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Cadet Uhura adjusted her wireless headphones and upped the volume on the tablet in her hands. The Enterprise was still in range to receive transmissions from Majalis, barely. Everybody knew that communications was her passion, but it was a little-known fact that Uhura also liked to digest everything she could get her hands on, digitally speaking that was. Although the peanut sauce in her dish was pretty damn good, she'd have to thank Sam for the recommendation.
She was getting sidetracked, easily done with all the stimuli around her.
The mess hall was pretty busy, the sound of general chatter floated through the air, chairs scraped and glasses hit surfaces. Uhura reached for the volume control again, the speech was hitting its climax.
She watched as the leader of Majallis, Alora, Captain Pike's... whatever she was, informed the gathered people that the sacrifice of the first servant had been completed and that they were all to celebrate another successful ceremony. Uhura was generally not one to judge cultures but the cheering crowds turned her stomach, and suddenly the delicious bowl of pad Thai wasn't so appetising. The entire planet was cheering as a child suffered beneath their feet, no amount of emotional detachment could let her watch anymore, it was just wrong.
The Cadet swiped away the video, a little too aggressively, and let the tablet fall back on the table to land with a dull thud. The bowl of food grew colder as she sat there silently, still able to hear the cheering in her mind. She hadn't had too many reasons to question her decision to give Starfleet a shot, but this was certainly one of them. They were supposed to help people, not send them to their death.
Uhura jumped when the chair opposite her scraped on the floor, and a familiar figure lowered herself into the seat. She snapped her gaze up and sure enough, La'an was smirking, she'd caught her with her head in the clouds.
La'an stabbed a fork into her own dish and then used the instrument to gesture to the mess hall. "Don't ever let your guard down in the feeding grounds."
Uhura resisted the urge to groan, instead, she mentally added the rule to her list - La'an was nice that way, sprinkling wisdom out when she caught you doing something she would never do.
Nyota forced on a weary smile. "Let me guess, rule number 4? Or maybe 5."
La'an's eyes brightened and she shook her head with a laugh. "No, that one's just a life rule."
Uhura crossed the rule out, one day she would discover the last two rules - the golden 7 as everyone liked to call them. She just hoped it wouldn't be as painful as rule number one...
"I assume you watched the transmission."
Uhura cocked her head and her eyebrows drew together. "Are you spying on me now?" How could La'an possibly know what she had been doing 5 minutes ago?
The security chief stabbed at a piece of fried chicken and looked over at the Cadet with a hooded gaze. "I spy on everyone Cadet." La'an's satisfied smirk fell away and she shrugged. "It's literally my job."
Uhura leaned back in her chair, lips pursed together. "Fair enough."
La'an leaned backwards too, mirroring her pose. "You didn't answer my question."
"You noticed that did you?"
Uhura was stalling, the problem was La'an was already two steps ahead.
"I notice everything." The security chief finished up her food, moved the bowl to the side and crossed her arms over her chest. "So, do you want to talk about it or shall we go for a sparring session."
Uhura's eyes widened comically and she stumbled over an answer. Where the hell had that come from? "Talk about what?" She managed eventually, blinking heavily.
La'an indicated to the pad with her head. "Majalis, obviously." The security chief then did something very unusual, she scratched the back of her neck as though uncomfortable and leaned forward to continue quietly. "It was a difficult mission, and as your mentor..." La'an paused again, looking more uncomfortable by the second. "...I wanted to make sure you were okay."
Uhura felt the tension between them drift away, this was unexpected, particularly from the no-nonsense security chief, but it was not unwelcome. "I'm okay, I'm just..." She waved her hands a little and frowned, trying to come up with the right word. "Angry."
La'an nodded, looking a little more like she was in familiar territory there. "That's normal, it's not often we lose."
Lose... Yes, that was what this felt like. The Enterprise was running away from the fight. They'd hindered more than they'd helped, and she'd been a part of that effort, even if her work on the data logs helped raise concerns. It hadn't come soon enough.
Uhura breathed in sharply and pressed her lips together, tasting her strawberry lip gloss in the process. "How do you deal with this? The failures?"
La'an's gaze drifted downwards to land on a point between them, she re-crossed her arms and gave Uhura a little shrug. "Talking about it can help, but I have much better success with working it out in the gym."
"Hence your opening salvo," Uhura muttered."
I like to get to the point."
Well, if that wasn't the understatement of the century.
The security chief leaned forward onto her elbows, expression serious. "I don't usually impart so many of my rules to cadets."
"But?" Uhura prompted, causing La'an to glare at the interruption.
La'an shook her annoyance away and continued, almost grudgingly. "But, you've impressed me and I think another lesson is in order."
Nyota's heart sank, these lessons were usually painful, very painful.
La'an clocked the reaction and just smiled, but it wasn't a cheerful one. "Don't worry, no painful gym sessions required for number 4."
Uhura waited patiently for the new knowledge, making space for the golden rule in her mind. For some reason La'an was skipping the whole suspense part, Uhura was getting almost all of them in her very first rotation.
La'an had this intense look about her, all the warmth had disappeared from her expression. "One day you will lose, but you can't let it eat you up. Leave your emotions at the door."
Uhura swallowed and averted her gaze. La'an really did see everything. She stared at the tablet for a few moments, analysing her emotional state and finding it disturbed. She had been letting the failure eat her up.
The security chief's earlier suggestion came to mind. "Is sparring still on the table?"
La'an's answering grin could only be described as predatory. She nodded once and gathered up the dishes, before leading the Cadet out of the mess hall before she could change her mind.