—- USS Luna, Conference Room 1 —-

Lieutenant Pierre Lambert watched as the other officers threw around ideas for how to return him to his time. He felt at once both superior to them as he was technically over a hundred years their senior and inferior to them as they had a century plus more of scientific discoveries at their fingertips. They were children of children playing with technology that was beyond him.

”So Lieutenant Lambert was shielded from the radiation that buffeted the ship as it travelled through the slip stream from the past,” Lieutenant Commander Miller the Chief Science Officer concluded, “He would have survived because of the chance happening of being sent into the shielded weapons locker just as they were sucked into the slip stream.”

Captain Adriana Cruz sighed, “And thus everyone else died shortly after.”

Lambert nodded, “When I got out and we were drifting trying to get or engines online everyone was violently ill. Within a few hours they began to die.”

”Ship’s logs are incomplete, but by our initial examinations that seems to be the case,“ agree Chief Engineering Officer James Young. He glanced at Lambert, “The paranoia in early ship design around photon torpedoes leaking radiation is what saved him. It’s a design feature we wouldn’t have these days now that we’re more confident in torpedo design.”

”So the very thing that was meant to protect the ship from radiation instead protected the Lieutenant,” the First Officer Carrillo who Lambert had met back on the USS Boston said, summarizing.

”Can we send him back?” was the Captain’s next question.

Young shrugged, “If he were to hide in the shielded area again we could but there no way for him to stop the journey through the slip stream. He may ended up pre-warp or elsewhere along the time line. To construct a ship capable to transversing this event would take weeks, and it’s doubtful that Starfleet would be able to in time. The slip stream is showing signs of collapsing.”

“How long?” Cruz asked.

”Days, maybe,” Young said.

”Anyone have any ideas?” Cruz said.

”We have crew who were alive in the time period Lambert is from. Vulcans are able to live that long, not to mention myself,” Tashi the Al-Aurian said, “It’s not as if he can say anything to contaminate the past, in the future. Thus…”

She shrugged and Cruz nodded, “Thus he poses no threat to the timeline. The USS Boston is recorded as being destroyed, and all hands killed. Thus if you have changed the past we don’t know about it, and likely you’re stuck here Mister Lambert.”

”So I go in a museum or what?” he asked, his gold uniform contrasting with the dark black uniforms with colorful accents around him.

”Well that’s up to you. We can drop you off at Starbase 86 the next time we go there, or, I could offer you a position here. As Lieutenant on the USS Luna,” Cruz said.

“Those are my options?” Lambert asked.

”I wouldn’t want you to mess up the past by ending up in 18th century France or anything,” Cruz said, “but you wouldn’t be expected to reamain a Starfleet officer if you choose not to. You’ve served for well over a century, you could retire.”

”I assume my girlfriend is gone, and so is my family. I might have great nephews or something, but no family waiting for me,” Lambert mused. He seemed resigned and nodded, “I will remain on the ship, and re-enroll in the Fleet.”

”Commander Carrillo, please show him around, and get him situated in the navigation department. She will be your contact for now, until we get solid directives from Starfleet, but I’m assuming they’ll follow my lead,” Cruz said, her crew was getting bigger though unexpected new crew members.

”Young,” she asked, “how long to get the USS Boston up and going?”

Young nodded, “A week. Conversely we could tow it, that would be what I recommend.”

“Long range scans have picked up ships moving in this direction, we have a few days at most,” Miller said.

”Get me a tactical analysis of the ships as soon as you can, or have Lieutenant Jara prepare it for me,” Cruz said, “Alright, we all have stuff to do, dismissed for now.”

—- Luna, Tranquility Base Lounge —-

“And that’s the USS Luna,” said Commander Olivia Carrillo as she entered the lounge of the ship trailed by the time lost Lieutenant Lambert. 

Lambert nodded, not quite sure about all of this. Occam’s Razor suggested that it was more likely that he had hit his head against a bulkhead and was in some kind of coma rather than being the sole survivor of the USS Boston trapped in the twenty-fifth century. The ship did not make sense, it was too large, there were too many people aboard and whatever powered this ‘Holodeck’ thing that he had just seen seemed like a fever dream. Perhaps he had died and gone to heaven which was run mostly by women, who seemed keen on showing him new technology.

