Sum of the Parts Chapter Five

[classroomnotes]

Chapter Five: Chekov

Disclaimer: I didn't create these characters, but I did create their current misery.

"The best thing you could do for me, laddie," Mr. Scott says, reaching past Pavel to the access panel in the bulkhead, "is to go back up to the bridge and keep the captain occupied and out of my hair."

Pavel Chekov takes a deep breath and sighs.

"The keptin sent me here to assist you," he says. "If I return to the bridge before the warp engines are online, he will say that I have failed."

"Unless you have an idea for how to rewire these fused leads, realign the dilithium crystals, and jump start the engine, you are in my way."

"Isn't there something I can do?"

"Hold this," Scotty says, putting his PADD in Pavel's hand while he uses a spanner to unlock the panel. Slipping his fingertips under the leading edge, he pulls and the panel swings out.

"See this," Scotty says, pointing to a greasy dark spot on one of the wire circuits. "That's what happened the last time we ran into that electrical beastie. All over the ship, these little disruptions are hiding in the wiring. The only way to find them all is to visually inspect the wiring. Do you know how much wiring is on this ship?"

"A lot?"

"Aye, a lot."

"What is this? A burn?"

Scotty gives a huff of frustration.

"Something about that…that…nexus between the universes shorted out these leads. Completely fried the connections. I have no idea why. All I know is that I'm having to run new wire to replace this useless stuff."

"Why can't you just replace the parts we need to get the warp engine online?"

Scotty frowns and throws up his hands in the air, the picture of aggrieved impatience.

"Ach, man, do ye even know what you're asking? It's like dominoes! This wire is connected to the air handler, which is connected to the life support temperature controls, which is connected to the inertial dampener, and so on and so on. You see what I mean now?"

A blue-shirted science officer walks up then and holds up another PADD for Scotty to look over.

"That's all you've got? A partial algorithm isn't going to do us any good if the containment field collapses when we try to go to warp. When you have something worth showing me, then you can interrupt what I'm doing."

The officer, someone Pavel recognizes from his occasional work with Mr. Spock in the physics lab, blinks rapidly as Scotty talks.

"So?" Scotty says, frowning. "Go!"

The officer walks away rapidly.

"Flipping idiot," Scotty mutters under his breath. The overhead lights flicker suddenly and Pavel looks around as two engineers pause in their soldering of an exposed cable running along part of the nearest wall.

"Sorry, sir," one engineer says to Scotty who mutters something unintelligible as he slips his spanner back into his utility belt.

"See what I mean?" Scotty says. "Everything on the Enterprise is connected. No system is truly free-standing. That fail-safe means there's always a way around a problem, but in a situation like this, it means the damage is pervasive. Now, like I said, you're in the way here. Best be heading back to the bridge."

He's right, of course. If at one time Pavel had entertained the idea of becoming an engineer, his course work at the Academy had quickly narrowed to the issues affecting navigation. Too bad this isn't something navigation can fix.

As he starts toward the door, Pavel glances around at the other repairs going on-open panels everywhere, sparks flying and the smell of ozone as wires are pulled and new ones soldered on. Even up high on the catwalk, engineers are dangling in work tethers, visually inspecting the wiring that runs along the interior struts.

Like walking through the center of a chess game, Pavel muses, thinking of the tri-dimensional chess board he keeps in his quarters.

Chess game. Tri-dimensional board. Of course! Swiveling around, he rushes back to where Scotty is berating yet another engineer.

"Mr. Scott! Mr. Scott!" he says, tapping Scotty on the shoulder. "I know how to fix it! I know how to get the engines back online!"

To his credit, Scotty doesn't call him an idiot to his face, though his expression suggests he might be thinking it.

"Well?" Scotty says, and Pavel hurries on.

"You could rig up relays between the systems that control the engine!"

"What do you mean?"

"Where the wires are damaged! Hook up a signal relay between the power source, the navigation controls, the dilithium fluctuator-all the essential things you need, bypassing everything else."

Scotty's frown is more thoughtful than dismissive, and Pavel feels his heart racing in excitement.

"Like a chess game, see? You can jump from one level to another using signal boosters at the critical relays. They don't have to be physically connected to communicate with each other."

"Aye," Scotty says slowly, "that might work. If we bleed off just enough power to jump from one system to the next, we might not even feel any disruption in the other areas of the ship."

