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“No,” he said, and then swung.
Charles Vance, Fleet Admiral and Commander in Chief of Starfleet, judged it a good one, though he was by no means an expert. There was a satisfying ‘thwack’ of solid contact. Despite or perhaps because of the gusting wind, the little white ball sailed a few hundred meters through the air and actually hooked around the bend in the course, landing somewhere out of view.
And, if nothing else, it gave him a precious few seconds to work out what on earth he was going to say next. He hadn’t expected a 'no', let alone one that came not even halfway through his sales pitch. The holographic doctor, with his supposed vulnerability to flattery and extraordinarily long affiliation with the Academy, was meant to be the easy recruit.
Said holographic doctor was instead now passing him the golf club with the clear expectation that he should use it. And now putting a new tee with a new ball in the ground for him, with the clear expectation that he use that too.
“No?” he repeated, trying to remember what he’d read about correct golf technique before coming here. Body aligned in the direction you wanted the ball to go, in this case into a bit more east due to the wind. Feet firmly planted, a bit more than shoulder-width apart. Don’t reach for the ball, or hunch over it. Lead with your shoulders, not your arms or hands. He didn’t need to try anything fancy, just do enough to not embarrass himself. Golf used to be a sport of the Admiralty, particularly the human Admiralty.
“May I ask why?” he said and swung,
He made contact. It did not make the same kind of satisfying ‘thwack’ as the hologram’s had, nor did it fly half as far down the 'fairway'. Or even land on the fairway, as it turned out. But at least, Charlie considered, it was still on the course, and not at a terrible position to continue on with. If his long career in a post-Burn universe had taught him anything, it was to take victories where you found them.
“Would you you prefer the summary or an itemised list?” the Doctor asked breezily.
The Emergency Medical Hologram Mark 1, known colloquially as the Doctor, was something of a Starfleet legend. No, not something of a legend: an actual, real-life, living and breathing one (even if that breathing was simulated). This being, who looked like human of perhaps a hundred, was well over eight hundred years old and the single longest-serving officer in Starfleet’s storied history. First activated during the fabled Voyager Odyssey, he’d survived the Burn, the Temporal Wars, Borg incursions, a ban on synthetic life, hot wars, cold wars, border disputes, and every other kind of conflict you could name. Famous as the first synthetic life form to be granted full Federation citizenship, and for fighting to enact many of the reforms protecting the rights of non-organic, particularly synthetic lifeforms to this day. Decorated repeatedly for valour, for contributions to medicine, science, and the arts. Infamous wit, noted eccentric, author, photographer, and, apparently, golfer.
It dawned on Charlie, fully, in that moment that he was standing in the presence of history. Real, living history, from the golden age of the Federation. And, if nothing else, the Doctor was walking, talking proof of what Charlie knew the Federation was at its heart: fair and just and welcoming to all, willing to learn and grow and change.
And then the rare moment of awe passed, and he found that he was less standing in the presence of history and more jogging after it as it set off down the course at a pace that completely belied its simulated age.
“I’ll take either,” he said as he caught up.
The Doctor paused his stride just long enough to meet Charlie’s eyes for the first time. And Charlie realised that, behind the appearance of an affable old man, the Doctor was angry. Very angry. It was in his eyes in a way that was extraordinarily human, but, at the same time, not.
“It’s an absolutely terrible idea,” he said, stopping as they came upon Charlie’s ball, nestled in the rough grass, “and whichever idiot came up with it should be bounced out of the service.” He paused again, looked at Charlie, then at the ball, then back down the course. “I suggest a seven iron.”
He pulled up the club’s interface and, with a few deft movements, the club in Charlie’s hands changed heads, from the blocky wooden ‘driver’ to a metal blade ‘iron’, if he had his terms correct.
“I’m surprised you feel that way,” he said, giving it an experimental swing to see how the feel changed. “You have a very long history with the Academy. Vice Chancellor three times, wasn’t it?”
“I’m not talking about the Academy itself,” the Doctor said. “That should never have been disbanded in the first place. I pray that I may one day meet a politician who can think beyond their term limit.” He paused as Charlie carefully lined himself up and swung, but this time sent the ball careening in the general direction of the stand of trees at one end of the 'green'. “You do know this used to be a game of the Admiralty..?”
