh!” He looked around as if he were trying to find help. “Vicky?” he cried. “Vicky? Where are you?”

“Coming!” they heard Vicky reply. “Hold your horses, kid.” She rounded a corner and approached them.

Stephen’s jaw dropped. The only thing that had not changed about the former teen was that she was still wearing the babydoll dress from before. Now, her face appeared to have youthened back to pre-pubescence while her body from the neck down had grown more mature, becoming taller and putting on a lot of weight around the hips and chest. It seemed as though the nanobots had become confused about what age designation to apply her and had create an uneven mix of child and “mother.”

At first, Vicky seemed to have not recognized Stephen and focused her attention on little Richardson. “What’s the matter?” she asked the boy.

“My diaper,” he said, looking up at her bashfully.

Vicky sighed. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s take care of you at the changing table.”

“Vicky?” Stephen said, trying to get her attention.

“Be with you in a minute,” she said as she led Richardson away. “I’ve got my hands full already.”

“It’s me, Stephen,” he said.

Vicky turned back to look at him. “Stephen!” she cried after finally recognizing him. “You changed again, too?”

Stephen nodded. “I don’t think we have much time left before it’s too late to get the ship moving.”

“I don’t know what I can do to help with repairs,” Vicky said. “As it is, I’m up to my elbows in diapers. If the engineer kids don’t get a change, then they refuse to work. It seems that I need to keep them dry if we want to keep things running around here.”

“I see,” Stephen said, hoping that he would not have any urgent bathroom needs anytime soon. “I guess you had better get back to it, then.”

Vicky nodded. “Get that warp drive running,” she said and walked back to Richardson. “Hurry.” Stephen watched her walk away, wondering what they might look like to each other the next time they met.

“Stephen!” yelled Bergh. “Test the coolant system! Now!”

Stephen turned his attention back to the console and activated the coolant.

“Yes!” Bergh cried. “I’m a genius! It works!”

“We almost ready?” Stephen asked.

“A few more systems left,” Bergh said. “Then, we’ll be good… I hope.”

Stephen focused back on his diagnostics and did his own hoping as well.

***

About an hour later,  when they were nearly done, Stephen felt a warmth spreading around his crotch. At first, he worried that there might have been some kind of malfunction with his console. Then, he noticed that he also felt wet inside his diaper.

“Oh no!” Stephen said, realizing that he had just pissed himself, accidentally. There had been no warning. He had never even felt that his bladder was getting full. Apparently, he had no control down there anymore. The diaper was not just for show. He had somehow lost the physical control learned from potty training. “Vicky?” he called out, hoping that she would lead him to some diapers and let him change himself privately.

Vicky did not reply, though.

“Stephen?” Kelly said, approaching him. “Does my widdle man need my help?”

Seeing her now in a more matronly body, Stephen felt as though he were in a dream, or a nightmare. Just days ago, they had been lovers in bed together, still girlfriend and boyfriend. Now, there seemed to be at least two decades of years separating them, and he felt as though they had become more like a mother and child. He certainly felt no romantic love coming form her, only motherly affection. It was heartbreaking for him, and he almost wished he could forget the past as she had been forced to do.

“Do you need a new diapah, sweetie?”

Stephen nodded, not wanting her to hear his childish voice.

Kelly offered her hand to him, and he took it in his own as he stood up from the chair. She seemed so tall now, definitely taller than she had been before, even when Stephen accounted for his own lost height.

“Now,” she said. “Let’s take care of you, my widdle messy man.”

Holding her comparatively larger hand, Stephen allowed her to lead him away.

In a small alcove, they found a changing table. Before Stephen could figure out how he would get up on it, Kelly moved behind him and lifted him up by his arm pits. Stephen let out a slight yelp as she did, feeling both surprised and frightened by her comparative strength.

With no apparent effort, Kelly lay him down gently on his back. Then, she smiled at him before turning her attention to the changing supplies besides the table.

Stephen summoned up just enough courage to protest, “I c-can do it myself… P-please?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it it, baby,” Kelly said, turning to smile down at him again. “Mommy will handle everything for you.”

For a moment, Stephen recognized the girl he had fallen in love with and felt the warmth of her love once more. Could he refuse to let her help him? No. He realized that he did not have the will or desire resist her and gave in.

“Let’s begin,” Kelly said, unzipping his onesie.

Her hands guided his limbs out of the onesie, and he tried to keep an innocent perspective on the situation as she did. However, once again, his mature mind remembered the times they had undressed together as two adults, and he started to get excited. He shut his eyes, trying to imagine himself somewhere else, but his hand accidentally brushed against her enormous breast. Even through the fabric of her uniform, he felt how soft and bouncy it had become. He wondered what it might feel like to hold those massive breasts in his little hands, to suck on her sizeable nipples, maybe if he asked…

“No!” Stephen said, opening his eyes, pushing the thought out of his mind. “The ship. Focus on the ship,” he told himself.

