Day 1 (Sunday)
It had taken fourteen hours to travel to Earth from Vulcan. The shuttle captain and the captain of the Faraday had given him numerous pieces of advice on the trip. Much of it was trite and obvious, but the one recurring theme had been to keep his mouth shut, his ears open, and do as he was told. The advice was logical enough.
He had been a late arrival and now found himself in a large auditorium with approximately two hundred fifty other future cadets. They were mostly human, though he noticed two Andorians, two Rigelians, four Denobulans, five Tellarites, and a small Ithenite female, and a Risian male.
Some of the humans were sleeping but many others were chatting incessantly, causing a painful cacophony to echo throughout the large room. He sat very near the back and quietly observed. The hour on the large digital clock to the left of a stage read 0032.
A small human girl sitting across from him in the aisle smiled and waved at him. He nodded back to her.
"I'm Leslie," she said. "Leslie Saxena."
"I am Spock," he replied.
"That's an interesting name. You're from Vulcan, right?"
"Correct."
The human desire to intimate the vast details of one's life was apparently not restricted to the crewmen aboard the shuttle. For twenty minutes he listened to Leslie Saxena droll on about how she had been there since before the sun came up, how her mother was an author, how she grew up in a place called New Haven, how she liked to dance ballet and grow roses, and how she joined Starfleet on a whim.
"You don't talk much, do you?" she said, having to raise her voice to be heard over the din.
"I speak when it is necessary to do so."
"Well, can you watch my stuff while I go to the bathroom? I hate carting it around everywhere."
"Very well," Spock agreed, presuming she intended him to guard her belongings against theft or damage.
Approximately one minute after her departure, a man in a Starfleet uniform entered through a side door and approached the stage. Once he reached the podium, Spock's sensitive ears picked up the mild crackle of a loudspeaker.
"Ok everyone, take your seats and quiet down," he announced.
The majority complied with his request, but a few sizable groups toward the back seemed to openly disregard the direction.
"Did I make it sound like it was optional?" the man insisted, raising his voice by a few decibels.
It took another fifteen seconds for the room to finally grow silent and Spock turned his attention back toward the stage.
"I realize it's late and many of you probably are probably tired... get used to it. If you feel like you are going to fall asleep, feel free to stand up and move to the back of the room. If I bore you, deal with it. If you are hungry, breakfast is in five hours and you will live until then. Is everyone with me so far?"
One of the double doors immediately behind Spock creaked open and then slammed loudly. Most of the auditorium turned to see Leslie Saxena standing there, and Spock noticed her flesh was a peculiar shade of off-white.
"I'm so glad you could join us," the man at the podium said, clicking a button on his shirt to transfer the transmission of the microphone as he walked toward the edge of the stage. "What's your name?"
"Leslie," she murmured.
"I'm sorry, you're going to have to use your big person voice," the man replied.
"L-Leslie Saxena," she replied, barely louder than before.
"Are you asking me or telling me?" the man demanded. "Actually, never mind, that's ok. You're shy. We will make you un-shy by the end of these six weeks. That's why you're here. That is why you're all here."
Spock watched Leslie Saxena almost faint into her seat and wondered why she was so gravely affected by simply being asked for her name. He didn't have long to reflect however, because the man continued to speak.
"My name is Commander Christopher Pike. I am the newly appointed Director of Initial Entry Training at Starfleet Academy. If you play your cards right, today will be the last day you see me until the day you graduate from this course six weeks from now. If you see me before then, it is probably because you have done something wrong and you are standing on the carpet in my office explaining your misbegotten actions. You do not want to get to know me. Are there any questions so far?"
Spock had many, but like everyone else in the room remained silent. He gathered from the stilted and repetitive pattern of Commander Pike's speech that it would be a long one and reasoned many answers to his questions would be forthcoming without posing them.
"Then here is your first lesson. When you are asked a question or told to do something, you will answer with the appropriate 'aye, sir' or 'aye, ma'am,' 'no, sir,' or 'no, ma'am.' Is that clear?"
