— USS Selene, The Triangle —

The USS Selene dropped out of warp followed by the USS Sizemore. The Selene took the lead position, its powerful sensors reaching out into the dark of space and seeking out the beacon that its intelligence officers had placed. It slowed to half impulse, searching. Finally, it seemed to find something and began to slowly increase its speed, heading towards its target carefully as if it was not sure what it might find. 

— USS Selene, Bridge —

Captain Olivia Carrillo looked over the shoulder of Lieutenant Eshita Elizabeth Das at the readings they were getting back. Behind them at the console was the new acting First Officer Lieutenant Commander Keyana Mason, who had changed her teal sciences uniform for a command red one. The area was littered with various effects that played tricks on their scanners, even the advanced scanners of the Lamarr-class were having trouble penetrating it. Realizing that having to head back to Starbase 86 after all that work of trying to locate their pirate advisory Carrillo was not willing to give it up just yet.

“Try alternating the bands,” Carrillo said, not sure if what she’d just said made sense in this context but there had to be some adjustment that they could make.

Used to investigating stellar phenomena Das found that tracking pirates was not to her taste. However, her hand danced along the LCARS panel as she did indeed adjust the bands that they were scanning. 

“The trouble is they picked this location for the interference,” she said, “I’m going to try applying some limitations to the scanner, so we’re not getting natural phenomena but rather just that someone made.”

Glancing at the captain she said, “You can all stop looking over my shoulder as I work, I’ll let you know when I get something.”

Rebuked Carrillo nodded, knowing that she had to go to a more hands-off type of leadership style now that she was Captain, and that she had an (acting) First Officer who understood the science aspects of their ship far better than her. She had come up through Operations before changing to the command division early on in her career when she had found that she had no real aptitude for the engineering part of the job. Moving boxes around a ship had been one thing, but when asked to fix a replicator she’d not performed as well as she felt that she should have.

“Lieutenant Jara,” Carrillo said, “make sure the Sizemore knows we’re looking.”

“Yes ma’am,” the tactical officer said from her post at the security console.

Stepping away from her screen Das glanced at the captain, “We’re going to fire a probe to try to cut through some of the noise, the filters aren’t enough.”

Carrillo nodded, “Okay. Let me know as soon as we have something. Mason, you have the bridge.”

— USS Selene, Holodeck 3 —

Carrillo lay on her back trying to catch her breath, “You know usually you don’t beat up your captain.”

Lieutenant Rebecca Avila who had been the leader of the Hazard Team on the Luna, and likely would fill the same role here on the Selene once things were in place grinned and cracked her neck. 

“If you didn’t want to be flat on your back you’d be training with someone afraid of captains, like Lieutenant Junior Grade Hume,” Avila grinned. The woman was one of many Latinas who had been drawn to the USS Luna due to Captain Cruz’s aggressive recruitment of women who had been overlooked. After a career of largely being the only one on a ship or one of a handful, Adriana Cruz had sought to change that once she had power of her own.

Getting to her feet Carrillo steadied herself then took another swing with her right hand. Avila blocked it and delivered a blow to her midsection knocking the wind out of the captain. Despite using safety equipment the contact hurt and Carrillo doubled over as she tried to regain her breath that had been knocked out of her. 

The captain paced as she tried to regain her composure, “We might not find the pirates.”

Avila shrugged, “Less chance of me being shot at. I’m not mad about that. I get that we need to stop them, but we’re not a warship.”
“No but we’ve got the scanners needed to find them,” Carrillo said, “And we have a canon.”

“A canon and five bucks will get you a coffee,” Avila said.

“What does that mean?” Carrillo asked.

“I think it’s something to do with buying coffee, maybe how much it used to cost. The point being a canon is a canon but it’s not solving all our problems,” Avila explained, trying to define the old Earth adage she’d deployed.

Not sure if she got it or not Carrillo nodded as if she had. Money was dumb, and before they’d gotten rid of it it seemed to be people’s primary concern. Did you have enough money, did this guy (it was almost always a guy) have too much? Were you starving to death from too little of it?

“Canons are pretty good at solving a pirate problem,” Carrillo said.

“True,” agreed Lieutenant Avila before knocking down the captain again.

— USS Selene, First Officer’s Quarters —

Lieutenant Pierre Lambert looked at the black and blue areas on his wife’s body. A day full of training had not found the pirates and gotten her mostly pummelled by the security officer. 

“I’ll get you some ice for that,” he said heading to a replicator.

“Ice, you know we have doctors your don’t need to put leeches on me,” Captain Carrillo said teasing her husband who was a time-lost survivor from the twenty-third century.

“It’s ice, not leeches, and if you wanted to see a doctor you’d have stopped at sickbay rather than coming home first,” Lambert pointed out, “I’m not a dumb as you think I am sometimes ma chere.”

“You know I love it when you talk French to me,” Carrillo said watching her husband return with a bundle of ice cubes wrapped in a cloth.

“I’m always talking French to you, turn off the translator and you’ll see,” Lambert pointed out. 

Shivering as her husband deployed the ice she lay on their shared bed and closed her eyes, “What if I fail? I’m not ready for this.”

“For the ice?” Lambert asked as he set it on her bruised torso. He shook his head, “Nobody’s ready for the important moments. But you’ll do fine, if you don’t find the pirates it won’t be for lack of trying. Starfleet won’t blame you.”

“It’s all on me now,” Carrillo said.

“It is, and there’s no one I’d trust more,” Lambert said.
“You’re biased,” Carrillo pointed out to her new husband.

He shrugged, adjusting the ice on another bruised area, “Probably. But I’m also someone who’s lost a lot in my life. What little I have now, I trust with you. Out of everyone on the Luna, I picked you to give me heart, and my life to.”

“We’re not on the Luna anymore,” Carrillo said, not sure if that was a good point or not.

“Good point, I should probably find another wife,” teased Lambert.

Carrillo huffed, “You’re lucky all my bones are broken or I’d break all your bones.”
“None of your bones are broken, you’re just banged up,” Lambert said, “We’ll lie quietly for awhile and you’ll be on the bridge in the morning good as new.”
“Through the healing power of hugs?” Carrillo asked.

“And leeches,” Lambert teased and kissed his wife’s shoulder.

— USS Selene, Bridge —

The captain was still stiff in the morning, though she had to admit that the ice had helped. Walking more or less normally she headed to the centre chair and glanced at her bridge crew, “Update?”

“We might have something,” the acting First Officer Keyana Mason said, bringing up a map of the area on the main view screen. “We’ve been getting weird readings from this region here, might be nothing but it might be a power source running something akin to a cloaking device, a janky one.”

Carrillo nodded, “Move in, get the Sizemore to follow. Let’s see what we can find.”

At the ship’s controls, her husband Lieutenant Lambert nodded, “Yes ma’am, moving in on half impulse now.”