Chapter Text
June Egbert had graduated from Union Point three and a half years ago. It had been hard work, but she’d graduated with honors. She’d had a few jobs since- first as a technological specialist on a small ship, then as a technological specialist on a large ship. They'd realized her place wasn't really with programming, and she'd been reassigned to navigation, then weapons. Several very unlikely promotions and a destroyed Union ship later, June received a call back to earth to meet with an admiral.
Now, as the shuttle descended, June shifted absentmindedly in the comfortable seat. She had spoken with admirals before, of course. As a lieutenant commander, it was inevitable. Hell, an admiral had been present at her graduation ceremony from union point! At the same time, though, of course June was nervous. Why had she been invited to speak a goshdarn admiral? Oh dear lord. The thought that something might’ve been wrong always lingered in the back of your head when you were meeting with someone important, right? Right. It was still all that was on June’s mind as she walked down the hall of the Earth’s Union headquarters which lead to the office of Admiral Manson. As she opened the door, Admiral Manson looked up.
“Lieutenant Commander Egbert, welcome in,” the Admiral said as he closed his screen.
“Hello, Sir.” June resisted the urge to wave. This was clearly serious business.
“Why don’t you have a seat?” Admiral Manson gestured to the chair across from his desk. “I trust your time off treated you well.”
“Yep,” June replied as she sat down. “It was a big shock, but yep, I'm ready to do things again.” The battle with the Kaylon had been, um… really brutal. June's ship was among those destroyed- she'd barely managed to escape with her sister, Jade. June was so relieved that Dave, her best friend, had lived, along with Rose, his sister (as well as a very good friend), who was on a different ship. When all was said and done, and the battle was won, June had gone home for a while. She had been… really shaken up seeing her captain die. They'd been friends- not quite close friends, but friends. June had needed to work through that. Now, here she was again. She'd thought she'd just get her next assignment through e-mail. This was clearly either really good or really bad.
“Right, and I greatly appreciate you coming to my office.” Admiral Manson smiled. “Obviously, you're here for a reason. Do you remember taking the command test last year?”
“...Yes, sir.” She'd done it as a part of a bet with Dave. But she wasn't about to mention it to the Admiral.
“Well…” The Admiral paused for a moment before pulling something out from under the desk. “I think you’ll be pleased to accept my congratulations.”
The object was a certificate. June examined it for a moment– It had her name, a design of all the Union’s planets along the border- including Moclus, strangely, so this had to have been printed months ago- and a message that was quite surprising.
“This certifies that JUNE FIDDLESTICK EGBERT has successfully completed all necessary steps to join the COMMANDING RANKS of the PLANETARY UNION.”
It was signed by another admiral.
…
“Is this real?” June near-whispered.
“Yes, it’s real. I called you here so that we could discuss your options now that you’re back.”
“Okay, um… hold on.” Exhaling a held-in breath, June leaned back. “Wow, um, this is an honor! Thank you!”
“Thank yourself. You scored high.”
“So… am I… am I gonna be captaining a ship?”
“Yes, but there are caveats- can you take your certificate?”
“Oh, right, yes.” She reached out and held the paper in her lap.
“So, with the number of ships destroyed since last year and especially in the battle with the Krill and Moclans last month, we need more ships in the fleet. This means we’re doing a lot of reassignment, and a lot of younger officers need new places to serve, so. We’ve voted to start a new program with mostly younger officers on newer ships to see how that works out in the long term.”
“...Oh.” Wow, it was still a huge honor!
“You’ll be commanding one of those ships, and your second in command will beeee…” The admiral glanced down at his hologram. “Commander Feferi Peixes. You’ll have a few older role models, and you’ll still be obeying orders from here, but your ship is an exploratory research vessel. Between you and me, this is an amazing first command.”
“...Wow, I… thank you!” June laughed. She was still in disbelief. “I, I can’t thank you enough!”
“I don’t think I’ll be disappointed,” the admiral chuckled. He held out a digital portfolio device. “All of the information you’ll need to know before hand is on here. Any questions?”
“I don’t think so.”
So the admiral dismissed her with instructions to report to the main shuttle bay the next day, and June, giddy with excitement, thanked the admiral and left. It was only on the way back to her apartment that June looked at her portfolio and noticed that her new ship was titled the USS Crocker.
…Know what? That was amazing. Joyous day. This was gonna be the best first command ever, no matter the name of the ship. June leaned back. It was gonna be a long day of packing now…