You’ve been assigned a command. The USS Canterbury. You’re welcome.

Those ten little words were just guaranteed to ruin his day. Especially when they came from his father. It hadn’t even been a comm call, just a message routed to his personal inbox.

Zach set his jaw, and smiled at the ensign walking past him in the corridor as he headed up to the bridge. The Canterbury, his new command, was a definite step up from the USS Hild, the Reliant class his father had somehow managed to get him assigned to as CO back in the heart of federation territory.

Not that he had anything against the Reliant class. The Hild had been a solid ship. But it had been all shuttling low level ambassadors and checking relays, which wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind when he’d dreamt of his career in the big chair.

Of course, he’d done his duty with the professionalism expected of a Starfleet officer and a smile on his face. A Reliant class was still a starship, with a crew who had looked to him for leadership and guidance and even if he’d thought his duties were boring, he was just a small cog in the machine of the fleet.

The Canterbury though, was definitely not a Reliant class. She was a Lamarr and she was, in a word, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. She was also a Long-range explorer, and that was what called to him. Getting out there… the call of the stars and deep space. Which meant, despite his father’s message, Admiral James Edward Murphy most definitely had not had anything to do with his command assignment. If he had, then Zach would probably have been assigned to garbage runs or something.

The doors to the turbolift swept open and the sight of the bridge drove everything else from his mind. They were still in dock, waiting the last of their crew to board, which meant that there were only a few crew on the bridge. He nodded to them as he crossed the space, heading toward his ready room. One thing they did not tell you about command was the paperwork. There was a tonne of it he had to get through before they headed out, not least of which was checking on his division ship and deciding on an XO.

One thing he didn’t expect was his ready room to already be occupied. A tall lieutenant commander stood in front of the windows, her hands clasped loosely behind her back as she looked out.

“Anything interesting out there?” He quipped as he dropped the padds he was carrying onto his desk, to join those already on there. He ignored the fact that there were significantly more on there than this morning. Perhaps his father had decided on death by paperwork instead of keeping him safely within the federation’s borders.

She turned, and damned if that neat twist of her feet wasn’t straight off some parade square somewhere. Blonde with a piercing gaze, she was memorable, that was for sure.

“Depends if you’re a ship spotter, I guess,” she said, with something that might have been a smile, if she hadn’t been assessing him just as much as he was assessing her. She wore yellow, which meant she could be anything from operations to security. His bet was security, given how tall she was, and the way her uniform fit.

It was only as he got closer, offering his hand to shake that he realised just how tall she was. She easily topped him by a couple of inches and he wasn’t a small guy.

“I’m Murphy,” he said. He didn’t add he was the captain. He didn’t see the point. She was in his ready room, waiting for him, so he assumed she already knew who he was. In the back of his mind, he ran through the personnel files for security and ops, trying to place who she might be. 

“Bennett,” she replied as she shook his hand. Her grip was firm, and he felt the latent strength in it, like she could have crushed his hand without thinking about it. Every instinct he had said she wasn’t human, just looked like it. “Chief Engineer, reporting for duty, sir.”

His eyebrow winged up a little. “Seriously? Well damn, my bet was on security. Pleased to meet you, Commander.”

Her lips quirked a little, the corners of her eyes creasing in a way that made him assess her age upward of his initial estimate.

“Likewise, sir. and yes, most people think that. It’s the resting bitch face,” she waved her hand vaguely in the direction of her face, her expression dead-pan.

“Errr… I’m sure not. You have a…” He paused for a second, then picked up seamlessly. “…perfectly pleasant expression.”

She cracked a small grin. “It’s the height. You can say it, sir, I’m used to it.”

“Guilty as charged,” He chuckled. “I apologise for the assumption.”

“No harm done.” Her gaze slid past him to his desk. “I see your desk is about the same state as mine, so I’ll leave you to it.”

He looked back at his desk and shook his head. “They never tell you about the paperwork, do they?”