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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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.

He's just thrilled that she seems engaged and willing to ask follow-up questions. People who aren't Scotty tend to zone out (politely) when he starts rambling.

"Mostly, yes, and all of this energy is theoretically limitless on a ship operating in parts of space with high particle densities. But mostly the Bussard collectors only supplement the deuterium and antideuterium that starships carry in their tanks."

Seeing that El has finished with her breakfast, Chekov collects her dishes and dump them in the recycler. "Would you like to see the parts of the Enterprise that you will have access to? Or I can show you to your quarters, if you would prefer to explore later."

El's skin is tingling, her breaths a little shallow -- signs of anxiety invisible to others and she's not self-aware enough to notice. Her body registers in a way her brain does not the utter terror of being in a society whose rules she doesn't understand, whose power dynamics she doesn't know. She's a person who finds safety in knowledge ... and she's currently walking on a tightrope over a ring of fire with no net to catch her.

But again, this is all subconscious. She feeds Precious the last crumb from her breakfast and adjusts the straps of the Sutra's carrying case on her shoulder. "Let's see the Enterprise," she says. That sounds way more interesting than a bedroom.

Chekov, relatively good at reading people thanks to years of being a people-pleasing overachiever in unfamiliar and often unpredictable environments, suspects that El isn't as cool and collected as she seems, but he isn't going to question her. Offering to show her to her temporary quarters was his way of giving her an out; if she says she's up for a tour, then they'll do the tour. Even five years into his Starfleet service, other officers still occasionally coddle Chekov and doubt his ability to handle situations that he says he can handle. It's infuriating to have his judgment of his own capabilities called into question, and he does his best to avoid doing it to others.

They step out into the hallway, which is brighter and busier than it was earlier in the day. "Alpha shift is about to begin," Chekov says by way of explanation. "It typically begins at oh-eight-hundred hours, but on a leisure schedule, it begins at ten-hundred."

If El pays attention to the people in the halls of the Enterprise, she might notice a few things: most obviously, that not all of them are in uniforms. It's lucky, really; because the crew members who are currently off-duty are wearing their civvies, El blends in fairly well. Most of the uniform shirts are red, with a stray blue shirt here and there. Chekov is virtually the only person out and about who's wearing command yellow.

If she looks harder, El will see that everyone -- from the numerous humans to the more exotic alien species -- looks very healthy. In a post-scarcity society with advanced nutritional engineering, it's easy for everyone to eat well, and Starfleet officers have the additional expectation that they will exercise to stay in peak physical condition. Even the heights of the many, many Terran officers reflect their high standards of living. Average human heights have crept upwards since the twenty-first century; Chekov, who would be on the shorter side of average in El's time, is decidedly short in his own.

And finally, the crew is young -- far, far younger than one might expect for the fleet's flagship. Most are in their late twenties or early thirties, with only a handful of senior officers (like McCoy and Scott) in their forties. In a time before Starfleet was decimated by Nero at the battle of Vulcan, it would have been unheard of for anyone much younger than thirty to rank higher than ensign on a ship of the Enterprise's caliber. Having more than half of their forces and most third- and fourth-year Academy cadets wiped out at once dramatically altered the makeup of even senior crews, and five years is not enough time to make up for that great loss.

Chekov easily slips into the role of tour guide, as it's one that Kirk has him play fairly frequently when civilians or new officers come aboard. He points out the terminals that dot the walls and shows El how to pull up a map of the ship if she gets lost. He takes them down to deck eight via turbolift, explaining that the mess and most recreational facilities are on this level.

The mess hall is populated by a handful of officers in civilian outfits. Most are drinking coffee and talking with friends; Chekov and El go almost entirely unnoticed with just a few curious glances their way. They get the same reception in the large rec room and the gymnasium. A few people offer Chekov a friendly greeting, but no one questions El's presence. The general atmosphere is relaxed -- not exactly what one might expect from a military flagship.

"It will be a little different when we leave Starbase 17 in three days," Chekov tells El as they return to the turbolift. "Most of the crew is on leave for the first time in several months. When we are in space, we are expected to be alert and in uniform when we are not in our quarters."

The turbolift takes them to deck fourteen. Chekov guides El to the final stop on their tour: a small dorsal observation lounge. "My favorite observation room is on this level. It has no replicators or holo-players, so it is usually much quieter than the others."

They enter the room, which is, at present, entirely empty. It's maybe a quarter the size of its busy counterpart on level eight, and only furnished with a drink dispenser and a few comfortable chairs. The wall opposite the door is made entirely of transparent materials, offering an expansive view of the space outside Starbase 17's dock. Chekov goes right to the window wall, happy to show El one of his very favorite ship features. He loves staring out at the stars and making constellations of the ever-changing celestial landscape, and nothing -- in his opinion, at least -- is as beautiful and awe-inspiring as the vast expanse of space.

El has never bought into her mother's woo-woo beliefs, but as Chekov takes El through the Enterprise, the teenager grudgingly concedes that her mom was probably onto something. The Enterprise crew have the same energy as her Scholomance classmates: lively but vigilant, on such constant high alert that "paranoia" feels relaxing. It's the energy of people who live in Hell and are trying to make the best of it. It further elevates her baseline anxiety, and she finds herself increasingly out of breath, an invisible fist clenching her chest.

She finally realizes she's having a panic attack when Chekov shows her the window into space and all she can see is the void in her dorm room, that terrible wall of abstraction leading to insanity.

It doesn't even look anything LIKE the void, a dissociated part of her mind manages to think, with great irritation. This shouldn't be a trigger.

She sits abruptly to avoid fainting. She's fainted enough in front of Chekov.

