p class="MsoNormal" /p
p class="MsoNormal"strongspan style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"- The span style="color: red;"Red Shirts- Part 1/spanspan style="color: white; mso-themecolor: background1;"Shirts Part-1/span/span/strong/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif; color: red;"Summary- Orions, explosions, the Neutral Zone?! What would you do if you're asked to put your life on the line and then pretend it never happened? I don't know what you would do, but I certainly know what Jenn would do. She'd do it her way./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;""Ever wonder if they even notice us?" Buddy leans in and whispers. I just shrug and grab my drink in my hand. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"Levy just scoffs and remarks, "Duh" Fletcher took his tiny peanut brain to the edge and asks, "Duh means yes, right? Or was that the 'No' duh?" I swear to the Traveller, that's the most complicated question he has ever asked. Mark, the bartender, comes in and finally gives me the Cellular Peptide cake I had asked for about half an hour ago. The burning look that I gave him does make him softly chuckle and answer, 'Broken Replicators. Some high medical officer tried to fix an EPS conduit and… that was the answer why Medical need to stay in Medical.'span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"I chuckle and manage to say, 'Apology accepted.' He serves me my cake and leaves. I greedily look at it but just as I stick my fork inside the slice, Fletcher shouts out, 'WOLF-377 WAS NOT AN INSIDE JOB!' /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"Apparently, he doesn't believe Levy's weird conspiracies. I just tried to ignore their argument by thinking to myself that Fletcher didn't even get 'Wolf-359' spelled right. Buddy keeps looking over to the next table with the Captain having a Martini while on her pad, slowly thinking about whom to promote. I just dropped my fork onto the table and sunk into my seat in the middle of the chaos./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"It's just another day. Another day with this nerdy Half-Vulcan named Buddy who just wants to care about getting up the ranks. Another day with my dumb but friendly Fletcher who tries to understand and fail in everything. Another day with this weird conspiracy theorist who doesn't believe in anything. Another day with looking in the mirror and seeing Ensign Jennifer, an Andorian trying to figure out how to be noticed. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"It's just another day./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"With the whole weird mind battle that I have with Mariner all the time, all of this ignorance just doesn't help. To the others, we're 'Red Shirts'. Ugh, I hate that name so much. I'm there, trying to be noticed by the Bridge crew as someone important but it's gotten to the point where I've just given up. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"So, there I was, looking at my now empty plate with a slight smudge of frosting on it. It's so much harder to concentrate when you're having a not-so-friendly argument that's catching people's attention. As every day, I have a list of things and jobs that I need to do. I get up from my chair and head over to the exit until something that hasn't happened for a long time happens. Commander Ransom grabs my elbow and makes me sit down with the Senior officers. I'm stunned at first, knowing the guy he is, I thought he wanted to make out or whatever. But that thought soon changed when I looked around, seeing that Commander Ransom was sharing a look with the rest. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"It was a tense bunch. We had Captain Freeman, of course, still holding the almost-finished Martini glass in one hand and a pad with the list of Ensigns in the other. There was Lt. Billups, just tensely looking at me as he slurps down some soup. Even Dr. T'ana and Lt. Shax at the other side of the table, secretly holding hands. Anyway, all that I'm say was that it was a weird bunch. Especially for me./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"I just gulped and stared at the Captain, kinda waiting for something like 'YOU'RE FIRED FOR WHATEVER AND WHATEVER. NOW GET THE [BLEEP] OFF MY SHIP' and the next second, I'm out the airlock. But what I got was the opposite. She slowly whispered, 'Act natural. You just got promoted… kind of.' /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"The others quickly gave me a smile, seeing how quickly I managed to brighten up. Heck, I didn't even listen to that last part and was immediately like 'Thank you so much! Looking forward to working with you' and got up from the table. Now that I think about it, it sounds so dumb to me. I didn't even know what position or Rank I got promoted to and I just gleefully got up to rub it in Buddy's face. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"Boy, I was wrong. Ransom grabbed my elbow and pulled me back, hissing 'Don't tell anyone! Stay.' My body was jolted into 'Follow Orders' mode and I sat back and then the Captain finished her Martini and put the glass down. Prolonging that was a very long explanation. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"So, apparently, they needed me to rank up so that I could go on this Gray-ops mission where I was supposed to fake my own death to get some Orions on my side, I think? Uh, basically, your typical Section-31 type mission to do some shady shit and then take some of the blame. