Historian’s Note: This story takes place in 2376 shortly after the end of the Dominion War. Chief Miles O’Brien and his family have moved to Earth so he can teach at Starfleet Academy as alluded to in the DS9 episode “What You Leave Behind.”
The Defiant shook violently as another disrupter bolt struck the shields. The lights flashed and the ship shook as the Jem’Hadar ship fired again. It almost knocked Chief O’Brien off the work bench where he was laying trying to fix the shield generator. The red alert siren blared in his ear. Oddly, it sounded almost like Keiko.
“Wake up, Miles!”
He awoke as Keiko yelled in his ear and almost pushed him off the bed.
“The computer forgot to wake us up!” exclaimed Keiko.
“Computers don’t forget. Didn’t you set the alarm?”
“No, I thought you did.”
“Keiko, you’re the one who always sets the alarm. In fact, I thought you set it to always wake us up at the same time.” Miles bounced on one leg as he tried to put on his uniform pants.
According to the chronometer, they were forty minutes late, and today was the first day of class for the new school year. Molly was starting her third year of primary school, and of course Miles was starting his first year of teaching at Starfleet Academy.
“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. It’s late. You and Molly aren’t going to get to school on time.” Keiko hurriedly threw on some clothes. “I’ll get Molly ready while you replicate some breakfast.”
“Replicated?”
“There is no time to cook anything, Miles. You’ll live with replicated food.”
He hurried to the small kitchen and replicated some scrambled eggs and hash browns just as Keiko entered dragging Molly.
“You two eat while I lay clothes out for Molly and take care of Kirayoshi.”
“You’re not going to eat with us?”
“No there’s not time. You’ll barely have time to get yourself ready.”
Keiko left the room, and Molly just picked at her food. Finally she said, “Can I be excused? I want to get ready for school.”
She left and Miles heard the ‘fresher door close. Probably going to brush her teeth and do her hair. He quickly finished his breakfast, and tossed the leftovers and dishes back into the replicator to be recycled. Then he headed to the ‘fresher to brush his teeth.
He knocked on the closed ‘fresher door. “Just a minute,” came Molly’s voice. He heard happy humming, but no sounds of hurry.
“Molly, hurry up. I need in there, and you need to get dressed.”
“I’m hurrying.” More humming.
“Why are you standing out here?” asked Keiko as she walked up with Kirayoshi. “And why isn’t your hair combed?”
“I’m waiting for Molly,” said Miles loud enough so that Molly could hear through the door.
“Haven’t you been in yet?” Keiko asked.
“No, she won’t come out. She just hums and does whatever little girls do in the ‘fresher.”
“When you were a chief on the Enterprise, I understood why there was only one ‘fresher in our quarters. I even understood on Deep Space Nine when you were a senior officer. I don’t understand now, when you are professor at Starfleet Academy with an off-campus apartment, why we can’t have two refreshers.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Maybe I can turn a closet into a second ‘fresher.”
“Miles, don’t even think about it. You have enough to do with starting your first year at Academy and helping with the clean up from the Breen attack during the war. First you need to …”
The ‘fresher door opened, and out strolled Molly. “Your turn, daddy,” Molly said with a big smile. Still humming, she skipped to her room.
“You better be quick in there,” urged Keiko.
“Okay,” said Molly and Miles in unison as they disappeared into the bedroom and ‘fresher, respectively. Keiko just smiled as she took Kirayoshi to the kitchen for his breakfast.
O’Brien brushed his teeth, shaved, and combed his hair. A quick look at the chronometer told him that he and Molly needed to leave in five minutes if they had any hope of being on time. One last look in the mirror convinced him that he looked as good as he could given the short amount of time.
As he exited the ‘fresher, Miles called, “Keiko, is Molly ready?”
“I don’t know. I’m taking care of Kirayoshi,” came her voice from the kitchen.
Miles moaned as he glanced in Molly’s room. She stood in front of a replicator singing a little song as an outfit of clothes materialized. With a little bounce, she flipped the clothes from the replicator onto a small pile of clothes on the floor. Then he noticed there were clothes spread all over the room. At that point the replicator hummed and more clothes sparkled into existence.
“Molly, what’s going on? Why aren’t you dressed?”
“This replicator is funny, daddy. It won’t stop making clothes. Look at all these clothes it made for me. Isn’t it great!”
“What did you do? What are you going to do with all of these clothes?”
“I was just looking for the perfect outfit to wear for the first day of school.”
A red dress appeared and fell out of the replicator slot.
“Didn’t mommy lay out your clothes?”
“I didn’t like that outfit. I want a special outfit for my first day of school.”
The replicator glowed and produced a purple jumpsuit. It promptly fell to the floor.
“Surely one out of all these outfits is special. Why are you still making more?”
“I couldn’t decide from the pictures, so I thought I would replicate them and then choose.”
An orange and green striped outfit fell from the replicator slot.
“Molly, you can’t do that,” O’Brien stammered. “It takes too much energy. We have to share the energy with others. Turn it off!”
“I can’t. It won’t turn off”
A new blouse appeared.
“How many did you order?”
“I couldn’t decide so I asked it to make them all.”
“How many was that?”
“I only asked for the humanoid ones.”
Miles waded through the piles of clothes to the replicator. He gently pressed some buttons on the control panel. Another set of clothes materialized. He more forcefully pressed the controls again. More clothes appeared. He smacked the machine with his hand. Clothes continued to fall to the floor.
“What did you do to this? It won’t turn off.”
“I didn’t do anything. It did all by itself.”
A green outfit fell out of the replicator slot. As it landed, the rest of the pile toppled over.
“We don’t have time for me to fix this right now,” fussed O’Brien as he opened the front cover. He reached in and grabbed a handful of optronic cables and yanked. The replicator went dark.
At that moment, Keiko walked through the doorway chiding, “What are you two still doing here? You needed to leave for school five minutes ago. Molly why aren’t you … oh, what happened to your room?”
“My replicator acted funny, but daddy stopped it.”
“Molly, its time to go,” said Miles as he put the replicator’s cover back.
“But, I’m not dressed yet.”
“Then get dressed now.”
“But I don’t have my special outfit.”
“There are a thousand sets of clothes, and you don’t have your special outfit! You’ve got to be kidding.” Miles’s voice was rising in both pitch and volume.
