Story Star Trek--Voyages of the USS Nova (OCs) (Complete)

Timeline: This takes place after the DS9 TV series ends.

Author's note: I may or may not continue this one. We'll just have to see where my muse takes me. Thanks for reading!

***

Lieutenant Commander Jackson Andrews twisted his tall frame awkwardly, trying to make room for his big arms to move in the cramped space. He was stuck between the two fluid storage tanks, trying to convince the pneumatic pumps to maintain an equal quantity of cryogenic coolant between each tank. No matter how much he tried to calibrate the sensors, the port side wouldn’t share with the starboard. The ship would be able to leave drydock with unbalanced tanks, but as perfectionist, it would bother him.

Hope swelled inside him as the computer chimed, acknowledging a change in settings. But instead, more fluid swelled into the port tank, overloading it and sloshing the thankfully-inert bluish substance onto the rubber-coated deck.

Rather than using some of his more colorful metaphors, Jackson sighed heavily and tossed his calibrator onto the floor, away from the growing puddle. He was going to start calibrating with a large hammer, soon.

“Commander!” A young, breathless blue-shirt leaned halfway into the room. Her long brown hair was streaked with some sort of grease and stuck up at odd angles in spite of being tied back. “There’s a fight. In main engineering. A fist fight!” she said between panting breaths.

“I suppose it’s too much to ask that whoever our Captain is has arrived?”

She gave a little smirk of a smile and shrugged.

Great, that’s just what I need, Andrews thought to himself. No Captain, no XO. Just me, to sort this mess out. I’m an engineer, not a ship’s counselor!

Wait, why is she out of breath? Jackson wondered to himself. Engineering is only twenty meters away. Maybe she needs to have her exercise regime enhanced. It was a dumb thought. His next thought was only slightly more intelligent. Why the hell are the engineers fighting? They’re supposed to be beyond all that testosterone-driven crap.

“I’m coming,” he replied, disentangling himself from the machinery. It took an extra moment--he was too large of a man to be working in such a small space. As he jogged the twenty five steps, he decided he’d delegate the coolant fluid job to someone smaller, next time.

The closer he got to the engine room, the more ruckus he heard. Loud voices shouting, screams of rage and pain. When he rounded the corner, he saw the brawl was so large that it had sprawled out of engineering. A pair of humans--one, a yellow-shirted engineer and a green-clad fighter pilot, grappled past him, nearly clubbing him with flailing limbs. They completely ignored his orders to stop.

What the hell was this? The science specialist stepped next to him and he speared her with a glance. “You said fist fight, not all-out riot, Ensign.”

The woman smiled. “A really big fist fight, sir,” she added belatedly, over the din of combat.

Jackson hadn’t seen a fight like this in over a decade, and that one was at a crowded bar near closing time. He’d never even heard of one this big happening in a Federation starship. Especially between presumed crew members. Andrews started getting angry. They hadn’t even left spacedock yet--what was going to happen when they were out in space and unable to put more than 100 meters between trouble-makers? He was beginning to regret taking this assignment already, even if it gave him the step up to Lt. Com. Being away from his family wasn’t worth this. He didn’t feel all that great about Starfleet assigning a random Captain and Executive Officer, either. Shouldn’t they have told him who was coming?

He decided shouting this melee down would be useless. Instead, he went to a nearby computer console. Once he made sure that the whole brawl was being captured on camera, he punched in commands to simulate a warp core ejection.

Red lights replaced the comforting white room lighting, and an unmistakable alarm sounded throughout the compartment. Almost instantaneously, the dozen people stopped what they were doing, halting in mid punch to look with wide eyes and dropped jaws at the warp core. Some fists hung in the air; their arms just hung there.
Jackson was glad he recorded their expressions. Priceless. By the time he retired from Starfleet, this would be hilarious, not rage-inducing. With three keystrokes, he ended the alert.

“All right, you idiots. What the hell is going on here?”

A stampede of people turned into a straight line of twenty people, with a definite division between yellow-shirted engineers (and one bruised Vulcan science Lieutenant) and olive-green clad humanoids. Pilots. They were all standing at ramrod straight attention. Even the ones who were dripping red goo--mostly blood--onto the floor.

