Another Path
Chapter 2
Enterprise
Nyota Uhura was a very happy woman.
Standing in the observation lounge of the Iowa ship yard, she lounged on one of the sofas scattered throughout the room and gazed up through the plexiglass window at her baby.
The Enterprise.
In the bag beside her she had her Academy graduation documents and her treasured official posting for the ship currently idling in front of her.
Getting a posting to the Enterprise had been a labour of love. It was unheard of for new graduates to be posted to the fleet's serving flagship, but Nyota had shed blood, sweat and tears in her efforts for perfect grades and it had paid off in spectacular fashion.
True to tradition, Starfleet had looked at the records of the top ten graduating students for the year and offered them the chance to post tenders for the ship of their choice. Nyota had finished second and had immediately requested the Enterprise. The admiral reviewing her application had called her into his office and given her a thorough grilling. He told her point blank that she would have to work harder than all the other officers on board in order to hold onto her place as part of the crew. She had bristled at that, immediately on the defense of her sex, but before she could open her mouth to fight back, the admiral assured her that it was purely because she was an unknown element. As a green officer she would be under constant scrutiny and if Captain Pike even so much as suspected that she couldn't handle the posting, she would be off that ship faster than an ejected warp core.
Commander Spock had written a glittering recommendation for her, completely unprompted. She was under no illusions that their borderline friendship had any factor in it, she knew how incorruptible Spock was - she'd seen enough Students try to buy their way to good grades with zero success - so she knew she was worthy of the posting. Now she just had to make sure she didn't disappoint him.
She thought back to the time they had spent in private study and public dining and sighed heavily. The rules about students and tutors fraternizing were crystal clear: it was not tolerated under any circumstances. The rules were in place to protect all parties involved and anyone found to be in violation of said rules were immediately removed from the Academy.
But rules didn't stop attraction from forming.
The number of times Nyota had found herself gazing doe-eyed at her xenoliguistics tutor during class ran well into triple figures. That in and of itself would not be a bad thing, she could pass it off as a crush, especially given the fact that he was also her personal tutor. The vertigo-inducing fact was that more often than not, during her marathon staring sessions, he had met her gaze with one of his own.
There was one particular episode of potential that stood out more than the others: she had been walking into class with one of her male friends, they were laughing and walking closer together than usual due to the fact that they had been to a party together the previous night and were sympathising in each other's hangovers. When they had entered the lecture theatre, Nyota had glanced across at Spock to nod her usual, non-verbal 'good morning' and he had fixed her companion with the most envious, bitter, cutting glare she had ever seen from him. It had only been a flash of emotion, and anyone else - who didn't watch him like she did - would have and did miss it, but to her it was practically a declaration of regard.
She had spent the rest of that day struggling with her steadily burgeoning regard and trying to reconcile it with the fact that she was trying her damnedest not to be attracted to him.
Damn it.
She smiled grimly to herself, finally tearing her eyes away from the ship.
They were no longer teacher and student, they were free to explore more intimate possibilities than friendship if they wanted.
The question was, did she want it?
With the Enterprise she had been given the chance of a lifetime and if she didn't absolutely shine then the rug would be whipped out from under her fatser than she could breathe, effectively shattering the dream she had worked so hard for. Embarking upon a relationship with Spock now would be a massive distraction, one that she could not afford, despite how much she may want it, and especially as they were going to be serving on the same ship.
She took a sliver of solace in that thought.
They would be colleagues aboard the Enterprise, work mates, they would most likely hardly ever cross paths. Spock's position as First Officer would consume most of his working day on the bridge. As a greenie, Nyota would be stationed several decks below him in the communications centre. As such, with the limited contact their posts would afford them, it would only be a matter of time until her crush burned itself out.
She hoped.
-UFP-
Following the launch of the new flagship, everything was going swimmingly until they passed Alpha Centauri and a solar flare from the star knocked out a portion of the power distribution grid that led into the universal translator.
Scotty - cursing the new fangled technology that had allowed this to happen - was working frantically in Engineering to reset the power grid and get the translator back online. He had his own reasons alongside those of the captain: until he did he would have no idea what Ensign Keenser was saying.
When they said that some people weren't built for Federation Standard, Keenser's race were right at the front of the queue. Whereas all Federation members learned Standard as part of their education, the Badak Api simply could not wrap their scaly lips around it, so Scotty was forced to rely on the Universal Translator in order to work with his assistant.
Scotty pulled his head out of the guts of a console as a throat was politely cleared behind him. He turned around and sighed noisily with relief, it was one of the junior communications officers; thank God.
"Commander Scott? You called for a translator?"
Scotty wiped his hands off on a rag and flashed a tight, tense smile at the girl addressing him. "Aye lass, you arrived just in time. I was about to strangle the little bugger."