“What’s the matter?” Kelly asked him.

“Let’s get this over with,” he said, slipping his legs free of the onesie.

“Okay,” she said, “Just relax.”

She pulled down his pullups, and he lifted his legs to help her. Then, she wiped him down. Thankfully, it had been only a wet mess, and there was nothing solid or particularly smelly to wipe away. He lay there and let her work, not wanting to interrupt her. When she reached for a fresh diaper, though, he said, “Wait… I don’t need diaper. The pullups…”

Kelly did not pause. She slipped the oversized diaper beneath him and spread his legs to fold it up over his crotch. All the extra padding in the diaper was comfortable, but that much material between his legs was pushing them apart. She angled his legs back into the onesie. Then, he pulled the top of it on himself, zipping it up on his own.

“Well done,” Kelly said. “Such a big man you are.” His eyes went wide as she leaned in to him and wrapped him in a tight hug, squeezing her breasts between them. Then, she lifted him up in that embrace and set him down on his feet.

Stephen stood there a moment, blushing at what he had just experienced. Kelly took him by the hand to lead him back to his console, and he waddled along behind her, not able to walk properly now due to the bulky padding of the diaper.

“T-thank you,” he said as he returned to his seat.

Kelly leaned in and kissed his forehead. “Bye bye,” she said.

Again, he blushed and thought he might comment on that kiss, but she walked off before he could respond.

“What was that all about?”

He turned and saw Vicky standing behind him, gazing down at him with suspicious eyes, and he felt a touch of guilt.

“I-I needed a change,” Stephen explained, feeling as though he had just been caught cheating. “You weren’t around.”

Vicky looked doubtful. “Just fix the ship,” she said and walked off to help another engineer in need of a change.

Stephen let out a sigh and turned his attention back to saving their lives.

***

“Try it, again!” Bergh yelled.

For the third time in a row, Stephen turned on a few systems in sequence. Power started to return to the engines, but a fail safe tripped, shutting them down again as it had done the previous two times.

“Darn it!” Bergh cried. “Stupid reactor!”

“What’s wrong with it now?” Stephen asked.

“I think some of the wiring is lose inside, but…”

“But, what?”

“I, uh, I’m too little to reach the panel,” he grumbled in embarrassment.

Stephen stood up and waddled over to Bergh. The little Klingon seemed to have lost even more height and years since Stephen had last seen him. Stephen looked around and realized that he was now one of the oldest and tallest engineers left in there.

“I’ll do it,” Stephen volunteered. “But, can I have one of the, uh, ‘mommies’ in there with me?” He hoped to invite Kelly or Vicky to help.

“We don’t have suits big enough for them,” Bergh said. “It’s not a mommy job.”

Stephen sighed, and went to put on an environment suit, with a deep sense of déjà vu.

Minutes later, he was through the air-locked doors and walking across the reactor to find the panel with the faulty electronics. He managed to reach it and open it up, but it was a bit of a stretch. Just as he was about to examine the wiring, a warning alarm sounded.

A child’s voice said, “Wave approaching. Look out!”

Even through the shielded glass of the reactor, Stephen could hear the children outside cry out in fear. He turned and watched as they ran around in a panic. Then, he spotted them, Kelly and Vicky were in the middle of it all, seemingly overwhelmed by all the crying and screaming kids. Both of them noticed him looking at them and stared back at him, hopefully. He nodded and turned his attention back to the wiring. He immediately spotted the disconnected cable inside and pushed it back into place.

“It’s fixed,” he radioed to Bergh. “Try it again.”

Stephen watched as Bergh activated systems at Stephen’s console. The engines roared back to life.

“That did it!” Bergh cheered.

“Do we have power?” the captain inquired over the ship’s intercom.

“Yes!” Bergh replied.

“Warp speed, now,” the captain ordered. “Get us out of here.”

Bergh hit some buttons and the ship lurched into motion, throwing Stephen to the ground. Stephen could feel the ship rumble beneath him as it warped the universe around them, propelling them away from that black hole and the cursed planet beside it. Stephen let himself relax on the floor of the reactor room, glad to be free of that trap at last.

***

The next day, the Urchin’s subspace communication equipment had been repaired, but Captain Mitrani hesitated a full hour before reporting back to Starfleet, trying to formulate a way to reasonably explain what had happened to them all.

As Richardson had hoped, the nanobots had deactivated once they had been removed from the vicinity of the black hole, their power source. However, none of the physical changes the nanobots had made to their bodies or to the ship itself had reverted to normal. The ship still appeared to be a nursery inside, and most of the crew were still only children.

