Beyond the Stars, Beyond the Moon

Part 9: High Hopes, Low Expectations

Pov: Chekov

"There ya are! What took you two so long? Wait. That's an obvious answer. Get yer heads out of the gutters n get to work!"

I don't even bother correcting Scotty. I grab the tools and head right to the section of damaged controls. It looks like the pipes for the warp coolant are nearly done, and someone already finished the panels Cassie and I worked on yesterday and found the device in her finger.

Cassie and I work in silence for about an hour. I can see she's focused and I get into deep focus myself not wanting to bother her. After awhile Scotty comes back over to us.

"So ya lads were probably snogging and didn't hear the news. So they didn't find anything else during the lockdown. But we now have patrols at night like an "unofficial lockdown". We're still on course back to earth. Warp should be available by the end of the day so we're looking at arriving at earth by tomorrow night. There's a meeting happening with all the higher ups so when we get back, Spock and Kirk will attend that and all the Caliber crew gets interviewed. Then we get maybe a full day off. Can you believe that?! What luck! I here the pubs calling me now! Speaking of, I'm gonna get a sandwich." And with that he walks off, minion in tow to the mess hall.

This is good. Maybe I can take Cassie on a nice date, one where we're not confined to her room.

"Hey Pavel I need a break. A sandwich sounds good right now. I'm tired and if I continue to look at these wires, I'm gonna fry them and the ones in my brain. Wanna go to the mess hall?"

"Sure" I take off my work goggles and clean up my little mess, putting the several tools I had out back in the box.

We head to the mess hall and it seems pretty loud. There's a lot of people so we hurry to grab our food so we can try to find a table. She grabs her sandwich and I take my usual, kasha, which is a Russian soup. We start looking for Scotty to hopefully grab a spot next to him, then I hear behind me "Hey smartass!"...great. Here we go.

"What's up, Russia? What have you been up to, genius? Oh hey look! You brought a new girlfriend for me!"
Cassie looks confused and disgusted at the comment.

"Look Edson, I don't vant any trouble. Please leave her alone." I'm preparing for the worst. I forgot he was assigned to the Enterprise. The captain of the rugby team in high school. The guy that beat me up and hung me by my shirt collar in the gym.

"My brother will hear about this, gentlemen. I suggest you back off and go about your day." Cassie says.

"Oh yeah? You need a big brother to protect you since wimpy little smartass is too weak?"

"For your information, my brother is Commander Spock. And really gentlemen, how old are we? You sound like 7 year olds."

"Well well well, once again, little nerdy Pavel sucks up to those above him and dates Commander Logics' sister. That's a new extreme to prove you're better than the rest of us. Someone needs to put you back in place again, huh?" Edson flips my tray and the kasha spills all over my uniform.

"Stop it!" Cassie yells and soon Edson picks her up and flings her over his shoulder. "Put me down right now! You don't know who you're dealing with!"

"Your girl's gonna get it, Chekov!" And his 2 friends that were behind him come forward. The one on the left swings and I move out of the way, but the other one lands one right on my right eye. I fall over dizzy and knock over a table, leftover food falling on me. The guy who missed picks me up by the collar and the other punches me in the stomach hard. I struggle not to throw up and I look over to Edson who's still holding Cassie. She's kicking and trying to get out of his grasp and I see his hand start to trail upwards just under her skirt and she starts to scream and fight back harder.