A/N: Thanks for everyone that is continuing to read this. I was very entertained by the various reactions to both Jo and Uhura in the last chap, theirs is a relationship I intend to continue developing. So, for those of you who were looking for more: Enjoy! - pj
The bridge crew came on duty at 0800 on the dot, per their routine, and everyone's eyes lingered momentarily on the young woman standing to the right of the Captain's chair, staring expectantly at the turbo lift.
Uhura hardly recognized her.
Jo had once again traded in the outlandish and loud wardrobe of her off-duty hours for the Starfleet regulation red minidress and boots. This time she'd even shed the clunky jewelry and her hair was pinned back in such a way that one hardly noticed the red tips.
"Good morning Lieutenant," she said, nodding in her direction. Uhura narrowed her eyes as she returned the gesture, unsure if the new Yeoman was making an effort or just being sardonic.
Spock raised an eyebrow, and then continued on his way to his station, a reaction Jo had expected.
Her gaze lingered a moment on Chekov, mostly because his eyes jerked away from her so fast she thought they might give him whiplash. The next time he made eye contact she made a point of winking in his direction, just to see his cheeks blush red.
Sulu caught her messing with Chekov and smiled, shaking his head as he turned around, preparing to plot a course upon the Captain's command.
"I see you live up to your reputation, Yeoman," he said, his serious tone belying his playful words. He didn't turn around as his hands slid across the smooth planes of his console.
"Always, Lieutenant," Jo responded, hands folded neatly behind her back as she waited or the Captain's arrival, which was always 10 minutes behind his officers, whether by accident or design, he would never say.
Right on time, relatively speaking, the turbo lift doors swished open, revealing a well rested Captain Kirk. His eyes did their usual brief sweep across the bridge and landed on Jo's face, he smiled.
"Good morning everyone."
"Good morning, Captain," echoed around the glowing space as Kirk approached his chair.
"Yeoman," he nodded at Jo, a twinkle in his eye that made her sure she'd made the right choice.
"Captain," she nodded, allowing a small smile to escape through her lips, "Here is the day's schedule," she produced a PADD from somewhere on her person and placed it in his hands, "our newest orders from Starfleet and a mission request from Leut. Commander Rodgers. He wants to help negotiate with the people of Breal'Four on the trade agreement. Apparently he spent some time there a few years ago."
Kirk scrolled through the contents of the PADD while she spoke, her voice even and businesslike just as she imagined a Yeoman ought to sound.
"Mr. Sulu, plot a course for the Haitain system, Warp One."
Jo paused while Sulu plotted the course, "You also have a meeting with department heads at 0930, a communiqué with Admiral Chioce at 1300 and Engineer Scott asked for five minutes. Any five minutes."
"Five minutes with Scotty is the same as twenty," Kirk quipped, handing the PADD back to her, Jo took it and swiftly replaced it with a second PADD, "you have to sign off on these mission reports before they're sent to Starfleet as well as a new entry in your Captain's log."
Kirk took it and nodded and Jo kept a smile to herself. She knew practicing this routine in the mirror would pay off.
"And here's your coffee." She said, producing the steaming liquid from behind her, "two creams and two sugars, right?" the uncertainty bubbling below the surface showed through a bit and Kirk gave her a reassuring smile.
"That's right." He paused, "well done, Yeoman. You studied hard, I take it."
"Harder than I'd like to admit, Captain," she smiled, as Kirk took a sip of the coffee.
He winced when the scalding coffee burnt his tongue, and contorted his face as the gross mixture slid down his throat.
"What's wrong?" Jo asked immediately, noticing the Captain making an effort not to gag. "I got it wrong, didn't I?"
He started to shake his head, raising his hand to stop her but was still working on swallowing.
"I did. I can't believe this," she sounded more annoyed than upset, "I knew this was gonna happen-"
"Jo-"
"This is why you don't cram before exams because you're bound to forget something and next thing you know you've failed and your car is getting taken away for a month."