A soft chorus of "aye, sir" rippled through the auditorium.
"You all sound like kittens mewing for mommy," Pike snapped. "Say it like you mean it."
"Aye, sir," they insisted with increased volume.
"Excellent. You are here for initial entry training. That means you are here to learn what Starfleet is all about. If you graduate this course, then and only then will you go on to become cadets. I've read many of your files. Some of you practiced law or medicine before you came here. Some of you owned businesses or did independent research. For others, this is your first time away from home."
Spock noticed Pike scan the assembly and nod to himself before returning to his speech. The side door opened and twelve individuals in black uniforms filed in to stand stiffly to the right of the stage, but Pike either didn't notice or didn't care.
"You come from sixteen different Federation planets and colonies: Andoria, Vega, Deneva, Tellar Prime, Lunar One, Rigel, Risa, Denobula, Vulcan…"
He trailed off and Spock met Pike's eyes from all the way at the back of the room. A few people turned to look in Spock's direction, but the commander began speaking again.
"You all represent very rich and diverse cultures and backgrounds. During this course, you will find yourself challenged to reach out and understand people that are very different from you. You will find this difficult at times. It would be weird if you didn't. But that, ladies and gentleman, is what Starfleet is all about. You will make friends and you will make some enemies, but at the end of the day, you will respect each other, work together, coexist peacefully, and show respect for the traditions of Starfleet. Is that clear?"
The auditorium echoed with a resounding, "Aye, sir!"
"Now, these men and women are your cadre," Pike explained, finally acknowledging the black-clad individuals standing to his right. "They are your instructors, your trainers, your new mommies and daddies. They are not your friends. You will address them by their proper rank and last name. You will be tempted to give them nicknames – resist that temptation. They do not like it – it makes them angry. When they are angry, they will make your lives unhappy. When your lives are unhappy, you do silly things. When you do silly things, you stand on my carpet. Do not stand on my carpet."
By the end of his choppy lecture he was nearly growling. He paused for what Spock assumed was emphatic measure, and then continued. "I will dismiss you momentarily, and when I do, your lives belong to my cadre for the next six weeks."
Spock began examining the uniformed personnel and noted the complete lack of emotion in their faces. He expected humans to be expressive and emotional, yet he was not prepared for the absolute neutrality of this particular group.
"That is all I have at this time," Pike concluded, looking over to the broad-shouldered officer nearest the stage. "I wish you all good luck, and if you survive the next six weeks, I'll be proud to welcome you into Starfleet Academy."
Pike moved toward the stairs and the broad-shouldered man bellowed, "On your feet!" It was pandemonium as the two hundred cadets stood in the narrow spaces between the stadium chairs. Pike waved his hand, smiled, and said, "Carry on."
"Don't take your seats just yet kids," the broad-shouldered man yelled. Spock noted that he didn't require artificial amplification to carry his voice through the room.
"When I say 'go,' you will file calmly into the five aisles and organize yourselves into lines based on your last name. I'm assuming you all know your names and how to spell them, but you'll still screw it up, you always do. If your name is at the beginning of the alphabet, move to the right. If it is at the end of the alphabet, move to the left. You're all supposed to be the brightest of the bright, so if your name is in the middle of the alphabet, I'll let you figure out where to go. I'll give you a hint – try the middle of the room."
Spock collected his bags and moved toward the far left of the room, allowing Leslie Saxena to go before him. He waited behind her toward the end of a line containing people whose last names began with the letters R, S, or T and reflected on Pike's words. The line shuffled forward and he heard Leslie Saxena get assigned to Sigma Squad.
"Name?" asked a thin blonde man.
"S'chn T'gai Spock."
"What?" the man asked again, gaping at Spock.
Spock repeated himself and the man furrowed his eyebrows and appeared to try to form his mouth into an appropriate shape to repeat the name. "Yeah, anyway... you're with Sigma Squad. Go see Morrison."