She looked around in confusion, her pony tail swinging as she did so. "Who sir?"
He waved his rag at a stubby pair of legs sticking out from under a nearby power conduit. "Keenser. Little snot bag has been deliberately chattering at me all afternoon, he knows I can't speak Badaki." The engineer concealed by the conduit chirruped haughtily at him and Scotty raised his voice to drown him out. "I can't understand a bloody word, thought you might have a better chance."
Lieutenant Uhura raised an eyebrow, she had looked briefly into Badaki after discovering that there would be one on the crew, but she had uncharacteristically given up. Just as Badaki vocal apparatus struggled with standard, so too did Human with Badaki; it was like her experience with Tellarite all over again only ten times worse.
"I'm sorry, sir, but I don't know any human who can speak Badaki and I'm afraid that I'm no exception. However, I might know someone who can." Moving to the comm panel on the wall, she paged Spock on the bridge. He responded after the second page, his face appearing on the small screen as he spoke to her from the science station.
"Lieutenant Uhura, this is rather unorthodox. I presume you require my assistance?" He was stoic, business like and Nyota was grateful for his natural placidity. If he had been fully human it might have been difficult working with him. As it were this was the first time she had spoken to him since they had left Earth; as she was not a senior officer and he was the first officer, she had no authorisation for direct contact with him unless something out of the ordinary happened.
This pretty much counted as out of the ordinary. "I was wondering if you might be able to assist me, sir. Commander Scott requires translation for his Badak Apian co-worker."
Spock raised an eyebrow. "Badaki is indeed a most complicated language, I can see why you - as a human - would have trouble with it. I will be available to assist you in fifteen minutes. Spock out." The screen abruptly went blank.
Despite herself, Nyota bristled. She knew that Spock always spoke from a logical standpoint, but did he have to point out her failure so blatantly? And probably within earshot of the captain too. She started to fume, just because she couldn't speak Badaki it did not follow that she couldn't understand it.
Something nudged at her knee. Looking down she saw that Ensign Keenser was standing beside her and looking up at her with an unreadable expression on his scaly face. Blinking his huge black eyes once, he chattered and squeaked a brief question at her. She nodded and said, "I can't speak Badaki but do you understand Basic?" Keenser nodded and pointed at Scotty, chattering briefly again. Nyota grinned in response. "Yes, not a problem." Keenser jumped up and down in glee and set off towards Scotty, waving his small arms and issuing a stream of clicks and whistles at the much taller man, who in turn groaned loudly and waved his hands as if to shoo the little alien away.
Nyota sent a text only message to Spock's station, it turned out she would not be requiring his assistance after all, thank you very much.
-UFP-
The funeral was a somber affair, as funerals tend to be.
Lieutenant Commander Dixon had been a fine officer, a respected diplomat and a talented linguist, his name had already been recorded in history several times over for his work in deciphering new languages and for successfully mediating between disparate antagonistic groups. He had been the ideal choice of negotiator for the mission that had seen his death.
The talks between the Hassan and the Darshan had been going so well, no-one would have suspected the H'Shan's daughter of such subterfuge. She had managed to poison not only Commander Dixon but also the H'Shan herself and the other party's chosen representative, the D'Sau of Darshan. The D'Sau had survived the spiked drink, but the H'Shan and Commander Dixon had not been so fortunate. The warring factions had slipped back into fighting with the daughter now proclaiming herself as H'Shan and showing no interest in peace. The Enterprise had been forced to withdraw, the Prime Directive prevented them from getting directly involved in the war.
So they withdrew, one officer lighter than when they had arrived.
Nyota daubed at her eyes as the captain finished delivering his eulogy, Carl Dixon would be missed by the crew and particularly by his subordinates. Nyota had been working as his assistant for six months and would continue the work he had started. She would finish it in his name and honour his memory by doing so. It would be difficult to carry on as normal once the service was over, but Dixon had built an excellent communications team and they would pull together.
She turned to glance at Helen who, as the Head Communications Engineer, had been on very good - verging on personal - terms with Carl. She seemed okay for now but his loss would hit her hard. Nyota promised herself that she would keep a close eye on her friend.
The service came to a close and the officers took a step back from the transporter pad. Coming to attention, they saluted the pod containing Carl's body and watched as it dematerialised, its molecules scattered for eternity on the solar winds of space.
Nyota turned to follow the small gathering out of the transporter room, but paused as she felt a masculine hand close gently around her upper arm. It was the captain.
He waited until the room was mostly clear before he said softly, "This is not the best time, Lieutenant, but you should know that I will be assigning you as Acting Communications Chief until Commander Spock and I have decided who is best suited to take on the job permanently." He smiled gently as panic crept onto Nyota's face. "You were working closely with Carl so you are the logical choice, for now at least." He extended his hand for her to shake. "I expect to see you on the bridge at 0800 hours tomorrow."
