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Caleb entered the Temporal Mechanics classroom at exactly 20.00, half an hour before the movie night was scheduled to begin and half an hour later than he’d promised Sam he’d be there. He had tried to be on time, but more than a semester of actively choosing to be late to every school-related event had crept into his daily life as well. When he saw Sam stand by herself in the middle of the room, holding a large pile of pillows, he felt a pang of guilt about that.
Of course Sam had noticed. ‘You’re late.’ She gave him a chastising look, but it was similar to the look Nahla had given him last week when he told her that getting a new pair of shoes was a stupid idea. He’d get away with this. He still raised his hands in apology. ‘Sorry, sorry. I’ll stay for cleanup duty afterwards.’
‘You were already scheduled for cleanup duty, but I appreciate the commitment.’ Sam started to carefully spread the pillows on the floor, creating what could best be described as a nest. More pillows and blankets were scattered across the desks, and it was clear that she was building a blanket fort. Caleb wanted to grab a few, assuming that was what Sam wanted him to help with, but she stopped him.
‘I need you to hack into the screen. Commander Reno turned it off for the night and I can’t get in without a teacher’s credentials. Using my dad’s would trace it back to me.’
Caleb considered that for a moment. Nahla had told him not to get in more trouble. But on the other hand, wasn’t he technically helping a friend? She could hardly kick him out for helping a classmate with cheering up their other classmates.
‘That’s why you needed me to be here an hour beforehand? You know I can do that in like, two minutes, right?’
‘And I need you to help with the rest of the setup. Snacks, pillow fort, that sort of thing,’ she told him. ‘Ocam, Tarima and Genesis were supposed to help, but Ocam and Tarima suddenly got a call from their dad and Genesis left a few minutes ago because Commander Thok came by and someone needed to distract her. So no one else will be here until 20.30 anyway.’
‘Genesis volunteered to distract Commander Thok?’
‘It’s more that she wanted to discuss something with her anyway. Calica-related, I think.’
‘Sounds like Genesis.’ Caleb had long given up on understanding which rules were sacred to Genesis and which weren’t. He had a strong suspicion it mostly had to do with her chances of getting into trouble, rather than any strict moral code.
He strolled towards the screen, which took up the entire wall of the classroom. Sam had concocted the idea of a movie night a month ago, just before she left for Kasq, as a sort of additional activity to Lieutenant Tilly’s whole play-thing. Movies were considered a bit of a dying medium, but Sam had found out that movie nights were a huge thing for multiple centuries and was adamant to try it. She’d taken one look at the display in the Temporal Mechanics classroom and declared that this was where they needed to have it. Of course, that was before she’d gone and lived an entire lifetime with the Doctor only three days later.
Without even looking at his PADD, Caleb entered the master passkey he used to get into every low-level system in the school. He considered using a teacher’s credentials instead, but he figured that Nahla would trace this to him anyway if she ever decided to look into it. As his fingers moved over the letters on the touch screen, he observed Sam, who showed at best a fraction of the enthusiasm she’d had a month ago.
‘Are you still up for this?’ he asked carefully.
Sam shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’d already spread the word before I left for Kasq, and a promise is a promise. Plus, I don’t want to spend another night in the dorm room with only Tarima and Genesis. Things are kinda weird.’ She sighed and picked up a blanket to hang up as a cozy wall. ‘Do you think we should cancel?’
‘No way. What else do you want me to do with my evening? Study for exams?’
Sam laughed. ‘It’d be good for you. But then once you’re done with the blankets you can get some snacks from the replicator.’
‘Yes sir. Anything in particular you think the people will want?’
‘I remember reading that people mostly ate popcorn during these nights. But since I don’t actually eat, just pick whatever you think is good.’
‘Do you want me to try and turn on your taste for the night? They didn’t patch that out or anything while you were on Kasq, right?’
Sam cringed. ‘No thanks. It wasn’t patched out, but I remember how I acted last time we tried that. I don’t want to embarrass myself like that again.’
When he first met her, it had surprised Caleb how much he liked Sam. He was cynical, and he refused to be any other way. But Sam was so happy and so interesting that his determination to be contrarian had crumbled just a tiny bit before her. He liked the current Sam just as much, and in his mind they weren’t even that different. But a few days ago Ocam had pointed out how Sam winced every time she talked about the old her, and now Caleb couldn’t stop noticing.
There was a replicator in the corner of the classroom, but when Caleb went through the catalogue he realized it was mostly recipes for non-edible school supplies. He broke into the school-wide replicator recipe list and added snacks to it, making a mental note to remove those at the end of the night.
