—- USS Luna, Sol Station —-

It was clear that the engineer in charge of Sol Station was proud of the ship. He was practically beaming as he showed the Captain around pointing at all the work that had been done to bring it up to an almost new condition. It was impressive but Adriana Cruz was not sure why she was there, this was not the USS Seattle that was back at Starbase 415.

”When the Luna and its more famous cousin the Titan launched they had the best sensor array in the fleet. We’ve updated the mission pod with state of the art sensors as well as intelligence gathering equipment. Plus obviously some photon torpedoes,” he said gesturing to a display projected on a transparent screen.

”Interesting,” Cruz said. She was on the space dock for a First Contact refresher course, and now she’d been pulled into this tour which required her to be polite even if none of this had anything to do with her. Perhaps it was a lesson In patience, learning to listen and study while someone was telling you something quite boring.

The human engineer smiled, “New screens, new computers, new carpeting.”

”Lovely,” Cruz said rubbing her foot on the carpet and pretending to appreciate the craftmanship.

”It’s not quite as austere as modern ships, so we wanted to ensure the crew feels like they’re the first,” he explained, “And comfortable of course.”

He lead her onto the bridge and after pointing out the various duty stations gestured to a door, “Here’s the most exciting part.“

They entered a large spacious office that dwarfed the Ready Room on the USS Seattle. It was not yet decorated, though it had sets of wooden shelves on the back which had two ship models displayed. At first Cruz did not look carefully then she saw that the were the USS Seattle, and the USS Luna.

“You’ll stop at Starbase 415 to get the bulk of your crew, and then onto Starbase 85 to finish filling it out. Any design changes on the office can be done there before your first mission,” he said.

Cruz looked at the model of the USS Seattle then back at the engineer, “Excuse me.”

“They didn’t tell you?” he said, “You’re the new captain of the USS Luna. You’re getting about 250 crew here and adding the Seattle’s crew to it. Your first officer will meet you on Starbase 86.”

“Your crew, or the bulk of it, will be arriving now,” he explained further, “We’ve got you slotted to leave space dock in about eight hours. Congratulations Captain.”

He left the Ready Room and Cruz took a seat in the main chair behind the desk. It was a surprise, while she had been planning on how to make the much smaller Rhode Island-class work as a border patrol vehicle now that she was assigned to Task Force 86 a Luna-class made a lot more sense, even if it was no longer the top of the line ship it had been when Captain Riker made the USS Titan famous.

After about twenty minutes of looking around her expanded Ready Room she exited to the Bridge where a crew was already working. Mostly junior officers, Ensigns mixed with Lieutenants but it was enough experience to get them across Federation space. With that she went back on board Sol Station to beam down to Mexico City and retrieve her bags for the voyage home.

Hours later, eight to be exact, the exit from Sol Station was smooth. The USS Luna maneuvered on impulse towards the far edges of the Milky Way galaxy, pointed towards Starbase 415 and then once they were certain all other traffic was out of the way leapt to warp seven. While this was not much more than a ferry ride though Federation space and the crew, even one without department heads, could have handled it, the Captain savoured sitting on the bridge to take in all that it had to offer. Finally she rose and appointed a Lieutenant the acting captain as she headed to her bedroom.

Soon they’d be picking up the rest of the crew and on their way for their first mission.