Author's Note: This story has long been in my incomplete works folders. With the premier of Star Trek Picard, I have decided to dust it out, and finish it, along with writing some stories that merge Marrissa into the new canon. As a result of the new canon, several of my stories no longer fit at all, most notably those fitting in "The Last Romulan War" which occurred after the date of the Hobus Supernova.
You may expect some revision of some stories as a result of this as well, and the ongoing revision of Cadet Cruise as Remember the Maine, is getting some work done on it.
Because this story has been in the works so long, it is quite possible that there is some uneveness in writing, and there is a good chance that as I work on it, I'll have to go back and fix something. In any case, this is set almost immediately after the story Endeavor's Beginning and is meant to iron out Marrissa's original command crew and set up for further adventures.
Chapter One Stellar Cartography
It had been a long time since Marrissa had even been in Stellar Cartography on a starship. Once upon a time, it had been a room which she had wanted to live in. When she was working on her quantum filament project her teacher had gotten her an hour's use of the room. She'd spent the first ten minutes just staring at the stars projected on the dark blue walls.
Today she had two reasons for being in Stellar Cartography. The first was because a dispute over sensor resources had developed between two members of the staff, and the second was because she wanted to see if her work on quantum strings was still valid. Technically the sensor resource problem was more Jay's job, as First Officer, but she understood the field of stellar cartography much better than he did. So she'd decided to preempt his actions on the matter and deal with it herself, leaving Jay to handle the ongoing problem with the pilots.
Neither of the two officers she needed to speak to where in yet, so she brought up her old program and began to add recent sightings of quantum filaments to the old data she'd used almost a decade before.
She was still working ten minutes later when the door opened behind her. Marrissa wouldn't have noticed, except for the argument that quickly developed.
"Quantum Filament sightings … a much neglected field of study," a low-pitched voice said.
"There have been plenty of studies out there over the last two hundred years if you'd just bother to look them up," a higher pitched voice said.
"Oh no, not more on how people neglect the old studies preferring to go with the newest and latest theory," the lower voice said. "I tell you all the comprehensive data is in the appendix of that article. Even if you don't accept the young girl's conclusions, the data is there and available. She even got data from the early Vulcan star charts. You do this with every single study released in the last two decades."
"I didn't with Soval's study of cosmic string movement," the high voice said. Marrissa just had two more to enter now.
"He's a colleague of yours from way back, and credits you for that frequency modulation chain that really doesn't work," the low voice said. "I wonder where the Captain is? She's supposed to be here to talk about our sensor requests."
"Yes, where is she, and you, what are you doing here?" the high voice said placing his hand on Marrissa's shoulders.
Marrissa allowed herself to be spun around. "Finishing up a little work on a private research project," Marrissa said, as she came to a stop facing the two Stellar Cartographers. "Doctor Danner, Doctor Faust, you are early … either that or it took longer than I thought to enter the latest data. Computer, run theory prove program Marrissa Two on data set Revised 2269 Science Project."
"Working," the computer said.
"Gentlemen, I have layered on my desk about 12 decks up a pattern of conflicting sensor requests canceling out each other out from both of you since I took command," Marrissa said. "I don't know what causes you to do this, but it stops today."
"And how are you going to stop that?" the deep voiced Doctor Danner said.
Marrissa sat there in her seat a while, staring at the two Cartographers. "From this date forward all sensor requests form Stellar Cartography that either of you wish to submit must have the other's signature on them," she said with a smile. "Should neither of you submit a request by 0900 on any day, well, I find that I'm in need of a little time to search for quantum strings. Rather than let the sensors go idle, I think I'll exercise a little captain's prerogative."
"Program complete," the computer announced.
"But Captain," the two doctors said almost in unison.
"Computer route results to the Ready Room and clear display of additional data," Marrissa ordered, standing up. "I leave it to good scientific debate for you both to decide Stellar Cartography's sensor usage. Good day Gentlemen."
Marrissa exited the room, only to hear of the fight that developed after she left from Lt. Nishihata, Doctor Johnson, and Clara.
Lieutenant Asami Nishihata had a five centimeter advantage over her new Captain in height. It was the only advantage she thought she had. She'd been on the Endeavor since she had left the academy five years ago. She wasn't a expert with swords. Her phaser accuracy wasn't in the top ten percent in the fleet. She was near the bottom in security on the Endeavor in unarmed combat. The only thing she had going over most of her counterparts in security was that she'd taken a couple more command courses.
