When Vulcan Fell

[Talia Hudson]

Starbase 1 - 2258
2300 Hours

It was night on the Starbase: a strange concept, when you thought about it. Up here in high orbit, the same familiar continental silhouettes rolled past the viewports several times a day, making definitions of time based on the Earth's rotation somewhat moot. Still, humans had evolved with a need to sleep at some point, and without reliable solar movements to tell them when, they were forced to rely on more arbitrary means. With chronometers calibrated to match the local time at Starfleet Headquarters, Starbase 1 reinforced the illusion by dimming the lights and structuring it's shift patterns accordingly. The station's vital systems were manned, but by junior officers who if they were honest would probably much rather be sleeping.

That was a sentiment that Commodore Talia Hudson shared, but her lack of sleep was mandated by her subconscious rather than her duties. She wished there was some sort of quantifiable or medical reason for it, but try as she might she and her physicians had never managed to shake it. Luckily, she'd spent the early part of her career in Starfleet working as an engineer, so she'd long ago learned to grab sleep when she could get it, and survive without it when she couldn't.

Her attention strayed from the bland and boring status report on her monitor, and once again her mind toyed with regret over her choice to invest her insomnia in shifting the paperwork from her desk. She peered out through the panoramic windowed doors that led out into Ops, just in time to catch another nervous glance in her office's direction from Lieutenant Commander Kesil, the Rigellian duty officer assigned to the station's night shift. He'd only been aboard a few weeks, and while competent there was a certain nervousness to him: no doubt he was paranoid that his Commanding Officer was spying on him, to make sure he wasn't screwing up at his job. Talia flashed him what she hoped was a reassuring smile, but it didn't seem to help.

With a sigh, the Commodore turned her attention back to the progress reports. Starbase 1's docking ports were much more full than usual, cluttered with starships returning from exploration missions to the Federation frontier. Many of those ships had offloaded officers for reassignment elsewhere in the fleet, and would wait patiently for their crews to be repopulated by the graduating class of Starfleet Academy in a month or so. The pre-graduation period was one of the busiest times of the year for Earth's orbital dockyards, which was a pretty good indicator of just how dull this seemingly prestigious assignment could become at times.

Talia's eyes deviated from her desk again, this time catching sight of far more activity than the night shift usually generated. Kesil appeared to be locked in conversation with one of the duty communications officers, and while with anyone else that might have seemed perfectly innocuous, the Rigellian was not the sort of officer to chat on the job. His eyes turned in Talia's direction, seeming to know instinctively that once again he had her attention; a curt nod was all the Commodore needed to know her presence was required.

Not exactly tall by human standards, Talia had learned to make the most of her strides, crossing the distance from her desk to the doorway at an effortless pace. "Trouble?" she asked, as the mostly transparent sheets of aluminium slid aside, clearing a path for her to descend the stairs into Ops.

"Possibly," was the Rigellian's measured reply. "The Long Range Sensor Lab in San Francisco has flagged something for our attention: a transmission one of their Cadets intercepted."

Talia quirked an eyebrow. The sensor lab was part of the Academy campus, normally used to give cadets hands-on experience in the kind of sensor operation and communications monitoring that they would eventually need aboard a starship. It was hard to imagine how practice assignments could generate something requiring the attention of a Starbase.

"And?" Talia asked, her attention on the communications officer.

Hesitating a moment before replying, the Vulcan Lieutenant turned away from her console, plucking out her wireless earpiece before she spoke. "The transmission is in Klingon, and attests to be from the prison world Rura Penthe. It reports that a group of prisoners has escaped confinement, boarded an impounded Romulan ship, and that forty-seven Klingon vessels were destroyed in a failed effort to recapture the prisoners."

The Lieutenant looked at Talia with what the Commodore took to be the Vulcan equivalent of a sceptical expression. "I can confirm the accuracy of the Cadet's translation, but would prefer not to speculate on the validity of the message."

"You think it's a trap?" Kesil asked; Talia wasn't sure if his tone was surprised or hopeful.

The Vulcan's head cocked ever so slightly to the side. "Transmitting a falsified message of this nature and then monitoring for any kind of reaction from Starfleet would be a logical way for the Klingons to determine if we are monitoring their communications."

Talia let out a grunt. "Since when did the Klingons do things because they were logical?"

