“Just hold still” Kyungmi said to her mother as she placed the cold packs on either side of her mother’s bare knee.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in the main cabin with the rest of the junior officers and crewmen?”

“I am, but your stateroom is more comfortable and you do need to be ready for our arrival” Minna’s daughter replied.

For the next ten minutes while young officers and crew fought over overhead compartment space and squeezed into tight seating, Minna and Kyungmi Chang enjoyed the comforts of the smaller of the transport’s two staterooms, which were reserved for dignitaries, and where none were present, officers ranked Captain (O-6) and above or Master Chiefs (E-9).

As a senior NCO, Nami’s position was not one that most civilians understood. Even the freshest ensign straight from the academy was of a “higher” rank, but everyone understood very clearly that it was the Master Chief who had more power. Even among Master Chiefs, of which some vessels had more than one, the Chief of the Boat was the only one who was part of the command team, and like the First Officer, was often called upon to lead away missions or even to assume command of the ship when necessary.

Kyungmi understood the dynamic better than most for in addition to the Master Chief being more than twice her age, she was, of course, her mother. While Kyungmi had not only been permitted, but encouraged to pursue her own path in the arts and sciences rather than her mother’s military and law enforcement background, she’d still been raised under strict military discipline. As a child, she often complained to her friends that instead of a mother she had a drill sergeant, but when she arrived at Starfleet Academy and found herself suffering almost none of the stress and anxiety of her classmates she was extremely grateful for that same upbringing.

The trip to the repair yard was just over two hours as theirs was the third stop, but Minna and Kyungmi were comfortable. Midway through the voyage a steward even came in offering tea or coffee. The voyage was over soon enough and the two women disembarked last, preferring to enjoy the comfort of the stateroom over fighting a crowd. As they made their way off the platform, however, they were quickly separated by their relative positions as a young crewman completely ignored the junior officer, while scanning in Minna’s orders and then offering to show her to her quarters on the Endeavor and fetch her luggage. Clearly the man didn’t know that Minna had already served as Chief of the Boat under Captain Demitriou, who along with most of Endeavor’s crew was killed at the Battle of Sol.

While two commissioned officers survived, a junior engineer and one of the armory officers, Minna was the only surviving member of the command team and assumed command during the battle after the entire bridge crew was killed.  Minna herself avoided that same fate by only three seconds when Captain Demitriou sent her down to the armory to manually direct the phase canons after the bridge linkage went down. The lift doors closed just as the entire bridge was exposed to the vacuum of space.

Minna accepted the luggage delivery offer, but politely refused the escort and instead walked, or rather limped with her daughter to the main docking umbilical. She’d make sure that her daughter at least had a female roommate with no negative marks for behavior from the academy, and then head up to what had to be a brand new bridge module to report in to the new captain. She knew nothing about Captain Campbell other than that he’d served with distinction at Sol and like her, had assumed command when his captain was taken out of the fight. Captain Paulson, Campbell’s mentor, Minna had met once or twice, but couldn’t claim to know. Still, she understood when a captain took another officer under their wing, they tended to be people with that special something. Captain Dimetriou had it, and Nami hoped that Captain Campbell did too. If he didn’t, she’d make sure to give it to him.