—- USS Luna, Main Engineering —-

Lieutenant Murf scuffed her uniform’s shoe against the warp engine. When it had first been installed there had been a catastrophic accident that had killed the original Chief Engineer and had set back both the Luna-class program and the ship itself several years. The class designer Commander Xin Ra-Havrei who had been a part of the maiden voyage had to take over engineering duties until the ship had been able to resupply and re-crew following the explosion. Eventually the instabilities had been worked out, and the class had proceeded but there was still a plaque on the warp core of the Luna dedicated to the crew that had lost their lives that day.

It was a reminder that in engineering there was a cost when you failed, sometimes it quite literally blew up in your face.

Though the lieutenant had not designed starships, she had served on enough of them to have learned that lesson multiple times over. Life was fragile, even the oh so long life of a Lanthanite. She might be functionally immortal, at least to the momentary existence of humans, but an undetected plasma leak could put an end to her life before she even hit middle age.

“So why didn’t you join the academy?” Murf asked as she replaced the isolinear chip, slotting into place and then restarting the assembly that they had been working on.

The Betazoid Petty Officer shrugged, “I spent so long specializing on becoming a warp specialist that I didn’t want to go to school to learn how to salute.”

Aasus Breasi offered a non-committal shrug, clearly not particularly caring. The Betazoid was a good member of the team, and had learned how to fit in despite not having attended the academy. Perhaps there was something to being Betazoid that made him empathetic enough to understand the social cues that many in the department missed, engineers were often not as in touch with that side of things as they should be. Maybe he was just easy to get along with, friendly and outgoing, and trusted by his comrades even if he was not an officer.

“Don’t you ever want to be Chief Engineer or anything?” Murf asked, interested. She’d lived the length of several human lives before finding engineering which was what she’d discovered was her true passion. She’d planned to rise through Starfleet through several years until she was promoted to a position were she didn’t do any real engineering then she’d go and find herself a ship and start a new life. To her a few extra years in Starfleet Academy had been nothing.

“That seems really depressing,” Breasi said, “having to tell people what to do, having to write reports about people. Here I come and do what I love for my shift, and then I’m free. I don’t have to worry about ensuring Ensign Bob Human is performing at the level expected of him.”

“To be fair Bob Human is performing well,” Murf smiled. She did not elaborate, she got it rank was not important to her or to most of the engineering team. It was instead the strength of the idea, not who it came from. She’d only recently been made Assistant Chief Engineer and while Murf had not turned down the role, she had not cared overly much. Life had not changed, other than she had to attend more meetings that could have been a video mail.

—- USS Luna, Chief Counselor’s Office —-

Lieutenant Junior Grade Torma glanced up from her desk at her superior officer, Lieutenant Yuhiro Kolem. As the acing First Officer Kolem had had to step away from her role as Chief Counselor, a step back that she was having difficulty taking. It wasn’t easy to jump in to life as a counselor and then out of it and then back in again. Her patients needed some consistency, and while she was still doing shifts the reality was she no longer had the time for the administrative work and that was with Commander Carrillo still handling the paperwork for being a First Officer. If Captain Cruz was going to be on medical leave for an extended period of time, they would have to revisit the arrangement.

“You look stressed Lieutenant, want to talk about it?” Torma asked, half-teasingly.

Kolem shook her heard, the half-Betazoid and smiled, “We’re not here to analyze me, I don’t have the time in the day for that.”

“And what would you say to an officer who claimed they didn’t have the time for therapy?” Torma asked.

The Chief Counsellor sighed and shook her head, not wanting to get into it and not feeling at this point that therapy was what she needed. They were on their way, likely into battle without a captain and she was doing all she knew how to hold the ship together, so was everyone including Commander Carrillo.

“How are the crew holding up with everything?” Kolem asked. Most of all she regretted that she no longer felt that she had a bead on the crew’s emotional state and how they were feeling. Becoming the First Officer, had altered that relationship and that was an outcome she’d not intended. Hopefully it could be undone.

Torma gave up trying to continue to provide therapy to her fellow counsellor and simply nodded, “They’re good, determined. I think a lot of people, are eager to get another shot at the pirates. A few, especially of the older crew are a bit anxious that we’re not on a deep space assignment, the crew was explorers and we’re acting as border guards.”

“But nothing we need to worry about going into battle?” Kolem asked, hating that she had to boil down the crew’s mental health to whether or not they could handle a conflict.

“We’re behind you, don’t worry. We’re Starfleet, we’ll get it done,” Torma said, knowing that more nuanced answer would simply cloud Kolem’s judgement and make her worry. Kolem, being half Betazoid, could tell that there was something that Torma was not saying but decided to trust her Assistant Chief’s assessment.

—- Jaressi Centre —-

Lieutenant Commander Jake Dornall and Lieutenant Syvia Voosha were hiding up in a room on Jaressi Centre. Dornall wore the clothing of a pirate while Voosha wore the clothing of a dock worker. They had been pretending to make out when they’d entered the room but as soon as Dornall completed his scan of the room to ensure it was not being monitored they stopped and separated.

“The Luna is on track to get us in a few days,” Dornall said, “Any new information from the docks?”

“There’s a shuttle in dock that apparently was selling a lot of Starfleet tech and equipment. I’ve tagged it with a tracking device,” Voosha explained, “Some of this stuff was very new, the kind of stuff you’d only find if you had raided a Starfleet station or ship in the last month.”

Dornall nodded, “I haven’t found anything. Other than the fact that the majority of pirates are too scared to talk about it. There’s a ship out there, but they won’t say anything more.”

“How come you always get the good assignments with drinking with pirates I have to work at the docks?” complained Voosha.

“Lieutenant Commander perks,” Dornall said, “Besides you’re too quick tempered, remember on…”

He was interrupted by a banging on the door. The pair eyed it, Dornall stood and tried to sound like they’d been active in their, making his voice sound out of breath, “Who is it?”

“Station security open up,” a deep voice growled.

“Hold on, let me get decent,” Dornall said as Voosha hid all incriminating evidence.

Not held off by Dornall’s wanting to be ‘decent’ the door opened, the lock override by the station security. A tall Capellan male and a team of various species were standing outside in the hall with phaser rifles.

“Can I help you I had just started, you know with a girl,” Dornall gestured, “You need a diagram?”

The Capellan glanced at Voosha as the security entered the room, tossing the mattresses of the double occupancy room on the ground and searching the place.

“You gonna tell us what’s up?” Dornall protested, “Not just trash my stuff.”

The Capellan hit him in the face, a surprising escalation of the situation, but at nine feet tall Dornall was not going to hit the man back.

“Quiet,” the man barked as the room was searched. Eventually an Orion male held up a Starfleet emblem, a communicator pin. The Capellan nodded then gestured to the others who grabbed the two Starfleet Intelligence officers and pulled them out into the hall and down it.

Dornall recognized Starric from the briefings, the Director of the station or administrator or whatever. He was a Betazoid, which likely gave him an advantage in the backstabbing world of pirating.

“Oh look,” Starric said evenly, “Uninvited guests.

The Capellan handed him the commbadge which he examined and nodded, “Well now this will be interesting.”