Options raced through the Commodore's mind. If this proved to be accurate, then Starfleet would need to be informed immediately so that he mobilise some sort of defensive strategy: a Romulan ship that could tear through Klingon warbirds like they were made of paper posed one hell of a threat, and the Federation and Romulus didn't exactly have a history of friendship and cooperation. On the other hand, if this proved to be some sort of ruse, Admiral Alexander Marcus was not the kind of person you wanted to make grumpy by waking him in the middle of the night.

"What's our nearest outpost?" she asked, expanding her gaze to encompass the rest of Ops. Officers manning the night shift might be junior to those who were given assignments at more sociable hours, but often that meant they hadn't lost that sheen of enthusiasm that motivated them to fill their heads with such facts.

"Rura Penthe is near the Epsilon Outposts," the Lieutenant from navigations replied. From the way his posture shifted it looked like he'd run a computer search for the query; points for initiative, even if not for subtlety. "Epsilon Nine has a pretty comprehensive communications array."

Talia threw a gracious nod in his direction before turning back to the Vulcan. "Hail them. Get me comm logs, sensor feeds, and anything else you can think of for that sector. Starfleet Command is going to have questions, and I want to have as many answers ready as we can muster."

The Vulcan nodded her compliance.

The Commodore turned her attention to Kesil. "Is Captain Pike still aboard?"

"I believe so," the Rigellian acknowledged.

"Find him," Talia instructed. "Wake him if you have to." A sombre tone crept into her voice. "However Starfleet responds to this, you can bet your ass they'll want the Enterprise involved."

[Thaitla K'prerr]

San Francisco, at about the same time...


The door chime at Nyota Uhura's dorm room sounded, and the cadet shouted across the suite so that she could be heard by her expected company.

"It's unlocked, Thai!"

The Caitian tapped the button to open the sliding door, fidgeting to keep an ungainly stack of PADDs from spilling out of her arms. When the door parted, she caught a whiff of something pleasant on the air.

"You got takeout?"

Uhura was already laying out a few plates at the coffee table that separated two chairs from the main sofa. Her own set of PADDs were arrayed to one side.

"No, actually I cooked this time. Doro Wat."

The Caitian hadn't the slightest idea what Doro Wat was, but Uhura had a knack for being accommodating to her vegetarian friend's picky tastes, so there was no need to keep her guard up.

Anyone else would just assume things from her feline features, and there would probably be a plate full of seafood murder on it put in front of her, and she'd have to politely lie that she'd 'already eaten', then eat tofu crumbles under the cover of midnight out of her refrigerator like some asylum escapee.

"Great, I'm starving!"

Thaitla unceremoniously dumped her stack of PADDs onto the couch, opting to sit on the floor across from her friend. While they did have studying to do, they both knew there was a lot more to this night than that. The two women looked at each other with barely-caged giddy smiles. Thaitla couldn't stomach waiting to ask.

"So...? What did they say?"

"They didn't really say anything. I mean, you could tell it was a big deal."

"Forty seven warbirds? You think?!"

Uhura began serving, ladling out the spicy Ethiopian chicpea melange onto large injera flatbreads.

"Well, if you didn't help isolate that Klingonese dialect, we'd probably have filed that into the junk stack. What kind of language could confuse 'under attack' with 'having a party' anyway?"

The Caitian laughed, helping herself to the bottle of wine Uhura had placed on the table, filling both their glasses.

"Uhura, I'm pretty sure being involved in an attack is pretty close to being at a Klingon party. At any rate, your name probably hit the short list of every Admiral's comm feed today with that one."

The human took her glass of wine, clinking it with Thaitla's own.

"Well I'm just glad I could pick your half-Klingon brain on that one. I swear we can learn Romulan backwards and forwards, sixteen Deltan subjunctives, vocular binary, and sixty four declensions of Xindi and our Klingon teachers will still be somewhere in the 22nd century. If you pass finals with top marks, I bet you could pick any ship in the fleet."

Thaitla tended to her plate, forking up some chicpeas as a furtive smile crossed her features. Uhura picked up on it.

"Ah ha, so you have thought about it!"

The Caitian's tail tuft poofed as it slapped against the floor and her furtive smile grew into an all-out event.

"Well...haven't you!?! I mean, we're probably at the top of the litter for xeno ling. Who else are they gonna look to first? Tuvel? Hannity? Heidelberg? Please. They're book talkers. Hawkins is pretty good, but your Romulan is just so much better."

