Dedication: To StarAndrea, my sister. I wanted to come up with one of those six word biographies to put here, but I couldn't narrow down all the superlatives to just six!

Chapters:

1. Sparks, Five at Six

"Fascinating."

Jim Kirk glowered at the boy who'd spoken. "Is not." He kicked at the chair in front of him.

There were five of them, scattered around what looked like the bridge of a starship. No one else looked as frustrated as he felt. "I am notsix years old."

Jim knew that for sure. He might look six (everyone around him did, at least), and he might (a little) feel like he was supposed to be in Iowa, waiting for his mom to get home, but he wasn't.

One of the kids giggled. He didn't recognize any of them, but the same part of him that knew he wasn't supposed to be six was pretty sure he was supposed to know these people.

"I'm Jim Kirk," he announced. Everyone looked at him, which was kind of cool.

"I'm Pavel," the curly-haired kid said. He grinned and pointed at the screen. "Starship," he said.

"I am Spock," said the kid who thought it was fascinating. "It would seem we --"

One of the others interrupted him. "D'you think aliens turned us into kids? I'm Hikaru Sulu, but you can call me Sulu if you want."

Spock stayed quiet, but the girl shook her head. Jim wondered what her name was.

"There are no aliens who can do that," she said.

"Maybe we're in the future!"

Nobody was paying attention to him anymore. "I'm gonna explore." Watching people argue was boring.

The girl ignored him and walked around to argue with Hikaru and Pavel some more, but Spock stepped in front of him. "That would not be wise. We should remain here, and attempt to learn more about the situation."

Jim hesitated. You weren't supposed to push people who were smaller than you, even when you wanted to. And he wasn't supposed to really be six. He thought for a minute. If they wereon a starship, where was the crew? If they were the crew, why were they six? And how did they get not-six again? "Fine," he said.

Spock put his hands behind his back and looked back at the station behind him. "Computer, what is our current location?"

"You are not authorized to access that information."

"What is the current stardate?"

"You are not authorized to access that information."

"Is there anyone on board who is authorized?"

"You are not authorized to access that information."

Jim kicked the chair again. This was boring. "Computer," he said loudly, talking over Spock's next question. "Are you--" He almost stumbled over "authorized," but he'd heard Spock say it; it couldn't be that hard. "--authorized to give us *any* information?"

"Negative."

"Great," Jim said. "Let's go."

The other three were watching them by then. "What are you going to do?" Hikaru asked.

"I'm gonna break out."

Of course, the doors wouldn't open. Nothing seemed to be working right. Jim hoisted Pavel up on his shoulders, and he did something to the wall panel that made the door slide open. Jim darted inside the lift and pulled open the emergency hatch to show the ladder below.

There was a minor scuffle over who would get to go first, and then the girl said, "Wait." She pulled off her boots and set them in the doorway -- the doors started to slide closed, then stopped, then opened again. "They won't close if there's something in them," she explained. "For safety."

They were all barefoot by the time they broke into the rec room. They'd left a trail of open doors and abandoned boots and socks behind them, but so far, the ship was empty. It was kind of creepy.

Hikaru slouched in a chair. "I'm hungry," he said, and Pavel nodded. He didn't say much, but he was great at opening doors.

Suddenly, a voice echoed through the room, all wavy like it was a bad connection. "Are you sure this is working?" it said.

Then, more clearly, "This is McCoy," the voice said. "I'm not sure how much of this you've already figured out, but you've been affected by some kind of alien technology. You're supposed to be the bridge crew of the Enterprise, hard as that is to believe sometimes.

"I only have a minute -- Scotty's going to use most of the power to send you some supplies. The short version is that we ran into some aliens and you wound up shifted out of phase and de-aged. We actually think one of those might have been a mistake; they haven't been too friendly with the details, and our top xenolinguist's been turned into a six year-old."

Another voice called out, "Tell Chekov to stop mucking around with the doors!"

