—- USS Luna, Medical Bay —-

The dreams had been kept at bay by the sedation. It was not until natural sleep had taken the baton and Captain Adriana Cruz had drifted out of the medically induced coma that she felt it. The worst of it had happened while she was out, either because she had been rendered unconscious in the field, or because she’d been kept sedated until she was stabilized once back aboard the USS Luna.

Her leg felt on fire. Woozy she sat up and with blurry eyes she examined it, finding that it was not the leg that she knew. It was not her leg.

“You’re up,” observed Lieutenant Junior Grade Doctor Thomas Elordi setting down the PADD that he had been reading and crossing the medical bay to run a medical tricorder up and down the captain’s body to confirm that she was indeed awake.

“What happened?” Cruz asked, still bleary from the events.

“The creature had a poison,” Elordi explained, “And Doctor T’Rala found it… Well your leg had to be removed. We are waiting on your body to heal more, than we’ll work on what’s next.”

Cruz looked down and realized that what she thought was her leg was indeed a fake one, a kind of lightweight polymer.

“We have some cybernetic options, and perhaps organically regrowing something,” Elordi said. He would have broken it to her gentler or allowed her to remain in the dark until fully healed, but there was not much way to hide that you no longer had a full limb.

“Why does it hurt, if I don’t have it?” Cruz asked.

The young doctor nodded, “Phantom pains are common. You may have some kind of pain in your leg the rest of your life. I can sedate you if you’d like?”

“Were’s Doctor T’Rala?” Cruz asked, waving off the offer of a sedative, “Asleep. The Romulan survivors have been given quarters in the VIP areas of the ship. We are repairing everything, but nothing is fixed yet. The Klingons are demanding we hand over the Romulans and so far we’ve managed to bluff our way out of danger.”

As the Assistant Chief Medical Officer Elordi had been involved in all the discussions given that until the shuttles with the survivors had returned he’d been the acting Chief of the department.

Cruz fell back onto the medical bed, and head a hiss of a hypospray.

“In the morning I’ll make sure Commander Carrillo stops by to talk, but for now you need rest,” the doctor said.

Cruz looked up at him wanting to argue but she was too tired to, the sedative acting quickly to numb her real and phantom pains and send her back into the darkness of a dreamless sleep.

Despite the fact that Commander Olivia Carrillo had only been awake for about thirty minutes she already looked, and felt tired. Entering the medical bay she spotted her captain on a diagnostic bed being seen to by Doctor T’Rala who nodded as she approached. T’Rala had already been gone to administer care to the Romulan colony by the time that Carrillo had been assigned to the USS Luna, and so she didn’t know the woman having only briefly met her the day before.

Cruz was awake though clearly the worse for wear, having had her leg removed and with minor frostbite from the planet’s surface.

“Captain,” Commander Carrillo nodded, she tried to lighten the mood, “I was going to mention before you left, I really didn’t like your leg anyway.”

Cruz nodded, not quite in the mood for jokes, but understanding the need to make things lighter, “Funny, I was a bit attached to it.”

Doctor T’Rala nodded, “I’ll leave you two, don’t rile her up any. She’s not cleared to return to duty.”

When the Doctor had left Cruz leaned back against the elevated back of the medical bed and sighed, “So how is it?”

“Well I’m glad you’re alive, first off because you’re my friend, and secondly I don’t know how you dealt with this Klar character but he’s being a pain in my butt,” Carrillo said of the ship’s previous XO who had been a member of the Klingon Defense Force that had been assigned as part of the First Officer exchange program to the USS Luna.

“I was young,” Cruz said in her defense.

“It was only a few months ago,” Carrillo said.

Cruz shrugged, “What’s going on?”

“We hit headlong into the debris from the Romulan warbird and are still dealing with the damage. We have comms and sensors back now but weapons will be at least ten hours. Klar wants us to hand over the Romulans and only isn’t firing on the ship because we’re bluffing him that we’ll destroy the only way back,” Carrillo explained, “Not that we could even if we wanted to.”

Adriana Cruz wanted to leap from the bed and try to solve the problem herself but she knew that she couldn’t. Not now. Not in her condition. She nodded, “Do what you can, get us home and don’t give up the Romulans. They may be Tal Shiar, but we don’t trade lives.”

Carillo nodded, “You rest up, I’m not ready to be captain yet.”

