candothat | PS-El: Part II

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PS-El: Part II

At oh-eight-hundred in the morning following Lieutenant Pavel Chekov's well-intentioned abduction of a spatially and temporally-displaced teenager, Chekov is on his way to medbay to retrieve said teenager for an interview with Captain Kirk, Commander Spock, and Doctor McCoy.

His own interview had started nearly an hour and a half ago, very shortly after Kirk woke up and read Chekov's recently-submitted incident report. Chekov regrets flagging his report as urgent; perhaps he would have had time to catch a nap if he hadn't. Then again, how could he have fallen asleep with the very real threat of disciplinary action hanging over his head?

Fortunately, none of Chekov's superior officers had suggested a court-martial or stripping him of his rank. They weren't happy with him, by any means, but Kirk and McCoy had been relatively sympathetic, and Spock's main concern was Chekov's lack of communication with him or the captain. It was agreed that El was likely better off in the safety of their medbay than on the base; Starbase 17's commander, Chekov was told, is a notoriously unpleasant individual who prioritizes Federation interests, scientific or otherwise, over things like morals and ethics. That said, Chekov hadn't known anything about El when he brought her aboard, and they still only knew as much as Chapel's medical scans revealed. Captain Kirk and Spock hoped to determine what level of threat the girl posed, if any, by talking to her.

(McCoy thought Kirk and Spock were foolish for being so worried about a hungry seventeen year-old who clearly needed their help. Chekov is inclined to side with the doctor, but he realizes that he is somewhat biased.)

The Russian enters medbay. Chapel -- still on duty even though gamma shift ended hours ago -- looks up from her datapad. "Welcome back, lieutenant," she says, waving him in.

"I am still welcome?" Chekov means it as a joke, but it comes out a little too earnest to be convincing. "You have a double shift?"

"I asked M'Benga to trade shifts with me. I'd rather pull a double than explain all of this to someone else."

"You are an angel, Christine, thank you," the lieutenant replies, although he knows Chapel well enough to know that this is not strictly true. He looks towards where he left El. Hopefully she's awake... he will feel bad if he has to wake her up. "I need to borrow El, if she can be discharged. The captain would like to speak with her."

Chapel looks... relieved? "She's free to leave."

"Thank you." Chekov turns his full attention to their visitor from another time and place. "El? Would you come with me, please?"

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El looks over the men cooly, assessing their personalities and the power dynamics in the room.

Kirk seems far too young to be captain of a starship. He reminds her of that Silicon Valley executive who spent two weeks at the commune, on a quest to "ground himself" because he was an Important Person who Changed Lives. It's the confidence of someone who was handed a great responsibility at a young age, managed not to fuck it up too badly, and thinks that makes them special. He was born on top and has never once bothered to look down on the people whose backs he stands on. El hates him on sight.

Spock is clearly the other half of that same coin: though his demeanor is different, he's also clearly too young and has that same entitled confidence. The "bad" cop to Kirk's "good" cop, probably.

Dr. McCoy is the only one who looks like he's put in the time to earn his job title. He seems ill at ease -- El guesses he's strongly disagreed with his younger "superior" officers about how to handle her, and that's a little alarming... as is Chekov's suddenly grim expression.

Moreover, there's something viscerally unsettling about being in a room with powerful white men. It instantly raises El's hackles, so instead of sticking with her plan to be tragic and sympathetic, she goes on the attack.

"Back where I'm from," she says, continuing to stand, "it's illegal for authorities to question children 17 and younger without the presence of an appropriate adult and a solicitor." She doesn't actually know this for a fact, but it feels right so she's rolling with it. "Or has the Federation decided that anyone who might possibly be a 'threat' doesn't get legal rights?"

Chekov is absolutely horrified. El's relative friendliness on their walk here had given him some hope that this meeting would go well; he certainly didn't expect her to accuse the captain of breaking laws in the name of threat analysis.

Fortunately, no one else in the room seems to be bothered by her confrontational attitude. McCoy is outright smirking, undoubtedly having a grand time watching a young woman berate Kirk.

Kirk's poised and polite captain smile breaks into something more genuine. He takes his seat and leans back in it. "This isn't an interrogation, El, and I would've sent a way more intimidating security detail to escort you here if I thought you were dangerous."

"What gave you the impression that the Federation perceives you as a threat," Spock adds blandly, "and which of your legal rights has been infringed upon?"

The fact that the men relax at her confrontational attitude makes El more mulish, and she still refuses to sit.