Keiko quickly interrupted. “Here is a beautiful red jumper. It looks like a very special outfit. Get dressed quickly. If you hurry you might still make it to school on time.” She might have been talking to Molly, but her eyes were on Miles to make sure he didn’t blow up at the girl’s behavior which a father finds incomprehensible.
O’Brien picked up his padd from the end table in the living room and double checked to make sure all his class notes were loaded on it. At that time, Molly came prancing out of her room in her cute red jumper carrying her blue backpack. Together they walked out the door. Miles would drop her off at school on his way to Starfleet Academy. Keiko would stay home with Kirayoshi and pick up Molly after school.
“What are you going to be teaching at the Academy today, daddy?” Molly asked as they walked down the street.
“Today isn’t a normal day. We’re starting with a big start-of-the-school-year orientation in the largest auditorium. Then we have a smaller department orientation for the cadets specializing in engineering. All that happens before lunch.”
“What are orientations?”
“It’s a big meeting where the cadets are told about school policies and rules. They learn what is expected of them.”
“That sounds boring.”
“It is, but it is still important. Just because something is boring doesn’t mean it’s not important.”
“I guess. What’s after lunch?”
“I actually get teach a class.”
“What class is that?”
“Emergency Engineering Procedures.”
“You get to engineer emergencies?”
“No. It’s about what to do when emergencies happen.”
“Like this morning with my replicator. Was that an emergency?”
“Yes. It was an emergency because I didn’t have time to fix it properly.”
“But you broke it. You pulled the cables out of it.”
“I fixed it so it would stop replicating. Now I can fix it correctly tonight. Putting cables back is easy.”
“But you didn’t fix it. You broke it.”
“It was already broken. I just turned it off.”
“By breaking it?”
“Yes.”
“So are you going to teach your students to break things so they can fix them better later?”
“Well, sort of, I guess. I hadn’t thought about it that way before. I don’t think of it as breaking things though. Hey, here’s your school. I don’t see any kids, so I guess we are a little late.”
“That’s too bad. I wanted to meet all my new friends before school and show off my new red jumper.”
“Look, here comes someone to meet us. I think it’s your school principal.”
Principal Park strode up to the father and daughter with a tight smile on her face. “Welcome to the first day of the new school year, Molly.” Her smile almost looked real. “Mr. O’Brien, school starts promptly at 8:00 local time. It is now 8:07. I trust this tardiness won’t be an ongoing problem.” No, the smile was not sincere.
“No ma’am,” stammered Miles. “We had a little emergency this morning.”
“I’m sure you did. Please don’t let it happen again. Molly, I’ll take you into your classroom and introduce you to your teacher now. Good day, Mr. O’Brien.” With that Principal Park took Molly and left Miles standing alone on the sidewalk.
“How am I supposed to not have emergencies?” he muttered to himself. “They’re called emergencies because they are not planned.” Then he walked on toward Starfleet Academy.
***
I’m late to the first day of teaching. He kept telling himself that it did not matter that he was thirteen minutes late to orientation. It’s not like he had anything to do during orientation. He was just supposed to sit, listen, and help supervise an auditorium full of kids—actually young adults. It was amazing how the recruits seemed younger every year.
The Academy grounds were deserted. Everyone was already in the auditorium. Then O’Brien smiled as he saw two cadets running from the dorm. One ran while trying to put on his uniform jacket, but it kept blowing every time he tried to get his arm in the sleeve. All the flapping made it look like he was attempting to fly. The other cadet seemed to be trying to put on a boot. She hopped down the sidewalk on one foot while bending over to pull on the boot. The flapping jacket from the first cadet hit her causing her to stumble. She lost her balance and fell into a petunia bed. I hope Boothby didn’t see that, thought O’Brien.
The two cadets beat him to the auditorium. Quietly, he slipped through a side door and looked for his seat while Starfleet Academy Commandant Admiral Charlie Whatley stood behind the podium on the stage preaching to the crowd of students.
“… Academy. Here you will grow to become the best officers in Starfleet. You will be known throughout the galaxy as the greatest commanders, diplomats, and scientists the universe has known. As in our motto, Ex astris, scientia: from the stars you will gain knowledge.”
The students clapped and O’Brien was relieved that he did not miss much. But, just as he was about to sit down, the Commandant started a new topic.
“Now let me introduce the professors for this school year. Mr. O’Brien please lead the rest of the professors onto the stage.”
Only half sitting, O’Brien stared at the Commandant like a Denevan deer in the headlights. He slowly straightened up and walked toward the stage. The other professors filed out of their seats and up the stairs to the stage. O’Brien felt uneasy as he walked the entire length of the stage in front of thousands of cadets. After all the professors were lined up, the Commandant began introductions.
“First at the far end, is Senior Chief Petty Officer Miles O’Brien. The Chief is a new faculty member this year coming from Deep Space Nine, and will be teaching engineering courses.”
There was a pause of silence like the Commandant was waiting for something.
“Next is Lieutenant Trev from Talar who has taught courses in diplomacy for fifteen years.”
A few students clapped and Trev waved.
“Next to him is Captain T’Velt of Vulcan. She has been a faculty member here for 52 years teaching courses in exobiology.”
T’Velt glared at the students almost daring an emotional outburst. A couple students clapped, but the sound died quickly when she fixed them with a laser-like stare.
“After Captain T’Velt is Commander Brickfield of Earth.”
The Commandant had to pause because the auditorium erupted in cheers. Commander Brickfield stepped forward with his hands raised, waving to the crowd who cheered all the louder. He started pointing out cadets in the audience and giving them long distance high-fives. Amazingly the cheering grew louder.
“Showboat,” grumbled O’Brien.
“Yes,” said Trev, “but they do like him. The students like me as well. I’m sure you heard my applause. It didn’t sound like they like you at all.”
“But you barely had any applause.”
“True, but some is more than none. They like T’Velt, too, but they’re scared of her, so not much clapping. It’s best to not just be liked, but also respected.”
“How am I supposed to make that happen?”
“Be honest with them. Nothing wins friends like honesty.”
“But I’m always honest.”
“If you can’t get the cadets to both like you and respect you, then you should just go back to starship duty where technicians are appreciated.”
