Zeva system
U.S.S. James T. Kirk
Lt. Marjorie Shin took a sip of her tea as she thumbed through the data on her PADD, oblivious to her surroundings in the engineering lounge as other officers and crewmen chatted about their work and gushed about the new ship's systems.
"Burning the midnight oil, Lieutenant?" She glanced up, wondering if the comment was directed at her, and saw Lt. Dwi Masters standing at the replicator, a questioning look on his face.
"Hardly," she replied with a small laugh. "I'm still planning our first round of experiments. If you're looking for someone who can't stop working, talk to Nenyaht. He's made deflector controls his new home."
Masters chuckled as he removed his coffee from the replicator and headed to the chair next to the small sofa on which Shin was seated. "I guess he hasn't changed, then," he commented. "He did the same thing at the Academy. He was always the first one done with his assignments, because as soon as we were given one, he didn't stop working on it until it was done."
Shin smiled thinly. "You and Nenyaht were friends at the Academy, right?"
Masters thought about that, shaking his head indecisively. "I don't know if I'd say we were friends, but we weren't on unfriendly terms. I think at the Academy, there were more people who said they were friends with him than he even noticed existed. Not the galaxy's most observant guy. Why are you asking?"
"Just curious," she said with a shrug. The corners of Masters' lips twitched slightly.
"Uh-huh," he replied. "You have a crush on him." His tone was almost accusatory, but she was starting to get the impression that that was part of his personality
"May-be," she said slowly, almost teasingly, her cheeks reddening slightly. "Besides, he's interesting."
"A lot of people are interesting," the half-Trill countered before giving a quick grin. "If you find someone interesting, what you should do is look up their personnel files. That's what I did, back at the Academy." He took a sip of his coffee. "And that's pretty much all I know about him. He doesn't socialize much. He's kind of hard to get to know. He doesn't pick up on social cues that well, either. I've seen girls practically throw themselves on him without him even noticing. If you want him to know that you find him interesting, you should probably go up to him and say so."
"You seem rather perceptive about such things for a member of a species that claims romance is an annoying hindrance," Shin teased.
"I'm only half Trill," he reminded her with another quick grin. "Humans seem to have an almost unhealthy interest in the subject."
"One of the many weaknesses of humanity," Shin joked. "But we weren't talking about that. Tell me about Nenyaht," Shin all but ordered.
Masters' first reply was a deep laugh. "You can't give me orders, I outrank you," he pointed out. "I'll tell you about Nenyaht when, and only when, I want to." He paused to take a sip of coffee, glancing around the room, making it look like he was going to change the subject. "Okay, I'm bored, so I guess I'll talk to you now. Like I said, I don't know much more than his personnel file. I know he's quiet, introverted, I guess, and like I said, not that observant when it comes to other people. He's more interested in his work than he is in the people around him. That's a product of his environment. His mom was Borg, perfection was their religion. Some of that must have rubbed off on him."
"Have you met her?"
"Seven of Nine? Yeah, I took one of her courses at the Academy. She's intense, and has absolutely no sense of humor. Nenyaht's father teaches at the Academy, too, but I didn't take any of his courses."
"Quite the family," Shin murmured.
He gave another deep laugh. "They're not just 'quite the family', they're Starfleet elite." He emphasized the last word with his voice and his eyebrows, his black spots almost retreating under his dark hair. "Nenyaht didn't do the elite thing very well, though. I mean, if I were him and those were my parents, I wouldn't mess around working as hard as he does. People give you everything when your parents are that famous."
Shin shrugged. "I think that says a lot about him, wanting to make a name for himself instead of just going with family recognition."
He snorted derisively. "Some way to make a name for himself, going into the same field as his mother and doing research in her lab. Maybe everything he supposedly did is actually her work." Shin opened her mouth to protest, even though she had no way of knowing whether or not that could have been true, but Masters didn't give her the opportunity. "Do you know much about Voyager?"
"Just that it was Admiral Janeway's ship and that everyone Nenyaht knows is related to someone who served aboard," Shin replied, not bothering to disguise the sarcasm.
"Starfleet elite," Masters repeated, with the same emphasis. "So here's Nenyaht's story: his parents come back from the Delta quadrant, instant Starfleet legends. Chakotay gets promoted to captain. Doesn't get his own ship—no way a man with his record gets a ship—but gets a top spot as a Starfleet archeologist or anthropologist or something. Seven of Nine gets some sort of research position. She doesn't adjust so well to life on Earth or life as a celebrity or something and that's why the family moves to Vulcan when Nenyaht was a toddler. Few years later, they move back, maybe for someone's career, maybe to be closer to the rest of the Voyager crew, who knows? Nenyaht doesn't take too well with all the attention, keeps himself as far out of the limelight as possible. Doesn't do a very good job of it—famous family, good grades, really good parrises squares player. While we were at the Academy, he was written up in the sports section a number of times, called the best block in Starfleet history. He always seemed embarrassed by the attention, though. There are probably only a handful of people he ever opened up to, and I was not one of them. Everything I just told you is public knowledge."
