A/N: Hi! We're back! This November I'm making it my goal to finish this volume. We'll see, said the stupidly-optimistic writer. Have some ST:TOS #18.

"A glowing cube! All hail the cube!" Elle leaned over Lt. Tanzer's shoulder to stare at the holographic black cube full of squares. "What's this for?"

"Chess," Harb Tanzer replied.

"Uhhh. Okay?"

"Captain Kirk approached me about spicing up 3D chess."

Elle blinked. "So you're making it 4D chess?"

"Yes."

"But the fourth dimension is time. How's that going to work?"

Moira, the games computer, spoke up. "Judicious application of time-outs."

Elle blinked. "You lost me."

Tanzer shrugged. "We're still working on it."

"Cool. Can I help? I like cubes."

Harb glanced from her Minecraft-patterned pajama pants to the bowl of nutrient snack cubes she had in her hand. "I would never have guessed," he drawled.

-/\-

"Star charting?"

"Something calming after these last few missions," Kirk agreed.

"But we hate star charting," Elle pointed out.

"Sometimes boredom is better than near-death experiences," Kirk said sagely.

Star charting was soooo boring. Also nauseating. This area of space had so many ion storms. Elle kept ginger ale with her in a super-thermos at all times to avoid puking.

-/\-

"Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!"

Elle popped her head up. "That was Tom Baker," she declared to Simba. "Who has Doctor Who on?"

She followed the sound of buzzing and humming to a computer monitor with two quirky characters running from a paper-mache monster. "Cool!"

"Cool indeed," said the lieutenant sitting cross-legged on the floor. Lt. Freeman, programmer with crazy hair. "You like Doctor Who, Elle?"

She sat cross-legged across from him. "Yeah! I like the newer ones, but the old ones are good, too. And the new-new ones, the 22nd century reboot, those are more educational, so that's good, too. What are you doing with the episodes?"

"I'm attempting to convert these old files to holograms," Freeman said.

"Hobby?" Elle asked.

"Yup." He handed her the PADD. "How does that look?"

Elle looked at the lines of code. "Looks very complicated," she said dryly, and handed it back.

"It is," he agreed. "These old sterries are so old and degraded from living through the wars that trying to reconstruct enough data to make a complete three-dimensional image is-" he huffed a sigh. "Time-consuming."

"I bet." She looked up at the frozen figures of the Doctor and his companion. "Can I watch?"

"Me or the episode?"

"The episode."

"Sure. Let me know if it starts to look clearer."

Elle gave him a thumbs-up. "How are you going to get rid of all the static?"

"Extensive computer filters," Lt. Freeman replied.

-/\-

No seriously. So much ginger ale.

-/\-

"Can I dye my hair?" Elle asked.

"Why?" McCoy asked suspiciously.

"No reason."

McCoy grinned at her sympathetically. "Boredom's gettin' to you, too, huh kiddo?"

Elle flopped dramatically on his office sofa. "I'm soooooooo bored, Bones."

"Why don't you go down to Engineering and help Scotty?"

"I've maxed out my alloted work hours and I quote 'working overtime is child labor and Ah dinnae wish to spend my life in a rehab facility.' Unquote."

McCoy laughed. "What about helping Lt. Freeman with the old entertainment programs?"

"I don't understand the programming things he's doing, and right now he doesn't need anyone to watch the programs for flickers," Elle reported. "He said he'd call when he needed a second pair of eyes."

"Minecraft?" McCoy suggested.

"I'm tired of bulding my castle."

"Pick a sport," he said.

Elle sighed. "Sulu's taking care of his sentient plant. It just had a baby and he can't fence with me."

"You don't want to take care of the plant baby?" McCoy asked.

"I'm allergic," Elle reminded him.

"Oh yeah. Did we update your record for that?" He pulled it up and humphed. "I guess we did."

Elle rolled over and flopped the pillow on her face. "I'm so bored," she said.

McCoy patted her on the ankle. "Well, you go down to the Rec Deck and ask Moira to give you a new hobby. I'm sure she can rustle up something, darn thing seems to be sentient."

Elle sighed. "Fine."She puttered down to the Rec Deck, again, and dropped onto the nearest beanbag. "Moira?"

The games computer blinked a green light. "What's up, Elle?" she asked cheerfully.

"I'm bored. Dr. McCoy suggested I ask you for a new hobby."

Moira hummed. "By my records, you haven't joined any artistic clubs," she said. "Would you like to learn an art?"

Elle thought about it. She'd never been drawn to arts and crafts, but, "Sure. Why not?"

Moira directed her to the nearest non-food sythesizer and it spit out one pound of a reddish-brown clay. "In locker 43-A are the pottery supplies," she said. "Research indicates that manipulating pottery is a good way to manage stress."

