Yesterday, 03:53 AM
Oh and he was doing so well...
Managing (barely) not to sigh and shake her head as Alden snapped to attention in a very Jensen-like manner, Jenny managed a small smile of amusement as the younger man once again sprayed words at her; at least this time they were understandable and didn't flow into a single run-on sentence that didn't allow the young man to breathe. It would be unfortunate if he asphyxiated from talking too much on his first day.
Stranger things had happened, though...
"Don't worry kid, I've seen worse introductions from graduates way less qualified than you. Lieutenant D'Tor'an is around here somewhere; look for the Klingon who doesn't want to be here, you can't miss her."
Stepping away so she could approach the podium, Jenny paused and gave the Midshipman another reassuring smile.
"Welcome to the Yeager."
Dismissing Alden away with a small "shoo" wave of her hands, Jenny stepped up to the podium. From somewhere deep in the crowd a very loud and high-pitched whistle quelled any conversation, courtesy of her former-Marine Chief of the Boat, and the lights dimmed as a spotlight shone on the podium. Flinching away from the light slightly, Jenny waited for her eyes to adjust before clearing her breath. While she knew she'd be expected to say something, she'd also expected at least one of the invited VIPs to attend and say something to take some of the pressure off. Alas, despite Starfleet Command's attempts to make the Yeager crew "respectable", none of the invitees had attended - one or two had responded with apologies, but the majority of the invites were still registered as unread.
It sucked.
Only one VIP, the now-retired Captain Vana zh'Zalla, had responded with enthusiasm; the Andorian zhen had been the original Yeager's first Captain and had commanded her throughout the Cold War with the Dominion and following Dominion War. Though zh'Zalla had been unable to attend due to poor health, she had sent words of encouragement and a reminder that the skill and self-respect of the crew were paramount, everything else (up to and including the fanfare of a commissioning) was merely window-dressing designed to appease politicians aiming to curtail Starfleet's budget. There had been some more personal notes in there, from one renegade to another, the most amusing of which had been written in Andorian and roughly translated to "fuck the Admiralty."
With eyes now focused on her, and desperately wishing she'd had a moment to grab a drink or a cigarette, Jenny began.
"Those of you who have served with me before know that I just love making speeches," that was, of course, sarcasm. "So I'll make this nice and short, so we can all get back to drinking. When Starfleet assigned me command of the original Yeager a few years back, they intended it as a punishment; a shit job for a Captain on their shit list, a way to sweep their embarrassment under the rug, out of sight and out of mind. To say that backfired is something of an understatement. Then when I ended up on their shit-list again, well, here we are..."
Jenny allowed herself a self-deprecating smile before continuing.
"The bigwigs at Starfleet Command think assignments like this are punishment, not understanding that they're actually special; sure, the Yeager is a product of a deranged Pakled mind and bureaucratic failings, and she's not going to be gallivanting around the Delta Quadrant making record numbers of First Contacts, but she has a crew whose makeup and temperament matches her own. Like our ship mixes old and new parts, we mix career screwups with the best and brightest of Starfleet. We take in orphans and outcasts, and we embrace our differences and use them to make ourselves stronger."
Jenny paused for a moment, surveying the crowd of assembled guests. No doubt some would assume she was being self-aggrandising at this point, and perhaps she was, but this was her crew and they were still coming together. The veterans knew the score, but the kids and newer additions needed to learn sooner rather than later, lest they become jaded by the perception of where their career paths were now headed.
"Starfleet Command didn't see fit to commission us formally when we launched, nor did anyone see fit to join us here today for the official ceremony. I think I can live with that, because we don't need them. If the brass pretend we don't exist, we can get more actual work done without worrying about asking for permission. We can make the hard choices without worrying about the exact letter of the law. The Cardassians call me a pirate. The Tholians call me the 'godslayer'. Both titles were earned by doing the right thing when it needed to be done, and worrying about the sensitivities of others later. That isn't something I am prepared to change; one hundred people aboard the Lord Franklin are alive today because this crew of misfits came together when they needed to and did the right thing."
She let that hang for a moment, knowing full-well that she had been vilified in Federation and alien media for her actions. On the other hand, the people of Jateran hadn't been eaten by a baby Crystalline Entity, and she'd rescued dozens of Starfleet prisoners from the Cardassian Q-Ship before it exploded. That she hadn't actually killed the baby Entity, and the Q-Ship had actually self-destructed were irrelevant when a sensationalist story was needed, but the reputation of a renegade and maverick had definitely grown on her, and was working in her favour more often than not.
"We might not be the Enterprise or the Defiant, or Voyager, but we don't need to be. Where were they when the Cerritos was saving the multiverse? Where were they when the Protostar prevented a universe-ending temporal paradox? We won't get the glamorous assignments, our faces won't be on the FNN broadcasts, but we have our own legend to forge. Starfleet considers us a joke at best, a dangerous mistake at worst; I aim to prove them wrong, and if I raise the collective blood pressure in San Francisco from time to time, so be it."
Glancing at the chronometer on the wall, Jenny realised she had spoken for longer than she intended, even though it was only a couple of minutes.
"Everyone standing here in this room, regardless of your species, gender, religious beliefs, et-cetera, are one crew. More than that, you're a family. Our assignments might take us away from ours for months or years at a time, but we will always have each other. Unless anyone else wants to embarrass themselves up here, the bar is open, the drinks are free, and Sickbay is stocked with hangover medication. So enjoy yourselves!"