‘How many people are coming?’ he asked Sam, who’d started spreading more pillows on the floor.
‘I don’t know. I invited our year and the War College, but most people didn’t really say yes or no. I know Ocam, Tarima, Genesis and Darem will be there. And Jay-Den said he’d bring Kyle.’
‘Oh no. That means Darem’s going to be insufferable tonight.’
Sam grinned. ‘You always think he’s insufferable. But he was going to be insufferable today anyway. When I told him what tonight’s movie was about, he said it sounded cheesy, so I doubt he’ll have a good time.’
‘Well, Darem lacks the enzyme that makes him not act like an asshole, so you can just ignore him.’ A bucket of salty popcorn materialized in the replicator and Caleb shoved a few pieces in his mouth. Once he’d swallowed those, he asked: ‘What are we going to watch, exactly?’
‘Oh, it’s this old movie from the 20th century. Or well, more part of a franchise, I believe, because there are technically nine movies as well as a lot of shows, but this was the first one they made. It’s about a group of people trying to fight some evil galactic empire. So there’s space travel and stuff, but there’s no Federation. It’s a really different way from how our galaxy is - more dangerous and stuff. Although I actually think the empire was kinda similar to the Cardassians in the 24th century? Or maybe the Romulans? I don’t remember it too well.’ Sam looked ready to continue talking, but she suddenly snapped her mouth shut and fell quiet for a few seconds. Eventually she softly said: ‘I’m doing the rambling thing again, right?’
‘Yeah. But it’s fine. Your rambling is much more interesting to my brain than whatever weak security they put on the replicators,’ Caleb assured her, as he added nachos to the replicator menu. Behind him, he could hear something move near the tables, but he was too busy moving snacks from the replicators to the desk next to him to pay any attention to it. ‘So you've already seen the movie?’
‘Yeah. I watched it with my dad when I was growing up. One of his old friends used to love movies, so we did a lot of movie nights.’
‘Why would you want to watch it again, then?’
Sam threw the last pillow on the ground to finish up the nest and then shrugged. ‘I mean, I was young, I don’t remember it well. And even if I did, it’s been long enough that I don’t really care. You can’t tell me you never read or watched anything twice.’
Caleb considered that for a bit. All things combined, there were very few things he'd read or watched, period. ‘Didn’t really have the time for any of that, and prisons I was in didn’t have much to read or watch.’
‘So there are no stories from your childhood you want to revisit?’
Caleb let out a sigh of relief when he realized Sam wasn’t about to pry any further into the prison comment. He programmed the replicator to make nachos and made himself a share. ‘Not really. Most of the things I got my hands on were either Federation propaganda or not really age-appropriate.’
‘Makes sense.’ Sam fell quiet for a moment, but it was a weighted silence that suggested she’d start talking again soon. Caleb just filled the silence with the sound of drinks being replicated. After a few beats, she asked: ‘Were you lonely when you grew up?’
Caleb turned around, ready to brush Sam off, and saw her sit on one of the desks, knees pulled up to her chin. She looked so small suddenly, in a way that had nothing to do with her height.
He walked up to her, still holding a plate with nachos. ‘In what way?’ Please give me a way to change the subject, was all he could think.
‘Well, your mom was gone, and I think I remember you saying you didn’t have many friends. And you apparently couldn’t even find any solace in a good story.’ Sam started drawing circles on her knee with her right pointer finger. ‘I mean, I was lonely sometimes, and at least I had my dad and a lot of fun books and movies and stuff.’
Caleb sat down on the desk next to Sam’s. ‘Did you not have any friends or anything on Kasq?’
‘The elders on Kasq created some other photonic kids to play with, for the experience. But they weren’t really good at it, so all the kids were a bit off, like glitchy holo-NPC’s. It was weird, and it was so much worse because once I turned about four or five I slowly started remembering all of you. So I knew that there were also, well, real people who cared about me and who I could spend time with. But it would be years before I could see you again.’
It was easy to forget how much time Sam had spent on Kasq, because to Caleb and the rest it had been just two weeks. But to Sam, it had been seventeen years. Seventeen years of knowing there were people out there who cared for you, who you longed to see, but who you couldn’t meet.
He suddenly missed his mom more than he had in months, and that realization made him feel even worse. Like the life he was living here, a life that apparently on some days made him forget about her, was some sort of betrayal. Even the knowledge that once he’d found her he would leave the Academy behind did very little to remedy that guilt.
‘I get it,’ he said against his own better judgment. ‘I miss my mom, and it kills me to know that she’s out there and I can’t get to her.’
