It was quiet - only the occasional page turn from Elle's corner. Everyone else was sielntly reading, a few people were plugged into movies. In this corner of the Rec Deck, serenity reigned.

That's when Elle heard it. She looked up. Nothing. She went back to her book. Dirk Pitt was just about to- "Do you hear a bird?" she asked her sofa mate.

Ensign Romanova looked up. "A bird? No. There are no birds on the Enterprise."

"Oh." Elle went back to her book. "No seriously," she said after a few minutes, "I heard birds."

"Maybe one of the holo-tanks is leaking sound?" the ensign said.

Elle glanced over at the people watching movies. Oh, there was one. People were in a forest. "Oh." She went back to her book.

The next day she got into the lift to go to engineering for her class. By some miracle, she wasn't joined on the lift for twelve solid decks. It was just her and the hum of the mag-lev servers... it sounded like it was raining.

She stuck her finger in her ear and gave it a wriggle. Nothing. Still sounded like rain. But she couldn't hear it once she entered Engineering so she cast it away as water in her ears. She'd have to avoid a splash fight next time.

Two days later though, she and Kirk were reading the poems of Robert Frost. In a pause for contemplation... "Do you hear water?" she asked.

"No," he replied after a moment. "Do you hear water?"

"Yeah, like a stream or something." Elle frowned. "I think I'm losing it. The other day I heard rain and before that I heard birds and-"

Kirk started to grin. "No way."

"What? Is it insanity? Am I space crazy?"

"I think you can hear the subsonics."

"The what?"

"Part of the environmental systems are the sounds of nature, played at a level humans only register subconsciously, about 18 to 22 hertz. It's actually to keep us from going crazy with the absence of sound. It's on a random selection of wind, rain, running water, wildlife, so on."

"Oh. Can Spock hear it?"

"Yes. He tunes it out though."

"Cool."

Kirk got up and held out a hand. "C'mon, let's go see Bones, get your hearing checked out."

"You have bat ears," was McCoy's prognosis. "As you get older it should fade."

"So I'm not crazy?"

McCoy laughed. "I didn't say that, darlin'. Everyone on this tin can is crazy, but you're in good company."

-/\-

"So where are we going next, captain?"

"Chapter fourteen," he quipped, turning the page.

Elle sagged further down in her chair. "Caaaaapppttaaaaiinnnn, come onnnn," she whined.

Kirk laughed at her dramatics. "Actually, Miss Nosey-Parker, we're getting shore leave."

"Awesome!" Elle popped up in her seat. "Where? Can I come?"

"Argelius," he replied, "and the only place you'll be going, if you remain an upstanding member of the crew, is the art museum, if the exhibits are appropriate."

Elle frowned. "Like naked people and stuff?"

"That's one way of putting it," Kirk said wryly.

"Cool. Not the naked people stuff, but the whole shore leave. New planet!" Elle bounced in her seat. "What's it like? When do we get there?"

Kirk rolled his eyes. "You can read the briefing later on your own time, Elle."

"Right. Sorry." She turned the page. "Ahem."

-/\-

Argelius was... definitely the place where spacefaring people would go to let loose. Elle didn't see much of it, but all the natives were New York fashion week on steroids. The tourists in the art museum were a little more standard, but Elle felt painfully underdressed in her gray skinny jeans and green sweater.

Lt's Kyrios and Chandragartha, two members of Archaeology and Anthropology aboard ship, were Elle's designated babysitters. Both of them had volunteered. "We'll finally get to use our art history to impress somebody," Kyrios drawled. "Lead on, Elle."

Elle tugged her minders through to the first exhibit: art made during Argelius' age of space discovery.

"What do you think?" Chandragartha asked. "First impressions?"

"It's really..." Elle tried to find a word to describe the sculptures and the paintings and the moving exhibits. "I don't want to say gaudy, but, gaudy?" She glanced up at them. "Is everything on Argelius so over the top?"

Chandragartha smiled. "Not to them."

"Right." Elle tried to put herself in their shoes. Rich, hedonistic culture, first venturing into space... suddenly the three-dimensional billowing neon silk tapestry made more sense. "I like it." She put her hand in her pocket, reaching for her phone, and froze. Her eyes widened. "I don't have a phone. I can't take pictures. I don't have a camera!" she almost-wailed.

Kyrios grinned and produced a holocam from his backpack. "Ta-da!"

"You're the best," Elle said gratefully. She received the holocamera and tilted her head. "Now how do you work it?"

One quick tutorial later, Elle convinced the two lieautenants to take a cheesy selfie with her in front of the silk tapestry.

They spent a good four hours in the art museum, wandering to all the interesting bits, and then exited the museum.

Elle glanced down the street, vibrant with shops and street vendors. "Do we have to go back to the ship right away?" she asked, trying not to sound whiny.

The two officers exchanged a glance above her head and Kyrios shrugged. Chandragartha grinned. "There's an authentic Indian place a few blocks down where we can eat dinner," she said. "Fairly family friendly."

Elle linked arms with her. "I've been to downtown Portland. I can handle some liberal-ness."