He nodded toward an exceptionally short man with a surly expression who was pointing to the door and yelling at a group of fifteen cadets. Spock joined the group and found himself ushered out of doors into the warm and humid night. They formed into two rows of eight and other cadets filed out of the auditorium to assemble into similar formations nearby.
Spock listened to the rhythm of hundreds of unique and discordant sounds. He could hear the quick and shallow breathing of his fellow cadets in varying degrees of apprehension, the slaps of shoes smacking the pavement as people ran this way and that, and chaotic shouting from all directions. The man who had been identified as Morrison stood before them, rubbing his temples. A slight man of particularly short stature approached him and they conversed briefly.
"I am Lieutenant Quinones," the short man shouted suddenly, approaching the squad in a threatening manner. "You will all call me Instructor Quinones. Understood?"
"Aye, sir," they replied, slightly out of unison.
He began strutting up and down the formation of cadets and speaking to each in turn while Morrison went around to the back row of the squad and did the same.
"So are we taking bets with this class, Morrison?" Quinones asked, stopping with his arms crossed in front of an older cadet with fading red hair.
"Sure," Morrison replied. "There's always one quitter, who's gonna be it?"
"My money's on gramps here," Quinones said. "What's your name and how old are you, trainee?"
"I'm Hadrian Scriver. I'm thirty-nine," he answered.
"Thirty-nine what?" Quinones barked.
"Thirty-nine years… old?" the red-haired man replied, a barely discernable quaver rising in his voice.
"How about thirty-nine years old, sir?" Quinones roared. "You know what? No, all of you, get ready to do pushups, now!"
Spock was the first to comply, placing his hands on the ground, kicking his feet out, and straightening his back to begin the exercise. Most of the other cadets looked around nervously and started to follow his example, but their slowness only seemed to anger Quinones more.
"At least one of you has half a brain and can follow simple instructions!" he roared, pointing at Spock. "You all had hearing tests before you joined, right?"
The other cadets quickly got on the ground into the pushup position, and Morrison began a chant of "Down! Up! Down! Up!" while Quinones continued talking.
"What Trainee Scrivner just demonstrated to you is that when one of you messes up, you will all be punished. That is what it is like to serve in Starfleet: if someone slacks off or doesn't do the job right, everyone will suffer. One day, you may find yourself all alone in the vastness of space, and you will realize that you are only as strong as the weakest member of your crew. This course will make you work as a team. When someone on your team is doing the wrong thing, it is to your benefit, and to the benefit of the rest of the team to make sure that person fixes it. Understood?"
"Aye, sir!" they replied.
From the corner of his eye, Spock noticed the thin arms of the woman to his left were shaking. She looked more like a girl really: she had a very small build and when they had been standing, the top of her head had only come up to his shoulder. He noticed a forceful expression on her face that was growing more intense as they continued to do pushups.
After they had done thirty repetitions, Quinones yelled, "On your feet!" and they complied readily. When Spock stood, Quinones was directly in front of him.
"What's your name, trainee?" he sneered.
"S'chn T'gai Spock, sir," he replied, keeping his eyes fixed in front of him without looking directly at Quinones.
"What?" Quinones retorted.
"S'chn T'gai Spock, sir," he repeated.
"What whole thing is your name?" Quinones laughed in disbelief. "I'm calling you Trainee Spock."
"Aye, sir," Spock replied, wondering if Quinones intended it as some kind of insult to refer to him by his given name.
"I've heard Vulcans are a pretty logical bunch," Quinones continued. "Do you think this course is going to be easy, Trainee Spock?"
Spock didn't even have to consider the question to understand there was no correct answer that would not devolve into more group punishment.
"Nothing to say, trainee?" Quinones rumbled.
"I presumed your question was rhetorical," Spock replied.
"Oh!" Quinones yelled, clapping his hands together in what appeared to be absurd delight. "Did you hear that Morrison? We have our resident smart-ass right here. Trainee Spock."