By this time the Commandant had successfully quieted the room, so O’Brien and Trev quit talking. The introduction of the professors continued with pauses so that the cadets could applause almost every professor.
Chief O’Brien felt dejected. The students did not like him. After all, he had already been meeting with students and helping new students move into their dorms. He had even fixed a few malfunctioning padds and computer interfaces for them. Not to mention how he reprogrammed a couple replicators to produce native beverages for some of the non-human cadets. After all that, no one showed any appreciation, and Lt. Commander Brickfield appeared to be appreciated by all the students. But they did not cheer for him.
Finally, the introductions were finished and the professors filed back to their seats. The Commandant found his place on his padd and began the next topic.
“Attendance is very important here at Starfleet Academy. Skipping class will not be tolerated. Tardies also are not acceptable. Your professors will be taking attendance at every class period. Excessive attendance issues can be grounds for dismissal. We are training you for duty onboard a starship or station. You must be able to report for your duty shift on time for everything on a ship to run smoothly. There are a lot of candidates waiting for entry, so if you can’t make it to class, we will assume that you will not make your shift onboard your ship either. And, we will give your position here at Starfleet Academy to a more deserving candidate. Are there any questions?”
A hand shot up from the back. “How many absences and tardies are considered ‘excessive’?”
“One,” the Commandant replied.
O’Brien wondered what happened to tardy professors. Would he be reprimanded for today’s tardy? He would have to make sure it did not happen again.
The Commandant continued through a list of the myriad policies in the cadet handbook such as replicator usage, computer network policies, and recreational activities. For a while O’Brien tried to think of reasons why Molly’s replicator malfunctioned, but he quit after a while because he felt he needed to have a closer look inside the machine. Two hours later, he was on the verge of going stir crazy. How can a cadet remember all this stuff? he thought. I don’t remember what was said five minutes ago. In fact, I might have been asleep five minutes ago.
“And that concludes this orientation assembly,” droned Admiral Whatley. “Your next appointment is in twenty minutes at your major department for their special assemblies. Good luck this year.”
The place erupted with applause which was quickly drowned out by the sounds of cadets getting up from their chairs and talking with one another. O’Brien was one of the first faculty members to jump up from his seat. As he walked from the building, he overheard three of the other teachers talking about the orientation.
“Did you hear what Whatley said about practical jokes? Like he’s going to prevent those from happening.” The other teachers laughed.
I didn’t hear anything about practical jokes, thought O’Brien. That concerned him. How much more had he missed, and more importantly, Was I snoring?
He arrived early enough so that he could get a good seat at the engineering department assembly. As the department chair stood up to start speaking, a cadet walked in late. He looked exactly like one of the cadets who late for the first assembly that morning. Mercifully, the department chair managed to keep the orientation to a mere hour. He covered everything from what classes to take, how to reserve lab time, and what internships were available. Chief O’Brien managed to stay awake this time, but did not learn anything new. He was already well versed in the engineering department policies. Of course there were more topics the dean wanted to cover than there was time, so the cadets were late to the mess hall for lunch.
The mess hall was packed. The meals came from food slots full of fresh food, or there was the option of replicators. Unfortunately for O’Brien, the fresh food was gone except for the plomeek soup, so he opted for the replicators and ordered steak and potatoes.
It was then that he noticed that there were no other faculty members in the mess hall. And there were no empty tables, so he had to find a seat at a table with cadets. As he sat down, the cadets picked up their trays and left him alone at the table. It reminded him of being a kid in school; the cool kids never wanted to sit with the musician.
Ten minutes later, a waiter walked by and stopped to refill O’Brien’s water glass. “What are you doing here, Chief? I thought we sent a lot of the best food over to the various departments. They’re having banquets for the faculty to start the school year. Most of the departments start the year with banquets.”
“Even engineering?
“Yes, they ordered quite the feast.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me? You mean I’ve been eating replicated food when I could have had a freshly cook banquet?”
“Did you check your messages yet today, sir?”
“Huh? No, I guess I was in such a hurry this morning that I forgot. Let me check.”
O’Brien pulled out his padd and scrolled to his new messages. There it was; an invitation for the lunch banquet.
“Thanks,” he said through gritted teeth. Still hungry, he started cutting through more steak, but he was so upset that he lost his appetite. Stabbing his fork into the center of the steak, he got up and marched out of the mess hall. His day was just getting worse.
***
Chief O’Brien had spent time preparing his classroom off and on for the past two weeks. Everything was exactly how he imagined it, but as he walked in today, he wondered if it was good enough. On the left side of the door was his podium and view screen. Ten tables and twenty chairs, two to a table, were arranged in rows facing the view screen. This was the classroom section of the room where he would be lecturing. On the right side of the room in the back were five large lab tables. Here students could work on fixing broken equipment or designing new devices. On the front right side of the room was a holodeck grid. The grid was in the corner of the room, so it covered two walls and a portion of the floor. Since it was not enclosed, the instructor and other cadets in the classroom could easily watch what was happening in the hololab. This was an area where parts of ships could be recreated to run engineering simulations, or dangerous devices could be recreated to allow the students to practice repairing them. An advanced student could program the hololab to design new equipment. O’Brien had been offered a classroom that was entirely a holodeck, but he preferred having an area where real, not virtual, devices could be worked on.
Chief O’Brien walked around his domain, making sure everything was ready for the first day of class. He was planning a pretest to determine the students’ current knowledge and ability, so he double checked that the proper programs were loaded in the hololab and the right equipment was out on the lab tables. If he was to teach emergency engineering procedures, he had to know what normal engineering procedures the cadets already knew. Then he set his padd on the podium. He noticed that the podium blocked the view of a couple students, so he moved it. Now he was too far away so he moved it back. Finally he decided moving the podium 3 cm away from the view screen would be best.
The Chief looked around his classroom in satisfaction, but he had to admit to himself that he was nervous. It was almost preferable to be going into battle. At least then, he knew what to expect; the enemy would try to kill him. Teaching, on the other hand, was completely different; you did not know if the students would love you or hate you. Nervously, he picked up the padd and scrolled through the class roster, but he was so anxious that he could not actually read any names. He set the padd back on the podium. Now, he started feeling a little sick to his stomach, so he decided he needed a quick trip to the ‘fresher before he had to face his students in class.