At one time, Nishihata had hoped to take the command track, but she'd been sidelined into Security. Her advisor had called her unsure, tentative. Those were two traits she'd tried to overcome since she had changed majors.
Today, she'd been less that successful. It had started when she tried to break up the fight in Stellar Cartography. She had failed. Her nose still hurt from where it had been broken. Then there was the mysterious case of the disappearing interphasic space generator. She'd stumbled through the questioning, having no idea exactly what an interphasic space generator did.
Her senior officers were not following her procedures … and to top it all off, her boyfriend had just broken up with her because of her new post.
Nishihata punched her pillow hard, before burying her tear stained face in it. Maybe tomorrow would be better. Maybe it would be a lot worse.
Lieutenant Commander Jay Gordon was one of those souls who took everything in stride. Not many people had ever seen him get mad. His role as First Officer was in many ways his role in life. He supported people, made sure the little details were handled on the ship which the Captain couldn't attend to. Of course, on a ship the size of the Endeavor, he needed a lot of help. The First Officer's Personal Staff was much greater on the Endeavor with it's seven fifty people than the two fifty on the Stargazer, his previous post. There he just had a yeoman, and the quartermaster/bartender.
On the Endeavor, Jay was directly over the Quartermaster with his staff of five and had two yeomen, all of which where twice his just about eighteen years. Tomorrow was, in fact his birthday. This piece of data hadn't yet gotten around to the rest of the Endeavor's crew, and Jay felt it quite likely that the two officers on the ship who did know it would have forgotten it. This didn't bother him. Being so young at such high of rank had made him prefer that his age not be brought up. It only led to problems, and now that he finally had to shave every once in a while, no one was bringing his age up when they met him anymore, to his relief.
It was even worse for his Captain and long-time friend. Marrissa had been the youngest Ensign, Lieutenant junior grade, Lieutenant, Lieutenant Commander, Commander, and now Captain. True someone else now held that youngest Ensign mark, but that didn't stop Marrissa from suffering undo stress as a result of the attention that came with those marks.
Jay had long attempted to keep his best friend on an even keel in the face of great stress. For the most part he'd been very successful. Recently he'd finally admitted what his other reason for following Marrissa. His mother had been right when she'd said that he was madly in love with Marrissa. It had just taken him five years to admit that.
At the moment, he stood right outside the Captain's quarters. He tried to think of it as that. If he thought of it as Marrissa's room, he was highly likely to totally forget the duty he'd come to talk about. Marrissa's room had long been some place to relax and explore a bit, after all. He pressed the chime on the Captain's Door.
Marrissa's soft voice responded to the chime, "Enter." The door opened and just three steps into the room he spotted Marrissa and all thoughts of official business left. She wore a deep blue crotch length gown, as she stood by the replicator, having just picked up a glass of what he quickly identified as strawberry wine. Her hair was unbound, cascading down to her shoulders in waves, the product of a recent visit to Essex. "Your usual I assume?"
Jay could only nod, as she ordered a large root beer for him. She handed it too him and took a seat on the sofa. Marrissa tucked her feet under her as he sat down next to her on a overstuffed chair. He could see her deep red panties, and it was a bit distracting until she smiled and shifted positions. She held the glass between her thumb and forefinger, as the red wine moved inside it.
"So, Jay." Marrissa smiled at him as he tried to collect himself again. It wasn't easy when she was sitting there looking like the Princess she was.
"I just came from the Science Section, Lieutenant Commander Ursel just turned in his resignation as Chief Science Officer," Jay said. It hadn't been entirely unexpected. Ursel had a record of threatening to resign to pursue research instead of running the department.
"Then we promote Markovic to fill the spot and count our blessings," Marrissa said. She shifted again, revealing those red panties again. They were tight and hid none of her lower body's contours. "I'll want to see him in my office tomorrow to give him the good news. Any other ship's business?"
"No, not that I can think of," Jay said. Marrissa was just too darn distracting in that gown. He moved across the gap to join her on the sofa. Somehow the wine glass and his own mug of root beer made it to the table before they started kissing. There was just a teaspoon's worth of the strawberry wine swirling in the glass as he gathered his girl friend into his embrace.