—- USS Luna, Captain’s Ready Room —-

Commander Carrillo looked at the Romulan captain Commander Sibolev not wanting to put up with him. She knew to show him respect, but when she was doing her best to keep the Klingons from killing him, it seemed a little annoying that she had to put up with this.

“Commander I appreciate the rescue but can you not fix your ship faster?” Sibolev said.

“We are going as fast as we can,” Carrillo said, “And I have a Klingon battle cruiser to deal with. They may just destroy us and assume that Starfleet will never know what happened here.”

“Then let my crew help,” Sibolev said, “Let them out of their quarters.”

“You’re a Romulan spy ship, or you were, and I won’t have a bunch of Tal Shiar agents wandering the halls of the Luna trying to discover our secrets. You all have guest quarters, I’m sure you understand.”

“We have been fighting the Klingons now for…” he began.

“And did such a good job that your ship blew up. No, I have enough problems to deal with Commander Sibolev,” Carrillo said, “I don’t need you and your crew adding to them.”

Sibolev’s smile reminded Carrillo of a crocodile’s grinning at its prey. It was just her luck that she had to deal with two antagonists while so far from Starfleet and without the captain being able to pitch in. She nodded and stood heading to the bridge with the Romulan Commander following along.

—- USS Luna, Holodeck 1 —-

The simulation ended with the USS Luna exploding, as it had in the three previous attempts. Commander Carrillo picked herself up off the floor as the yellow and black tiled environment replaced the bridge of the Luna-class ship and sighed, glancing at Lieutenant Jara who had been at tactical.

“So is there any scenario where we survive a fight with the Klingons?” Carrillo asked the tactical officer, glancing at Lieutenant Eleanor Dorian the Chief Strategic Operations Officer for some ideas.

Jara winced, “Under the current parameters with a half broken ship, no. The Klingons out arm us, and frankly have less to loose than we do. Klar doesn’t care how many casualties his ship takes, we do.”

Lieutenant Dorian nodded, “He was a real hydrospanner even when he was on our side.”

Carrillo nodded, she needed Young to fix the ship and while she was confident that he was the guy to do it, she needed it done today.

“Any problems with our Tal Shiar guests?” Carrillo asked.

“No,” Jara said, “I have guards patrolling the halls outside their quarters, acting natural but ensuring nobody leaves. They have had computer access in their quarters limited to materials that you can get from a book shop, nothing sensitive. We may want to think about letting them get a holodeck session or two in, if they’re here for awhile.”

“Let’s pretend we’re getting home and worry about what happens if we don’t later,” Carrillo said, “I have enough going on without combining crews right now.”

—- USS Luna, First Officers Quarters —-

“Tough day?” Pierre Lambert asked after kissing Olivia Carrillo’s neck, embracing her from behind. She snuggled up against him letting out a low moan of pent up tiredness and exhaustion wanting very much to be in bed by now.

“The toughest,” she confirmed.

They had been very Catholic about their engagement, though both of their families had long since given up the religion. Sharing a bed prior to the wedding was verboten, and while Lambert had no family other than distant great great nephews living, Carrillo had a large one that would be annoyed to learn that their daughter had married without their knowing. Heck they’d be disturbed to know that she was engaged without telling them, though she could get them over that.

Carrillo wanted to correct herself and say that Fleet Day was tougher, but Lambert had not been around for that, so he would not quite understand though he had read about it.

“Can we skip to the honeymoon on Risa?” she asked, not wanting to juggle Klingons, Romulans, and a crew anymore.

Lambert laughed, his fingers toying with her earlobe. He was not familiar with Ferengi, so she refrained from making a joke about their preferences. There was a lot about the universe that after being thrown forward in time the Lieutenant had to learn, and simply reading old logs wouldn’t teach him.

“I should get back,” Lambert said kissing her, “we both have duty in the morning.”

She held onto his hand, not letting him leave, “Stay tonight.”

“But you wanted to wait,” he said, not wanting to pressure her into anything she might regret.

“From the simulations we ran today there’s a very real chance there won’t be a wedding,” Carrillo said, “Just for tonight, okay.”

Lambert nodded kissing her once more, she tasted of vanilla and smelled that way too. She was soft and alive, and yet she was carrying the weight of a starship on her back.

“Just for tonight,” he agreed.