Sonya was reading an article on her padd while exiting her bedroom and trying not to scream. “I don’t believe this!”

Lian was eating breakfast at the large table. Swallowing her steaming oatmeal, she asked, “Don’t believe what?”

“This idiot is writing an article on subspace accelerators.”

Frowning, Lian asked, “Didn’t you write a paper on that?” before scooping more oatmeal into her mouth.

“Yes, and this Doctor—” She touched a control to get the article header, with the author’s name. “—Xe’r’b’w’r’s’o is talking through her fur. The magnetic containment unit she has will break down after the first time it’s used, and her alignments are all completely off-kilter. Anybody builds an SA to these specs is just asking for trouble—it’s more likely than anything to just fall apart. I proved that in my paper, but she doesn’t even cite it!”

Lian shrugged. “So write to the journal and complain.”

Walking over to the replicator, Sonya shuddered and said, “Oh, I can’t do that.” To the replicator, she added, “Hot chocolate, please.”

“Why can’t you?”

“I’m just a Starfleet ensign—when I wrote the paper I just was a third-year cadet. Dr. Xe’r’b’w’r’s’o is the leading authority on subspace at Thelian University—I couldn’t just write in and say she’s an idiot. I mean, sure, in our cabin, that’s one thing, but I can’t write a letter.” She looked at Lian. “Can I?”

Shaking her head, Lian said, “I don’t understand you, Sonya. You’re one of the brightest people I’ve ever met, and you push yourself to be better than the best—but you refuse to realize it.”

Sonya almost shrunk in her chair. “I’m not anything special.”

“Yes, you are.” She held up a hand. “Forget it, I’m tired of beating my head against that particular wall. I have to go. Soon-Tek and I are having breakfast.”

Staring at Lian’s now-empty bowl of oatmeal, Sonya asked, “So why did you just eat oatmeal?”

“Because he wants to have a Vulcan breakfast. Vulcan food makes me gag, but he likes it, so I agreed, and stocked up on oatmeal first.” She smiled. “Hey, listen, what’re you doing after your shift?”

“I’ve got to finish this journal, and then there’s the paper I promised to JAWM that I really need to finish. And I may wind up pulling a double, if the wunderkind’s team asks for another sensor recalibration.”

“Oh God, another one?” Lian rose from the table and laughed. “How many different ways can they scan these planets?”

“I’m starting to think it’s infinite.” The young “acting ensign”—Wesley Crusher—had been put in charge of a team of Enterprise science officers to determine why all the planets in the Selcundi Drema sector suffered from horrendous geological instability. The team hadn’t made much progress, but it wasn’t for lack of finding new and more interesting ways of scanning a planet’s surface over the past several weeks.

“In any event,” Lian said, “me and some others have been getting together in Ten-Forward to chat and gossip and such. It’s myself, Costa, Van Mayter, and Allenby.”

Sonya vaguely recognized the other names—the first two were engineers, and Allenby was a shuttle pilot, maybe—but said only, “I don’t have time, Lian, honest. There’s just so much to do.”

Lian walked over to the replicator to recycle the oatmeal bowl. Shaking her head, she said, “Sonya, one of these days you need to relax. Maybe go on a date yourself. What about that Duffy guy?”

Sonya blinked. She’d hardly thought about Duffy since the Iconian mess, and hadn’t seen him except to pass in the corridor once or twice. “I don’t know.”

“Well, you should still come to Ten-Forward. For one thing,” she said with a feral grin, “I’ve gotten some really good gossip. Do you know that Data’s been talking to some girl on one of the Dreman planets?”

Sonya looked askance at Lian. “That’s crazy. Isn’t that a Prime Directive violation? Data isn’t capable of that, is he?”

Lian shrugged. “He’s sentient, remember? To my mind, that makes him capable of anything.”

Now it was Sonya’s turn to grin. “Weren’t you the one saying he was just an android?”

“Maybe I was wrong.” Lian went to the door. “I’ve got to get to breakfast. If you change your mind, we’ll be in Ten-Forward, at the corner table, at 1930.” With that, she left.

Sighing, Sonya finished reading the doctor’s article. When she was done, she thought on Lian’s words. Perhaps she should write the letter; perhaps she did need to slow down; and perhaps she should see how Kieran Duffy spent his off-duty time.

The computer startled her out of her reverie. “Ensign Gomez, you have received a communiqué from Belinda Gomez on Earth.”

Getting up and stretching, Sonya said, “Put it on the screen.” She turned to face the wall with the viewscreen, which lit to life with the Federation logo, followed by the round face of Sonya’s older sister.

