A/N: Guess who was so busy cooking and writing original novel that she forgot to post yesterday! moi. Also today I re-stuffed my couches and touched up the faded leather with dye... I've accomplished more stuff during these last couple of weeks than in the rest of the year. However. I need to stop going to sleep at 3 in the morning. Need daylight to sand and paint indoor trim... How about you guys?
Gym was, to put it simply, intense. As Giotto explained, A days were going to be actual hand-to-hand and strength training, to ensure that Elle could take care of herself when, not if, she met up with another assasinator (and yes, Elle was being purposely facetious when reminded of her stabbifying event). B days were going to be fun things like swimming, or running through a virtual simulation, or fencing with Sulu, or archery, things like that.
But for now, Elle had to do fifteen pushups. She hated every second of it.
The boxing combinations weren't that bad.
By the time it was lunchtime, Elle was starving. She had a quick shower and went to the mess hall.
"Elle!" Uhura gestured her over to her table.
Elle grabbed her tray and sat next to Uhura, and across from Chapel, and Yeoman Barrows. "Hi."
"How is your day going?" Chapel asked.
"Started awful, going great," Elle said cheerfully, and dug into her sandwich with all of her thirteen-year-old enthusiasm.
"What do you have after this?" Uhura asked.
"Uh, Maths with Ensign Chekov."
"That should be fun," Uhura said encouragingly.
Elle nodded behind her mouthful of pad thai. She swallowed and took a sip of her iced tea. "Yup."
She finished eating at the same time as her tablemates, and waved them away. Now what was she going to do for another half hour?
Elle took a quick cat-nap in the observation deck, on one of the armchairs.
-/\-
Math class was held in the corner of the Botany lab, where there was nothing to distract them but the soft whisper of leaves. And the two xeno-botanists on duty, trying to type the genome of some alien plant.
Chekov brought with him a rolling whiteboard and plenty of colored markers. "I have sent you the syllabus for the math and all of the reference videos, in case I do not make sense," he said. "This is my first time teaching someone math."
"You didn't do any tutoring at the Academy?" Elle asked, surprised.
"Well, I did, but not anyone so young," he said, shifting. "Now. I know you are learning the basics of algebra, yes?"
"Yeah. I mean, I like math, but, I don't really understand it. I was homeschooled, though, and my teacher was in a different city. And my dad's not the greatest at explaining math to me." Elle smiled. "And mom would teach it to me weird because she learned it a different way in her school."
Chekov grinned. "And I will confuse you, because I will show you the 23rd century way of learning math."
"Confuse away," Elle challenged.
Strike that. Learning it the 23rd century way was actually way easier. "This makes so much sense," Elle said, checking her answer against Chekov's. "Oh, cool."
"Good job," he said.
She half-held up a hand. "So, what kind of math do you use to navigate the ship?"
"That is a great deal of five-dimensional math," he said.
Elle blinked. "Five dimensions?"
"Yes. Besides x, y, and z, we have to consider time, depending on how fast we are going, which is the fourth dimension."
Elle nodded slowly. "Impulse is less than light speed, right, so there's a time dilation effect? But warp is regular time?"
"Precisely. But warp is also its own dimension, which adds the fifth."
Elle tried to wrap her head around it. "So, wait. Does that mean you can just go in a straight line cuz you, we, are in a different dimension and won't physically run into stuff?"
Chekov shook his head. "You know that each object in space has its own electromagnetic field, and gravity field, yes?"
Elle nodded.
"A warp field interacts with those fields on a quantum level, distorting them," Chekov continued. "So if you warp through a star, it will go nova."
Elle's eyes widened. "That's..."
"Very bad," Chekov finished.
"Yeah."
Chekov smiled. "Once we get past algebra and geometry we will get past three dimensions. We will use a video game to plot courses."
"Cool."
-/\-
Chekov walked Elle down to Engineering, since she couldn't go in without a 'minder' clearing the door. "Cmdr Scott?" he called.