"I don't think that's a word," Kyrios said doubtfully.

"We're on shore leave," his partner replied, giving Elle a conspiratorial wink.

Elle grinned.

They meandered through the street vendors and the shops. Elle spent a good two minutes looking at a tiny glass globe filled with intricate metal filligree, suspended inside a delicate magnetic holder. It looked like it ought to be in an alien version of Indiana Jones or something. But, she had literally no money, so Elle left it behind and followed her babysitters towards the restaurant. She didn't feel so bad about leaving it when Chandragartha lingered over a beautiful head scarf in a shop window for three minutes before moving on.

It was delicious. Elle ate so much curry and freshly-baked naan she christened her food baby 'Batman.'

"Why Batman?" Kyrios asked.

Elle grinned. "Naan naan naan naan Batman," she sang, and did the most Gen-Z of finger guns when the two lieutenants groaned. She giggled into her cup of chai. "Gotcha."

Chandragartha rolled her eyes. "I'm going to have to send that to my mum. She'll love it. Hate it, but love it."

"Creds to tumblr," Elle informed her.

"Huh?"

"Nothing."

They left the restaurant and meandered in another direction. "A movie theater!" Elle said, bouncing on her toes. "What kind of movies do they play?"

"We can check," Kyrios said, giving her a smile. "You-" His communicator chirped with an incoming call. He snapped from easygoing to business in half a second flat and flipped open the comm. "Kyrios here."

"All shore leave parties are being recalled," Uhura's voice informed them.

"Understood," Kyrios said. "Three to beam up."

"Acknowledged," Uhura said, and switched the comm to the transporter room.

Chief Kyle's voice replaced hers. "You're second in queue, hold your positions."

Elle glanced up at Chandragartha. "What happened?"

"I don't know, kiddo. Maybe somebody picked a fight with the wrong person?"

"Energizing," Kyle's voice said.

The world faded out and reformed in the shape of the Enterprise.

Elle stepped down from the dais and followed her sitters out of the room. "Thanks," Elle said, giving them both a hug. "Best first shore leave field trip ever."

They both laughed. "Our pleasure," Kyrios said. He handed her the holocam. "This is yours, actually, for future field trips."

"Awesome." Elle clutched it to her chest. "Thank you guys!"

They waved, and the three of them parted ways.

Elle went to her room and transferred the photos off the camera into the ship's computer for her use. "I wonder if there's a way to print these," she mused, flipping through the pictures. She paused at their first cheesy selfie. "This one's great. I'll have to ask Scotty."

On Argelius it had been evening but onboard the Enterprise it was still afternoon. Elle went for a snack at "dinnertime" and found the mess hall in an uproar. "What's wrong?" she asked Lt. Riley, sliding into the seat across from him.

He frowned. "Mr. Scott's been accused of murder."

Elle almost choked on her apple. "Wha- murder? Was it a woman? Stabbed?"

He eyed her warily. "How'd you hear that?"

"I just did," Elle said. "Uh..." She spotted Uhura coming in. "I gotta go." She stood up and practically sprinted over to Uhura's side. "Lt. Uhura, I need to talk to the captain, Scotty didn't do it. There's this alien parasite thing."

Uhura stared at her for a second and then nodded. "All right then." She grabbed Elle's hand and they marched out of the mess hall. "The captain's on the planet, still. We'll get him on the comm."

They went up to the bridge and contacted the captain. "This had better be important," Kirk's voice said. He sounded tense.

"I know what it is," Elle said into the mic pickup. "It's an evil consciousness that's jumped into Scotty. It's like, Jack the Ripper but energy."

Kirk sighed. "And how do we prove that?"

"I don't know, but if you beam up it'll come with and take over the ship. And then I think Bones tranq's everybody so nobody will get homicidal. I don't really remember the details because it was kind of scary and my parents didn't let me watch it."

Kirk sighed again. "Understood." Someone muttered something and he said, "Let me know if you remember anything else. Kirk out."

Elle and Uhura shared a glance. "Jack the Ripper?" Uhura asked.

"Yup."

-/\-

The thing about being Star Fleet, you have to decide whether to endanger just one ship or a whole planet with millions of people on it - they beamed up to the Enterprise.

Elle did not appreciate being injected with a tranquilizer. "Owwwwwwwwww," she protested.

"Done," Chapel said, tugging her sleeve down. "Go make a fort or something before it kicks in, you have five minutes."

"Am I gonna sleep or just be really happy?" Elle asked.

"Both."

"Wonderful." Elle hopped off the biobed and headed for her quarters. Just before she entered her quarters, she started to giggle. "Lying liar," she observed lazily, tripping into her room. "That was two minutes. Maybe cuz I'm smaller." She collapsed on the sofa and stared up at the ceiling. "Pretty..."

Elle really didn't remember anything after that, but at some point she fell asleep.

When she woke up the next morning, her brain was stuffed with cottonballs and Gilligan's Island was playing on her computer.

Elle sat up and pushed the hair out of her face. "Huh. I don't remember watching this."