Thaitla took a bite of her Ethiopian food, pausing momentarily to bask in a meal that wasn't greasy Indian takeout from Mission Hill. Her eyes opened, and she leaned forward with a conspiratorial expression.

"I want Enterprise."

Uhura's expression changed slightly. Still smiling, there was something else a little more far off. It wasn't avarice, but it was somewhere close.

"Me too, Thai. Me too."

The two cadets met eyes and for a second it was almost serious, until they burst into giddy laughter. Fever dreams and ambition for both of them. They were gunning for the same seat.

[Érinthe Hetetlen]

Huntsville, Alabama

"My god. It's so big!"

The light was dim, only a few very distant floodlights, a scattering of stars, and a razor-thin slice of moon to provide any illumination, and still her eyes were so wide they sparkled. Érin could just make out the faint sheen of perspiration across the sky blue of her brow; it wasn't warm by Alabama standards, but even the coldest day in the deep south was more than ice-dwelling Andorians were equipped to handle.

Her antennae drifted slowly apart in awe, before suddenly snapping into scorpion tails of suspicion as her eyes snapped in his direction. "I bet you show this to all the girls."

Érin flashed a wry grin. "First Officer's prerogative," he defended, propping himself up on his elbows as he sprawled across the hillock that overlooked the construction site. "We've still got a ways to go before she's launch-ready, but once she's up there she'll be the biggest, fastest, and best ship in the fleet; at least, she will be, if you believe what the chief engineer keeps telling me."

Jhamel's antennae twitched into the Andorian equivalent of a frown. "I never understood that - why you humans always call your ships she."

"Jealous?" Érin teased.

"More like curious," Jhamel shot back, a hint of scowl in her eyes.

Érin's expression formed a frown of it's own as he considered how best to answer. "I don't think anyone really knows why for sure," he admitted. "It's one of those traditions that has been lost to time. My theory has always been though that it started back in the days when mostly male sailors were exploring Earth's oceans. They talked big and acted tough, but for all their brash and bravado they knew that their ship - the thing keeping them safe, keeping them alive, and carrying them home at the end of their voyages - couldn't possibly be anything but a woman."

Jhamel's expression mixed scepticism with amusement. "With bullshitting skills like that, Commander," she teased, "You should probably have pursued a career in politics."

"Nah," Érin countered with a hint of a smile. "If I hadn't joined Starfleet, I'd never have had the opportunity to meet so many fascinating women like you."

"Oh really?" Jhamel shifted, leaning forward to stare into the Commander's eyes. "And just how many fascinating women have you met?"

Érin's smile didn't falter. "I'm afraid that's classified."

"I'm from Starfleet Security," she threatened, walking her fingertips slowly across Érin's abdomen and up towards his chest. She drew closer, lips precariously close to the Commander's. "We have ways of making you talk."

Érin's voice was barely more than a breath. "Promises, promises..."

The chirp of Érin's communicator cut through the night air. His eyes closed in a wince; Jhamel's forehead slumped gently against his.

"I could ignore it," Érin suggested; but they both knew how unwise that was.

Érin sighed as Jhamel rolled away, and fumbled in his pocket for the small flip-out communicator that was the bane of his planetside existence. "Hetetlen," he half-grunted as he flipped it open. "Go ahead."

"Message from Command, sir." Érinthe recognised the voice as being from one of the Lieutenants back at the shipyards. "Sorry to disturb you," he added as an afterthought.

"Paraphrase it for me, El-Tee," he instructed, an undercurrent of impatience in his tone.

"I can't go into details over an open channel, sir, but you're needed at Daystrom as soon as possible." There was a brief pause. "I'm authorised to request a site-to-site transport from Starbase 1 if required."

Érin and Jhamel exchanged looks. There were only a handful of situations when the First Officer of a starship was urgently required at the Daystrom Institute, and none of them involved anything good happening.

"Need a ride?" Érin asked, quietly enough so the comm unit wouldn't pick it up.

Jhamel shook her head. "I'll be fine, Commander," she assured him, her tone suddenly all business. "Go do your job."

Érin replied with a nod of understanding, though couldn't quite manage to flush the disappointment from his expression as he brought the communicator back to his lips. "Copy that," he called, clambering back to his feet and trying to brush a little of the Alabama grass off his uniform. "Standing by for transport."

