Her Chance Has Come

[Josephine Lessard 0]

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?!