"Abbey Paris was one of those people he opened up to?" she asked, a little more bitterly than anticipated.
He grinned. He had a sister; he knew that when one girl was asking about another, it was rarely a good thing. "Oh, yeah," he emphasized. "They grew up together. I don't know much about her, just that she was one of the Klingon twins. Quarter-Klingon, but when you talk about hybrids in Starfleet, people tend to focus on the non-human part. My dad's as human as they come, but I'm still 'that Trill engineer.'"
"Your spots are pretty dark," she commented.
"Darker than most Trills," he pointed out. "Sometimes that happens with hybrids; you expect one thing and get something else, but that's not important. I was going to tell you about the Paris twins. Abbey was a gymnast, cute little blond thing, but not very smart. Nenyaht used to tutor her for her intro engineering courses. If he didn't get in trouble for that, he should have. Students are supposed to go to academic services and be assigned tutors, but he just did it on his own. Parrises squares practice and their tutoring sessions were the only things that got Nenyaht out of the lab. The other twin, Joe, was on the parrises squares team with Nenyaht. Their team won championships because of him. In his official record, he was the perfect Starfleet cadet, but that just wasn't true. For the two years that I was at the Academy with them, the Paris twins had a monopoly on school pranks, and they were good. They didn't mess around with mud coming out of the sonic shower or buckets of water falling on people's heads. They were much more elaborate."
"Nenyaht said that he and the Paris twins were like siblings." She tried not to sound jealous with those words, wondered if she was successful.
He shrugged. "I didn't see them around each other too much, but they grew up in the same fishbowl, had the same pressures of fame and family expectations and everything. The Parises are like Starfleet royalty, one of those legacy families. There's probably been at least one Paris in Starfleet since there's been a Starfleet."
"That's a lot of pressure," Shin commented, thinking of her own family on New Devonshire. She knew all about familial expectations and doing the right thing; she just chose to ignore it. People used to shake their heads in wonder and whisper about her. That Marjorie… She pushed the memory aside and focused on the current problem at hand.
Masters nodded as he drained his cup and got up to leave. "Fortune may have gone out of favor in the Federation, but I doubt fame ever will," he said as he recycled the mug. "Anyway, I scheduled myself for Gamma shift, just for fun, so I should get going. If you want more information on Nenyaht or the Parises or anything else related to Voyager, let me know. I'm always interested in doing my part to help true love." He said that last part with a sarcastic roll of his eyes before giving her a quick wave as he left the engineering lounge.
Marjorie Shin had always been told that she was too curious for her own good, but she always waved away the warnings without a second thought. Thinking about what Masters had said about looking people up, she made her way back to her quarters where she positioned herself in front of her computer console. "Computer," she ordered, "display news articles regarding the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager, published in the last thirty years." Instantly, a list of thousands of articles appeared, drawing a quick breath of surprise from the bioengineer; apparently Masters was right, fame hadn't gone out of style. She got up and replicated herself another mug of tea before returning to her seat. It was going to be a long night.
---
A few hours after he left Lt. Shin in the engineering lounge, Lt. Dwi Masters, bearing a fresh cup of coffee, decided that it was time to get more familiar with the engineering department on his ship.
"A little bird told me I'd find you here," he said casually, leaning against the wall just inside main deflector controls. It was an impressive room, certainly much more impressive than any other deflector control station on any ship he had served on before.
Lt. Nenyaht glanced up from transferring data from a console to a PADD with a slightly wary expression on his face. "And what little bird was that?" he asked, moving onto the next station and repeating the procedure. "Admiral? Captain?" Gauging the reactions on his old classmate, he sighed. "Or lieutenant junior grade in a teal uniform?"
"That would be the one," Masters replied, taking a sip of his coffee. "She said you spend all your time down here."
"She exaggerates," Nenyaht said. "She had a shift here earlier for cross-training and got that impression." He punched a few numbers on his PADD and glanced up to see the part Trill engineer giving him an amused look. "It's an exaggeration," he said emphatically. "I've had meals, even left for a few hours of sleep at some point. I think." He grinned to show that he was joking. "Anyway, what about you? Late night stroll around the ship?"
