The Raw Cadet
Posted on Tue Jun 27, 2023 @ 12:01am by Lieutenant Penelope Naroot
2,001 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
We Will Take Care of You
Location: Starfleet Academy/USS Nazareth
“Put on the blue one,” Bismal said, trying to keep the exasperation out of her voice.
“I can’t wear the blue one,” Penny called from her closet. “I’m applying to Starfleet’s medical division. My research shows a high probability that wearing blue will make me seem overconfident and cocky.”
“Well what about your green dress?” Bismal said.
“Then I’ll look like a Gorn,” Penny said.
“Is she still picking out a dress to wear?” Daniyal said, coming up the stairs towards Penny’s room.
“I thought you were going to wait in the car,” Bismal said.
“I thought you said she’d only be five minutes,” Daniyal countered.
“She’s having a bit of a fashion crisis,” Bismal said, trying to sound sympathetic.
“How much of a crisis can there be?” Daniyal said skeptically. “She has only so many clothes.”
“I can hear you,” Penny informed them from the depths of her closet.
“Good, then you can hear me tell you to hurry up,” Daniyal said, getting only a frustrated huff in response.
“Sweetheart,” Bismal said, “you’ll look fine no matter what.”
“Fine?” Penny said, rushing out of her closet. “Mom, I can't just look 'fine.'” She ticked off on her fingers, her voice taking on the frustration of someone explaining something for the umpteenth time. “This interview determines what the recruiter puts in his report, which influences the opinion of the application review board, which influences the decision of the admissions board who decide whether or not I’m getting into the academy so I have to be perfect because if I make any mistakes today I might as well forget the whole thing and go back to giving surfing lessons for the rest of my life because all my plans will be ruined.”
“Well, as long as you’re keeping everything in proper perspective,” Daniyal said.
“You can always go in wearing a sari,” Bismal said. “Look traditional.”
“Perhaps, but I don’t want to look like a wrapped dumpling,” Penny complained.
“Beep, beep, Penny,” Daniyal said. He stepped into Penny’s room and took her by the shoulders. “You’d look far from ‘a dumpling’. You are as slim and trim as the day we found you. I don’t think you’re even capable of gaining weight. I’ve never met someone who has your appetite and can still look so good.”
Penny tilted her head in what her parents had dubbed her "thinking pose." “Daddy,” Penny said, sounding deceptively curious, "how is telling me I eat like a pig supposed to cheer me up?" When no reply was forthcoming, she shrugged and walked back into her closet, tossing out more clothes.
“I’ll go back to the car,” Daniyal sighed. “Hopefully having the perfect outfit will overcome the fact that we’re going to be late!” He shouted the last part over his shoulder, hoping it would light the necessary fires.
Five minutes later, Penny was wearing a professional-looking suit and sitting in the back seat, muttering prepared answers to what she assumed were logical questions the interviewer would ask. She’d already answered a dozen questions like them in her application, but she knew there would be more. By now, they’d reviewed her application, her file and her high school grades. She was fine there, but sometimes interpersonal skills still eluded her. Her adoptive parents and friends had taken to saying, “beep, beep” when she was beginning to overstep her boundaries. She had gotten better at it, and being the ‘nerdy-whiz-kid-foundling’ had helped explain some of it away, but, overall, she still had to carefully plan what she was going to say to avoid putting her foot in her mouth.
Those same concerns were silently circling through her parents' heads an hour later when Penny emerged from the Starfleet recruitment office and silently got into the back of the hovercar. She was unusually subdued and had her ‘lost in thought’ expression, which she always had when she was pondering something that confused her.
After ten minutes of silence, her mother finally spoke. “You know,” she said, “you could start your own business. I know how much you love the water, and a number of the older instructors on the island are going to retire soon--”
“I was accepted,” Penny said, quietly.
Her father almost went off the road in shock and her mother turned in her seat to smile. “Darling, that’s wonderful! Then why do you look so confused?”
“Something the recruiter said,” Penny mumbled. “He said, ‘Starfleet is where many people discover who they actually are.’”
“Sounds like he’s trying to be a philosopher,” her father huffed. “Some puffed up young officer who wants to impress the recruits.”
“He wasn’t young,” Penny said. “That’s what was so weird. He was old; like, really old. He didn’t look it, but I could tell. And he was part Borg.”
“Beep, beep, Penny,” her mother scolded. “Just because someone has an implant--”
“No, Mom, I know what it was,” Penny said forcefully. “It was the base of an ocular implant around the upper eye socket bone. Borg tech. I’ve studied everything there is to study about it, and I know what it was.”
She got quiet for a moment as her parents shared a silent conversation. “I walked in and he just stared at me, like he was dissecting me, as if he were looking right through my soul. He didn’t ask me any of the questions I’d researched. He asked about my life at home, who my friends were, what I wanted for my birthday, how I felt when I surfed. It was like he was doing a psychological workup.”
