Trials of Youth

	The Reject's Table
Episode name	Trials of Youth
Season
Episode number	3
Writer(s)	Alan Decker
Year
Stardate	Unknown
	Chronology
Previous in series	The Hawkins Incident
Next in series	Tolkien III
Previous in timeline
Next in timeline	The Hawkins Incident [REJ]

Summary

Captain Lisa Beck tells the story of her first brush with Starfleet command experience. As a child of eleven growing up in North Carolina, Beck was friends with Stephanie Hodges and her older brother, Joel Hodges. While out playing Starfleet one day, the trio ended up at the Stone Mountain Resort And Conference Center where a conference entitled "Federation Tax Law and Your Cult" was being held. A group of Andorians attending the conference immediately recognize Joel as the Z'arkbelst, a deity in their particular religion. When later Joel is missing, Beck and Hodges believe that the Andorians have kidnapped him. Sneaking away from home themselves, Beck and Hodges track the Andorians to their spaceship at the Raleigh spaceport. They sneak onto the ship, but, as the ship is launching, the Andorians, led by Z'assy, capture Beck and Hodges and lock them into an empty crew cabin. Beck recognizes that the ship is running an Astro-Tech operating system. Since her parents work for Astro-Tech, she is familiar with the general layout, and, even though it is Andorian, Beck is able to figure out enough to send out a distress call. Starfleet intercepts the ship and quickly takes the Andorians into custody. Joel is actually very upset about this. He had gone with the Andorians willingly, since they had told him he was their god and that they wanted to take him back to Andor where he'd be worshipped and provided for. It sounded like a pretty good deal to Joel. Since he had gone willingly and Beck and Hodges had snuck onto their ship, the Andorians were released. As soon as Joel turned 18, he went to Andor to live in luxury as the Z'arkbelst.