"You know what that sounds like to me?" Morrison asked, coming around to the front of the formation. "It sounds to me like Trainee Spock wants everyone to do more pushups."
And they did. As the formation reassumed the pushup position, the small girl to his left gave him a look of defeated contempt. She fatigued more quickly this time, and after they had done twenty, Morrison knelt down beside her.
"Are you getting tired, trainee?" he asked her.
Spock was beginning to see the obvious pattern to the carefully targeted interrogations. He logically concluded that this cycle of impossible questions and subsequent punishment was likely to endure until all of his fellow squad mates had been singled out at least once.
"No, sir," she squeaked.
"What's your name, trainee?" Morrison drawled.
"Susan Spencer, sir," she answered with a very high-pitched voice.
"How old are you, Trainee Susan Spencer?" Morrison asked.
"Twenty-five, sir," she said, struggling to lift her body back to the up position.
"Ha! I would have guessed half of that. Are you sure you're not tired?"
Spock noticed her sigh and believed she was beginning to draw the same conclusion that he already had – there were no correct answers in this charade.
It went on that way for another hour as each cadet in turn became responsible for more mass punishment. He was surprised how quickly his human counterparts seemed to tire, but eventually, they were instructed to collect their bags and shepherded into a nearby building where hundreds of other cadets from other squads were formed into a queue with an unknown destination.
The line crept along and for the next two hours he carefully observed his surroundings. The only sound came from the shuffling of feet as the line inched forward periodically and the boisterous discussions of the instructors waiting on a group of benches toward the front of the room. Occasionally one would spring from his or her seat to patrol up and down the winding line and demand to know why people were talking, smiling, breathing too loudly, or "blinking weird."
Eventually he reached the front of the line and was ushered through a narrow doorway into a second room, which held another line that snaked back and forth before feeding into a door at the opposite end of the room. He wondered whether the inefficiency was deliberate as a means of further psychological confusion and distress or simply a byproduct of too many cadets and too few administrative personnel. After another hour he entered the third room and found himself in a large warehouse containing all manner of uniforms and equipment.
He was required to turn in his personal bags and was given a large gray rucksack that was quickly filled with two pairs of black boots, running shoes, four physical fitness uniforms, four general purpose uniforms, socks, underwear, a belt, towels, two locks, and bed linens. He was directed out of the building and found himself outside again and was instructed to stand quietly in formation with the rest of his squad.
When Sigma Squad was fully assembled, they were marched into a gray two-story building half a kilometer away. Quinones informed them these were their new barracks and instantly set to work screaming at them to change into their black physical training uniforms and unpack their clothing and equipment.
The room had eight bunk beds; four against each wall with a short partition dividing each bunk into a separate space and a taller partition dividing it down the middle. The females moved to the left side of the room and the males took the right.
"Trainee Spock!" Quinones roared.
"Aye, sir," Spock replied.
"If I call your name, that means report to me, trainee," Quinones snapped before adding, "I am not your butler. I do not come to you."
Spock jogged over to him and Quinones stuffed an old-style binder into his hands.
"You're my new barracks leader. You seem smart: prove it. Everything you need to know is in that book," he explained, pointing to the binder. "You have ten minutes to get this entire room set up to the specifications you will find on page five of that manual. When you are done, you will all wait quietly at the foot of the bunks. Do you understand?"
"Aye, sir," Spock replied.
"We'll see," Quinones smiled before leaving the room and slamming the door.
Spock quickly flipped to page five and found a perfectly detailed diagram for how each cubicle should be laid out. It specified everything from the precise way to make the bunks to how to fold the sleeves of the uniforms inward and hang them in the corresponding wall lockers. Spock instantly recognized it would be close to impossible for all sixteen members of his squad to duplicate this in the allotted time.
Still, they were waiting on him for direction, so he carefully analyzed the schematic for another twenty seconds and then removed it from the book and handed it to Leslie Saxena.
