This takes place after ”Babel”.

—- First Officer’s Office, USS Luna —

“We should talk,” Lambert said pacing around the large office, glancing out the windows at the stars moving past at warp five. 

Commander Olivia Carrillo sat at her desk, doing her best not to react to the Lieutenant’s rather reasonable request and busied herself with pointless busy work. She glanced up from a report on tribbles who had infested a Starbase and frowned, “Talk about what?”

Lambert signed, and said something under his breath. Carrillo was not dumb, she knew what he wanted to talk about, it was the part of her log and the resulting report that she had left unexplored about their last mission together. She’d grown up in a large family, and had often heard her parents say about an unruly child who was being a pest ‘if you ignore him/her she’ll get bored and stop’. Hopefully Lambert would drop it.

”Mademoiselle,” he said, “I know you are not foolish. We were taken captive and made to kiss. It is not how I wanted it to happen, being used for some child Queen’s amusement.”

Carrillo looked at him, “I am not Mademoiselle, I’m a Commander.”

”Commander Mademoiselle,” he said grinning.

Carrillo sighed, “Look Lieutenant. Lambert. Pierre, I like you a lot. What happened on the planet was a violation and not your fault or mine, but it was a mistake. We work together we can’t date.”

”Why not,” he asked.

”Regulations,” she said.

Pierre shook his head, “Even in this new age that it not true. I read about a Captain Riker who had a Luna-class ship and married the counselor.”

”I think they were married before,” Carrillo pointed out.

”Everyone I know died and I was sent hundreds of years into the future,” Lambert pointed out, “You do not want me, I will leave you alone. But I do not think that is true. I will also not wait for happiness, not after I lost everything.”

”What are you a Betazoid now?” Carrillo said, knowing he was right, at least about that.

Lambert laughed, “I can’t read minds, but I can read you like Les Miserables.”

”I’m not your Christine and you don’t live in an Opera House,” Carrillo shot back.

Lambert looked confused for a moment then nodded, “That is the Phantom of the Opera, not as good. Though the book was very good.”

Standing and moving from behind his desk Carrillo looked as if she was debating slapping Lambert, but eventually reached for his face and pulled it towards her own. The pair kissed, not the most romantic thing that had happened in the First Officer’s Office since the ship had originally launched, but certainly in the top ten. 

When they broke from the kiss Lambert smiled, “Our first kiss.”

”We kissed on the planet,” the Commander pointed out.

”Not willingly, without consent it does not count,” Lambert said, “Would you like dinner tonight?“

“I was going to dinner with our new Communications Chief and Crew woman Vanuoma Vedda,” Carrillo said, “but a fourth wheel is welcome.”

”I do not think that’s a saying,” Lambert said, “Cars have four wheels. I saw one in a museum. The point is that someone is a third wheel and, that is too many wheels. Or too few.”

”I’m dating my grandfather,” Carrillo moaned, but smiling anyway. 

“I am probably older than your grandfather,” Lambert pointed out.

—- Officer’s Dinning Room, USS Luna —-

“I have never met an Orion,” Lambert said, “I thought they were all pirates.”

”We’re not,” Vanuoma Vedda said.

”Apologies,“ Lambert said, “I’m from the past. What did you do before coming to the Luna.”

”I was a pirate,” Vedda said. 

Lambert glanced at Commander Carrillo to try to get some guidance for how to navigate this. While the Luna was not currently as multi-species as it had been at launch, or as the USS Titan had been it was much more diverse than the time tossed Lambert had experienced. Vulcans were still exotic when he’d served and now the ship had a Betazoid, several Vulcans, whales, a dolphin, an Orion, and more.

“Anyone from your life still alive?” Lieutenant Randolph McKenize, the ship’s new Chief Communications Officer asked. He added, “A joined Trill or a Vulcan?”

Lambert had recently read about Trills as he tried to keep up with the way the world had changed in the years that he had lost, while Trills had been around they were not as common and they had kept their joined nature a secret. He shook his head, “I don’t think so. I had a Vulcan professor at the Academy but he was old even back then.“

Carrillo tried to wrap up the discussion so they could talk about something other than Lambert’s having missed all the time since the first USS Enterprise had been in service. The story ended that they had looked and there was nobody left in Lambert’s life from when he had come from. It was best not to dwell on what had been lost more than he had to.

“How are you settling into life on the Luna Vanuoma?” Carrillo asked. 

“Difficultly,” the Orion answered, “On the last ship I travelled on my mother was the captain and I had no real responsibilities. Here I clean out your holographic decks.”

”Ah. I remember being an ensign and having to do that,” the Commander said, “My uncle would say it builds character.”