“It used to be, Doctor. I don’t think I have half the leisure time my predecessors did,” Charlie said, and held out the club. “If you don’t object to the Academy itself-”
“I meant the Athena,” he clarified immediately. He didn’t so much take as snatch up the club. “Turning the Academy into a ship and taking the cadets off on ‘space adventures’- sorry, ‘practical, hands-on educational field trips’? You’ve taken complete leave of your senses.”
Charlie said nothing, but followed as the Doctor set a brisk pace towards his ball which had ended up neatly in the middle of the fairway, within spitting distance of the green.
“Has anybody on the Academy team ever worked with first year Starfleet cadets before?” the Doctor continued, warming to the subject. “Let alone second or third year? They’re not like your nice, disciplined, boring little War College students. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep them from finding inventive new ways to maim and kill themselves and each other? It’s like they’re born wanting to stick their fingers into the metaphorical plasma conduit of the universe while playing with the on/off switch and wondering aloud ‘what does this do?'.”
“No, none of us has worked with cadets like this before,” Charlie admitted after a moment, electing to ignore the hyperbole. “Most of the the staff so far came up through the War College,” a theatrical huff from the Doctor, “like the Master of Cadets, or learned on the job. We have a few from before the Burn, but no, nobody who’s actually taught Starfleet Cadets at Starfleet Academy. That’s exactly why we need you.”
“You don’t need me. You need your head examined,” the Doctor replied, back to the appearance of affability. He looked up a the trees for a moment, presumably to gauge the wind, and then changed the clubhead to one that looked almost identical to the the last. “Think of it as… a break from tradition. An opportunity to make exciting new mistakes.”
“We don’t want to make new mistakes. Or re-make old ones,” he added as the Doctor sent the ball flying to land neatly on the green, near the flag. “We don’t have anyone else with your background and experience. You’re a legend.”
“Of course you don’t, and of course I am,” he replied breezily, pointing with the club in the direction of Charlie’s ball. They set off towards it. “And it’s still a 'no'.”
“You lived in Starfleet’s golden age,” Charlie tried. “These kids that are coming through, they’ve got no frame of reference for anything like that. All they know is the Burn. Chaos. You can show them what it was like. What things could be like.”
“Nupe,” he replied, drawing the word out. “Besides, I’m sure there’s a Dax kicking around out there somewhere. Trouble like that is hard to kill.”
Charlie decided against mentioning that Dax was next on his list. While there was no evidence that any of the Dax hosts had taught at the Academy for any length of time, you couldn’t beat a truly old Trill symbiont for sheer lived experience. Instead, silence fell for a few moments as they trudged towards the ball. The walk itself was actually rather pleasant. He didn’t get out of his office much these days, let alone get to spend time Earthside. It was warm, but the breeze took off just enough of the sun’s edge to stop it from getting hot. It smelled of cut grass and other greenery and pollen, and insects and birds sang out as they reached the stand of trees.
It took a moment to find his ball, uncomfortably close to the base of one of the trees, the trunk of it partially between it and the green. A difficult spot. He was two for two so far today. But you didn’t make Admiral if you couldn’t manoeuvre your way out of multiple problems on the fly. He just had to find the right angle.
With the golf ball, that was straightforward: he was going to have to go backwards to go forwards. This wasn’t a game he cared about, and he wasn’t going to fool the Doctor into thinking that he had any skill at it, so he should just take the extra however many ‘strokes’ it took to get back on track and focus on the more important job of persuasion. So he did just that, sending the little white ball back down the course a ways, and immediately started after it, the Doctor following after him.
The new angle for the Doctor was less straightforward. He wasn’t responding to appeals to ego, or to history, or to loyalty to the institution itself. Appealing to service or making the case he was honour bound to help would probably fall flat to someone who had literally—famously—been purpose-made to serve. And Charlie didn’t have a trump card like the one he had in the works for Nahla.
Maybe he was thinking about this the wrong way. This wasn’t about what the Academy needed from the Doctor. It had to be about what about the Academy appealed to him.
