"Why do you want to leave Deep Space 11," Simo said. He sat in the wardroom. He didn't have a private office so he used it or the Captain's office when he needed one. This time only he and two engineering officers were present, two married Terran NCOs named Wyatt.
"We've made up our minds," said Mr. Wyatt firmly. They were Terrans, of the Northern or Caucasian breed Terran. He looked Simo through squinting eyes, his body spread as if to take blows.
Simo shrugged, leaning back to signal to Petty Officer Second Class Wyatt that he was not going to obstruct him and smiled to show acceptance. "I'm considering this as an exit interview. I'm not going to try to stop you. But I want to record why you two both chose to request transfers." He pulled out a tricorder to record exactly what they said. "If you don't mind. It really will help me."
"It's the same reasons everyone else wants out of here."
"Please. Tell me in your own words. Be polite but be honest. Tell me so I can take it up the line. Think of it as trying to help your replacements." He turned to Mrs. Wyatt. She was the base environmental controls specialist, a Chief Petty Officer with a very good record. He was just damage control and general maintenance that could be replaced but losing her would hurt.
Mrs. Wyatt spoke, tossing her hands up in exasperation. "This base is miserable. It's worse than a deep space assignment on a starship. We can't go down to the planet, and we're crammed in here. We need childcare. We will need schools. We need a pediatrician and a gynecologist."
"I've seen the plans," Mr. Wyatt said. "I know you're hiding it from the rest of the crew but you're going to cut the space for family NCO quarters again to make bunkrooms for more security crew."
"Tell me," Simo said. "If you had the rank and going to change things, what would you do and why?"
Leadership. It wasn't easy. It came in many forms. But it was necessary. He thought back to the beginnings of his experiences as a leader in Starfleet.
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"Attention all cadets there are two minutes until assembly for Breakfast formation. The uniform is as-for-class under grey jacket. This is the last minute to be called for this formation. Two minutes remaining."
He had been named the Cadet in Charge of minutes. This means that he organized the 24 plebes who alerted upperclassmen to the time of formations for each formation.
Life at the Academy had been much better since Padilla had been given a medical discharge since "a mysterious shower of blood clots caused multiple strokes." The Cadre all thought he did it. He could see it in the way they looked at him. He had studied the body language of many species and he could sense fear. Let them be afraid. All he had to do was remember that night in his tent when he could feel some Betazoid crawling in his brain. He let them come to their own conclusions.
Of course he couldn't thank the one who had given it all to him, but he could keep him up to date on how well things were going.
Dear Grandfather,
1 October
It's about 14:00 on Friday afternoon and I am done with classes for the day, however that doesn't mean this week is over. I have a big P code project due for IT105 on Monday but luckily I am almost done with it. So far I have really been enjoying the class. I got the best replicator program award and I have an A+ through seven weeks. Actually, all of my grades are pretty good, my lowest grade is B- in Klingon. Hopefully, my grades will stay up. My goal is to have a 3.5 GPA. Even though we get a ton of work to do its not that bad because there is nothing else to do other than study.
It might sound bad but I really don't mind it too much. We actually do have a lot of fun. Plebes (freshman) are easily entertained because we are deprived of so much. We get great joy out of giving the upperclassmen birthday parties, doing spirit missions, or even just watching the occasional movie when we are allowed. The days go by slowly, but looking back the weeks were fun and rewarding.
The other great thing about the Academy is that there is always something to look forward to, whether it is a football game or even just a spirit dinner or a B weekend, football game. We have plebe parent weekend coming up in 2 weeks which should be awesome.
Well it is Sunday night about 22:00. I slept in this morning because it's the only day we can. I spent most of the day doing homework, namely my IT105 project that is due tomorrow. I am quite happy with it. It's a whole navigation console control system. I reverse engineered a Cardassian one and it looks cool. I was very bummed about yesterday's football game against UCR. We were ahead and lost it because they scored with a couple of stupid late penalty kicks. This week would have been so awesome if we had won.
There are just two more weeks until Plebe Parent Weekend, so there is that to look forward to.
It's Monday about 20:20. I had swimming first hour this morning and I got a 100 on my last survival test, which was great. Now I just need to get a decent score on the one kilometer swim test and I will have myself an A. Tomorrow I have a honors Cardassian Oral/Written Partial Review. I'm so frustrated because this class is so ridiculously easy that I am not learning anything. I really like my teacher as an Officer. He is a Bajoran exchange officer, so all he is interested in teaching us cadets about the horrors of the Occupation. But I made up my mind that I am actually going to improve my Cardassian this year even if I have to do it on my own. I'm lowballing all the Cardassian novels and vids on eBay.
Tomorrow is Friday the seventh of October. That is awesome because it means the weekend is almost here and only one more week until Plebe Parent Weekend. Today was a bit rough however. I had a math quiz today which I am pretty sure I bombed. (its not that horrible because the lowest grade gets dropped) I had a really bad headache, and my freaking computer program that I wrote during the IT105 pop quiz wouldn't work. Then I got back my second Klingon essay. My professor said that I needed to come and see him about it. He told me that it was really lacking grammatically.
It is Sunday, the night of October 10th, one more hellish week until we get a little Rest and Relaxation. This weekend was actually pretty awesome because the Academy won its first game in its last 11 tries. We ended up crushing UNAM, 4-2 and I even scored a goal! After the game the entire Corp stormed the field and tore down the corner flagposts. They threw one of them in the bay and took another down to the Superintendent's house and I don't know where they took the others. They were crazy. Hopefully, tomorrow the team will get some reward for the victory like a week of no morning room inspections or maybe even a weekend pass. I may even be missing Sulo by now.
