Day 4 (Wednesday)
By the time the alarm went off over the intercom at 0600 hours, Annalise Sagawa had returned to her own bed and Schmidt rolled from the top bunk without complaint. For a brief instant, he and Spock faced each other. Schmidt glared at him, but Spock turned indifferently and began dressing for the morning exercises.
Medical had worked wonders on his blisters and though his muscles were fatigued, they were not as deeply sore as they had been the previous day. He'd just completed lacing his shoes when yelling broke out on the female side of the room.
"You are disgusting!" cried a voice Spock couldn't identify.
"Both of you shut up before they come up here," someone else hissed.
"Mind your own business, Ryskamp," a third voice shouted.
"I'm sorry, but when I wake up with your dirty socks and underwear on my bed, I feel like I have a right to be pissed about it," the original voice snapped.
Spock wasn't interested in listening to their dispute, and since he was ready, he stood to go to formation early. A tall, stocky female he thought was called Shelby stomped around the corner of the dividing wall and bumped into him. He was in the middle of offering a polite apology when the same voice from before said, "Here, take your dirty clothes with you, or else I'm tossing them out."
Spock was struck in the side of the head by a light piece of fabric that got caught on his ear and Shelby burst into a fit of giggles. Spock removed the cloth from his ear and was repulsed to discover a pair of what appeared to be dirty women's undergarments.
"Nice panties, Trainee Spock," Quinones said, standing casually in the doorway with his arms crossed.
"They do not belong to me, sir," Spock replied. He rapidly dropped the underwear on the ground and turned to leave the room. Leslie Saxena and Angelica Spooner roared with disbelieving laughter and Quinones told them to shut up.
"So… what then? You steal panties?" Quinones drawled.
"No," Spock explained. "They were thrown-"
"Are you really asking me to believe the women in Sigma Squad find you so irresistible that they're literally throwing their delicates at you?" Quinones interrupted.
"Allow me to finish," Spock protested. "They were thrown at-"
"Get downstairs. Weirdo," Quinones ordered, standing from leaning on the wall and yelling at the rest of his squad mates to hurry up and get downstairs.
"And one of you nasty females needs to come pick these up. It's gross!" he roared. "And Shelby, go see Morrison."
Spock jogged down the stairs and to their regular formation area. He met Rylax, who was cheerfully staring up at the sky.
"Beautiful morning, isn't it?" declared the Denobulan.
"It is morning. 'Beautiful' is a subjective term," he replied, looking at gray clouds forming overhead.
"I don't mind the rain," Rylax explained, his speech cutting through his ever-present grin. "It is the rainy season on Denobula. Though I imagine being from Vulcan, you would find the rain unpleasant."
"You assume correctly."
"Ah, one man's joy is another man's angst," Rylax murmured, standing up on the balls of his feet to stretch. "Though again, I imagine in your case that 'angst' may not be precisely correct."
He chuckled to himself and Spock resumed looking dead ahead and said nothing. The two of them waited for another twenty minutes and Spock began to wonder where the rest of the squad was, as the other squads had already formed up and begun stretching.
Soon the side door of the barracks building was kicked open, hitting the brick wall behind it with considerable force. Quinones was screaming. The remainder of Sigma Squad filed out in rapid succession, each of them sprinting over to Spock and Rylax and falling into two equal columns. Spock noted their total number was down to twelve now. Shelby, the thickset woman who had apparently been the intended target of the underwear that had hit him, was not there. Quinones either didn't notice or didn't care.
"Trainee Spock!" Quinones roared, stomping over to him.
"Aye, sir?" Spock replied.
"You're fired!" he screamed, just centimeters away from his face. "You were appointed barracks leader and the barracks are disgusting. Let's see… Trainee Rylax?"
"Aye, sir?" the Denobulan replied behind Spock.
"Congratulations, you're hired. You are the new barracks leader. What do you say, Trainee Rylax?"
"Thank you, sir?" Rylax stammered.
"Ha, don't thank me yet. Since some of you do not know how to clean up after yourselves or secure your equipment, we will conduct special training today, along with the classroom instruction that was scheduled for the morning and afternoon sessions. You picked a bad day for this trainees," he grinned maniacally, looking up at the ominous sky. "It looks like it's going to be a wet one."
