"That can't be right." Janice Cady, Enterprise historian, insisted hotly. We'd been at this for hours. At first the woman had been fascinated to hear what I had to say; now a little tick under her right eye, and the snappiness of her tone indicated otherwise. "Do you have any proof of your claims?" I almost flinched as she put my datapad down with force. Honestly this was the weirdest thing to get upset about. 

"Only the fact that I lived it." 

"There is no way Lin-Manuel Miranda didn't write Hamilton."

"Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the musical play, but Chernow wrote the book that inspired him to do it. Miranda didn't write both." Janice angrily typed something.

"Miranda preformed as the lead on Broadway."

"That doesn't mean he also wrote the original inspiration. I have a test to study for; send that off to your guys on earth and I'm sure they'll find the truth." I grabbed my abused electronic.

"They certainly will," she huffed.

"Goodbye." Janice didn't respond. Upon leaving I felt the need for something sweet and headed for the cafeteria; hot chocolate and one, or several, slices of chocolate cream pie can make even the worst days better. Despite my best efforts to forget the Janice encounter it kept playing in my head. I felt pity for Ron Chernow. While I couldn't deny that Miranda's musical was the more popular version of the story, I had seen it twice on Broadway myself and listened to the soundtrack frequently, it really was a disservice that Miranda had totally eclipsed the man from whom he took the information and inspiration from. But that was also unfair to say of Miranda as he couldn't have anticipated this. In fact Miranda's play had increased sales of the original book and brought more light to Chernow as an amazing biographer.

Which really made me wonder how Chernow had been completely forgotten in the first place. As a historian you have to accept that there will always be moments shrouded in mystery that no amount of research will ever uncover. And because of that some things we think we know may not be quite the way it happened or just completely untrue. Before things like that were all ancient history to me. It was so bizarre to see with my own eyes an example of it that I had witnessed first hand. This knowledge was so widespread that people thought I was wrong even though I knew I was right. It made me wonder how much of what I accepted as absolute fact was like this; and what people had been written off as less significant to Human history or worse entirely erased.

With my head spinning and aching I programmed the magic machine for sweet morsels and took the first empty table I found. After eating I took up the datapad and opened the cadet packet. About an hour later I read something interesting. I had to reread it to make sure I wasn't seeing things. My designated escape pod was next to the-

"Jasmine!" His heavy accent made my name sound more like, YAS-mein, I smiled. "May we join you?" Chekov and Sulu were heading my way.

"Of course." I cleared the table of my junk so they could set their food down. Neither man had their uniforms on, so I assumed today was their day off. Chekov was assigned to teach me how to use firearms. We hadn't started yet, but I sort of knew him because he was one of the people that Jim introduced me to. He was always happy and had a smile for everyone. A great relief after Janice-The-Too-Intense-Over-The-Stupidest-Things-Historian. 

"What are you reading?" Sulu wondered.

"Brushing up for a protocol test with Spock tomorrow."

"Oh I hated those," Chekov sympathized.

"Yeah, they were the worst. Give me advanced math any day." Sulu shook his head while biting into a sandwich.

"I hate math. I was never any good at it." A discussion of what subjects were better than others continued for a while. Naturally I was on the side of history and literature, Sulu clung to math, astronomy, and botany, and Chekov stayed faithful to math and engineering. "Do you guys want to come somewhere with me?" I asked excitedly.

"Sure." Just at that moment Sulu was paged to medical. He told us he'd see us later and went about his errand. Chekov followed me down to a rarely used portion of Enterprise. Or I should say I followed him; not being as familiar with the ship, I took some wrong turns before deciding I needed directions.  

"A kitchen! I forgot we had one of these!" Chekov looked amazed.

"Yeah, I only know about it because my escape pod's nearby. You want to make a snack?"

"Why not? You know my mother had a small kitchen in our home. We never used it much but when we did she always listened to music."

"Have you ever heard of Ed Sheeran?"

"No."

"Computer, play Castle on the Hill by Ed Sheeran."

Two hours later we stumbled out laughing with bags of two dozen home made Rice Krispy treats a piece. We'd spent the time well. I introduced him to the smooth voice of Sheeran and he told me Russian fairytales. After cleaning our mess we were walking back to his quarters when we ran into Jim and Spock.

"Hello sirs," Chekov greeted.

"Love blooming on board?" Jim asked.

"No. We were just having fun." I lifted my bag of treats. "It's nice to do something familiar. Do you want one?" Jim said yes while Spock declined. I handed over one of my lumpy creations and Jim praised it highly.

"It tastes better than replicated food."

"I doubt that." I laughed.

"Ensign Chekov, I believe you are scheduled to shadow Engineer Scott in fifteen minutes. You should leave now to make it in time," Spock's voice sounded tight. Jim gave him a strange look.

"Right, thank you for reminding me." Chekov saluted and hurried away.

"What brings you two down here?"

"Classified," Spock said mysteriously and slightly clipped. "You and I have a previous engagement in cargo bay three in an hour. Have you forgotten?"

"No. I'll be there."

"Very good, Miss Sharpe. Captain, I will continue on." Spock disappeared down a ladder. I could hear his heavy footsteps echo in the lower hall. I felt kinda strange, but I wasn't sure what the feeling was, or why I was feeling it in the first place.

"Hmp." Jim stared after his second-in-command. "I better follow. I'll see you later. Thanks for the treat, Jasmine." 

🖖

Cargo bay three didn't house any vehicles, instead it was full of crates stacked on top of each other and secured by tether to the floor. Right now some of those tethers were removed. Spock was on top of a large stack undoing some more.

"Hello Jasmine." Spock leapt down fifteen feet and landed lightly with no sign of discomfort. He wasn't in his usual Starfleet uniform. Spock wore dark black pants and a vest-like matching top with no sleeves. Some veins in his arms were popping out slightly and his skin had the faintest of greenish hues. "Are you ready to begin?"  

"Yes."

He surprised me by pulling out a datapad from the large pocket on his thigh. "I need to know more of your experience with combat. When you say you were given basic training what did it involve?"

"Most of it wasn't actually centered on fighting. They focused more on common sense; avoid situations that could cause trouble. Don't walk through playgrounds at night, don't get into cars with strangers, never respond to cat-callers, or cut through alleys on your way home, stuff like that. When they did teach me to defend myself, it was only how to incapacitate my attackers so I get away."

"Did you ever utilize telekinesis during those encounters?"

"No."

"I would like to incorporate that into this session. The crates I unfastened range from 50 to 90 kilograms; you should be able to manipulate them with ease."

"110 to 200 pounds, right?"

"110.23 and 198.41 precisely. May I record this for research purposes?"

"Go ahead."

"Very good." Spock walked over to a crate and positioned the datapad so it took in the mat he'd asked me to spread over the floor. "Remember," Spock said as took his place across from me, "you do not need to hold back. My strength is more than enough to answer yours."

"Right." I went to punch him thinking I could catch him off guard but I didn't. In a matter of seconds he had me in a headlock. Spock released me and I tried again. The session went poorly on my part. Not that it was surprising; I'd been clear from the start that I was no Ip Man. Spock was gentle but firm and gave me lots of instructions. When he decided it was time to use my mental abilities I still never got the upper hand. 

By the time we finished I was covered in sweat, but Spock looked as pristine as when we started. I took a long shower when I got back to my quarters. The few bruises Spock had left on me were fading and gone before bed. When I woke the next morning we'd arrived at Rothlum.