Like the rest of the day, the quick trip to the ‘fresher turned into a minor disaster. While washing his hands, he reached for the bottle of soap. As soon as he touched it, the soap exploded everywhere.
“What the …!” exclaimed O’Brien as he looked down at his soap-splattered uniform. “Could this day get any better? If I catch whoever did this, I’ll …”
There was snickering behind him. A stall door opened out sauntered a cadet in a uniform liberally spattered with soap. When he saw the chief, his smile quickly disappeared.
“I’m sorry, Chief,” apologized the cadet as he grabbed some towels and started wiping the front of O’Brien’s uniform. The only effect was to smear the soap even worse.
“Here, give me that,” barked O’Brien. “I want to get it off, not spread it everywhere.”
O’Brien grabbed the towel from the cadet, got part of it wet, and started removing the soap from his jacket.
“What’s your name, Cadet?”
“Wilber Brickfield, sir.”
“Like the Lt. Commander that everyone seems to love?”
“Yes, sir, he’s my uncle.”
“Why were you hiding in the stall?”
“Wouldn’t you if you found a soap bomb?”
“You rigged this soap bottle? What happen, did it misfire?”
“Well, let’s say I discovered a rigged soap bottle and waited to see what would happen.”
“You could have warned me.”
“What’s the fun in that?”
A bell rang, warning that class would start soon.
“I have a class I’m supposed to teach in five minutes and now I am a complete mess.”
“You should be more careful, Chief. Here are some more towels. I’ve got to go or I’ll be late to class.”
“You’ve been late to everything else today. Why the hurry now?”
“Classes are more interesting than assemblies. Teacher’s reactions are more … intriguing.” And the cadet left O’Brien to finish wiping off his jacket.
Two minutes later, as Chief O’Brien entered his classroom, he saw that most of the desks were full. A couple cadets were in the lab area looking at the equipment. Some male cadets were standing by the desks talking about the new females they observed in the mess hall during lunch. Then the final bell rang.
He stood by the podium. “Please find a seat,” he said, but no one moved. “Please sit down,” he said much louder. The students slowly found seats in the classroom.
O’Brien waited at the podium. It was taking forever. He started thinking, What am I doing? I’m just standing here with these cadets staring at me. Why should they listen to me when I’m not even a commissioned officer? I’m not sure having a quiet family life is worth having all these cadets depending on me for their education. What if they don’t cooperate? What will I do if they revolt against me? Oh, they’re all sitting down … now what?
“Uh, welcome to Emergency Engineering Procedures. Let’s start with attendance.” Chief O’Brien fumbled with his pad and started reading names.
“Cadet Aard Aard’van?” An orange-skinned male raised his hand.
“Cadet Phat Chen?” O’Brien frowned. The students snickered. “Phat Chen?” No one responded.
“Okay, Cadet Seymore Gurls?” The students laughed out loud.
O’Brien quickly scanned through several more names. “Very funny, class. I suppose the names Biggs Füt, Al Bowe, and Nee Lessa are all fake, too.”
“Actually, sir, my name really is Nee,” said a pretty female Bajoran cadet.
“Of course,” replied O’Brien looking very skeptical. “Who thought it would be funny to …”
At that moment the classroom door opened and in strode Cadet Brickfield. He snapped to attention and saluted smartly. “Sorry, I’m late, sir. Cadet Phat Chen reporting for duty.” The classroom erupted in laughter.
“Brickfield, sit down. Everyone be quiet!” The noise died down.
“I thought you said you would be on time. What happened?”
“I went to the wrong classroom.”
“Okay, let’s do attendance correctly this time,” said Chief as he quickly reset his padd and reloaded the class roster from the Academy network. A minute dragged by with the Chief and the students staring at each other. When it was ready, the names looked more normal.
“Okay, let’s try this. Cadet Aard Aard’van?” The same-orange skinned male raised his hand with a big grin on his face. That made the Chief wary as he looked at the next name.
“Cadet Wilber Brickfield?” The soap covered cadet raised his hand and mock saluted again.
“Cadet Temaa Zh’Chathress?” An Andorian female nodded.
“Cadet Juan Edwardo?” A human male raised his hand half-heartedly.
“Cadet Nee Lessa?” The pretty Bajoran girl with wavy brown hair smiled.
“Cadet Elena Tonie?” A Mediterranean human female gave a bored half-wave.
The roll call continued through all nineteen names without further incident.
“Welcome to Emergency Engineering Procedures class. I am …”
A hand shot up. “This isn’t Intro to Engineering?”
“No.”
“Where’s Intro meet?”
“I don’t know. Don’t you have the room number?”
“Yes, room 205.”
“Hey, that’s down the hall,” interrupted Cadet Brickfield gleefully. “I was just there.”
“Quiet! Brickfield, be quiet. You, Cadet, go find the class you are supposed to be in.” The cadet got up and headed toward the exit. “The rest of you, let finish my introduction.”
“So this is Introduction?” asked the departing cadet by the door.
“What? No.” O’Brien was starting to get flustered. “As I was saying, I am Senior Chief Petty Officer O’Brien. I was previously posted on Deep Space Nine as Chief of Operations for seven years, and before that I was on the Enterprise as Transporter Chief. Now I am your teacher.
“This class is Emergency Engineering Procedures. In it you will learn how to make temporary repairs to keep your ship running until the situation calms down enough to make permanent repairs.”
“So we aren’t learning how to actually repair anything?” asked Brickfield.
“Temporary repairs are important in emergency situations like battle. You don’t have time to actually repair anything during a battle. You just try to keep your ship from falling apart. So, yes, we aren’t fixing much, just trying to keep things from falling apart.
“To begin, I am going give you some tests so that I can see what you are currently capable of. Divide yourselves into pairs. Five pairs stay here on take a quick test on these padds. Each pair will work together to answer the questions.” No one moved. “Okay, you ten cadets on the left stay and work on the questions. Three more pairs will work on malfunctioning devices on the lab tables. You six cadets on the back right go pick one of the devices and make it to stop malfunctioning. The last two pairs go to the hololab where I have a special simulation for you.”
“Sir,” said Cadet Tonie, “I don’t have a lab partner. There are just three people left.”