"Jo," Kirk said again, this time catching her attention, "relax. I'm not going to court marshal you for getting my coffee wrong."
"It's just that I went over that letter like a hundred times and I can't believe I got that wrong and I-"
"Joanna. Relax."
She paused long enough to realize the crew was quite obviously trying not to be obvious about staring again, and winced, "how much?"
He grinned, discretely placing the coffee on the arm of his chair, "breathe, okay? You're doing great. No intergalactic incidents."
"Yet," she retorted quietly, and collected the PADDs he handed her and turned to make a swift exit to the ready room.
Kirk watched her go and then, seeing the Yeoman was safely out of earshot, he turned to Spock, "how does someone mess up replicated coffee?"
Spock merely raised an eyebrow, unable to come up with a satisfying answer.
---
Joanna emerged three hours later, having finally finished updating all the crew requisition forms and interdepartmental logs to the absolute best of her ability, then gone back through and made the corrections Uhura pointed out.
Now she had to make sure the Kirk updated his personal log and had signed off on all the reports she needed to transfer to Starfleet.
"Captain, I need…" she trailed off. The captain wasn't in his chair, and a quick glance around confirmed that he wasn't even on the bridge. Neither was Spock.
"Um, where's Jim?" She asked Sulu, who looked a little small and uncomfortable in the Captain's chair.
"Went to the planet. Something about the native drink being as close to real scotch as we're gonna get," Sulu said, replying to a communication that had come up on the MessageLink on the Arm of the chair.
"We outta just face it Sulu, our Captain is a frat boy," Uhura said from her seat a few feet behind.
Jo's instinct was to be offended on Jim's behalf, even if it was technically accurate. But something in the Lieutenants voice, coupled with the responding smirk from Sulu, held her back.
And left her feeling thoroughly confused.
"Okay," she said slowly, "but I thought the Captain wasn't supposed to leave the ship?" she said it as a question because she'd read so many Starfleet regulations in the past two days she really wasn't sure which ones were real and which ones she'd made up.
Sulu grinned, Uhura rolled her eyes, Chekov chuckled and Jo frowned.
"What'd I miss?"
Sulu just shook his head so Jo let the matter drop, a more pressing issue was at hand, "well, he's got a communiqué with Admiral Chioce at one...I mean," she paused, "1300."
She looked first to Uhura, hoping to hear something along the lines of 'don't worry; I'll take care of it'. To her chagrin, but not much surprise, Uhura gave her an insincere smile, shrugged, and turned back around to her station. She looked helplessly to Sulu.
"You're gonna have to take care of it, Yeoman." Sulu said, sounding more commanding than he had all morning.
Jo bit her lip and glanced at Chekov, who managed to look both sympathetic and nervous.
"Well, that's just great," she said in a tone that indicated it really wasn't, "an Admiral?"
Sulu shrugged one shoulder and gave her the kind of smile you give someone when you feel bad for them, but not much.
"If you wanna learn to swim, you gotta jump in the water."
"Or get thrown in," Jo grumbled but took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. The bridge had gone quiet, and while no one of them would say it out loud, she knew the consensus of most of the crew was that she wouldn't last a week aboard this ship, let alone carrying out the duties of the high pressure, low appreciation post of Yeoman.
Well, she'd show them.
"Lieutenant Uhura, please transfer the Admiral's communication to the Captain's Ready Room, I'll take it there," she swung around to return the way she'd come, walking as brisk as she could without looking like she was running.
---
"Are we taking bets on how bad this goes?" Uhura asked, pulling the mic from her ear and pressing a button to put the communiqué on speaker.
Chekov spun around in his seat, wondering what she was referring to, but just as he opened his mouth to ask, Jo's voice began broadcasting on the bridge.
"Um, Greetings Admiral," Jo began, sounding nervous and uncertain, two adjectives he would have never thought to associate with the no-nonsense, strong-willed girl, capable of going head to head with their very own Captain.
