AN: I apologise for the ridiculous wait for this chapter! I feel terrible, but, in my defense.. I had half of it written, and then someone stole my memory stick :( I lost four years of work (AKA, all of my revision, my novel-in-progress and all my fanfiction). Ergo, I had to rewrite this chapter and it's shorter and not as good as I originally wanted it, but it's up nonetheless! I hope you enjoy it anywho ^-^
Bones left early the next morning, waking Joanna briefly to tell her where he was going.
"You can wander around the ship this morning, if you like," he said, "Jim said you've got free reign. I'll find you when it's time for lunch."
"'Kay," she murmured sleepily, not really listening to him, "Love you, daddy." Bones smiled.
"I love you too, darlin'."
As she laid in bed, unable to get back to sleep, Joanna thought about her father's job, and what her Uncle Jim did on a daily basis. She wasn't stupid; she knew that the two of them never told her the full story of their adventures traversing the galaxy. Her Uncle Jim had died, for goodness sake, and yet he was currently ordering people around on the Bridge! What she really needed was reliable information.
She had known for almost two years that, when she was older, she wanted to be a Starfleet officer. She told everyone she could, every chance she got.
However, she was becoming aware of the problem that she didn't know exactly what she wanted to do in Starfleet. Her eight-year-old logic decided that this was simply unacceptable; she needed to start making choices now.
Joanna was determined to make the most of the opportunity she had been given and so she set out, arming herself with an old notepad and pen, determined to get as much information about as many different areas of Starfleet as she could. Dressed in another of her new Starfleet shirts, she was on a mission to decide exactly what kind of Starfleet officer she was going to be.
As she walked in the direction of the Bridge, she bumped into Sulu, who grinned when he saw her.
"Good morning, Joanna," he said.
"Hello, Mr Sulu," she said politely, "How do you know its morning if it's always dark in space?"
Sulu thought for a moment, then shrugged, "We just go by what the clocks say."
"But wasn't there a time when Uncle Jim and Scotty changed all the clocks so ten o'clock in the morning was actually three in the afternoon?" she asked. Sulu chuckled slightly at the memory.
"Yes, that did happen..." he said, "But Admiral Archer got someone in engineering to put some sort of lock on all the clocks so no one can change them."
"Uncle Jim could hack it," Joanna said confidently. Sulu secretly doubted it, but decided against arguing with the little girl.
"Was there anything else I can help you with?" he asked. Joanna smiled suddenly.
"Yes!" she said excitedly, "I have some questions."
"Ask away," Sulu said, leading her into the cafeteria so that he could get some breakfast during his break.
"What do you do in Starfleet?" she asked, reading off the first question on her list.
"I pilot the ship," he told her, sitting down opposite her at a table, "I make sure that we're always on the right course and we're not going to bump into anything."
Joanna quickly wrote down his answer, "Okay... next question: when do you get to make the Captain's decisions?"
"When the First Officer isn't available to make the decision," Sulu said, "So, when Jim and Spock are both on an away mission, I'd take charge."
"Is that nonnegotiable?" Joanna asked, not looking up as she continued writing.
"Not always," Sulu said, wondering how she even knew what 'nonnegotiable' meant, "I could pass the con to someone else, and then they'd be in charge."
"But what if someone else wants to make the decision?" Joanna asked, "Or if someone thinks you're wrong? Then what happens? Do you have to listen to them, or can you just ignore them and do what you think?" Sulu frowned.
"Well, a good captain will always take his crew's views into account," he said, "But, ultimately, it's up to whoever is in charge to make the decisions."
"But what if-"
Sulu suppressed a sigh; he wondered how Joanna kept track of all of the bizarre questions in her head. He had only been speaking to her for five minutes, and she'd already made him think more than he would during an average day piloting the Enterprise.
He knew one thing for sure: from now on, he would never complain about having a quiet break. Contending with an eight-year-old's logic was far too much work...
After Joanna finally let Sulu get back to work (after grilling him for a further twenty minutes), she made her way down to Engineering, which was easily one of her favourite places on the ship.
"Mr Scott?" she called out as she walked through the door. Scotty's head appeared around the doorframe of his office.
"Hello, lass!" he said, grinning, "I wasn't expecting you down here! What can I do for you?"
"I have some questions to ask," Joanna said, "About working at Starfleet." Scotty quickly agreed to help her, completely oblivious to the situation he would momentarily find himself in.
Joanna made her way around the ship, asking different people the same questions over and over about what it was like working for Starfleet.