“I got the ‘impression’ from being TOLD,” she says icily to Spock. “And since you lack basic hearing comprehension and critical thinking skills, I’ll spell it out: I should have an adult and a solicitor to look out for my interests while being questioned.

“And forgive me if I don’t believe you,” she snaps at Kirk. “Friendliness is known to be a more effective interrogation technique than intimidation.”

Kirk looks to McCoy, who simply shrugs. The captain runs a hand through his hair, somewhere between amused and it's-too-early-in-the-day-to-deal-with-this.

"Who told you this?" Spock presses, a raised eyebrow the only sign that he's the least bit perturbed.

Chekov, still standing next to El, wonders if anyone would notice if he made a run for it. It's standard procedure to do a threat assessment when a stranger comes aboard, and he hadn't thought that there would be any harm in telling her what was going on. He fixes his eyes on a spot on the floor in front of him and stays quiet.

El gives Spock a dead-eyed look and keeps her mouth firmly shut. She’s saying nothing without a solicitor.

(And yes, she’s aware she’s making Chekov’s life difficult. She doesn’t want to; he’s been perfectly decent to her so far, but she’s not going to let a bunch of white men walk all over her for his sake.)

Kirk waves off Spock's question, dismissing it for now (not that he really needs an answer to it -- it was either Chapel or Chekov, and only one of them is in the room looking distinctly uncomfortable at the moment). "Alright, El, you want to talk law? Federation law states that custody of unaccompanied minors falls to whatever entity operates the planet, ship, or station that they appear on or in. Federation law also says that non-Federation sentients can be locked up if whoever's in charge thinks that they're a threat.

"I'm not about to throw a kid in the brig, but I can't say the same for Commander Anderson over on Starbase 17. He's a real hard ass." Kirk leans forward and looks up at El, expression serious. "You can cooperate with me and hear me out, or you can walk off the ship and take your chances on the starbase."

"Jim --" McCoy interjects.

"That's the way it is, Bones." Kirk shrugs. "El, I won't keep you here against your will. I hope you'll sit down and hear me out, but I won't force you to. If you want to go, just say so I'll have Chekov show you the way to the base."

Chekov glances over at El, sincerely hoping that she doesn't take Kirk up on that offer. He doesn't know the starbase commander as well as his superiors, but he's confident that she'll be treated better on the Enterprise. He wouldn't have brought her here if he wasn't sure of that.

El makes note of the way Kirk waves off his second officer and the use of nicknames in front of a potential threat. However Kirk got to his position, he maintains it with intimacy and charisma. She bets the Enterprise crew is more loyal to him than the Federation would like … charismatic men with devoted followers and a casual attitude toward the rules aren’t great for social stability.

And considering the way both Chekov and Kirk have spoken about their government, their society is already pretty unstable. Just how many attacks have they been under? Are they actually at war? If so, with who? She wishes she’d been able to figure out how to find newspapers on the data pad.

After a moment, she sits gracefully in the offered seat, regal as a queen — and with the dark aura of a predator waiting for the right moment to pounce.

“I’ll hear you out,” she says. “You’ve had hours to study me, question Mr. Chekov, and look at whatever logs you keep about the anomaly — what have you learned?”

If El could only know how right she is about Kirk...

Chekov relaxes ever-so-slightly after El sits. This still isn't going as swimmingly as he'd hoped, but at least she seems (grudgingly) willing to cooperate and he's not currently in trouble for revealing too much about Starfleet's inner workings.

"Thank you," Kirk says sincerely. "We haven't learned much about the anomaly that spit you out -- any readings on that belong to the starbase, and Anderson's not gonna share them until I explain why my navigator was in the room when it happened and how he got back on the ship without being caught by their cams."

"I can report the incident to him immediately," Chekov offers. It's a very reluctant offer; from what's been said about Commander Anderson, he won't be too inclined to forgive things like taking El to the Enterprise, leaving superior officers in the dark, and hacking the (admittedly ill-protected) security cameras on Starbase 17.

"Hell no." Kirk's answer is sharp and decisive. "You'll talk your way into a court martial and I'm not in the mood to deal with that. Leave it to me, got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good." The captain turns his full attention back to El. "What have I learned? You're a kid from the twenty-first century, you were in rough shape when you got here, and one of the toughest doctors in the fleet described you as... what was it Christine said, Bones?"

"'Inexplicably unnerving,'" McCoy replies without referencing the datapad in front of him. "That's not a crime. If it was, we'd be down a first officer."

