Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now (Backpost)
Posted on Wed Oct 15th, 2025 @ 4:55pm by Lieutenant JG Katie Kellerman & Lieutenant Rebecca McMillen & Lieutenant JG Rala
Mission:
Lower Decks
Location: Science Lab
Timeline: Concurrent with The Day 27 Miracle
Katie checked her tablet as she looked around the lab. She'd been working with Rebecca on how they could modify it with holoemitters and now their plan was ready to move into a test phase. To do that, however, they'd need someone in Operations to help with power requirements and system integration. Katie had worked out most of the software aspects, but she wanted more help with integrating the hardware.
She turned and grinned at Rebecca. "So, are you excited to try this out?"
The diminutive officer gave a nod, "I'm very excited. I mean all the math works out, and all the theory is sound. At the moment the current range is just this room but, not bad for a testbed."
"Well if it works we can set it up in multiple spaces, and then you can transfer with a command. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!"
The door swished open and Rala entered, just lowering a PADD that she’d apparently been reading as she walked. “Lieutenant McMillen,” she said, nodding to the Chief Science Officer who gave new meaning to the term ‘diminutive’; despite having served together for some time now, her interactions with the tiny woman had been mostly limited to Bridge duty and the occasional passing greeting. Despite the remarkably casual atmosphere on the Chimera, the fact that they were on duty and the other woman was of higher rank led Rala to fall back on formality, at least for the moment.
That was less of a concern with the other woman present, who was the same rank as Rala and generally gave off very first-name-basis vibes. “Katie. You said you needed my help with a project?”
Katie turned and squealed happily and bounced over to Rala, giving her a quick hug. "Yes! Okay! So! Here's the situation." She showed Rala her tablet, bringing her up to speed on her design of the dual holodeck program and the success they'd had with projecting Rebecca to normal size. "We need to see if we can outfit this room with enough holoemitters to give her fully detailed access to anything in the room and create a normal-sized, workable connection. I was hoping you could help with some of the hardware, integrating some of the ship's systems and dealing with power requirements."
Rebecca never really noticed how... big... Rala was before now. "We're only semi-official here, so just Rebecca please." She stood as Katie explained the process and design.
Rala smiled. “’Rebecca’ it is.” She wasn't expecting Katie’s hug, but returned it happily, then listened through her explanation, nodding at points as it went.
“I like this idea,” she said once Katie had finished. “It's simultaneously brilliant and so simple in concept that I'm annoyed I didn't think of it myself.”
"It took me way too long to think of," Katie admitted. "So, think we can get enough emitters fitted and interfaced with the holodecks?"
Rala scanned the room with her gaze, doing some rough mental calculations. “Yeah, should be doable. We’ll need more holoemitters to go full-scale,” she said, apparently missing her own pun, “plus that degree of power and data system modifications on the rest of the ship will need approval from Lieutenant T’Pinga, at least, but a Phase Two test with just the lab should be doable.”
"Yes!" Katie said, punching the air above her. "All right, I'll start replicating hardware, and we'll start mapping things out!" She ran over to the industrial replicators to start making emitters.
"Make sure each one of the emitters has a unique identifier. While an unstoppable army of Rebecca McMillen sounds appealing, it's less of an army of darkness if they're all 1:1 scale." Rebecca added with a smirk, then gave Katie a smirk, "You get that idea out of your head this instant." the diminutive officer teased as she ran a few additional calculations from her remote work terminal.
Rala giggled at Rebecca’s joke as she stepped over to a small desk with a computer terminal, and let out a quiet but distinct coughing laugh at her last comment, shaking her head slightly. Sitting down, she began cross-checking how many emitters they’d need to fully cover the lab, their optimal placement, the raw power and data requirements both for the entire array and for each individual emitter, and the easiest way to route all of that to them.
Katie accessed the industrial replicators and began queuing in their needs. "This will take a little time," she said. "But in an hour we can start installing, and a few hours after that..." she grinned at Rebecca. "It's showtime!"
"Lucky for you I'm a patient girl." Rebecca teased, but went to assist with the math.
"Well I'm not so let's dive in!" Katie said from the replicator as she carefully stacked the emitters.
It had been some hours since the math began. Rebecca, ever the patient girl, broke the silence, "Are we there yet?" she complained, mostly in good fun.