[Dale Goetz]

Kaiserswerth, Germany

Chief Engineers didn't take breaks. They would give their entire staff a spell or two, but never for themselves. While it might look like some kind of stoic selflessness, it was far from it, as every Chief was a little paranoid that the barrel of monkeys under his dominion would find some way to screw his ship up. This workaholic drive was greedy, egoistic, and fueled out of runaway levels of pride.

So when Érin had asked him to take a weekend off, it irritated Bear quite a bit. He doubled down, questioning whether it was an order or not. Too bad his superior called his bluff. Two days leave, that's an order, Chief. At first, Bear tested his resolve, choosing to skulk around the perimeter of the Huntsville drydocks in civilian clothing. Sightseeing was his excuse, even if the 'sights' were all on the other side of that perimeter fence. Érin caught him red-handed at Suge's, increased the furlough to three days, and told him in no uncertain terms to get the hell out of here.

Beaten, Dale Goetz sulked to his other home. Across the Atlantic in a shuttlecraft was a matter of a half hour give or take. Though rain flecked the window of the shuttle as they landed, the early morning sun was already starting to peek through the grey. Matthias and Jolene Goetz waited under the stoop of their brick home as the shuttlecraft came to a stop. Dale debarked, and the shuttle was gone as fast as it came, floating off through the morning clouds.

Matthias, hair white with age nevertheless retained the same hawk-eyed expression of all the Goetz men. Jolene, her hair a more salt & pepper mix than her husband's, smiled behind oversized glasses that she continued to wear in defiance of more modern corrective eyesight options.

"Hey Gran and Pop."

Bear slung his duffel over his shoulder, but was stopped by Matthias, who insisted on relieving the younger Goetz of the burden.

"Your Commander messaged us in advance. He said you were ordered to temporary reassignment."

The elder Goetz's eyes squinted knowingly as he placed a hand on his grandson's shoulder. Bear forced a smile, further irritated that Érin had roped his grandparents in on the caper.

"Kicking and screaming. No offense, Pop."

The trio entered the Goetz family home. Apollo, the family terrier, skittered across the hardwood floor, bounding from side to side in excitement as they came in.

"It's a Goetz engineering tradition, Dale. Come and sit in the kitchen, your grandmother made you dinner."

A familiar scent assailed his nose, and Bear's expression almost became wistful.

"You mean breakfast?"

"No, I mean dinner. You're on Starfleet time. Himmel und Äad, and Altbier."

Home cooking beat down the engineer's defenses, and Bear had no choice but to comply. The table was set with plates with generous portions of blutwurst, along with stewed apples folded into mashed potatoes. Two becher glasses were arrayed next to a 750ml bottle of Schlüssel Alt. Jolene's placement featured a coffee cup, as she'd never quite married into the Goetz family love of beer.

The family sat, and Matthias promptly dispensed the beer for Dale and himself.

"Did I ever tell you about my first mission into deep space? I was in space for a year, and our ship, the Curie, we needed some refitting when we returned to Earth. Everyone went on shore leave, and I stayed with the docks crew for reasons I'm sure you know. The only problem was that I didn't tell your grandmother."

Matthias creaked into laughter as he hid behind his beer from his spouse's stern gaze. She told the rest of the story.

"I waited three days. That was when they had all the Starfleet families stay on base. So I heard it from all the other fleet wives, asking where my man was at. Of course the insinuation was there was another woman. And there was."

Pausing between shoveling food in his mouth, Dale nodded at his grandmother's words, already having a good idea of who that woman was.

"The Curie."

Matthias' laughter confirmed it.

"She took a shuttle to the starbase and made it through clearance, and to this day I don't know how she did that. Must have scared ten years off the life of some poor crewman. The next thing I know, I'm being chased around the warp core by a pissed off lady with a handbag, flailing at me like a berserk Gorn!"

Dale had to pause, his middle shaking from stifled laughter at the mental image of his grandmother chasing his grandfather around a starship. Huntsville Goetz's called that one a Coming to Jesus moment. Matthias continued to tell the story.

"They actually dispatched security on her! Two big burly fellas, but not a one of 'em wanted to lay a hand on Jolene. I'm not sure it's because she was a lady or because she was wearing that handbag out on me. Either way, that beating didn't stop till she got tired of doing the beating."

Bear shook his head at that, washing down the parable with a thirsty quaff of altbier. It was a story that fit his grandparents to the letter. Professional bickerers, they kept the fact that they deeply loved each other a cleverly hidden secret sometimes.

"So, what's the moral of the story, Pop? Don't get married?"