"Right -- whatever you're doing to get the doors open, it's crossing back over here. Cut it out. Sit tight, and we'll have you back before you know it. McCoy out."

The sandwiches popped into existence just after the message ended. Water was next, and then blankets. They all looked at each other.

Spock said, "These items appeared in our exact location."

"Like they knew where we were, yeah." Jim decided the idea of people watching him on an empty ship was creepier than just being on an empty ship. "But I'm hungry."

Things seemed better after he'd eaten, and Pavel turned one of the tables into a blanket fort. The Jim who knew he was supposed to be a grown-up thought it was silly, but the Jim who felt six thought it was awesome. He grabbed Spock's hand and dragged him under the table with the others.

And then everyone else fell asleep, and he lay there looking at the darkness.

*****************

Jim was sitting in the captain's chair when Spock found him. "I couldn't sleep," he said.

Spock was holding one of the blankets, and he handed it to Jim before climbing up in the chair next to him. "Logically, there is nothing we can do. We must simply wait to be recovered."

"Spock?"

"Yes?"

"...I don't think I'm very good at waiting."

There was a long wait before Spock said anything, and Jim realized he was asleep. He hitched the blanket up higher. They could wait together.

2. Keep the Home Fires Burning

1730 hours

When the red alert klaxon sounded -- again -- he swore loud enough to make three nurses turn and stare. Enoughalready, for Christ's sake. They'd been drilling for days. He wasn't even sure who was instigating it any more -- Kirk, who hated boredom enough to make up a crisis if one failed to appear fast enough, or Spock, who seemed fascinated by Kirk's penchant for doing everythingwrong, and still somehow ending up with the right answer.

"Sickbay to Bridge," he said pushing the intercom link with more force than was really advisable. "Jim, what in the --" A soft tone cut him off. What the hell -- rerouted? His call was being rerouted?

He was halfway ready to head up to the Bridge and yell at the two of them in person when the shipwide lit up. "Attention all hands, this is the Captain. This is not a drill. An unidentified ship has attached itself to our hull and is powering up some sort of energy device. All hands to battle stations; prepare for boarding. Non-essential systems lockdown in 30 seconds. Kirk out."

At twenty seconds, his people were set. At thirty seconds, there was a noticeable hum as the ship's systems powered down. The glow of emergency lighting replaced the usual bright overheads. At forty seconds, the deck shuddered, and all the screens came back on. Which shouldn't even be possible in a lockdown -- which probably meant something very bad was happening, or was about to happen.

They all watched, which was a stupid thing to do if it turned out to be hypnotic mind-control, or some sort of seizure-inducing frequency bursts. He started a mental list of things to complain to Starfleet about if they survived.

Nobody had a seizure. Or at least, nobody in Sickbay had a seizure. It was just images -- space, and then space with part of it colored in and a dark line around it, and then a dot moving towards it and crossing the line. He snorted. A pictorial version of "back the fuck off" would be his guess, but it's not like he was a diplomat. A second dot came from the colored-in space to meet the Enterprise-dot. The screen image wavered and flipped and he reconsidered the seizure thing. When it evened out, it was showing the Bridge. The empty Bridge. Dammit.

1820 hours

This is how an incursion lockdown was supposedto work: when faced with the threat of a hostile incursion, security teams would sweep the ship deck by deck, looking for intruders and doing a headcount. Once the threat was neutralized, voice authorization from the ship's captain would end the lockdown.

But it was the Enterprise, so of course -- of course, he didn't know why he even expected things to be normal anymore -- the security sweep turned up no intruders, and a missing bridge crew. Which meant no captain to end the lockdown. Not that Starfleeet hadn't planned for that; it was written in the security protocols and everything. "In the event that the ship's captain is unable to release a lockdown, any three senior staff command codes may be used." Great, wonderful. Except the Enterprise was already flying short-handed, and without the alpha shift bridge crew, there were only two senior staff left.

