The transporters weren't working yet. The new design wasn't complete. The only method of getting on board was by shuttle, so it was a good idea that everyone who went over was planning on staying for a while. Especially those night owls like Dr. Chapel who came over at 0300 disrupting the night shift and their sleepy schedule.
She had originally only planned on taking small transit case of personal items and a suitcase of uniforms. Scotty offered her an anti grav unit to help her with them but she had refused saying she was a big strong starfleet officer and she could manage two cases by hand.
Then he had sheepishly explained that anti grav units were in short supply on board and he could use any 'extra' he could get his hands on.
So she packed up everything she could think she might want, gave her plants to a neighbor and closed up her apartment. After agonizing over the expense she had decided that it was far better to have a home than to be stuck in hotels every time she came to Earth.
It was nice to have a place for all those things that she had acquired over the years, paper books, a small Deltan weaving she had done on the SS Mead with Ilia, and the assortment of coffee cups and mugs she was accumulating in the cupboard. She had finally broken down and used the antique coffee maker and like the flip light switches and lion's claw bathtub she had fallen in love with it. It made heavenly brown coffee. Well, when fed the right kind of coffee, ground the right way and with the right amount of water. She smiled at the memory of that battle.
A small bag of the last of her pantry food set atop a pile of transit boxes. It was a shame for it to go to waste and you never knew when you were going to need a peanut butter sandwich.
She sat patiently at the shuttle dock waiting for her pilot half expecting to see Ilia stop again with her broad smile and musical voice and offer to give her a lift to the ship.
A very young man appeared wearing the new Starfleet uniform. He had red piping circling his insignia. He came to crisp attention before her.
"Ensign Janeson reporting to escort you aboard Enterprise, ma'am."
"Relax Janeson. It's too late in the evening to stand on military etiquette."
He looked unsure for a moment as if it was some sort of test, "Yes, ma'am."
She raised an eyebrow but didn't comment. "I could use a hand with my things."
"Aye-aye, ma'am." He deftly flipped the antigrav switch and moved the load toward a waiting shuttle.
Christine's gaze went skyward in silent prayer that the rest of the crew not be quite so... young. She took her seat on the shuttle and settled in for the flight to Enterprise.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
At a day and a time that had seemed as insignificant as any other the acolyte Spock paused.
He had performed The Flame exercise until thick calluses had formed on his palms and the soles of his feet from the heat of the sand, had long since mastered the subtleties and complexities of the exercise. So the moment that he paused caused not even the slightest bit of discomfort.
He paused.
Inverted. His form was perfect. The brutal noonday sun seared the skin of his bare back.
He inhaled slowly. A meditation master could have done no better.
He focused on the sound of the air entering his lungs. The gentle hiss of the sand.
The sound of anger had no place here in the purifying heat of the desert.
He exhaled slowly, paused to let his body find balance before he moved to the next posture.
Then he heard a sound.
A tone, perfect in its simplicity, balanced, precise. No hint of music or emotion.
It was not an organic sound, no animal could create such a pure tone
It was a sound so perfect that he faltered for a heartbeat.
Quickly, unceremoniously he brought his feet to the sandy ground and listened for the tone.
For a long moment there was nothing. He began to think it had been imagined. Something his weary half-human mind created. Perhaps the healers were correct. His dietary intake was too severely limited. Perhaps his long bouts of abstinence had created this sensory hallucination.
Then he heard it again.
This time he felt it. It seemed to resonate in the pit of his belly like a perfectly sung note.
He felt it in his mind as well.
It reached out. It was calling out for something.
Or someone.
A perfect tone that vibrated through his being, in it there was no emotion, no disorder, no discord.
It was the sound of pure logic and it called to him.
He stood for a long time in absolute stillness, unwilling to even breath more than necessary.
The sensation was painfully pure in its sheer power. Then after a period of time that he couldn't define it ended leaving only the memory of the tone, the sensation.
He turned to his cell to meditate on his experience.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
It took an hour to find her way to her quarters. Which was certainly an improvement over her first night on board when she had waited for an hour in the shuttle for the engineers to clear the bug in the new bay doors and seal the bay for her to actually come aboard.
Each day it was a new challenge to find a clear path to her quarters.
Some corridors were the halls of Enterprise that she remembered from her first tour. Others were the 'new and improved' bulkheads. Internal tracking sensors with computer interfaces at every juncture necessitated the complete re fit of the flooring and bulkhead. Any given route could be impassable at any given time. That's why they called it a complete refit. It was slated to be a 6 month job and she was the physician on duty for the job.
George was finalizing the paperwork for her to become CMO for the next mission. In the mean time she made the decisions on medical equipment refits and tended to all on board emergencies. Given the fact that transporters were offline for the refit and most crew men preferred to stay on board rather go back to Starfleet she spent a good deal of her time dealing with minor injuries as well.
Her quarters were one of the first to be refit, Scotty's orders. Of course he had ordered it after she arrived, but she appreciated his thoughtfulness.
The tiny cabin she had spent her first tour in was deeper in the belly of the ship. She had a room on the officer's deck near sickbay. Like the captain and first officer's quarters, her cabin shared a head.
Of course it was a much larger lavatory than she was accustomed to having on a starship. The shower alone would easily handle two people and it actually had a bit of a bathtub. It was a pathetically small tub, but it was a tub nonetheless.
Her belongings resided mostly in transport cases as she had not taken the time to unpack. While the room was under construction it seemed like a waste of time. Now she spent so much time in Sickbay she usually just slumped into her bunk, uniform and all, at the end of the day.
Two detours and a jeffries tube exploration and she made it to her cabin, exhausted. She drug a dusty hand across her brow as she stepped off the jeffries tube ladder onto the deck. Ten hours of pulling old bulkhead from the exam room, every muscle in her body ached.
Her room was dark as she entered and the lights did not raise as she moved to the center of the room.
"Computer?" she summoned.
"Working." The deep male voice responded from the comm panel on the wall.
"Raise ambient lighting by 50%." The room was suddenly blinding bright. She gasped and covered her eyes. "Belay that order, computer." The lights shut off. "Computer, scan room. What is the current lighting level?"
"Working...Lights are currently set at 75% of recommended standard."
"Computer, locate Commander Scott."
"Working...Commander Scott is not on Enterprise."
"Dr. Chapel to bridge."
There was a long pause. She opened her mouth to call again but a voice came from the comm panel. "Janeson here, ma'am. Are you calling about the lights?"
"Yes ensign, what's going on?"
"Mr. Scott's working on them." He sounded unsure about Scotty's ability to rise to the occasion. He didn't have the benefit of her years of experience with the great 'miracle worker'.
"Mr. Scott? The computer says he's not on the ship."
"Yes ma'am. Sensors are down too. It looks like a program error with the central computer. Engineering reports all systems are in working order, but it looks like the server interface is having a problem."
"Hm. Well it sounds like you've got it under control. If you need a doctor I'm in my quarters, regardless of what the sensors say."
"Yes, ma'am. I'll let Mr. Scott know."
"Goodnight Janeson."
"Goodnight ma'am."
Christine pulled an emergency hand light out of the panel in the bulkhead near the door and turned it on.
She surveyed the room making sure there wasn't anything that would break or hurt especially if they lost gravity control. Then she peeled off her uniform, tossed it in a transport container full of dirty laundry and headed to bed making a mental note to do laundry in the morning.
It was hard, dirty, challenging work.
She loved it.