“Do you think that’s what it was?” Bismal said. “Your resume is spotless. Perhaps he wanted to get more of a sense of who you are?”
“I guess,” she said. “It got awkward when he asked about...before,” she said. She didn’t have to say more for her parents to understand: before they found her, she had virtually no memory. Occasionally she woke up from odd dreams, but they were far too fantastical to be more than that. They’d spoken with a therapist who said there was most definitely symbolism there, but without more context from her past, it would be difficult to unravel. Being healthy and happy, it didn’t stay a pressing concern, and her adoptive parents let her decide if she wanted to explore it or not.
“So, you were accepted,” her father finally said, bringing the conversation back around. “So we should be celebrating, yes?”
“Yeah...yeah!” Penny said, brightening as it finally sunk in. “I got in! I’m going to the academy!” She bounced in her seat so hard the car shook.
The light in Penny’s dorm room snapped on, making her look up from her padd. Her Betelgeusian roommate was giving her a stern look. “It is 0315 hours,” she said.
“Is it?” Penny said, looking at the chronometer on the wall. “I’m sorry, I was reading through the textbook.”
“You are already reading it?” her roommate said, impressed. “Forgive me, but you seemed rather...unfocused today.”
“Yeah, well, there was a lot to take in,” Penny said. Academy orientation had seemed like one giant party, and she had attempted to see and do everything in a day. Her parents had dropped her off, hugged her goodbye, her mother had cried copiously, and then she was on her own. She hadn’t lived with them for very long, but she was touched they were that concerned for her and that they would miss her.
She’d barely slowed down for food or drink and had gotten her room set up, obtained her supplies for classes, and began tearing through her texts. She’d always been a bit of a sponge when it came to memorizing things, and she figured if she went through a few chapters, it would give her an advantage on their first day...which started in three hours.
“I do not understand how you cannot be tired,” her roommate said.
“Me either,” she said, but shrugged and laid back, closing her eyes. She waited till she could hear her roommate’s breathing slow and was sure she was asleep, then she picked up her padd and decided that since she was only twenty pages away from the end of the book, she might as well finish it, and she was far too excited to be tired.
“Cadet Chintapalli, what you are asking for is unprecedented, irrational and completely unrealistic,” Vice Admiral Barrows said, his booming voice filling his office.
“So...you’re saying there’s a chance?” Penny’s voice rose with hope.
“I’m saying,” Barrows continued, forcing himself to be patient, “that a first-year cadet, no matter how promising, is not going to be double-majoring while on a field assignment. That is not something a fourth-year cadet would attempt.”
“But sir,” she pleaded, “half the coursework here has nothing to do with medical or engineering. I’ve already read most of the books I need to complete both majors, the rest is just field work. I could probably pass my exit exams now!”
“The coursework you are referring to is vital to your education in Federation and Starfleet life. History, philosophy, cultural studies, these are not simply filler. They are what allow you to put your lessons into a broader perspective,” he lectured.
“Knowing early Earth’s history with the Roman Empire isn’t going to help me use a tricorder, or repair an ODN conduit,” she argued. “Studying Klingon opera won’t teach me to program a hypospray or prevent a warp core breach.”
“You have no way of knowing that,” the admiral said. “The Vulcans have a saying: Infinite Diversity--”
“--In Infinite Combinations,” Penny finished. “But there’s still probability. The odds of me using Klingon opera to prevent a warp core breach--”
“Are incalculable without all the relevant data and context of the moment,” a new voice said. “And we can run a billion scenarios on the holodeck, but until you’re in that moment, you won’t know what you need. Therefore, we try to prepare you with a wide variety of tools.”
Penny saw Vice Admiral Barrow’s face darken a bit, and she turned at the familiar voice. The same officer from her recruitment interview was standing in the doorway of the office, except now he was decked out in a uniform with full Admiral’s pips. She looked up at him and once again felt he was looking right through her. She swallowed hard. “Sir,” she said.
“Admiral Markus. I’m sorry if we were disturbing you,” Vice Admiral Barrows said. “Cadet Chintapalli can be rather...vociferous in her arguments.”
“I’ve noticed,” Alan Markus said, dryly. “Still, what a refreshing change from the cadets who are too afraid to speak up. Clearly, Miss Chintapalli has something in her that she needs to discover, and I hate to squash such initiative.”
He walked in and sat down in the second chair next to Penny, fixing her with a stare until she began to physically squirm in her chair. “Sir, I’m sorry I was out of line,” she said, looking down at her hands in her lap.
“A very appropriate response,” Markus said. “Measured, calculated, checks all the boxes for what we’d expect from a contrite young cadet,” he said. “But how do you really feel?”
Penny looked up at him and tilted her head. “Underestimated.”
Markus smiled. “Well then, if Admiral Barrows will indulge me, I think I may have a field assignment for you after all.”
Barrows harrumphed. “If you wish to allow this poor girl to put herself through hell, I will not stand in your way, Alan.”
Penny lit up and grinned. “Yes, Sir! Thank you, Sir!”
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