They began their stretches and reflected on what had just happened. As barracks leader, he had been responsible for making sure their shared room was held to the standard of cleanliness set forth in the book he was given on the first day. Just the night before, it had been scrubbed and polished to a standard exceeding the one proscribed. Therefore the removal of his position was perplexing, but he recognized the futility of argument.
When their stretches were complete, they moved toward the road to begin their run when Quinones snapped, "Oh no! Trainees Spock and Rylax, up front."
There were a few quiet groans, but no one seemed eager to flaunt discontent and risk group punishment. They kept their complaining to an appropriate minimum, and Quinones seemed to feed on the energy generated by their misery. Quinones marched up to Spock's left and ordered them to begin their run.
With Spock and Rylax setting the pace, Spock found himself uncertain of what to do. He initially maintained a pace similar to the beginning of their last run. They plodded along at a relaxed jog until they reached the corner of the road. Spock was startled when Quinones snarled, "What do you think you're pulling, Trainee Spock?"
"Pulling, sir?" he asked without slowing down.
"If you have enough breath to talk to me, you're not running fast enough. I will make you sorrier than you've ever been if you do not show more effort. Now go," he yelled.
He heard Leslie Saxena whimper behind him but he lengthened his stride and nearly doubled the pace to a moderate run.
"Quicklier!" Quinones yelled.
Spock was about to reply that Quinones had used an incorrect comparative form of the adjective "quick" when he recalled Quinones' threat about having reserve breath to speak and increased the pace again. Rylax seemed to be enduring the pace well enough to his right, but to the rear of the formation the swell of uncomfortable grunting and panting was swiftly raising in volume.
"Faster! Faster!" Quinones chanted.
Spock complied and as they turned a sharp corner to take the long, straight road to the rear of the barracks building, he could see most of the rest of Sigma Squad trailing behind, with Saxena, Spencer, and Sagawa nearly 200 meters back.
"Go, go, go!" Quinones screamed, spurring Spock to take off in a dead sprint for the final 500 meters of their run.
Spock beat them all, including Quinones, and slowed his pace to a jog when he reached the grass. Quinones, Rylax, and Spooner quickly caught up to him, and Rylax plopped down on his rear and attempted to get his erratic breathing under control. Schmidt and Schassler arrived next: the former clutched his chest and put his head between his knees and the latter adopted a position on all fours and vomited.
Scrivner and Ryskamp arrived next with red faces, and over the next several minutes, Ruzsa, Saxena, Rutherford, Sagawa, and Spencer appeared. Quinones strutted back and forth along the sidewalk, fighting to catch his breath. Suddenly, he found something to say.
"You know the one thing that really burns my biscuits, Trainee Spock?" Quinones screamed.
"The improper application of thermodynamics, sir?" Spock answered, pondering whether or not Quinones had been using some colloquialism.
He didn't get a direct confirmation, but it was easy enough to deduce the answer when Quinones ordered him to "do pushups until he died." He inferred his punishment would be terminated when his instructor got bored, but there was no way to determine how long that would be. While he executed his task, he heard Quinones moving among the members of Sigma Squad, telling them to "quit whining" or "drink water."
In a rare display of kindness, he also thought he heard him gently tell Spencer to go to medical, though "gentle" was relative. Quinones was gentle when he wasn't speaking in a volume that wasn't equal to that of a chainsaw. Five minutes and three hundred increasingly poorly executed pushups later, he saw Quinones' shoes on the ground at the top of his vision.
"As I was saying earlier, Trainee Spock, it really burns my biscuits when people don't push themselves. Morrison said you ran Monday's 5K in 15 minutes. Today it took you three minutes longer. Why?"
Spock's arms were beginning to grow tired from the exertion and he willed himself to keep from shaking. It seemed imprudent to suggest to his human instructor that humans simply were not the biological equals of Vulcans when it came to displays of cardiovascular speed and endurance.
Quinones took a knee next to him and said quietly, "Individual achievement is just as important as working in a team. You came to this course not only to adapt to Starfleet, but also to improve yourself. I don't care if you're already light years ahead of everyone else in brains, strength, or stamina. I know you can do more. I expect more. Understood?"
"Yes, sir," Spock conceded.
"Now get up and go change for breakfast," Quinones growled.
His arms and chest felt rubbery and weak as he jogged to the door of the barracks. Schmidt was limping his way up the stairs and as Spock passed him, Schmidt looked him dead in the eyes and coldly said, "I hate you."
"Hatred is illogical," Spock replied, walking past him.
