January
"Sir, I have the report on my last experiments," Cadet Third Class B'Elanna Torres said, standing stiffly at attention in front of Admiral Alexander Chapman's desk. It was the first day of the spring semester, less than twelve hours after she, Winat Gial, and the extended Paris family returned from their winter vacation in the French Alps, and after almost two weeks away from her experiments, she found herself actually looking forward to getting back to the lab. She hadn't dared share that information with Paris, knowing he would tease her mercilessly about her inability to relax.
"Very well," he replied, taking the PADD she offered. "Have a seat, Cadet."
She sat in the only chair in his office not covered by PADDs or models of impulse drive systems and waited as he glanced at her report. He had a tendency to do that, to forget what he was doing when something else caught his interest. She had learned to try to be patient when he wanted to talk to her.
He placed the PADD on his desk and gave her his full attention. "You're not taking any of my classes this semester." It was a statement of fact, not a question.
"No, sir," she replied. "I'm taking a few general requirements and Warp Mechanics."
He nodded; he knew that, he had helped her plan her schedule. "I'm teaching the second half of the required engineering introductory series. I'd like you to tutor."
She frowned. "Sir, I never took the introductory series."
"I know," he replied. "You tested out of them, and for good reason."
"I'm not sure I'm the right person to be tutoring students. I don't have much patience."
He chuckled. "I've noticed," he replied dryly. "I think this would be a good experience for you, Cadet. Consider it practice for when you become Chief Engineer." She blinked, not sure what he was saying. Did he mean chief of the Nova Squadron engineering team, or did he think that she would become a Chief Engineer on a ship someday? "It's not a large commitment," he continued. "Most of the students who need tutoring don't request it, and those who do don't really need it."
"Yes, sir," she said, not sure if that was the proper response.
"There's another matter I wanted to discuss with you," he continued. "The Jameson competition."
"What about it?" she asked, wondering if any of her past entries to the Federation's most prestigious secondary school engineering competition was being contested.
"I'd like you to be the student judge at this year's competition," he finished.
She frowned. "I thought that always went to a senior," she replied. "Didn't Ensign Patel judge the competition last year?"
"Yes, she did," Chapman confirmed. "And the honor traditionally does go to a first classman, but only because most people win the award their senior year of secondary school, and the first invite to be the student judge always goes to the most senior award recipient still in school. That would be you, since you were a sophomore the first time you won the award."
"Oh," she replied. "So it's mine by default?"
He frowned. "You don't have to take it if you don't want it. I'm sure they'll find someone else willing."
"No, no, it's not that," she said quickly. "I just didn't think I had done enough research to have something interesting to present at the closing ceremonies." Not to mention the other time commitments she had that semester, but Chapman knew about those. She figured he wouldn't be giving her more than she could handle.
"The competition is still a few months away," he reminded her gently. "That gives us plenty of time to come up with a good presentation of the research you've done so far. Now, I would love to discuss this with you further, but I believe you have Officership 3 beginning in fifteen minutes, and showing up late to the first day of class is not the sign of a good officer."
---
March
Every once in awhile, the engineers sitting in the Nova Squadron engineering office would glance at the monitors surrounding them, only to go back to what they were doing. The monitors held information regarding the pilots flying a few kilometers overhead, but nothing exciting ever happened when they practiced at the Earth flight range. That was where they worked on the routine details, like making sure they all remembered how to fly in a straight line. The maneuvers that they were famous for at the Academy were only practiced at the Academy Flight Range near Saturn, which had better safety protocols and facilities capable of handling even the most aggressive stunts.
"One of the crafts is coming in," Cadet First Class Sean Kelley, the deputy chief engineer, commented in a bored tone as he went back to whatever was on his PADD.
"Looks like Crusher," Chief Engineer Jacks replied. "Wonder what he did. Usually it's Hajar who manages to do enough damage to have to come in during practice."
"Only because she never bothers to tell us when the problem is small enough for us to fix," Torres commented dryly without looking up. "At least we won't be getting yelled at. Crusher's pretty calm."
"The eagle has landed," Kelley said after the monitor indicated that the craft had arrived in the hangar.
"Okay, everyone, look alive. We don't want the pilots to find out how little we do in here," Jacks said, his deep voice not sounding any less bored. The other engineers just laughed and didn't make any effort to move; the pilots already knew that they didn't do anything while the crafts were away.