It's a gamble, of course. If Scotty diverts too much power from the grid, life support or the artificial gravity might fail, with disastrous consequences. On the other hand, the captain was clear that they have to get the ship moving or the entire universe will be in danger. Worth a little risk, then.

Scotty's fist comes down like a hammer and pounds his shoulder.

"Well, laddie," he says, "I think you've finally earned your pay."

X X X

Pavel Chekov liked to say that he joined Starfleet because of a woman. At parties that always got a laugh, but he wasn't joking. It was true. If Irina Gulliulin hadn't enlisted, he'd be working at some engineering firm or teaching math in a boarding school in Novosibirsk.

The path to Starfleet really started when Pavel joined the chess club his junior year of secondary school, revisiting a game he had played as a child with the lackluster enthusiasm that comes from always beating his opponent, of having no real challenges to interest him. Irina was the first person who could-or who came close to being able to-out-think his moves. Like Pavel, she was an exceptional player. Unlike Pavel, she was an exceptional player because she worked at it, studying the chess masters and attending regular tutorials.

"If you worked as hard as I do," she scolded him, "you would be a grand master already."

Ducking behind a stack of books in the library carrel where they were hunkered down before exams, Pavel nuzzled Irina's neck and said, "I have better things to do with my time."

He'd met Irina his first year at secondary school, but until their junior year, she had ignored him. Or rather, he had simply been part of the background of her busy, popular life. Irina was the person everyone looked to when she walked in a room, was the instigator on numerous hilarious pranks, always had a smile or a joke. She was beautiful and carried herself the way some women seemed to, as if she was used to being obeyed, like a beloved benign dictator.

Which is why Pavel stuttered in her presence, why he never once tried to start a conversation when he found himself alone with her.

Not that that happened very often. Irina was surrounded by friends, even as she pushed her tray down the line in the cafeteria, kicked a soccer ball on the field, looked for a book in the library, traveled through the crowded halls from classroom to classroom. It was maddening.

Pavel developed a sixth sense about where she might be-could stop whatever he was doing and wonder where Irina was and could find her, more often than not, doing exactly what he had imagined. By the time she finally gave him serious notice, he had decided she was unattainable and had set his sights on lesser mortals with some success. One was a friend of hers, Tatiana Smolenski, a dark-eyed girl with an athletic build who wore her long hair in a single braid down her back. After several weeks of flirting and kissing behind the field hockey equipment shed, Tatiana caught Pavel walking another girl to class-an innocuous enough action, though Tatiana wasn't fooled. Such apparent courtliness with another girl was a betrayal of sorts, and she turned to her friends for comfort.

Irina rounded on Pavel like a fury.

Walking up to him in the crowded courtyard in front of the school, she declared, "Pavel Andreievich Chekov, you are a miserable human being."

He was flabbergasted. For months he had pined for her, had longed to hear her address him by name, and now he had. Instantly he was healed of his tendency to stutter in her presence, like someone touched by a faith healer.

"I am miserable," he said, "because of you."

She gave him a withering glance and turned on her heel-but not before he saw something else flicker in her expression. Interest, or curiosity. She wasn't as offended or mystified as she pretended.

When she approached him a few weeks later, he didn't even bother to act surprised.

Sidling up beside him as he stood in line in the cafeteria, she said, "I'm looking for a physics study partner. Do you already have someone?"

"I have no one," he said, letting his words do double duty.

From then on they were together more than they were apart. Suddenly Pavel found himself in the swirl of a social life. Irina's friends became his friends. Irina's schedule became his schedule. Far from minding, he was usually content to follow in her wake.

When she started talking about joining the early enlistment program at Starfleet, at first he dismissed the idea as one of Irina's typical impulsive ideas, like her plan to travel the galaxy as a freighter hand after graduation, or her series of hobbies that she pursued intensely for short bursts before letting them drop off her radar.

"I'm serious this time," she assured him. "And you need to get serious, too. You'll be out of school before you know it."

Despite her appeals to go with her to hear a Starfleet recruitment lecture, Pavel begged off.

"At least you could do something worthwhile with your time," Irina said. "The language lab is open this afternoon."

Pavel felt a prickle of irritation at Irina's implied criticism. Sure, he was struggling in his Standard class, but he wouldn't need Standard to work in most Russian engineering firms.