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"It was so complicated but I could still clearly see why someone like me is supposed to do it. Because I'm a 'Red Shirt'. Because I'm Lower Decks and they don't wanna risk their own Seniors. Because they know that because I could die by Cardassians in an Escape Pod or by a psycho Jacked-up Klingon or whatever. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"I tried so hard to keep my frown off of my face, but it came through. The Captain was smart enough to understand what I meant, but she didn't say anything and just asked me to keep this private and then asked me to leave. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"I wanted to make a stand against this duty that I had just gotten but my body was still in 'Follow Orders' mode so I quietly went back to my table./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"Buddy was apparently looking at me the whole time, his mouth hanging open. I just sat back onto my seat and thought about what I had just heard. If you're best friend is Buddy, then you're forced to listen to a ton of information about random things. With that, I've known about so many people who've given away their lives in these kinds of mission… Fine. I only know about that Bajoran chick from the D who got blown up in an escape pod. Does Tasha Yar count? Probably not. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"Look, my point is, I can't do a highly profiled mission on my own. Heck, I can't find the right panel while fixing a broken replicator. How could I be altered to look human, then sneak into the Neutral zone which I never understand how a couple of drunk Orions came into the Neutral Zone but who am I to object. Literally EVERYTHING has to happen in there. Anyway, then I have to sneak in, double-fist Punch the shit outta everyone, fly the ship into another Romulan ship for sDramatic Purposes/s no-one to notice it's the Feds and beam out of the ship only seconds before it crashes into a cloaked Valdore. Then we somehow trade with a Ferengi for passage back to this planet at the edge of the Neutral Zone. Captain Freeman said to avoid getting raped by anyone. She said she's learnt from experience. After waiting for a month, I'll be back and they'll just fake blame me for doing a stunt and demote me back to Ensign. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"So, I decided to bend the rules just tiny little bit. And by tiny, I mean a lot. I tapped Buddy on his shoulder which made him snap out of his hazed expression and told him, 'I'm in quite a lot of trouble and I need your help.'/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"To Be Continued…/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed, sans-serif;"span style="font-size: 13.3333px;"u\/u/span/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"strongspan style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"- The span style="color: red;"Red Shirts- Part 1/spanspan style="color: white; mso-themecolor: background1;"Shirts Part-1/span/span/strong/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif; color: red;"Summary- Orions, explosions, the Neutral Zone?! What would you do if you're asked to put your life on the line and then pretend it never happened? I don't know what you would do, but I certainly know what Jenn would do. She'd do it her way./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;""Ever wonder if they even notice us?" Buddy leans in and whispers. I just shrug and grab my drink in my hand. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"Levy just scoffs and remarks, "Duh" Fletcher took his tiny peanut brain to the edge and asks, "Duh means yes, right? Or was that the 'No' duh?" I swear to the Traveller, that's the most complicated question he has ever asked. Mark, the bartender, comes in and finally gives me the Cellular Peptide cake I had asked for about half an hour ago. The burning look that I gave him does make him softly chuckle and answer, 'Broken Replicators. Some high medical officer tried to fix an EPS conduit and… that was the answer why Medical need to stay in Medical.'span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"I chuckle and manage to say, 'Apology accepted.' He serves me my cake and leaves. I greedily look at it but just as I stick my fork inside the slice, Fletcher shouts out, 'WOLF-377 WAS NOT AN INSIDE JOB!' /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"Apparently, he doesn't believe Levy's weird conspiracies. I just tried to ignore their argument by thinking to myself that Fletcher didn't even get 'Wolf-359' spelled right. Buddy keeps looking over to the next table with the Captain having a Martini while on her pad, slowly thinking about whom to promote. I just dropped my fork onto the table and sunk into my seat in the middle of the chaos./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"It's just another day. Another day with this nerdy Half-Vulcan named Buddy who just wants to care about getting up the ranks. Another day with my dumb but friendly Fletcher who tries to understand and fail in everything. Another day with this weird conspiracy theorist who doesn't believe in anything. Another day with looking in the mirror and seeing Ensign Jennifer, an Andorian trying to figure out how to be noticed. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"It's just another day./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"With the whole weird mind battle that I have with Mariner all the time, all of this ignorance just doesn't help. To the others, we're 'Red Shirts'. Ugh, I hate that name so much. I'm there, trying to be noticed by the Bridge crew as someone important but it's gotten to the point where I've just given up. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"So, there I was, looking at my now empty plate with a slight smudge of frosting on it. It's so much harder to concentrate when you're having a not-so-friendly argument that's catching people's attention. As every day, I have a list of things and jobs that I need to do. I get up from my chair and head over to the exit until something that hasn't happened for a long time happens. Commander Ransom grabs my elbow and makes me sit down with the Senior officers. I'm stunned at first, knowing the guy he is, I thought he wanted to make out or whatever. But that thought soon changed when I looked around, seeing that Commander Ransom was sharing a look with the rest. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"It was a tense bunch. We had Captain Freeman, of course, still holding the almost-finished Martini glass in one hand and a pad with the list of Ensigns in the other. There was Lt. Billups, just tensely looking at me as he slurps down some soup. Even Dr. T'ana and Lt. Shax at the other side of the table, secretly holding hands. Anyway, all that I'm say was that it was a weird bunch. Especially for me./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"I just gulped and stared at the Captain, kinda waiting for something like 'YOU'RE FIRED FOR WHATEVER AND WHATEVER. NOW GET THE [BLEEP] OFF MY SHIP' and the next second, I'm out the airlock. But what I got was the opposite. She slowly whispered, 'Act natural. You just got promoted… kind of.' /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"The others quickly gave me a smile, seeing how quickly I managed to brighten up. Heck, I didn't even listen to that last part and was immediately like 'Thank you so much! Looking forward to working with you' and got up from the table. Now that I think about it, it sounds so dumb to me. I didn't even know what position or Rank I got promoted to and I just gleefully got up to rub it in Buddy's face. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"Boy, I was wrong. Ransom grabbed my elbow and pulled me back, hissing 'Don't tell anyone! Stay.' My body was jolted into 'Follow Orders' mode and I sat back and then the Captain finished her Martini and put the glass down. Prolonging that was a very long explanation. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"So, apparently, they needed me to rank up so that I could go on this Gray-ops mission where I was supposed to fake my own death to get some Orions on my side, I think? Uh, basically, your typical Section-31 type mission to do some shady shit and then take some of the blame. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"It was so complicated but I could still clearly see why someone like me is supposed to do it. Because I'm a 'Red Shirt'. Because I'm Lower Decks and they don't wanna risk their own Seniors. Because they know that because I could die by Cardassians in an Escape Pod or by a psycho Jacked-up Klingon or whatever. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"I tried so hard to keep my frown off of my face, but it came through. The Captain was smart enough to understand what I meant, but she didn't say anything and just asked me to keep this private and then asked me to leave. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"I wanted to make a stand against this duty that I had just gotten but my body was still in 'Follow Orders' mode so I quietly went back to my table./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"Buddy was apparently looking at me the whole time, his mouth hanging open. I just sat back onto my seat and thought about what I had just heard. If you're best friend is Buddy, then you're forced to listen to a ton of information about random things. With that, I've known about so many people who've given away their lives in these kinds of mission… Fine. I only know about that Bajoran chick from the D who got blown up in an escape pod. Does Tasha Yar count? Probably not. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"Look, my point is, I can't do a highly profiled mission on my own. Heck, I can't find the right panel while fixing a broken replicator. How could I be altered to look human, then sneak into the Neutral zone which I never understand how a couple of drunk Orions came into the Neutral Zone but who am I to object. Literally EVERYTHING has to happen in there. Anyway, then I have to sneak in, double-fist Punch the shit outta everyone, fly the ship into another Romulan ship for sDramatic Purposes/s no-one to notice it's the Feds and beam out of the ship only seconds before it crashes into a cloaked Valdore. Then we somehow trade with a Ferengi for passage back to this planet at the edge of the Neutral Zone. Captain Freeman said to avoid getting raped by anyone. She said she's learnt from experience. After waiting for a month, I'll be back and they'll just fake blame me for doing a stunt and demote me back to Ensign. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"So, I decided to bend the rules just tiny little bit. And by tiny, I mean a lot. I tapped Buddy on his shoulder which made him snap out of his hazed expression and told him, 'I'm in quite a lot of trouble and I need your help.'/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed',sans-serif;"To Be Continued…/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-family: Bahnschrift Light SemiCondensed, sans-serif;"span style="font-size: 13.3333px;"u\/u/span/span/p