Second Chances: Chapter 77
Stardate 53898
March 2377
San Francisco, Earth
Back in January, Lt. B'Elanna Torres had initially been annoyed that the class of Engineering 2 she taught was the one that included her sister. And then she had had more interactions with some of the other 200 or so plebes in the class, and Cadet Naviana Torres was, by far, the least of her concerns.
She didn't know how Admiral Chapman did it. As the dean of the College of Engineering, he was busy enough that he could have gotten away with not teaching, or at least taken the pick of the classes to teach, and instead, each semester he taught two classes of the introductory series. He claimed to love the introductory courses and the spark of interest and understanding that came into the eyes of new cadets, and had probably converted hundreds of plebes into engineering majors over the decades, but even if only one in every ten classes had one Cadet Shava—or Cadet B'Elanna Torres—she couldn't understand how he wasn't driven to retirement to a mental institution years ago.
Even with the two classes, she was still only teaching on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, going from the large auditorium in Scotty Hell for the early morning iteration of Engineering 2—which probably contributed to how painful it was, for both the professor and the cadets—straight to one of the small seminar rooms with the twelve cadets taking Theoretical Propulsion, eleven firsties who had to be the only firsties who wouldn't neglect the final project in a spring semester class—it took a special sort to want to take Theoretical Propulsion—and Cadet Yuiv, who was not only Torres' cadet at Pathfinder and an engineering physics major, but was also a second classman and for some reason, actually enjoyed the class. The excitement she saw on Yuiv's face as she worked through some of the more esoteric theorems almost made the headache of dealing with the 200 cadets in Engineering 2 worth it.
Almost.
She was almost finished with a lecture about shuttlecraft impulse drive mechanics when she saw a familiar green hand shoot into the air. "Cadet Shava," Torres said, hoping she kept the sigh out of her voice.
"Sir, isn't recalibrating the magnetic constrictors the first step in diagnosing an impulse drive malfunction?" the cadet asked.
"Yes," Torres said simply. "But that's beyond the scope of this lecture and this class. That will come in Impulse Mechanics 1."
"But sir," Shava interrupted. "If the point of this class is familiarize new cadets with basic engineering in order for survival in the case of an emergency where an actual engineer isn't available, shouldn't we be covering diagnosing and repairing malfunctions?"
This time, Torres did sigh. Cadet Shava brought this up at least once a week, usually with that obnoxious smirk on her face as she did so, as if she was making some great point that nobody had ever made before.
Fortunately, she was saved by the alarm ending class. "We have another lecture on shuttle impulse drive mechanics on Friday, so reread the relevant sections in the text. Or read it for the first time. Whichever may apply." The cadets were loud as they filed out of the auditorium through all of the four exits, but Torres wasn't paying attention as she disconnected her PADD, slipping it into her bag as she headed for the door.
"Noon?" Navi asked as she fell in step beside her. Since the semester began, they had been meeting for lunch on Wednesdays.
"I'll be there," B'Elanna replied.
"Don't be late. Again." Navi said with a grin. B'Elanna gave her a look.
"Watch yourself, Cadet," she said warningly.
"My apologies, sir," Navi emphasized, still grinning as she peeled off in the opposite direction. B'Elanna rolled her eyes.
"Lieutenant Torres?" She turned to see Cadet Shava walked a few steps behind her.
"I'm teaching another course in six minutes, Cadet," she said brusquely. "Make it quick. Unless you're planning on sitting in on a lecture in transwarp theory."
"Yes, sir," Shava said quickly. "I just had a question about the utility—"
"Cadet," Torres interrupted, her voice firm. "I am more than happy to explain any questions you may have, in however much detail you would like. But I don't have time for that between classes. I have office hours this afternoon from 1330 to 1530. Please come by then."
"Yes, sir," Shava replied, sounding rebuffed.
Torres ran Theoretical Propulsion as a student-led seminar-based class instead of lecture-based. She spent half of the class on Mondays with a lecture to give the engineering of a new topic, but the rest of the class was on the cadets. She assigned them journal articles to read and present, and the cadet leading that day's seminar was responsible for teaching the physics and the engineering covered in the journal article, with her there to guide them back on track when they didn't understand or teach things quite as well as they could have. They were in the transwarp unit, and that day's journal article was one of Nu's; Torres barely had to pay attention to catch any mistakes, the hours upon hours she spent reviewing the math and engineering in that paper before Nu could submit it still firmly implanted in her mind.
"Thank you, Cadet Vieira," Torres said when the cadet finished answering the last question with three minutes left of the class. "That was a clear and thorough explanation. Cadet Patiotis will be leading our discussion on Friday. Everyone, make sure you read through it and the supplemental materials before class. Cadet Patiotis, if you have any last-minute questions or issues, I'll be in for office hours today."
"Yes, sir," Patiotis said with a nod. "You'll be in the office in Scotty Hell?" She nodded; there were a series of offices in the building that faculty who had offices away from the Academy could use for their office hours. She had no idea how many other faculty members used her particular office on other days of the week, but it served her purposes for the two hours she needed it every Wednesday afternoon.