Cadet Third Class Wesley Crusher stepped out of his shuttle and sighed. It hadn't been a very good day to begin with, and having to ground his craft in the middle of practice didn't make it any better. And now he would have to face the engineers, who were fiercely protective of those ships. He stepped into the engineering office, the doors sliding open as he approached. He expected to see the engineers on duty to be watching the monitors closely, giving each other updates from across the room. Instead, he found four of the Squad's ten engineers in the office, doing little more than lounging in front of the monitors, probably working on homework. "Um, I had a problem with my craft," he began once he realized that none of the four were going to acknowledge his presence.
"We figured that," Chief Engineer Jacks replied. "Locarno gets upset when his pilots come in without a reason. What can we do for you?"
"Well, I think I blew out my entire EPS relay," he said hesitantly. He caught the look that passed between Jacks and Torres and added quickly, "I don't know what I did, but the consoles started flashing, and—"
"Torres'll take a look at it," Jacks interrupted, even as the half-Klingon engineer was already out of her chair, heading for her toolkit.
Crusher frowned. He had never worked with Torres and had received mixed messages from the other pilots about her. Sito and Locarno said she was pretty good, but Hajar didn't have a high opinion of her at all. "Are you sure you don't want to take a look at it? I think the damage is pretty extensive."
"If the problem has anything to do with the impulse drive, especially the EPS conduits, Torres is your engineer," Jacks informed him, already back to his PADD. Torres, her toolkit in hand, brushed past him.
"You coming?" she asked brusquely.
He took a deep breath as he followed her out of the office toward his craft. The first time he met the engineer, he tried to forge a bond by talking about Lt. Worf, but she had gotten angry and told him, very coldly, that he shouldn't think that he knew everything about all Klingons because he happened to live on the same ship where the one Klingon Starfleet officer worked. He tried to stay off her bad side ever since. He was still trying to figure out if there was a good side.
"What were you doing when you first noticed a problem?" she asked as she ducked into the craft and headed for the engineering panel.
"Um, we were working on spirals when my panels began blinking," he said.
"What speed?" she asked, trying to power up the panel without any success. She muttered something in Klingon under her breath and reached for her toolkit.
"Five thousand kph," he replied. "Or close to that."
"Kinda slow," she remarked as she opened up the access panel.
"There's a speed limit that close to Earth," he replied. She nodded absently as she flipped open a tricorder.
"Hmm," she murmured absently as she scanned. She turned to him. "Do you have much experience with EPS relays?"
"I had some experience working in engineering on the Enterprise," he said, hoping that would mean something.
She grunted softly. "Well, I don't know what you did there, but I'll show you what to do here. Hand me the hypospanner. Okay, you need to adjust the outflow of each of the conduits. Now, some of the conduits, like this one, are fused, so it'll have to be replaced. For the ones that are salvageable, it's a fairly simple repair," she explained, being sure to work slower than she normally would so he wouldn't miss anything she was doing. "Now, while you get started on that, I'm going to take a look at your exhaust manifolds and impulse drivers. Power grids don't usually fail on their own, so I'd be willing to bet that you have a bigger problem somewhere down the line."
"Wonderful," he muttered as he took the hypospanner and began to work as she demonstrated. She took her tricorder near the back of the craft and opened another panel and began scanning.
"Did you happen to catch what the assignment for Interspecies Protocol is for tomorrow?" he asked after a few moments of working in silence.
"Hmm?" she asked, her head half-buried in the panel.
"Interspecies Protocol," he repeated. "I didn't catch what Professor Isaacs said in the last few minutes."
"I didn't know you were in the class," she commented.
"Yeah, I sit near the back," he replied with a chuckle.
"Ah," she replied. "I didn't catch the assignment, either. I don't usually pay attention to that class, I just work on my assignments for my other classes and try to keep my ears open for any relevant words that indicate that I should pay attention."
"I don't know, some of what he says is pretty interesting," Crusher argued lightly. "What should I do when I come across a fused conduit?"
"Just leave it," Torres replied, searching her toolkit for her micro laser cutter. "We'll take care of it later. I'm not trying to turn you into an engineer, just teach you some of the basics of ship repair. A pilot once told me that any good pilot should know how to do some of the more simple maintenance on his ship."
"So this is going to make me a better pilot?"
"It'll make you get along better with your engineers."
"I wasn't aware I wasn't getting along with the engineers."
