Title: Three Hour Tour
Author:
ladygray99Fandom: Star Trek: Lower Decks
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Beckett Mariner, Brad Boimler, Spock
Word count: 672
Summary: Beckett and Boimler are headed for their first shakedown cruise. But first they get a little advice.
“Oh my, god. Oh my, god. Oh my, god! This is it!” Boimler screeched under his breath.
“I know. Calm down.” Mariner said through gritted teeth though she wanted to skip and scream as well. All these years. Premotions, demotions, getting split up and thrown back together and here they were, Captain Mariner and her Number One about to take official command of the USS Fresno.
They came around a corner of space dock and froze.
“Oh my, god. Is that..?”
“Yes! Be cool,” Mariner snapped. Both stood up straighter and tried to think serious thoughts as they prepared to walk past the elder Vulcan in formal robes. They almost made it but Boimler cracked first.
“We drank at your bar once!” he blurted out before slapping his hands over his mouth. Spock turned and lifted an eyebrow.
Mariner tried to force a professional smile. “What my incredibly not chill first officer was trying to say was ages ago we just happened to be at Starbase 25 and happened to notice your name and Kirk’s carved into a bar top.”
“Attempting to enter the Command Conference After Party?”
Both Mariner and Boimler hung their heads under that all knowing Vulcan gaze. “Yes,” they mumbled in unison.
“Jim assured me he ‘knew the band’ and ‘the bouncer was cool’.”
“So not cool.”
“Majorly uncool.”
“After several drinks and an act of vandalism he assured me that we would command a ship together and I would be his first officer, which was a highly illogical statement as I was not command track and we had never served together.”
“And yet…” was all Mariner could think to say.
“And yet,” Spock repeated.
“We…um… We might have done the same thing. And here we are. Our first ship, just down the hall waiting for us.”
“Just the Fresno.” Boimler added. Having been born in Modesto he always looked down on the city of Fresno and some little part of his brain still felt weird about serving on a ship with that name.
“As long as you have a good crew the ship does not matter.”
Mariner stood taller than ever. “We have the best crew in the fleet. Some of us have been together since our lower deck days. We’ve got Rutherford down in engineering. T’lyn running science with an iron fist. Jennifer kicking ass in security. Tendi sort of floats around but that’s because she’s just good at everything and I’d be an idiot not to want her on my ship. But yeah, you could give them a two-hundred-year-old bird of prey and a couple of solar sails and I’d trust them to get me home.”
“We’re about to do our first shakedown run. Just easy three hours out and back.”
Spock’s face twitched. “May I offer a word of advice?”
“Yes!”
“Absolutely!”
“In my experience three hour shakedown cruises are seldom easy or three hours.” Spock raised his hand in salute. “Good luck.”
Mariner and Boimler quickly raised their hands in return. “Live long and prosper,” Mariner said, without irony or sarcasm for possibly the first time in her life.
“Dif-tor heh smusma.”
Mariner resisted rolling her eyes. Of course Boimler would know the greeting in Vulcan.
Spock nodded to them both and walked on. The two of them waited until he was down the hall and around the corner before grabbing each other and jumping up and down like a couple of little kids.
THREE HOURS LATER
“What is that?!” Boimler screamed.
“I don’t know!” Tendi screamed back from the science station.
“Did the Borg try to assimilate a Crystalline Entity?!” Mariner yelled.
“I don’t know!” Tendi screamed again.
“Rutherford, break every law of physics twice and get us the hell out of here!”
“You think I’m not trying!” Rutherford snapped back from engineering.
Mariner could hear the whine of the engines. “Good luck my ass. Find where that unholy mess joins up and fire everything we have on that spot on my mark.”
“Ready Captain,” Jennifer snarled behind her.
“And. Mark!”
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