Personal Log, Stardate 41638.9

Posted on 21 Aug 2021 @ 10:47pm by Lieutenant JG Rozhal Pril

This is ridiculous. It’s one thing deploying satellites and doing planetary surveys and resupplying colonies. It’s another thing entirely to be sent into an unknown ship, completely unprepared, and be subjected to a horribly disconcerting and disorientating environment entirely against your will. What makes it even worse is that my presence was completely superfluous. I had one job: to help programme the universal translator for the alien language. I couldn’t even do that.

Why am I here? To modulate transmission frequencies? To make minor adjustments to a communications array that could be done by anyone else? To answer the proverbial telephone?

Since coming aboard the good Starship Boston I have been held hostage by Cardassians. I have been imprisoned on a desert world by Kloxoel. I have spent three months losing my mind in a voltagenic cyclone. I have accidentally nearly killed my own superior officer. I have watched as my friends have been assaulted and injured by countless hostile species. Most recently, I and my crewmates have had the weight of a few billion Piraktan lives on our shoulders. Having my mind hooked up to an extra-galactic probe for a few minutes hardly sounds like it’s worth complaining about, come to think of it.

I have not seen a member of my family for nearly four years.

If all of the above is considered ‘normal’ for a Starfleet officer, and it’s taken me ten whole years to realise it, then I’ve been a fool for not quitting sooner. I could have applied to all sorts of positions. I could’ve followed in my father’s footsteps as an archaeologist. I could’ve pursued a career in the Trill government’s diplomatic corps. Hell, I could’ve applied to join the Federation News Network for what it’s worth.

I don’t say any of this to my crewmates, of course. I smile and nod politely. I make the occasional joke. I laugh along with theirs. It’s great being so two-faced. Maybe I should put that in my official record. Lieutenant Junior Grade Rozhal Pril pretends that nothing’s wrong, is utterly incapable, and will then suddenly give up and disappear. The model officer. Why can’t I be like Lieutenant T’Char, who despite seemingly having her personal affairs in a mess half the time, is able to brave all the storms we come across and ends up saving goodness knows how many people in the process?

And there I am, ‘opening hailing frequencies, Captain’.

I’m not cut out for this.