Elle poked at the clay. It squished down and left a finger-shaped indent. "Sure. Why not?"

Through various video tutorials, an hour later, Elle had the smallest, most misshapen clay coil pot anyone has ever seen. She was incredibly proud of it.

Lt. Tanzer eventually wandered over to her corner. "Looks like you're having a good time," he said.

Elle pushed her hair out of her eyes, leaving a streak of clay on her forehead. "Look at my clay pot! Isn't it the ugliest thing you've ever seen?"

He blinked. "It's certainly asymmetric," he said carefully.

Elle giggled. "You can say it's awful. It's just my first one."

He ruffled her hair. "I can't wait to see your future ones," he said.

"Do you know anyone else who does pottery?" Elle asked.

"A few Gamma shift crewpersons have pottery sessions," Lt. Tanzer said, after a moment. "Odd hours, though."

"I can always stay up," Elle said. "I don't know why, but since my growth spurt I've been going to sleep super late."

He shook his head. "Night owl," he teased gently. "If you're done with pottery for the day, do you want to help me test the latest version of 4D chess? I need a human. Moira's too smart for me."

"Sure!" Elle looked down at her clay-covered hands, and shirt, and table, and damp cloths. She grinned sheepishly. "Give me a few minutes for cleanup?"

He laughed. "Sure. You may want to consider getting an apron or a coverall for future endeavors."

She rubbed at a spot of clay on her elbow. "Good thinking."

-/\-

"Welcome to the inaugural game of 4D chess. In one corner we have our overall champion, Mr. Spock, and in the opposite corner we have our favorite underdog..." Elle trailed off, cackling, as Spock's eyebrows rose to meet his fringe. "Never mind." She sat down, chin in her hands, and gestured imperiously. "You may begin."

"Thank you," Kirk said, highly amused.

It was, frankly, a massacre. The captain's usual strategies were useless on this "four-dimensional" board. Elle watched, hovering between absolute hilarity and absolute pity.

"Jim."

The captain waved off a curious McCoy over his shoulder. "Not now, Bones."

"Medical matter, captain."

Kirk looked up. "What, doctor?"

"If you make that move, you'll live to regret it."

Elle snorted so hard she started to cough.

Lt. Tanzer reached over and patted her on the back, his eyes twinkling.

"I already regret it," Kirk said dryly. "I guess you win, Spock."

"Wait," McCoy said. "Can I play it out?"

Everybody's eyebrows went up. Elle stifled another cackle of glee.

Kirk stood up. "It's your funeral."

It was a funeral. Spock's. Five moves later, and Spock's chess pieces were in pieces. Outright gaping, Spock tipped over his king.

Elle squealed and cheered. "And the winner is Bones! The unknown champion! Whoo!"

"How-" Kirk started.

McCoy grinned smugly. "You should have more faith in yourself, Jim." He walked out of the room, smirking.

The comm beeped. "Sir, we have a dispatch that requires your command ciphers," Uhura said. "Do you want me to route it to your quarters?"

"No, I'll be up on the Bridge in a second," Kirk said.

Elle reset the board and put it in standby and hurried after Kirk and Spock. She missed the turbolift they were in and had to wait.

By the time she got up there they were already reading the dispatch. "What kind of trouble are they expecting?" Uhura was asking. "You don't send that much firepower, plus a destroyer, if you're not expecting something."

Elle stuck her head in over Uhura's shoulder and read the dispatch. Report to the Neutral Zone, these three ships to meet up, blah blah- "What does 'unusual breadth of discretion' mean?" she asked.

Spock gave a Vulcan not-sigh and the captain gave a real sigh. "It doesn't mean anything," Kirk said. "It means I can do what I want, and if they like it, we all get medals, and if they don't, we get fired."

Elle blinked. "That's not cool."

"No, it's not."

"I wonder what the Romulans are doing, to make this much of a fuss," Elle said, going back to the list of ship's names. Constellation, Ineau, Intrepid- "Oh, hey, Intrepid!"

"That ship has a new captain now," Kirk said. "Suvuk. He's a hero, in all the meanings of the word."

"A courageous officer," Spock agreed, which meant Suvuk was the stuff of legends.

Elle smiled. "Cool. It'll be nice to see them all again."

"You wouldn't happen to know what's going on?" Kirk asked, giving her a curious look.

Elle shook her head. "I don't think this is an episode."

The Enterprise got to the rendezvous the next day. Elle hadn't seen so many starships in close proximity. "That ship is huge," she breathed, gaping at the destroyer-class as it coasted regally at a ten-kilometer limit.

"You should see the crew it has," Kirk said cheerfully. "It's a mostly Denebian crew. They're half the size of a shuttlecraft."

"Can I come?" Elle asked.

"Considering you're the only person who's been able to see a Romulan cultural database firsthand I think you'd better," Kirk said.