Spock's eyebrows rise a few millimeters. "Amusing, Doctor."

"Believe it or not," Kirk says to El, tone conspiratorial, "they're worse when we don't have company over."

Inexplicably unnerving. Nice to know that some things never change. El ignores how it stings to know the gentle doctor found her as alarming as everyone else does. She wonders if Kirk is oblivious to it, or if that over-the-top schmarm is working to you overcompensate.

She gives him a dead stare, thoroughly unimpressed with his attempts to make her feel like “one of them.”

“In other words, you haven’t learned anything.” She leans back, crossing her arms. Now she has to decide how much she’ll share. There’s no rule against telling mundanes about magic; there’s just never been a point, since it’s pretty much impossible to show magic to someone who doesn’t believe in it.

But she doesn’t have to frame it as magic, does she? Any sufficiently advanced science looks like magic and all that.

“I don’t know much either,” she says. “I was traveling through a portal to go home and ended up here instead.” A brief hesitation, then “There should be people in London who understand how the portals work. If you get me there, they can figure out what happened.”

"In other words, yeah," Kirk agrees, leaning back in his own chair. Although he's still smiling, that guarded, thoughtful look is still present. Chekov is under the impression that there's usually more going on in Kirk's mind than one might guess based on his behavior. Usually. There are moments of doubt when he wonders if the man is as much of a genius as his performance at the Academy implies.

The mood in the room shifts from casual to serious as soon as El mentions portals.

"You're a good two, three months out from London," Kirk says. "I can drop you off at the next hub with Earth-bound traffic. Spock, when's our next scheduled layover at a major Starfleet outpost?"

"In forty-six days, Captain, if there are no delays."

"There you go. I can't guarantee you'll find what you're looking for there, though." Kirk seems genuinely apologetic. "I've got some of the best physicists in the galaxy on my ship. If you're willing to work with some of my crew, we might be able to help."

Spock, undoubtedly one of those physicists to which Kirk is referring, looks about as skeptical as he can. "That depends on the nature of these... portals, and how much similarity they bear to the transversable subspace distortions native to our universe."

"See?" Kirk says, smiling like Spock actually said something encouraging. "Experts. Spock is also the ship's lead scientist, and Chekov here published a bunch of papers on portals."

"Only two, sir," Chekov says by way of correction. He's almost as uncomfortable with this sudden (misguided) praise as the earlier tension. Having his accomplishments, however modest, pointed out does not usually make people more inclined to like him.

Kirk shrugs the correction off. It's definitely two more papers than he's had published.

El rolls her eyes before she can stop herself. Genius physicists are the last things she needs when dealing with magic … the last one she knew was a physics nerd who hadn’t known she had magic until she was pulled into the Scholomance. She nearly suffocated because she couldn’t rationalize how the Scholomance managed to exist despite the laws of physics, and then she got eaten by mals three months into her freshman year.

“Your vice captain’s right,” she says. “Their expertise isn’t going to help.”

Still … three months. She hadn’t expected them to drop everything to take her to earth, but they can travel faster than light! She didn’t think it would take that long. And of course all of this assumes she can even find the London enclave and that they would be willing to help her.

“But thanks,” she adds grudgingly. “I appreciate the ride to that outpost.”

Ah, the eyeroll. There's a reaction that Chekov has gotten on more than one occasion and, even though El appears to be expressing a distaste for genius physicists as a whole rather than him as an individual, it doesn't bode well for their future interactions.

Kirk is undeterred. "Just think about it. You've got some time to kill and nothing to lose."

"Or," McCoy says, "we can stop telling her what to do. It doesn't work on teenagers who aren't already enlisted, believe me."

"Fine, meeting adjourned." Kirk claps his hands together and stands. "El, Chekov's gonna show you around and set you up with quarters and any permissions you'll need. Chekov? You're confined to the ship for the rest of our stay. You're with me, Spock. We're going to have a chat with Commander Anderson."

And with that, the captain and first officer head out. Chekov doubts that he's entirely off the hook for his actions; if things don't go well over on Starbase 17, he's sure he'll be called back for another round of questioning. He'll take the reprieve even if it's necessary. He's so grateful, in fact, that he goes about collecting the empty coffee mugs without being ordered to.

McCoy lingers, fiddling absently with his datapad. "Sorry about all this," he tells El. "I told Jim to keep it casual, but God forbid he do anything without as much pomp as possible."