She shook the hand in a daze, muttered her thanks and watched him go, all without blinking.
Communications Chief.
Despite the grave situation she smiled slightly; how grand that sounded.
-UFP-
Deck One.
The Bridge.
Nyota Uhura's Holy Grail.
Moving quickly to her station before she could be caught gawking, Nyota slipped a subspace receiver into her ear, logged in to the communications panel and blinked at the stream of messages scrolling across her screen. Requests for subspace access, requests for frequency updates, requests for array permissions.
She slipped into auto pilot, answering the requests as quickly and efficiently as she could. Abruptly remembering that she was supposed to be keeping an ear on incoming transmissions as well, she activated her earpiece and cocked her head, dividing her attention three ways and almost completely zoning out of the activity around her.
From the command chair, Captain Pike swiveled in his seat to afford his new alpha shift member an appraising gaze. Uhura had settled right in, which was a relief; with her still being comparatively green he had been more than a tad concerned that she would struggle under the pressures of command. He watched as her fingers flew over her console and she spoke intermittently into the audio receiver directly in front of her. He cocked an impressed eyebrow as in the space of twenty seconds she flicked easily between three different languages.
It looked like he'd been right to trust the late Commander Dixon's instinct, Uhura would work out just fine.
*
At the end of Alpha shift, Pike stood up as Spock exited the turbo lift to relieve him. Gesturing for his number one to follow him into the ready room, Pike picked up his PADD and lead the taller man into his office.
Sitting at his desk, he motioned Spock to take a seat opposite him. Activating the PADD, he went through the handover.
"Pretty uneventful shift, Spock. Lieutenant Uhura handled Comms admirably considering her lack of command experience, Ensign Parry started a level three diagnostic on the phaser targeting system which should be done in an hour or so and Lieutenant Sulu has suggested some improvements to the thruster controls that I'd like to implement." He handed the PADD to Spock, who ran a cursory glance over it.
Pike sat back in his seat and blew out a heavy sigh. "We need to start interviewing for Dixon's permanent replacement soon. He left some pretty big boots to fill and while Uhura did a fine job today I don't know how long she can keep it up. There's going to be a lot of activity she'll have to oversee while we're passing the 3C 273 quasar tomorrow. It's going to be noisy out there and the boys in stellar cartography are going to be bombarding her for days."
"Perhaps we should consider appointing her an assistant until the work is completed."
Pike shook his head. "No, if she wants to keep the position she's going to have to prove that she can hack it with the big boys. We can't hand hold these graduates every time we pass an interesting stellar phenomenon; we'd never get any work done." He indicated the PADD that Spock was now holding, "I've listed the officers I'd like to interview; take a look, see what you think and let me know your thoughts."
Spock scrolled down to the short list of names. "Lieutenant Uhura is not on here."
Pike grimaced. "That's because I'm not sure if she's Chief material just yet. She's talented, don't get me wrong, Carl wasn't an idiot but I'm just not sure that appointing someone so inexperienced to such an important job is the best thing to do. I'm not a gambling man Mister Spock, I don't like to risk the lives of my men unnecessarily. However, if you think she's the best for the job then by all means add her to the list and we'll interview her."
He rose and Spock rose with him. The two men exited the office to find Alpha shift absent and Beta shift in place. Except for one position. Uhura was still seated at the Comms station, one hand pressing the subspace receiver firmly to her ear and the other typing rapidly at her keypad.
Pike glanced at Spock to find the other man already looking at him. He smirked, "I said I'll consider her if you want me to."
Spock did not answer, merely raised an eyebrow and followed his captain to the Communications station.
"Lieutenant, why are you still here? Your shift ended ten minutes ago and I'm sure that Ensign Largo would appreciate being able to start his." He indicated the grey skinned man hovering behind her chair.
Uhura's lips thinned and she squinted into the distance as she fought to make out something coherent from the noise in her ear. "I'm sorry, sir, but a broken transmission came through just before the shift changeover and I didn't want to leave until I at least knew that it wasn't a distress signal."
Pike raised an eyebrow, pleased at the dedication being displayed. "Very well, carry on, Lieutenant." He turned to the Beta shift comms officer, "Give her a hand, Largo."
The alien logged into the station next to Uhura and Pike murmured to his number one, "Add her to the list please, Mister Spock."
Spock wordlessly held up the PADD for him to see: he'd already put her name down for interview.
Pike smirked. "Audacious, Mister Spock; I do approve. Try not to let her overstay her welcome, alright? I'd like Ensign Largo to be able to earn his keep today." Receiving a nod in the affirmative, pike smirked again and left the bridge.
Next time: Things get... interesting... for our favourite couple.
