— Starbase 86 —

The USS Selene slowed to a stop and coupled with the starbase. With docking procedures underway Captain Olivia Carrillo felt confident enough in her crew seeing that aspect of their return out to relinquish control of the bridge and head to her quarters. In the next day or so she’d visit Commodore Ciffao Tharc and get her newest orders. Unlike the USS Luna which she’d served on previously, the Selene was meant to return to starbase regularly for resupply and to be given new marching orders. They would also take on more cadets, as about half their compliment rotated out to return to their Academy courses, and a new batch joined them.

The Selene would also be taking on new crew, particularly in the science department, as the crew expanded to the eight hundred and fifty that it was classified for. Rushed into service to deal with a pirate threat and then rushed back out to give their first class of cadets a taste of Starfleet they would try to be more comprehensive in their crewing responsibilities on this time in spacedock and not rush out into the unknown.

The starbase was a hub of activity, hundreds of people many fresh off their own starships. It was full of Starfleet personal, but not exclusively so. Here so near the Triangle Klingons and Romulans also gathered, though tensions had been rising between the two races for some time now. Fights were rare, as both species knew that the Federation would not tolerate such disruptions to normal business, and neither of them were (yet) ready to lost the support of the Federation or Starfleet.

Carrillo moved from the Selene to the starbase with her husband Lieutenant Pierre Lambert and the small girl they had adopted as process that had occurred while they were in flight. It seemed that neither Starfleet, nor the Federation, wanted much to do with the mess that circumstance had caused aboard the Selene, and the chance to get the girl off their hands had been leapt at.

Due to her husband’s French background they’d called her Aimée, which to Carrillo sounded exotic enough and meant (according to Pierre) beloved.

Aimée, who had seemingly gotten used to life aboard the Selene in the months they had been on assignment, seemed concerned with the crowds on the starbase. The ship had been bustling, but not overwhelming, and she clung to the pant leg of Lambert and tried hiding behind him as much as possible as they headed to their temporary quarters.

The Selene had spartan accommodations. Even the First Officer quarters were less luxurious than they had been on the Luna-class that the couple had served on before.  Starfleet still took care of their crews and it was better than Klingon, Vulcan, or many other races’ accommodations, but Starfleet’s turn towards utilitarianism was at odds with a relaxing life in space. The trade off was that life was not meant to be relaxing, but rather the Selene went places and saw things that no one had ever seen before.  Plus for the most part they were not, unlike on the Luna-class, meant to be out in space for years on end. They were not five year missions, they were quick sprints to see new life and new civilizations,on the Selene they were meant to boldly go where no one had gone before.

The temporary quarters were compact, but still larger than on the Selene. The ones on her ship had not grown when she had gotten married, and now there were three people living in them instead of just one person. She had put in requests for several improvements to the quarters to make them more suitable for a family, but there was no guarantee that this work would be done for this time in dock.

It was hard to tell how much Aimée understood about, well about anything. She was still non-verbal and had gone from life in a small pre-electricity village to living on a starship. She’d lost her world, and had had to adapt to living on what the nearest point of reference she might have was a large boat, and now she was in a spacestation.

“This is a starbase,” Lambert said to her pointing out the window at the ships journeying either to or from the base, “Those are ships. Like ours, the Selene.”

The universal translator was having a hard time with her language since she had not spoken and they had a very small sample from the survey team of her native language. It was possible that she had not even learned to speak yet, and there was not telling really how long her life cycle was, they might find that they had adopted a a child that would not age to maturity for centuries. Though given what the reptilian hunters had said it seemed unlikely that this was the case.

There was a ding and Carrillo went over to a terminal on the wall to check her messages, there she noticed that she was being requested for a meeting with Commodore Tharc in the morning. Nothing that the woman had to say ever ended up being good news. It wasn’t that Carrillo disliked her, or thought the Commodore was bad at her job, just that mostly she had assignments for the crew that broke from the exploration that they were meant to be doing.

She moaned and both Lambert and Aimée looked at her, turning their attention from the ships out the window.

“Meeting with Commodore Tharc,” Carrillo explained.

“Ah,” Lambert said, “Maybe we’ll be getting a new captain.”

Carrillo was technically the ship’s First Officer, though she was now the acting captain in lieu of Captain Cruz’s injury. She had hoped to remain in command of the Selene until Cruz had been fit to return, but from the captain’s last message that did not seem to be likely anytime soon. Perhaps Starfleet had simply moved Cruz to the reserves and called forth another commanding officer for the Selene.

“We’ll see,” Carrillo said, “but that’s tomorrow. Why don’t we go to that Trill ice cream place? Have some fun while we’re here.”