Title: What Ships Are Built For
Author: Sedri
Rated: G / K
Summary: Hoshi very nearly backed out of the Enterprise mission entirely. Extended scene for Broken Bow. Complete.

Disclaimer: Star Trek: Enterprise is not mine.

Author's Notes: Written for the First Anniversary Ficathon at where_no_woman on LiveJournal. Prompt: Hoshi originally resisted the idea of joining the Enterprise crew. What was she thinking when she weighed teaching vs. Enterprise? What if she'd chosen to stay on Earth?

Revised and reposted April 2012.

What Ships Are Built For
by Sedri

"Ships in harbor are safe, but that's not what ships are built for."
– John Shedd

Eighty poly-guttural dialects. Constructed on an adaptive syntax. The possibilities were staggering, and Hoshi found herself moving closer. "Turn it up."

Archer clicked a button a few times and handed it over. A satisfied look was creeping into his eyes but she ignored it, drinking in the new sounds: "... gla'moq... q'in taH, qHus!..."

"Think of it," said Archer. "You'd be the first Human to talk to these people. Do you really want someone else to do it?"

Hoshi looked up at her would-be captain, a light in her eyes and a little smile tugging at her lips. She watched him a moment, eyes flicking down to the audio device, then said, "Sir, you're trying to bribe me."

He laughed out loud, startling a few brightly-plumed birds in the nearby trees. As they scattered off towards other perches, he began to walk again, and gestured to the tempting little sample. "Call it an enticement – a taste of what's waiting for you out there."

She said nothing, mind and ear still revelling in the wonderful new patterns, but forced herself to turn it off. Her amusement was fading and she toyed with the smooth metal in her fingers. "Captain... I just can't abandon my responsibilities like this. I promised the university that I'd be here until the end of semester."

"I'll talk to them for you. Or I can ask Admiral Forrest, if you think they'll take that better."

"Admiral Forrest can't conjure a new linguistics professor out of thin air," replied Hoshi. "My students need me."

Archer shook his head, politely sceptical. "Students were taking and passing these courses long before you were teaching them." When all she did was frown, he sighed. "What if you could work with them from Enterprise?" he asked, searching for a compromise. "We'll still be well within comm range – you could have their exams sent by subspace and arrange for video conferences to tutor them."

Hoshi paused. "It wouldn't be the same," she began, thinking of the electronic interference that could easily muddle pronunciation exams. "But..."

She trailed off. In the lingering silence, Archer turned to her. "But?"

It had been on the tip of her tongue to say, "it could work", but she swallowed the words. Whether he realised it or not, Captain Archer's sudden urgency was giving her the opportunity to back out of the new mission entirely – and it was a chance that part of her was sorely tempted to take.

Hoshi couldn't deny that she'd been getting more and more anxious about this assignment as their launch date drew nearer. She often found herself remembering the less pleasant parts of her three years in Starfleet training – weapons practice, EV suits, evacuation drills... all things she wanted to keep well out of her life and was now actively inviting in.

It was silly, though. Why go through all that only to back out of service now? Starfleet had given her the chance to put all her years of intensive, isolated study into practice – something that would never happen if she stayed behind. For all that exolinguistics was a rapidly-expanding area of study, it was still propelled by recorded data supplied by the Vulcans and was an entirely academic profession. Unless one wanted to spend their life either teaching or studying – or working in a consulate, maybe – there was no practical application for such skills at all.

And Hoshi didn't want to spend her life teaching. Not even twenty-two yet, she was praised as the youngest tertiary instructor in her field, perhaps in any field, but it was an empty honour. When she had first realised, ten years ago, that her talent could put her out in the world among other people – wonderful, new, exotic people – she'd been thrilled. Language was something familiar, but also something that could reach out to others and bring them into her world. She'd been lured, first by the chance to connect with other Humans and then with a galaxy full of aliens, and had thrown herself into her studies, determined to become exactly what she now was: a professional communications officer.

But that was before the realities of space travel, with all its uncertainties and risks, had really sunk in.

Archer was still waiting for an answer. She knew she could talk to him and explain all these fears – commanding officer or no he'd always been friendly, and she felt comfortable confiding in him – but she bit her lip. The problem with Archer was that he could probably find solutions for every one of her problems, and she wasn't sure she wanted him to. As it stood, she had excuses, reasons to back out; reasons that she could convince herself outweighed Starfleet's need for her particular talents. There were other candidates, she told herself, people who could take the post and leave her free to stay and teach – stay with what was known and comfortable, what didn't scare her.

"Hoshi?"

She glanced up, lips parted and ready to speak, but closed them again.

The first time she'd met Jonathan Archer, he'd taken her out to dinner and spent the whole evening chatting about his father's engine and all the wonders of the galaxy that Humans were finally going to see. He'd just been selected as captain of Enterprise and was recruiting his senior staff, though later on he admitted to having singled her out a lot earlier. The short of it was, he'd talked her into it. The launch had been a comfortable six months away and at that point, sitting in a restaurant full of familiar people with a menu she'd long since memorised, the challenges and discoveries open to her made for a far more compelling argument than the vague, unlikely dangers. Hoshi remembered thinking, It's not like I want to stay here forever.

But that's exactly what she would be doing. Maybe not in Brazil, but within the confines of Human culture. Oh, she could leave Earth – New Berlin, Mars, even Vega colony were open to her – but it would mean her only chances to learn new alien languages would be through transmitted data that someone else had already analysed. She would end up studying it all through computers, sitting in an office – alone, again.

She'd been alone for far too long.

Letting out a breath, she turned to Captain Archer. "It could work," she said, and was surprised that her voice was so steady. "I'd need to be on light duty for the first three weeks, or at least on gamma shift so I can use the comm channel during my normal office hours. We'd also have to set up a higher-quality comm line between here and Starfleet Headquarters – there's too much background static in the transmissions to mark oral exams right now. And I'll need all of the next two days to make arrangements here, so I won't be able to report in until the last minute. ...Sir."

He was watching her patiently, a smile growing on his facem and it made her feel like a spoiled, demanding child. "Sir?" she said again, still steadily. "Will that be possible?"

"I'll make it possible," promised Archer. "Whatever it takes. And thank you, Hoshi," he said, taking the rather un-captain-like liberty of hugging her around the shoulders. "It's good to know we'll have you with us. I'm glad."

And really, Hoshi thought, smiling, so was she.