When Jim heard about this, he at first find it quite amusing; he knew exactly how determined Joanna could be. However, the more he heard about it, the more he wondered what on earth the little girl was planning to do with the information she was gathering.
Bones found her and took her to lunch, and endured forty-five minutes of her babbling about the things she had found out.
"I don't know what's going on in that little brain of hers," Bones said quietly to Jim after Joanna had run off again, "But she's going to end up wanting to do every single job in Starfleet!" Jim shrugged.
"She's probably just excited," Jim said, "It's unusual for a little girl to be surrounded by so many different officers, especially when she's set on joining Starfleet. Just give her a while for the excitement to go away and she'll be back to normal in no time."
Jim couldn't have been more wrong. Two days later, Joanna was still carrying the notepad around, though she had stopped firing questions at everyone she saw. She was now silently noting down whatever caught her interest.
Bones didn't see this as often as Jim did; being the captain, he often wandered around the ship, just to just how everyone was doing (and to avoid succumbing to the boredom that accompanied the Bridge). On the fourth day of her visit, he saw Joanna a total of twelve times in different areas of the ship, seeing her writing notes furiously on her notepad.
If he was honest with himself, he was worried; as much as he was happy that Joanna wanted to work for Starfleet, it seemed to him that she was wishing her childhood away. He, of all people, wanted to make sure that that didn't happen.
*. . .*
When his shift finally ended, instead of going straight up to sickbay to meet Bones like her usually did, he went in search of Joanna.
He finally found her lying on her front on the floor of an otherwise empty rec.-room. She was still writing in her notepad (or was it a different one? Jim wasn't entirely sure).
"Hey, Jojo," he said as he walked in, sitting down on the floor next to her, "Watcha doing?"
"Collecting research," she said, glancing up at him, "About Starfleet."
"Oh, that's cool," he said, "But, er... why?" Joanna paused in her writing, looking at him properly.
"Because I don't know what I want to be yet." She said simply. Jim shrugged.
"So?" he asked, "Do you need to know right now?" Joanna frowned.
"Yes." She decided after considering it for a moment, "I only have eight years until I can join, maybe less if I work hard enough... I'm already eight, and daddy always says that the time has flown by. What if the next eight years fly by too, and then, when I can actually join Starfleet, I don't know what I want to be?"
Jim sighed, "Shall I tell you something?" he asked her. Joanna nodded, "Has your dad ever told you the story of when we first started at Starfleet Academy?"
"He said that he threw up on you on the shuttlecraft," Joanna giggled, "But nothing other than that." Jim laughed.
"Well, that did happen," he said, "But when I first went to the academy, it was a last minute thing. I'd never really wanted to be a Starfleet officer. After what happened with my dad, it didn't really appeal to me. But there was a great man, called Christopher Pike, who dared me to try it. And I don't turn down a dare.
"So, the next morning, I boarded a shuttlecraft headed for Starfleet Academy. I didn't know what I wanted to study, what I wanted to be or if I even wanted to be a member of Starfleet."
"But now you're a captain and you know everything!" Joanna said, "And you didn't even have a plan?"
Jim shook his head, smiling slightly, "I didn't even have a plan. But I didn't need one, really. Becoming a Starfleet officer isn't about planning everything out, or making sure you know everything about everything; that stuff comes with time. What I'm trying to say, Jo, is that... you don't need to rush. You've got at least eight years of childhood left. You should make the most of it, not throw it away planning the rest of your life."
Joanna looked down at the notepad on the floor in front of her. She sighed, flicking it shut, smiling at Jim. "Thanks, Uncle Jim." She said, hugging him. Jim smiled.
"Any time, Jojo," he said, "Now, how about we go and surprise your dad, hmm? Maybe we could build another blanket fort."
"Where are we supposed to build a blanket fort on the ship?!" Joanna asked.
"Well, the Captain's lounge is always free," Jim grinned, "Shall we give it ago?" Joanna nodded happily.
"Race you to sickbay!" she said, running from the room and off towards the elevator. Jim smiled again, picking her notepad off the floor and flicking through it. Joanna really had been thorough in her research.
He made a mental note to put it somewhere for safekeeping; there would come a day when Joanna would find the information she'd gathered very useful.
But, for the time being, she was finally allowing herself to be a little girl again, and Jim couldn't wait to take her up on her race.
And there you have it! I'll be trying to update more often, though I've got GCSEs and a ridiculous number of extra-curricular activities, so it may not be quite as often as I'd like. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please, please, please give me some feedback! Good or bad: I love all of it! Reviews are a dream, I love you all and, until the next time! *bows out*
