Second Officer's Log

[Cmdr JFarrington 0]

Second Officer's Log, Stardate 510306.22

Cmdr Jami Farrington, MD

USS Manticore, NCC 5852

 

What was it about an officer's chair that made it a matter of life or death when it wasn't just right?  Jami stared at Atragon's defunct chair and realized that, no matter how comical it appeared, she would be as disturbed as he if it had happened to her.  An officer's chair was personal space, treated with the utmost respect and not given up lightly.  From the parent at the dinner table, to the CEO of a corporation, one's chair symbolized authority, power, position, presence . . . in short, everything that person was.  

 

Jami remembered sneaking into her father's office and sitting in his chair, only to be shooed away when he entered.  "You'll get your turn to sit there some day," he chided.  

 

Then there was the "Command Chair" at the academy, often called "THE Chair" or "The Hot Seat," sat in at one's peril.  To sit there invoked a mixture of awe and trepidation.  Generations of cadets had sat there - from the very first crew of Enterprise, to the famed James T. Kirk, and countless others.  Sometimes that chair seemed to take on a mind of its own.  New cadets, especially, remembered it encouraging them to greater achievement, or whispering their impending doom.  There was a certain feel, a certain warmth or chill, even a certain smell the academy exam command chair held — remembered to one's dying day.

 

Jami ran her hands along the arm-rests of Captain Sovak's chair, where she sat in his absence.  She knew every inch of it, where the pad depressed because of Sovak's habit of resting his elbows on it in contemplation.  The left arm-rest had a slight scratch that Jami picked at unconsciously when she sat there — how the scratch got there she didn't know, but it came within easy reach of her fingers, and the blemish brought back a buried memory.

 

Manticore's XO chair.  Captain Sovak's chair.  His brother, Commander Adam Vern, used to sit here. Only a few weeks after Manticore launched, Jami was sitting in this very chair when the command chair exploded, killing him instantly.  It had been an accident — a horrible, inexcusable accident.  After working feverishly to revive him, Jami had pronounced him dead, only a few feet away from where she now sat.

 

The command chair.  In it one found victory or defeat, life . . . or death.  

 

It was understandable that Atragon would be disturbed about the condition of his chair.  Jami was thankful that it had only broken this time, and she hoped that whatever else broke on Manticore during this cruise would be minor. Adam Vern, she whispered. Let us not have another Adam Vern.