It turned out that Tara had only two out of eight classes in common with Jo, excluding lunch. The first, Basic Survival Training, took place with all first-year Cadets in one class, so it was no shock they were together. The second, Basic Flight Training, was split into three groups of first-year Cadets. Jo despised the class. But more on that later.
Since those two classes were the first of the day, Jo had to fend for herself for the other six classes. The next three weren't that bad— just her nursing classes. But after lunch with Tara, who always asked her if anyone had bothered her so far, was the class that Jo hated even more than Basic Flight Training (BFT): Hand-to-Hand Combat 101.
Jo's Hand-to-Hand class consisted of the most athletic members of the first years. Unfortunately, those same people were also the ones that hated her the most. They hated that she was a prodigy, that she was only sixteen to their 18 or 19 or 20.
Also, she was completely clueless when it came to fighting. Her Uncle Jim had taught her how to punch, but she'd been only ten years old, and her father had nearly blown a blood vessel when he found out. She'd punched a few girls that had said something bad about Uncle Jim or her father, but that was it.
So far, she'd gotten two black eyes, two cracked ribs, a sprained wrist, and more bruises than she could count. The school year had only been going on for twelve days. Tara had asked at first, but Jo insisted she didn't need protection. It was her own problem that she'd never learned to fight. She could learn on her own.
One of her trainers, who insisted he simply be called Daniels, began to give her private sessions. Jo learned to fight, and she learned how to fight well. Not only could she punch pretty damn hard, she could take down Daniels in three minutes flat.
At first, she still pretended to be hopeless at fighting, just for the heck of it. Once one of the bastards gave her a mild concussion, though, Joanna McCoy had finally had enough. It was time to fight back.
After two weeks of fights where she kicked all of their asses solidly, they left her alone... In Hand-to-Hand, at least. Everywhere else she wasn't allowed to fight them, so Jo was forced to ignore their insults and threats.
One person in particular bothered her the most. His name was Thomas Maxwell. Maxwell was a young man training to be a StarFleet doctor. Jo thought he was too violent to be a doctor, but then again, her father was one of the most violent people she'd ever met, and he was an amazing doctor. Maxwell was bitter because he had barely been accepted at age 22, and had had to retake all of his first year classes, while Joanna was only 16 and clearly highly intelligent.
His insults had quickly transformed into threats. "Hey, McCoy," he'd snarl. "You better stop being so smart in class, or I'll put my knowledge of the weak points of the human body to use." Jo always ignored him, as per usual, not thinking he would have the balls to actually attack her.
She changed her mind after one disastrous incident during BFT. Tara was sick that day, back in their dorm room with a nasty stomach virus, so Jo was all alone in the class she feared.
Tara was the only one that could stop her hyperventilating while on a shuttle, stop her phobia from crippling her and making her mind shut down into its most primal state. No Tara Trenton was bad news. But once she learned who her replacement partner was for that day, she knew that things were about to get much, much worse.
"Cadet McCoy!" Cried her flight instructor.
She walked over. "Yes, sir."
"Your partner for today will be Cadet Maxwell. I trust this will not be a problem?" Her instructor's tone of voice made it clear that if she did have a problem she was to keep it to herself.
Jo swallowed thickly, fear working its way up her throat. "No, sir."
"Good." Then he stalked away, shoulders tense.
When Jo turned around, Thomas Maxwell was already there, something sinister glinting deep in his eyes. "You gonna cry, McCoy? Are you gonna cry now that TRENTON isn't here to protect you?"
"No, Maxwell." She spat, anger replacing the fear in an instant. "Are YOU gonna cry when ya crash the simulator while I kick your ass?" She had never been so determined to succeed in BFT before.
He laughed. "You? You can't even walk INTO a shuttle without breaking into a sweat!" He paused. "I heard once that your DADDY, Big Mister CMO McCoy? I heard that he's even more of a BABY on a shuttle than YOU are!"
Jo heard a ringing in her ears as her blood boiled. It was one thing for him to insult her— she'd been insulted by her peers and her mother all her life. It was another thing ENTIRELY to insult her father. He was the one person who'd never done anything wrong to her in her short life.
Luckily, before she punched him, they were sent off to their simulator assignments.
Only this time, you went inside alone.
Previously, there had always been your partner in with you, to give you tips and help if things got out of control. But now, you were in there all by yourself. Which meant no one would be in the simulation to help her if she hyperventilated.
Maxwell, of course, made her go first. She still wanted to punch him for the comment he'd made about her father earlier, but the fact she was going to have to fly a shuttle BY HERSELF was making her want to die. Or burst into tears. Whichever happened first.
"CADETS!" Bellowed the flight instructor. "ENTER YOUR SIMULATIONS!"
With shaking legs, Jo entered the shuttle. This would be a lot easier if the simulation shuttle didn't look EXACTLY like a real one. Instead of the whole thing feeling like a video game, it felt so real that she still felt the familiar spike of terror as soon as she walked in.