The elder Goetz grinned, tapping the rim of his becher to Dale's own.

"That's not the moral. The moral is getting married to two wives is hard work. You have to love each with all your heart. I only made it out in one piece because your Grandmother is better than I deserve, and hard-headed as hell. Engineers put their life into their ship, Dale. It's awful tempting to put it all into the ship. And when somebody has to beat some sense into you, you often can't see it coming."

Bear looked at his grandfather's knowing expression as he laid the truth plain, and at last confronted the truth before him.

"It's my ship, Pop. If I'm not there..."

A calloused and work-scarred hand rested on top of Dale's.

"If you love her enough to put your best work in, she'll be faithful enough to not fall apart at the seams."

The Chief never thought of it that way. Suddenly, the nagging weight on his shoulders seemed to ease.

"Alright, Pop. Alright."

[Jorann Lokar]

"Whelan bitters. Straight up."

Jorann slouched over the bar like an Arbazan vulture, or, hell, sort of like the ones they had here in California, and the growl in his voice made it abundantly clearer than any fabled universal translator that the next words out of the bartender's mouth should be "Here's your drink, sir," and nothing else.

The huge man in the stool next to him, who had all the social graces of a rhesus monkey, smirked and said, "I warned you about that Caitian."

Jorann stared at G.P. in befuddled contempt. "What the hell are you talking about? We had a great time. We even left on speaking terms."

The bartender dropped off a dark, oily beverage in a square glass and moved off to find friendlier customers. G.P. Hendorff simply took a pull of his cheap American beer. "Whatever, man. Drown your sorrows in silence if you want. I don't care."

The Orion cadet took a measured sip of his liquor and wrinkled his nose at the pungent flavor. "My problem's Lieutenant Finnegan."

"Really? I didn't know you swung that way," Hendorff replied.

"Go to Klingon hell, G.P.," Jorann said, rubbing his eyes. "Finnegan, the adjunct navigation instructor. The man who's had it out for me all semester. Thinks he's a real comedian, gives out commendations for original thinking, but the moment I'm in the sim, he's all about Starfleet regulations. Picks me apart for the stupidest things, just because he thinks it's hilarious. The bastard made a point of telling me he's proctoring my practical tomorrow, so now I know how that's going to go."

G.P. laughed. "Since when do you care about grades?"

"I care about my reputation as a navigator," Jorann said pointedly. "I've been steering star freighters since I was sixteen, okay? I've solved the Mutara Nebula, the Antares Maelstrom, even the Badlands, and I didn't have Starfleet sensors to help me. I don't need some grinning slime devil criticizing my running light signals."

His roommate shook his head in disbelief and drained the last of his beer. "Dude. Jorann. You are taking this way too seriously. You've already got the Mayflower, right? What's he going to do, bust you down to cabin boy on a garbage scow?"

"I want the first shift on the Mayflower," Jorann griped. "Now, what do you think Captain Sutherland's going to do - read the instructor evaluations, or watch two hundred hours of sims to see what really happened?"

"I'm telling you, you're letting this guy get in your head. Anyway, you've got practicals tomorrow. Aren't you up kinda late?"

Jorann downed the rest of his bitters. "Aren't you?"

Hendorff raised a finger to flag down the bartender. "All I've got tomorrow is Exo-Botany," he said. "Besides, I got the Enterprise. Sorry, have I mentioned that before?"

The Orion sighed. "Only about five hundred times. Barkeep, get me another."

[Thaitla K'prerr]

The next morning was abuzz with activity like so many at the Academy. Uhura went her own way, as she was on duty to staff the Kobayashi sim. Thaitla didn't volunteer for it - something about the test still chafed at her sensibilities. Uhura seemed to relish it, especially since James Kirk was back in the chair after a few flops. She remembered Jorann mentioning his Sisyphian struggle against the no-win scenario, and maybe the Orion was right after all that she was better to let sleeping dogs lie. So instead of watching another cadet's simulated death, Thaitla returned to her second home - the comm's lab. When she arrived, the room was abuzz with discussion, and one word was on their lips:

Uhura

Somewhat irritated, Thaitla logged into her terminal as she sat beside another Caitian classmate - Shiboline M'ress. The younger Caitian gave Thaitla a little wave as she pressed an earpiece flush to her ear with a cupped hand. Waiting for a lull in her monitored comms, she whispered to the upperclassman.

"So Uhura cracked a Klingon battle communique?"