He could sense her looking at him closely.

"One day you'll wish you knew the language," she said. Before he could respond, she hurried on. "If you're serious about entering the chess tournament next month, you ought to spend some time practicing. Sergei's always up for a game. Why don't you ask him?"

"Irina," he said, finally exasperated, "go to the lecture and stop worrying about how I'll spend my afternoon!"

Part of his annoyance was from knowing that she was right, that he needed to practice the damnable consonants that gave him so much trouble in his Standard class, that playing a game or two with his friend Sergei wouldn't hurt. Rather than do either, however, he curled up in one of the oversized chairs in the library and took a nap.

After the lecture, Irina talked of little other than Starfleet. As she started gathering the recommendations and taking the subject exams she needed to apply, Pavel's anxiety rose. She was really going to do this.

"You should think about it," she told him. "We could enlist together."

Some part of his brain was in denial, was waiting for her interest to flag. Was, in fact, hoping for her to forget the whole thing.

And then they went to London.

As the best players on the school team, both Irina and Pavel were selected as junior participants in the Federation Worlds Chess Championship. Along with their coach, they took public transport from Nizhny Novgorod and settled in a youth hostel near the large convention center near the Thames that hosted the tournament each year.

London was a wonder. Much larger and more populous than Nizhny Novgorod, it was never quiet. After the obligatory open-topped double-decker hover bus tour around the city, the coach turned them loose to explore on their own for the rest of the day while he met with the other tournament officials. The pubs, the museums, the boutique stores of Oxford Street-all were new and exciting for two young people who had never been far from home.

Pavel half expected the actual tournament to be something of a letdown, and in that he was pleasantly surprised. As soon as they walked into the convention center and made their way to the registration table, he counted more than a dozen off-worlders, including two Aenar from Andoria, a sightless species whose telepathic abilities were so pronounced that they were only allowed to compete against other telepathic races.

Well-known accomplished chess players, the Vulcans also had several representatives in the tournament. As Pavel and Irina made their way to their assigned seating near the front of the convention hall, Irina suddenly pointed to a tall Vulcan man in a Starfleet uniform.

"There," she said, catching Pavel's eye briefly. "That's one of the speakers from the lecture. He served on a starship and is doing a stint at the Academy."

"What's he doing here?"

"Commander Spock's a past champion and one of this year's judges. You ought to introduce yourself."

"Why?" Pavel said, mystified that Irina thought he should.

"Connections, silly," she told him, nudging him with her elbow. "He might put in a good word when you apply."

With a sigh, Pavel said, "We need to talk about that."

But before he could say more, an older man in a long green coat came to the mic and called the first players to the stage-and for the rest of the morning Pavel was too busy to worry about anything further in the future than his own scheduled match.

Both he and Irina made their way through the preliminary rounds easily. That afternoon they played in the next round-this time with Irina losing to a graduate student from the Indian sub-continent. Pavel, on the other hand, won his match in record time.

After an evening meal, the quarter-finalists were announced. Pavel wasn't the board leader, but he was close, high enough in the rankings to ensure a good position going into the final round the next morning.

At the youth hostel that night he listened with one ear to his coach's instructions. With the other ear he listened to London at night-the distant, steady roar of traffic punctuated by a passing siren, the whoosh of a private flitter, the deeper rumble of a tourist hover bus. The city felt so alive that Pavel had trouble settling down in his narrow bed to sleep-as if the buildings and roads and even the river that snaked its way through them all were calling to him.

He slept badly and woke up tired, not enough to shake his confidence but enough to make him a little jittery.

Later he would attribute his odd mood for what happened next.

Walking to his designated seat near the stage, he looked up and saw the same Vulcan Irina had pointed out the day before, Commander Something-or-Other from Starfleet. When they made eye contact, Pavel felt a shiver start at the top of his head, almost causing him to stumble.

In the dim light of the conference hall the Commander looked like an illustration of a medieval demon-tall, spare, clad in charcoal gray, his eyes so dark that they seemed to look through Pavel, his ears and eyebrows upswept and alien.

Introduce yourself, Irina had said, but now that he was face to face with the Commander, Pavel was afflicted with the same tongue-tied muteness that used to bedevil his early encounters with her. He nodded instead and started to pass.