The takeoff went smoothly. She didn't hit a single shuttle or satellite on the way out, despite her sweaty palms and shallow breaths. Once she broke orbit, however, was when everything went to hell.
Suddenly, the stabilizer on the simulation, which kept everything feeling realistic but in control, seemed to break. The shuttle began shaking violently, making Jo's stomach, which normally was fine on a shuttle despite her phobia, began to churn threateningly.
A few seconds after that, the controls stopped working. Her mild anxiety suddenly morphed into a full-out bout of hyperventilation and panic. Jo's vision blurred, her lungs gasped for air but didn't draw in any breath, and she was paralyzed with fear.
The shaking grew worse, even though her simulation shuttle on screen had crashed into the space station and exploded. The large red words reading 'SHUTTLE TERMINATED' seemed to burn into her mind.
Jo didn't realize she was screaming until she noticed her throat was sore. Moments after that she realized the whole thing had filled with smoke. She was going to die. She was going to die in a freak simulation shuttle accident and there was no one to save her... She was never going to see Pavel again... Jim... Her father...
Her hyperventilating and the smoke in her lungs eventually got to Jo's head. Her terror was complete, her lungs starved for oxygen as she breathed but drew in no air, and she was actually relieved when everything slowly faded into black.
When Jo woke up, she smelled the reassuring scent of antiseptic. Antiseptic meant she was in the infirmary. The infirmary meant she wasn't dead. That meant that someone had taken her out of the damned shuttle before she asphyxiated.
The next thing she was aware of was that someone was holding her hand as they slept. As her world shifted into sharper focus, she realized that person to be— her father?
"Daddy?" She said quietly, blinking her eyes slowly in confusion.
Instantly Leonard McCoy jerked awake. "Jo! You okay, darlin'? They let me beam out from the Enterprise to make sure you were alright."
She sat up with some difficulty. "What happened?"
He frowned. "You don' remember?"
Jo thought. Flashes of memory, filled with terror and smoke and shaking, filled her mind. "It's all a blur. I was too frightened to think straight, once the shakin' started." She admitted.
Her father sighed, pressing his hands over his face. "Of all the things you inherit from me, you get my fear of flying."
"Of shuttles." She corrected. "I'm not scared of the starships. Too big to feel the jerkin', most a the time."
Her dad looked at her then, and she knew he was going to tell her what happened. "Do ya know a cadet named Thomas Maxwell?"
Jo blinked. "Yeah. He hates me, I think. And he insulted ya before I went on the shuttle, I almost socked 'im in the nose. Why?"
The corners of McCoy's mouth quirked up, but quickly fell back down. "He's been thrown from the Academy for sabotaging Federation equipment and attempting to harm a fellow Cadet."
"Ya mean..." Jo said, her head spinning.
"I mean that he tried to kill ya, Jo. And he damn near succeeded. You were covered in burns, had a few nasty bumps and bruises from being thrown all over the cabin of that damn shuttle, and weren't breathin'. Another minute before they broke down the doors..." His voice cracked, something that normally only happened when something happened to his baby girl.
She state quiet for a second, absorbing the news. Thomas Maxwell had tried to kill her. To KILL her. She had nearly died in a shuttle SIMULATION. The simulations were supposed to be safe, for God's sake! She felt fine now, but knew any bruises or burns would have been repaired by now by the dermal regenerator.
"How long have I been out?" She finally asked.
He sighed. "Two days. I didn't come until the end of the first. Jim decided to get in a day-long firefight with a bunch of asshole Klingons. It took forever for the transporters to get back online."
"Has my friend Tara been here? Tara Trenton?" She asked hopefully.
'Bones' nodded thoughtfully. "There was a girl in here earlier. Red hair, blue eyes. Looked to be around twenty. Said she was your friend, worried about you."
"That's her." Jo said, trying not to sound so excited.
He smirked. "They sent 'er out. Not family, you know. If I were to ask your nurses, though, I'm sure they'd let 'er in."
One long argument between Doctor McCoy and the annoyed nurses later, Tara was bursting through the door. "Don't ever, ever, ever scare me like that again. I'm minding my own business, throwing my guts up in my bathroom because cafeteria food's a bitch, and suddenly someone comes down and tells me that you're in the HOSPITAL!"
Jo winced. "I'm sorry. I couldn't exactly help it. Ya know how I am— once the shaking started, I panicked. Couldn't breathe hardly at all, and the smoke from the fire definitely didn't help."
"That's beside the point!" Tara protested, looking less angry now, but still distressed, her red flushed face matching her fiery hair. "The POINT is that I FAINTED when the guy told me, and I have never fainted before IN MY ENTIRE LIFE, not even after I heard the news that my FATHER had DIED! You do not do that to me! EVER. AGAIN."
