#captaintilly

Pike was to blame; his thoughts were being pulled in what felt like a thousand different directions.  There was so much to do, so much at stake, and so little time.

So when he rounded the corner of the corridor, he didn’t see Ensign Tilly in front of him.  When they collided, he gasped and jumped back a step, reaching out to steady Tilly.  He was about to apologize emphatically for his lack of attention when he noticed the Tribbles fall and scatter around them.

Oh, shit, he thought to himself.  Immediately he recognized the furry creatures from former colleague Lynne Lucero’s report.  Her first command, the U.S.S. Cabot, had been destroyed from the inside out by the mass reproduction of the Tribbles...and now, somehow, Tilly had a box full of them.

Kelpiens were hyperaware by nature, constantly scanning for threats. People did not sneak up on Saru; even when focused on something else, in his peripheral he scanned for movement, listened for a soft footstep or vibration. As a cadet, he had been hard to surprise: if an officer entered the room, he knew it--more than likely, he could hear it down the hall. In some senses it was a blessing. As a species, it allowed them to survive on a hostile world. As a person, it served Saru well on away missions and made him less vulnerable to hidden threats. In some senses it was not.  It had become prudent long ago to hide his startle responses. Awareness was one thing, but one never wanted a reputation for jumpiness.

Cadet Tilly, Saru reflected, did not seem to have this set of problems. He stepped carefully into the room, the boot doing little to muffle the click of his hooves on the floor. Her station faced the other way, however, and he wondered whether she realized his presence and was simply intent on her work or trying not to appear easily distracted, or whether she remained unaware.

Send 📱 for five texts my muse didn’t send yours, and one that they did | accepting

[ PADD MSSG; Tilly, S DRAFT ] Do you ever stop smiling? It’s disconcerting.

[ PADD MSSG; Tilly, S DRAFT ] Is Burnham getting enough sleep? I’m worried about her.

[ PADD MSSG; Tilly, S DRAFT ] You have too much hair. 

[ PADD MSSG; Tilly, S DRAFT ] That was good work you did with the Gormagander. Keep it up.

[ PADD MSSG; Tilly, S DRAFT ] Saru saw you eyeing my chair. Don’t even think about it.

for @captaintilly

hurt hurt ??? thing hurt run

hurt RUN

Saru returned to awareness with twin imperatives warring in his mind, over the backdrop of the steady thrum of pain in his side. He breathed in and out and forced himself to sort the thoughts calmly.

First: something had hurt him. He did not know what, but the injury was to his side, not his legs. He could stand. He could run. Run. Outrun the threat. Go, now, hurry.

He set aside that instinct for a moment and reached for the other imperative. Mission. Question. Words, someone was speaking to him, he was not alone, threat? He shoved that possibility to the side with the first imperative and focused on processing. The words still failed to make sense, but the voice and the form coalesced itself into recognition. Cadet Tilly. “Cadet,” he said. She was speaking, and he ordinarily would not have interrupted, but circumstances were somewhat unusual.  Finally a sentence coalesced itself into something comprehensible.  You were incapacitated, I thought it was the right thing to do.