“I guess that you will just work with the other two cadets in the hololab. It will be just as good with three people as it is with four. Everyone please get started.”
Cadets Aard’van and Zh’Chathress paired together to answer questions on a padd. Aard Aard’van was from one of the minor Federation planets in the Alpha Quadrant. His people had never developed warp drive or other advanced technology, but became aware of other worlds through traders that stopped at the planet to mine various ores. Growing up, Aard took apart every bit of technology that was available on the planet. He was determined to be the first of his people to be chief engineer on a starship.
Andorians, on the other hand, had a long history with the Federation and advanced technology. Temaa Zh’Chathress was continuing a family tradition of joining Starfleet, particularly the Corps of Engineers.
As O’Brien watched the pair began working through the test questions, he noticed that Cadet Aard’van could not take his eyes off of Zh’Chathress’ long silky, white hair with her two blue antennae poking up through it. He seemed to be having a hard time concentrating. Temaa looked up and glared at Aard with her icy blue eyes. Aard’s face turned a little purple as he forced himself to focus on the test.
Now that the written test was started, O’Brien moved over to the lab tables. Each of the three pairs had picked a piece of equipment. The equipment was some of the most commonly used in Starfleet: an engineering tricorder, a communicator, and a padd. Cadets Juan Edwardo and Nee Lessa had chosen the tricorder that reported the air in the classroom as hydrogen sulfide. Cadet Edwardo appeared to descend from the Latinos of South America. In fact, he was from Venezuela. He had grown up sailing ships on the Caribbean Sea and now wanted to sail in space. Always a fan of speed, Juan hoped to join the Daystrom Institute and develop faster methods of propulsion.
His partner, Nee Lessa was from the Perikian Peninsula on Bajor. She grew up along side the Korvale Ocean and enjoyed boating, but unlike Juan, Lessa preferred boats similar to the Earth’s kayak. As they worked together to get the tricorder to read the air composition, the two cadets talked. Juan noticed right away that Lessa was pretty and intelligent. When he found out she liked the ocean, he thought he might have a chance to spend time with her outside of class sailing on San Francisco Bay.
Just as Cadet Edwardo began to ask Cadet Nee to join him for supper after class, a loud noise blared behind his head. He jerked his head around and smacked his forehead into Lessa’s nose. She dropped the tricorder as blood started dripping from her nose. The tricorder hit the edge of the table and shattered the screen. Lessa ran from the room leaving a trail of blood.
O’Brien jumped when the communicator started blaring. “I think you have a volume malfunction,” yelled the Chief.
No one responded because the noise was so loud, and everyone in the room was covering their ears. The pair of cadets working on the communicator was trying to shut off the noise, but it just got louder. Cadet Edwardo suddenly turned around and smashed the communicator with a hyperspanner. The blaring sound ended abruptly, but the communicator was now smashed beyond repair. Immediately the classroom erupted into applause.
“Did you ever consider simply removing the power cell?” O’Brien asked the shocked cadets who were trying to fix the communicator.
“This was faster,” said Edwardo.
“Chief, sir,” called Cadet Aard’van from the other side of the room. “Our test questions have all the answers.”
“That was fast,” O’Brien congratulated them. “I think I’ll have to come up with some harder questions next time.”
“No, sir. I mean all the answers were already here. I think you gave us your copy.”
“Us, too,” said another pair of cadets. “It had us confused about what we were supposed to do.” The rest of the written test takers nodded.
“Let me look at that,” muttered the Chief as he walked over to the desks. “Sure enough, those are my solutions. I guess you should just go through the questions and answers. When you finish come watch the rest of the class.”
“Two of our three devices are now broken unless you have a new display for the tricorder,” pointed out Edwardo.
“Wait,” called Cadet Nee as she reentered the room. Blood stained the front of her uniform and little wads of tissue paper stuck out of her nose. “I think we can connect the padd to the tricorder and take the air analysis like we were supposed to.”
“Okay,” answered O’Brien impressed. “Is the padd working?”
“Yes,” came the reply, “but it won’t stay connected to a network for more than four minutes.”
“Why don’t you four try combining the padd and the tricorder as Cadet Nee suggested. Let her take the lead.”
“Can I help?” asked Cadet Brickfield from the hololab area. O’Brien had been so busy dealing with emergencies that he never started the holosimulation. “I’m good with tricorders.”
“Okay. You can join the team,” replied O’Brien.
Nee Lessa scowled. “Fine,” she said. “You take the tricorder and I’ll try to get the padd to connect. Cadet Edwardo, you help write the protocols to network the two devices.”
After a few minutes Cadet Nee started looking confused and then concerned. “There’s something wrong here. These should be connected now, but the tricorder isn’t responding.”
“Have you sent it the protocols?” asked Juan Edwardo.
“Yes, I even double checked your work. These should be connected. I even fixed the networking issue. It was a loose antenna. Brickfield, how’s the tricorder on your end.”
“I think I’ve got it just right. This should work. Chief, would you look at this and check to see if it is right? Maybe you can find the solution.”
Chief O’Brien leaned over the tricorder for a good look. The tricorder beeped, and then burst into flames singeing his eyebrows. Immediately the fire suppression system automatically came on covering him and the nearby cadets in firefighting chemicals.
“Poof, no eyebrows,” laughed Brickfield brushing some of the chemical off himself. “Chief, you have to be careful.”
“Brickfield! First you blow up the soap on me! Now, you blow up a tricorder in my face! You’re a disgrace. The first rule of engineering is ‘Safety First’. Your stunts are not safe!”
“Prove it, Chief. I had soap all over me, too, remember. I also just got sprayed with fire retardant.” The bell rang signaling the end of class, and Cadet Brickfield smirked as he left the room.
Most of the class quickly left, but Cadet Nee stayed to help Chief clean up the room. “Sorry things went so badly, Chief,” she said.
“It was all a set up. Brickfield blew the soap all over me. I’d swear to it. Brickfield rigged the tricorder to blow. He was the only one working on it.”
“Maybe its malfunction caused it to blow up.”
“Not a chance. The only thing wrong with it was a faulty gas sensor. The gas sensor needed depolarized. That would not cause an explosion.”
