kalokagathia - a Star Trek Story [on hiatus]

Chapter 6 : It's . . . Klingon

Uhura sighed in resignation, picking at one of the transmissions consoles with her shiny black nails. Cass looked at her friend, rolling her eyes at her behaviour. They were stuck there for the night; they just had to put up with it. Uhura sighed again, and Cass looked up from her station, a small glare on her face.

"Nyota, could you please stop doing that?" there was a tone in her voice that was almost daring her to sigh again as Cass gritted her teeth, turning back to her work. Uhura cast a glance at her friend and sighed again.

"Nyota!" Cass said loudly and angrily, causing her to be shushed by a few of the other cadets in the lab. Uhura grinned cheekily.

"Sorry," she said quietly, but the glint fell out of her eyes as soon as she glanced at her consol. "I'm so bored!" she muttered, just loud enough for Cass to hear. The blonde cadet smirked.

"It was your choice to choose this subject," Cass said, fiddling with her earphone. The shiny console in front of her blipped and flickered, lights shining on and off and reflecting against the metal structure. Red and blue flashing dots of colour covered the top, the touch screen surface showing the patterns of the planets they were tracking. To Cass at the moment the lines just looked like a bunch of dotted lines threading together the galaxy, not the complicated diagram she assumed it looked like to Uhura. The tapping and yapping of various messages through space sounded through her earpiece, but Cass drowned most of it out, jotting down the occasional co-ordinate. She smiled slightly when she caught sight of Uhura. The dark haired girl finally seemed to be paying attention to her consol.

"Nice to see you actually doing some work," Uhura ignored her comment, concentrating hard. Cass frowned at this; normally Uhura would've laughed at her joke.

"Nyota?" Cass prompted, walking over to her. Uhura's fingers rested over her earpiece, pulling it over her head as Cass came and looked over her shoulder.

"Cass, what do you think of this?" she handed the earpiece to her, and Cass concentrated, listening carefully. There was something there, in behind the scrambling of the blips, something with a pattern. Cass scribbled dots and dashes onto her pad, trying to make sense of the Morse code style pattern.

"It's . . . Klingon," she said after a moment, her eyebrows furrowing as she spelt out the letters of the code. "47, 47, destroyed . . . what destroyed?" Uhura watched over Cass's shoulder.

"47 ships," Uhura said after a second, "47 ships destroyed," Cass snapped her fingers, a grin on her face.

"Romulans, destroyed by Romulans in one big ship," Cass finished.

"Does it say where it is?" Uhura asked, still frowning slightly.

"A prison planet," she said, skimming over it, "I'm not sure where, I haven't heard of it." Cass unclipped the earpiece, throwing it onto the consol. "at least we're not bored anymore!" she said happily, moving to sit in her own seat.

"I think I can call it a night," said Uhura, stretching her long arms above her head.

"well, thank God for that," Cass said, smiling as she stood up, "if I had to spend one more minute in this place, I swear I'll go insane!" she smoothed out non-existent creases in her red skirt, cracking out the tension in her neck.

"Do you wanna come study in my dorm?" Uhura said, "I heard my roommate say something about having a 'hot date' for tonight," Cass laughed.

"Poor soul whoever it is she's gotten her claws into," she said, causing Uhura to snigger. "I can pop by for a bit," she said, smiling.

Cass laughed as she and Uhura walked into the dark-haired cadet's dorm. The lights were on, which wasn't unusual when one of them was out, but still, it was a little strange.

 Uhura's roommate, Gaila was sat on the bed in a matching set of black and white underwear, almost making Cass raise her eyebrows. She knew that Jim was supposed to have a 'date' with Uhura's roommate today, and surely he wouldn't have forgotten. Mind you, one never knows what Jim is going to do.

"Hey," Cass said brightly, walking over and sitting on Uhura's bed.

"Hi," Gaila replied, almost uncertainly. Something was going on.

"The strangest thing," Uhura said, pulling at the collar of her polo neck uniform, "we were in the long range sensor lab,"

"Yeah, I thought all night," Gaila added, twiddling her fingers nervously, her eyes flitting from Cass to Uhura.

"Was supposed to be. I was tracking solar systems and then, I picked up an emergency transmission,"

"No?" Gaila added. Uhura nodded, and Cass narrowed her eyes at the green skinned girl.

"Yeah," Uhura pulled her shirt off her head and sliding off her uniform red skirt, "from a Klingon prison planet,"

"So you two won't be going back to the lab tonight?" Uhura froze, looking at Cass, a look of understanding passing between the two girls.

"Gaila, who is he?" Uhura asked. Cass smirked, already knowing the answer.

"Kirk, you can come out now," Cass called cheerily, a triumphant smile on her face as the blonde haired Kirk emerged from under Gaila's bed. Uhura's usually calm expression transformed into a glare when she saw who it was Gaila was hiding.

"You!" she said ferociously, and Jim gave a panicked look as Uhura took a step towards him. "Get rid of him!" she said to Cass.

"Big day tomorrow," he said, darting backwards. Cass reached down and grabbed his clothes in a pile on the floor.

"You're gonna fail," Uhura snarled, pretty much chasing him towards the door.

"Gaila, see ya round," he said as Cass hurried him out.

"Bye Uhura," Cass said, shoving him out the door and shutting it behind him. Cass made a noise that was somewhere between a growl and a sigh.

"Seriously Jim!" she said, throwing his clothes at him. He smiled almost cheekily at her and she hit him hard in the chest. "It's not funny!" she said angrily, walking back towards her dorm, Jim wincing. She'd hit him quite hard. "She's my friend's roommate!" she backed up against her door, her eyes still blazing as she looked at his smug face.

"Are you trying to make me look like an idiot?"

"I think that the fact you picked up a transmission very int-" Cass slapped him before he could finish his sentence, her face hard, her jaw clenched.

"Dammit Kirk! You made me look so stupid in front of her, I don't know why I-" Cass was cut off by Jim's lips coming down onto hers in a harsh kiss, one full of pent up frustration. Cass kissed him back with the same ferocity as he pushed open her door, walking her inside. Their lips broke contact as Cass gasped for breath.

"You're beautiful" Kirk said, connecting their lips again briefly before trailing them down her neck. He broke away, pulling her shirt over her head.

"Tell me something I don't know,"