Changes: A KJ Story by M Hathaway ************
Nightwatch. Despite being scheduled for overnight Bridge duty every Tuesday and Thursday, Ensign Harry Kim still loved the opportunity. He was in command of the Bridge in the usually uneventful hours the alpha shift was resting. That means that he got to sit in the captain s chair and make decisions that pertained to course and speed which was often set before nightwatch.
Minor course corrections were given his discretion as long as Voyager continued to the Alpha Quadrant or other preset destination. Major corrections or localized emergencies necessitated an officer with a higher clearance code which meant informing Chakotay or Tuvok. Ship wide issues including major emergencies or hostile aliens necessitated alerting the captain thus starting alpha shift early.
It was made extremely clear that he was to be very judicious on when to wake the command team. Commander Chakotay was a little more understanding if Harry made an incorrect decision to wake him for a trivial matter; Captain Janeway wasn t so, although she usually reined in her irritation enough to educate Harry on the matter before disappearing into her ready room.
Harry was hoping for a quiet night. Quiet, so Voyager s command team had a chance to get a good night s rest since the day was long and stressful. A failed first contact had resulted in losing an opportunity to collect needed supplies including deuterium. Fortunately, the captain managed to keep the Balou from attacking. But they were a day or so off their original course. Not that it mattered much. A day or so added to what was still projected to be a decades long journey.
As far as Harry was concerned, the captain, Commander Chakotay and Tuvok were all in their quarters sleeping. The captain always did better when she slept despite her assurances that she could function without. Meditation usually centered the Vulcan tactical officer and Chakotay often visited with his spirit guide during these hours so Harry really hoped for nothing out of the ordinary.
Glancing up from his PADD, Harry surveyed the nightwatch crew. A motley crew comprised of junior officers and former Maquis often left to wild discussions on ship s events. Rumors were rampant, especially when the conn officer had nothing to do. A pretty blond woman sat at conn tonight. Ensign Laney, he thought, was a gifted officer. She had graduated in his class at the Academy although they never shared any classes.
The young man at tactical, a Bajoran, was a Maquis crewmember. Soft spoken, but very serious, he didn t seem to care that Tuvok assigned him to the Bridge during nightwatch. Harry wasn t sure if the crewman knew the level of trust being placed on him. Starfleet regulations would not have necessarily allowed Bridge access let alone access to the tactical station to those who hadn t graduated Starfleet Academy. But if Tuvok was okay with it, so was the captain.
A young Vulcan woman was at the engineering station. She was somewhat of a mystery to Harry. T Pana seemed to find him fascinating and had no issues bringing up logic just to frustrate Harry when he would try to bring up any illogical discourse to help pass the time. Lieutenant Torres seemed to find satisfaction in randomly changing the nightwatch engineering assignment especially when Harry developed a rapport with the engineer. T Pana seemed to be a personal favorite of the chief engineer.
The ops station was unmanned during Harry s nightwatch assignments so that he had something to do. Of course, this wasn t always the case during the first nightwatch assignments Harry was put in charge of. But, he always seemed to take over ops instead of staying at the command level when something happened. So, Tuvok decided it was illogical to assign anyone but Kim to ops during these nightwatch sessions.
So far, nothing was out of the ordinary. Harry noted the sensors were fairly quiet. Nothing to disturb anyone, although it made for a longer evening.
Sir, I m getting a sensor ghost off our port bow. The young Bajoran reported.
Ghost?
Sensors were reading normal background noise, then a blip of sorts.
On screen? Harry said not expecting to see anything. And sure enough, there was nothing but stars on the viewscreen.
Recalibrate sensors, crewman. Harry went to the tactical station to verify that the Bajoran was doing the calibration properly before going to his ops station.
Sensors were now clear, but not before a momentary disruption to the shield bubble was recorded. It was only recorded for a fraction of a second which would not even have shown up if it weren t for Seven s recent Borg modifications to the sensor grid. Since the sensor grid was now back to normal, there was no need to alert Chakotay or Tuvok. The sensor ghost had vanished and the shields were at full strength so all was well.
The remainder of the evening was uneventful with exception of the gossip Ensign Laney was bringing up. The latest junior officer matchup between a young crewmember in engineering and a junior science officer. Scandal since that science officer had previously dated another crewmember in stellar cartography.
T Pana added that this gossip was illogical. To which Harry replied, loosen up.