El is surprised how quickly the captain seems to give up, taking her statement at face value and not actually asking any of the questions he supposedly brought her in for -- nothing about where she came from, where the portal was or where it was supposed to take her, how it was powered ... the kind of questions you'd expect from someone evaluating a potential threat. What game is he playing at? She looks at the walls suspiciously, wondering if maybe the whole thing was a ruse to do some surreptitious scanning or something. It's not paranoia if you've mysteriously found yourself transported to a supposedly fictional dimension.

While she waits for Chekov to finish with the coffee mugs, she instinctively situates herself for maximum security: close enough to the door to run, but not so close that she'd be the first attacked if anything came through; far enough away from furniture that nothing could sneak up from under it to get her, and with as much space between her and the two men in the room as she could get. She's annoyed that the doctor lingers. Despite being gruff, he reminds her of her mother, and dealing with a knock-off version of the person she loves most in the world isn't something she wants to do.

"He can pomp all he wants, as long as I can get home," she says with the characteristic edge in her voice, and looks to see if Chekov is finished yet.

No matter how much she scans the walls, El won't see any security cameras or any other surveillance devices. For people who have been the target of several attacks and exist on the brink of war more often than not, the crew of the Enterprise-A seem to be a fairly trusting bunch.

Chekov dumps the cups in the recycler and then starts fiddling with the replicator and screen set into the wall next to it. He's mostly trying to look busy until McCoy leaves; he and the doctor get along well, but he doesn't really want to be fussed at for not keeping a regular sleep schedule in front of El.

"You'll get there," McCoy says, not put off by El's tone. "Jim might seem scatterbrained, but he has a way of making things work out." The doctor stands and looks back down at his datapad. "Now... while you're with us, I want you to try to eat regularly, alright? I've also got a nutrient tablet that I'd like you to take for a week or so."

Edited 2021-11-02 01:07 (UTC)

McCoy's got her attention with that. "What's the meal schedule?" she asks, forgetting that most places don't operate on the strict feeding schedule of the Scholomance; she's too busy dreaming about scrambled eggs that aren't tainted by maleficaria and tins of crisps that aren't 15 years past their sell-by date.

Her stomach grumbles loudly, as if it knows it's finally in a position where its demands can be met.

"Meals're whenever you want them. Most folks eat around six, noon, and six, but the replicators are online all the time." El's audibly growling stomach makes McCoy frown. "No one's offered you breakfast yet? No wonder you're so owly! Pavel, replicate this girl some food, will you?"

"Yes sir," Chekov replies.

"And make sure you eat something too," McCoy adds, giving the lieutenant a stern look. "Something besides coffee. You look like you're about to twitch out of your skin."

Chekov winces. "Yes sir."

"Thanks." Satisfied that everyone has been scolded into eating a proper breakfast, McCoy finally starts for the door. He pauses at the threshold. The confidence that he had while issuing orders has faded into awkwardness. "Medbay's always open, El, if you need anything."

Yeah sure thanks whatever, Dr. McCoy, she's got food to worry about. Once the doctor has gone, El turns her full attention to Chekov.

"What are replicators?" she asks. "And can it make a fry-up with laverbread?"

McCoy probably won't take it personally. He's used to people not appreciating him.

Chekov relaxes somewhat once all of his superiors are out of the room. He taps the device in front of him; it's essentially a foot-by-foot-by-foot box set into the wall with a screen next to it. "This is a replicator, or a matter conversion unit." El's request doesn't sound like food to him, but what does he know? He addresses the replicator directly. "Computer, make a fry-up with laverbread."

"Request not recognized." The ship's computer has a slightly different voice than the starbase's, but it's still flat and feminine... and apparently unimpressed with Chekov's pronunciation.

The lieutenant sighs and tries again, forming the words very, very carefully. "Computer, make a fry-up with lay-vvver-bread."

The machine makes a soft chiming sound. Light appears in the box, swirls, and condenses into a full breakfast plate (two sausages, two slabs of bacon, scrambled eggs, grilled mushrooms, beans, and fried tomatoes) and Welsh laverbread.

Chekov eyes the 'bread' curiously. "Is this correct?"

El doesn't see any utensils, but once the smell hits her, she doesn't care. She dives straight in with her fingers, scooping up a bite of laverbread and shoving it straight into her mouth. She gags as the salty mush hits her tongue.

"Yep," she sputters, "that's correct." She'd forgotten how much she hates laverbread. Luckily, there's plenty of delicious sausage to cleanse the palate.