"I hate you," Schmidt insisted again, but Spock was already half a flight of stairs above him.
When he arrived in the barracks, the female were yelling at each other. Spooner was holding Rutherford back from striking Ryskamp, and they were all shrieking in an uncomfortable pitch about dirty socks and personal space.
"You might find it beneficial to settle your differences at a more appropriate volume before the instructors arrive," he remarked.
Six female faces turned to him and in near unison said, "Shut up!" along with more personalized slurs, and then resumed yelling at one another. The males were starting to grumble as well, and realizing he lacked sufficient time to perform a regimen of personal hygiene, he began changing into a clean duty uniform.
Schmidt finally arrived in their cubicle and glared at him but didn't speak. Spock neatly arranged the blanket on his bed and his shoes under his bunk in accordance with the guidelines of the barracks room's setup and went downstairs to wait in formation for breakfast.
They were given an atypically long morning meal. Several members of his squad gave him long and hateful glances, but no one spoke. When they were finished, they marched back to their barracks area and as they came to a halt, the first fat drops of rain began to fall.
Morrison descended the exterior steps at the front of the building like an emperor surveying his empire. He yawned lazily and stretched as strolled up to Sigma Squad, seemingly oblivious to the precipitation.
"Good morning, trainees," he declared, strutting back and forth in front of them with his hands behind his back. "We had scheduled classes all day on Starfleet rank structure, traditions and regulations, but Instructor Quinones informs me you've been bad."
Morrison fell silent unexpectedly. Spock had anticipated a long speech based on previous knowledge of the instructor's habits. Their uniforms were quickly being soaked through as the rain began to fall more steadily. The communicator on Morrison's belt chirped. He smiled.
"Do you like being wet, Sigma Squad?" Morrison asked.
The formation responded with mixed answers and Morrison shrugged playfully and said, "Let's go inside then."
Spock was uncertain what waited indoors, but based on Morrison's uncharacteristically playful attitude, he concluded the likelihood of returning outside in the very near future was high. In the stairwell, they could hear clanging noises echoing high above them that grew louder as they climbed. When they reached their barracks room, even Spock struggled to contain his surprise at what they found.
Every single piece of furniture had been upended in a random way. His own bunk was stripped of the bedding and laying on its side in the doorway, blocking easy access to the room. He was only able to identify it as his and Schmidt's bunk by the carving some previous cadet had made in the metal frame.
Clothes were everywhere: the locks on the wall lockers had been linked together and were hanging from the forward air vent by a female's brassiere and there were approximately 100 socks tied together in a large ball resting atop the central divider of the room. Beyond Spock's bunk, there was a maze of drawers from their footlockers that led behind impromptu curtains fashioned from their sheets that hung from the tiles in the ceiling.
Quinones popped his head out from between two of the white, hanging sheets and proudly proclaimed, "Look, I made a fort!"
"Trainee Rylax," Morrison grumbled.
"Aye, sir?"
"You are my new barracks leader, are you not?"
"Aye, sir."
"Somewhere in there," Morrison announced, gesturing to the disaster before them, "is the book that shows you how to reassemble all of this. You have one hour."
"Oh come on," Quinones howled. "You're being too generous."
"One hour," Morrison repeated. "Oh, and by the way, we're still scheduled to do traditions and regulations training today, so let's start with general order number one: the Prime Directive. It states 'no starship may interfere with the normal development of any alien life or society.' Everyone understand?"
"Aye, sir," they mumbled.
"Don't make me make you do pushups," he threatened.
"Aye, sir!" they yelled more loudly.
"Well, by my watch, you have fifty-eight minutes left," Morrison said. "Oh, one more thing… It'll be real quick, I promise."
Spock could hear Quinones tossing around something heavy behind the hanging sheets and logically concluded what was about to happen just as Morrison said it.
"You won't be assembling this up here in the room, you'll be doing it downstairs. On the lawn."
The expressions on the faces of his squad mates instantly registered as a blend of horror, disbelief, and anger. A few voices began to weakly protest, but Spock was already assessing the room to maximize the efficiency of the task. The furniture would have to be disassembled to get it through the door and down the stairwell, but they lacked even simple handheld tools.
"This will help you recognize the 'full weight' of your decision to not follow the barracks schematic. Too bad your previous barracks leader failed you, huh?"