“But Juan dropped the tricorder when the communicator screeched. Maybe that made it blow up.”
“Now look here. If tricorders blew up when they were dropped, we would have explosions everywhere. Tricorders are designed to be rugged. Dropping it would not cause it to blow up.”
“Whatever you say, Chief.”
“Say, who changed the names on the class roster? I know I had the right list when I left the room.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a random glitch?” Lessa smiled innocently as she sauntered out the door.
“Random glitch. Yeah right? If that was a random glitch then I’m a tube grub,” muttered O’Brien as he closed up his room and headed home.
***
Molly met Miles at the door. “Daddy, can you fix my replicator now? I want to pick the perfect outfit for tomorrow. I told my new friend that I’d wear a green jumper tomorrow. I don’t have one in my closet.”
“Isn’t there one in that huge pile of clothes in your room?”
“No, there is a pink one, a gray one, a yellow one, and a blue one, but there’s no green jumper.”
“Can’t you just wear the yellow and blue ones at the same time to make green? Don’t yellow and blue make green?”
“No, daddy, don’t be silly. It doesn’t work that way with clothes!”
“All right, we will try to fix it tonight after supper. What did you make us for supper?”
“I didn’t make supper; mommy did. She made some blue salad with yellow things in it and some noodles. The noodles are purple.” Molly scrunched up her nose.
“Well, let me go get changed and ready for supper.”
Supper tasted surprisingly good despite the strange coloring. Keiko said these were all new vegetables engineered by a botanist friend. They were designed to have a non-offensive taste while having more nutrients than traditional vegetables.
“How was your day, Miles?” asked Keiko after everyone started eating.
“Terrible.”
“It couldn’t have been that bad.”
“Yes it was. We were late to Molly’s school and Principal Park chewed me out. I was late to orientation assembly and none of the students applauded for me during introductions. Lieutenant Trev told me that I had to get the students to like me or else …”
“Poor Miles, so some kids didn’t show they cared.”
“But there was more. I missed the faculty banquet and had to eat replicated food instead. Some kid pranked me in the bathroom by blowing soap all over me. A kid rewrote my class roster so that I sounded like an idiot when I took attendance. Finally, instead of fixing a tricorder, they set it to blow up in my face!”
By this time, Keiko, Molly, and Kirayoshi were all laughing so hard they couldn’t hear anything else that Miles was saying.
“It’s not funny!” complained Miles.
“Yes it is! They were just getting to know the new guy. You know how many problems I had when I first started teaching on DS9. The kids gave me all kinds of trouble, especially Nog, until they learned that I wouldn’t stand for any funny business.”
“Yeah, but I can’t exactly go threaten their Uncle Quark to make them behave.”
“True, but I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
Supper was over all too soon, and Miles had to figure out what was wrong with the crazy replicator. That morning when O’Brien had ripped the innards out of the replicator, he had ripped carefully. It only took a few minutes to reconnect everything except for the final matter-energy conversion matrix so that nothing could be replicated. Having clothes appearing and falling on you makes working on a replicator difficult.
“Molly, how many outfits did you try to replicate?”
“I couldn’t decide what one I wanted from the pictures, so I programmed it to replicate them all.”
“All of them? There must be thousands of them. Tens of thousands maybe.”
“Thirty-one thousand, two hundred and twenty-one. I didn’t ask for the outfits for non-humanoids, so I didn’t ask for that many.”
“Thirty thousand? Don’t you know how many that is?”
“No … just a lot.”
“A lot? That’s enough outfits to last until you are almost 100 years old. Let me clear the queue. From now on you have to choose from the pictures. Have mommy agree on it before you replicate it, okay?”
“Okay, daddy. Did I break it?”
“I don’t know yet. I have to run some diagnostics.”
“Can I go play now while you run your ‘nostics?”
“Yes, I’ll finish this soon.”
Miles started a level 5 diagnostic. A few seconds later the replicator beeped. Everything was working correctly except for the offline matter-energy conversion matrix. O’Brien reconnected the conversion matrix and ran the diagnostic again. A few seconds later, the replicator reported that all systems were working within normal parameters. Okay, he thought, let’s try seeing if this machine works. What should I replicate? How about a new hat? A few button pushes later and a plaid beret materialized. Then the replicator went back to stand-by mode like it was supposed to.
“So what went wrong,” he muttered as he put the beret on. “Let’s try something else. How about a matching scarf for Keiko?” A few more button pushes and O’Brien picked up a plaid scarf. “It still works,” he muttered again as he wrapped the scarf around his neck.
Next, Miles ran a level 2 diagnostic. A few minutes later, the replicator reported a high temperature, not a very high temperature, but slightly elevated. The front cover of the replicator quickly came off, so that he could access the replicator’s hardware. Yes, there was a slightly warm component.
Miles had an idea. He quickly replicated plaid gloves and a matching skirt to go with the scarf for Keiko. Then he checked the temperature again. It was definitely hotter. At the rate of increase, after a hundred or so times running the replicator without a break, the temperature would be high enough to interfere with the optronics that ran the replicator. It would cause errors, like keeping the controls from working.
“Molly,” Miles called. “I fixed it.”
Molly came running. “What was the matter, daddy? Why are you wearing a hat and scarf?”
He quickly removed the scarf. “It overheated. You ran it too much. The replicators in houses are not made to run without stopping. Only make one thing at a time.”
“Okay. Can I go play now?”
“Yes,” answered Miles as Molly ran out.
If only fixing things were always so easy …. At least it didn’t blow up in my face. I wonder how Cadet Brickfield would respond …. I wonder if Keiko will like the new outfit I made for her?
***
Because it was O’Brien’s first semester teaching at Starfleet Academy, he had only three classes to teach. Two of those were in the morning. Emergency Engineering Procedures was his only class after lunch, so he had time to prepare.
His first class of the day was Engineering Design. He thought it would be a fun class. In it, the students were supposed to design a new device. The requirements for the device were wide open. During class, they decided they would start by designing an antigravity suit for Starfleet personnel who needed to walk in high g environments.
Between the morning classes, Chief O’Brien reviewed the security footage from his classroom for the previous day. There was no footage from the ‘fresher, of course, but the classroom was fully covered. The video was used to help instructors teach better by allowing them to review their lessons and teaching methods. It could also catch pranksters.