“Just about, I think,” came Rala’s voice, slightly muffled by the access panel her lower body was sticking out of. She’d gotten the last emitter set up, and was in the process of double-checking the power and data connections she’d modified for it. “Katie? How goes the software side?”
"I've taken every measurement of this room I possibly could," Katie said. "The program looks good, and the synch with the holodeck looks stable. Once you're out of the wall, we can start testing." She turned to Becca, an excited smile on her face. "Ready for a trip?"
The diminutive officer gave a nod, and waited for the lowered hand to hop on.
Katie knelt down and held out a hand. As Becca climbed on, she lifted her up and helped her gently onto Katie's shoulder. Once Becca was secure, she left the lab, heading for the holodeck. "Back shortly!" she called back to Rala.
“Yep!” Rala called. She finished her check and pulled herself out of the wall, then replaced the panel and stood up, stretching. While she waited, she started looking over Katie’s code—less looking for problems and more just to see how she’d set it up.
Oh great, beta testing... "Back in a bit, keep the coffee warm." Rebecca called out, in a very good mood.
It took Katie ten minutes to make the round trip, having to walk somewhat carefully to the holodeck, but then running back. She slid through the lab doors and into her chair, tapping her tablet. "All right," she said, "here we go. Synching to Holodeck One. Bringing up initiation subroutines..."
On the holodeck, the same miniature holodeck appeared in front of Rebecca. "Link complete, enter when ready," the computer said.
The doorway that appeared offered no preview of things to come. A little mystery never stopped her before, hell she was always a fan of studying and discovering the unknown, and while that gusto was KINDA what got her into the mess she was in now, meh, it just meant replicator rationing wouldn't hit her as hard. With a deep breath, she took a step through....
Katie turned around and looked around the lab. "All right...she should appear through the door as soon as she steps inside her end." She bit her lip and tapped her feet excitedly.
Rebecca walked through the doorway, almost as if on cue. Tall, stunning, She had to be six feet tall, which was the first sign of concern in the math since her official roster put her a little shorter than that (Originally, mind you).... "What? You're looking at me like I'm purple or something, oh, no offense Rala." she smiled, but the truth was the sync program decided to give her a definite pinkish tint. She looked less like "Rebecca McMillen, Scientist" and more "Rebecca McMillen, Bubblegum Golem!" at the moment.
Rala stifled a giggle, but couldn’t entirely keep the bemusement at Rebecca’s holographic appearance off her face.
"Okay....so....we tried...." Katie said, trying not to laugh. She cleared her throat. "Okay hang tight." She grabbed her tablet and began typing quickly. She started with the easier fix and adjusted a few frequencies, bringing Becca back to a normal shade--for a human.
"Okay, one problem down...." She looked all the way up at Becca and grinned. "I dunno...sure you wanna go back to being short like me?"
"Short LIKE you? Look I'm just enjoying the perks of being taller than a shoebox. I know I'll be pocket sized again when this is all said and done. I mean, technically still am in a box, what, two hundred feet THAT way?" Rebecca pointed. "Still though, as far as beta tests go, surprisingly smooth."
"Thank you."
Katie grinned. "Don't thank me yet," she said. "Let me move a decimal point and carry a five first." She tapped a second set of equations into the computer, readjusting her calculations. "All right," she said, "let's see what this does." She input the new equations and Becca reappeared, this time a foot too short. "Okay...almost," she said.
She adjusted again and Becca looked the right size, but a bit stretched wide. Katie huffed in frustration and made one final adjustment. Becca disappeared and finally appeared life-sized in front of them.
Rebecca took a moment to appreciate the point of view, and smiled, "Oh hey, hey it worked.... It worked!!!" the no-longer-diminutive officer squeaked and giggled, ecstatic with the prospect, however temporary, of return to her previous scale.
Katie squealed and jumped up, rushing to hug Becca and falling right through her, running into a chair and flipping ass-over-tea-kettle onto the floor with a scream.
“Katie!” Rala exclaimed, rushing over to her.
"Oh no, you made me a GHOST!" Rebecca panicked, then smiled showing it was a tease. "I'm guessing the feedback and force simulator fields haven't been calibrated. So, literally look but don't touch."
"I'm oh-kay!" Katie said from the floor, although the grunt of pain and low groan didn't quite match her words.
Rala offered Katie a hand to help her up. “You sure?” she asked, considering grabbing the nearest medkit regardless of the answer.
