Disclaimer: I have not used any of the Star Trek characters, but the alien species in my story don't belong to me. For that matter, Jala and Sisma don't belong to me either since they are my friends' screen names.

A/N: As a reminder, this weird version of Star Trek is based on my life, so there's no telling what will happen because life is unpredictable.

Ode to A Starship

by Lina Shay

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Dad started crying randomly at breakfast. Mom hugged him and asked him what was wrong, but he didn't answer. I didn't know how to help, so I got the tissues.

Mom decided that we had better fix up some of the old induction field generators so that we could sell them. Dad walked around the property on his crutches for a while, but got too tired. We let him sit in the house, while Mom and I checked out the generators. I really had no idea what I was looking at since I nearly failed general engineering at the academy.

"Get the field coil from that generator," Mom told me. "We'll have to see if it will fit on this one."

I ran over to the generator she indicated and looked at the machine. I felt like such a child again. This was exactly what I used to do with my father when I was little. I ran around and got what people asked for.

"Mom," I cried. "What's a field coil look like?"

Mom stopped what she was doing, her arms half inside the generator. "Uh, it's hard to describe. It's large and round. No, it's more cylinder, with a round end. It has a handle on one side and a keypad on the opposite side."

I opened the flap of the generator and looked inside at the different parts. I looked at it from different angles, but couldn't find the thing she had described.

"Mom, I don't see it!" I called to her.

"Look from the bottom of it," Mom said. "In different classes of generator, they tend to put things in different places."

I opened another hatch on the lower east side. I saw a handle sticking out, so I stuck my head in there. It sure looked like what Mom had described. I squeezed my hand in and pulled the handle down. It wasn't moving.

"Mom, it won't move!" I cried.

Mom came running up and told me to move. As I pulled my head and arm out of the hatch, a part of my shirt tore and my arm was scratched. I grumbled unhappily.

"That happens when you do work," she told me.

Mom crawled into the hatch and pulled at the coil.

"What's that keypad for anyway?" I asked.

"It's a command pad for the coil flow," Mom explained.

"If the flow was open, then that would prevent us from removing it, right?" I wondered alloud.

Mom glanced at me in thought. "I don't think it would be open, but I guess I could try that."

Mom switched on the generator, which hummed ominously. I jumped back, while mom crawled back in and fiddled inside.

"Are you sure it's safe to be reaching in there when the thing's on?" I asked.

Mom didn't even pay any attention to me. She pulled out the field coil and handed it to me.

"You were right," she told me. "You could be a good engineer."

I knew she was teasing. I would never want to be an engineer.

I had class that night. It wasn't class like I had at the academy. It was a schooling in the will of the prophets. I hadn't been to this class in so long and I missed the friends I had there. When I got there, class had already started. I sat in the back by someone I barely recognized. There weren't many people there I knew.

I found that I had a hard time paying attention even though I was planning on entering the order of vedek. You would think that I would have been able to pay full attention, but I couldn't.

After class, I went over to my old friends Sava and Truda. Truda wasn't in a very good mood since her brother, who had been missing since his last mission for the militia, had been found dead. Sava was as happy as usual.

"Sava," I began. "Where's Kenned?"

She rolled her eyes. "My brother is at home. He said he had a million things to do before work tomorrow, so he didn't come."

"He should have known I would be here," I muttered. "Maybe he's avoiding me."

"I doubt that," Sava laughed.

"By the way, I got hired at the First Contact Commission," I told her.

"Awesome!" Sava cried excitedly. "Then I could see you everyday."

I had a dream that I became a vedek, but everyone around me was blaspheming against the prophets. I wanted to leave and find another place to be a vedek, but they wouldn't let me leave.

A/N: This chapter doesn't have a name for the sole purpose that I couldn't think of one. And since I'm the author, I can have a chapter without a name if I want to. Got it?