—- Starbase 86, Senior Officers’ Lounge —-

“So your last First Officer killed a bunch of Romulans,” asked Commander Olivia Carrillo.

Captain Adriana Cruz nodded, “He was a member of the Klingon Defense Force, and an exchange officer. I’m still recovering from another attack, so I was off the ship when he did it. But yes, continuing a run of First Officers who’ve left.”

Carrillo smiled, “Well I can’t promise I’ll stay but I’ve never served under a Latina woman captain before, so I hope to stick around.”

”I’ve had the opportunity to pickup who I wanted to, and a lot of people like us had careers that had stalled out. So there’s a few of us onboard,” Cruz said. She smiled, “I joke that I’m working up to an all Latina ship. I’m not actually but after serving on ships of all white male senior officers, I don’t feel that I’m out of line.”

”My last ship was ninety percent Vulcan,” Carrillo said, “Don’t worry, you’re not doing anything wrong.”

Cruz sat down with her glass of wine, “I missed you at the Academy by a few years. But your background in Klingon studies and Security was what I needed. We’re not on an exploratory assignment any longer. At least for now we’re doing border patrol.”

“We’re refitting for a tactical mission pod?” Carrillo asked.

”We are,” Cruz nodded gesturing out the windows at the ships being worked on. There the USS Luna was being refitted with a few pod to handle more tense encounters. After losing a Romulan scout ship to the Klingons they were going to be ready next time, as Cruz had joked they were no longer bringing a protractor to a knife fight.

”I’ve never been here before, it’s quiet,” Carrillo said.

”Commanders and up only,” Cruz said, “I imagine at one time this was all a certain kind of man. We’d have been arm candy at best.”

Carrillo nodded, back in Archer or Kirk’s day there was no rule against women of Latina women being in positions of authority, it just never happened. They’d had Vulcan admirals before that, heck they both could count on one hand the number of Latina Admirals there had been in their lifetimes.

”I‘m going to need you to work with my Chief Security Officer,” Cruz said, “Sorry our officer. She’s a Lieutenant and a bit green but bright and I think she could be up for a new pip in a year or so. She just needs, guidance.”

 “We also have a Romulan advisor,” Carrillo asked.

”We do. I was thinking of making her First Officer, but I want whatever we do to be our decision, and not dictated by the Romulans. She can advise, nothing else,” Cruz said, “As a Klingon expert what are we facing?”

”Lots of confusion. Nobody’s sure where Martok is or if he’s really dead. Some Klingons are happy with peace with us and the Romulans, most want war with the Romulans and some was war with us and the Romulans. Right now there’s as you know, raids on Romulan ships and colonies but nothing directly on us yet,” Carrillo said, “Though with the wrong ship, at the wrong time that could change. The Klingons are armed to the teeth and even the ones who are on our side don’t want us to tell them what to do.”

Cruz nodded, “Is peace even possible?”

”Not impossible, but unlikely. There’s elements of the Klingons that haven’t ever really accepted the Khitomer Accords and others who see us and our alliance as having served its purpose. War for them is the natural state of being, and they’ll try goading us into striking first,” Carrillo said, “and then they’ll use that as an excuse to invade. Like old nation state of the United States of America invading Vietnam due to the Tonkin incident.”

“So they’ll push us until we push back and then they’ll say we started it?” Cruz asked.

”Probably, yes, if you want to describe our alliance with the Klingons like a sibling,” Carrillo said.

”I’ll introduce you to the senior staff tomorrow,” Cruz said, “We’re in dock for just over a week. Then back out into the fray.”

—- Starbase 86, Conference Room 4 —-

“Alright thanks everyone for taking time out of your day to meet our new First Officer and Introduce yourself,” Captain Cruz said. Continuing she added, “Most of you have leave, and I know this isn’t what any of us would want to be doing right now. So please welcome Commander Olivia Carrillo our new XO.”

Adjusting her uniform with a tug as she stood and gave a small wave Carrillo smiled, “I’m glad to be joining up with you. I hope to be of use.”

“Updates from left to right, what’s the state of your department, anything we should know that sort of thing,” Cruz said.

Lieutenant Commander James Young stood up first, and after giving his name added, “I’m the Chief Engineer. We’re in good shape. We were in a few battles on our shakedown cruise and came through them with little to no damage. The mission pod will be in today which gives us four extra torpedo launchers, and two hundred extra torpedos. Other than that I don’t have a lot to report.”

Next up was Lieutenant Yuhiro Kolem the Chief Counsellor who also introduced herself then went into her status update, “Crew is pretty shaken but the week of leave will be good. I would guess we’ll not be staying in Federation space, but it felt good for people to get back here after the attack on the Romulan ship.”

If there was one overriding sense that Carrillo got through the array of officers who went on to present was that they were dedicated but still shaken up from the series of events that had hit them on their first mission on the new ship. From a series of murders to the attack on a peaceful Romulan ship by their former First Officer, it seemed that there was a lot of morale to rebuild, though nobody would admit to being down. The crew was loyal and would soldier on no matter what, not wanting to let down their captain or their fellow team members.

Later when Carrillo retreated to the officer’s lounge on the station, she spotted Acting Chief Medical Officer Thomas Elordi. “So are we broken beyond repair,” he asked only half jokingly.

The pair sat down to enjoy their drinks, “Maybe, certainly wounded in a way. War is a time of trauma but then I don’t have to tell the ship’s doctor that.”

”I’m not a counselor,” Dr. Elordi said, “I don’t fix those problems.”

”Well hopefully Lieutenant Kolem is up to the job, and is as good as the Captain thinks she is,” Carrillo said,  “Because this war is just beginning and we have so much more trauma to go through.”

Doctor Elordi nodded, “We’ll grow together, and we’ll rise to the challenge, I’m sure. I’ve only been with this crew a few months now and I don’t have any doubts.”

”Well doctor,” Carrillo said after a silence, “I hope you’re right.”