She chuckled. "There's always room for improvement. How are you coming over there?"
"I'm about halfway done," he replied. "I'm surprised you don't find Interspecies Protocol more interesting, since you're—"
"Don't say it, Crusher," Torres warned. "Just forget the thought ever crossed your mind, and move on."
He frowned. "I don't see what the big deal is—"
"Crusher," she said, trying to keep her voice even. "You know how I just said there's always room for improvement? Start with learning when to stop talking. Can you hand me the degausser?" He passed her the small tool, watching as she ran it over the isolinear chip she had just extracted as he tried to figure out what to say.
She swore softly after scanned the now-degaussed chip with her tricorder. "Yeah, just what I thought. Your impulse drivers are corrupted." Seeing the crestfallen look on his face, she quickly added, "It's not your fault, it just happens sometimes with these older systems. Unfortunately, it's going to take almost a week to fix. I'll have to check with Jacks, but I think the alternate shuttle is ready to go. You can use that while we work on this."
"A week?" he repeated. "Are you sure it's going to take that long?"
"If that's what she says, that's how long it'll take," a third voice asked from the open shuttle door. Both cadets turned quickly to see a tall, blond ensign leaning against the shuttle, a cocky grin on his face. "Torres doesn't overestimate on her repairs to make herself look good. She doesn't need to."
"Paris," Torres stated, surprised. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"It's good to see you, too, Torres," he replied with a grin.
"No, I mean, what are you doing on Earth? Aren't you supposed to be flying around in the new shuttles at Utopia Planitia?"
"We finished up that phase of the project, so we're back in San Francisco for the next phase," he explained.
She looked at him, aghast. "We've talked on the comm just about every other night for the past two months, and you didn't once mention that you're coming back to San Francisco?"
"And miss that adorable surprised expression on your face?" he smirked. "What would be the fun in that?" He turned to Cadet Crusher and extended his hand. "Hi. Ensign Tom Paris," he offered.
"Cadet Wesley Crusher," he replied. "I've heard quite a few stories about you, sir. The other pilots still talk about you a lot. Some of the engineers do, too."
Paris glanced at Torres with his eyebrows raised, and she snorted. "Don't look at me. Ferreras and Kelley are always telling the younger engineers about how they would spend entire nights in the hangars trying to make your wild ideas work."
"Ferreras and Kelley spent nights in the hangar alright, but they weren't making shuttle improvements," Paris countered with a grin. "So, you up for some dinner?"
Torres shook her head. "Not tonight. I'm meeting with Sito and some other classmates about our Officership 3 group assignment at 2100, and I wanted to take a look at my Warp Mechanics homework before that. Crusher just informed me that I have an assignment for Interspecies Protocol to do, and you just heard me say I have a week's worth of repairs on this tin can. I'm swamped."
"It's Monday," he pointed out. "We had a deal."
"I think the deal was contingent on you informing me when you would be around," she argued as she stepped out the craft, Crusher following.
"You still have three hours until 2100," he replied. "Knowing you, your assignment for Warp Mechanics isn't due for another two weeks and it'll probably only take you two hours, three max. It'll take half an hour to fill out an engineering report for the repairs, and you can't get started on them until Jacks looks over the report. And since when did you need to do homework for Interspecies Protocol? You're coming in with all sorts of knowledge that your classmates don't have."
She glared at him. "Don't you get started on Interspecies Protocol, too. I've already got enough of that from him," she said, jerking a thumb toward Crusher.
"I didn't mean—" Crusher started to protest.
"Stop!" she exclaimed, holding up a hand. "For the third time, my life, and my parents', is none of your concerns."
"She's a little sensitive about being half-Klingon," Paris explained to Crusher with a smile.
The glare deepened. "You're not helping," she snapped, then sighed. She took a deep breath as she counted to ten, first in Standard, then in Klingon. "Crusher, we're done here, you can either go or wait for the pilots to come in, I don't care," she said, struggling to keep her voice even. "Paris, I'm going to go to the office to fill out that engineering report. After I'm done there, I'll let you know about dinner, if you're still interested."
"Oh, I'm interested," he smirked. "I'll be in the pilot's office, getting caught up on life in Squad. Come on, Cadet, I bet you have some good stories to share," he said, clasping Crusher's shoulder as he guided the younger man toward his old office. Torres rolled her eyes as she watched them walk away, then headed for her part of the hangar.