Josephine Lessard

It was a little sad when she thought about it too much. Not quite a year out of the Academy and many of her classmates were all having high adventures throughout Starfleet. Demora was at the helm of the Enterprise, James was stationed on the farthest Starbase yet established, and even that moody Vulcan had snagged a spot on Excelsior. As for one Josephine Lessard, she sat curled up in the corner of the rec-deck on the old Hermes class scout USS Taurus reading a book. The greatest adventure she had yet to go on played out on the pages of the books in the ships library. The Taurus could be best described as "old", in so many ways. Through oversight or petition by some historical society the Taurus remained mostly as it had when launched, completely missing the fleetwide upgrades of the early 70's. Most of the senior staff were fixtures unmoved since the beginning of written record. The Captain had even openly admitted this was his "retirement", having started his career on this very ship and after a successful service record elsewhere pushed heavily to receive it's command as his last assignment. It was the perfect ship for plodding from outpost to outpost and doing all those little tasks that somehow keep the Federation going. So Ensign Lessard sat relaxing before the next great adventure of recalibrating colony communications satellites befell the unsuspecting crew, when Lt.Commander Muskaga entered. The Tellerite's beady little eyes, somewhere under all those wrinkles, peered instantly at Josephine. "Another book. Humph. Here, read this instead". With a thunk the record tablet hit the surface of the nearby table. "In a moment," she said lazily as she turned the page. She wasn't even really done with the previous page but it seemed a proper gesture to indicate just how unconcerned she was with her superior's demand. Josephine fought back a smile as Muskaga grew even more annoyed. She knew little about Tellerites except that this one seemed most happy when most annoyed. And Lessard was more than willing to aid him in this. But his tone suddenly turned different than she'd ever heard from him before. "No, you'll want to read this." Finally she looked up from her book, peering over her glasses at him and then down to the tablet. Reaching over she took it and began to read. ...effective immediately you are ordered to report for assignment to USS Challenger as Chief Communications Officer... Josephine Lessard felt somewhat odd at the little going away party being held for her. It was strange to be so happy to be leaving these people who had truly been kind to her. The old and established crew did treat every new Ensign as a favored grandchild. But, she knew there was more out there she wanted to experience. And Challenger was in the middle of it. It was in the middle of the Klingon Empire of all places. Maybe she should start learning Klingon. Did they even have a book on Klingoneese?!

Subject: Lessard, Josephine Renee BIRTH RECORD: Location: Chaumont-Sur-Loire, France, Earth, Sol, Sol Sector. Date: 6/29/2272 Mother: Elisabeth Claire Lessard Father: David Leon Lessard FEDERATION CITIZENSHIP RECORD: Residence Locations: Dates: 6/29/2272 to 9/28/2280 Location: Chaumont-Sur-Loire, France, Earth, Sol, 001. Dates: 10/12/2280 to 4/15/2289 Location: Honnête, Penthara IV Colony, Penthara Sector. ACADEMY RECORD: Years in attendance: 2289-2293 Primary Disciplines: Communications Systems Operations, Computer Operations, Subspace Comm Networking, Computer Networking. Secondary Disciplines: Subspace Communications Theory, Xeno-Linguistics, Starship Systems Operations, Starship Systems Engineering. Extracurricular: Musical Performance (Woodwind - Flute), Cultural Studies. SERVICE RECORD: Graduate of Starfleet Academy Class of 2293. 2293-2294 USS Taurus NCC-605 Assistant Communication's Officer 2294-Current USS Challenger NCC 2457 Chief Communication's Officer Medical Record: At the age of 7 was in a shuttle accident on the surface of Venus, in the Sol System. Atmospheric leakage before rescue effected permanent damage to her eyesight. While therapy and surgery have corrected much of the damage the need for eyeglasses is still required for certain situations. Injuries sustained during the crash effected permanent damage to her right foot and ankle. This would eventually lead to a number of surgeries between the ages of 16 to 19 resulting in 78% of the bone and ligaments in the effected areas being replaced with synthetic materials. Current capabilities within acceptable standards.

If TV was to be believed then we know what happened. Aliens that crash landed on the moon abducted the spacecraft and cloned Scotty from the DNA remains in order to make the needed repairs to their ship but they got confused that he wasn't really an engineer but with his plucky spirit and fist full of honorary engineering degrees made the needed repairs out of pieces of the left over Apollo landers, a moonbugy tire, and Alan Sheppard's golfball. Honestly, if I've heard right they only send a portion of the cremated remains up just in case of something like this. I think depending on which "package" you buy you either just come back down after a couple of orbits or you burn up on reentry anyways. Also, how many times has he been shot up into space? I heard he got the space burial years ago. Is this an old story or was the craft just not scheduled for reentry until recently?

It has been sometime since I read it but I liked "The Galactic Whirlpool". "My Enemy,My Ally" seemed to get distracted by trying to show how racially diverse the Enterprise and Starfleet was with all the random aliens. The freedom of imagination rather than a special effects budget hurt the story more than helped I believe. That, and the part where the Romulans are showing the Enterprise crew hand-to-hand combat moves and everyone just jumps in like it's a family reunion just seemed silly. "The Romulan Way" I loved the simple yet informative (anecdotal?) history lessons in half the book. I actually skipped ahead and read all of those parts. I still have yet to finish the main story portion. I would like to get a hold of the novelizations of the TOS episodes. I felt several episodes would have been great if more detail could have been given. I fear though that the writer will take the story in the opposite direction I had wished it to go.

Because the floating hologram it would produce exceeds the normal fx budget of a single episode. Many of these limitations could be attributed to just not needing all the bells and whistles. Simpler is also better in extreme conditions. The usefulness of a touchscreen display is questionable when the power goes out and all you want to do is open the escape hatch. This is why American aircraft carriers still use a plain board and little models to keep track of their aircraft.

Actually, Star Trek was the first to have cell phones and bluetooths. iTunes was inspired by a Next Gen episode. Maybe Apple should watch more Borg episodes for a better world domination plan.