Home on the Enterprise - An Old Man's War/Star Trek TOS Crossover

Days 20-65

4 Albion, 2270

Puvar pored over the lists of courses, core courses, majors and minors that Starfleet Academy had sent for a full six hours before she gave up and sought help. Without consciousness, she had been incapable of making any kind of decision; now, she still had difficulty. At precisely 1401 hours, she showed up at sickbay. McCoy was, once again, busy with a patient, so she waited.

"And you better wrap your hands next time or I'll have you banned from the gym!" the grumpy doctor shouted after his patient. "And what stupid mess have you gotten yourself into, Puvar? I thought you were supposed to be choosing your Academy classes, not..."

"The 'stupid mess I've gotten myself into' is choosing my classes, doctor," Puvar said calmly. "I... I don't know how to do it."

McCoy led Puvar into his office and gestured for her to sit. She did so, sending the data from Starfleet Academy to his computer. He took his seat and looked over it.

"You don't have to choose a major yet for your first year," he said. "You're only taking core classes and possibly a couple of electives. Right now, you just have to decide if you want to do a single major, science major or double major. You don't have to do two majors. You can do one major and one minor."

"I think I want to major in science," Puvar said. "I have been working in the Sciences department until now and I like it."

"Great!" McCoy exclaimed. "That's progress, Puvar. You'll have to choose your specialisation for your second year and your minor for your third. Right now, you only have to choose four core courses to start with and one elective for your first semester.

He pulled up the list of core courses to start with. Puvar selected the first four of them (ADMIN101: Starfleet Operations; ADMIN110: Chain of Command and General Protocol; DIPL101: General; ENG221: Programming 1). McCoy raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

"And your elective?" he asked.

Puvar shrugged. She had sought the doctor's help because she could not make a decision on her own. Now he was asking her to make a decision.

McCoy noticed her uncertainty and switched to the list of courses in the history department. His finger tapped one.

"HIST160: Earth's Eugenics Wars," Puvar read.

"You asked me about it a few days ago," McCoy said. "I thought you might be interested."

Puvar nodded, smiling.

"Well, that's it for now," he said cheerfully. "A semester is fifteen weeks, but you get weekends off, so you don't start classes for two days."

Puvar's smile fell. "Doctor," she said quietly, "my BrainPal – the computer in my head – enables me to process information at ten times the speed you can. I'll be finished my eight-hour workday in forty-eight minutes. I will complete a seventy-five-day semester in seven-and-a-half days. I will finish a full year in twenty-two point five days. I will graduate from the Academy in three months. I don't think 'that's it for now'." She gestured at the computer.

"You're even worse than Spock sometimes," McCoy grumbled. "Okay, let's do this, then. I presume you don't care which core courses you take now?"

"I have to do all of them, doctor," Puvar said in a tone that very much reminded the doctor of Spock.

"All right, so there are only four core courses in your second semester," McCoy said. He selected the next four on the list (ENG231: Computer Memory and Personnel Interfaces; ENG232: Food Synthesisers and Transporters; ENG233: Sensors, Communications and Helm Systems; HIST101: Birth of the Federation).