Posted by Lieutenant Charles Fordham (Security Chief) in After Viewing the new ship (Tag Ford)

<snip>

“And you as well, Rand,” he replied, extending his hand. “I’ll try to make sure I have at least one of my classes during your ‘free time’. Drop by anytime you’d like.”

He hit the door release button and stepped in, finding a very typical single occupancy senior officer’s quarters - a small sitting room, separated from a bed and lavatory area. He patted the shape of the data tape on his pocket, chewing his lip.

What to do, what to do. It was clear Rand did not want a scene made about this; and technically he should not - yet - be in possession of the footage on the data tape.

But tomorrow he would have direct access to nearly all areas of the ship. He grinned.

---

The next day, following the official handover ceremony, Ford headed straight for his office and retrieved a translucent envelope from a drawer, labeled “INTRAOFFICE TRANSFER” in red block letters. He dropped the data tape into it, folding it shut and feeling the electronic adhesive take effect.

He marched his way down to the airlock, where a Sentinel security officer stood beside a K-5 security officer. He held out the envelope to the K-5 officer.

“I need that delivered to Captain Jenkins please,” he told the man. The officer cocked an eyebrow and then shrugged, waiving over young ensign and passing the envelope along with the same instructions.

“She’s part of our yeoman corps,” he explained to Ford as she jogged off. “She’ll get it right into his hands.

Ford nodded, staying a little while as he watched the two security officers check papers for each person boarding the new ship, before he turned and left.

COS Ford

Later that evening beep beep. Rand was curious, she’d already dropped off the evening reports and was off duty. It was 2030 hours. Really if the captain couldn’t find his boots and was calling her for that....=O=Rand here.=O=

=O=Rand, I want you in my office, now.=O= Captain Jenkins? and he didn’t sound happy. =O=Yes Sir.=O=

Rand switched back into her uniform quickly and grabbing her communicator she hurried down the corridor, down the turbo lift, and across the airlock, getting nods from both the Sentinel and K5 security staff. Jenkins wasn’t in a pleasant mood and so Rand took a couple of short cuts, down an access later and a cut through a couple of labs before turning left to the end of the corridor and his office. She rang the chime and it felt strange. Days before she was Jenkins’ yeoman and she had free access to his office. “ENTER” and Rand took an involuntary step back. Whatever it was had really gotten Jenkins upset. She stepped through the door to find him scowling at the computer screen in front of him. He looked up and his gaze relaxed just a bit. “Ah Rand, good. Come around here and look at this. And you’d better have a very good explanation for why you didn’t tell me.”

Rand stepped around the desk and watched with growing embarrassment of the recording of her encounter with Hitnel. After it finished playing Jenkins looked at her and sighed. “Rand, we talked about this. The man has a record of this type of behavior and I told you to tell me.” He waved her to a seat. “Now, I can honestly say I enjoyed that little by play and you threatening to write a report about him. The sheer sudden lack of color to his face was worth it, BUT” and he held up one finger and pointed it at her…

She interrupted him. “I’m sorry, Sir but sometimes we yeoman have to find our own way. If the captain is constantly having to play ‘hero’ then we loose the respect of the crew and it makes our work that much harder.”

Jenkins just stared at her. “Yeoman,” oh super formality…he was mad, “there is a difference between rudeness and…and this blatant harassment of a fellow officer. His behavior not only crossed the line of inappropriateness,” and here he replayed the clip watching as he chucked the data disk at Rand, and had her reflexes been a second slower it would have caught her in the face probably cut her, “it was violent. This has nothing to do with earning their respect. I expect you to sign this.” Role reversal was a favorite joke of Jenkins’ but this time he found nothing funny in it. He’d already filled out the report and now passed the PaDD to Rand, handed her the stylus and expected her to read it, make any changes and sign it.

His words caught her on the way out the door, “You know I don’t know what Carmichael did to get you off my staff, but if you ever decided you want off that bucket of bolts, I hope you’ll transfer back, Rand.” She left with a thank you and hurried back to Sentinel.
Yeoman Rand