"What on Earth is that?" Tucker goggled at the shape approaching the away team from the east.
"It is not on Earth, Commander," intoned T'Pol. "It is on Oldfolks Prime, as are we."
Tucker graced her with one of his patented pissy expressions. "Ah know that. Ah j'st meant..." He huffed impatiently at her unyielding and disinterested expression. "Nevermind."
"The real question is," said Reed, fingering the phase pistol in his holster, "is it dangerous? Though, it does look rather small ...and stunted."
"Look over there!" chimed in Sato. "There are more of them. And they seem to be holding tools of some sort."
"Tools or weapons?" asked Reed suspiciously.
"I suppose that depends on how you define 'weapon,' Lieutenant." Sato planted her hands on her hips and pursed her lips, glaring at Reed for putting a damper on her discovery.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Now, now, chilen ...play nice." Tucker stepped between the Englishman and the Asian woman, making placating gestures. "Le's j'st wait for one a 'em t' git here before we start mak'n any judgements."
So, they waited...and waited...
*Two hours and fifteen minutes later:*
"Whatever they are, they sure do move slow."
Reed looked up from the rock he'd been testing his new phase pistol modifications on. The creature from the east was a good forty metres away, moving toward them at a shuffling snail's pace. "That, Commander, is a gross understatement."
Reed turned back to the rock. One of the new settings he'd devised seemed to work quite well for stone masonry, and the rock was starting to take on a vague resemblance to Trip Tucker's head.
"The group of aliens seems to be moving faster than the lone creature," said T'Pol. "Despite the longer distance travelled, I estimate they will arrive at our location only moments after the single entity."
"Better warm up the UT, Hoshi," drawled Tucker. "Looks lak we're gonna have us some company."
By the time the lone creature had covered half the remaining distance, the four members of Enterprise's away team could tell that it was an old man. He appeared to be Human, though the vast number of wrinkles did make it difficult to be certain. When his shuffling finally came to a halt in front of them, they got their answer.
"He, he," the man wheezed. "Well, aren't you both just the prettiest girls on the planet? Don't see many young ones 'round here much. You visitin' somebody?"
The three senior officers looked to Sato questioningly. She, in turn, looked at her UT, thumping it with the heel of her hand for good measure.
"He's speaking English."
"Well, Ah'll be...You Human, Sir?" asked Tucker.
"Sure am, sonny." The old coot had replied to Tucker without tearing his rheumy eyes from T'Pol and Hoshi. "Sent out on one of Earth's first colony ships, the Cadaver. Course, I was only a boy then. Just landed last month. Nice little place we've got for us here on Oldfolks Prime. The younger types headed to the next planet over in the system: Teenybopper World, they call it. Guess they didn't care much for the planet's old name: Oldfolks Secundus."
The away team was listening so intently to the old man's tale that they were not aware of the arrival of the group until it was too late.
"Oh Betty, look at the nice young men!"
"My, my. Gloria, aren't they just handsome?"
"Why, Maude, doesn't he just remind you of Lucy's first fianc? Now there was a man. Such a rake, he was!"
Tucker and Reed were surrounded by old women, large brimmed straw hats on their heads, gardening implements dangling in their hands, work gloves carefully tucked into the pockets of their gardening aprons. The two men exchanged one terrified look before going back to back: the better to defend against unsolicited buttock pinchings and thigh strokings.
"Oh dear, you boys are far too skinny! Don't they feed you on that starship of yours? You come with us. I just baked some chocolate chip cookies, and I know Maude has some of her famous cranberry-banana bread left from tea yesterday."
With a co-ordinated swoop, the old women bore the Enterprise men away, leaving Sato and T'Pol to stare after them in shock.
"He, he. The biddies will have them in their clutches all day," said the old man, nearly forgotten in the excitement. "Why don't you girls come back to my apartment for coffee and cookies, hm?"
"I think I'm going to be sick," said Reed from his prone position on the floor of decon.
"Should never'a let them feed us so much," moaned Tucker in agreement next to him. "But they were such nice old ladies, Ah couldn't in good conscience refuse..."
"They were positively lecherous. Nothing 'nice' about them. I think they were trying to feed us so much that we wouldn't be able to escape."
"'S true, Ah suppose. Good thang Hoshi an' T'Pol were there to rescue us. How'd you manage that, anyway? Thought you said the old man gave you cookies and coffee? He didn't try the same thang with you?"
Sato and T'Pol exchanged a glance where they sat, relaxed, on the bench. Hoshi shrugged, though neither man could lift his head high enough to see the movement.
"The coffee was thick as crude oil, and the cookies were like little meteors. It wasn't anything we could actually ingest."
"We pretended to ...nibble the cookies in a polite manner until we determined that we had remained long enough for courtesy," added T'Pol. "We then went looking for the two of you."
Tucker turned his head to squint at Reed and poked at his friend's shoulder until he turned his own head.
"No more old folks homes, 'k, Mal? Too dangerous."
"Here, here." Reed reached up and wrapped his hand around Tucker's finger. "Now, quit poking me, or I'll be sick."
"'K."
Back up on the bench, the two women exchanged another look.
"Men."
Warp 5 Complex
Star Trek Enterprise fan fiction archive
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Author's Chapter Notes: One of my few non-slash fics, I wrote this in December and since the few people who I've let read it until now seemed to like it, I thought I'd share it with a wider audience. For Chrissy, who spake the title. |
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