"I cannot believe six hippies managed-"

"I don't want to talk about it."

Elle stifled a giggle. "I even warned-"

"Elle, I do not want to talk about it."

She cackled hysterically as the captain of the Enterprise sat there, pouting at the fact that six hippies had managed to hijack the flagship. Granted, one of the hippies was actually a renowned scientist and genius, but still.

Elle gave a final snigger and sighed. "No seriously though, captain, they weren't even good hippies. Looking for Eden. Doctor What's-his-name should've known that Eden is Earth, not some sort of wacko unhinhabited planet."

Kirk tilted his head and regarded her curiously. "Why do you think Eden is on Earth?"

"Well it's obvious," Elle said, waving a hand.

"From a vaguely Western religious background I get the general concept but why are you so adamant that it's Earth?"

Elle frowned at him. "Well the proto-race that dropped humanity on the planet obviously thought it was paradise, or they wouldn't have picked it."

Kirk stared at her. "The proto-race?"

"The ones that seeded this galaxy with bipedal species," Elle said.

"What."

"The," Elle faltered. "Oh, it was with Picard, never mind."

"No, now you said it, you have to explain it," Kirk said, shaking his head. "What?"

"That's why humans, Klingons, Vulcans, Cardassians, whatever-ans, and all the other humanoid species can reproduce with minimal or no genetic tinkering," Elle said. "We're all related, making up one massive, varied humanoid species. Highly-curated chunks of genome all split up and seeded throughout the galaxy. We had to come from somewhere, another older part of the universe, and this galaxy had enough livable planets, or they terraformed well enough, to put humans on Earth." She grinned. "It's one of my favorite episodes, just because of the expressions of disgust on everyone's faces. They all figured it out together, intergalactic archaeology on a massive scale, and everybody agreed to just forget about it because nobody wanted to admit it." She sniggered. "Ah, that was a great episode."

Kirk still hadn't said anything. Hadn't even moved.

"Captain? You okay?" Elle poked his arm. "Are you broken?"

"We," Kirk said, with some dignity, after another few seconds, "are going to pretend this conversation never happened. Except for a small mention to Spock, we are going to leave this discovery to the future captain of the Enterprise."

Elle grinned. "Yes, sir."

-/\-

"Another plague?" Elle asked.

"Botanical, this time," Sulu said tiredly. "Agricultural antibiotics caused a species of bacteria on Merak II to take over the entire ecological system." He pulled up the information on it. "How would you handle this crisis?"

"I'm assuming we're not going to just evacuate the planet?" Elle asked.

"No. The mission is to stop the plague itself."

"Burn it with fiyahhhhh," Elle said dramatically, waving her hands in the air.

Sulu snorted. "No."

"Sulu, you are no fun."

"Don't be mean to me or I won't teach you how to fence blindfolded," he retorted.

"Okay, okay," Elle said, sitting up straight and reading through the material. "There is one compound that acts as a bactericide but it's only found on... Ardana, which is in the same system, so that makes sense. Zenite... that could kill a lot of things, not just bacteria." She looked up the Enterprise's current course heading. "So we're heading there straightaway."

"Yes, we are. Good job." Sulu ruffled her hair. "You're getting the hang of these analyses."

"I am the mission consultant," Elle pointed out. "Gotta actually do my job."

"Cool. Then you can read this." He dropped a PADD in her hands. "The history of Ardana and its admittance into the Federation."

Elle made a face. "Ewww, prepackaged reports are so dry..."

He laughed at her with zero sympathy. "There are no jokes in official reports."

"Yet," Elle said, with both promise and threat in her tone. "There's only a few more months till I turn sixteen and then HQ won't know what hit them."

Sulu shook his head. "I can't wait."

-/\-

Elle read through the packet on her lunch break. It was, as promised, a dry rendition of Ardana's history and admittance into the Federation, as well as it's proposed twenty-year plan to improve itself on the civil rights front...

"They literally have slaves," Elle said, walking onto the bridge in high dudgeon. "This is the Cloud City from that one episode. They literally have slaves- who let them into the Federation?"

Sulu and Chekov exchanged credits. "Told you she'd find it," Sulu said, pleased.

Elle paused. "Huh?"

"That's why they sent us," Kirk said, smothering a grin. "Otherwise they would've had a science vessel pick up the zenite."

"The xeno-botanists realized that zenite particulates suppress higher brain-functions," Sulu said. "They appealed to the Federation to recheck Ardana's policies. Our visit takes out two birds with one stone."

"Oh." Elle sighed. "Okay. I guess I don't have to warn you not to get kidnapped by the miners then, right? And not to listen to a thing the rich people have to say?"

"No, you do not," Spock said.

"Okay, cool." Suddenly deprived of purpose, she wandered over to Spock's station. "So why are you studying the zenite already?"

"As soon as we arrive we must gather firsthand evidence of the harm it does and attempt to reverse its effects as soon as possible," Spock said. "Perhaps you could continue your studies with the joint biochemistry and geology team. Your knowledge of this episode may allow us to confirm several hypotheses."

Elle knew a gentle dismissal when she heard one. "Yes, sir."

-/\-

"Studying some cooooooool rocks while my captain goes and deals with social injuuuuustice," Elle sang absently, twirling in her chair while she waited for the microscope to recalibrate.

"That's our theme song," the geologist next to her agreed.

Apparently Kirk and the Prime Misister did get into a fistfight at some point, but Elle missed it. She was too busy helping Requisitions manufacture filtration masks. "All that art and shiny stuff and they don't have face mask filters?" Elle grumbled under her breath. "What do they do when they spray their toxic art fixatives? Just die?"

Commander Chanax snorted. "It's called holding your breath and opening a window," he said.

"That never works."

Suffice to say, they traded the filters for the already-mined zenite. Took the zenite to the plague planet, dispersed it, and promptly returned to Ardana to chew out the High Advisor and his elitist council while on conference comms with the Federation Bureau of Industrialisation. It was satisfying on so many levels.

Elle took notes of how many times Kirk managed to insult the High Advsor's intelligence without him being aware of it. Now that was a useful skill.