First he watched the video of the front of the classroom to see who rewrote the class roster. Five students looked at the padd, but he could not tell if any of them changed the list of names. Next he watched footage from the hallway outside of the men’s ‘fresher to see who went in and could have set the soap bomb. O’Brien counted at least fifteen students including one female. Last, he watched the video of the lab from when the students were trying to connect the tricorder and padd. Unless someone was off camera, only six students had access to the equipment, and only three students were in all three places.
At lunchtime, he ate in the mess hall again. After a quick meal of Bajoran hasperat, he went looking for his pranksters. Cadets Nee and Edwardo sat alone at a table in the corner. They were laughing and pointing at a padd. Then they noticed the Chief approaching their table and instantly stopped laughing like they were guilty of something. Nee Lessa blushed.
“I’m glad you found something to talk about. What’s the joke?”
“Joke, sir? We were watching some sailboard racing.”
“I never realized sailing was so humorous. Can I see it?”
“Uh, well sir, we’d have to find the video again. See?” Edwardo handed O’Brien the padd. On the screen was a photo of a sailboard and rider flipping over after being hit by a large wave.
“But you were just watching it.”
“Sorry, sir, but I just deleted it.”
“Okay. Well have a good meal. I’ll see you in class.” And O’Brien wandered off looking for his next victim.
At the other side of the hall, near the replicators, sat a group of nonhuman cadets. Colorfully standing out were an orange male and a blue Andorian female. Cadet Aard’van still could not take his eyes off of Zh’Chathress’s silky white hair. They were talking and laughing with a dozen other cadets.
As O’Brien walked up, he heard Aard’van saying, “Those names were great! He called for students Phat Chen and Al Bowe.”
“I don’t get it, Al Bowe?” asked an insectoid cadet.
“The elbow is part of the human anatomy,” answered Aard. “Humans think making jokes about their anatomy is funny. I just wish he had continued with the list. After his accident in the ‘fresher, the name Sopie Mann would have been hilarious.”
“Cadets Aard’van and Zh’Chathress, may I have a word please?” Instantly, everyone else disappeared as if they evaporated. “So you think yesterday was funny.”
“No, sir. Practical jokes aren’t funny according to Admiral Whatley.”
“From what you were saying, it sounded like you thought they were funny.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So how did you know what names were on that list, Cadet? Did you write it?
“No, sir. I just read the names before class started. I thought the other cadets just had funny names. I, we, Cadet Zh’Chathress and I had nothing to do with making the list.”
“Of course not. And I am certain there won’t be more funny names today.”
“Yes, sir.” Both Aard’van and Zh’Chathress looked embarrassed as the rest of the mess hall watched the proceedings.
“Well, have a good day,” said Chief O’Brien brightly as he left them to finish their lunch. He had just spied the olive features of Cadet Tonie, and Cadet Brickfield was conveniently accompanying her. Again, Brickfield was a mess; someone had spilled their drink all over the front of him. Elena Tonie wiped up the table, while Wilber tried to dry the front of his jacket.
O’Brien sat down in an empty chair at their table.
“Cadet Brickfield, it seems like accidents just follow you.”
“Yes, sir. People around me always seem to be clumsy. Elena here managed knock her water over while she was cheering for her team on the video we were watching. Turns out she’s a master at rewriting padds for new purposes.”
“Is that right?”
“A little, sir. I was just showing Wilber how to capture the video feed from the parrises squares tournament before the public broadcast this evening.”
“I suppose you would be able to rewrite the names in the roster on a professor’s padd?”
“Yes, sir, but why would I want to?”
“I don’t know. It’s certainly not a good way to get on the professor’s good side. I need to go prepare for today’s class because I have something fun planned. Have a good day,” and he walked away out of the mess hall.
By the time Emergency Procedures class started, O’Brien was ready. He kept his padd with him and reset the roster before taking attendance. No pranks occurred, but Cadet Brickfield was late again. He arrived six minutes late with grease smeared all over his uniform.
“What happened to you?” ask O’Brien.
“The soap bottle exploded again.”
“That doesn’t look like soap.”
“No. Someone tried to prank us by putting grease in the soap bottle. Good thing you weren’t there, Chief. You’d have grease all over your face.”
“Thanks, Brickfield. Please have a seat. Since we weren’t able to get to the holosimulation yesterday or finish the other tests, I thought we would work through some potential emergency situations in groups. The first group today is Cadet Zh’Chathress, Cadet Aard’van, and Cadet Brickfield. Please step into the hololab.”
As the students walked into the hololab, the walls shimmered and turned into a rocky cave. An Ensign at the other end was firing a phaser away from the group as if he was fighting an unseen enemy. Then the phaser quit firing. The Ensign shook it and smacked it, and he tried firing again. Nothing happened. Faintly at first, the phaser started to whine. The sound slowly became louder.
“The phaser is on overload!” screamed the Ensign as he shoved it at the engineering cadets.
The cadets started pushing the few control buttons on the phaser, but the sound of the overload just grew louder. Cadet Brickfield remembered the solution to the loud communicator from yesterday, so he tried smashing the phaser. The whine was starting to hurt their ears. Suddenly the hololab flashed glaring white light followed by the black and yellow grid of an inactive holodeck. The phaser had blown up.
“If that was real, you all would have died,” said Chief.
The chagrinned cadets stepped out of the hololab area.
“What should we have done?” asked Cadet Brickfield.
“Let’s see if anyone else in the class has any suggestions.”
Aard’van spoke up. “I was going to try removing the power cell, but we ran out of time.”
“That’s a good idea. Maybe you should have tried that sooner.”
“Why didn’t you guys just turn it off?” asked Cadet Tonie.
“We tried that,” said Zh’Chathress. “That was the first thing I tried, but the controls weren’t responding.”
“There were two solutions,” said O’Brien. “The first was removing the power cell. Good idea, Aard’van. Cutting power is a good way to solve emergencies that are caused by too much energy. The second solution was to simply throw the phaser away. If you were fighting an enemy in a life and death situation, the overloaded phaser would have made an effective grenade; however, it would have killed the enemy instead of stunning them.”
“Wait,” exclaimed Zh’Chathress, “throwing it away is a valid solution?”