Thaitla began sifting through the backlog of crypto from the Neutral Zone that was assigned to her station, her tail switching about in mild irritation at the question.

"It wasn't exactly under secret code, it was a general distress."

"But still, she picked up chatter from the biggest battle I've ever heard of!"

"And if it was your shift on crypto, you would've heard it too, Shibs."

"But she's getting debriefed for hours today, and Commander Spock said..."

"I don't care who's talking to her, I don't care what Commander Spock said, I don't care!"

Cadet Hannity glanced up from his own terminal, and Thai's glance dissuaded him from getting any more of a gossip-laden peek. The older Caitian continued to grump to her younger colleague.

"She wouldn't have even finished the translation without my dialectics key. So, I mean, when you think about it..."

M'ress kept a funny grin on her face as Thaitla grumped.

"You're jealous of the attention, aren't you?"

Thaitla's response was a punctuated swat with her tail against M'ress's leg, which elicited a yelp. Hannity turned again, only this time to be scolded by the younger Caitian.

"If you don't finish that communique, you'll never know where the Romulan ends and the Vulcan begins, Hannity!"

The interlude allowed Thaitla to at least pretend to disappear into her work, which M'ress was not at all fooled by.

"So why don't you tell them it was your dialectics key?"

"Do you know how petty that sounds, Shibs? Besides, it's not just knowing the key, it's applying it. I listened to the logs, didn't you?"

The younger Caitian nodded.

"Half our crypto team would mess that up, even with the key. It's not exactly plug and play. There's a reason why the universal translator goes all sideways on that dialect."

M'ress paused, removing her earpiece and setting it aside.

"So Uhura's got talent. But so do you. Every bit as much. More than her."

Thaitla's expression darkened, and she swiveled away.

"Well, she's got forty-seven warbirds, and I've got...Romulans chasing a comet. Guess which one will land you on Enterprise."

[Reggie Swarston]

In an academy dorm not far away...


"Your invitation was disingenuous, Reggie. I was informed this was to be a study session."

Cadet N'Roc didn't exactly frown, he simply regarded his human friend in that infuriatingly aloof Vulcan way. Reggie Swarston, for his part, didn't take offense where other humans might when a gift horse was looked in the mouth. Instead, he calmly set aside the pizza box that rested on the sofa between them, and picked up the PADD on the coffee table. Clearing his throat, he read it's contents.

"Accounting for dilithium matrix integrity of plus/minus one / n^8 pico, and with a gravitational affection of 1.1 n^22 atmospheres, account for the antiproton spall of a tritium injection of .0005 picosecond duration."

N'Roc paused, staring into space a moment, before predictably returning a correct response.

"Antiproton spall would fall to 20 parts per trillion past initial matter stream with logarithmic decay."

And with that, Reggie flipped the PADD back onto the table.

"Nailed it, mate. That and 30 more like it are 90 percent of Sorak's test, and the rest is open book. Barring you getting a cranial slug, I think you got this one. Unless there's logic in looking for an answer you already know."

The Vulcan raised an eyebrow at Reggie's casual approach.

"Logic would warn against hubris. That which is knowable being already known is hardly a tautology."

Reggie was already opening the pizza box nearby, fishing out a big slice of cheese pizza.

"Yeah, and 0.9999 = 1. Sit and spin on that."

The only trouble with using logic as a foil against a Vulcan was that they took no injury at being the butt of that kind of joke. Finding merit in the human's analogy, he began to inspect the offered pizza, finding that while it was par for the course for questionably nutritious food that Reggie was a fan of, it was at least passably vegetarian. Of course, the human addage when in Rome said nothing of existent efficiencies, so N'Roc opted to head to the kitchenette for a plate and a fork before accepting the meal.

"Your vulgar metaphor notwithstanding, if your intention is not to study, I am to assume your motives are to compel me to indulge in another non-academic pursuit?"

Reggie made a pained expression, his mouth momentarily full of pizza. Setting the slice aside on a precariously-perched napkin on his couch's armrest, he paused before responding.

"'ang on a minute! Just because there ain't a PADD or a test, don't mean you can't learn a thing or two! In fact! I have something of a learning exercise planned!"

With a knowing smirk, Reggie stood up, heading to the open space of the living room where a cylindrical device rested on an entertainment center. He turned it on, picked up two controllers, and returned to the couch, distributing one controller to the Vulcan as the holographic gaming platform spun to life. After a brief fanfare of credits, it became clear that it was an open invitation to play a video game. N'Roc read along.