"Mr. Chekov," the Commander said, and Pavel stopped in his tracks. Then the Commander said something else that Pavel didn't understand-words strung together so quickly that their meaning was beyond them. He shrugged by way of apology.

With a raised eyebrow, the Commander motioned toward the small judges' table near the stage. Electronic scoresheets were stacked at one end. At the other, a tri-dimensional chessboard was set up, the pieces indicating a game in progress.

"You play this variation?"

A question. With a nod, Pavel said, "I play before."

In fact, he'd never played tri-dimensional chess against an opponent other than a computer. No one in the chess club wanted to learn, not even Irina, traditional chess garnering much more public interest. As far as Pavel knew, the International Chess Commission hadn't sanctioned any official tournaments for tri-dimensional chess, though he'd heard about some unofficial ones somewhere. Amsterdam? Brussels? He couldn't remember.

"Your match is not scheduled until 1130. Would you care to play?"

The Commander was speaking slowly and deliberately-for Pavel's benefit, obviously. He felt his ears heat up in embarrassment. Damnable language. Glancing about, he saw Irina already seated in the observer section, chatting comfortably with another woman.

Would the pleasure of playing a game of tri-dimensional chess outweigh the intense uneasiness he felt in the presence of the Vulcan Commander?

With a sigh, Pavel tried to form the words to turn down the invitation.

"Thank you," he said, and at once he realized his mistake. The Commander nodded and pulled out the chair for him before taking a step around to the other side of the table and sitting down.

As the Commander moved the pieces to reset the board, Pavel looked again to where Irina was sitting. This time she met his eye and smiled.

She thinks I'm doing this to help my application, he thought.

"Your move," the Commander said, and Pavel turned his focus to the board.

All at once his anxiety fell away, the way it always did when he was facing a chessboard, his fingers twitching slightly as he narrowed his gaze and let his mind drift several moves into the future. With tri-dimensional chess it wasn't enough to think horizontally. He had to also think vertically-requiring more concentration than usual.

Sketching a decisive gesture with his hand, he picked up a pawn and moved it one level. Hardly batting an eye, the Commander captured that piece and advanced his rook. In a few more moves the game was essentially over and Pavel conceded.

"Another?" the Commander asked. To answer, Pavel reset the board.

This time he lasted twice as long as before-three minutes, or maybe four.

"In my experience," the Commander said as Pavel finished, "the traditional strategy of sacrificing your weakest position is a mistake in tri-dimensional chess. Here the weak must be protected by the strong, not the other way around."

Pavel blinked and tilted his head. Had he heard the Commander right? If so, the game was far more complex than he had imagined, requiring him to rethink his tactics.

He lasted twelve minutes and lost fewer pieces in the next game.

"Sorry, time for match," he said, looking meaningfully toward the stage where the first competitors of the day were being seated. The Commander followed his gaze and then nodded once, a benediction of sorts. Pavel stood up, cursing his struggle with the language.

"Thank you," he said, giving an awkward bow from the waist, hoping he wasn't doing anything culturally offensive to Vulcans.

For days after he returned home after the championship-which he did not win-Pavel mulled over the experience, not just the excitement of London and the tournament, but the way the Commander had deftly steered him into a more successful game with a few well-chosen words. For the first time since Irina had become interested in enlisting in Starfleet, Pavel began to seriously consider doing the same.

To share his gifts, such as they were, with a team of gifted colleagues-the idea was suddenly very appealing. He started putting in more hours in the Standard lab, and when Irina suggested they spend afternoons studying for the entrance exams, he didn't resist-much.

When the time came to take the exams, Pavel was grateful that they had put the amount of time in that they had. The exams were so grueling that he literally stumbled out of the examination room, too tired to do anything other than sit in the cafeteria, a cup of cooling tea on the table. On the other side of the table, Irina laid her head on her crossed arms.

"Those were the worst six hours of my life," she mumbled, but he said nothing. Even the thought of trying to answer her was exhausting.

Two months later their acceptance letters came in the same post, and shortly after that, they flew together to San Francisco for orientation. One of their first tasks there-after picking up their uniforms and equipment and stowing them safely in their dorms-was to register for classes and decide on a tentative major. Irina had no hesitation, declaring her interest in xenobiology. Pavel, on the other hand, wavered.