That's all for now, I hope everyone is well. Please scratch Sweetie and Bouncer for me.
Love, Simo
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Yet the weekend was not the warm family time he had hoped for. Even on Saturday and Sunday, Grandfather kept to his endless schedule of meetings. Grandmother tried to be there like she always did but she had her duties too and she was still of course forced to spend most of what time she had on Emony. Emony was worse than when he started the Academy. For hours on end, she paced the perimeter property with Bouncer, one of the two Trill Wolf Dogs that the Admiral kept. Simo was afraid Emony still wasn't right in the head from the Saratoga. Almost in tears, Grandmother finally admitted that Emony was in therapy and on medication. Simo knew that cracking that badly even after something like the Saratoga meant that she would be ineligible for the Academy. She probably wouldn't even be able to get a K'lee'ke genetic passport for having her own children.
There was no great reunion with Sulo either. As small as Simo was, his younger brother looked like his twin. People often mistook one for the other. Yet their personalities were completely different. Simo found himself avoiding his brother and his body sculpting and concern over his hair products narcissistic.
Sulo would have a lot of growing up at the Academy. It wasn't just that all his holographic porn vids were forbidden. Sulo thought too much of himself. Maybe he was smarter, but if he cut classes he would die. And the Academy wasn't about just data PADD learning.
He found himself spending most of his time with Sweetie and Bouncer. The fearsome guard animals stood almost his height and easily had twice his mass. He knew well that their massive jaws could snap an arm off. Their powerful legs had sickle claws that could slice a belly open and they could effortlessly run at 60 kph and the claws on their arms were razor sharp. Yet Simo slept in those same soft fuzzy arms, the simple animal thoughts of these marvelous creatures calmly and joyously mixing with his.
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Dear Grandfather,
It's Tuesday morning the 19th. Everyone here is very sad because Plebe Parent Weekend ended yesterday and now the upperclassmen are back and they are trying their best to make sure we remember we are still plebes. They have put up drop zones all over which are places where plebes must drop and do pushups whenever they step inside of one.
Its Thursday evening and this week has been flying right along. All I have for tomorrow is a Cardassian in class composition. This is our tenth week of academics. That means that ten week grades are coming out soon. I think all of my grades are going to be pretty good, with the exception of Klingon. We have only had two essays and a grammar test so far, which isn't much but unfortunately I did really bad on the grammar test. Oh well, as long as I don't get an F on the report. After all D is for diploma.
Here's a laugh. Gav was told on Friday that cadets who went to five non-mandatory sporting events would get a free weekend pass. Since this coming weekend is the only B weekend left in the semester he was trying to get them by then. He did a water polo game on Friday and then a football game, a volleyball game and a rugby game on Saturday. Then all the cadets got an e-mail that the extra pass thing is suspended until further notice. So he is just totally drowning his sorrows in ration bars.
This weekend is an A weekend, which means that all cadets have duties to do on Saturday. I don't know what we are doing yet but hopefully it will not last too long because I want to get a lot of homework done and then just relax for a while. The big rugby football homecoming against the Marine Academy is Saturday so no football game this week, but then next Saturday we have BYU away and the week after it's Gonzaga at home. Can you come at least for us against Gonzaga?
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He asked but even as he wrote he already knew that Grandfather would not be there. Some unexpected emergency would show up, as it always did. A football game was just too common and ordinary for Sulo, and Emony hadn't forgiven him yet for surviving. Maybe Grandmother would be there, maybe.
But he had to keep on trying.
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24 October
Ten week grades come out this weekend, and I am looking really good except for Klingon where I have a frelling D. I thought my first two papers were pretty decent, but I also bombed a grammar test. We have a midterm on Tuesday so hopefully I will do really good and get it back up to at least a C. I knew Klingon would be my hardest class going in but I wasn't expecting to have a D. (hey D is for diploma, right)
27 October
Today I had a Stellar Cartography WPR, which I found to be surprisingly hard. I'll probably got a B on it but I thought there was a lot of trivial stuff on it while all the things you actually need to know to navigate were left off. Anyways, this week I have been the laundry Cadet In Charge. This means that I basically organize the duties, such as delivering laundry every night. This is really the only time of the day when we still get hazed and yelled at. The upperclassmen ask knowledge and check their uniforms for deficiencies. Anyways duties have gone pretty good so far this week, and I think I have been doing a decent job as CIC. It is some good leadership experience, and the upperclassmen treat you as human being when you are in charge even if some dork Ferengi screws things up.
Today my Klingon teacher gave us a chance for some extra credit to bring up our Klingon grades which is great, and I also think I did really well on the midterm so hopefully my grade will get back up into the B range. I found out that I got an A- in plebe swimming, which is awesome.
I can hardly wait for time to be back home. I just want to curl up with Sweetie. I may even be missing Sulo by now.
Love, Simo
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Simo marked Halloween evening as the day he went from being an ordinary Plebe to someone recognized.
The mandatory dinner tonight was Halloween themed. Almost everybody dressed up in costume, but Simo was in his best Cadet grays because he had the opportunity to go to an Upper Classmen leadership briefing right after dinner. The briefing after dinner was by the Star Fleet officers who were the heroes of the Q'Maire massacre during the Galen Talarian border war. It deeply moved Simo to meet these heroic men and women who saved the lives of thousands of Talarian women and children who would have been massacred by if twenty years earlier five five junior officers didn't put their own lives on the line to stop Captain Johnson and the senior officers of the Bull Run. He would never forget when Captain Adislo shook his hand when Simo told him how he had always been one of his heroes Adislo said that he was the Galaxy's future that he must always lead with high moral and ethics.
The other plebes went to the Academy sponsored a Halloween dance party and then went Trick or Treating.