Nobis ✴︎ Pavel Chekov

Chapter Forty Three - Scrambled Toads

"Honestly, Pavel! You can't just go telling the captain and our crew that our reasonably unsuccessful work has worked once or twice! You don't get it, this hasn't been tested on anything living Pavel. It cannot stress this enough lad, that this is not safe."

"Aye, I know I know, I'm sorry. We could try and test it now though, I think we're nearly there, we just are missing something."

"We're on a time pressure for Christ's sake, I do the impossible everyday keeping this blasted thing in one piece but we have limitations Pavel."

Pavel goes quiet then, worried that Scotty may have a very valid point. He swallows, wondering what kind of mess he's getting everyone into. He takes his PADD and heads to his room, somewhere substantially quieter than engineering. He has a plan to push himself into a hyper focus, something he hasn't done since the academy. He remembers the hazes of uninterrupted studying, hours and hours on end unmoving and completely oblivious to the world around him. He had to set alarms so he'd remember to eat and sleep. He puts noise cancelling earmuffs on. He takes a deep breath, putting his pen to paper and starting the impossible.

Pavel loses focus when the ship shakes. He's made substantial progress, that much he knows but he can't concentrate knowing that the ship may very well be under attack. He takes the ear muffs off, scans all his writing quickly onto his PADD and runs down to engineering.

"I've got something," Pavel yells, getting Scotty's attention from across the room.

"I fuckin' hope so lad, we're under attack."

He passes Scotty the PADD, pulling him in the direction of the transporter. Pavel crashes into someone in the hall, that person being Kirk. Standing behind him is Karsen, Pavel swallows.

"We found our way in," Kirk smiles.

Pavel wonders why it didn't cross his mind earlier. Karsen more or less runs the trading post that's under siege. He knows the layout, all the access codes and most importantly, how to get around the trading post without getting caught. Kirk is out of uniform too, wearing a spare set of Karson's trading post gear. Mr Scott is still reading over Pavel's work as they talk and his eyes widen a little before he hands it back to Pavel breathlessly.

"You may have just invented the equation to operate two separate transporter functions at once. You may have just changed transportation theory forever, Pavel."

Pavel beams, Kirk widens his eyes. At Pavel's age he was driving cars too fast and drinking through Riverside Iowa's alcohol supply. They head back towards engineering, a few practise runs to do before they can start anything with the trading post. Pavel buzzes with a nervous excitement, the thought of seeing his name in Starfleet textbooks right at the front of his mind.

The fruits come back in one piece, not scrambled like last time. Sulu reluctantly gives them permission to use two of his carnivorous plants to test next. They're living but not sentient, not as far as Sulu is aware anyway. With Sulu's fingers crossed firmly behind his back, they press engage. Pavel breathes a sigh of relief and hands the plants back to Sulu who smiles gently.

"We need a living test subject," Scotty mutters, Pavel nodding in agreement. There's a few toads in the xeno-zoology lab that are permitted for use as test subjects. A few are brought down to the engineering bay and the zoologist looks a little concerned.

"Don't scramble my toads, okay?"

"We will try our best not to," Pavel mutters, looking at Scotty uncomfortably. He remembers all the fruit hybrids they made, hoping not to mix the toads up the same way. They're beaming one blue one and one red one and all Pavel does is hope they don't end up purple.

"Okay," Pavel says, steadying his hand on the controls. "Energise." The blue toad disappears, some lights swirl around it as red one materialises.

"Holy fuck," mutters Pavel. "Holy fuck Scotty, I've done it. Look it's working."

"I know lad," Scotty says, standing there in a trance. "My god, you're going to change the universe Pavel."

"Clear the PADD," Pavel mutters. "Just..." He looks at Karsen, a little uneasily. "May I please go first? I know you're already in uniform but I can't send you our first on this. This is still all theoretical, beaming a few frogs is a lot easier than a person, if something goes wrong from my theory, I cannot have you being the one out there..."

"Are you doing this for Emory...?"

"I'm doing this for you. And for myself, I couldn't live with it if anything happened to you."

Karsen nods, taking a step back. Kirk pulls off his jacket and passes it to Pavel, giving him a gentle nod.

Scotty plans to swap Pavel out with one of the animals on the trading post, not wanting to swap Pavel with another person and scare whoever they're beaming out too much. Pavel asks Scotty not to tell him what animal they'll transport at the same time. He's scared something could go wrong still. He doesn't need to know what it is, it'll stress him too much.

Pavel's sweating when gets onto the transporter pad. Scotty comes up to him, looking over to the captain quickly.

"You don't have to do this."

"I know. I'm ready though, I'm worried of course but I'm ready."

Scotty takes a step back.

"See you on the other side," Pavel smiles, crouching down and nodding towards Scotty.

"Energise."

(Author's Note)

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-Lucky