They all turned to stare at Spock, but Spock looked at Rylax. Being relieved of his position as barracks leader that morning had nothing to do with failure: it had to do with success. When he had organized the room to near perfection on the first day, he had obviously defied expectations. The task they had just been given was designed to be impossible to achieve, yet the instructors had sensibly chosen to relieve him of his leadership position just to increase the odds of failure, even if only by a fractional amount.
Members of Sigma Squad began vaulting over the bunk blocking the doorway and the group descended into chaos. Every five minutes, Morrison or Quinones stopped them and made them recite a new general order. Spock located two handheld wrenches and a badly oxidized screwdriver at the back of the janitorial closet and put Spencer to work taking the bunks apart.
Rylax was frantically searching for the loose-leaf bound book with the schematic of the room, and Spock urged him to send people more people downstairs with the smaller furniture first.
"Don't look at Trainee Spock," Quinones snapped at Rylax. "These are your barracks. These are your people, Trainee Rylax."
Rylax sat down in dazed defeat on a sideways footlocker and Quinones yelled, "Fine. You're fired too, Rylax. Spooner, you're up!"
Spooner clenched her jaw and started yelling. "Spock, Schmidt, Scrivner: get the larger pieces of furniture downstairs! Saxena, start working on the locks! Ryskamp, see if you can help Spencer take the bunks apart faster!"
Her voice was shrill, but people were listening to her. Spock complied with her request, though Schmidt clearly wasn't pleased by having to work with Spock. Yet her assignment had been logical: she had chosen the three largest, strongest individuals in the group to lift the heaviest objects.
Spock's muscles were still fatigued from the exorbitant amount of pushups he had performed earlier, but he lifted a disassembled top bunk and began to haul it into the hallway. Schmidt grabbed the adjoining bottom section and followed him.
When they reached the ground floor, Schmidt tried to move past Spock and to carry his half of the bed out into the rain, but Spock stopped him.
"Piss off," Schmidt snapped.
"I am aware of your negative emotions toward me, however, the logical course of action would be to wait," Spock insisted.
"In case you didn't hear, we were given an hour to get this done," Schmidt sneered.
"A standard we cannot meet. And when we fail, then what? I conclude we shall be required to return the items to the barracks and begin again. Assembling the bunks should logically come last, as it will take the most amount of time."
Schmidt scowled darkly but set the bunk outside under the overhang leaning up against the wall and stomped back up the stairs. He found it remarkable that Schmidt chose logic over animosity. It was certainly not something he had anticipated.
As Spock predicted, they were only halfway to completion when they ran out of time. Spooner was relieved of her position, Schassler was instated, and they were instructed to take everything back upstairs and begin again. They came closer on their second attempt, and by the time Spencer was placed in charge, Spock calculated that if they continued at their present rate without further interference, success would be attainable.
The rain was relentless, but the harder it rained, the more resolved Sigma Squad seemed to become. It was made more difficult by their instructors' arbitrary quizzes over introductory regulations, as each time someone failed to answer to their satisfaction, they were stopped and punished as a group.
"Trainee Spock, what is the Starfleet order against taking another sentient life?" Quinones roared over the din of the rain.
He stopped assembling the doors to Ryskamp's wall locker and answered, "Starfleet order number 2, sir."
He started to return to his task when Quinones asked, "And what regulation covers the imminent destruction of a starship?"
Though the instructors had only covered general orders and Starfleet orders, Spock recalled the answer from his studies prior to arriving on Earth and replied, "Starfleet regulation 3, sir."
Quinones' eyes narrowed and he bellowed, "Everyone stop: stop what you're doing. You can resume when Trainee Spock gets a question wrong."
The rest of Sigma Squad slowed and watched in anguished disbelief. He blinked the water out of his eyes and stared at the instructor. He noted the trickle of water running down Quinones' chin from the downpour and the squish of water in his own boots.
"What is directive zero-seven-two?" Quinones asked, crossing his arms.
Spock was initially reluctant to answer. He had two choices: answer the questions correctly and cause his squad to fail in their third attempt to complete the task, or lie and say he didn't know the answer, which would directly contradict what Quinones had told him that morning after their run. He believed he could lie convincingly enough, but that would be both lying and violating his instructor's orders.
He contemplated Quinones' motivation for pitting him against the other members of the squad in such a way. He knew a logical conclusion existed within this problem Quinones constructed, but he could find none that didn't result in further punishment or moral quandary.
"I know you know the answer to this, Trainee Spock," Quinones said.