“They started it,” Lieutenant Broyles said, pointing an accusing finger at a slight woman with short sandy brown hair. “Her half-witted snubjockey tried to kill me!”

Andrews cut the tirade off with a glare. He couldn’t ignore the way the Lt’s dark skin was beginning to blotch around his left eye. He was going to have quite the shiner. Broyles’ assailant, a major, had the sense to keep her mouth shut.

“Major?” Andrews prompted, standing in front of the woman Broyles had pointed at. Jackson’s arms were clasped behind his back, puffing out his broad chest. He was nearly half a meter taller than the pilot. He knew he was intimidating, but to her credit, the small woman wasn’t showing more than a nervous tic at being--literally--in his shadow.

“Sir. Major Spooner, 501st starfighter squadron. We were helping.” She glanced at the irate figure of Broyles. “Trying to help,” she amended sheepishly. “We asked if there was anything we could do to assist the engineers. Lieutenant Jekins over there was told to run a level three diagnostic on the power relays, but he ended up somehow running a level two--”

Jekens stepped forward. He was a dark skinned man, with a carefully shaved head and bright brown eyes. And a shiner to match Lt. Broyles’. “Sir. It was my botch. My finger slipped. I ran a level one scan.”

Spooner’s vivid green eyes widened. She hadn’t known that her officer had erred that badly.

Broyles looked like he was going to explode again. Rightly so. Anybody working on power conduits when a level one scan was initiated was in for the shock of their lives.

“And who was working on the power conduits?” Lt. Commander Andrews asked Broyles--the engineering dunderhead on parade. This was a disaster. If the Captain--whoever they were--ever found out what a bunch of morons were under his command, he was going to resign his commission before he took control of the ship.

“That would be me, sir. Lieutenant Skrattik.” The Vulcan science officer--a Lieutenant, junior grade--stepped forward. His hair might have been cut in the traditional Vulcan style, but it stood out at wacky angles. The uniform around his wrists had been singed. A bright green bruise was forming on his left cheek and at his right temple.

“Are you all right, Lieutenant? Do you need medical attention?” Andrews wondered what was going to win--Vulcan pride, his sense of responsibility, or pain.

“I shall remain here, sir.”

“That’s good, since he threw the first punch,” muttered Major Spooner.

Skrattik somehow managed to appear abashed and neutral simultaneously. His lack of disagreement bespoke his guilt.

Blood rushed to Jackson’s face as he tried to maintain his own equilibrium. “All right, let me get this straight. You,” he pointed at Second Lieutenant Jekins, “tried to murder Skrattik.”

“It was an accident, sir!” The pilot objected.

Jackson couldn’t keep the sarcasm or the anger out of his tone. “Right, sorry. You accidently tried to murder Skrattik. And you!” The accusing finger he pointed at the Vulcan wavered in his rage. “The picture of logic and restraint. You raced over and assaulted him. That’s bad enough, but somehow all you other dimwits make it worse by jumping in. You two morons,” he pointed at Lt. Broyles and Major Spooner. “Let it escalate to epic proportions.”

Someone let out a giddy giggle.

“Oh, yeah, laugh it up,” Andrews said loudly. “You jackasses are all in it deep--way past your eyebrows.” He tried taking some deep breaths to calm himself down but it wasn’t working. “You’re all going in the brig!”

Lt. Broyles--and everyone else, for that matter, looked appalled. “But sir, there’s only room for two in the Nova’s brig.”

“Bull crap! I can squeeze half of you in there at a time. You don’t have to lie down or sit. You five and you five,” He said as he divided the engineering crew in half, and did the same with the pilot crew, making sure to leave Broyles and Spooner in the engineering section. Then he jerked his thumb towards the turbolift. “I don’t care that you’ll all be locked in the same room together, and I don’t care if you have to stand on each other’s shoulders. Maybe you’ll learn some teamwork, jammed in there like sardines. Move!”

They trotted off with alacrity.

Andrews pointed at the worse-for-wear Vulcan. “You, to sick bay. The second the doctor lets you leave, you hustle back here. You’ll be helping the rest of these clowns with maintenance until I say otherwise. You will also spend time in the brig, and we will have a discussion later, regarding that first punch.” Jackson was tempted to throw a first punch of his own.

Abashed, Skrattik inclined his head and followed the other ten sentients.

