Ensign Anjohl Korra hated when her duty shift was Charlie– which was at least half the time.
First of all, that meant there was little consistency in who was sitting in the middle seat. The Captain insisted on rotating various command staff and a small handful of other officers through command during that shift. When Anjohl had brought it up to the Captain to complain about the lack of consistency, Tanar had just given the younger Bajoran a considering look that made the Yeoman feel very small (which should be difficult when she was a foot taller than the Captain) and very foolish when the response was “one never knows what might happen, and it’s good for the crew and the ship for officers to have some experience in the Big Chair before an emergency might put them there.”
Still. As Yeoman, she was supposed to be the Captain’s right hand. She had been thrilled beyond measure when she had been assigned on her first assignment out of the Academy to a brand new ship, commanded by a fellow Bajoran. She had immediately pushed for the Yeoman’s role because of this, pulling strings and begging recommendations from instructors at Starfleet Academy for it.
So it had been difficult to hide her disappointment at the realization when she had arrived that her “Bajoran” captain was actually half Cardassian (and while intellectually Ensign Anjohl knew how that had to have happened and that it wasn’t her fault, she couldn’t help the visceral response of loathing that boiled up every time she saw her); that instead of being some great hero of the Occupation and homeworld, she was from one of the backwater refugee colonies; and worst of all, she barely shared shifts with her Yeoman, so how on Bajor was Anjohl supposed to leverage a close relationship with the Captain that such a position entailed into better promotion opportunities?
When the Captain had shown up in the middle of Anjohl’s shift on the bridge (and it had been a mind numbingly boring shift, with Lieutenant Commander Kertog in charge if there was any chatter or focus it was about Vulcan culture or worse, getting random weird scans of whatever they were passing by for no reason that the Yeoman could see), she had some hope that something big had happened and that things were at least going to become interesting.
Instead, the Captain had curtly told the bridge crew she wasn’t to be disturbed because she had paperwork to do, and when Anjohl had offered to assist (after all, that was one of her jobs as Yeoman) she had been told, yet again, that it wasn’t necessary and she would be more useful on the Bridge.
Ugh!
And to add insult to injury, a couple of hours before her shift was over, every member of the crew had a list of Promotions posted to their PADDs and consoles. As Anjohl skimmed the list, she ground her teeth. The annoying know it all from the science labs? That blighted engineer in a hab suit? The little gossipy medical assistant? Why would any of them need a promotion, even if the fleet sent out a memo? As far as she knew the Captain hadn’t even interacted with two thirds of the people on the promotion list!
The bridge was buzzing with discussion of the promotions. Most of her fellow officers seemed happy for those who would be waking up in an hour or so to learn about their good fortune (as most of them were on Alpha shift today). Ensign Anjohl barely managed to contain her irritation. She could have helped with this, surely. Maybe even offered a view into what her fellow Ensigns were really like, and helped made sure that the promotions had gone to someone deserving.
The turbolift opened and Lieutenant Commander Mourad stepped onto the bridge. The Orion Third Officer, Head of Engineering, and rumored former pirate looked the kind of rumpled that comes from going from asleep to awake and in uniform in a very short time. Unprofessional. He should be ashamed of himself.
The Chief Engineer nodded to Kertog, and then disappeared into the ready room. Anjohl sighed. She should be in there, taking notes of the meeting.
She had nothing to do. No assignments, no stacks of PADDs to go through. The Captain complained frequently about the paperwork, but rarely let Anjohl help with any of it, and when she did it was all routine, boring stuff! Requisition forms for various raw materials sent up from the labs or engineering or operations. Requests for duty shift swaps. Signing off on personal time off, or reassigning idiots who had been injured playing Parrises Squares (what morons) to lighter duty for a shift to recover. There was never anything interesting.
She would have almost assumed that Starfleet was keeping the Forger and its clearly borderline criminal crew (of course the first thing Anjohl had done when she had been given a Yeoman’s access to computer files necessary to assist the Captain was looking through personnel files on her crewmates, and while she didn’t have access to anything classified just the normal files had been eye popping enough!) out of trouble, except for the fact that it seemed like every other week since she had arrived they were in some sort of fresh trouble that only seemed exacerbated by the Captain’s complete Cardassian lack of scruples and egged on by half her command staff. Anjohl had even thought Commander Lahl was sane and there to keep the Captain in line but he had been the one to suggest (and carry out!) the theft of a Ferengi’s life savings for fun.
Anjohl’s messages back home to her parents very pointedly never mentioned any of this because it was embarrassing. Embarrassing that despite her allusions to the contrary, the Yeoman had not made any friends among her fellow Ensigns (how could she, they were so immature). And that the Captain didn’t seem to like her much either.
The Yeoman sighed out loud, something she hadn’t intended on doing. The Caitian at the helm looked over at her, and showed Anjohl his fangs. FINE. She shouldn’t have–
“Is long shift, but almost overrrr,” Ensign Murr rumbled before returning his attention back to the helm.
Anjohl frowned, not responding to the obvious bait. SHE was not going to complain about doing her job.
She gave the ready room door another glance, wondering what the Captain and Chief Engineer had to discuss privately. Was there a problem in engineering? Did it have to do with the angry tactical hologram that occasionally made itself known on the bridge? Was the Captain finally going to tell engineering to kick their stowaway exocomp off the ship like she should have done from the beginning?
She hated not knowing what was going on.