One of the lt's minding a console grinned and hollered, "SCOTTY, THE KID'S HERE!"
"AYE, AH'M COMIN', LAD!" came the bellow from somewhere deeper in the section.
Chekov whispered, "Have fun!" and departed.
The lieutenant grinned at Elle. "Welcome to Engineering. You're gonna love it."
Elle grinned back.
Scotty came around the corner, wiping his hands on a raggedy jumpsuit jacket he had on. "Elle, welcome to the heart of the ship," he said expressively. "First things first, and I'll show you 'round."
The tour itself took up half the class period as Scotty explained what each section did and what Elle was absolutely never allowed to touch, ever. Then he led her to the section where he'd come out of. "And this will be your classroom," he said, gesturing expansively.
It looked like a mechanic's workshop had exploded into relatively similar piles of scrap.
"There's nothin' like practical experience, if I do say so myself," Scotty announced, rubbing his hands together. He handed her a small red jumspuit. "So you won't get your clothes dirty," he said.
Elle grinned. This was gonna be great.
-/\-
The Communications department was abuzz with about twenty different conversations going on about fifty different languages. It was a vibrant, expressive atmosphere and it reminded Elle of her family reunions on her mom's side, when people would speak English, Spanish, Spanglish, and the odd bit of Portugese that her second cousins spoke because of their dad.
Uhura poked her head out of her office and waved Elle over. "C'mon in here, sugar, out of the madhouse," she said, smiling.
"You leave your door open," Elle pointed out, settling into the comfy armchair off to the side.
Uhura grinned. "Yes, I do. It reminds me of home. And I can keep an ear out for rising frustration over a translation."
Elle listened. Someone was repeating the same five syllables over and over with different intonations. That guy was gonna freak out eventually.
Uhura requested two cups of tea from the synthesizer slot in the wall and handed one to Elle. "Rooibos chai with honey," she said. "Decaf."
Federation Standard was a mix between English, Spanish, Italian, German, and it had the syntax of Mandarin Chinese. It was always subject-verb-object, no matter what. It was a very logical language, which was the point.
Also, Elle could listen to Uhura speak all day. The chief communications officer just had that kind of voice and tone. "You should read audiobooks," Elle suggested out of the blue.
Uhura laughed. "If I ever retire from Star Fleet, I'll think about it."
"So how many languages do you know?" Elle asked.
"Only fifteen," Uhura said, "not counting programming languages."
Fifteen? Elle gaped at her. "Wow... wait. What programming languages?"
"My job is to supervise the direction of internal communications on the ship, to monitor surrounding subspace for transmissions or odd waves, and to record, encrypt, and send outgoing comms," Uhura explained patiently.
"Oh... so you need a lot of computer programming for that," Elle realized. "I never thought about that."
"Most people don't," Uhura acknowledged. "And much of it, once it's coded, is automatic. But Klingon and Romulan codebreakers are always advancing, so our encryption must improve, too. Plus, I like to fiddle with the packets and see if they can get there faster."
Elle grinned. "Cool."
Uhura left Elle some homework, to listen or watch thirty minutes of something in Federation Standard, to accustom her ear to the sounds and phrases.
And just like that, it was the end of the day and time for dinner.
-/\-
Elle had a sandwich and ice cream for dinner and went down to the rec deck. She had four hours before she had to go to sleep, or try to sleep, and she only had thirty minutes of homework. She really needed to find a hobby.
There were 430 people on the Enterprise. That meant the list of clubs and workshops was long and varied.
Knitting Club... Junior Astronomy Club... nah... Culinary Club... Chess Club... Checkers Club... Kal'toh Club, ooh, wait, no, she needed more math for that... Space Minecraft Club... Elle grinned and clicked on the description. Space Minecraft, Deluxe version 48.2. Meets Thursdays in Rec Deck 4, Gaming Tank 3, show up casually or committed, snacks provided.
Awesome. Elle saved a reminder on her PADD.
