ENSIGN (A Starship Hope Prequel)

CHAPTER 4

Dana swore with the rhythm of her next three steps after noticing the time. She dashed through the hangar bay and ran through the corridors that would take her to the bridge. Her father was nowhere in sight, and, to her embarrassment, Lieutenant Chance was the one who caught her eye the moment she stepped through the door. He stood at the engineer's station along the back wall along with a tall woman who must have been the chief engineer.

His eyes lingered on hers a second before they dropped to her lips. Dana looked away, but not before the chief cleared her throat to get Wade's attention.

"Eyes on your work, Lieutenant, or I'll find you something for you to clean in engineering."

Dana's skin tingled as she passed them. The bridge was fleet-sized, everything arranged in a spacious semicircle. The captain's chair was slightly elevated, centered behind nav control, where she was to report. The chair, like all the others, was made of a black poly-blend designed to keep the crew cool while performing their duties, and ergonomic to support the back during long hours. Each of the five chairs on the bridge had a set of padded armrests and straps that came down from over the head to secure the crew in place in case of turbulence.

The helm itself sat empty. In the seat to the right of the captain's chair sat Commander Jury Jones. He glared back at Dana, peering down at the console in front of him, no doubt checking the time and wondering why she was late again. The seat to the left of her father's chair remained empty.

"You must be Ensign Pinet." A lean man with caterpillars for eyebrows popped up from out of nowhere grinning from ear to ear and pulling her gaze away from Commander Jones' displeased glare to focus on him instead. He had a round face and large teeth that his lips fought to cover. When he reached out a hand, she took it wary of his over enthusiasm. "I'm Lieutenant Commander Davis. Welcome aboard."

"Thank you. The pleasure is mine. I look forward to learning as much as I can from you."

"I'm sure you've already got a great teacher," he said with a wink that wiggled the caterpillar above his right eye. Her parentage wasn't a secret why the conspiratorial wink? She hated this kind of attention even more than those who berated her for her lineage. It always came down to the same thing—they all believed she was there because of her father. Whether they loved or hated him, she'd have to prove she belonged. She'd have to butter Davis up in order to convince him he had her respect, or he'd make her regret it.

"My father has always been a busy man. I want to learn from the best, and in this scenario, it must be you, or my father wouldn't allow you to fly this ship." She hoped the compliment and recognition of rank would snap the commander back to his senses.

He gathered himself, pulling his shoulders back before indicating with one hand she should sit at the navigational station. It hadn't occurred to her that he'd be nervous to meet her.

"Have a seat." He positioned himself in front of her and paced back and forth as he spoke, glancing down at her to make sure she was attending him. "At nav control, you'll need to come up with the fastest and most efficient ways to get from point A to B. This week we'll focus on recorded simulations. I want you to give me your best answers. Timing your calculations is crucial. Too soon, and you may miss key, necessary factors. Too late, and the captain is forced to wait for you to make your calculations. Neither scenario would bode well for you."

"Understood," she said.

There was no point in telling him she'd heard this particular speech long before she'd entered the academy. This wasn't even her first time on the bridge of one of her father's ships. However, since her father had arranged the orientation, he must have deemed it necessary. So, Dana kept her mouth closed, and listened as if the information was brand new to her. At the same time, she took in the shiny black console at her fingertips.

Davis took hold of Dana's tablet and put in a set of coordinates, then several more, before he handed it off to her. She glanced at them and went to work. Her first calculations had not accounted for a nebula, and she had to reroute. It had taken her two minutes.

"Not bad for your first day, but you'll have to cut that down closer to thirty-seconds." Davis handed her the tablet before taking a step back. "I've outlined several more complex computations to work out. These should take you until lunch."

She raced the clock, finding the best routes through and around natural and unnatural phenomena. The first few had been easy, but the others gave her a headache, and had her frustrated by the time her lunch hour rolled around. The last three computations were impossible. She couldn't maneuver through space with the coordinates given within the time constraints.

A hand on her shoulder startled her out of the world of intense coordinate computations and back to reality. For the second time that day, her tablet tumbled from her sweaty hands and onto the floor.

"Oh, sorry," Davis apologized, pulling his hand back. "Didn't mean to startle you, Ensign Pinet, but you don't want to be late for lunch. I'm told by Commander Jones you have galley duty. Please report back here as soon as your assignment there is complete." He gave her a curt nod of dismissal, then moved to the helm without another word, sitting, as if preparing for launch.

A moment later, her father arrived.

"Captain on the bridge!"

She didn't see who had called out the warning, but everyone stopped mid-stride, and Dana found herself face-to-face with her father.

"As you were, engineering. Report," he said, his eyes scanning the room and landing on the chief engineer.

"Maintenance says we'll have our engines back to full by the end of the week," she said.

"Nav controls and helm are online and ready, sir," Davis added without waiting to be called on.

Wade winked in Dana's direction, but she rolled her eyes. Unfortunately, she was still narrowing her eyes at him when her father spoke again.

"Excellent. And how did my daughter do this morning, Lieutenant Commander?"

Dana watched Wade's mouth fall open at that, and, for the first time, instead of staring at her, he turned quickly away. Hadn't he gotten her last name before now? She chastised herself for not leaving sooner.

Davis cleared his throat. It was obvious he hadn't been ready to report on her progress in front of everyone. "She's doing as well as expected."

"As you were, then," her father said before moving to sit beside Commander Jones.

There had been a less-than-subtle glance between them, and Dana sighed with relief when her father looked away. He'd done enough damage in front of the rest of the crew. She'd run out of time to rectify matters, late for an already abbreviated lunch, and settled on knowing they couldn't address anything until they were together in private.

She sprinted to the mess hall, where she found Bonnie sitting at a large table of crewmen. The scents emanating from the kitchen gripped her stomach, and she dismissed the idea of skipping lunch to avoid Wade. Bonnie was in the middle of an elaborate story about their first year at the academy. Dana had already heard the story about her tripping down the auditorium steps and landing in front of General Hughes a half a dozen times.

Dana turned to the food bar to consider her options. She dutifully scooped up some greens and followed it with a side of mystery meat in gravy, and a biscuit. She might even have time to enjoy the mocha-colored pudding she suspected might be chocolate flavored, but then noticed the galley supervisor eyeing her as she filled her plate. 

His eyebrows were long enough to touch his eyelashes with each blink, while the rest of his head and face were devoid of hair. He wore a cooking apron over his uniform to catch bits of food and sauce—the stains already dotting the fabric revealing it must happen often.

"You've got fifteen minutes to eat. Clean up starts at thirteen-hundred sharp," he snapped.

Dana sighed. She'd barely have time to chew her food and swallow before she'd have to report for duty. This was hardly the way she wanted to spend her first day.

She was squeezing between two chairs when Lieutenant Chance finally caught up to her.