"What in the name of -"
Captain's Log, CIV Triton's Pleasure, Captain Michael
Triton, final entry Stardate 1631.5 Alpha Quadrant, Sector
33
Larssen hoisted her duffle and stepped down from the
transporter platform one pace behind Janice Rand.
Rand, she noted, had managed to disembark from the
Lady Grace looking as if she had just stepped out of
her own quarters and all the resources they contained:
her uniform was unwrinkled, her hair perfectly coiffed,
and she was calm and unruffled. Shimona, too, had
managed to produce a clean uniform, sufficient hairpins,
and perfume. Larssen, on the other hand, was conscious
of a large grease stain on her left knee where she had
knelt in something unidentifiable, creases in her
coveralls and the strong odour of insufficient washing
about her person. The lock of hair that always escaped
from her braid no matter what she did had been joined
by friends and all seemed to have a magnetic attraction
to her eyes. Civilian freighters, she reflected for the
hundredth time since they had been bundled off the
Enterprise, were hardly conducive to elegant travel.
Unless you were Janice Rand, of course. Janice would
probably emerge from a life support pod with her hair
unmussed and a smile on her face.
Reassuringly, Brand and N'o also looked as if they had
spent the last few days in a spacer's armpit. It was
obviously a 'woman thing', this ability to produce tidiness
about one's person without a 'fresher, clean clothes, or
privacy. One that had somehow skipped Larssen.
Rand spoke briefly to the transporter chief, and then
turned back to the others.
"We're lodged in Blue Section, deck nine." she said.
"We'll have time to drop our things and freshen up before
the tests start."
Brand fidgeted. "Can I go straight there?" he asked. "I
don't mind missing a shower, and I don't want to be late."
"No," Larssen answered. "You might not mind if you
miss a shower, but anyone next to you in the room
will." He'd think better, too, she knew, with a chance
to put the journey behind him. She hoped the same
would be true for her. Her mind felt out of focus, and
there'd been no real facilities to study on the Lady
Grace. The four candidates had quizzed each other in
their cramped quarters, but there had been no terminal,
and no chance to cement memory with a quick look at
whatever part of the ship's system they were working
on. Brand had tried, being irrepressible, and had come
back from the Grace's main engineering with a stiff look
on his face that told the others his pride had been
hurt, and badly. The chief didn't want strangers in
his engine room, he had told them, and for nearly
fifteen minutes (a record with Brand) had been silent
and subdued. Larssen, having caught a glimpse of
Chief Madison as they boarded, hadn't been willing to
press the point. The Grace was coming in for a
complete overhaul, and the chief engineer had been
running the ship on spit and string and the occasional
application of percussive maintenance. Even at a
distance, Madison had the look of a man harassed
beyond patience and civility, and Larssen had long ago
learnt to walk wide of the merchant navy when it was
out of temper. You could never be entirely sure with a
civilian spacer, just why they had taken on the danger
and the difficulty of the merchant life. Why Starfleet
had seemed an unattractive, or an impossible option.
What they were looking for, or running from.
Madison, she thought now, had not looked as if there was
enough hope left in him to be seeking something. Nor, in
that moment when she had seen him face to optical organ
with a Drovna crewperson, dwarfed by the Drovna's
immense height and seeming not to care that his neck was
inches away from the most lethal poison fangs humanity
had ever encountered, had Madison looked like the kind
of man who would run away from much. She would have
liked to know what had brought him to the Lady Grace,
but she knew she never would. If, by chance, she saw
Madison on the boulevard or in the bars of some Starbase
in the future, she would not offer to buy him a drink in
memory of this trip.
She would walk very quickly in the opposite direction.
There are doors, she knew, you never ever rattle.
"I said," Brand said now, "that you don't smell any better,
Cory!"
Larssen resisted the urge to ruffle his hair. "That's why
I'm for a shower too. Come on, Yeoman. The sooner you
get washed, the sooner you can be standing outside the
examination room wriggling like someone put Handoroan
blood leeches down your underwear."
Forty minutes later, Brand was indeed doing just that.
Larssen did not know N'o, or his species, well enough to
tell if he was displaying similar signs of nervousness, but
she could see Rand's hands twisting anxiously against each
other.
"You'll be fine." she said.
"How can you be so calm?" Rand asked her.
"There's nothing I can do about it." Larssen said.
"I hate people like you," Rand said with a little smile.
"Always calm and composed when I feel like I've
swallowed a whole horde of butterflies."
Larssen smiled back. "I could tell you I was just as
nervous on the inside." she said. "Would that help?"
"No." Rand said. "Then I'd hate you more for being able
to hide it." She reached out suddenly and put her hand on
Larssen's arm. "Good luck, Cory. Good luck."
There's no such thing as luck, Larssen was going to
answer, and then realised that it wasn't fortune Rand
was offering, but friendship. "And to you." she said,
covering Rand's hand with her own.
The doors opened and the candidates around them began
to file in. Brand managed to be first in the line. Larssen
automatically checked to see that N'o was still there, and
saw him filing in with the others. Then she turned back to
give Rand another encouraging grin, and saw the other
woman's face was suddenly grey and shining with sweat.
"Cory," Rand said. "Cory, I'm going to be sick."
"No you aren't." Larssen said as if stating a fact of nature.
"Take a deep breath."
"I really am." Rand said desperately. "I really am."
"No you aren't. You'd get vomit on your uniform, and
then I wouldn't be able to hate you for your neatness."
Rand laughed on a quick breath, and the crisis passed.
When Larssen glanced over at her half an hour into the
test, the yeoman was taping rapidly at her terminal, brow
furrowed in concentration. Glad to see that Rand would
do well, Larssen looked back at her own examination and
wished the same could be said for her. So far, she had
been able to answer only three of the ten questions, and
on two of those three she suspected her answers were not
exactly what the examiners had been looking for.
Another question blinked up, and Larssen dismissed the
previous ones from her mind. Four Klingon vessels, the
screen read, have appeared without warning in the Cynus
Veri system and are refusing to answer hails...
Larssen tried to imagine the Klingon ships, as they would
appear on the tactical display of the lone Starfleet
scoutship she was hypothetically commanding. Her brain felt
cottony and the ships refused to appear. ~ I would - no,
not that, I should send - well, but there might not be time -
first of all ~
Next question. Larssen blinked.
Later that night, when Brand and N'o seconded Rand's
suggestion they go out for a meal, to celebrate the first
day of testing successfully navigated, Larssen smiled
and agreed. She even kept her end of the conversation
up as the remarks of the other three made it clearer
and clearer just how badly she had fallen beneath the
standard required for even a bare passing grade. She
went to bed and slept soundly, attended the tests the
next day with the others, managed quite a few answers
on the section involving scientific missions and
exploration priorities. They were straightforward once
she set them in Commander Spock's deep, slightly harsh
voice. 'Lieutenant, the analysis will be run through
Lab Four. Send the results to me as soon as they are
ready.' 'Yes sir. Bai'tin, set up the mass spectrometer
for a series Alpha 12 and cross check through the
duotronic reader. Brand -'
Yes, those were straightforward. Imagination failed,
however, when it came to trying to picture the captain
asking her to take charge of battle strategy, or
personnel assignments, or security details.
~Field too large.~
The captain had never asked her opinion on anything.
And since, at this moment, he was ferrying Commodore
Whittaker across 4 sectors of space and hearing god
knows what from those narrow, disdainful lips, he would
probably never find an occasion to ask her opinion in the
future, either.