Sam lowered her legs and let them hang above the floor. She looked a little less deflated, to his relief. Seeing Sam sad was a special kind of difficult, and apparently he was even willing to open up just to make her feel better. She said: ‘It sucks. But at least I got you guys back now.’ Then she laid a hand on his arm. ‘And you do know that we’re all here for you while you search for your mother, right?’
Caleb felt another pang of guilt, this time towards Sam and the rest, about the idea that he would sometime soon leave them behind. Great. He missed the days before these stupid Starfleet feelings, when he still stole and hacked into things without any guilt. Or, well, maybe the guilt had been there, but at least he could tell himself he needed to do illegal shit to survive. He didn’t really have that out now.
‘Yeah, well, don’t tell the others. I have a reputation to uphold.’
Sam playfully bumped shoulders with him. ‘Of course. Wouldn’t want them to think you had any feelings or anything.’ She seemed more or less back to normal, and Caleb couldn’t even find it in him to be indignant about her comment. A bleep from his PADD drew his attention and he noticed the time in the corner of the screen. 20.25 ‘Want me to try and see if everything works before people start arriving?’
‘Yes, please.’ Sam handed him an ancient-looking data rod. Caleb plugged it into his PADD, which was now connected to the classroom screen, and pressed play. The screen lit up with some sort of pre-movie announcement which he paused immediately, bathing the room in blue light.
‘It doesn’t even take up half the screen,’ Sam pointed out. She jumped off the table and stood in front of the screen, running her fingers over the large black void that took up most of it.
‘Well, that’s what you get for picking movies that are over a thousand years old.’ Caleb went through the movie settings. Apparently most of these extremely old movies were supposed to be watched on a square screen. There were ways to change the ratio a bit and up the quality using AI, but it would be a rough watch regardless.
Sam had come to the same conclusion. ‘It’ll have to do,’ she decided, and Caleb noticed a note of sadness in her voice.
‘It’ll be fine.’ He laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. Then he added: ‘And if Darem is a dick about it, you can send him to me. I’ll fight him.’
‘That would just make things infinitely worse. But thanks.’ Sam smiled at him. ‘And Caleb?’
‘Yeah?’
‘If you ever do want to watch a children’s movie, or do some other kid’s activity, then let me know, okay? I’ll do it with you. I think you’d like the arcade.’
It was a stupid stereotype that, just because he liked computers, Caleb also liked videogames. Then he remembered the four hours he’d spent two days ago playing through one of Ocam’s hologames and he realized he held no moral high ground there.
There was a knock on the classroom door and Jay-Den and Kyle entered, followed by Genesis and to Caleb’s surprise Dzolo. She looked angry as always, but considering everything he didn’t have it in him to even just think a sarcastic thought. Darem was next, expression shifting from neutral to deeply annoyed the moment he laid eyes on Kyle. To his credit, he sat down next to Genesis on a pile of pillows and didn’t say anything out loud.
More and more people started coming in until the whole pillow fort was filled with people from both their own class and the War College. Sam looked surprised, but happier than he’d seen her in weeks, and that was all Caleb could ask for. As he sat down and grabbed his earlier plate of nachos, for a second it felt like the Miyazaki had never happened.
A few meters away, hidden in the shadows of one of the intersecting corridors, Jett Reno and Nahla Ake watched the groups of students enter the Temporal Mechanics classroom.
‘Are we going to bust them?’ Jett asked, her eyes following an Orion girl who went through the door.
‘Nah. If they leave a mess in the classroom afterwards, then we’ll just tell them we knew all along. Otherwise, I think we can let them have this.’
‘Easy for you to say. It’s not your classroom. Apparently Mir is on cleanup duty and having seen the state of his bedroom, I don’t trust him with that.’
‘He’s gotten better since the last time you did inspections. Plus, he knows this would get him in trouble, so he’ll make sure to leave absolutely no traces behind. This is the safest your classroom’s ever been,’ Nahla argued.
Jett shook her head good-naturedly. ‘I assume you think of this as a teachable moment, and that’s why you don’t want to interfere?’
‘Maybe.’ Nahla gestured towards the classroom. The sound of people laughing and chatting enthusiastically carried all the way through the hallway. ‘That play they did was about the value of small moments like these. I think we should give them the chance to put that into practice. Let them save each other, even if it’s just for tonight.’
Jett raised her hands in defeat. ‘Well, when you put it like that... Let’s continue our rounds before they notice us and it’ll be all awkward.’
‘Sounds good.’ And with that, the teachers went their merry way, skillfully ignoring the cheering that rose from the classroom as the opening credits started to roll.