"Your aptitude scores suggest the engineering track," his counselor said as they sat in an office working on his schedule. For a long time he had imagined himself as an engineer-or even as a mathematics instructor-but something about the idea of working in the engine room of a Federation starship felt disjointed, odd. He paused before agreeing.

"Can I wait?"

"You'll need to specialize by the end of the first quarter," the counselor said. "Otherwise you could end up taking a lot of classes outside your major. I advise you to go ahead and decide now."

"I'll wait," he said. "I have someone I want to ask." The counselor shrugged.

Commander Spock was easy to find. As far as Pavel could tell, he was the only Vulcan teaching at the Academy, offering seminars in the computer science department and teaching Vuhlkansu in the language department. If he was surprised when the young cadet showed up at his office unannounced, he didn't show it.

"Cadet Chekov," he said, standing up from his desk, his hands tucked formally behind his back. "What can I do for you?"

"I must declare major," he said, suddenly shy under the Commander's unblinking gaze. "Counselor says engineering, but not sure is best for me. Your suggestion, please?"

The Commander took a visible breath before answering.

"Each person must make that decision for himself," he said, and Pavel dipped his head, understanding the Commander's reluctance. It was, he thought, foolish to ask someone to make that decision for him. He turned to leave.

"However," the Commander went on, "it seems to me that anyone who thinks as you do-along every axis, able to anticipate the unpredictable moves of tri-dimensional chess-should logically consider navigation and the command track. Regardless of what you decide, I have faith in you."

And there it was, the answer he had been looking for. And more than that, had always somehow known was the answer and had only been waiting to hear it said aloud.

"Thank you," he said, giving the same impromptu bow he had done before in London. Again he turned to leave, and again the Commander stopped him.

"However," the Commander said, "you would be well-advised to spend your free time in the language lab."

"Understood," he said, nodding, and this time the Commander looked at him with the same impenetrable gaze that made Pavel feel he was being judged and found wanting.

At first Irina approved of Pavel's choice of nagivation science-even though it meant that they rarely had any classes together. And she applauded his increased commitment to improving his Standard and didn't complain about all the extra time he put in the lab.

At first.

But by the end of the first quarter, they were already drifting apart. As Pavel became more committed to his work at the Academy, Irina became less so. She began complaining about the work load, about the seriousness of her classmates, about the lack of free time. Twice she was reprimanded for unexcused absences from class. Her grades began to fall. She stopped asking Pavel to accompany her to social events, and by the end of the first semester they were only speaking by comm a couple of times a week. Before the end of the first year, Irina had dropped out, returning to Russia where Pavel eventually lost touch with her completely.

He missed her, of course, but he was so busy with his Academy work that he didn't have time to mope too much. When he thought about her at all it wasn't with as much sadness as it was gratitude-that she had been the reason he had considered coming to the Academy at all.

X X X

"Well done, Mr. Chekov," the captain says as soon as he returns to the bridge and takes his seat at the navigation controls. Pavel feels a flush of pride at the captain's praise, rarely given and valued more for being rare.

At his scanner, Mr. Spock straightens and says, "Still no sign of the Nexus, Captain."

"It won't do us any good to get the Enterprise moving again if we don't have a destination in mind. We have to find it."

"Sending the last known coordinates to your station," Mr. Spock says, and with a start Pavel realizes that he is talking to him. "You should be able to construct an equation that takes into account the speed and trajectory of the energy ribbon and extrapolate the likely current position."

It's a task Mr. Spock could surely do more quickly than Pavel can, and probably in his head instead of relying on the computer for help. Yet here he is, giving him this task.

As if he can read his mind, Mr. Spock says, "I will be in engineering assisting Mr. Scott in setting up the relays you suggested. You might want to examine the sensor logs to see if the Nexus' speed or position was altered by the objects it came into contact with. If so, you will need to factor in any known objects in its likely path as you determine its current location."

Mr. Spock takes a step toward the turbolift and for a moment Pavel feels his heart in his throat. If he gets any of the calculations wrong, the Enterprise won't find the Nexus, won't be able to seal the rift between the universes in time to prevent disaster. Suddenly the weight on his shoulders is almost too much to bear. He calls out.

"Mr. Spock! Perhaps you should do this!"

He feels the captain's eyes on him, but it is Mr. Spock who responds.

"I have the utmost faith in you, Ensign," he says. "As I always have. Carry on."