Captain Cruz materialized on the D’deridex-class warbird’s bridge and spotted the doctor that she had not seen in months. T’Rala Matthews wore a simple cloak that had clearly been what she was wearing while living with the lost colony of Romulans over the past few months. She hugged her doctor, who hugged her back.

“You know that’s the first hug I’ve had in months,” T’Rala said.

“What Romulans not big huggers?” Cruz teased.

“No we are not,” interjected Commander Sibolv who watched the two, one Romulan raised by humans and the other a human captain.

At one of the terminals a Romulan officer said, “We are closing in on the anomaly. I’m putting it on screen.”

The screen was filled with a strange looking wormhole thing, that was not a wormhole, at least according to the scientists that Cruz had consulted with.

“The Federation ship is launching a probe and taking up a position to study it,” the same officer reported.

Cruz nodded, “We have a science team that is on board to observe this and a few other things of interest. We had a specialty probe manufactured.”

Sibolv nodded, “Do the same, fire a probe in and collect readings. Alert me if anything changes. Captain Cruz, Doctor T’Rala please join me for dinner.”

“So what’s new?” T’Rala asked as they followed Sibolv to his dinning room.

“My XO Klar went nuts, killed a bunch of Romulans and buggered off,” Cruz said, “I got stabbed by an insane changling that the Tal Shiar had in captivity. New XO, obviously, we did a tour of Romulan space. Dealt with Cardassians a few times, pirates.”

T’Rala smiled, “So slow then.”

“Doctor V’Tok died,”  Cruz said somberly, “I’m sorry I know you were close. He was killed by the changling.”

T’Rala nodded, “He was special.”

“So you’re our new Chief Medical Officer, if you’ll take the position. We’ve been using a EMH to supplement our team since then,” Cruz said.

T’Rala nodded, not sure how to react. Her and V’Tok had been like siblings in some ways, with them always teasing each other, V’Tok in his dry was and T’Rala in her jokey very human way that she had about her. She’d served under him on the USS Seattle and the USS Luna.

They were lead to a small table, and seated next to Commander Sibolv, who had the first course of a cold soup brought out. Cruz figured it was meant to be cold, and it actually was quite tasty.

“So a Luna-class ship,” Sibolv said, “The Luna-class ship, the one commanded by Captain Riker that opened up relations with Romulus.”

“No, that was the USS Titan,” Cruz said, “This is the Luna, the first of the Lunas but not the Titan.”

Sibolv nodded, Cruz knew the mistake was calculated, the Tal Shiar knew what was the first Federation ship to their home world and wouldn’t have made that mistake. She wondered to what end.

“Do you enjoy it more than the USS Seattle? That was a Rhode Island-class named for a state in America a human country,” Sibolv observed, “Our files say they’re small and fast. That was your first command.”

“Yes,” Cruz said, “You’re files are good. There’s always something about your first command, but the Luna is more comfortable and packs more of a punch. I don’t have to talk my way out of fights with pirates as much now.”

The Romulan commander nodded, while he did not deal with pirates he understood that they were troublesome out in the Triangle. He was about to call for the next course of their meal when he was interrupted by a chime, “Commander we have a Klingon Negh’Var-class warship decloaking on our starboard.”

Cruz’s commbadge similarly beeped, and Commander Carrillo’s voice came from it, “Captain, Klingons are here a Negh’Var-class.”

“You should return to your ship things are likely to become complicated,” Sibolv observed.

Cruz nodded, tapping her comm badge, “Two to beam back now.”

“Klingons are raising shields and arming,” the bridge of the Romulan ship reported, adding, “Raising our shields.”

Suddenly the Romulan ship shook and Cruz tumbled out of her dining chair. In less than a minute she’d gone from a tense dinner with a Romulan to being fired on by the Klingons.

“Captain the Klingons have launched torpedoes at the Warbird,” Carrillo said through comms, “we can’t beam you back while the Romulans have shields up.”

Cruz knew better than to ask the Romulans to raise their shields, not that it mattered. They’d been too slow for the initial salvo of torpedoes and something felt off to Cruz, the ship was listing.

T’Rala pointed out the window, “That’s part of the ship right?”

Cruz saw that they had become detached from the back half of the Warbird.

“Shields down, we’ve lost engineering,” came the reports through the internal communications system, as the Romulans began to panic. The ship floated towards the anomaly, and suddenly the world went sideways.