So, what did appeal to someone who had lived through the Federation’s greatest highs and lowest lows? Who now seemingly spent all their time playing golf and going to the theatre? Novelty? That seemed to be a big draw for the few very long-lived people he knew, like Nahla. But the Academy wasn’t novel to someone who’d taught there for decades at a time. Hell, one of the major reasons Charlie wanted the Doctor in the first place was that he had to have seen every single flavour of cadet hijink and shenanigan in existence. The Athena itself was the new approach to the school, but the Doctor had literally just finished telling him he thought the concept was terrible, so that was out as a selling point.
“A little less power this time,” the Doctor said, changing the clubhead as Charlie lined up again. “Mind the wind.”
If not any of that, what else was there? There had to be something, though damned if he could of what it might be. It was just… hard to imagine living that long. You had the time to do just about anything, master just about anything.
Maybe a tactical retreat was in order. Go and do some more research beyond skimming a novel-length personnel file that hadn’t been updated since before the Burn. Get Callahan digging. It’d be hard—the Doctor had no next of kin, didn’t seem to have any surviving colleagues, and was the only being of his kind in the entire Federation right now—but-
He nearly smacked himself in the head with the club. Community. Of course. He was an idiot to not think of it before.
And, just like with Nahla, fate had handed him the perfect trump card.
He swung, and made good contact. By rights, he felt, it should have sailed straight and true, guided by his epiphany, and rolled into the hole. Instead, it landed well short and then rolled a small way downslope towards the bunker. But it was on the green, and the Doctor made what sounded like an approving noise, so he’d take that as a win.
“Doctor, have you heard of the Kasq?” he asked as they both started for the green.
“The Kasq?” the Doctor repeated, clearly surprised by the change in tack, and slightly suspicious too. He cocked his head to the side, as if searching his memory banks. “No, I don’t believe I’ve heard of the Kasq before..?”
Alright, that was a nibble of genuine interest, confirmation that this was, if not the right approach, definitely a better one.
Charlie reached his ball and stopped, changing the club to a ‘putter’ on his own initiative, which got another approving noise. The Doctor continued on a short way on, past his own ball, to the flag, taking hold of the flagstick.
“We don’t know where their homeworld is,” Charlie began, pausing both to line up his shot and draw out the interest, “or much about them except that they’re a race of synthetic photonic beings.”
“And they’re sending a cadet,” the Doctor said, jumping to the obvious conclusion. “Good try, but my answer's still no.”
Charlie swung, and immediately realised he’d both over-sauced it and gotten the wrong angle, sending the ball rolling right past the hole and almost halfway to the other side of the green. No matter. He was playing for the conversation, not the score, and the thing that mattered there was that the initial spark of interest hadn’t fully left the Doctor’s voice. And Charlie still hadn’t played his trump card.
“They’re actually making someone specifically to join,” he said casually as he approached his ball yet again. “The Kasq representative says they’ll be ready just before semester starts.”
The Doctor didn’t immediately reply. When Charlie looked back at him, his expression was (for all Charlie didn’t like using the term) inhumanly still and unreadable. He used the time to line up and take his next shot. This one came close enough to the hole that the Doctor removed the flagstick and stepped back out of the way, and gestured for Charlie to finish playing.
“So… they’re making someone specifically to join Starfleet?” he asked when Charlie came up to tap the ball into the hole.
“They’ve agreed to comply with all our laws and guidelines regarding the creation of purpose-built sentient life,” Charlie said, taking care to at least look like he was focusing on his next shot. “They said want someone who can learn about organic life through unbiased eyes.” There: a gentle nudge, and the ball rolled into the hole, finally. He stooped to retrieve it, and when he stood he took care to meet the Doctor’s eyes. “That and their isolationism tells me they weren’t always well-treated by whoever made them. That they’re still willing to reach out and try to get to know us is something I find incredible. It’s a leap of faith.”
The Doctor’s expression remained unreadable as he took the proffered putter, all the way through to sinking his ball from two meters away with practised ease. Then he swung the putter up onto his shoulder, and sighed theatrically.
