—- USS Luna, Bridge —-

Several things happened at once. Commander Olivia Carrillo sat down with a cup of coffee in the central command chair usually reserved for the captain when the runabout the Apollohailed. The Luna was still fixing their comm systems, as well as sensors, weapons, and engines, so only internal and short range communications were open. To help co-ordinate the search of the planet below for their captain, and the rest of the Romulans, they had deployed the Apolloto simulate the ship’s sensors. They weren’t as sensitive as the Luna’s usually were, but it was better than being blind.

“This is Carrillo,” the Commander said as Lieutenant Claudia Jara’s face appeared. The Chief of Security looked concerned, “Ma’am the Klingons have arrived the same battle cruiser that destroyed the Romulan Bird of Prey. Also one of the shuttles may have found Captain Cruz but I don’t have details yet.”

Carrillo nodded, and tapped her commbadge, “Lieutenant Diya Acharya, this is the bridge, please report to a transporter room to beam over to the Apollo. I need you to stall the Klingons, at any cost.”

“Got it Commander,” the reply came from Carrillo’s badge.

Carrillo turned back to the screen, “I’m sending over Lieutenant Ahcharya. Do anything you can to stall the Klingons. They’ll want to start blasting Romulans and we need our medical officer and captain back. Obviously we can’t threaten them, but if you have to threaten them then do that.”

“So don’t threaten them, but maybe threaten them?” Jara asked.

Carrillo nodded, “Exactly.”

Jara glanced down, “The Luna itself might be a threat to them, but a runabout I might as well get out and spit at their shields.”

“If you think that would help,” Carrillo said.
 

—- USS Luna, Briefing Room —-

Commander Carrillo took the seat at the head of the illuminated table and nodded at the senior crew or their Assistant Chief officers who were in attendance. With some on the planet conducting the search for Captain Cruz and some in the Apollo doing their best to delay the Klingons, there were a few gaps in the staffing.

“Okay, let’s try to keep this brief. Updates the Klingons are here and we may have a lead on the Captain. Both situations are developing, so engineering when will anything on the ship work?” Carrillo asked.

Lieutenant Murf shook her head, “Not soon. We’ll have communications back in about twelve hours, weapons maybe in twenty.”

“Sorry who are you?” Carrillo asked.

“She’s Lieutenant Murf,” Chief Assistant Engineering Officer Ensign Vanessa Constable said, “Lieutenant Commander Young hadn’t slept for several days and so we sent him to take a nap when you called this meeting.”

“Okay, so how do I deal with Klingons without weapons of any kind?” Carrillo asked.

“Bluff?” Constable suggested, she gestured at the schematics that came up on the table in front of everyone, “We can cycle power through the systems giving the illusion that we have working weapons. We could have them look like they work to scans in about two hours.”

Carrillo sighed, “Okay I’m not loving the plan of bluffing the Klingons, but let’s do it. Making us seem like we have weapons is a priority now. Next where the hell are we?”

Lieutenant Scchhttt’aaakkk was on a monitor from the pool that he swam in. He looked out at the camera nearby and let out a series of chirps which the computer translated for his non-dolphin crew mates.

“We appear to be on the edge of Romulan space, likely deep in the Beta Quadrent. We’ll need Romulans to confirm, but we are probably about three years at top warp from Romulan territory. Then another one or two before we hit Federation space where we left,” he said.

“So not Voyager far, but pretty dang far,” Carrillo said. She closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose, “Once we have sensors start plotting a course home. What’s the status of the anomaly and can it take us home quicker?”

The Vulcan scientist Lieutenant Setiv nodded, “Passage through both ends of underspace is possible. This is thus far behaving like any passageway we’ve studied through there.”

“What’s the worst case scenario, given that the Klingons have proven that they’ll do the thing that most annoys us,” Carrillo said.

“It would not be logical to do so, but a torpedo could collapse the tunnel. It would trap the Klingons here as well, so I do not know why they would,” Setiv pointed out.

Carrillo nodded, “Are Klingons logical Lieutenant.”