Jo's dad looked highly amused at this exchange. "I see ya found your Jim." He said wisely. Jo flushed at the comment, but he continued. "Good. She'll make sure ya stay safe on board, and you'll keep her alive after any accidents."
Jo rolled her eyes. Then a thought occurred to her. "How worried is everyone? Uncle Jim..."
"Jim was THIS close to beaming off with me, but Spock wouldn't let 'im." McCoy demonstrated the small distance between his fingers that illustrated his point. "Course, Spock looked like 'e half wanted to go too, so."
Jo giggled at that.
"And then Scotty was torn between wanting to see ya and wanting to stay with his woman." The woman being the Enterprise, of course. "Uhura and Sulu were acting odd all day, on edge and ready for everythin' to go to hell. More hostile than usual. And Pavel..." He hesitated. "Well, ya know Chekov. He locked himself in his room and cried himself to sleep. I'm gonna check on him when I get back, actually."
Jo considered for a moment. Poor Pavel. He'd always been a delicate soul, and learning that one of his best friends (besides Hikaru, of course) was in the hospital because some jealous Cadet tried to KILL her would be too much for him to bear. "Do ya think I could call him?"
Leonard looked up, shocked. "Well, I suppose. I don't know if he'll be there, though. Might be his shift."
"It's worth a shot." Jo pleaded, putting on her best puppy dog eyes. She watched her father's hesitation melt away. He nodded, showing his consent. She grinned and reached for her PADD on the side table next to her.
Before she could type in the number, however, her father stopped her. "How come your mother isn't here?"
Jo grimaced. "Do you really think I would put HER as my emergency contact? Ya know that I cried myself to sleep when Mom's lawyers won custody of me. No visitation rights— how could ya DO that to a six year old?"
They sighed sadly, both remembering the terrible time that was full of lawyers, yelling, and tears on Joanna's part. Then she shook her head and pressed the picture of Pavel's face.
After a few seconds of calling, Chekov's face appeared on the screen. "Jo! I heard zat you vere hurt! Are you alright? I hawe been so vorried!"
"Hey, Pav. I'm fine— they got me out in time. Ya haven't been neglecting our duties, have ya Pavel?" She scolded gently.
A guilty expression crossed his face, looking a little bit sheepish. "I—"
"It's fine, Pav." She said with a smile. "My dad and Tara are here, too. It's like a party!"
He smirked a little bit. "Vell, a party zat ees een hospital."
Jo stuck out her tongue at him. "That's irrelevant. The POINT is, I'm fine and ya aren't allowed to worry 'bout me anymore."
"That's MY job." Tara added from the other side of the room. Jo glanced over and saw she was leaning against the window, a smirk on her face and a twinkle in her eyes.
Pavel hesitated, then nodded. "Ok. Can I go to my sheeft now?"
Jo grinned widely. "Go ahead, Pav. I know you'll do great."
"Bye, Doctor McCoy. Bye, Tara." He paused, and smiled shyly. "Bye, Jo."
"Bye, Pav." He hung up. Jo looked at her father, who was sitting with an odd expression on his face. "What?"
Her father smirked. "Oh, I was just thinking that if Tara's your Jim, then Chekov must be your boyf—" he cut off abruptly as Jo shrieked in indignation and smacked him on the arm. "Just kidding, darlin', so stop smackin' me!" He paused, then sighed. "I really need to get back to the Enterprise, Jo. Ya know that, right?"
She nodded sadly. She hadn't seen her father in person since the incident with Khan several years ago. And even then she'd literally had to run away from home to come see Uncle Jim when he was in the coma. Her mother had screamed for hours when she showed up on her doorstep two weeks later. Then she's called Clay out... Jo shook off the memory.
"It's okay, Daddy." She said calmly, taking his hand and squeezing it. "In a couple of years you'll be back, and once ya leave again, I'll be going with ya."
To her shock, Jo saw tears glimmering in Leonard McCoy's eyes. She hadn't meant to make him cry. "Just be careful, Joey." He said, using the nickname he'd called her by before the divorce all those years ago. Once the lawyers came, the nickname had faded into oblivion, nearly forgotten. "Ya know how much I hate hearin' when ya get hurt."
"I could remove your status as my emergency contact." Jo teased. "Replace ya with Mom and Clay."
He shuddered. "Jesus, no. Don't do that. This is the only legal excuse I have to come see ya. But," he said seriously, "that DOESN'T mean you're allowed to get hurt all the time! Your Uncle Jim needs me on the Enterprise to fix his stupidity."
Jo smiled. "Then go and fix it. I'll be fine. Tara'll look after me."
Her father seemed to blink back fresh tears, then walked out of the room. As soon as he was gone, Jo realized she hadn't even hugged him, and desperately wished she could do so.
HEY, AUTHOR HERE!
SO, YEAH, CHAPTER THREE! THE GREAT SHUTTLE SIMULATOR INCIDENT. STILL DON'T OWN THEM.
IF YOU EXIST, LET ME KNOW.
TRELLYA