"Tekken InfiniVerse?"

"It's fuckin' boss, man! Borrowed it from that ginger bloke down the hall. I'm bout to go Sho Nuff on dat ass!"

Suddenly presented with an unknown to discover, N'Roc set aside whatever part of the exercise that might be infantile and regarded the controller with mild curiosity, turning it over in his hand.

"While there is no doubt some degree of knowledge required to...play...I question the practicality of such knowledge beyond the scope of the game."

"C'mon man! It's reflexes! Fast twitch! Hand-eye, and all that! KYAAAA!!!"

Reggie made an exaggerated martial arts pose, which for a man still sitting on a couch, looked predictably ridiculous.

"It's like wossit, that study about puzzle solvin and stuff, like it frees your head up for all that other crap."

N'Roc knew what studies Reggie ambiguously and energetically referred to, and clarification seemed redundant. It was at the very least, an unorthodox suggestion.

"Fascinating."

That was as close to "Fuck Yeah!" in Vulcan that Reggie was going to get, so he got on with it, moving to the character selection screen. Tekken InfiniVerse, the 48th title in the exhaustive series, had not only retained some of its original characters, but had moved on to adopt new options reflective of a cosmopolitan 22nd century reality. Reggie scanned the 80 selections, eventually landing on a Vulcan woman named Taran. As he selected her character, the holographic depiction of his selection posed in a way that seemed to elicit disapproval.

"Her proportions are anatomically...challenging."

The human wore a mildly lecherous grin.

"Yeh, that's a bit of alright, ain't it!"

"I disagree. She would be at some disadvantage in hand-to-hand combat. Her center of gravity..."

"Mate, I know it ain't exactly pon farr time, but everything's better with wabs."

Reggie's runaway jargon often eluded the Vulcan, but there was nothing at all subtle about Taran's key...features. There was no further need to argue logic in a decision clearly dictated by none. Instead, N'Roc selected his own character, which by his own logic was considerably more prudent.

"Klingon, eh? Nice, nice. You wouldn't beat up a pretty little Vulcan like me, would ya?"

"Isn't the object of the game to..."

"It's a joke, mate."

An awkward pause.

[Hindi Mahipo]

Daystrom Conference Centre
0900 Hours

Hindi ran a hand across her face, lingering over her tired eyes. They'd all been summoned to the Daystrom Centre in the dead of night because some xenolinguistics cadet at the Academy had stumbled on a transmission from the Klingons. If it was true, it meant that something capable of royally kicking the Klingons' asses was floating around in space, and Captain Mahipo was admittedly a little conflicted over that. On the one hand, the idea of anyone wielding that kind of power was all kinds of terrifying; but on the other hand, it was pretty hard not to root for the guy who took out forty-seven battlecruisers while escaping from the most despicable prison facility in the known galaxy.

About time the Klingons got a little comeuppance, she mused to herself.

Of course, this wasn't the kind of event that Starfleet could casually ignore, especially since the translation of the message - again, the work of cadets, so perhaps best taken with a grain of salt - credited the Romulans as being responsible. The Federation had contacted them through diplomatic channels and the Romulans had completely denied any knowledge of the ship or it's technology, which was really odd for them. Romulans pretty much lived in a permanent state of superiority complex; if they were responsible for a ship that formidable, there's no way they'd be able to resist bragging about it. That led credence to the theory that this was a ruse: a ploy to trick Starfleet into withdrawing forces from the Laurentian system.

A ruse was a decidedly dishonourable tactic, and the Klingons were supposedly all about honour; but these days the Empire seemed to be stretching the definition somewhat. For the last twenty-five years their activities in the Borderland had become increasingly more aggressive, and more recently they'd resorted to annexation and conquest to reinforce disputed regions. The Federation knew about the conquest of at least two worlds, and were it not for Starfleet intervention at Axanar seven years ago and at Laurent right now, there'd be two more worlds firmly in the iron grip of the Klingon Empire.

