—- USS Luna, Observation Lounge —-

Lieutenant Commander Gabriella Miller was a botanist by trade and profession. Being in Starfleet had offered her the greatest chance to see the widest possible array of plants from various worlds that she could imagine and so she had joined up. Now through no fault of her own she was the acting captain of the USS Luna, while Captain Cruz recuperated from their run in with a murderous Changeling and was hosting a Romulan science delegation studying cosmic gaseous bodies. Captain Cruz had already retreated on her Captain’s Skiff, leaving the Chief Scientist to play nice with the Romulans. 

Thankfully it seemed that Romulan scientists were nicer than their military officers, and the intergalactic brotherhood (and sisterhood) of scientists meant that everyone was getting on swimmingly as much as Chief Security Officer Claudia Jara might be assigning her people to lurk around every corner and hunt for spies.

”Are you happy with the readings we’re getting?” she asked the leader of the Romulan delegation a grey haired man who answered with a nod.

”One is not happy or upset by readings, but yes the readings that we are capturing via your ship’s scanners are far more detailed than our own would have been,” he said, “The readings simply reflect reality, so we try not to have strong feelings about them.”

Romulan teams mingled with their Starfleet counter parts looking out the window, the scanners’ readings projected on multiple screens around the room. Most of it was meaningless of Miller, though she understood the basics but they had never seen anything quite like this in Federation space before. The gaseous cloud acted almost like it was in an atmosphere, which was interesting even if she could not say why that was. She was used to studying airflow patterns on planets with plant life, and thus in some ways this came close.

”This is a fine ship,” the Commander said nodding around the room.

”The USS Luna, yes it is,” Miller agreed.

”I was young when the USS Titan came to Romulus to help us after the government collapsed following the Shinzon incident, my father let me use the family telescope to look at it. This has been my favorite class of your ships since then,” he said, “To be on the first is an honor for me.”

“To humans I suppose it’s usually the Galaxy-class or the Constitution-class that we remember most fondly,” Miller said. Adding, “Those were the two most famous Enterprises.”

The Romulan nodded, “Fine ships, but this one. Our people have not always treated the Federation with respect but twice now in my lifetime you’ve come to our aide. This ship, it represents that, a ship of exploration not war.”

Miller nodded. She had heard some of the rumblings about the Klingon government‘s fall into turmoil but was not fully briefed on the situation so she did not want to comment. This mission was to proceed as if nothing had recently changed, and they were far enough inside Romulan space that only a complete break down of the government’s internal security would lead it to becoming an issue. So while the Luna could, and had, punch back if attacked It was prudent to agree that it was a ship of exploration not of warfare.

—- USS Luna, Engineering —-

“Have you fixed all the damage you did to our shuttles and runabouts?” Chief Engineer James Young asked his younger assistant. 

The Assistant Chief Engineer Vanessa Constable objected, “The captain told me to do that. But yes it’s all fixed. Except for the runabout the Romulans destroyed.”

”Put a requisition in for a new one so we get it when we get back to Starbase 86,” Young said, knowing that Constable hated doing that kind of clerical work. Still if she was going to progress in the job she was going to have to get used to filling it out.

Constable nodded and tapped a few things on the screen of her PADD to begin the process. The fact that her actions had helped capture (and kill) a dangerous killer Changeling had been forgotten fairly quickly and now was being treated as if her sabotage had only been to cause the Engineering department more grief.

”This stellar phenomea isn’t affecting anything is it?” Young asked, not for the first time. He’d been running scans every half an hour to confirm that.

“Not that I can see. We’re also not all drunk and having sex with each other,” Constable said, a reference to when they had his their last ship the USS Seattle from the Borg in a gas cloud only to be affected by the twin stars in the region. 

“Don’t remind me,” Young said not wanting to think about that.

Chief Diplomatic Officer Lieutenant Diya Acharya entered Engineering and headed straight for them.

”Hey, aren’t you keeping the Romulans company?” Young asked.

She waved and nodded to Constable, “I’m on a break. I can only listen to so many hilarious stories about finding sub atomic particles for one afternoon.”

”You came to the right place we’re not also colossal nerds here,” Constable said. It never failed to surprise her how much her boss seemed to attract women despite having the personality of the well worn carpet in engineering. Lieutenant Acharya could do a lot better than this, at least in Constable’s mind.

Acharya smiled, “Well being nerdy about your job isn’t bad. I could talk hours about treaties and stuff.”

Constable threw her arms up, “We’ll all dorks. Well then nerd out you two I’m going to get lunch.”

”It’s not lunch yet,” Young said.

”My union says I get lunch now,” Constable said walking towards the door.

”You’re not in a union,” Young said as she exited the Engineering department. She was brilliant, but vexing, and her insistence that this was a kind of old times union shop was just part of what made her absolutely baffling to him.

”Let her be in a union if she wants to be,” Acharya, ever the diplomat said.

“There’s not a union,” Young said.

”Well let her pretend,” the Chief Diplomatic Officer said.

”Romulans being good?” Young asked dropping the subject that he no longer wanted to worry about. 

“Perfect guests. I’m sure there’s some military intelligence members in their numbers but now they’re being good. The Luna isn’t a particularly new ship anymore, so it’s not like they’re getting access to secrets that they wouldn’t have gotten by now,” Acharya said, “We have some fancy new sensors but I believe we gave them the specs on that already.”

The two entered the Chief Engineer’s Office and once the doors slid closed they were able to be a bit more frank. 

“You hear about the Klingon thing?” Young asked.

”A few bits here and there, doesn’t affect us yet,” the Chief Diplomatic Officer said.

”We have a Klingon First Officer, and he’s a member of the KDF,” Young pointed out.

”When he gets better I’m sure Captain Cruz will deal with it. Klar’s been a good XO and I trust him,” Acharya said. Young snorted seemingly less convinced, but he had learned at least to trust in the captain’s judgement, and she would know what to do.

”I liked that nobody was blowing holes in the ship,” Young said with a sigh.

”I’m sure we’ll get back to exploring, it’s not like we’re recalled yet,” Acharya said.

”Only a matter of time before we’re getting shot at by Klingons,” Young said, adding, “Mark my words.”

”Come over tonight, I’m making a curry,” she said changing subjects.

Young nodded, “Will do.”