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Author's notes: It's been a while since I wrote anything appropriate for this forum.
Yes it's a fixfic for things that annoyed me in the final of Star Trek Picard season 3. Fixing everything that annoyed me would take a novel that's beyond me but here's a scene that replaces one of Jack arrive at his new command, his duties on it. (I am being vague but of course just reading this involves tacit spoilers for Picard. You have been warned.
Yes, I am still salty about it. No I wouldn't claim this is good writing it's mainly cathartic. Exposition heavy. Hopefully a little interesting to others.
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The travelpod, restricted to only short bursts from it's small thrusters, coasted across Space Dock on remote control, taking an annoyingly circuitous path. The dignity of an Admiral, even a retired one, prevented Jean Luc Picard from looking around with the eagerness he felt but he was aware the station interior was abuzz with activity, finished refits and putting the finishing touches on dozens of starships.
Behind him, his son was pacing up and down, newly minted Ensign Jack Crusher was nervous about joining his first ship. Of course, a travelpod and alone was not the way most Ensigns travelled to their vessels. Most Ensigns weren't accompanied by two Admirals after all.
To Jack, Jean Luc downplayed the influence of his parent's rank.
"Names mean hardly anything at all,"
"Just wait until you see my ship," Jack responded enigmatically.
They drift up under a Neo-Constitution class. To Jean Luc's old gaze, the additional bulk and engines festooning the classic design was not an improvement but nevertheless he was fond of the vessel itself as they ascended over the saucer section and saw the name emblazoned upon it.
"Ah," Jean Luc said. "The Titan, of course."
"Hmm?" Jack said and looked in the same direction as Picard. "Oh no. That's still being patched up. It'll have a new crew assigned when it's done, I'm afraid. No, we're looking for a new ship. You'll like it, I promise."
For one mad moment, Jean Luc though of the [/I]Enterprise[/I] but the [/I]Enterprise[/I]-F had been decommissioned and the [/I]Enterprise[/I]-G, a state of the art heavy cruiser, was still being built at a shipyard orbiting Andor.
He didn't want to ask his son though so he remained quiet as the pod drifted past two Akiras and a Galaxy-class.
"There she is," Jack said.
Despite himself Jean Luc craned his head and small a mid-sized vessel with a ovular saucer section, elongated along the length of the vessel, an impulse engine in the curved spine of the vessel and two outsized nacelles on pylons raked sharply back from the engineering hull. It was a tidy vessel that look like it was going at maximum warp despite being entirely stationary.
"Is that… Voyager Class?" Beverly asked next to Picard.
"It is. Good eye."
Jean Luc made a noise of recognition. The Voyager Class, named for the lead ship of it's class the Voyager-A, was a vessel built for long range, deep space exploration. When Starfleet had a retreated from the stars after the Mars attack, they'd stopped making them after the first four had been built.
"It's your fault." Jack said, teasingly. "After Earth everyone started reading the mission logs of the Enterprise-D again. They want to explore again and Starfleet wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. The commissioned a second run of the class and this one was almost finished before the first run was shut down. They didn't have to do more than paint the name on it."
And speaking of the name. The pod circled the vessel and they caught their first site of the name emblazoned on it's bow.
U.S.S Picard
Jean Luc stared. He swallowed, tried to speak and stared some more, wiping a hand across eyes."
"We asked if we could break the news," Beverly said. "They decided to name the run after great explorers you see."
"Yes," Jack said. "That 20th Century deep sea diver."
Jean Luc gave him a sharp look, followed by a chuckle.
"His name was spelt different, Jack."
"Officially," Beverly said. "It's named for Renee Picard the astronaut, as suggested by her Captain."
Jean Luc smiled. "That's perfect." he said.
The pod came to the ship's airlock and docked smoothly. The greeting party was small and informal. Just Seven of Nine and her newly assigned Tellerite first officer.
"Permission to come aboard, Captain Seven," asked Beverly as an Admiral in active service she outranked Picard himself.
"Granted. Welcome aboard, Admirals," Seven Of Nine said. She turned to Jack. "You're late, Ensign."
"I arrived the same time, they did," Jack said indicated his parents.
"They are Admirals," Seven said. "You are an Ensign."
"Yes, Ma'am." Jack said, stiffening.
"Report to deck 4 section 12 for assignment, Ensign."
"Yes, Captain" Jack said.
- - -
Jack found his way to his station easily enough and found another familiar face waiting for him.
"Nice of you to join us Ensign Crusher," said Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Sidney La Forge, and there was genuine warmth in her expression. Then she directed him to his seat and returned to her briefing all business.
Crusher found himself listening with the other 11 command track ensigns in La Forge's command to his order of business, rotation with other departments to see his varied skills in use and the odd trick on the helm and as relief ops officer on rotation and usually, as far as Jack could tell, night shift.
It was the usual run of the mill tedium of a Starfleet Ensign's duty but Jack made up his mind to persevere as best he could. It seemed his arrival by travel pod was all the favouritism he was going to get.
As a deep space explorer, even Ensign's quarters on the Picard were individualised and reasonable sized to preserve officer's sanity as best they could but Jack had no visitor's there before departure, the crew was taking a while to warm up to Jack and he didn't know if the proportion of the crew from the Titan helped or hindered the process. They knew what he'd done after all.
He was on shift on Engineering when the message came threw. The Bosun's shrill long whistle alerting everyone to stop and listen the communication.
"Crew of the Picard," came Seven's voice. "Prepare for departure."
It went quiet. There was a short pause, possibly time enough for the First Officer to make some tactful comment and then the Bosun's whistle chime came again.
"Crew, this is Seven Of Nine, Captain of the Starship Picard. We are about to embark on our maiden voyage and apparently it is tradition to give a speech. I am unaccustomed to speeches. You know our mission, we are headed first to Deep Space Fourteen on the far side of romulan Free Space and from there into the unknown. Our mission is the most basic, most core one in Starfleet; Exploration. I expect every member of the crew to do their duty and I trust by the end of our mission, our ship will have a reputation any in the fleet would be proud of. All hands prepare for departure, Captain out."
Jack looked around his crewmates for a while and then they all started to move with renewed coordination and purpose.
The USS Picard set out.
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I didn't invent the idea of naming Seven's ship the <I>Picard</i>, but I did like it if she couldn't just have the </i>Titan</i>
I also imagined a scene where the admirals got a tour of the Picard and the following extra fanservicey bits (for my tastes anyway) would have been revealed:
- The first officer is a tellarite because Seven and Raffi are back together and therefore decided it was better not to be Captain/XO
- Janeway, Tuvok and perhaps some other Voyager crew toured the Picard before Picard and Seven is consciously trying to reconnect with them
- While the ship is officially named the Picard after Renee Picard as a S2 reference. The motto of the Picard was to be 'Sokath, he eyes uncovered' a Darmok reference I stole from Picard's ship the USS Phoenix in the Deep Space Nine: Millennium novels.