Right now though, no matter how compelling the Klingon deceit assumption might be, it was still very much that: an assumption. Starfleet was a scientific organisation at it's core, and even their tactical decisions needed to be built on facts and evidence. When those were absent, the only course of events was to prepare for every eventuality; or at least, as many as was realistically possible. If the Romulans, or the Klingons, or whoever it was did try and make some sort of move, they needed to be ready; and if they couldn't rely on ships from Laurent, they'd have to find them elsewhere. Luckily for Starfleet, there was already the best part of a dozen ships sitting around in Earth orbit not doing anything: but unfortunately those ships were half empty, waiting to replenish their crews from this year's class of cadets due to graduate in a month or so. Those skeleton crews weren't enough to take those ships into battle, so here they were: Captains, first officers, and a handful of instructors, working out which cadets to send where in the unlikely event that a worst case scenario ever occurred.

It had taken half the night, and they were still juggling. If it weren't for the fatigue, it probably would have been vaguely interesting - or fascinating, as the damned Vulcan instructor opposite kept saying. The over-abundance of cadets in some fields of study versus the surprising lack in others probably said a lot about the way the public viewed Starfleet, and people's motivations for enlistment. There was no shortage for less academically rigorous roles like security officers and yeoman; but while the Academy had an excess of science officers who wouldn't be much use if a space battle broke out, they had an alarming shortage of engineers. It was a sad truth, Hindi realised, but perhaps nearly two centuries since Zephram Cochrane's first warp flight, the scientific marvel that was faster than light propulsion had become so common place that no one found it impressive any more.

The Captain spared a glance for her first officer: her new first officer, lumped in with the instructors across the table because his starship role was hypothetical. She'd seen the conflict dancing across his face as they'd discussed filling out the helm and navigation roles, so anxious to contribute and do his part, and yet too modest to shoehorn his way in as a candidate. When the Vulcan Instructor had suggested the seventeen-year-old whiz kid for a role on the Enterprise - a fraction of Érinthe's age, and with absolutely none of his experience - it must have been a low blow, but to the Commander's credit he just sat there and took it; accepted the role he had because that's what Starfleet required of him.

She thought back to the application letter he'd sent; thought back to the responses he'd given when she'd asked why he wanted to remain a first officer, rather than accepting the command that Starfleet had offered. There was a fine line between modesty and doubt, and in truth she wasn't yet sure which side of the line he fell on: but give her a few years, and Hindi was convinced that she'd have trained him out of those bad habits and he'd have the kind of confidence and ego that any good Starfleet Captain needed.

"Captain Mahipo?" the Vulcan's voice pressed, snapping Hindi away from her thoughts.

"Hmm?" she responded, her eyebrows climbing in question.

A flicker of something that almost seemed like frustration swept across the Vulcan's face. "We were discussing communications officer candidates. I believe Cadet Uhura would be a logical choice to serve aboard the Farragut."

Hindi's eyes swept across the personnel file on her screen, the same one she'd been staring at when her eyes had begun to glaze over. "You identify her as one of your top students," she countered, a questioning frown thrown quickly in the Vulcan's direction. "Surely someone with her qualifications should be on the Enterprise? If anything happens, the Enterprise is likely to be our command ship, and I'm sure that Chris -"

She caught herself mid-way through the overly-familiar address, and allowed herself to spend another moment pondering over where her former Captain could possibly be; it wasn't like him to miss important briefings like this, and if he'd found an excuse to avoid this sort of thing she fully intended to interrogate it out of him for her own use.

"- Captain Pike," she corrected, "Would appreciate all of the communications officers and coordination staff that he can get."

It was possible that Hindi had imagined or projected the Vulcan's earlier frustration, but there was no questioning that glimmer of emotion. It was too subtle to identify whether it was surprise, panic, or something else; but clearly there was much more going on than this Commander Spock was freely admitting. That was all kinds of saucy and intriguing, and Hindi made a mental note to indulge her curiosity the next chance she got.

"The Enterprise is a new ship," Spock offered, "And she is largely untested in the field. In the event that she suffered some sort of malfunction or systems failure, it would be logical to ensure that there are redundancies elsewhere in the fleet."

Logical. Hindi hated that word, and the Vulcans' obsession with it; but while she didn't buy his story, she couldn't fault his reasoning. Her gaze flicked to Commodore Hudson, the flag officer given the unenviable job of chairing this little cadet auction. Talia shot her a questioning look; Hindi countered with a shrug. "The Commander's logic is sound," she admitted, conceding the point.

"Alright then," Talia added, taking charge of the conversation again. "Lieutenant Uhura will be assigned to the Farragut. Next on our list, we have -" She glanced at her records, squinted a little, carefully working her way around the unfamiliar word sounds. "- Cadet Thaitla K'perr..."