Which was all just a very long-winded explanation of why he and Scotty were rifling through the Captain's quarters like the galaxy's most pathetic cat burglars.

"How do you know he even wrote it down?"

"Because he toldme he did -- even joked about it. Besides, he writes everything down." His communicator chimed. It was currently the only way to get in touch with people, since the ship's intercom was considered a nonessential system.

"McCoy here."

"Dr. McCoy, we need you on the Bridge. Right away. Is Mr. Scott there with you?"

He looked at Scotty. "Yes."

"He should come too."

"Is everything all right up there, Lieutenant?" They couldn't possibly have botched anything up -- all the controls were still locked out.

"Yes sir. The alien ship is still moving away. It's -- well, you should see for yourself."

1830 hours

"Is that --?"

"The Captain? Yes sir. We think so, anyway. There's no sound, though, and none of us can lip-read well enough to tell what they're saying."

The front viewscreen showed the Bridge -- no longer empty, but full of children. Well, five children, who looked suspiciously like child-versions of Jim, Spock, Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov. As he stared, they trooped over to one of the lifts. Kirk hoisted Chekov up on his shoulders to poke at the controls.

"It's not going to work," the lieutenant said. "Their ship should be locked down too."

On screen, the lift door slid open. On the Bridge, the same door beeped, sparked, and didn't move.

McCoy scowled. "Brilliant. Any other thoughts you'd like to share?"

1900 hours

"Let me get this straight. You think these aliens, whoever they are, have transported the bridge crew into another...?" He trailed off, not really knowing where to go with that.

Scotty shook his head. "Not transported. More like shifted -- they're out of phase with the rest of us. They're still here, we just can't see or hear them."

There was only one way to respond to that. "Why?"

"Who knows?" Linguistics is working on translating the chatter we picked up when the alien ship was attached to our hull, but it's slow going. It may be some kind of test, or even an accident.

He groaned. "Well, that's just perfect." He was CMO, for god's sake. He wasn't supposed to end up in charge. But Scotty had too much to do already, and people kept asking him what he thought, and it wasn't like he wasn't willing to share his opinion. Loudly, if necessary.

"We still need to end the lockdown."

It seemed like a logical next step, but Scotty was shaking his head again. "Ah, maybe not. The signal we're receiving on the viewscreens? We haven't actually been able to isolate it yet. If we turn all the ship's systems back on, there's a good chance we'll lose it."

He would never understand how starships worked. Which was probably good, because the more he learned, the more things he had to add to his list of ways to die terribly in space. "Right," he said. "Find that signal; we need a way to communicate with the Captain. Tell Linguistics they need to work faster, or I'll let Uhura decide all their assignments for the next month after she gets back."

"What are you going to be doing?"

"Solving our locked doors problem."

2150 hours

Starfleet attracted its share of rule-abiding, protocol-writing cadets, he was sure. People who worked their way through the academy, graduated with distinction -- and were assigned anywhere except the Enterprise.

Fleet Security was going to have a field day with the reports from this mission. First, they'd effectively crippled themselves in response to an alien ship that had since disappeared. Then they'd circumvented all established lockdown procedures to get people moving again (proving low tech would always trump high tech in the end -- McCoy just sent all the nurses around with surgical marking pens, and they'd inked the security override code onto arms, tentacles, and other assorted extremities).

And now he was in the Mess Hall, overseeing a bunch of tech geeks hacking (creatively reprogramming) the replicators to see if they could get those working too. Mostly, he just yelled at them any time they seemed to be getting too distracted by the "command team as kids" show.

"Is anyone recording this?"

"They are so cute!"

"Yeah, but Scotty's gonna kill Chekov when he gets back. I heard he still can't figure out what the kid's doing to the doors."

"More work, less chatter, unless you want to be eating protein nibs for dinner!" He glared until everybody stopped talking, then looked down at the (handwritten!) requisition form he'd just been handed. He hadn't known they even hadhard copy of those things.