Pierre Lambert smiled, “It’s nice, I’m curious about this synthahol stuff. Is it really as bad as they say?”

Carrillo smiled, “Honestly I think most people just play up the fact that they can taste a difference, and most can’t. The only real difference is that you can shake off the buzz of being drunk if you want, and be sober instantly.”

She got them both drinks and they sat down. 

Lambert tentatively tried his scotch and nodded, “I was never what some call a wine snob, which seems counter-intuitive since I’m French. This scotch tastes fine.”

“Some people can do the academy and grow to love booze, but I rarely drank during my years there, and haven‘t since, so I don’t really notice any difference,” Carrillo said. Shifting the conversation she said, “So I assume it won’t be easy, but anything we can do to help you settle in we will. I have Operations getting you a room and new uniforms and stuff.”

Lambert looked down at his yellow navigators uniform and the rank on the sleeves and then glanced at the Commander’s pips on her collar. Her Starfleet insignia was a comm badge too, and he’d seen in working when she’d found him in a bunk on the USS Boston. He glanced out a window and caught a glimpse of the USS Boston.

”My stuff, I mean it seems silly but photos and stuff,” he said nodding to the window and his ship.

“We’ll get that,” Carrillo said, “and you can use the computer to look up anyone you want. At this point we’re all assuming your stuck here.”

”The oldest person on the ship,” Lambert joked.

”Our head of Ops, Tashai who you’ve met is 423,” Carrillo said, “She’s young for an El-Aurian and we have a joined Trill whose symbiot is older.”

Lambert nodded, “Well then most out of date, past by ‘Best Before’ date crew member.”

The Commander shrugged, “The USS Luna is for all kinds, catching up with technology and science will take a bit, but you have experience that we don’t. You’ll find a place as disorientating as this all is.”

”I was going to be married on my next shore leave,” Lambert said, “To an artist. She is, was, waiting for me.”

Carrillo looked at her glass, “I’m sorry. It won’t be without difficulty, but I think you’re better off alive out of time, than the alternative.”

Lambert nodded, “Yes, maybe. I could have been a body just like the rest of my crew.”

—- USS Boston, Navigator’s Quarter’s – Lieutenant Pierre Lambert —-

“Well your new room at least is bigger,” observed Commander Carrillo as she wandered through the cramped quarters of the Reliant-class mid ranked crew member’s quarters. Lambert had a modern Starfleet duffle that he was dropping books and a few other things into including a model of the USS Boston.

He picked up a photo of a young blonde woman in a dress, “My fiancé.”

He’d looked her up, she’d become a notable artist and had married. She had a family, and passed away decades ago. His own family had lived on, the current generation in Amiens in the north of France where he had been born. Nobody was still alive that would know him, and he didn’t feel like he had much to go back to find. Maybe one day, he’d already sent a message to them, unsure of how they’d react to a long lost great-great uncle showing up.

”It’s nice to see you could balance life in Starfleet with a relationship,” Carrillo said sitting on the bunk.

”We patrolled Federation space, we weren’t the explorers like the Enterprise or something, we got home often enough,” he explained, then gesturing broadly added, “Unlike the Luna.”

Lambert was in the current uniform now, his rank on his collar. The pair seemed out of place with this museum like atmosphere, everything old but new. A two year old ship at the time of its loss, the USS Boston had had a great career in front of it.

”Anything else you want to get?” Carrillo asked, “I don’t think anyone would mind if there was something you always wanted to take.“

Before Lambert could answer her badge chirped with an incoming hail. She tapped it.

”This is Lieutenant Kolem, time’s up we have pirates in coming,” the Third Officer and Chief Counselor said, “They’ll be here in five.”

Carrillo nodded, “Beam us up on my mark. Well Lambert this may be your last chance.”

The pair exited his quarters and made their way to the bridge where Lambert and Carrillo removed the dedication plaque. The final piece that the Lieutenant added to his bag. Before the pair beamed off the USS Boston and onto the USS Luna. Leaving only memories and ghosts in their wake.