She found some headphones and started on her language homework. After some digging, Elle found a podcast in Federation Standard about the latest art scene. It wasn't really interesting because she didn't recognize any of the names the person mentioned, but she did understand almost all of it.
Elle went to bed at nine, er, 2100, tired out from the long day.
She woke up at 0100. "I guess this is my life now," she said, resigned, and got up to watch movies in the living room.
-/\-
By the time her alarm went off the next morning Elle was about to ready to cry from exhaustion and frustration. She pulled herself together and went to take a shower. "C'mon, you're a teenager, you can do this," she coached herself. "Where's that endless energy?"
Dead, her subconscious sniped.
"Shut up," Elle told her reflection.
She was so tired, she'd lost her appetite. She choked down a strawberry banana smoothie and went to Math class. Don't ask her what it was about.
Elle almost died in Gym. It was just jump rope, but she kept getting tripped up on the rope and having to stop to catch her breath. "Sorry," she panted, red-faced.
Giotto shook his head. "Hand-eye coordination in teenagers is hard to find," he said, giving her a sympathetic look.
Elle sighed. "Yup."
She almost fell asleep in her grilled cheese sandwich during her lunch break.
"So," Sulu said, smiling at her. "Have you given any thought as to what you'd like to do?"
Elle blinked at him. "I thought you were gonna pick something," she said. Honestly, she'd completely forgotten about it.
Sulu smiled briefly. "Good thing I made a list," he said cheerfully.
Elle scanned the list, stifling a yawn. "Botany?" she asked, thinking about the carnivorous plant from The Man Trap.
Sulu's eyes lit up. "Excellent."
Her exhaustion disappeared as they looked at and discussed the plants in the Botany labs, but it came back in full force as she trudged down to the Science labs.
Spock was waiting for her in Science Lab 3. He opened his mouth to speak, and then raised an eyebrow. He looked, to Elle's eyes, blatantly concerned. "Are you well?" he asked.
Elle gave him a tired smile. "I'm fine," she said, "I just woke up too early today."
His eyebrow didn't go down but he let it go. "Then let us begin," he said.
Spock was absolutely lethal when it came to science, but he had endless patience. A good combination for Elle Stupid-Brain today. "In two days we will do a practical demonstration."
"Yes, sir."
From there she shuffled back up to Sickbay, yawning behind her hand.
McCoy took one look at her and laughed. "Worn out?" he asked, and patted her shoulder. "Come into my office."
Elle was definitely fuzzy-headed as she tried to follow along and take notes on the slides that McCoy had for an overview of Intro to Biology. "Who would win, one worm boi or one slime mold?" she muttered to herself, and giggled.
McCoy snorted. "You tell me."
"The worm?" Elle guessed.
McCoy nodded. "Now tell me why."
"Um... the worm can move away from possible dangers and the slime can only sit there looking dumb?"
McCoy laughed out loud. "Something like that."
Kirk commed Elle before the lesson was over. "We'll have to postpone till tomorrow," he said apologetically. "I have to finish reports."
"No problem, captain," Elle told him.
After seeing worms and mold for an hour and a half, Elle didn't feel like eating, so she skipped dinner and went straight to her room. She drifted in and out of sleep the rest of the evening and night. When she would wake up, she forced her tired eyes to focus on the story she was reading.
Her alarm went off. Gritty-eyed and with a pounding headache, she got in the shower. It did nothing for her headache, but what was she supposed to do about it?
She got coffee with her oatmeal that morning, ignoring Melissa's disapproving glance.
History passed in a daze as Elle watched an interview with the Vulcan who had met Zephram Cochrane. Apparently it was Spock's grandfather but she couldn't see any resemblance.
Elle got to Gym one minute early and sat down on the bench to wait for Giotto.
He came in two minutes late. "Sorry." He gestured to the mats. "All right. Today we're gonna learn how to fall properly."
Elle stood up too quickly and the room spun. Huh. Weird. She took a step forward and the room spun the other way. Her stomach flipped and her vision tipped to the side, the room going black.