"Nah, I'm on duty," Masters replied, taking another sip of his coffee as he studied a nearby display. "What does this do?" he asked, pointing.
"Probably blow up half the ship," Nenyaht answered.
"Really?"
"No. If you're on duty, what are you doing here?"
The section chief of auxiliary controls shrugged. "I got bored. I saw that everything was going well, gave some motivation to my engineers, and got caught up on the news. I am liking this section chief thing."
Nenyaht chuckled and shook his head slightly. "What exactly is it that you do?"
"Beats me. That's probably why I'm bored."
"Could have something to do with it."
Masters grinned. "Not all of us can be Federation-renowned experts in our fields, drawing upon the collective knowledge of billions of individuals."
Nenyaht raised an eyebrow questioningly. "My mother taught me. She didn't assimilate me."
"Isn't that what education is? Those who are older teaching those who are younger to think just like them?"
"That's deep."
"I know. Anyway, you should be asking about why Shin and I were talking about you."
Nenyaht frowned at the sudden change of topic, vaguely remembering that that, as well as his highly opinionated manner, was normal for conversations with that particular former classmate. "I should?"
"Gods, you're dense," Masters said with a laugh. "Girls don't just start talking about a guy unless they're fishing for more information."
"I know that," Nenyaht replied, waving dismissively. "I'm not as unobservant as people would like to believe I am. She's not the first person to be asking my acquaintances about me, although it has dropped off significantly since I graduated from the Academy." At Master's puzzled expression, he explained, "I'm no longer playing parrises squares, and apparently, the lives of Starfleet officers aren't interesting enough to make the tabloids. Now, the only publications interested in me are the ones publishing my research, which is fine by me."
Masters raised his eyebrows. "Well, speaking of those tabloids and sports articles, I think I planted the idea of looking at those in Shin's head. If she's half as diligent of a researcher as any other biomedical engineer I know, she's probably in her quarters pouring through a stack of them now."
Nenyaht shook his head and rolled his eyes as he handed a PADD to the ensign at one of the consoles. "I'm taking off, here are the instructions for the night. If you have any problems, contact the engineer on duty, which is probably Masters," he said, jerking his thumb toward the other engineer. "And if he can't handle it, which is fairly likely, he'll probably just wake me up."
"Aye, sir," the ensign replied, returning his attention to the console. Nenyaht headed toward the door, gesturing for Masters to follow him.
"Stacks of tabloids?" he asked, feigning disinterest. Masters wasn't fooled; he could tell that Nenyaht was intrigued by that piece of information.
"Oh, yeah. I think my favorite had to be the one right after graduation, the one about how you took the posting on the Zenith because it was in the BQ and thus far away from Cadet Abbey Paris, who just dumped you for one of your parrises squares teammates."
"I think I missed that one," Nenyaht said thoughtfully. "Interesting how I got dumped by someone I never dated. No, my favorite was one right after I was born. It was in Federation News Weekly or something equally reputable. The article was probably between 'Elvis is really a member of the Q continuum' and 'Archeologists find evidence that humans from 16th century Roanoke Colony were teleported to Jupiter', but the cover picture was one of my baby pictures, doctored so I had Borg implants and a cybernetic arm or leg or something, with giant words saying, 'Borg Prince Born in San Francisco!'" He grinned. "I found that cover and article when I twelve or thirteen, printed it out and hung it in my bedroom. My mother got mad, told me to take it down."
"I hope you kept it," Masters stated, chuckling at the mental image of Seven of Nine's reaction to such an article.
"Oh, no, I did what my mother said and took it down," Nenyaht said seriously before grinning again. "And then hung it in my bedroom at my father's place."
"Nice." They had arrived at the auxiliary control center, just off main engineering. "Well, I should go back to work and make sure my engineers haven't blown out half the plasma relays or anything."
"Might be a good idea."
"Yeah. Hey, all joking aside, you need to take Shin to the holodeck or something. She is genuinely interested in you. I don't think she even knew that you were quasi-famous until I said something."
Nenyaht snorted, even though he knew Masters was right. "There's no way I'm taking relationship advice from anyone who was married to Pacheco."
Masters grimaced good-naturedly. "Don't try telling me you've never made a mistake, Nenyaht." He didn't even wait for a response before wishing the other engineer a good night and ducking into the auxiliary control center. He grinned to himself as he glanced around the space, seeing everything in order before heading for his tiny office to check out the latest gossip publications, his curiosity piqued by the recent conversation. This section chief thing was definitely something he could get used to.