"You're in charge of that side of the room. Follow this precisely," he said.
"But what about-"
"Follow me," Spock interrupted, collecting his rucksack and moving toward the first bunk on the right side.
He quickly set to work constructing the space to the exact specifications of the diagram while the other males watched. Four minutes later, the bottom bunk was perfectly made with a bath towel and washcloth neatly draped over the left hand side of the foot of the bed and the clothes immaculately stowed away in the adjacent wall locker.
The others set to work trying to follow his example and he moved to the female side of the room to check their progress, making corrections where necessary. With eight seconds to spare, all of the cadets were lined up at the end of the bunks. The door swung open quickly and slammed into the wall and Quinones and Morrison stomped in.
Spock noted a fleeting look of surprise on their faces. Quinones scowled and carefully moved up and down the cubicles while Morrison stood at the front of the room with his arms crossed.
"Ha! Found a deficiency. Trainee Schassler here put the lock on his wall locker backwards. Let's do pushups trainees! Gotta pay for Schassler's negligence!"
While they were doing the exercise, Morrison and Quinones continued to move around the room but found no other issues. Spock could draw no logical conclusions about what the punishment would be for following the diagram more closely than Quinones had clearly expected.
It turned out to be other forms of physical exercise that included sit-ups, running in place, and something Morrison referred to as "jumping jacks." After another hour, they stood at attention while the instructors left the room to confer between themselves.
"Remind me why I joined Starfleet again?" mused a male voice at the other end of the row of bunks.
The question garnered a few chuckles. Spock turned his head slightly to look at the six humans and the lone Denobulan male that made up his half of the room. The man next to him was swaying slightly and had glassy eyes and beads of perspiration forming on his face.
Spock approximated that it was approaching 0600, which was quickly confirmed when Morrison returned and marched them to a nearby single story building to eat breakfast. The meal consisted of a number of heavy fats and starches that he was ill accustomed to, yet he ate it all the same.
Spock noted the exuberance from earlier in the auditorium was gone, replaced by stunned cadets struggling to stay awake while quietly shoveling food into their mouths. He was aware that humans required more sleep than Vulcans, but was still surprised by how easily they exhausted.
After breakfast they were marched to a medical facility where they each received a secondary physical exam. He waited in a tiny, private cubicle for over an hour and took the time to meditate and re-center his emotions. Thus far nothing he had experienced had been disturbing, at least not to him, but it was still a significant change from the usual solemnness he was accustomed to on Vulcan.
Just as he was approaching a deep meditative state, a surly physician entered and began taking readings with a medical tricorder. He eventually pulled a small PADD from his coat pocket and entered some data and grumbled, "Healthy as a horse."
"Are equine species generally considered to be of superior health?" Spock inquired.
The doctor's eyes darted from his handheld device to study Spock, but he quickly went back to keying in data.
"You're the first human-Vulcan hybrid to serve in Starfleet," the doctor mused after several minutes.
"I imagine if you examined the medical histories of every cadet, you could find some unique, defining characteristic," Spock rebutted.
He was one of only twenty-five human-Vulcan hybrids known to medical literature, and as a result he had been something of a medical oddity his entire life. Therefore, the physician's attitude was unsurprising but still illogical.
"Yeah," the doctor frowned. "The problem is there's no species code on your medical file. Should you need medical treatment during the course of your Starfleet career, which you will, they're going to want to know what kind of medical care to provide."
"I am sorry I can be of little assistance to you, being unfamiliar with Starfleet's medical coding protocols," Spock replied.
After another hour of waiting while the physician contacted various personnel within Starfleet's medical command, Spock received an appropriate species code and was ushered into a room for a hearing test. After the surly technician informed him that his hearing was superb enough to "hear a flea fart," he was subjected to blood screenings, a vision test, and eventually found himself in a line for immunizations.
