Whatever she’d expected from the Captain of the Resolute it hadn’t been for him to be quite that big, or wide. She wasn’t unused to large beings, half her pack could give Mason a run for his money when in their natural forms, but seeing someone not of her species that big was a new thing for her.

And then he’d left her in charge.

She’d wasted no time in dropping her pack off in her room. One advantage of a ship this small was that nothing was that far away. Now she was back on the bridge, settled in the XO’s chair as she ran through department reports to make sure they were ready for departure.

“I’m telling you, it’s going to be Reese-Riggs again,” the turbolift opened and a male voice reached her ears.

“Nope, it’s not,” a second man argued. “He’s still a captain, they’d have busted him after that incident with the admiral’s daughters if he was taking an XO berth.”

She didn’t look up from her reading as two officers walked onto the bridge.

“Well, how the hell is he back here then? Two captains on a ship? That’s goiiiing to… Ma’am, my apologies, I didn’t see you there.”

Jeri looked up to find two male officers looking at her like kids who had been caught with their hands in the cookie-jar. And so they should. The rank on their collars would have told her that they were senior staff, if she hadn’t already recognised both of them from their personnel files. Lieutenant’s Harrow and Allen. Chief Tactical and Chief Science respectively.

“No apologies needed. And given there is some… confusion about Captain Reese-Riggs role on the Resolute, I can clarify that for you. Given his familiarity with the area of space we’re going to be operating in, he is aboard as an observer.”

It was total extrapolation, of course, but the command staff had to present a united front, even if she did have some… reservations about the captain in question.

“Of course, Ma’am, thank you,” Harrow said with a smile. It was not as charming as Reese-Riggs’ earlier, it was less studied and slightly lopsided. She had to fight to keep her expression level and not return it.

So she turned her attention to the science officer. He didn’t smile, and she sensed him weighing her up. Something about him made her narrow her eyes and breath in, just to check. Human. Odd, she could have sworn there was something else there. Something about the way he watched her.

“You are more than welcome, please… carry on,” she said, and went back to her reading.