"Ensign, why am I signing a requisition form for --" he checked again, just in case he'd read it wrong the first time "-- five phaser rifles?"

"For the replicator project, sir."

"You planning on shooting each other?"

"No sir. Four phaser rifles can be linked to create a self-charging power unit. That can be used to power a fifth rifle at a state of constant near-overload, which should be enough to power a replicator for short bursts."

He could feelhis eyebrows going up, and silently cursed Spock for infecting him with that particular habit. "This will work?"

"Yes sir. Theoretically."

He sighed. Damn scientists and their theoreticals. "Fine. What's the probability we'll all get blown up in this plan?"

"Slim to none. Well, maybe just slim."

He signed the form.

2300 hours

Scotty figured it out in time to send the kids dinner. (Sandwiches, which was about all the rifle-powered replicator could handle, but he had the feeling Scotty would have picked them anyway.) They sent a message along with the food and blankets, but it didn't seem to have the intended reassuring effect. It figured that Jim Kirk would never take anything at face value, even at six. Worse, Scotty could only get things to go one way; they still couldn't bring anything (or anyone) back.

"At least they ate," Scotty offered.

"Yeah, now they're all fueled up." He glared at the viewscreen. "Telling them to stay put's not going to work for long. They've got no reason to believe us."

"They've got Spock, though. Who's the one person you can count on to think things through logically, even as a lad?"

It made a certain amount of sense. In an unknown situation, faced with extremely limited information, the logical thing to do would be to listen to the one person offeringinformation, and wait patiently for the situation to be resolved. He hoped.

Day 2: 0700 hours

Chief Medical Officer's Personal Log, Stardate "the day after aliens turned our bridge crew into children and left me as acting captain of the USS 'it could only happen to us' Enterprise." We learned last night that the mysterious signal that's letting us watch the kids can't do a split screen. Jim wandered off somewhere, followed by Spock. I had to remind everyone they're children, and no, I don't think Spock was planning to kill the Captain and hide the body, no matter what the betting pool is running. Still, it was good to see them both back in the rec room this morning.

Linguistics thinks we should start with the original message, and get the ship back past whatever line the aliens have drawn. We still have no engines, thanks to the lockdown, and we can notlose that signal. As usual, Scotty's going to try something that will either get us all killed or be miraculously successful. I swear, I get nervous any time he says, 'I've always wanted to try this.'

0730 hours

"I'v always wanted to try this!" Scotty rubbed his hands together with obvious glee.

The Enterprise might be in lockdown, but her shuttles weren't. And they had a lot of them. Whether or not a fleet of shuttles could effectively act as tugboats, and steer the Enterprise back into safe space, remained to be seen. Thank god they hadn't been at warp when they'd crossed the line, or they'd really be in trouble.

"Is this even safe?" He looked at the diagram. "I'm no engineer, but this looks..."

Scotty had already rushed off again.

1100 hours

"Dr. McCoy?"

There was a reason starships had an intercom system, and it wasn't to save wear and tear on communicators. Scotty was coordinating upwards of 50 people between Engineering and the shuttle bays, and they'd already jiggered the communicator frequencies once. Nonessential use was being strongly discouraged, which meant he was getting his "kid updates" via runners, every 20 minutes.

"Yeah, what are they up to now?" Over the course of the morning, they'd eaten, played chess, invented some kind of full-contact card game, and -- most worryingly -- spent a considerable amount of time talking in a huddled circle, tight enough so none of the lip readers could tell what was being said.

"They're fighting, sir."

"What? Physically fighting?"

"Yes sir. The Captain and Mr. Spock."

Typical. Those two were like cats and dogs, at any age. "Wait -- what are the others doing?"

"Sir?"

"Are they watching, cheering, trying to break them up, what?"

"They're just watching, sir."

"Don't worry about it, then. They're not really fighting. They're probably just playing. Let me know if there's blood." He thought for a minute. "Or just let me know if one of them passes out. Blood's probably fine."