“Alright," he said, just as theatrically. "You win. I’ll see the first lot through from intake to graduation. But if we’re to take snot-nosed cadets on death marches- I’m sorry, I meant ‘educational joyrides into space that will end in nothing more serious than bruised egos and the occasional bloody nose’, you’ll have to reinstate me as the Athena’s CMO. The students will have a far better survival rate. And there tend to be… problems when I have to report to another physician.”
“Done,” said Charlie, who’d planned to ask him to fill that role anyway. “We’ll need to reinstate your rank too. I’m not sure I can do flag rank again in the present circumstances-”
“I wouldn’t want it anyway. I learned long ago that the extra pip or bar or whatever’s the current fashion is nothing but a recipe for headaches. And I am not supposed to be able to get headaches.”
“And yet you kept coming back for more. How many times were you Head of Starfleet Medical? Five?”
“Twelve, if you count acting. Honestly, they may as well just install a revolving door in the office. Herding physicians somehow actually manages to be worse than herding Captains. But that’s besides the point. Who’s the Chancellor?”
“We have a shortlist,” he said. It was technically the truth: a shortlist of one was a very short list. “Captain Nahla Ake is the frontrunner.”
The Doctor cocked his head to the side, exactly as he did when Charlie asked him about Kasq.
“I know her by reputation, but I’m not familiar with her personally,” he said after a beat, returning his attention to Charlie. “Keep me a step below her or whoever you eventually choose. Easier that way.”
“Commander, then. I’ll get your reinstatement papers to you tomorrow,” Charlie said, this time not bothering to keep the relief from his voice. “And we can do orientation at your convenience. We’re still sorting out the curriculum and could use your help.”
“I’ll start tomorrow then.”
“Excellent. Thank you, Doctor. Reopening the Academy is an important step in assuring the future of the Federation. I'm glad you'll be part of it."
He held out his hand. The Doctor took it and shook, but when he Charlie went to disengage, he found himself held in an iron grip.
“Charlie,” the Doctor said softly, a strange mix expressionless face and angry eyes, “you need to remember that I said no before I said yes. I don’t want to end up burying cadets, and especially not because we went too fast, too far, too soon. Don’t make me regret changing my mind.”
There was an unspoken ‘or else’ in there that should have felt like a threat, or maybe a promise. But it didn’t feel like that. It felt almost like a plea.
“You won’t,” Charlie said, and tried to put as much confidence in the words as he could. “It’s the dawn of a new era. It’s going to be a fresh, new start for all of us.”
The Doctor let his hand go, and suddenly the affable old man was back.
“A fresh new start. Wouldn’t that be something? Well, I’m going to make a 'fresh new start' on the next tee,” he said, and gave an incredibly lazy salute. “Until tomorrow, Admiral Vance. Oh, and let me know if you ever want to return golf to its proper place in the upper echelons of Admiralty hobbies. You’ve got potential.”
Charlie watched him amble on over to the next tee, and send the ball sailing down the course with as much grace and precision as he had the first time. Then he hit the teleporter to return to his office. It was only there that he breathed a heavy sigh of relief, though one tempered by the knowledge that the Doctor was supposed to be the easy one of his star recruits. He still had Dax, T’Varan, and Nahla to go.
He’d get them though. He had to. Above all else, these cadets needed people who knew what the Federation and Starfleet were supposed to be like, and could be like again one day. A force for good. It was going to be a grand new era of positive change, and he was going to make it happen.
It was 0322 local time when the message came through, the latest in an unending stream ever since the Miyazaki clusterfuck. Politicians needed assurance, the President needed someone to scream at, ships and officers needed orders, intelligence needed gathering, counselling, supplies, transports… It felt like he and his staff had been simultaneously conducting an orchestra and putting out fires for a week without break, but the chronometer didn’t lie when it said it hadn’t even been 12 hours.
This message was different from all the others, though. It was from the Athena CMO’s office. No introductory notes or briefing statements. Not even, as Charlie remembered that day on the golf course, recriminations or accusations. It was completely blank, just a container for the two attached files.
Two death certificates. One signature for both of them.