"Affirmative, sir," he admitted, spitting out droplets of rainwater.
"Then what's the answer?"
"The answer is that there is no answer that will satisfy your need to draw this futile exercise out until the day is at an end, sir," Spock responded.
Quinones' eyes flashed and he opened his mouth, but suddenly closed it again. He gazed at something over Spock's shoulder, cocked his eyebrow, and yelled, "Back at it Sigma Squad! You have fourteen minutes remaining."
Spock resumed mounting the door onto the wall locker when he sensed someone standing behind him. He glanced out of his peripheral vision and identified Commander Pike. He straightened his back to stand at attention for the commandant and others among the squad began to take notice and slow down.
"Carry on," Pike said, smirking and motioning with his hands.
The others went back to frantically working on their tasks but Spock remained still. He was surprised to see the senior-most officer of the training course out of doors during a rainstorm, but like Morrison and Quinones, he seemed completely oblivious to the weather.
He bobbed his head slightly, looked Spock up and down, smirked, and said, "Maybe there's hope for you yet, Spock."
Pike walked through the exterior recreation of the barracks, making subtle suggestions to the trainees as they raced against time. With two minutes to spare, they stood at the corners of their bunk awaiting inspection.
Over the rain, he could hear a peal of laughter coming from the barracks building, but kept his head and eyes straight ahead. The other squads were on their way to the afternoon meal, and were apparently taking delight in the scenario before them.
"It's a little dirtier than I'd like," Morrison grumbled, gently touching a muddy handprint on Saxena's blanket. "Time for lunch, Sigma Squad. Let's go."
They formed up and were the last of the squads into the mess. Steam billowed from their drenched clothing due to the cool air of the environmental settings in the community dining area. Hundreds of eyes glanced in their direction and smiles littered the room.
Spock took a bowl of vegetables and began eating quickly. He realized many of his habits were growing indecorous: when he'd learned to feed himself as a child, he'd been instructed not to take in a portion so large that chewing would significantly alter the shape of his face. Yet little he had been taught had fully prepared him for the experience of this course.
What lay before him was simple mathematics, relating the volume of food in his bowl and his increased dietary needs in the face of grueling physical activity to the amount of time he was given to consume it. Manners were the least critical variable in the equation.
When the meal was complete, they were marched back to the barracks. Rather than return their furniture and belongings to their third floor, they left it in the rain and were ushered upstairs into their empty communal room.
Morrison gave a lengthy lecture about Starfleet's customs and courtesies and reviewed the general orders they'd learned earlier in the morning. The room was colder than the mess hall, and his wet clothing was causing him to lose body heat at an increased rate through conduction and evaporation.
He did his best to appear mentally alert while attempting to regulate his internal temperature through meditative techniques, but he was surprised to find his ability to control his body systems was severely diminished. After two hours of attempting to stave off hypothermia, his autonomic system engaged and he began shivering.
"When is it appropriate to forgo rendering honors to the colors?" Morrison asked.
They collectively began to answer asynchronously, "When in ranks, when in…" when Spock felt a nudge on his shoulder.
"Come with me," Quinones whispered.
As Spock followed him into the hall, he noticed Schmidt and Sagawa looking curiously in his direction and saw Schmidt whisper something quietly to her, causing her to nod. It would be illogical to speculate about the nature of their communication.
In the hallway with the door closed, Quinones asked, "Are you sick, Trainee Spock?"
"No, sir," he replied, fighting to keep his teeth from chattering.
"Your color is a little… off," Quinones said, crossing his arms in a way that suggested he was trying to intimidate him.
"I do not believe it is life-threatening," Spock replied, reluctant to explain that his physiology was poorly adapted to cold and wet conditions.
"I'm sending you to medical."
"Aye, sir."
"But I'm going to send you down there with a little bit of advice. Everything you do here has a purpose. Literally, everything. We don't just torture you because we think it's fun. Ok, maybe a little…" he smiled to himself. "But seriously, this course is designed to see if you can lead people, and one of the hallmarks of being a leader is recognizing when you need help and weighing that against the needs of your crew and your mission. Yesterday when you came to formation looking like you had sex on sandpaper, I waited for you to tell me that you needed to go to medical, because you needed to go to medical. But the commandant had to tell you."
"Sir, may I inquire as to the lesson you wished to impart this morning by requiring me to choose between-"
"I thought Vulcans worshipped logic or whatever," Quinones interrupted. "That one's for you to figure out."