El's sudden movement pulls Chekov's attention away from the starscape outside the massive window. The look on her face is enough to clue him in to what's wrong; he has seen quite a few panic attacks in his years with Starfleet -- has, in fact, had them himself in the safety and solitude of his quarters after particularly devastating missions -- and recognizes the symptoms. He really should have noted El's distress sooner, but he'll have plenty of time to berate himself later.

"Computer, please close the shutters," he says, keeping his tone as even and calm as possible. The ship complies and the stars disappear behind white shutters.

Chekov angles one of the chairs towards El and takes a seat. If she was one of his friends, he would put a hand on her shoulder and offer some kind of physical grounding. Since they are little better than strangers, he maintains the respectful distance recommended by Starfleet training manuals. "El? Is there anything that you need right now?"

I need my mom, El thinks, but doesn't say, because he can't get her mother and, more importantly, there's a barrier between her thoughts and her ability to form words. It makes her feel claustrophobic, like her mind is trapped in some tiny prison, and her heart rate spikes even higher. This is it. This is how she's going to die. She'd gone inside two maw-mouths and come out alive; she'd been stabbed in the gut by her psycho classmate and survived -- everything that's tried to kill her up to this point has failed. So of course her own body would just up and kill her in a different universe, far from everyone she's ever loved.

Later, El will be pissed off at her irrationality -- she knows how to handle panic attacks -- but right now she's in too deep. She looks at Chekov, her eyes silently, helplessly pleading.

Chekov isn't surprised that El can't respond (although direction would be immensely helpful -- there is no single correct way to approach a panic attack). All of his instincts tell him to reach out and offer the girl a hug, but that's most definitely not appropriate, however lost she looks.

"You are not in any danger here," he says, falling back on command training: speak calmly but confidently, offer an external point of focus, and do not be afraid. "What you are experiencing now is frightening, but it will pass soon and you will be okay.

"Have you had a panic attack before, El?" Chekov leaves room for a reply, expecting a nod or a shake of the head instead of a verbal response.

El starts to nod, then shake her head, and ends up doing some strange combination of both. She can't remember having a panic attack before, but her memories feel so far out of reach; her mind is utterly focused on feeling like she's dying.

To her utter disgust and humiliation, tears well up in her eyes. She's teetering on the edge of hideous, wracking sobs -- which will probably be healthy for her, but that doesn't make her any more inclined to indulge.

Chekov nods as if El has provided some kind of helpful answer. "That's okay. Panic attacks are not so unusual in stressful situations, and the last several hours have been very stressful ones for you." Not that she needs to be told that, but Chekov generally appreciates it when someone else confirms that terrible things are indeed terrible. "It is understandable that you are feeling overwhelmed."

When El starts to cry in earnest, Chekov gets up just long enough to move a box of tissues (humanity has not yet invented a better tool to deal with tears and snot) within her reach. He sits back down and looks away, giving her some amount of privacy while still being present and fully available if she's able to ask for anything. It's not much, but without anything specific to go on, the best he can offer now is unhurried, nonjudgmental calm.

His understanding -- she wants to interpret it as condescension, but she feels gentle echoes of her mother in his calm validation -- is what sets El off into gut-wrenching sobs. It's utterly humiliating and she hates every second ... but it's exactly what she needs, shattering the fortress she keeps around her vulnerabilities. And just as before, when Aadhya had asked if she'd been the one to kill the maw-mouth in the library and she had been forced to come clean about not wanting to join an enclave, El feels... safer? Sick, exhausted, miserable, angry, but connected to Chekov in a way she hadn't been before.

When she's finally able to speak, she blows her nose and says: "You can kill me now. That'd be great."

There's nothing like tears and trauma to bring people together. That's something that the Enterprise's crew can attest to: the vulnerable moments that they've shared have forged strong bonds between them.

Chekov takes El's sniffly request as the joke that it (hopefully) is. "That would be an unkind thing to do to a guest. Certainly against Starfleet protocol."

He hesitates, momentarily torn between letting them joke their way back to something more comfortable and making a genuine attempt to make El feel less embarrassed about expressing completely understandable emotions. Humor is easy, but openness tends to be more valuable. "No one on this ship would think poorly of you for having a panic attack," he says, fairly confident that it's the truth. "Many of us have experienced them... sometimes even in situations that are considerably less frightening than being pulled into foreign universes."

El waves her hand derisively, because needing reassurance that it's okay to have a panic attack is even more embarrassing than the panic attack itself.

"It just took me by surprise," she says... then adds, with unwanted vulnerability -- "Is there somewhere else we can go?"

She's willing to confide in him, somewhat to her surprise, but it's not in her nature to just dump information on people. If he asks questions, though, she'll give him genuine answers.

Chekov lets it drop, figuring El is just about as mortified about having a panic attack in someone else's company as he would be.

"There is, yes." He stands and heads for the door, leaving the room's windows shuttered. The door wooshes open to reveal the hall, now back to a state of relative emptiness. Chekov leads El back to the turbolift and down to floor five, officers' quarters.

"You will have a room to yourself for the duration of your stay," he tells her, not mentioning that the room she'll have is, in fact, assigned to him. Single rooms are fairly uncommon on Constitution-class starships; it's the simplest way to secure some privacy for El without shuffling too many people around. Chekov comes to a halt at a door and nods to El. "I have already programmed it to respond to you. No one will be able to open the door without an emergency override key."

El is unspeakably grateful for his tact and discretion. And a little puzzled when he brings her to her "room."

"Did I kick someone out of their room?" she asks. "Or do you just have a lot of single rooms here?" She feels like she's seen too many people aboard the ship for everyone to have their own room, unless the ship had some magic like the Scholomance.

PS-El: Part II

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

I assure you I do not care about tag length (as long as you don't mind the long ones)

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