[USS Anaheim – Main Engineering]

”Alright people were docked. Let’s do this like engineers, bring me something you’re working on today and I’ll put forward my top choices to the captain to be the Assistant Chief Engineering Officer,” had been the rather bold and unorthodox decree from Lieutenant James Young, the bearded Chief Engineer. He had imagined doing this as a pure engineering test, and that one of his fellow Lieutenants would step up with something amazing. The truth was everyone had handed in good work but by far the best was from an enlisted member of the team, a Chief Petty Officer Vanessa Constable.

He sat in his office examining the device. It was clearly homemade, cobbled together from scraps and bits left over from the overhaul of the warp engines during their recent refit. But despite that it was beautiful, and it worked providing a portable and much smaller replicator than Starfleet made themselves, though so far it only could make coffee. He glanced at the woman who’d made it, the trouble was he knew the Captain was not going to be happy with a Petty Officer as second in charge of a section, yet he had made a promise.

“Look, I’m going to recommend you but the final decision is the Captain’s,” he said, ”but this is amazing. You should be proud regardless. Could you, maybe, take the officers exam?”

”Be an Ensign?” Constable made a face indicating that this was not a great plan in her mind. Ensigns were basically babies needing their hands held and diapers changed in her mind. She worked for a living, she was a gosh darn great engineer no matter what rank she had.

”Ensign Hume is Assistant Chief Security Officer,” Young pointed out, “It wouldn’t be long. A year maybe, then we’d bump you up to Lieutenant Junior Grade.”

That barely sounded better to Constable. She’d spent her whole life fixing things, building things. She was not a baby, and not going to pretend that she was some trainee just because her Captain had a thing about having officers in charge of departments. She had done good work, both in her current job and in her other deployments. She’s risen quickly because her superiors had seen that she was the best.

Yet rank had privileges, and on a California ship it included a private room. Not for an ensign maybe, but eventually, and that was something that she cared more about than a pip on her collar. Finally she nodded, “Okay I’ll take the Officer’s Exam, but it’ll be a bit I need to study. I want the promotion now and I want my own room.”

Lieutenant Young sat back, “That’s a lot of demands, okay. Look I’ll do what I can, though I can’t promise anything. You may have to meet with the Captain, but I’m sure that’s a formality. It’s more the Chief Petty Officer of it all, though he may like that, who knows?”

Constable took that in stride, and nodded, “Fair enough, thank you sir.”

[USS Anaheim – Ready Room]

The Captain peered at the Chief Petty Officer’s file again, “And you’re sure?”

”We haven’t had a disaster or anything, but her work is the best in the department and she’s capable. She says she’ll study for the Officer’s Exam,” he said, adding that last part in quickly to ensure it was covered off. The Captain nodded, obviously infavor of that point. An Ensign was a lot more acceptable running a department than a Petty Officer. Plus elevating someone was a feather in his cap, if she worked out he could take credit and if she didn’t well then it was Young’s poor decision to put her forward.

”Happy birthday Mister Young, don’t expect a present this year I’ll give you this,” he said making a note on the PADD and tossing it back across the desk to the Lieutenant. 

“Thank you sir,” Young said nodding.

”You should be enjoying the station now, go relax,” Hawthorne said, “I’m meeting with the Commodore today, but I want you all to have fun before this next mission begins.”

James nodded, rising and heading back to give the Chief Petty Officer the good news.

[USS Anaheim – Shuttle Bay 1]

Pr’Nor wanted a faster shuttle. The Anaheim was a workhorse, no doubt, and had a large number of capable shuttles for… well shuttling things to and from the ground. Yet the Vulcan had a very un-Vulcan like desire for something fast and flashy, exciting. She understood this was a desire born from being a pilot and wanting to prove herself. She also understood that it was illogical and beyond the scope of the Anaheim’s mission parameters. This was why she never vocalized such a desire, it would not do to start the humans on thinking that she had desires for a physical object in the way that they often did. Least of all when it was unattainable. 

Various Operations officers were hard at work, packing in supplies and the equipment that Starfleet’s Civil Engineering team would use on the planet. It seemed like boring, grueling work, which was a reason she was glad to be a pilot and glad to have risen in rank above grunt force manual labor. 

Tomorrow she would steer the Anaheim out on its next mission. A human might feel a tinge of pride, but Pr‘Nor simply felt the truth of this fact. Perhaps pride, though she would have not described it as such. Satisfaction maybe. A result of a good career, and being a great pilot and flight control officer. This was not Starfleet’s fanciest ship, newest, or most notable but it was hers or rather her charge. Tomorrow every life onboard would once more be in her hands, and it was hard not to feel something about that. Feel the size and the weight of it.

[USS Anaheim – Medical Lab]

Va’Tok handed the hypnospray to Doctor Mueller who set it in the drawer. The pair worked quietly and efficiently to each of their satisfaction. Both were Doctors and neither were particularly talkative, only communicating when something need to be said. Despite having her reservations about their Captain, Doctor Mueller liked the medical team that she found herself in charge of even the taciturn Vulcan Lieutenant who she had selected as her Assistant Chief Medical Officer. 

Deciding to try to bond with him, at least a little, on a personal level Mueller asked, “Tell my Doctor, do you have any unusual hobbies?”

The Vulcan cocked his head and thought for a moment, “I do not quite know how to quantify the word ‘unusual‘ in this context. To you my playing of a Vulcan lute may prove to be unusual but I have done so for many decades now and so it would be normalized to me.”

”So lute, got it. I’m just trying to make conversation,” she said.

”I see. Do you have unusual hobbies Doctor?” he asked in return.

”I used to collect butterflies,” Mueller said, “but I left my collection at home.”

”Surely the lifespan of Earth butterflies would have passed while you were in space,” Va’Tok pointed out puzzled.

”They were already dead,” Mueller said.

”Ah. I see, was killing them part of the satisfaction of owning them?” he asked.

Mueller sighed, and shook her head.