Fortunately, their minds had cleared when the nanobots lost power. The false memories that the nanobots had implanted faded away, like a dream, and they were left to face the shocking reality of what they had become with full awareness of all the changes made to them. To say that the morning had been awkward would have been a gross understatement.

Stephen stood on the bridge having been ordered up there by the captain to congratulate him, but it had been a short conversation as the two of them now had to reckon with the memories of her feeding him the day before. In spite of her Vulcan blood, she appeared visibly embarrassed by how she had behaved. As an escape, she turned her attention to her logs, attempting to describe the past few days of chaos.

“Open communications to Starfleet,” the captain ordered, taking a seat in her chair, after having put off the call as long as she felt she could. She did her best to straighten her uniform, but her enormous breasts seemed to want to pull her top up, despite it having been tailored to fit them.

Following a request to speak to her commanding officer, a white-haired admiral appeared on screen.

“Captain Mitrani,” he said. “My goodness, where have you been? And… what’s happened to you? And, those children…? What in the world is going on?”

“Well,” she said, trying her best to appear unperturbed by the situation. “We encountered an anomaly.”

“An, anomaly?” the admiral replied, raising his eyebrows in disbelief.

“It’s… a long story,” she said and started on her explanation.

Stephen listened and wondered what Starfleet would make of all of this, as he quietly worried about what the future held for them all.

***

That evening, Stephen ate his meal alone in the ship’s lounge, one of the few unaltered places on the ship, having somehow been overlooked by the nanobots. His own room seemed to have disappeared during the nanobots’ nursery remodeling, and he felt that he had nowhere else to go. The captain had offered for him to stay with her, as did Kelly. Neither option appealed to him at the moment. Anytime either woman looked at him, he could tell that they were immediately reminded of their behavior over the past few days and started acting awkwardly, as if they were trying too hard to seem normal. That left Stephen feeling uncomfortable. Instead, he decided it would be best to be on his own, even if that option resulted in him feeling worried and lonely.

The rest of the crew were preoccupied with having to face the awkward truth of their new bodies for the first time. Most had lost decades of their lives. Some were barely more than babies now. The doctor, now only an awkward young teen himself, had his hands full documenting all of their new ages and conditions. Many of them felt lingering effects from the mind control and were experiencing childish tendencies. Everyone wondered if this was permanent or if there might be a way to cure them, to put them back in their old bodies, their old lives. Stephen did not hold out much hope for that.

The door to the lounge opened, and in walked Vicky. She spotted him across the room and walked over to join him.

“You all right?” she asked him, taking a seat at the table, across from him.

“I suppose I’m doing as well as anyone else right now.”

“Yeah,” she said, looking around the room nervously. “I’m feeling really out of place. All the young crew members are avoiding me, and I feel strange around the women because of my head.”

Stephen noticed the pained look on her childish face, so incongruous on her matronly body.

“Well,” he said. “I’ve got no problem being around you.”

She gave him a slight smile. “Thank you,” she said reaching her hand across the table to rest it on his own. Although their heads appeared to be close to the same age, her hand was much larger and more mature than his own little boy hand.

“What now?” he said, the words not directed as a question for her in particular.

The door to the lounge opened again, and Stephen and Vicky turned to see the captain walking into the room, accompanied by Kelly. The two women spotted Stephen and Vicky and walked over to them. Stephen and Kelly stood up to greet them, and Stephen found himself feeling very small again in the presence of these three grown women.

“What brings you both here?” Vicky asked, sounding suspicious.

Kelly said, “The captain and I were just talking about Stephen.”

“Yes,” the captain said. “We were concerned about you. Only now are we fully aware of how this experience has been very different for you than for the rest of the crew. We owe you a great deal for what you did for us, and… well… to show our gratitude it seems that some other compensation might be in order.”

“‘Compensation?’” he asked.

Kelly said, “We both feel a need to take care of you… after everything.”

“The impulse is strong,” the captain conceded. “It is difficult to ignore.”

Vicky rested her hand on Stephen’s shoulder. “You’re not the only ones,” she said.

The captain looked at Vicky and back at Kelly as if to get her approval. Kelly nodded in reply.

“Very well,” the captain said. “I propose we move our quarters near each other, making space for Stephen in a room adjacent to ours.”

Stephen looked up at Vicky, who nodded in approval at the idea. He glanced over at Kelly and at the captain, both of whom looked down at him with genuine affection in their eyes.

“Well?” Kelly asked. “What do you think of the idea, Stephen?”

Stephen nodded as well and shared a smile with them all. He felt safe enough to let go of his worries at last. Whatever the future held, at least he knew that he would not be alone.

The End