"In that case, class dismissed, I'll see everyone on Friday."
Navi was already seated at the mess when B'Elanna grabbed her tray from the replicator. "I think I've decided on a major," she said without preamble as B'Elanna joined her.
"Not neuroscience?" B'Elanna asked with a frown. Navi was already doing research in Dr. Zalun's lab over at Starfleet Medical. She waved dismissively.
"I'll have plenty of time for that during med school and residency," she said confidently. "I figure, I only have these four years of my life to be something other than a doctor, so I should do something different. Biomedical engineering," she said proudly, and B'Elanna laughed.
"Biomedical engineering," she echoed. "The last thing this family needs is another engineer." Navi rolled her eyes.
"Everyone tells me I'm so much like Mom," she said. "So I figured I'd do something that's a little like Dad. Besides, this way if any of my equipment breaks someday when I'm on a ship or station or the middle of a battlefield, I'll be able to fix it myself instead of taking an engineer's time away from something more valuable they could be doing."
"Fixing medical equipment is a pretty valuable use of time," B'Elanna pointed out. She had found herself doing that for Nicki more than once in the few days they were on AR-558. "I think any engineer you'll someday be serving with would agree that they'd rather have you being a doctor than trying to be an engineer."
Navi shrugged. "Well, I'm going to be both," she said confidently, and B'Elanna found herself smiling and shaking her head slightly.
"You are certainly going to be something," she replied. "No taking any more of my classes," she said warningly. Navi flashed her a quick grin and then became serious.
"You really are a good professor," she said. "That's why Shava is always asking questions in class."
B'Elanna groaned. "Don't tell me she's one of your friends."
"She's my roommate," Navi replied, and B'Elanna groaned again. She knew Navi only had one roommate, instead of the usual four-pack that plebes usually had. Navi might have explained why to her, but she couldn't remember.
"She's your roommate," she echoed, and Navi nodded.
"Orions can't room with humans," she explained. "Shava takes treatments to suppress her pheromones, and it works, but it's not 100%, and human women get headaches from Orion pheromones. Other species have other reactions, too. Vulcans aren't affected, and I guess my physiology is Vulcan enough. And my personality human enough or Betazoid enough that I can deal with having an Orion roommate. Can you imagine Shava in a room with Vulcans?"
B'Elanna couldn't. "But Shava's not fully Orion, is she?" she asked. The cadet in question had very Vulcan-like ears and eyebrows. B'Elanna had never met an Orion in person, but she was pretty sure they didn't look like nauseated Vulcans.
"Her father's Romulan. Tal Shiar, actually. And her mother's a leader in the Orion Syndicate." Navi's eyes were shining with excitement at telling about her roommate's bloodline.
"An Orion Syndicate leader and Tal Shiar operative," B'Elanna echoed. "How the hell do they meet and have a child?"
Navi shrugged. "Members of two of the most notorious organizations in the quadrant? Who the hell knows? Maybe they have 'how to commit crimes and make everyone afraid of you' conferences or something."
"And then Shava decides to rebel against both of her parents and run away to the Federation and join Starfleet," B'Elanna said dryly. Navi looked up at her and raised one eyebrow in a perfectly Vulcan expression. "Don't even say it," B'Elanna said warningly.
"Say what?" Navi asked innocently. "Do you have something Shava could do at Pathfinder?" she asked abruptly, the words coming out quickly, and B'Elanna actually dropped her fork in surprise.
"She wants to work at Pathfinder?" she asked, then shook her head slightly. "Even if we had something for another cadet to do, this is very advanced engineering," she said. "Shava's smart, I'll give you that, but this is not plebe-level work."
"Admiral Yasinski found something for you to do," Navi shot back. "Warp mechanics is hardly plebe-level work, either." B'Elanna narrowed her eyes, but Navi wasn't deterred. "She's the only Orion and the only Romulan in Starfleet," she said quickly, as if afraid that she wouldn't finish her speech before B'Elanna stopped her. "You know what it's like to have everyone around you thinking something of you because of their preconceived notations based on your mother's race. You know how lonely that is. You got lucky; your company commander believed in you. At least as far as acknowledging you as an individual person and not a curiosity. Our company commander is, well." She frowned, trying to decide what to say. "Our commander isn't Tom," she finally said, and left it at that. "Please, B'Elanna," she said, her voice almost pleading. "She needs someone other than me who believes in her. That's a lot of emotional burden. For both of us. Give her a chance. If it works out, great. If not, maybe Admiral Yasinski can use another problem cadet."
B'Elanna sighed. Nothing Navi said wasn't true. Being alone at the Academy was hard, and was a burden, and B'Elanna knew that having her as a roommate had been a burden for Reyana, too. Having that complicated math that Yasinski had given her to work on had been one of the few things her plebe year that kept her mind off the fact that everybody around her knew that she was different. And now that she was teaching at the Academy and had a lab of her own that she ran, she was in a position to help those cadets who felt as lost as she had. "I think we can find something for her to do," she finally said. "If she's interested, tell her to come by."