"Yeah, she was trying to test collision detection and it failed." Rebecca offered, simply and direct. She was among the finer minds of the ship, but still felt the need to be a bit silly.
"No...no...my fault," Katie said, taking Rala's hand and pulling herself up, gingerly. "I didn't set the matter-replication subroutines yet because I didn't want to risk any problems with her appearing halfway in a wall or something. She walked over back to her seat and her tablet and sat down, wincing. "Okay....here we go...three...two...one..." She hit a button and Becca disappeared, then reappeared one final time.
"You keep de-rendering and re-rendering me and pretty soon I'm going to ask if someone wants wishes granted." she giggled, and held out a hand. A simpler test.
Katie reached for Becca's hand and this time took her hand. "I wish for you to hug me," she said, grinning as Rebecca threw herself into Katie's arms and they hugged tightly. "We did it," Katie said, grinning at Rala over Rebecca's shoulder.
It took Rala a few seconds to get Becca’s joke, by which point she had another reason to smile. And smile she did, giving a big, toothy grin as she stepped forward and wrapped them both in a four-armed group hug. “Welcome back to our world, Rebecca.”
Rebecca just enjoyed the moment, wrapped up in hugs and acceptance and appreciation and hugs. "It's a travel visa, but I'll take it!" she beamed. Part of her knew it was simulated, temporary, all just math and motivation. At this moment, that part of her was tied up in a chair and locked in a shed. The part of her that missed hugs, that missed being part of the crowd instead of part of the collection, that part right now was in the driver's seat. "I can't lie, the view from my world is nice, but this..... this is a nice welcome back." she smiled.
"Right so.... now we just need to do THIS.... to everywhere. The holo-array. Not the hugging." a pause, "Okay, the hugging too." though she was pretty sure without the array, a good hug would make her disappear given her current company.
Rala held the hug for a good thirty seconds before releasing the two of them, still smiling, and nodded. “I’ll start working up plans for expansion to present to T’Pinga.” Her expression gained a thoughtful quality, and she added, “Top priorities, say, Bridge, the other science labs...the lounge? Shouldn’t be hard to pitch that one for morale reasons.”
"And I can get started on hardware once it's set," Katie said, happily. "Eventually we could have the whole ship set up. She saw the look on Becca's face and pulled her in for another hug. "I know it's just a temporary thing," she said, "but think of it as putting on a bigger suit every day, instead of your regular one." She rubbed Becca's back. "It's a step, right?"
"Great, my giant robot suit is just a regular robot suit." Rebecca giggled, "It's a step, a very very fine step." she smiled, enjoying the attention on an equal footing. Okay, Rala was still taller than her, but at least Rala wasn't approaching Kaiju scale anymore.
“Rigging up the whole ship is definitely the end goal,” Rala said, nodding. “I’m just thinking about what order we get things done in.” She leaned against the desk, a thought visibly crossing her mind. “The other question is, do we want to announce it, and if so, when?” She shook her head gently, and looked more pointedly at Rebecca, the warm smile returning to her face. “No, not ‘we’; more accurately, do you want to announce it? Or let it be a surprise? Obviously we’ll have to tell T’Pinga, but I think I can convince her to keep the ‘why’ to herself until you’re ready.”
"I think we should handle this professionally and by the book. We should draft the proposal, log the results, explain possible glitches and side effects, and prepare engineering for a power spike during operational time." Rebecca detailed. Paperwork and projects was, essentially, her bread and butter. "We should also time latency and response time between wherever Holo-Becca is and I actually am. There might just be times when being at my small remote station might be the better option." she continued. This wasn't something she was expecting, but she had a standard requisition form in her head for most occasions.
Katie had grabbed a padd and was already making notes. "Good idea. There's probably going to be a dozen little things we hadn't thought of that we'll need to iron out." She looked up and grinned. "I can't wait." She squealed happily. "God, I am so glad this is working!" She hugged Becca again. "All right. Proposal. Sounds good. We'll start on it tomorrow." She got a wicked glint in her eye and walked over to where she had some things hidden. She pulled out a square tabletop and unfolded four legs from it, then set it up in the middle of the lab, pulling three chairs over for them to sit. "In the mean time, I think we've earned a break." She pulled out a deck of cards and sat down, grinning. "Who's up for Crazy Eights?"
Rala grinned and took a seat. "You're on."
Katie and Becca sat as well and Katie shuffled happily.
