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The Athena is enormous, overwhelming not for its size but how organized and clean it is. Officers and civilians of every shape and size—but vastly humanoid—mill swiftly and efficiently in every direction, like the most well-run hive Caleb’s ever seen. He’s used to chaos. He’s used to the filth and rot of the outside world, where nectar’s only found on dying alien branches and costs an arm and a leg. Nahla Ake showed up with a whole bouquet, and that only makes Caleb trust her even less far than he could throw her. And she’s several hundred times his size, so he probably couldn’t throw her at all.
He follows her through the sleek halls of the starship anyway, because he’s out of options. He’s at his wit’s end trying to find his mother. He’s facing jail time on a planet that uses force fields instead of bars he could buzz through. He knows he’s at his emotional limit, and if he gets into just one more fight, he’s going to lose his shit and waste himself stinging some random loser not worth a drop of honey. Nahla explains his new life as she strolls ahead, casual and full of what must be empty promises. Caleb’s barely listening. A campus with live gardens. Yeah, sure. He’s wary of everything. Even when she stops to try and engage him, he grunts unhelpful answers.
He mutters, “Fine, but I’m not going to wear some dumb uniform.”
She chirps, “Okay,” way too easily and leads him up an escalator, because she can’t fly up to the next level like he can, because she’s not on his level. They swerve off to the left, and he doesn’t even register walking through a portal—one second he’s himself, and then suddenly, he’s in a plain grey jacket. The tiniest cadet uniform ever made. He genuinely thought his size would protect him; that Starfleet didn’t make, even have the patterns to synthesize, clothes that small.
“What the fuck—” He instantly stops, buzzing in place, staring down in horror, “That was my best sweater!”
“Good ol’ black and yellow?”
“It was yellow and black! I was mixing it up!” He’s a rebel like that.
Nahla shrugs like eh, what can you do? But it’s exactly why he never wanted to touch Starfleet—he didn’t need to be homogenized into their overly human hive by the same evil queen who took away his mother. And she promised she wouldn’t force him to change. She wouldn’t take the bee out of him. He feels like just another Starfleet drone.
She starts moving again, and he buzzes angrily after, just to growl, “And if you so much as touch my stinger—!”
He gasps at another ripple of a force field. He twitches his butt. Looks back. His stinger’s been blunted. The very tip is round instead of razor sharp. He just sharpened it that morning. There are no words for his fury. He can barely splutter, “Seriously?!”
Nahla spins around, arms taut behind her back, and calmly tells him, “Caleb, I want you to make it here. You’ve got a real chance, and I will find your mother. But there’s going to be some adjustments.”
Caleb’s never wanted to sting anyone so badly in his life. He doesn’t even know if he can anymore—if his stinger would break off in her skin and ruin her day like it’s supposed to. He also knows he can’t afford to die when he’s so close. It takes every ounce of self-control in his entire bee body for him to stay put and simply grumble, “Whatever. ...But I want my own hive.”
“First years share quarters, sorry.”
Caleb chokes. He didn’t think that was too big an ask, given that he can’t imagine them having anyone else that would fit in a hive. “Do you even have other bee cadets??”
She’s already walking way, out of reach—he can’t bring himself to follow anymore and isn’t sure he’s supposed to, because an angry looking Jem’Hadar woman with flesh too hard to sting is marching his way. Nahla calls after him, “It’s Starfleet. We’ve got everything!”
A hunk of dried magma and earth crawls sluggishly past him, and it really hits home that Caleb’s sold his soul for honey and a dream, and he’s truly in a swarm of weirdos.