Chapter 9: A little less logic
‘…and that’s why a 14 year old human girl is highly unlikely to become Captain of a star ship, the ‘new’ Borg Queen, or supreme ruler of the Q-continuum. As for… 7 of 11! Be efficient!” Seven suddenly chided
“Hmm…?” Doec mumbled, rubbing her eyes
“You will not sleep during my class.”
“I was just resting my eyes!”
“Sure you did…” Firebirdgirl snickered
“9 of 11!”
“What?”
“I've allotted one hour for educational activity. There's no time for irrelevant conversation.”
“I’ll be quiet if you let me use my name again?” Firebirdgirl asked hopefully
“I think Borg designations are cool.” SuperSanne murmured with a cheesy grin on her face
“At least you’re not called ‘9 of 11’, what if people are going to think I’m a terrorist?”
“What’s the big deal?” Aseawen butted in, “People call me that all the time, and you don’t see me whining about it, do you?”
“Uhm…Aseawen?”
“Yeah?”
“You worry me sometimes.”
In the mean time, student 1 of 11, also known as ‘Yannik’ was only half listening. She had actually been looking forward to her first lesson on this so-called academy, but right now, she felt like strangling Q and banging her head against the hull of a Borg cube.
‘Unbelievable…’ she thought. ‘Here I am, on the Federation Star Ship Voyager with Seven of Nine herself teaching us how to write fan fiction, and so far I haven’t even learned one thing’
She glanced at Slayer who was fiddling with her combadge, and Honney and KayB who were giggling madly about something she could not hear. Yep, this was going to be one long…
“1 of 11! You are not paying attention!”
“Oooohhh… busted!” Darkninga joked
“5 of 11 return to your seat, you are encouraging disorder!”
“I know!”
Seven twitched.
“This lesson is terminated.” she said in an icy voice, “You will now continue to your next class, BUT…” (She stressed that last part, seeing that everyone was already heading for the turbolift)
“Teehee! Did you hear that? She said…hey! What’s the big idea?” Darkninga protested when Seven suddenly started handing out PADDs. (A/N: I just recently learned what those ‘datapads’ are actually called!)
“You will complete this assignment before next week.”
“Wait a minute…we actually get homework?”
“Correct”
“Spiffy!”
“So, where to next?” Firebirdgirl asked Slayer, who was taking a look at her timetable.
“Our next course is ‘Writing romance’ with Lt. Tuvok in Cargobay one.”
“This, I got to see…”
When they entered, the first thing they noticed were the chairs and tables, or rather, the lack of them. The place was rather dusty too, and they had to be careful not to trip over any of the loose cargo that was strewn on the floor.
“Greetings” Tuvok said. “Please take a seat.”
“Uhm… where?” Slayer asked
“On the floor, we haven’t been able to replicate new desks yet.”
“New desks? What happened to the old ones?”
“My previous class had just attended ‘Cooking with Neelix’ and it appeared they were intolerant to high doses of sugar”
“Neelix…pairings…sugar…ugh!” She shuddered, desperately trying to get rid of the VERY unpleasant images that started to form in her head.
“We will begin. Romance is a popular genre. When written properly, the story is very likely to become loved amongst the majority of readers. However…”
“Hey, slow down!” Istarwyn shouted, but Tuvok just ignored her.
“… most romance fictions are flawed. A few commonly made mistakes are illogical pairings, Mary Sue’s trying to seduce the senior officers, and unusual mating rituals.”
“Neelix…sugar…unusual mating rituals… I think I’m going to be sick”
“And you were worried about ME?” Aseawen whispered to Firebirdgirl
Tuvok suddenly started handing out PADD’s.
“More of these things?” Slayer whined, “Seven already gave us homework, I’ll never have time to visit the holodeck like this!”
“This assignment is part of the lesson, you will write an 3000 word romance fiction in one hour and hand it to me at the end of the lesson. I will review them personally and discuss the results next lesson.”
“You…are going to review our fics?”
“That is correct.”
“AND YOU’RE ONLY GIVING US ONE HOUR?”
“58 minutes now.”
Slayer turned around and fell over anime-style, when she saw that everyone had already started.
About 20 minutes later…
“Great, only 40 minutes left and I’m still stuck on this lousy story!” Frustrated, SuperSanne laid down her PADD and glanced at Aseawen, who was cackling madly, mumbling something about ‘the best P/T fic EVER!’ She let out another sigh; this sure brought back memories. SuperSanne remembered sitting in class a few days ago, feeling down about yet another stupid assignment. When she got home, the first thing she did, was turning on her computer and write fanfiction. She always tried to do something original too, like Star Trek/anime crossovers or, as Tuvok had put it, ‘illogical pairings’.
Slowly, an almost evil grin appeared on her face, as she picked up her PADD again and started writing.
“It’s not exactly the Vulcan way, but something tells me that a little LESS logic is just what this fic needs…”