“Hey, Ess, it’s me. Just wanted to check in with you on your big old starship. I got your last letter, and I’m not sure what scares me more. First you say that your captain was duplicated and that three of your crewmates were trapped in a re-creation of a bad novel. Then you talk about those inspectors from the starbase checking over your work. The part that scares me is that you didn’t think the first part was a big deal, but you wouldn’t stop complaining about the second part. You’re weird, Ess, you know that?

“Anyhow, all’s well on the home front. Looks like we’re going to the Federation Cup again this year. We’ve just got one more game to go, but I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to nail it down. We just have to beat the Stars tomorrow night, but their goalie’s a pushover.

“I had dinner with Mami and Papi last night—they’re doing well. Papi says you don’t write enough, but that just means you only write once a day. Anyhow, I gotta go. Talk to you later, Ess!”

Sonya shook her head. Belinda’s soccer team was going to the Federation Cup. Again. The last time they played the Stars, Belinda scored all three goals in a 3–0 victory.

And she got to see their parents more often, being on Earth.

All thoughts of acceding to Lian’s requests left her mind. She couldn’t afford to take the time for letters to journals or gossiping in Ten-Forward or going on a date—not when she had her sister the famous soccer player to live up to.

When Sonya arrived in engineering for her shift, Clancy was waiting for her. “I’ve got some news, Sonya. When we’re done in Selcundi Drema, there’ll be some changes.”

Sonya didn’t like the sound of that at all.

“Don’t worry,” Clancy said quickly, “they’re good changes. There’ll be some crew rotation, is all. Ensign Gibson’s transferring off, and I’m taking over beta shift at conn.”

Sonya’s eyes widened. “You’re getting bridge duty? Ella, that’s great!”

Clancy smiled. She’d been bucking for bridge duty since before Sonya came on board. “And you’re getting bumped up, too. La Forge wants you on alpha.”

Her stomach dropping, Sonya said, “Alpha shift?”

“It’s a great opportunity,” Clancy said, as if Sonya didn’t know that.

“Oh, definitely. Absolutely. This’ll be great.” Sonya let out a breath as Clancy smiled at her and headed over to another part of engineering.

This is going to be a disaster, Sonya thought, crestfallen. Working right under La Forge’s nose? I’ll never be able to live up to that standard.

“Excuse me, are you Ensign Clancy?”

Sonya looked up from the console to see the wunderkind himself. “No, I’m Ensign Gomez.”

“Oh, sorry—Wesley Crusher.” The young man offered his hand, and Sonya took it. He had a firm grip. “I’m heading up the team looking into the—”

“—geologic instability, I know,” Sonya said with a smile. “What do you guys need this time?”

“An icospectrogram. The problem is, stellar cartography’s using the starboard sensor array for their mapping, and if they stop what they’re doing to give us the sensor nodes we need, they’ll have to start over.”

Sonya chuckled. It sounded like the young man had been rehearsing that speech before coming in here. “Can you use the port array?”

“The problem is I need five—”

“—contiguous arrays to make it work, so I need to reassign nodes four, seven, and eight in order to give you guys enough to work with, right?”

The kid grinned. She couldn’t help but grin back—the kid’s enthusiasm was infectious. “That’s right. Thanks a lot, Ensign, I really appreciate it.”

“It’s not a problem, and call me Sonya.” She felt ridiculous being called “Ensign” by this kid for some reason. “Give me a few minutes to finish up what I’m doing here, and then I’m all yours.”

As Sonya completed the diagnostic she was in the midst of, she couldn’t help but ask, “Why are you running an icogram, anyhow? You think there’s dilithium on these planets?”

“There might be, yeah. Ensign Davies found indications of tracher deposits.”

Sonya nodded. “And where there’s tracher, there’s dilithium. Makes sense. You definitely want to be as thorough as possible.”

“Exactly what I said!” Wesley got a wide-eyed look that Sonya had seen all too often in the mirror. “Davies thought it might be a fool’s echo, but Commander Riker put me in charge of finding out what’s happening, and we’ve got to cover all our bases.”

“Yeah, but”—Sonya took one last look at the diagnostic, saw it was compiling normally, then turned to face Wesley—“dilithium wouldn’t explain this instability. I mean, you’d need more dilithium than there’s ever been in one place, and not even Archer IX has that much dilithium.”

“Maybe.” Wesley seemed a bit deflated. “It might be a dead end, but we’ve got to be sure. Besides, it can’t hurt to find out if there’s another source of dilithium.”

“True.” Sonya smiled. “All right, then, let’s go redistribute the sensors.”