Story: Providence

Summery: While the Enterprise is undergoing extensive pre-launch recruiting and last-minute checks, Tasha Yar is recruited to investigate suspicious behavior aboard the deep-space explorer USS Providence, which has limped its way back to the Utopia Shipyards, along side the newly assigned first officer for the ship. What secrets does the Providence crew hide? And does their first officer truly belong with them, or are his talents best used elsewhere? (Works as a stand alone or as a part of the ongoing Pars Fortunae works I'm writing.)

Initial Upload: 3/24/2017 Time frame: Pre-Farpoint Rating: K / G (The occasional "damn.")

Author Notes: A thank you to all that read "Matters at Hand," which fueled enough of my desire to continue on with these works. This one is a nice little mystery story which shows the teamwork that eventually becomes D/T because having it drop from the sky during "The Naked Now," doesn't work for me. Both characters deserve better.

I am currently working on an ongoing series that is looking to patch the canon crazy and other crack that broke out in earnest after Roddenberry's death and make me less *ahem* offended by the concept of Sela. I sure as hell have my own list, but feel free to drop me a line with the things that drove you nuts from TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and even ENT and I'll see what I can write my way out of. I'm more into collaborative work anyway.

Please ask before reposting. I like to know where my stuff is and, even more than that, who's leaving comments.

Oooo! One last thing. I love music playlists and have a few ideas for all the characters. Suggestions welcome!

"Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans."
― Allen Saunders

The PADD clattered to the table. Save me from the boredom! Whatever functioned as Tasha's mental engine had just about hit a warp core breech. The headache pounded at the sides and front of her temples, and her stiff muscles felt as if they could double as durasteel cables.

She had been recruited to the Enterprise as one of Captain Picard's first choices for his crew, and she was taking her new role as Security Chief very seriously. That meant sandwiching in a time between a handful of short-term assignments to vet each potential crew member, civilian, diplomat, and contractor attached to Starfleet's new flagship having its final preparations being added in. Picard had his list. Starfleet had theirs and she wanted to assure Jean-Luc that his trust in her was not – as she had already overheard a few times now – misplaced. Considering the brutal end of the last ship named Enterprise twenty years ago she blamed no one at command for the extended caution.

Oh, Captain Picard had been nothing but reassuring while also demanding high standards, but, as she got up and cross the room, she caught a glimpse at herself in the window. Despite her gold uniform, perfectly shined boots, and the hint of mascara she wore, she could still see the edges of a Turkana street rat blinking with unbelief back at her. If anything, her attempts at a semi-androgynous appearance made the resemblance to what she had been to what she was now all that more striking. Her body betrayed her in puberty with graceful curves and (for a human) a slightly taller than average build, much of which was centered in thin legs and a long waist which were anchored by slimmer hips. These "gifts" of genetics had made her a target in the colony, so she unconsciously held her form like a drawn bowstring, ready to launch an arrow at the first approaching foe. She could never bring herself to have her hair any longer than the close crop she currently sported, and her above average height would now, with the loosest of clothing, only make her appear like a young man at a distance.

The fact that she was even thinking these things was what set her apart from those in the Federation. Everything from her walk to the tips of her fringe of bangs was designed as either a warning or a kind of stand-by camouflage she couldn't make herself undo.

She sighed. She was doing it again. As she rubbed her shoulders, Tasha started the mental litany of how older people, particularly older men, in positions of power could and often did have motives other than sexuality for keeping younger women in their employ. The Federation, she reminded herself, did not need her to downplay or upsell her sexual assets in order to be useful. They only requested her physicality in terms of restraining a threat to the ship or others or otherwise staying on top of her duties.

It was just...it wasn't like that on the colony. The powerful had access to soldiers, drugs, food, and sex. If one served them, one was expected to give any or all of them without hesitation to the warlord, gang leader, or whomever they, the powerful, favored. Even now, she irrationally wondered when the other shoe was going to drop regarding Picard, even when she knew full well they were both professionals, and that her crush was fueled by reasons that were frankly insulting to them both. For that and a million other reasons, there would never be a proverbial shoe to drop.

Her hands fell on the sides of the small porthole window she'd been using as a mirror. As Tasha used the leverage to unlock her muscles, she thought of the fact she'd been off Turkana IV almost as long as she'd lived on it; twelve years to fifteen. She was hard-pressed to think of events in her life that could not be classified as either medical treatments, therapy, training, or her duty to Starfleet. Picard had asked her about it, and she admitted there had been so much to take in that doing anything else hadn't quite "taken."

"So no personal attachments?" He asked.

She felt her crush flare up. Instead of looking at him, she reached down and put more sugar in her coffee. "No, sir. Not even an 'ex,' attachment. I'm completely at the Enterprise's disposal."

Consciously, she adjusted her breathing to take in more oxygen. "Tasha," she muttered herself. "I know this is the best you could have ever hoped for back then – but I... I think we can hope for more now."