06-15-2024, 02:16 AM
To say Jenny was brooding as she sat on the Bridge overseeing yet another day of monotony was an exaggeration, but only a small one. Communications with the few contacts she had left at Starfleet Command over the last few weeks had done little to reaffirm her faith in Starfleet; Ben Elias had confessed to illegally installing a Klingon cloaking device in the Liberty Bell, and his career was over because of it. Tyra's would have been too if he allegedly hadn't taken full responsibility, but the Artemis crew would be lucky if they did anything other than haul garbage for the next year or so. Not that either of them had aspired to flag rank, but there were rumours that Tyra and Jenny had both been removed from consideration for promotion to Commodore any time in the next few decades.
Hell, it only took them what? Twenty years to rehabilitate Erika Benteen? And now she's Admiral Janeway's right-hand woman.
Drumming her fingers on her armrest, Jenny considered once again retreating into her Ready Room where she could actually get some worthwhile work done; her paper on Operation Return and the relative benefits and drawbacks of the command styles and tactics of both Sisko and Dukat during the battle was nearly complete, and she'd been asked to write a third-party assessment on Starfleet's proposed construction budgets for the 2405-6 fiscal year; Starfleet Command might not appreciate her or her antics, there were still a few people in civilian government and academia who valued her opinion. Though she hated to admit it, having been in Starfleet for most of her existence, but life as a civilian was starting to look more appealing, and certainly more lucrative.
“Contact. Identical to previous ghost contact half an hour ago. Can you confirm contact and heading?”
“Confirmed, Lieutenant. Contact is moving toward the Talarian border. Attempting to pin it down. I will attempt to determine the contact's origin point.”
Jenny suppressed a sigh; this wasn't the first random sensor contact they'd come across since entering the area, and it likely wouldn't be the last. Unlike the previous few, however, Jenny sincerely hoped this one wasn't a misaligned sensor or dirt working its way into the terminals. On the other hand, if this was a smuggler or someone attempting to sneak across the border, it would be on her head if she failed to stop them, and all of those lucrative positions she'd just been thinking about would dry up in the face of a dishonorable discharge.
"Science, run a diagnostic on the sensors and confirm the sensor contact. Then give me a scan of the other side of the border, I want to make sure there's nobody waiting to pounce if we try to intercept. Theresa, plot an intercept course but do not engage until Science gives you the all clear. T'Lari, if that's a genuine contact I'm going to want a warning shot prepared."
Though the sensor contact had given the crew a break from the monotony and a chance to prove they were capable of doing something useful, it did little to break Jenny's malaise. This would probably be another dead-end lead that simply wasted their time, energy, and would need to be logged in great detail anyway so the bureaucrats running Starfleet could pick over her every command decision.
"Peter, if this contact is genuine I'm going to want a boarding party standing by. Standard customs procedure, and see if we have anyone on the crew who might have experience in...hiding things they didn't want found during inspections."
Hell, it only took them what? Twenty years to rehabilitate Erika Benteen? And now she's Admiral Janeway's right-hand woman.
Drumming her fingers on her armrest, Jenny considered once again retreating into her Ready Room where she could actually get some worthwhile work done; her paper on Operation Return and the relative benefits and drawbacks of the command styles and tactics of both Sisko and Dukat during the battle was nearly complete, and she'd been asked to write a third-party assessment on Starfleet's proposed construction budgets for the 2405-6 fiscal year; Starfleet Command might not appreciate her or her antics, there were still a few people in civilian government and academia who valued her opinion. Though she hated to admit it, having been in Starfleet for most of her existence, but life as a civilian was starting to look more appealing, and certainly more lucrative.
“Contact. Identical to previous ghost contact half an hour ago. Can you confirm contact and heading?”
“Confirmed, Lieutenant. Contact is moving toward the Talarian border. Attempting to pin it down. I will attempt to determine the contact's origin point.”
Jenny suppressed a sigh; this wasn't the first random sensor contact they'd come across since entering the area, and it likely wouldn't be the last. Unlike the previous few, however, Jenny sincerely hoped this one wasn't a misaligned sensor or dirt working its way into the terminals. On the other hand, if this was a smuggler or someone attempting to sneak across the border, it would be on her head if she failed to stop them, and all of those lucrative positions she'd just been thinking about would dry up in the face of a dishonorable discharge.
"Science, run a diagnostic on the sensors and confirm the sensor contact. Then give me a scan of the other side of the border, I want to make sure there's nobody waiting to pounce if we try to intercept. Theresa, plot an intercept course but do not engage until Science gives you the all clear. T'Lari, if that's a genuine contact I'm going to want a warning shot prepared."
Though the sensor contact had given the crew a break from the monotony and a chance to prove they were capable of doing something useful, it did little to break Jenny's malaise. This would probably be another dead-end lead that simply wasted their time, energy, and would need to be logged in great detail anyway so the bureaucrats running Starfleet could pick over her every command decision.
"Peter, if this contact is genuine I'm going to want a boarding party standing by. Standard customs procedure, and see if we have anyone on the crew who might have experience in...hiding things they didn't want found during inspections."