Jennifer “Jenn” Douglas stood in her undergarments and stared at the uniform laid out on the bed with her hands resting on her hips. The only sound was the hum of air vents. A faint tang of ozone filled the temporary quarters aboard Starbase 86. That cool air whispered past her bare skin, leaving goose bumps, against her motionless form.

Discomfort never bothered her. At fifty-four, she had lived as primitively as any Federation citizen, from swimming in glacial runoff and chasing cattle horseback to crawling through muddy trenches ankle deep. There were times she was shivering so violently that she worried she would alert the Jem’hadar.  She was used to the cold, the wet, the mud, and the dull ache of exhaustion.

This was different.  It was humiliation.

She had never cared much about rank. She never dreamed of the center seat, and she sure as hell never wanted that red uniform. Teal was her passion, and whether it was Ensign or Fleet Admiral, all she wanted was the earth grinding under her fingernails, the snap of roots tearing free, the rough scrape of a trowel ripping through overburden to get at the bones of history.

But where she went in the fleet had been her choice. She had agreed to her captain’s offer to leave science and serve as his executive officer. If she ever wanted to be captain, she deserved that decision, too. Now, because of one damned reprimand, that door was sealed shut with a plasma welder.

She snatched up the uniform jacket, pausing before forcing herself to look at it. The three pips on her collar gleamed under the harsh artificial lights; one of the solid gold pips had been gutted, replaced with a black half-pip. It hung there defiantly, taunting her like a giant scarlet letter A against the red wool.

Swearing, the hard consonants reverberated off the walls like gunfire.

If she didn’t want to be a captain, what did it matter?  No, this gnawed at the pit of her stomach like hungry rats, and it wasn’t because options had been closed to her.  She had failed and earned a black mark, deserving or not. When the fleet captain ordered her to take command of the Pendragon after her captain was relieved, she told him to kick rocks. That defiance had sunk her like an anchor. And she would do it again. There wasn’t a chance in hell she would betray her captain, a man who was a brother to her in every way but blood.

But that didn’t change the fact that she disobeyed a direct order and was complicit in the crimes of others. That reprimand would follow her everywhere she went. No captain would willingly take on the liability of someone like her and put her in a leadership position.  Paradoxically, Jenn sat in a liminal place. Too old and too high a rank to be just another crew member, and an officer proven to be a problem to place in leadership, leaving her no place on a starship, even in the science department.

And what self-respecting research outpost is going to take me on? She told herself.  All the same baggage on a Starship exists, coupled with her war record.  It’s all freaking there, black and white in my service record. The PTSD diagnosis, which I turned down every counseling appointment, was noted in my psyche profile.

“We saved eight hundred people on that ship!” she hissed, not caring if her neighbors could hear her tirade through the walls. “To hell with Command.”

Letting out a long sigh of resignation, she pulled on the jacket like she had done so many times before, and her mind slid back to that courtroom, yesterday’s events intruding into her consciousness. It had been expected that she would arrive in court in her dress uniform. She did not. She already knew the outcome.  She had pleaded guilty to the charges; there was no sense in fighting them. The only thing left in the air was the sentence.

And why would I be uncomfortable getting fired? she asked herself.

She sat silently at the defendant’s table, her advocate beside her. There was tension in the air, and Jenn’s stomach simultaneously felt like it was full of lead weights and about to flit off like a swarm of butterflies. The captain’s panel stared back at her from across the room, stoic and emotionless like the Olympic statues of  Greece.

My advocate is wearing cologne . It’s sandalwood scent, and something else? Leather?

The court was as silent as a coffin, except somewhere there was a soft tick like an old-fashioned clock, that she knew wasn’t there. Was there something in the air recirculators tapping against the ductwork?

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

“Does the prosecution have anything to add before we pronounce the verdict and issue the sentence?” The judge asked at last, looking up from a PADD, the court lights glinting off the four pips on his uniform, his white hair combed with meticulous care, and wrinkles etched deep lines across his face.

From the corner of her eye, Jenn caught the JAG standing. His chair legs groaned on the floor as it slid behind him. He tugged down the hem of his dress uniform, cleared his throat, and stepped to the side of his table so that he was in full view of the captain’s panel.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he started with his drawling Louisianaian accent, and Jenn was only half listening. “The defendants defied a direct order from a superior officer to retreat in the face of a Vaadwaur invasion of Buthalis III.  Their guilt is not in question. Both defendants admitted to insubordination, and as a result of their actions, the USS Pendragon was destroyed, and the fifty-six lives of the crew were put at risk.”

Yeah, I don’t like his cologne at all.  It’s not as bad as Pachullie, but Christ, it’s bad.

“You have all heard our closing statements. The facts are not up for debate, and the whys do not matter.  The chain of command is central to good order and discipline within the fleet. I ask that you issue a guilty verdict and attach the maximum available punishment, which is dishonorable discharges for both of them.”

The judge tapped his finger against the table and scowled, not at Jenn but in her general direction. She swallowed and stiffened.  He glanced at the other officers on the panel, and they all nodded. Clearing his throat, he sat back. “Will the defendant please rise?”