"It is incorrect to say Vulcans 'worship' logic. We simply-"
"Go away," he said, pointing down the hallway toward the stairwell.
He left medical at 1800 hours after having received an injection of a tri-ox compound that would enable him to more rapidly adapt to the colder climate. The rain had ceased, but the humidity hung in the air. He rendezvoused with the rest of his squad in the mess hall, ate a quick dinner, and afterwards spent two hours returning the furniture to their barracks.
He had two hours until his extra duty shift scheduled from 2100 to 2300, and additionally, it was once again his turn to have a shift on roving guard from 2300-0100 hours. Rylax, Spooner, Spencer, and Schassler had all been given extra duty along with him for their failed efforts as barracks leaders and Schmidt was still on extra duty as well.
He had only half an hour to attempt to dry his bedding and clothing before his shift began and was only able to wring most of it out in the janitorial closet before he was due downstairs. He did his best to drape items he would need for tomorrow across the foot of his bunk, but knew the lingering humidity made his efforts futile.
They were given miniscule brushes and told to clean the baseboards of the common areas. Schmidt went to work alone at the far end of the hall, while he, Rylax, Spooner, Spencer, and Schassler took up a post at the front of the room.
"Are you feeling better?" Spencer asked him quietly, breaking the calm silence of the room.
"My state of health is satisfactory," he replied.
"Oh, I guess I was kind of worried about you up in the barracks during that training," she explained.
Health was just one of many matters Vulcans preferred to keep private.
"Are we going to tell him, or what?" Spooner asked suddenly, looking up at the others and then resting her gaze on Spock.
"To what are you referring?" he asked.
"Schmidt seems to be under the impression that Quinones and Morrison are being so hard on us because they're trying to rattle you."
"Do you agree with his assessment?" he asked without looking in her direction.
"Well, I don't know," Spooner admitted.
"What evidence does he offer to support his theory?" Spock replied, continuing to polish the baseboards with the three centimeter long brush.
"Well, the run this morning, and the thing with the regulation questions. I don't know. He saw Pike talking to you, and then Quinones wanted to talk to you, and he's telling people you're, I don't know… like their little pet."
"I mean, I do kind of see it," Spencer agreed. "But it's not like you're trying to be. You know, their pet."
"Today Trainee Schmidt told me he hated me. Yet I fail to see how his estimation of the cadre's opinions of my performance will be of any viable consequence."
"Oh honey, you're not used to backstabbing, are you?" Spooner laughed.
Spock was perplexed as to why she referred to him as an insect byproduct, and asked for clarification. Spooner and Spencer giggled.
"Schmidt is trying to convince people to… I don't exactly know," Schassler said. "I think right now he's just trying to get a feel for what everyone in the squad thinks about you. If I were to guess, I think he's going to try to do something to get you kicked out."
"Why are you sharing this information with me?" Spock asked, trying to understand their motivation for the disclosure.
"Because we, I dunno, want to be your friends?" Spencer said with a shrug. "I mean, Vulcans are allowed to have friends, right?"
"Close acquaintanceships are prevalent on Vulcan," he agreed, surprised by their willingness to adopt such a personal term after having known him for such a short time.
"Fine," Schassler sighed. "As your 'close acquaintances,' we're just trying to let you know that we've got your back. You're good people, Spock."
"Yes indeed," Rylax smiled, his head popping up from behind Schassler's stooped back.
"Oh, and I think Saxena has a crush on you," Spooner chimed. Spencer shot her a dirty look, but Spooner shrugged and added, "What? She does."
"I do not understand your terminology," he said, looking carefully at Spooner.
"Oh come on, you haven't noticed how she follows you around and looks at you all doe-eyed?" Spooner asked, sitting up straight to stretch her back.
"Could you clarify the definition of the term 'doe-eyed'?"
He truly did not understand what she was attempting to imply. She closed her eyes, smiled, and sighed deeply.
"You really haven't noticed?" Spencer said, her face smiling in disbelief. "I don't know why that doesn't surprise me, but it doesn't."
"I believe it is time to retire for the night," Rylax announced.
"You are way too happy," Spencer groaned.
"Well, me and lover boy here aren't quite done for the night," Schassler yawned. "We have roving guard after this."
Spock canted his head slightly and attempted to deduce the meaning behind Schassler's peculiar diminutive. Schassler smirked and said, "Let's go."