Author's Note:

Hello everybody. Another peek into the life of our favourite teenage genius aboard the Enterprise. I'm still working on 'TDFBD' but I thought since it's Easter and it took longer for me to update that story than I planned, I would add a couple of chapters to this story as well.

I don't own Star Trek.

Sticky Shortcut

Pavel was a little bit stuck.

He was down in a lesser used part of Engineering doing some simple checks for Scotty. He was in a narrow gap between two sections and had been searching for a computer panel; he had seen it and had crawled between two pipes to reach it but had gotten stuck halfway. He was now wedged between the pipes unable to wriggle back or forwards with his legs sticking out from one side and his torso from the other.

Pavel wriggled trying to un-wedge himself but to no avail, he let out a frustrated snort and realised that he would have to call for help which was going to be really embarrassing. He then discovered that his position prevented him from reaching his communicator and he let out very colourful phrase he'd picked up from Scotty (one which would have resulted in a sharp reprimand from McCoy if he'd been there to hear despite the doctor's own sailor mouth) and slumped dejectedly knowing he'd just have to wait for someone to find him. He began to verbally work out equations loudly to both entertain himself and make some noise in the hope that someone would hear and investigate, when he grew bored of that he moved onto singing and then began to debate different scientific theories with himself. He was in the middle of a very interesting discussion on whether or not you could go faster than warp 9.9 (he'd been giving some very good arguments against his own 'it's possible' theory) when a familiar voice interrupted him, "Mr Chekov, may I inquire as to what you are doing?"

Pavel looked up to see Spock standing in front of him as calm as always and answered in surprise, "Commander! Vat are you doing here?"

"Mr Scott had become concerned when you vanished while doing the maintenance checks he had assigned to you. As I'm currently off duty I thought it best to assist in the search for you."

"Oh. Vell I ran into a little problem ven I vas doing ze checks."

Spock raised his famous eyebrow and Pavel blurted out in embarrassment, "I tried to reach zat console by climbing betveen ze pipes but I got stuck."

Spock assessed the position the boy was in before speaking, "I assume that you need help to remove yourself from your current predicament?"

Pavel nodded, "Da Commander."

"May I ask why you decided to climb between the pipes instead of finding a more suitable route to reach the console?"

Pavel was wondering why Spock was asking him that instead of helping him but answered the question anyway, "I vas taking a shortcut sor."

Spock raised the eyebrow again before kneeling down and taking a grip under Pavel's arms, "Mr Chekov I am going to attempt to pull you out, I suggest that you try and keep your body as relaxed as possible."

"Da Commander."

Spock pulled as hard as he could but Pavel wouldn't move an inch and after five minutes of trying with no result he released his hold and stood up, "I will have to get assistance Mr Chekov, I will be back shortly."

In the end it took Spock, Scotty, Jim (who'd come down to help when he'd heard what happened) and three engineers to pull Pavel out. He was then escorted to the Medbay by Spock to check for any damage that might have occurred when he was stuck and pulled out. Spock then proceeded to lecture him on the dangers of taking shortcuts through narrow gaps and how he should always find a more suitable means of approach unless circumstances dictated otherwise.

Pavel didn't hear the end of the incident for sometime.

PS-There we go and a slightly embarrassing situation for Pavel and he features in the next chapter as well. Please let me know what you thought.