Personal Log - Academy Days
Posted on Sun Jul 17th, 2022 @ 8:57pm by Lieutenant Commander Rayek trLhoell
696 words; about a 3 minute read
Earth date: November 15, 2394
So once more the instructors at the Starfleet Technical Services Academy are testing the veracity of my stated loyalty to Starfleet by editing every possible SEC/TAC holodeck battle scenario to involve Romulans as the focus enemy. I cannot believe that in a galaxy with such warring species as the Klingons, Cardassians or the Gorn that my own xenophobic species - who tend to manipulate from afar rather than dirty their hands - is at the top of Starfleet's battle training all the time.
No. They are testing me to see if I will hesitate to fire on one of my own. I find that amusing given my past amid the Tal Shiar - while not common knowledge among my peers I would have assumed Starfleet Command would have informed my instructors of my unique history. I am probably responsible for more Romulan deaths than any single Federation officer currently in Starfleet. It's not something I am proud of - but it is a fact that I've been trained to use lethal fire on my own people by my own people; whereas in Starfleet, I'm handed a phaser and told to keep the setting no higher than heavy stun. Why they believe I might hesitate is beyond me? - but it assures me an easy pass for that course.
(written by: Recruit tr'Lhoell / location: Starfleet Technical Services Academy, Mars)
Earth date: November 22, 2394.
Ugh. It's happened again! I despise the Operations 101 class! It's bad enough having had to take the course once under the instruction of that man but being forced to do so again and have to deal with the same thing repeatedly again because I failed an entirely different course and thus need to redo ALL the courses again is almost more than I'm willing to bear. Almost. I refuse to be deterred by something so trivial as this but ... ugh it is so disgusting!
For those that are reading this, let me explain my disgust. (Yes, I have no illusions that my personal log is actually not being read by Starfleet Intelligence.) As part of the Technical Services training, we enlisted are given brief instruction on the basic of each department before focusing on our main. This week in the Operations services 101 class we have been learning about Transporter technology. Given my past experience, it's not a difficult thing to learn or apply and I've already proven this to the instructor once - having passed his course.
Yet still the man calls on me first, same as he did last semester, to demonstrate the practical skills. While this seems like a reasonable thing to request, what you don't understand is that the class is always scheduled immediately after lunch and the instructor has the absolute worst hand hygiene I have ever seen. As such, the class invariably follows this predictable pattern: a verbal lesson is given during which I note which meal the instructor has eaten at lunch by the color, apparent thickness and smell of the sauce left on the man's digits. Then the instructor demonstrates the proper procedure on the transporter console, leaving behind evidence of his lunch - today it was Mexican, a burrito by sauce I suspect. After leaving his mark, the instructor then 'favors' me with being the first to show just how well I've been paying attention in class.
Last year, when this happened, my grade suffered after I spoke to the instructor in private and suggested to him that he learn to wash his hands after his meals. That didn't go over well.
This time is only marginally better. Instead of near failing yet another class, I'm becoming rather adept at palming a sanitary wipe and cleaning off the contaminated console with no one the wiser as I 'play' at trying to figure out what controls to use. My classmates have no clue of how much they owe me! Though from their eye-rolling expressions they do tend to mock my seemingly less than confidence usage of the console.
I can only hope tomorrow the instructor selects another to demonstrate their transporter operation skills first.
(written by: Recruit tr'Lhoell / location: Starfleet Technical Services Academy, Mars)
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