He was behind Susan Spencer, the small woman with the high-pitched voice from his squad. She turned and looked at him imploringly and was about to say something when an unfamiliar female instructor in a black uniform approached and narrowed her eyes and Susan Spencer shut her mouth and faced forward again.
Eventually he reached a station with a portly woman holding a PADD and a hypospray. As had happened numerous times already, she got confused over the spelling of his name and eventually just referred to him informally as "Spock." She began to administer a series of hyposprays, and by the twenty-eighth injection, his neck began to hurt. None of the other cadets had received even half this amount and he inquired as to why.
"Well, being a human-Vulcan hybrid, Starfleet medical has you down for all required vaccinations for both species: only nine more to go. This one's for Arethian flu," she grinned.
"Is that disease not extraordinarily rare?" Spock asked.
"I just work here," she snapped, jamming the hypospray into his neck more forcefully than she probably intended, causing Spock to wonder if questioning her competence had been a wise decision with so many more injections remaining.
When she was done, his neck ached so badly that it caused considerable discomfort to even turn his head. Immunizations were the last station of medical inprocessing, and he was herded outside to wait with the rest of his squad.
Waiting made up the majority of the subsequent twelve hours. He waited in lines and ate his mid-day meal, waited in lines and filled out forms, waited in lines and filled out more redundant forms, waited in lines and ate end-meal, and waited in lines and received more equipment. It was just before midnight when Quinones marched them back to their barracks.
Spock was ready to admit he felt tired, but he still appeared to be faring better than any of his human comrades. He had seen Hadrian Scrivner sleeping while standing in line for dinner and he was currently watching Leslie Saxena slowly lean into the wall with her eyes closed. He was not as adept as his mother at interpreting human facial expressions, but it was readily apparent that everyone around him was exhausted and emotionally dejected.
Quinones gave them a short briefing on what to expect tomorrow. They were to wake up at 0600 hours, be downstairs in formation by 0615, and then they would go on a five-kilometer run. After a short period of personal hygiene and breakfast, they would spend the rest of the day negotiating obstacle courses and something Quinones referred to as "trust-building and confidence exercises."
"Trainees Spock and Schmidt!" Quinones bellowed.
Spock and his bunk mate, Andrew Schmidt, trotted over to Quinones.
"Congratulations, you're first place winners in the roving patrol sweepstakes," Quinones announced in a singsong voice.
"I do not take your meaning, sir," Spock replied.
"It means that for the next two hours, you and Schmidt will be walking laps around the outside of the building with flashlights and making sure everything is safe. When your shift is up, you will wake up Saxena and Spooner over there, and they will pull a shift from 0200-0400 hours. There's a roster posted by the duty desk downstairs, as well as a list of instructions."
Schmidt started in surprise and stared open-mouthed at Quinones and stammered, "But-"
"But what, Schmidt? Are you tired?"
Spock noticed the whites of Schmidt's eyes were strangely reddish, as if a few of the human blood vessels in his eyes had burst. "No, sir."
"Great," Quinones chimed, before adding, "Now close your mouth: you look like you're missing a chromosome. Both of you get downstairs. It is now 0001, and you are one minute late for your shift. Because of your tardiness, the rest of the squad is going to pay."
As he and Schmidt hurriedly left the room, he noticed Leslie Saxena's chin quivering as she got down to do pushups.
As he raced down the two flights of stairs, Spock considered everything that had transpired in the previous twenty-four hours. He was adaptable, but he was still significantly out of his element. That seemed to be the purpose of all of this: the yelling, the brusque attitudes, and the unrealistic expectations were all designed to instill mental discipline and perseverance.
While mental discipline was something he had a substantial supply of, he found himself questioning his ability to adequately relate to his peers. By the day's end, his squad mates had been looking to him for guidance, and that was something he felt ill equipped to provide to such an emotionally charged species.
It was irrational to question his decision to join Starfleet at this particular juncture. His choice had been made. He would endure. Regret was illogical.