He turned his livid eyes to Major Spooner and Lt. Broyles. “And you two fu--freaking idiots. You will work out a new maintenance schedule, until I’ve decided you can stop sharing shifts in the brig. Each shift will be twelve hours.”

Broyles and Spooner nodded. “For how long, sir?”

He couldn’t stifle his growl. “As angry as I am right now, I’d say a month! I’ll discuss it with the Captain, whenever he or she gets here.”

They both saluted and gathered together, hurrying to a duty sheet posted near the pulsating warp core.

Jackson stormed out of engineering towards the coolant compartment. The woman in blue, the one who had alerted him to the scrum followed him.

“That was something, huh?” she said with a smirk. “You handled that well. Very well.”

“That was a nightmare,” he grumbled, flopping into a chair. “If the captain knew…” Andrews shook his head and dropped his eyes onto the heels of his palms. “And what the hell am I going to tell him?”

The woman’s smirk grew into a smile. “I don’t think you have to tell her anything.”

Jackson shook his head again, leaving his eyes covered. “Even if I wanted to hide it--well actually, okay, I do. But there’s no possible way he won’t hear about it somehow. Even if I could sweep it all under the rug, he’s got to know what he’s up against. I’m on a boat full of fu--ugh. Freaking children.”

“She,” the woman supplied.

“What?” Andrews asked, glancing up at her.

“She,” she said again. “The captain is a woman.” Her hands went to the zipper at the top of her blue jumpsuit and zipped it down, revealing a red uniform and four pips at her collar. “See? I’m Sandra Michaels.”

Captain Michaels’ eyes were a pale blue, twinkling with mischief. Her oval face was smudged with the same grease that coated some of her hair. She had a small nose and big lips that never seemed to stop smiling. Sandra was only a dozen centimeters or so shorter than he was, though at over two meters, that made her height noteworthy.

“Oh. God.” All Jackson could think about was his upcoming demotion. He was going to hold the record for shortest amount of time spent as Lieutenant Commander. “Please tell me that was staged for my benefit.”

The captain seemed amused, and maybe a little guilty. “Not exactly. I may have...stirred the pot a little by telling Skrattik he would gain the trust of his shipmates by reacting aggressively.” Sandra folded her arms across her chest. “I think it worked, too.”

“Great,” Jackson replied, his tone flat. “Amazing.”

“Cheer up, Commander.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “That mess back there wasn’t your fault, but I think you did an amazing job of cleaning it up and putting the crew on the straight and narrow. So well in fact...what do you think about becoming my XO?”

That got his attention. “What about the one Starfleet is sending?”

The captain shrugged. “Eh. We’ll space him out an airlock when he gets here.”

Jackson couldn’t help but stare at her with the casual way she mentioned doing away with another officer.

“Oh, lighten up, Commander. The commissioned XO, Commander Davies is suffering from a startlingly virile form of Dengue Fever. He won’t be available for months. Starfleet was scrambling to replace him, last I heard. I thought I’d save them the trouble.”

Andrews felt like a deer in headlights. His mouth was slack and his eyes were as wide as they could go.

“Jackson, if you’re going to be my XO, you’re going to have to get used to my very inappropriate sense of humor.” Her smile was big and warm. “What do you say? Do you want the job?”

He had no idea what to say.

 

If this does continue, and I sincerely devoutly hope it does, tag me.



I like your OCs already, like usual.

 

love your OC 's and the messy situations

 

I enjoyed this and hope you continue; if not, it's a good view into a fine ST series of fond memory. Also, Major Spooner, 501st starfighter squadron made me smile for the 501st Legion of SW, though I don't know if you meant to reference them.

 

Hang on, I'm not sure if your hints were strong enough.

A sequel is in the squishy melon I call a brain. I'll see if it makes it through my fingers and onto the electronic medium. Thanks so much for reading and gushing, I like it when people do that.

Thanks EB! I appreciate you reading it!

Hi! The 501st legion wasn't an accident. This is the first Trek story I've ever posted anywhere, so I figured I'd give a nod to Star Wars. Thanks very much for reading!

 

Got my own short using a Nova-class vessel in the works, so was shocked to see your Nova-titled fic in the page.

When I complete mine, I will be back to review this.