Jenn stood snapping to attention. Her eyes searched for something to focus on.  It was an odd shadow where wall met ceiling in the shape of an upside-down witch’s hat, dark against the boring grey Starfleet paneling. She could smell herself, sour with sweat and stress. She kept telling herself she didn’t care. The outcome was out of her hands, and she was not to worry.  She worried anyway.

But despite the turmoil, she did as her captain had taught her in moments like this: stand tall, shoulders back, never let them see they got to you. He had meant the Jem’hadar, but she figured it applied here just as well. She stared straight ahead, her expression flat and unreadable, the same look she used at the poker table that rattled other players.

She caught the judge pick up a PADD in her peripheral, he hesitated and then began to read from the device, “It is the judgment of this court that Commander Jennifer Anne Douglas has shown flagrant disregard for the chain of command by ignoring a direct order from a superior officer. Accordingly, this court finds her guilty. We understand that there were some mitigating circumstances caught between the group commander and her direct superior; as such, this court offers some leniency despite the prosecution’s recommendation of the fullest penalty available. She is hereby reduced in rank to Lieutenant Commander, and a formal reprimand will be inserted into her record along with the verdict of this court.”

Well, they didn’t kick me out, she thought. This might be worse, though.

The presiding captain rang the bell on his desk, the brass filling the court with the musical finality of a punctuation mark. “This court is adjourned.”

A murmur filled the room as a dozen overlapping voices filled the court. Jenn still hadn’t shifted her position, her eyes firmly fixated on the witch’s hat. Without shifting her gaze, and with the ceremonial precision of a samurai, she removed one of the gold pips from her collar and set it carefully on the desk in front of her.

“I will start the appeal paperwork as soon as I get to the office,” he advocate said, not even looking at her as he stuffed PADDs and other odds and ends into his case.

Jenn didn’t respond. She simply made a sharp right face, took three steps to the aisle between the defendant’s and prosecution’s tables. She made a brief pause, the heel of her right boot striking the deck with a harsh click. She then executed a second sharp right face and marched out of the courtroom, resisting the urge to cap the whole farce with a salute of her middle finger.

With the jacket still open in the front, Jenn dragged the trousers off the bed and pulled them on, buttoning them around her waist. She paused to stare at herself in the reflection playing across the glass of her sole window. Straight-backed and defiant, but there was defeat in her eyes. Some things never change.

Closing up the front of her jacket, she stepped out of her quarters and into an empty corridor.  Although she had no official assignment, she was still required to report for duty to the station CO in Ops.  She wasn’t looking forward to doing more busy work. Hell, it wasn’t even busy work.  It was the crap the station CO and XO didn’t want to do and dumped it on her.  This was equivalent to the 25th-century version of kitchen patrol, minus the sack of potatoes.

It was a short trip to the small administrative office she had been assigned. She had a broom closet in her childhood home that was bigger than this place. Squeezing between the wall and the desk, she sat down and activated her computer.  There they were. A dozen reports for her to take care of. Some tasks were straightforward, such as sending command reports to the admiralty for proofreading before finalization, but others, like requisition forms, were more complex.  Each one could take hours tracking down whatever items the requesting department needed.

“This is going to be a long day,” she said aloud. “I should have picked up a coffee first.”

Deciding to tackle the easiest task first, she went through the proofreads, which were still time-consuming to read and make notations on.  She was almost done with her second report when the door chime signaled.  Jenn’s soul nearly left her body. She didn’t even know the office had a door chime.

Taking a centering breath, she stilled her racing heart before speaking. “Enter.”

The doors parted, and a young man with striking red hair entered the office wearing a gold operations uniform. His eyes scanned the office, taking it in. Jenn shook her head and returned her attention to the report, her thumb imprint causing the PADD to let out a discordant beep. “I haven’t gotten to requisitions yet, Lieutenant. You can tell your captain I will try to take care of it by the end of the day.”

“Aye, well, I ken ye are busy ma’am, but this is no about a requisition.” The man had a strong Highland brogue.  It was so thick it bordered on cliché.

Jenn looked up, “Then what is this about, mister?”

“MacDonald, ma’am. Lieutenant Dougal MacDonald at your service. Captain Murphy wanted me to inform you that we will be leaving for Montana Station at 06:00 tomorrow.”

Not only is he a walking stereotype, he’s an anachronistic walking stereotype.

Jenn took a deep breath, set the PADD down, and folded her hands in front of her. She stared at the man, her hazel eyes never blinking. She had no idea why MacDonald was here, nor why he thought she needed to be on his ship when it departed.  She made a mental list of all scheduled departures from the station, and only one came to mind, the USS Sentinel.

“I still don’t know what that has to do with me,” Jenn said.

“I dinea ken lass. I was only told to make contact with you.”

Turning to he computer, there it was—a small inbox notification.  Opening it were two sets of orders. She was now assigned to the USS Gagarin, and the other was travel orders aboard the Sentinel, both signed by a Fleet Captain Fontana.

“So, I got a second chance,” she muttered.

“Ma’am?” MacDonald asked, confused.

Jenn laughed. After everything, it felt foreign in her throat. It was cathartic. It was as if all the tension since the Blackout came flooding out at once in a craze, cackle, and streaking down her face.  The lieutenant raised an eyebrow and took an involuntary step back.

“Thank you, Lieutenant she managed to say through breaths.  “And thank your captain. Tell them I’ll be there.”