— USS Selene, Unexplored Space—

The crew of the USS Selene was able to relax some, with distance speeding between them and the race they knew only as the ‘Hunters’. Whether they were related to the Gorn, the Pahkwa-thanh or any of the other cold blooded races that had either joined or met the Federation, they were not sure. Their hostile attitude and desire to get the Selene out of orbit and away from their food source had not made them overly informative. As if expanding the knowledge base of the Federation’s databanks was not their chief priority. 

Aboard the ship things had settled down after the flurry of activity as the ship and it’s away teams had been forced to leave the planet. One cadet who had been injured while deployed  had healed up, and life was beginning to settle back into the natural rhythms of a  ship travelling at high warp. 

— USS Selene, First Officer’s Quarters —

Captain Carrillo was still in her quarters assuming that Captain Adriana Cruz would return to lead the ship, despite the woman’s recovery being pushed back each time they spoke. Thus her and her husband, Lieutenant Pierre Lambert, were living in the Executive Officer’s quarters. It was a good size, though it was a bit of a come down from the rather plush quarters on the USS Luna. 

She was in an arm chair reading briefings received overnight from Starfleet headquarters when the door opened and Lambert entered, the young girl who had stowed away on the runabout with him. Starfleet’s word on the situation had been delayed, and rather annoyed but they had agreed with the decision not to return her. The problem was with at least a month to go before they turned back to Starbase 86, the girl had no where to go and appeared to be non-vocal.

“I can’t get used to a kid on a starship,” Lambert said as he replicated a bowl of ice cream for the girl.

“The Selene could have families,” Carrillo said, setting down her PADD, “we just haven’t yet. Everyone is young, and other than us none of the crew are married. On ships though full families can come aboard including civilian spouses.”

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même,” Lambert said, “Just another way to give us everything we could want in space.”

“Replicator, holodecks, wives, what won’t Starfleet bribe you with?” Carrillo teased reading about other missions going on in Task Force 86. 

Handing the child a bowl of ice cream he replicated one for himself. Later he might find a chef on board to make a proper meal, but for now ice cream from a machine would have to do. As far as his pallet could tell replicator food had gotten better from his day but was still not like eating something real. 

“Do you think she can understand us?” Lambert asked, and then “Do you understand us dear?”

Carrillo looked up from her PADD, “The communications team seem to think we had observed enough to add her native tongue to the universal translator. So she should be hearing us in her tongue, though obviously the language model is not perfect yet, not without more data.”

Of course all that the girl knew was her village and the surrounding area, and now that was gone, and she was being taken into space on a starship be aliens. 

Lambert had found himself taking care of the girl most days. He was a pilot, but he seemed to be better with kids than a lot of the crew and though since she did not speak it was impossible to tell, the girl seemed to actually like him. Of course bribing a kid with ice cream will get them to like you rather easy.

Custody of the young woman would have to sorted out once they retuned back to starbase. For now a hodgepodge of officers were caring for her, taking shifts and turns putting some nascent parental instincts to use. With the cadets now working on probes, the senior staff was more available for parenting duties than normally and the guilt of what they were forced to allow happen to the young girl’s people drove them to being extra attentive. There was, though, the fact that it was only temporary like when someone would bring a cute puppy to the Academy and everyone would shower it with love. No one really thought that this was a permanent situation.

“You can’t keep feeding her ice cream,” Carrillo said.

“Unless you’re going to pull rank on me I can feed her all the ice cream she wants,” Lambert countered.

The captain rolled her eyes but did not press the subject, it was fine to spoil the girl for awhile. Starfleet or the Federation would provide her with a more stable environment when they took custody. They had spoken about having kids, though there were no plans to particularly when the process would take time out of Carrillo’s career as captain, a role which she had just won. Lambert seemed less bothered by his career but there were biological reasons why it affected him less, even if he became the primary caregiver.

She went back to her reading, as Lambert cleaned up the ice cream bowls and then promised to show the girl the holodeck, though it was not clear that she understood all of it or any of it.

— USS Selene, Holodeck Lab 4 —-

It was impressive that the lab had taken on the aspects of space, a few buttons pressed to program everything and all of a sudden they had the view as if they were standing on top of the USS Selene itself. With a gesture Lieutenant Akane Sone could zoom in or look through another perspective. It was impressive technology, even for the twenty-fifth century. Maria Cortez a lieutenant in the science department was making notes at Sone’s side, the scientists were almost as eager as she was to be seeing new stars and a new perspective on the galaxy that they knew.

Behind them was a gaggle of cadets all looking on in awe, as such a view was not possible on earth, at least not that they’d experienced. 

“Space is infinite,” Sone said, “But the galaxy is not. We’ve divided the known galaxy up into quadrants. Now this is an easy one, you should have learned it in grade school, what quadrant is Earth in?”

A Bolian student’s hand went up, “Alpha.”

Sone nodded, “And where would you expect to find Klingons?”

“Beta,” one of the male students called out.

“And the USS Voyager was lost in the… what quadrant?” Sone asked again.

“Delta,” someone called out.

“That’s all easy stuff,” Sone said, “I’m not your instructor, so you don’t get extra marks for knowing that. But you’ll be expected to recognize elements of at least two quadrants on your test next month. You can pull up star charts in your room from your computers or these labs can be booked and used by groups. If you have any questions let me know, otherwise I’ll leave you with Lieutenant Cortez who has some questions about what makes up stars.”

Leaving Cortez in charge of the students Sone exited the holodeck and bumped into Lieutenant Lambert who was leading a small girl, likely the one retrieved from their last planet visited, down the hall. Sone knew Lambert, as he’d started off in Stellar Cartography after being found by the USS Luna, until he’s moved over to being a pilot. Mostly because ships no longer had navigation officers, which he’d been.

“Cute kid,” Sone said.

Lambert nodded, “She is, but she bites when she’s mad. We’re going to find an open holodeck and visit Paris.”

“Does she know what Paris is?” Sone asked, she’d been there once, going on vacation with her family from her home in Osaka.

“No, she also doesn’t know what a holodeck is,” Lambert said, not quite sure how he was going to explain it when she was non-verbal and the universal translator had not yet fully learned her native tongue.

“Sounds fun, is she yours now?” Sone asked.

Lambert shook his head, “I don’t know, I guess Starfleet will take her. I don’t know all the procedures for things like this.”

“Can’t say that there’s many situations like this,” Sone admitted. She then reached a turbo lift, “Well good luck, have fun.”

Lambert nodded, and he and the girl continued down the corridor as Sone stepped into a turbo lift.