<USS Avalon> Home Away From Home - Lexie Daros

      Lexie strode down the corridor, her eyes watching for the correct one.
Her blonde ponytail whipped from side to side as she examined the
designations on one door after another.  Finally, she found what she was
looking for and stepped through to what she considered a wonderland.

    The forensics lab.  Home.  It looked to be well equipped and practically
gleamed.  She'd come in the middle of ship's night so no one was around.
That was the way she wanted it.  When she walked in the next morning, she
wanted to know where every piece of equipment was.  Every nook and cranny
would be familiar.  She would not appear to be anything but competant.  That
was important.  From the moment she'd landed on Earth everything had been a
competition, everything had been judged.  It was an entirely new sort of
jungle she'd faced, but she'd been determined to conquer it as she'd
conquered the one on Zaran.  She had avoided captured by any pe'tong of a
male and not only survived, but thrived.  Her time on Earth was no
different.

    First had been the Federation school where others had made fun of her
until they'd learned better.  More than once she had been punished for
fights.  She hadn't cared.  No one would ever be allowed to mock her and
expect to get away with it.  Stanford had been easier, but still she had had
to fight her way through, spending endless nights studying instead of
sleeping.  She'd studied until she'd surpassed everyone in her classes.
That was  what had gotten her to the Vulcan Science Academy.  There finally
the mocking ceased.  The only thing that had been expected of her was
excellence in her work.  That was easy.  Learning Vulcan mind techniques had
been harder, she'd never tried to be disciplined with her abilities.  She
had struggled to master her emotions and find a place of peace within her
from which she could gather the discipline necessary.

    Then had come the Academy and again she'd been thrust into a situation
for which she was ill prepared.  At first she'd been asked out constantly
and then after she'd grown tired of saying no, she'd finally accepted a date
with a classmate.  She'd quickly learned that her date was interested in
only one thing and it wasn't her mind.  She'd broken his hand and given him
a headache that would remain with him for some time.  His embarrassment had
kept him from filing any charges against her, but from then on most of the
males steered clear of her unless it was necessary for some class
assignment.

    Now here she was, again in a situation with which she was unfamiliar.
Not for long.  She would master this as she'd mastered everything else.
First to learn the lab, then to read the reports from the last six months.
She would know the operation of the lab inside and out before the night was
over.  Forensics officer on an Intrepid class vessel.  A modified Intrepid.
She'd already learned the deck plan, that had been her first task when she
came aboard some hours earlier.

    She wandered through the area, fingertips running along gleaming pieces
of equipment, thoughts spinning through her mind.  What need had she for a
man in her life?  Could a relationship, fraught as they were with emotional
upheaval, come close to the feeling she had when she'd found the answer to a
mystery?  Could putting the pieces of a puzzle together and finding the
answer ever be outshone by a man?  She sincerely doubted it.  Men were fine
in their place.  They were a necessity for procreation and as yet no
humanoid species had found a way around that, but there was always hope.

    Her tour of the facility completed, each piece of equipment documented
in her mind, she sat down and activated a computer.  Now to find out what
puzzles had presented themselves on Avalon.

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