Rosie found herself back in her nondescript guest quarters. The room was hers now, she supposed; the Enterprise wasn't planned to be back on earth for another six to eight months, so Rosie would be "studying abroad" aboard the ship until she could join her classmates physically at the Academy. It was a strange concept, one she hadn't fully wrapped her brain around yet. However, she had barely a moment to herself to think about it, because barely had Rosie sat down on the rumpled bed than there was a knock at the door. Rosie got up and walked to over to the room's entrance, only to then realize she had no idea how to open it. How had she done it last time? There didn't seem to be an obvious button or panel, like the external wall.
"Ummm…hi…sorry, but I can't get the door open."
"It can be woice activated; can I come in?" She could tell it was that Russian guy from earlier.
"Yeah, sure." The door opened at her command and then slid shut behind her visitor as he stepped into the room. He showed her where to place her hand on the door frame to open it manually (she had gotten lucky before), as well as the room's control panel set into the wall next to the small closet.
So for the second time that day, Rosie found herself walking through the ship's corridors with Ensign Pavel Chekov. She eventually broke through his monologue about the upgrades he and someone apparently named Scotty were doing on something called a "warp core."
"Where are we going?"
"Zee Keptin requested zat I accompany you to dinner."
And indeed, Rosie soon found herself in a rather large cafeteria. The Mess Hall, according to Pavel. It seemed an awful lot like every other dining hall she had ever been in but, unlike those, this one didn't have any buffet lines or counters for ordering. Instead, there were a row of kiosks along two of the walls. Rosie couldn't figure out where the food everyone walked away with was coming from, and she told her new friend as much as they waiting in line.
"Zey are called 'replicators.'"
"What?"
"Using supplied organic molecules zey are able to polymerize elements into functional units zat mimic any pre-programmed dish you would like to eat."
"So it just, like, uses essentially nuclear reactions to just…make food out of thin air?"
"Not really…but basically yes."
"You look surprised."
"It iz just zat many ozer civilians would not have understood my technical jargon."
"You're forgetting something."
"What iz zat?"
"I'm not a civilian!" Chekov almost blushed at the mischievous, lopsided grin Rosie gave him, but he was saved from further embarrassment as the pair had just reached the front of their line.
Rosie watched as Pavel rapidly touched a sequence of keys on the touchscreen and stared in awe as a steaming bowl of macaroni and cheese materialized out of thin air, as promised. It took her, however, significantly longer to replicate his replication, but she was glad he let her try by herself and only nudged her along when she needed help.
As they made their way over to a table already occupied by two others Pavel seemed to know (they waved and called his name above the natural chatter of the room), Rosie apologized for making his food cold.
"It iz not a problem; I vish someone had done zee same for me when I first came aboard."
"You mean they don't have these everywhere on earth now?"
"Nyet, zey are almost exclusively used aboard ships; it means we do not have to carry an excess of food or risk additional lives on the sea or in space."
"But what if they break? Do you just starve to death?"
"Pasha, are you scaring our new crew member away already?"
"I am not trying to, Hikaru!"
"He's just teasing you, Pav. Hi, you must be McDonald! I'm Nyota Uhura, the ship's chief communications officer."
"You can call me Rosie; I don't mind. It's a please to meet you."
"And I'm Hikaru Sulu, one of the helmsmen. The Captain's told us so much about you."
"I've been here for less than twenty-four hours…or at least I think. How much could anyone possibly know about me?"
Nyota laughed at that and Rosie smiled too, feeling oddly at ease with these perfect strangers in deep space, and thought for the first time that maybe the Enterprise could be a home after all.
YO! I'm back! I was re-reading this story the other night and realized it actually didn't suck so I got inspired to give it a few rescue breaths! However, so far my resuscitation efforts have only gone so far as to just post some I had written a while ago. NOW I actually have to come up with new material. *SIGH*
Here's hoping I can dig up some motivation to be productive...
~BEK