Her mouth full and her mind whirling with possibilities, she takes a chance. "Computer, can you make a chai latte with whole milk and whipped cream?"

At least he's done at least one thing right today.

Before Chekov can request utensils, El's already on to drinks. Maybe he won't need to spend too much time showing her how things work around here.

"Yes, I can." The computer does not, however, get to making.

"Here," Chekov says, sliding a Starfleet badge on a length of silver chain towards El. The insignia looks similar to the one that he has pinned to his uniform, just without a division emblem in the middle. "This is your comm badge. I have already connected it to your profile in the ship's system and activated your permissions. As long as you are wearing it, the Enterprise will recognize you and do as you ask."

"So it's not just being a literal shithead?" El takes the badge, and lets Precious sniff it for bad magic before putting it on. "Computer, please make me a chai latte with whole milk and whipped cream. And a fork. But not in the latte!" Ordering food like this is going to take some getting used to.

Once she gets the fork and the drink, she resumes shoveling food in her mouth; after a moment, it occurs to her that maybe she should be conversational. "So how does the replicator work?" she asks. It must do something at the molecular level, given it's orders of magnitude better than the nutrient-slurry-transmuted-into-food at the Scholomance.

"Not just," Chekov answers with a smile, "but it is also being a literal shithead." An irritating commitment to literal meaning is, unfortunately, one of the failings of voice-activated technology that has not yet been worked out in the twenty-third century. Starfleet isn't exactly motivated to put its resources into improving tech that works well enough as-is.

The replicator chimes and conjures up a chai latte (made to El's specifications, of course) alongside a fork. The tea is steaming, but just cool enough to drink.

Chekov requests a coffee so El doesn't have to feel awkward about being the only one doing any eating or drinking. He's pleasantly surprised by her question. "Replicators rearrange subatomic particles into pre-programmed objects. When I asked it to make coffee, it first formed the atoms that it would need -- carbon and hydrogen and nitrogen and so on -- and then it built those atoms into molecules, and those molecules into this." He takes a demonstrative sip of his ordered drink. "The food that the replicator creates is atomically identical to anything that could be farmed and cooked, but sometimes people say that they can taste a difference."

Don't worry, Chekov; El doesn't have enough fucks to give in order to feel awkward. She chews thoughtfully as she listens to his explanation.

"Where does it get the subatomic particles in the first place?" she asks around a mouthful of eggs. "And how much energy does it take?" The mana required to do that kind of transformation would be astronomical, which was why the Scholomance started with a nutrient slurry that contained everything a growing kid needed and then selectively transmuted it just enough to make you think you were eating a real food. Even then, the food selection at the Scholomance was limited because the cost of transmutation was still extremely high -- Aadhya had spent an entire week's worth of mana transmuting the slop into her Nani's special pancakes with cholar dal puree and toasted meringue. (El wonders if she can get the replicator to make that, or if it would have to be programmed with the recipe first.) The school didn't have that kind of mana to waste, so it stuck with foods that were already pretty slop-like, like scrambled eggs and mashed potatoes.

"Recycling, partly," Chekov gestures to the recycler, which looks very much like a small garbage can set into the wall, "and partly from the matter-antimatter reactions that power the rest of the ship. The Enterprise has a complex energy-matter reclamation system... energy can be converted into matter if the crew is not generating enough waste."

Hopefully El won't be grossed out by the idea of waste being recycled into new things, including food. It's an extremely effective, safe, and efficient system, but even some Federation citizens -- particularly those who don't leave their home planets -- are squeamish about the idea.

"Most homes on Earth have access to enough energy to run a single food replicator, if that is a helpful measurement." As much as Chekov would love to give El exact numbers, replicators work on an energy level that was almost incomprehensible in the twenty-first century. "Simple item replicators take even less energy, since inanimate objects can be fabricated on the atomic level rather than the subatomic. And both food and item replicators take relatively little energy compared to other ship systems. Transporters -- that is the technology that we use to move people from the ship to planets when docks are not available -- use far, far more because they need to replicate matter with near-perfect precision on the quantum level. Transporting a single human requires more energy than an industrial replicator would use in the process of creating the Enterprise's entire outer hull."

Wait, did he actually answer her questions?

He did, and while El doesn't think she properly understands anything he said, she's surprised to find herself utterly fascinated.

"And all that energy comes from those matter-antimatter reactions?" she asks.

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damn I had a longer tag in mind but I think that feelings dump would work better later in thread