Navi brightened. "Thank you!" she exclaimed.
"Don't thank me yet," B'Elanna said warningly. "I'm not an easy person to work for."
"I figured that out for myself, thanks," Navi said, still grinning as she got up to recycle her tray. B'Elanna sighed again as she rose to follow her sister.
Cadet Patiotis came by during office hours, as B'Elanna suspected he would. He was smart—you had to be, in order to handle Theoretical Propulsion—and would soon be a valuable addition to an engineering department on a ship somewhere in the Fleet, but he didn't quite have the patience for the intricacies of the material.
She had about half hour left of office hours when the door chimed, Cadet Shava on the viewer. "I think that's enough for today, Cadet," Torres said to Patiotis as she called for the door to open, holding up a finger to Shava to ask for a minute. "Read through those sections of the text I provided, and if you have any questions, you know where to find me tomorrow."
"Yes, sir," Patiotis said as he retrieved his PADD, then made a face. "You know what Admiral Chapman will say if he sees me heading to the CRC, though."
Torres chuckled. "Tell him if he has a problem with it, he can talk to me about it directly. I'll see you Friday. Or tomorrow, if you'd like." He nodded in acknowledgment and left the office.
"Cadet Shava," Torres said, gesturing to the now-empty chair. "Have a seat."
Shava's question from before was related to her question in class about magnetic constrictors, and Torres walked her through what that would look like when it came to shuttlecraft impulse drive diagnostics and repairs. The cadet was able to follow along, asking for clarification on some of the more complicated issues. "You seem to have an understanding of impulse drives," Torres commented.
Shava tilted her head slightly as she considered that. "I worked at a shipyard in the Antares sector for a few years," she finally said. "Mostly little stuff, such as inventory, but the mechanics would show me things when they had the time."
"A few years?" Torres echoed. Shava didn't look much older than Navi, but Torres knew better than most how difficult it was to judge the age of hybrids.
"I left home at 14," Shava said simply, and her tone made it clear that she was leaving it at that.
Before they could get back to impulse engines, there was a chime from the door, Izzy on the viewer. "Come in, Izzy," Torres said, and the door slid open to reveal her five-year-old. Accustomed to seeing the office empty when she arrived at 1545, she stopped abruptly at the sight of Cadet Shava.
"Hi," she said after a few beats. "I'm Izzy."
"Shava," the cadet replied.
"Where are you from?" Izzy asked, her head tilted.
"Izzy—" Torres began, but Shava answered.
"I was born on a planet called Largo V," Shava said. "And then I moved to Orion when I was two."
"I was born on Earth, but then we moved to Mars, and then we moved back to Earth," Izzy said cheerfully. "My mom said—"
"Izzy," Torres interrupted. "What time is flight practice today?"
"Sixteen thirty," Izzy replied automatically.
"What time is it now?"
Kids were wearing chronometers on their wrists these days, and Ainsley had given Izzy a wrist chronometer for Christmas. She consulted it. "Fifteen forty-six," she replied.
"And how long does it take to get to flight practice?"
"Ten minutes," Izzy replied promptly. "We have to leave by 1620 or we'll be late."
Torres nodded. "How much time do we have until we need to leave?"
Izzy paused for a second as she did the arithmetic. "Thirty-four minutes," she replied.
"Okay," Torres said with a nod. "Can you give Cadet Shava and me thirty minutes, and then we'll go to flight practice."
Izzy looked like she was about to nod, and then she said, her eyes wide and her voice slightly panicked. "My flight suit!" she said. "It's in your other office!"
The kids in the simulator division didn't need to wear flight suits for practice, but she knew that Izzy wouldn't accept that. Torres sighed. "We'll go to my other office in ten minutes," she amended. "Why don't you go to the mess hall and get yourself a snack and come back in ten minutes."
The promise of food made Izzy brighten, and she turned and all but ran toward the mess hall before her mother could change her mind. "We're working on the concept of time," Torres said as an explanation. She paused, then figured the best thing to do would be direct. "Navi told me that you're interested in doing some research," she said. "I'm not sure what we have that would be appropriate for a plebe at Pathfinder, but…" Her voice trailed off as she realized that they might have something. "It's not the most exciting work," she said warningly. "Voyager has picked up a lot of alien technology over the years. We keep meaning to do an inventory of what everything is and what it does, or can do, but we haven't gotten around to it. It's a place to start."
"I can do inventories," Shava said slowly.
"I know you can," Torres replied. "The hard part is going to be getting to know Delta quadrant technology from an unknown number of races. If you're interested, I can show you around the lab sometime."
"I'm free now, sir," Shava said quickly. Torres blinked at the eagerness, but then nodded her ascent and rose from her chair.
"Let's go get my daughter, then."