Author's Note:

Good morrow to you all. So yet another update and this time around I'm using my OCs from 'Unofficial Rules' Ensigns Harvard and Rogers. Thank you for your support for this story and I hope you like this chapter.

I own nothing.

Never To Say

The Enterprise had been given a new mission.

She was to do a study of a newly discovered Class M planet. It was larger than Earth with a slightly denser but still breathable atmosphere; the surface water was less than Earth's meaning that all the landmass was connected right across the planet resulting in one large continent with large lakes. As far as the scans showed there was no form of advanced life on the surface but there was evidence of advanced technology and as such Jim had decided to beam down with a landing party to have a closer look. Ensigns Harvard and Rogers were a part of the landing party and they were discussing the mission on the way to the transporter room.

"What do you think the technology is Harvard?" Rogers asked.

The slightly older ensign shrugged his shoulders, "It's probably some form of ancient instillation or an abandoned colony left behind by a race that came here before us. Finding that sort of thing is a lot more common than people think seeing as there have been races exploring and colonising the galaxy long before us. Usually things like that are so old they have little to offer out with archaeological interest and all that's left is a few automatic systems that are still barely running off a pretty much depleted power source."

"Sounds like it's a routine mission then."

Harvard stopped dead and stared at his friend and Rogers looked at him in confusion, "What, why are you staring at me like that Harvard?"

The other man gaped at him, "Don't you realise what you just said!?"

Rogers just looked even more confused, "What's wrong with what I said."

Harvard's mouth dropped open in disbelief, "Seriously! You never ever say that it's a routine mission."

"Why not?"

"Because every time someone says that it always, and I mean always, goes wrong and we end up fighting for our lives or the ship or something!"

"You think I've jinxed the mission or something?" Rogers gave a short laugh, "C'mon I couldn't have cursed it by saying its routine."

Harvard just shook his head and resumed walking to the transporter room, "You'll learn soon enough."

In the end they discovered that the technology was created by an advanced civilisation who had found a way to store themselves in computers. Its people then tried to hack the Enterprise while robots under the command of the aliens kept Jim and the landing party fighting for their lives. Harvard and a couple of other members of the away team were badly but not life threateningly injured, Rogers was captured and had to be rescued by Spock, Scotty was left protecting the ship while Pavel performed the quickest computer work anyone had ever seen and just managed to prevent the hacking attempt from being successful. Hikaru had to pull of some very fancy manoeuvres when the aliens decided to blow the Enterprise up when their take over attempt failed while Nyota had to do some quick jury rigging of her station to cut through the communications block the aliens had created to try and find out what had happened on the surface. In the end Jim and Spock found a bizarrely genius way to defeat the aliens and save the day. Unfortunately several people needed medical attention, the ship needed some serious repair work and the immediate area around the instillation was levelled when Jim and Spock's plan accidently resulted in it exploding.

Rogers was at Harvard's bedside in the Medbay while the older ensign was resting on McCoy's orders. They sat in silence until Harvard spoke, "Rogers, do you remember our conversation from just before we beamed down?"

"Yes."

"So keeping that conversation in mind what have you learned from today?"

Rogers sighed, "Never ever say that a mission is going to be routine."

Harvard grinned, "And don't you forget it."

PS-So there we go and Rogers has learned another important lesson about serving on the Enterprise (or my version at least). Please let me know what you thought.