LtJG Jovenan – Pranked! (Gone nice) (Gone wholesome)
Jovenan
((Chief Tactical Officer’s office, Deck 8, USS Artemis))
Silveira: Lieutenant, I will go straight to the point. I am certain you might not like what I am about to say, but I, as Chief Tactical Officer, can't let this go unnoticed.
Jovenan stood in attention in front of Lt Silveira’s desk as he looked at her with a stern expression on his face. Being reprimanded by a senior officer terrified her, especially as it didn’t appear he had called her to talk about some mistake she had done recently, but the overall performance she had given over months. The only consolation in the situation was that Lt Silveira wasn’t telepathic, or she would have overwhelmed him with a wave of anxiety she was emitting.
Jovenan: What is it, sir?
The Lieutenant stood up behind the desk. She turned her eyes upwards as he towered above her. He had been serious the entire time but standing up to say it added to the severity of the situation. Jovenan was with someone she could trust to follow the Starfleet regulation – at least in office setting – so she wasn’t afraid, but she couldn’t set aside the thought of how threatening the Lieutenant appeared this way.
Silveira: I am truly very proud of you. You are one of the best officers I ever served with. And an example to follow. ::He raised his finger as if to add a point.:: Correction your an example I follow. Very well done.
Jovenan: ::confused, blinking fast:: I… Excuse me… sir?
Silveira: I mean that as a praise Lieutenant.
She eased her position as she tried to figure out what had happened. That sounded like a compliment, and he had said it was a praise. But… what was about all the other stuff? And more importantly, why? You don’t get just randomly called to the office of a department head of different section for the purpose of being praised with such laudatory words, especially when you don’t know for what. Was this a game? An error?
Jovenan: Thank you for the, uh, compliment, sir, but I’m not entirely sure what I have done to deserve it.
Silveira: Please take a seat. That deserves a two part answer.
Silveira was smiling as he gestured Jovenan to sit as well. She followed the long-delayed order.
Silveira: First you have served with me long enough to know I am a jester. Eventually I would end up pulling your leg, it ended up being today. ::He raised an eyebrow, considering it was better he rephrased that.:: That's figuratively of course. There isn’t anything wrong with your legs, quite the opposite, but that human expression is used when we are teasing someone. ::he shrugged and winked.:: I am the Artemis buffoon and you, like any of the others, are just cursed to have me around. But hey… Feel free to prank me back to get even.
So, it was a prank. He lured her in, pretended to be angry, then pretended to be proud. Haha, prank! Uh, no, was that how pranks were supposed to work? Well, she had been uncomfortable at first, and he had fun the whole time, so yeah, it worked exactly like the pranks she had heard about before. In the Academy, she had been fairly angry and sad being a target a prank, but now she was lightly amused.
Jovenan: I see it now! This is not the first time I’ve been a target of a prank; in Academy some other cadets did one for me. I said they should be killed as a punishment for their crimes, but I only got told by a professor that while they respect my culture, I can’t say things like that to people, so I don’t do that anymore out loud. But this prank was much better than that. But, uh, I’ve never made pranks before, so I’ll, uh, consider your request for returning the favour, and maybe I’ll ask some help.
Silveira: Interesting. ::he gave her a mischievous wink.:: Maybe you should try that. ::He leaned forward slightly:: Now on a more serious note, since I had the chance to work with you, I have seen how you become a fine officer. Back in the Da'al homeworld you took action when needed, once on the ship you were always ready to comply, and when all Hell broke loose you took charge. It was a good performance and I thank you for that. In our last mission you were always on your toes when we were on the bridge and::he pointed to the PADD pile:: after reading the reports I know you worked on different stations. Even my own, and I have to say you did good.
Jovenan blushed mildly. So, the last part of the prank hadn’t been a prank at all, but he had been all serious in complimenting her. It felt nice albeit awkward to receive such a high commendation, although she still wasn’t sure if it as entirely earned.
Jovenan: Thank you, sir. But you should know that I didn’t succeed in those things without errors. The way I fired the phasers against the Sulibans was awful, I barely hit them. And the anaesthetic gas removal wasn’t the most optimal design, I could have done better. And if I had detected the Da’allium dust earlier, I wouldn’t have needed to take any charge at all. And my decision to ask for an emergency beam out risked contaminating the entire crew, since I didn’t know the cause of the aggression for certain. And…
Silveira: You know the expression “insight is flawless”? If you had performed one hundred percent on a mission I wouldn’t be giving you praise, I would be reporting you. I believe in perfect moments, perfect timing, perfect situations, but in general perfection is, as the poet said, “not for the mortals, but for the Gods”. I made countless mistakes on both missions, but in the general balance of things, which is what matters, we pulled it off. And it’s from them that I learned. And I have been doing this much longer than you. Don’t think less of yourself, and don’t make me pull rank and order you to.
Jovenan wanted to counter Silveira’s claim of him doing countless mistakes with “but sir, you did the best you could considering the circumstance”, but she thought he might just go with “so did you” for a response. Maybe that was the point.
Silveira: Look Nan, I have seen you grow in the face of adversity. And grow in the right direction. I am not saying you didn’t make a mistake, that you could have acted differently. But in the split second you made the right choices. That is why I think of you as a good example.
Jovenan was blushing, mildly, again.
Jovenan: Thank you. I will, umm, try to keep doing that in the future. But I sure hope you’ll be on the tactical console the next time we’re in a combat situation. I had never fired a ship phaser before, and I only know how they worked only in theory. Even my hand phaser shooting is bad! We were lucky that the Suliban ship wasn’t much stronger and that the Berlin was there, because otherwise I couldn’t have done much good.
Silveira: Response
Jovenan thought it for a moment. What he had said made sense, after all, he had been in the profession for quite a time longer than her.
Jovenan: Is there a way to learn that? Or is it something one should just… get over time? I’ve had lucky that my solutions had worked good enough before, but I can’t always put my trust on “good-enough”.
Silveira: Response
TAG/TBC
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Lieutenant JG Jovenan
Science officer
USS Artemis-A
E239911J11