As the ensign trotted off again, disbelieving expression and all, McCoy just shook his head. Kids these days. He wasn't even sure if he meant the ensign, the bridge crew, or both. "Scotty, are we ready to do this thing, or not?"

1140 hours

It wasn't the strangest experience he'd had on the Enterprise (thought it might be the strangest one he was willing to recount in polite company). But he probably had a good chance at a prize in their next "weirdest thing that's happened while you were in the captain's chair" contest.

He was really only in the chair because it seemed to reassure everyone to have someonethere. The other posts were manned as well, despite the fact that none of them could actually do anything. They couldn't even see what was happening -- the main viewscreen was still showing the de-aged bridge crew. The kids had apparently gotten tired of fighting, because they were all back on the Bridge. It was like looking in a mirror -- a really weird, creepy mirror.

Scotty, who hopefullycouldsee what was going on, was cussing everyone out over the communicator. It was still hard to tell how things were going, though -- he tended to yell regardless. Jim called it a leadership style, McCoy called it anger management, and they both hoped the Admirality never wanted to do an in-person inspection.

Given all that, he'd expected the moment they actually crossed the invisible border to be a non-event. Maybe some congratulatory yelling from Scotty, but otherwise, no real change. So the energy wave was pretty much a complete surprise. They were engulfed -- he was on the Bridge, he was in the Medical bay; he was watching kid-Jim on the viewscreen, he was getting ready to yell at adult-Jim over the intercom; they were entering alien space, they were leaving alien space. He felt himself take a breath, but there was a second when he couldn't see, couldn't here, wasn't sure he wasbreathing.

And then he was back.

1145 hours

"Well, it's about time. We were getting ready to plan an escape; we were that bored."

It was the unmistakeably notsix years old voice of Jim Kirk. He put up with the clap on his shoulders he knew was coming, and watched with relief as Jim reclaimed his chair. "Good work getting us back. What happened? Why is the ship still in lockdown?"

He hedged. "It's a long story."

That got him the look, but Jim just said, "Computer, release lockdown. Authorization Kirk, James T., Alpha seven one omega niner. Spock, status report."

"Jim, I really think you should come down to the Medical Bay so I can look all of you over -- you did just spend a day and a half as children."

"Captain, I am detecting three alien ships within our sensor range, approaching rapidly."

Uhura, who had quickly displaced the ensign manning Communications, put a hand to her earpiece. "We're being hailed."

"On screen."

"Jim, you may want to let Scotty know he can recall the shuttles first."

"Recall the -- what have you been getting up to?" Jim keyed the button n the arm of the chair. "Scotty, we're back -- Bones says you can recall the shuttles. You know I'll be wanting a full report on that later."

"Aye, Captain! Welcome back."

"Put them on screen, Lieutenant."

"Sorry, sir -- audio only."

There was a sound like old-fashioned static, then a voice boomed through the Bridge. "Starship Enterprise, you have our congratulations," the voice said. "All new visitors to our space are subjected to a border testing, to reveal the character of your ship's crew. Both your loyalty to each other and your respect for the wishes of other races were tested. Your solutions were must unusual, but nonetheless admirable. Your ship and crew are welcome in our space."

"Message ends, Captain. It seems to have been a recording of some kind."

"Alien ships are reversing course, sir."

Jim nodded, then yawned, and McCoy jumped in. "Right, anyone who was just six, report to the Medical Bay. Doctor's orders. You're all getting a full workup. I need to make sure your DNA isn't melting."

"You know, Bones, you might want to work on that bedside manner. It's not nearly as reassuring as you think it is."

Spock nodded. "Indeed, it was somewhat alarming to hear your voice as a young person. I believe we all remained unconvinced of your intentions."

They were ganging up on him. One day as children, and suddenly he was the mean parent. Sometimes he wondered if Dr. Puri had ever had to deal with things like this. But they were up, and moving, and as he herded them towards the lift he couldn't resist a comeback.

"You know what else I could make a doctor's order? Nap time."