The Vulcan considered this, “No, they do not appear to be.”

Carrillo stood and nodded to the officers assembled, “Alright let’s get the captain home and get ourselves out of Dodge.”

—- Planetside —-

With the Apollo up in orbit, acting as the eyes and ears of the USS Luna, the Ranger was the other runabout that had tried to get near the series of caves where one of the shuttles had detected an energy surge that might have been Captain Cruz. The trouble was a hairy beast with razor sharp fangs was jealously guarding the cave system and had reacted to the arrival of the small craft.

Ten shuttles, and the runabout had landed about ten kilometers away to discuss the issue.

“We’ll use the Ranger’s weapons to hold off the creature, land the other shuttles and get everyone out,” said Lieutenant Commander Tashai who was ranking officer on the scene.

“Surely the Prime Directive doesn’t apply to non-intelligent life,” argued Lieutenant Pierre Lambert.

“If you want to go give it an intelligence test be my guest, but we’re not here to fly around the galaxy killing every new species we encounter,” Tashai said, “We don’t know how many Romulans are left alive, but we take everyone. No one gets left behind.”

The crew agreed and Lambert climbed into the cockpit of the Ranger, and the runabout and all shuttles took off. They were all named after missions, and ships vital in setting a man on Earth’s moon with names like Explorer, Kosmos, and Soyuz. As they approached the creature Lambert fired phases on low intensity, enough force to push the beast back but not to do any real damage. As he staffed the creature, driving it back and away from the tunnels the others landed and began to shepherd a hundred Romulans from the caves.

Doctor T’Rala came out covered in blood that was red and thus not Romulan, “Captain Cruz is in here, I’ll need help carrying her.”

Tashai entered to see a one legged captain unconscious on the ground.

“I had to,” T’Rala said, “the leg was infected. That creature has a kind of poison. I need to get her to sickbay.”

Without further discussion the pair lifted her onto a floating stretcher and guided it to the shuttle Zond. Loading it in the shuttle kicked up snow as it took off, five Romulans piling on as well as the Starfleet doctor and the crew assigned to it.

Tashai contacted the other ships, “We have all Romulans, and the Captain. Everyone back to the Luna.”

The question was what would the Klingons do.
 

—- USS Luna, Bridge —-

Lieutenant Murf nodded, “We can relay you through the Apollo, allowing you to talk directly to the Klingons.”

Carrillo did not want to talk to the Klingons but her Chief Diplomatic Officer was reporting that they were getting fed up with dealing with a couple of Lieutenants in a runabout.

“Can you give me power to the weapons, so it looks like we’re armed?” Carrillo asked.

Murf nodded, hitting a few keys on the Engineering Console, “Doing that now.”

“Open a channel,” Carrillo said, “Hail the Klingons.”

Klar the previous First Officer of the USS Luna appeared and grinned. The Klingon had gained fame in the Empire through killing Romulans and now a whole fleet of them were coming his way on the Luna’s shuttles.

“You brought me a shooting gallery, thank you commander,” Klar said.

“Firing on a Starfleet shuttle would be an act of war,” Carrillo pointed out.

“Not when you’re lost in space,” Klar said, “By the time you get back home, there’s not going to be a Romulan alive and nobody will care about a few Starfleet officers who got in the way.”

“You were the XO, you know the Luna still packs a punch. You might out gun us, but you won’t be able to stop us,” Carrillo said.

“Stop you what?” Klar laughed.

“From collapsing the way home. Tactical power up weapons and lock on to the anomaly,” Carrillo said, “Now do you want to spend ten years unable to celebrate your victory? Which of us will have the more comfortable flight home? Do you really want to be stranded on the far side of Romulan space?”

Klar looked uncertain, then he growled, “We will hold fire for now. But we will expect those Romulans be handed over.”

The screen switched back to the image of the planet below and the small ships slowly approaching. Carillo sighed and collapsed in her chair, bluffing having taken its toll.

“Engineering,” she said, “Get me some weapons. Even if you have to weld hand phasers to the hull.”