[1] Ad Victoriam ➳ Star Trek (2009) ✔️

|04| Stowaways

Chapter 4 x

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Kirk, Victoria, and Bones stood in the hanger of the Academy, all of them listening to one of the other Commanders giving out the assignments for each of them. The Academy was trying to split them all up based on their focus to create an even spread and create a crew that could work together, "...Regula I. Tracy, USS Farragut. McCoy, USS Enterprise. Vader, USS Hood," the man finished, looking away from his datapad to the Cadets standing before him, "Welcome to Starfleet, godspeed."

Victoria closed her eyes, hearing her own name skipped over, hers and Kirk's actually. She could guess what that meant. Their 'hearing' hadn't been finished, the academic board hadn't made their decision about whether to expel them or forgive them or whatever it was they might do, which meant they were technically on academic suspension till the vote could be cast. And suspension, she knew all too well, meant that they wouldn't be allowed to participate in any Fleet or Academy events, not even a rescue mission.

"He didn't call my name," Kirk frowned.

"Or mine," Victoria sighed.

"Commander!" Kirk rushed off for the man.

"James, don't..." she tried to go after him with Bones.

"Sir, you didn't call my or Victoria's name," Kirk told the man, "Kirk, James T. and..."

"You're both on academic suspension," the man cut in, but Kirk just stared at him, "That means you're grounded, until the Academy board rules."

Kirk shook his head, seeming devastated as the man turned and walked away to give more assignments.

"Figures," Victoria murmured, "First time out with the Fleet and we're stuck here."

As terrible as it was to admit, what with it being a sort of rescue mission and none of them knowing what was wrong on Vulcan or how serious it might be, she was almost hoping that it would help her decide if she even wanted to finish her Cadet training. She was in the program, yes, she'd gotten nearly to the end of it, her and Kirk, in 3 years instead of 4, something her father was infinitely proud of. She and Kirk, it seemed, through their bickering and competitions with each other had urged the other to keep pushing themselves and working harder in the process. They'd made it through in 3 years and were on the cusp of graduating. And now this.

But still, despite her being so near the end, despite having made it all the way through, she wasn't sure if she really wanted to see it through. She'd had fun, yes, she'd learned so much and grew and found friends worth sticking around for. But was it enough? She'd hardly been able to experience engineering in a real starship. The Academy had nearly exact replicas of the engineering rooms of the ships so it wasn't like they'd be thrown into the rooms and the ships with no experience. But...there was a difference between simulations and the actual thing. It wasn't even that she'd be alone or suddenly thrust into a position where she was running the warp drives or anything. She'd selected the more liaison role, being the one on the Bridge that communicated with Engineering, and went down to help tend to the different aspects of it when needed. It could be complicated, the engineering of a starship, it helped a captain enormously to have someone on the Bridge to interpret the information and readings and calculations that came to them from engineering.

She just...wanted to be on an actual ship and see how it all went before she decided if she wanted to commit herself to that life in graduating. To be on a ship instead of a simulation meant she'd be interacting with more than just other engineering Cadets, but with an actual crew. She'd have more responsibilities, she'd see more, and...maybe she'd see the wonders that her father had that just kept pulling him back into the Fleet. This...might have been her only chance to do that and now she'd lost it.