"Who the hell are you?" Admiral Chioce responded. Chekov winced, he'd known Admiral Chioce while he was at the Academy. Talk about being thrown to the wolves…
"I'm Jo. I mean, sorry. I'm Yeoman Jo McCoy. I'm new."
"I couldn't tell," the sarcasm in her voice was scathing and Uhura covered her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.
Chekov glanced around the bridge to see most of the on-duty officers reacting much the same way, exchanging quick eyerolls or attempting to hide smiles. Even Sulu, who was busy correcting the replacement pilot's technique, couldn't help the smile slipping across his face.
Chekov didn't really think it was all that funny.
"Where is Captain Kirk?"
"He's um, he's actually unavailable at the moment. I can-"
"That's enough," Chekov said loudly, his anger catching everyone off guard. When Uhura didn't immediately move he stood from his chair and walked across the bridge. Thrusting out a slender finger, he pointed at Uhura's console, "Shut it off."
Uhura wasn't used to seeing him this way. The young man was usually like a puppy, game for anything and eager for approval. Right now he didn't look like any baby animal. He looked pissed.
And she was so surprised by that fact, that she complied without question.
---
Jo stood staring at the Captain's chair for a good two minutes before she actually convinced herself to sit down. When she'd been working in the ready room earlier she'd sat on the couch by the wall.
It was comfortable and she could look out at the stars from time to time when her eyes started to defocus at all the small orange letters on black background.
Finally she rolled her eyes at herself, "it's just a chair," she mumbled, ignoring the fact that she was talking to herself out loud, "just the Captain's chair," she unfurled her fists, wiped her palms on her skirt and turned the chair toward her.
"But the Captain's not here, gonna have to talk to him about that later," she slowly sat herself down on the ergonomically correct, worth-more-credits-than-my-life desk chair, "and since he saw fit to leave the Bridge during my first full day duty knowing full well he had a communiqué with the most Hardass admiral in the fleet," she took a deep breath to cut off her own rant, "I'm just going to have to take care of it."
She took a deep breath, swallowed hard, folded her hands in front of her on the desk and stared at the blank screen.
And nothing happened.
She checked the chronometer, 1301. She frowned.
"Shouldn't Admiral's be prompt?" she grumbled, sitting back in the chair and crossing her arms.
"I'm sorry, do you have someplace better to be?"
Jo squeaked and almost jumped clear out of the seat.
"Oh, uh," she cleared her throat and quickly sat forward in an attempt to look more professional, "um, greetings Admiral."
"Who the hell are you?"
Jo drew back and bit her tongue from ripping off with the first smart ass comment that came to mind.
I'm Joanna McCoy and I'm the intergalactic screw up that managed to be on time to this little bureaucratic keg party who the hell are you?
"I'm Jo," the woman's grey eyes narrowed and Jo paused, quickly reviewing all the Starfleet regulations she'd read over the past few hours in her head. Oh right, "I mean, sorry. I'm Yeoman Joanna McCoy, I'm new."
"I couldn't tell," the Admiral said with a barely contained eyeroll.
Oh bite me you old bat.
Admiral Chioce, a grandmother looking woman with short, curled blonde hair reminiscent of Centruries past, and sharp grey eyes tilted her chin to give Jo a disinterested, mildly irritated glare, "where is Captain Kirk?"
On an alien planet sampling the booze, Jo thought, "He's um, he's unavailable at the moment, I can take a message."
That was, apparently, the wrong thing to say.
"If I wanted to leave a message I would have sent a MessageLink," the woman snapped and Jo raised an eyebrow.
"Well I'm sorry for the inconvenience Admiral, but the Captain is unavailable at this time and you can either choose to leave a message with me, or try to send him another communiqué later," Jo said, her back rigid and tone professional. Was it in her head or was this Admiral provoking her?
"Well what time would you suggest, Yeoman?" The woman stressed the last part, as if to remind her of her place.
Oh yeah, definitely provoking.
"Tell you what: don't call us, we'll call you." She smiled overly brightly and ended the transmission.
Two seconds later it hit her what she'd just done.
"Oh shit."
TBC