Managing (barely) not to sigh and shake her head as Alden snapped to attention in a very Jensen-like manner, Jenny managed a small smile of amusement as the younger man once again sprayed words at her; at least this time they were understandable and didn't flow into a single run-on sentence that didn't allow the young man to breathe. It would be unfortunate if he asphyxiated from talking too much on his first day.
Stranger things had happened, though...
"Don't worry kid, I've seen worse introductions from graduates way less qualified than you. Lieutenant D'Tor'an is around here somewhere; look for the Klingon who doesn't want to be here, you can't miss her."
Stepping away so she could approach the podium, Jenny paused and gave the Midshipman another reassuring smile.
"Welcome to the Yeager."
Dismissing Alden away with a small "shoo" wave of her hands, Jenny stepped up to the podium. From somewhere deep in the crowd a very loud and high-pitched whistle quelled any conversation, courtesy of her former-Marine Chief of the Boat, and the lights dimmed as a spotlight shone on the podium. Flinching away from the light slightly, Jenny waited for her eyes to adjust before clearing her breath. While she knew she'd be expected to say something, she'd also expected at least one of the invited VIPs to attend and say something to take some of the pressure off. Alas, despite Starfleet Command's attempts to make the Yeager crew "respectable", none of the invitees had attended - one or two had responded with apologies, but the majority of the invites were still registered as unread.
It sucked.
Only one VIP, the now-retired Captain Vana zh'Zalla, had responded with enthusiasm; the Andorian zhen had been the original Yeager's first Captain and had commanded her throughout the Cold War with the Dominion and following Dominion War. Though zh'Zalla had been unable to attend due to poor health, she had sent words of encouragement and a reminder that the skill and self-respect of the crew were paramount, everything else (up to and including the fanfare of a commissioning) was merely window-dressing designed to appease politicians aiming to curtail Starfleet's budget. There had been some more personal notes in there, from one renegade to another, the most amusing of which had been written in Andorian and roughly translated to "fuck the Admiralty."
With eyes now focused on her, and desperately wishing she'd had a moment to grab a drink or a cigarette, Jenny began.
"Those of you who have served with me before know that I just love making speeches," that was, of course, sarcasm. "So I'll make this nice and short, so we can all get back to drinking. When Starfleet assigned me command of the original Yeager a few years back, they intended it as a punishment; a shit job for a Captain on their shit list, a way to sweep their embarrassment under the rug, out of sight and out of mind. To say that backfired is something of an understatement. Then when I ended up on their shit-list again, well, here we are..."
Jenny allowed herself a self-deprecating smile before continuing.
"The bigwigs at Starfleet Command think assignments like this are punishment, not understanding that they're actually special; sure, the Yeager is a product of a deranged Pakled mind and bureaucratic failings, and she's not going to be gallivanting around the Delta Quadrant making record numbers of First Contacts, but she has a crew whose makeup and temperament matches her own. Like our ship mixes old and new parts, we mix career screwups with the best and brightest of Starfleet. We take in orphans and outcasts, and we embrace our differences and use them to make ourselves stronger."
Jenny paused for a moment, surveying the crowd of assembled guests. No doubt some would assume she was being self-aggrandising at this point, and perhaps she was, but this was her crew and they were still coming together. The veterans knew the score, but the kids and newer additions needed to learn sooner rather than later, lest they become jaded by the perception of where their career paths were now headed.
"Starfleet Command didn't see fit to commission us formally when we launched, nor did anyone see fit to join us here today for the official ceremony. I think I can live with that, because we don't need them. If the brass pretend we don't exist, we can get more actual work done without worrying about asking for permission. We can make the hard choices without worrying about the exact letter of the law. The Cardassians call me a pirate. The Tholians call me the 'godslayer'. Both titles were earned by doing the right thing when it needed to be done, and worrying about the sensitivities of others later. That isn't something I am prepared to change; one hundred people aboard the Lord Franklin are alive today because this crew of misfits came together when they needed to and did the right thing."
She let that hang for a moment, knowing full-well that she had been vilified in Federation and alien media for her actions. On the other hand, the people of Jateran hadn't been eaten by a baby Crystalline Entity, and she'd rescued dozens of Starfleet prisoners from the Cardassian Q-Ship before it exploded. That she hadn't actually killed the baby Entity, and the Q-Ship had actually self-destructed were irrelevant when a sensationalist story was needed, but the reputation of a renegade and maverick had definitely grown on her, and was working in her favour more often than not.
"We might not be the Enterprise or the Defiant, or Voyager, but we don't need to be. Where were they when the Cerritos was saving the multiverse? Where were they when the Protostar prevented a universe-ending temporal paradox? We won't get the glamorous assignments, our faces won't be on the FNN broadcasts, but we have our own legend to forge. Starfleet considers us a joke at best, a dangerous mistake at worst; I aim to prove them wrong, and if I raise the collective blood pressure in San Francisco from time to time, so be it."
Glancing at the chronometer on the wall, Jenny realised she had spoken for longer than she intended, even though it was only a couple of minutes.
"Everyone standing here in this room, regardless of your species, gender, religious beliefs, et-cetera, are one crew. More than that, you're a family. Our assignments might take us away from ours for months or years at a time, but we will always have each other. Unless anyone else wants to embarrass themselves up here, the bar is open, the drinks are free, and Sickbay is stocked with hangover medication. So enjoy yourselves!"