“The solution to an emergency situation is to remove the emergency. Then you only have a situation. Of course we don’t want to lose a lot of equipment. It’s bad form to throw away starships, but as a last resort, throwing the equipment away safely is a good solution.
“Okay, next group. Cadets Nee, Tonie, and Edwardo, please step into the hololab.”
The lab quickly transformed into the corner of a typical crew quarters. A replicator dominated one wall. It hummed, and a pair of pants shimmered into existence. Then a shirt, then a jacket, then a boot, then another boot. Clothing continued appearing.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” said Chief. “Fix the machine. It’s going to keep replicating things until you tell it to stop.”
“Computer,” said Cadet Nee sweetly, “deactivate the replicator.”
A pair of socks slid out of the slot.
“Computer,” she said more sternly, “clear this replicator’s queue.”
Another shirt materialized.
“Computer,” she tried again, “deactivate this replicator.”
This time lacy underpants materialized and fell at her feet.
“Is that what you wear?” laughed Cadet Edwardo.
“Knock it off,” hissed Nee as a matching lacy undershirt materialized.
“Let me try,” said Tonie as she pushed past Nee. Elena pushed several buttons. Menus on the display changed, but the replicator still hummed and materialized objects. Then she had a great idea. “I’m going to try to change the objects being replicated.” She pressed a few more buttons. The machine hummed and sparkled, and a cup of coffee appeared.
Then some tea was replicated, followed by milk. The problem was that there was only so much space in the replicator slot, and the cups of liquid started falling out of the slot onto the floor.
“Good job. You only made a bad situation worse,” said Cadet Edwardo sourly. “Let me try.”
He started poking at buttons. “If I can reroute the subroutine, I might be able to bypass the materialization sequence.” A few more button pushes produced results. Now every time the replicator cycled, the liquid materialized without a cup. Drinks sloshed all over place.
“I don’t get it,” fumed a soaked Cadet Edwardo. “That should have worked.”
“Double check your programming,” suggested O’Brien.
“I have.”
Cadets Nee and Tonie were consulting a tricorder. “Edwardo, we’ve tied into the replicator, and it says that it is not receiving any commands to replicate stuff. There is something wrong in the command sequence. It seems to be in an infinite loop.”
“Can you just shut the power off?” asked Cadet Edwardo.
“I tried, but it didn’t respond.”
“Let’s shut it off from the inside. Pull the cover off.”
“It’s stuck. Come help me.”
Cadets Nee and Tonie attempted to open the cover. Cadet Edwardo joined them when the cover refused to budge. The three of them pulled, and the cover gave way. The three cadets stumbled backwards, but slipped on the wet floor and fell in a heap. Edwardo sat up and carefully grabbed the main power cable and yanked. The control panel went dark because all the optronics inside the replicator were powered off.
“Got it,” sighed Tonie.
There was a hum and sparkling lights. A pillow materialized in the replicator slot.
“Hey, it’s shut down!” exclaimed Cadet Nee. “Where’d the pillow come from?”
The three cadets peered into the replicator slot. Poof! The pillow blew apart into tiny feathers covering the cadets. The feathers stuck everywhere that they were wet. Tonie, Nee, and Edwardo were covered with feathers from head to foot.
“Computer, end program,” commanded Chief O’Brien. “Class is just about over. Please read the first assignment from your textbook.”
“Chief, why didn’t the replicator shut off?” asked Nee Lessa. “How could we have fixed it?”
“Honestly, one of the replicators in my apartment wouldn’t shut off. It turned out that if the civilian models get too hot, the command panel won’t respond to inputs. I had to pull the power cable and let it cool down. It works fine now as long as it’s not run more than a hundred or so cycles in a row.”
“But how were we supposed to fix this one? We tried disconnecting the power cable.”
“Oh, that? It was impossible to fix. I discovered who was playing all the pranks on me, so I thought I’d play my own prank. I don’t expect there’ll be anymore pranks, right?”
The rest of the class laughed. Cadet Tonie scowled, but Lessa started laughing hard. Then Tonie and Edwardo joined her.
The bell rang, and the rest of the cadets left the classroom. However, the three feathery students stayed behind.
“How’d you know we were the ones who played the practical jokes, sir? After all, we tried to make it look like Brickfield did it.”
“Brickfield is just a walking accident. Everything happens to him. You three were caught on video surveillance. You also have the skills. If you would try, you could use those skills to help other people instead of hurt them. I look forward to having you in Engineering Design next semester, assuming you are still here.”
***
As Chief O’Brien headed home for the evening, his communicator chirped. “O’Brien here.”
“Chief, this is the Commandant’s office. Admiral Whatley would like to speak you.”
“On my way.”
O’Brien was now very apprehensive. I wonder what this is about. I bet I’m going to get reprimanded for being late. I knew he saw me come in late yesterday. He’s going to complain about my example for the cadets.
When he arrived at the Commandant’s office, the administrative assistant had O’Brien sit in a waiting area for what seemed like an hour, but really was only three minutes. Then the office door opened and he saw Cadets Tonie, Nee, and Edwardo in chairs facing the Commandant’s desk.
“O’Brien, is there something you want to tell me about some practical jokes?”
O’Brien looked at the cadets. Their heads were all hung in disgrace. “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
“There was a soap accident in the refresher and a fire in your lab yesterday. Academy security has reviewed the surveillance footage and determined that you have been targeted by pranks. Is this correct?”
“There were a couple … accidents, sir.”
“These three cadets have admitted to playing practical jokes. Do you wish to press charges?”
O’Brien looked at the students. They shifted nervously in their seats, then Nee Lessa looked at him and smiled hopefully. Edwardo’s expression pleaded with O’Brien.
“No sir, there are no charges for accidents. I don’t think there will be any more accidents like that in the future.”
“Very well. Cadets you may leave. Please be more careful about not causing … accidents.” After they left, Admiral Whatley fixed O’Brien with a hard stare. “Chief, the security footage showed what appeared to be a practical joke played on the students by a certain professor.”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir. Accidents happen, particularly in engineering.”
“You will be more careful in the future … correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
A chastised O’Brien left the Commandant’s office, but he was never the target of a practical joke again.
- Richard Wright
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Richard Wright Copyright 1999