AN: This is my first Star Trek fanfic. I tried to keep to canon, but I can tell you, it's a headache. I'm used to having seven books of canon and that's it, and now there's a sea of material, and inconsistencies abound, as there are so many different script authors. So I decided to simply ignore the canon where it made no sense. Sue me.

I hope you'll enjoy this, and of course as always, I do not own a thing.

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Nyota stared at her timetable, dismayed. On Tuesdays, apparently, she was expected to thrive on air only, since she had classes non-stop from 10:30 till three in the afternoon, and then one in the evening to boot. Then, there were actually two classes on Friday evening, of all times. She knew her course combination was unusual and it was probably a challenge to put her timetable together at all, but this was a disaster. It hadn't been so bad last year, she was sure. And when she actually registered which courses were when, it got only worse. Subspace communication problem solving, probably the most difficult course she was going to have this year – if she didn't count that damned Caitian II, but that at least was a language, and Nyota knew how to deal with languages – was right there at the end of the row of classes on Tuesday. How was she going to concentrate, she had no idea. And Caitian II was right after Combat II – she couldn't imagine any two classes that would have gone together worse. The Friday evening classes were of course Vulcan and Andorian. She was grateful the teachers managed to find any time in their timetables for the advanced classes, but honestly relived that at least the instructor of Klingon could pick a different day than Friday. It wasn't very surprising, though, that it was her of all people. There was consistently less interest in Klingon than in the other languages Nyota studied. Absurd, but there it was.

She scanned the timetable to see what else, apart from languages, she was going to face. Survival strategies could probably be an interesting class. Interspecies protocol likely less so, but there were bound to be at least bits of cultural trivia included that would make the class more interesting. Starship Technology was bound to be a boring introductory course, but one she needed.

From her own specialization core courses, there were only the likely-to-be-crazily-difficult Problem Solving and Advanced Subspace Communication II, which was likely to be maddeningly simple. She tested out of all the remaining communications core courses, which gave her more time to devote to languages. Which in turn resulted in a timetable like this.

Closing the file with her timetable, Nyota began to search on her PADD for course materials.

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Even before that Problem Solving class, Nyota could already tell that Tuesdays were going to be exactly as bad as she had feared. The first class of the day, Advanced Subspace Communication, was as easy as she had expected, but it didn't mean it made the day any more bearable. In the first lesson, they were made to go through all of the formulations which they thought they'd said goodbye to at the end of the first semester at the Academy. It made her feel tired, and then there was Xelatian, a language which never came easily to Nyota for some reason, despite having studied it for seven years now. Those two classes right after each other made her feel exhausted, and now she was expected to concentrate on subspace communication problem solving. Well, she would do her best, but she didn't have many hopes.

However, the moment the instructor walked in the classroom, her head snapped up and she sat up straighter. There, in front of her, was definitely, undoubtedly a Vulcan. Wow.

Not that there were no Vulcan teachers at the Academy. Up till then, however, she'd thought there was only one, the one who taught advanced Vulcan. As with most alien races, the Academy had to try really hard to get at least one native speaker to teach there, and in case of some languages, they didn't manage even that. Klingon was one such case, obviously, but even Kasheeta was taught by a human instructor. And here was a Vulcan teacher for a language-unrelated class. Either he was a very particular Vulcan, or he was so good at this that the Academy offered him some real incentive to get him. Either way, it was extremely interesting to Nyota. And he was a Vulcan. She had been obsessed with that culture ever since she was little. And now here he was, the zhird Vulcan she'd met in person in her life. Suddenly she knew for certain she was going to pay attention in this class.

He started talking in a clear, controlled voice, and she wrote down every word. As he was going over the things they studied in Subspace Communication I, she took a respite and watched him closely instead. Commander Spock. This was just so...cool.

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She spent most of the week looking forward to that class. Part of the reason was, of course, that her other classes weren't particularly stimulating. She loved all of her languages – well, perhaps except for Xelatian, which she at least tried not to hate – but the number of things you could do in a language class was rather limited. Especially in a language class focused on what a communication officer is going to need in practice. It got rather repetitive. The only other stimulating class was Survival Strategies, she expected to have lot of fun in that one. SCPS, however...that was something else. And they were supposed to actually start with working on the transmissions in the second class. She really couldn't be blamed for feeling excited.

Commander Spock entered the classroom, and again all of her attention was on him. She was vaguely aware it wasn't entirely right, she shouldn't fetishize someone's race for her own amusement, but she just couldn't help herself. She has known her other Vulcan instructor for years, back from college, he didn't fascinate her that much anymore, but when it came to Commander Spock...well. She'd just have to wait, it would pass, just as it did with prof. Sanep.

"Put on your headsets, cadets," came the instruction, "and listen carefully to the transmission, please. You will hear in twice."

And so Nyota concentrated. Yes, there was a very clear anomaly. It was not something they have covered in ASP I last year, either. It did sound similar to some of the basic interferences they learned to recognize, however. So some kind of rarer interference. Not standard Klingon, not standard Orion. Either a different race with a different technology, or a new way some of the usual problematic races have found to interfere with the transmissions. Now which was more likely?

The test audio ended, and Commander Spock turned to the class. "Your theories about the transmission anomaly, please."

Several students hesitatingly raised their hands. Nyota was irritated. She still hadn't decided, and she really wanted to impress this Commander.

He called on one of the students. "It's some kind of unusual interference, isn't it, sir?"

Nyota rolled her eyes. Everybody could hear that.

"Yes, cadet. Now what kind of unusual interference?"

Most of the hands went down. Spock called on one of the few remaining students.

"An unusual, little known race with little known technology, sir?"

"Correct, cadet. It is, indeed, interference made by some race with whose technology we are not yet quite familiar. You have been taught to recognize the most common interferences in your Advanced Subspace Communication I course, and you should easily hear the similarities in structure, as well as the differences. Then you have to draw your own conclusions from what you know about interplanetary politics, xenotechnology and other related fields. In this case, since it was our first exercise, it was very simple. Seeing that the interference was not from one of the well-known sources, it was only logical to conclude it was from some little-known source."

Nyota hesitatingly raised her hand. She knew she was probably going to look like an idiot, but she needed to understand. She couldn't just let it go past her, she would never complete this course if she lost track in her second class.

"Yes, cadet?"

"Sir, may I ask how we can infer it is actually a little-known race, and not a new way to cause interference, invented by some familiar race?"

He looked at her. "You are correct, cadet. It could equally well be a new technology of a familiar race. However, statistically, the chance of encountering a new technology is by 78.2 per cent lower than of encountering a little known race with little known technology, that is why we concentrate on the second option in this class. But now that you brought this up, how would you decide which case you were dealing with?"

"Well...probably based on the area of space where I found myself, sir, and last encountered vessels, and other sensor readings."

"Correct, cadet. Now, we will continue to the second transmission record..."

Perhaps she didn't look like an idiot after all.