”My character is fully formed,” the woman shot back annoyed. Most of the people she had spoken with remembered doing jobs like that as Ensigns, yet she was a Crewman and would not be promoted to Ensign or beyond. Instead she would just remain one of the background people on the ship, endlessly working to allow the officers to go their way. Even dinner tonight was beyond her station, as instead of replicated food actual chefs worked in the senior officers lounge.

Carrillo stole a glance at Lambert who had similarly found no avenue for conversation and the pair exchanged a glance. Perhaps this had not been a good first date idea.

Sensing that things were getting tense due to his guest’s attitude Lieutenant McKenzie smiled, “So Lambert how are you finding the twenty-fifth century? What new devices or changes are most doing your head in?”

Lambert nodded, “Klingons being at peace with the Federation, or having been. The holodeck is quite, impressive. I mean just this whole ship, you know the USS Boston was a decent sized Reliant-class but it was nothing compared with the Luna. This is the size of a Starbase.”

Carrillo nodded, “It’s a medium sized ship. Ships of a thousand or more people are in service and Starbases can handle tens of thousands now. Not like the old K7 stations, which are still in service.”

”We were stationed out of a K7 station,” Lambert said, “Though it’s probably not there any more.”

”And the people?” McKenzie asked, “How are us future people?”

Lambert shrugged, “People are pretty much still people. Situations change but I don’t think we have. But thankfully I’ve had Olivia to show me around. She’s been my angel.”

”Nobody believes in angels any more,” Vedda said.

”I don’t either,” Lambert said, “I was being poetic.”

McKenzie pushed on, “Being from France, do you have a good sense of cooking?”

”Yes, I loved to cook,” Lambert said, “Obviously on the ship our replicators were kind of tasteless blocks of nutrition but when I went home, I’d cook. Your replicators now, our replicators,” he said remembering that he was not just here for a visit, “are better but still you having chefs on board is much better.“

A waiter came in and severed up the meals, including ‘steak frites’ for Lambert. He nodded, “Chefs are definitely better than replicated food.”

”More and more they’re replacing staff with holograms,” McKenizie said, “You have ships where whole bars are staffed just by holograms.”

Lambert shrugged, “I suppose it’s better than just replicated slop, but you lose something when you lose the human, or Orion, touch. Why not send holograms to do what we do on ships? How soon until there’s an all holographic fleet?”

”Or all Borg fleet,” Vedda said rather cruelly. 

Carrillo shot a glare at her and then McKenzie, bringing a pirate onboard had not been Carrillo’s call but rather Captain Cruz and while the Captain obviously had had good reasons for it, clearly the woman was not interested in settling into life aboard the Luna.

”That’s not funny,” Carrillo said her voice becoming terse.

Lambert who had just read about the Borg but never seen them, or encountered them looked between the women. He had read in reports about the events of Fleet Day but did not know what it was like, and had no contact with the Borg who had not been discovered until centuries after he had been sent forward through time.

“Mes femmes,” he said, “relax there is no reason to fight.”

Carrillo though having decided either she deck the Orion crewman or leave, got to her feet and stomped out of the lounge toward the turbolift. Lambert watched her go, grabbed a fry from his plate and followed.

The turbolift was open when he caught up to her. She gave the computer her floor number and Lambert sighed, not quite sure what to say but knowing something was wrong. Carrillo was visibly shaking now, so tentatively he wrapped his arms around her and held her.

”It’s okay,” he said softly.

”No it’s not,” Carrillo said, “I killed my brother.”

Lambert was confused, he did not know of her brother serving aboard the USS Luna, nor Carrillo killing anyone. Still he held her against him.

”What do you mean?” he asked.

”We were both assigned to the USS Liverpool. I was the head of Operations and he was a lieutenant junior grade in security,” she said, “We were celebrating Fleet Day in the lounge when most of the crew turned into Borg. I was next to my brother, he changed and attacked.”

Lambert had the vague notion that he was grasping the story.

”He began to choke me. I pushed him back but he kept coming. Those of us left were able to get phasers, I shot him rather than…” she broke down sobbing.

”Rather than let him be a Borg,” Lambert said understanding, “Then they reversed it.”

”I didn’t know they’d do that, I just knew he didn’t want to be lost like that,” she said.

”Computer pause turbolift,” Lambert said, “Olivia, I found my girlfriend. With pictures I watched her grow old, get married to someone else and die. I know where on Jupiter her kids live, and grandkids. We go on, no matter what. You did what you thought was best for your brother. You saved him from a life in the Borg Conglomerate.”

”Collective,” Olivia corrected him.

”So many officers died, you couldn’t have known,“ Lambert said, “I assume it was chaotic, seconds to make a decision. In one moment you made a heroic decision, you can’t have known it would turn out like it did.”

Carrillo nodded still sobbing. She straighten out and tugged on her uniform to straighten it. She resumed the turbolift. Looking at Lambert she said, “I don’t want to be alone, can you come with me.”

Pierre took her hand, “Toujours mon cher.”