—  USS Selene, The Triangle —

The USS Sizemore peeled off heading to the port side, firing a salvo of photon torpedoes at the two smaller pirate ships to draw them into engaging with it. This left the USS Selene against the larger, and better-armed pirate ship. 

The ship had large expansive cargo holds, both for the large inventory of artificial intelligence-controlled drones that the Selene had already dealt with and for the spoils of its attacks. It also had more canons than seemed possible, though they were almost jury-rigged onto the ship, and lacked the precise targeting of Starfleet vessels, or even the not as well-engineered Klingon ones. Its strategy was clearly to turn the sector to fire, meeting the Selene’s hails with overwhelming force. 

With its shields already weakened the Selene had no choice but to begin the engagement with evasive maneuvers, its forward torpedo canon firing off a quick burst of quantum torpedoes. It stayed moving, unable to stand up to a sustained assault from the large, and ungainly pirate vessel.

Space was silent, the void cutting off all sounds as the Sovereign-style engineer strained, the warp core trying to rebuild the damaged shield power as the ship took turns and danced to avoid the onslaught. 

The Sizemore was having a more straightforward time, used to border patrols it had faced off against small pirate vessels like its opponents before, often in more overwhelming situations. It to had to stay in motion, to prevent being outgunned and a stationary target, but its flight was to keep the two vessels operated and to prevent them from coordinating their attacks. Phaser fire weakened their shields, if they were the only three vessels in a quadrant they would have withdrawn, but they were like a cornered animal fighting to hold onto its merger territory.

— USS Selene, Bridge —

A console exploded in a shower of sparks as torpedoes struck the already weakened shields and hit the ship’s hull. Captain Carrillo gripped the seat armrests tightly, to keep from being once more tossed to the floor unceremoniously. Inertial dampeners were the only thing that kept the bridge crew, and likely the rest of the crew through the ship, from being thrown left to right and back again as the ship bobbed and weaved like a boxer looking to catch their breath between pummellings.

Chief Security Officer Claudia Jara called out, in between firing the ship’s phasers, “Shields at twenty percent.”

Though they had survived the trap that had lain in wait for them and had weakened their shields, they had already been outmatched and so starting off the fight with the disadvantage of damaged shields had not helped.

“Pr’Nor keep us moving, but then bring us around,” Carrillo said to the Chief Flight Control Officer who was at the conn. It was clear that motion was only useful for a short time, and that they were just giving the pirates a chance to weaken their shields before going in for the kill. The chief tactical advantage of the Lamarr-class ship was its forward phaser canon.

“Jara as soon as we come around fire everything we’ve got, unload on them,” Carrillo said, arresting the pirates, while noble, was not looking like a feasible outcome. The ship shook with fire from the pirate vessel’s disruptors once more, pivoted on its slow arc, and fired. The streaks of light were continuous as at the tactical station Jara counted down the rapidly dwindling inventory of torpedoes, “One hundred photon torpedoes left, twenty quantum…”

It was risky, putting their fate into one final push to break the pirate ship’s resistance, but Carrillo was counting on the Starfleet vessel to be better armed, better engineered and to be able to weather a beating a bit longer.

At tactical Jara again spoke, “We’ve hit a store of torpedoes, they’ve ignited I’m reading an explosion inside the pirate vessel.”

The other two pirate vessels that had been engaging the Sizemore suddenly stopped fighting and took off, entering warp without notice, suddenly as if given a signal. 

“Hail the pirate vessel, offer our assistance, if it drops its shields,” Carrillo said. She stood from her chair, adjusted her uniform that had become disheveled during the battle, and watched the main view screen as the pirate vessel suddenly began to break apart as explosions cascaded along its exterior.

“That’s bigger an explosion than it should be,” observed Lieutenant Commander Keyana Mason, the acting First Officer.

“A distraction?” Carrillo asked, trying to understand what was happening. Suddenly a large segment of the ship seemed to break off, and before they knew it it too jumped to warp. 

“On ancient Earth, sleight-of-hand performers used to deploy an explosion or smoke bomb to distract their audiences from their actual movements,” Pr’Nor observed the Vulcan bringing the ship to a stop.

The crew watched as the segment of the ship that remained behind was consumed by a series of explosions. It was clear that the pirates had gotten away, though hopefully not without suffering their own setbacks with the destruction of their drones and at least part of their mothership.

“We’re being hailed by the Sizemore,” Jara said.
“Onscreen,” Carrillo said.

A much more composed Commander Barin Kayto appeared on screen his bridge not showering him in sparks or looking like it had been half blown up at all. He smiled, “Good job Captain, I was starting to think you were on the ropes.”

“We got lucky,” Carrillo admitted, not seeing any point in lying to the Betazoid, or her own crew that had just lived through the same experience that she had.

“Ready to go home?” Kayto asked.

“We’ll take about half an hour to get our warp core online, but we’ll join you. How about your bridge crew come for a celebratory dinner, we apparently have real chefs,” Carrillo said, knowing that life aboard a Steamrunner-class was a great deal more Spartan than on the Selene.

“Will Lieutenant Kolem be there?” the Betazoid asked of the ship’s former acting First Officer and current Chief Counsellor, the half Betazoid half human. 

“I’ll be sure to invite her,” Carrillo promised.

“We’ll join you in a few hours,” Kayto said, “Once we’re underway and sure we’re not about to be jumped out here in the wrong end of nowhere.”

— USS Selene, The Delphi Senior Officers Forward Lounge —

“Your husband isn’t a senior officer?” Inquired Jake Dornall as he drank something Bajoran that was colourful and probably strong.

Captain Carrillo shook her head, “No, also he’s on the bridge, someone needs to fly the ship. Sorry to hear about you and Kolem, I didn’t realize you broke up.”

He shrugged, “I keep secrets, it’s kind of my thing. She’s half-Betazoid, I don’t deal in open candour, long term it wouldn’t have worked. Not everyone is marriage material.”

Another tray of something Betazoid made the rounds. It was light, delicate much like the people. Airy, as if could crumble but it did not. Carrillo wondered if you could read metaphors into all people’s food like that, extrapolate things from the unspoken meaning they gave to their cuisine.

Dorsal stepped aside as Lieutenant Commander Kyle Renault approached, “Captain, I have to say good job. The odds were high, but you had the balls… excuse me guts, to see it through.”

“Thank you,” Carrillo nodded, “Your captain and your crew performed its job perfectly. I’m glad you had our backs.”

The man nodded, then said, “Is it true you married a man from the twenty-third century named Lambert?”

Carrillo nodded, “I suppose you could summarize it that way.”

“My great-grandfather was in the Academy with a Lambert, maybe its the same person,” Renault said.

Carrillo shrugged, not knowing what that mattered. Pierre did not seem to want to spend a lot of time looking up the ancestors of the crew or the cadets that he’d served with. He was more focused on his future, trying to find him place in a Starfleet that had changed considerably since his time on the USS Boston. She nodded though, “I’ll mention it to him, it may well be that they knew each other.”

“I can’t imagine marrying my great grandfather,” Renault said adding, “You know if I was a woman.”
Carrillo nodded, “I also probably would not marry my own great grandfather. And I am a woman.”

She disengaged with the Sizemore’s First Officer and found a window looking out at the stars stealing towards them, then past them as they headed back through the Triangle. Captain Carrillo sipped her drink quietly until her acting First Officer sat next to her, the half-Vulcan Lieutenant Commander Mason. Drawing more on the human half of her the woman smiled, “You did good captain. Keep this up you’ll get to keep the pip, and the ship.”
“Captain Cruz will be back,” Carrillo observed, hoping that it was true.

“Maybe, but you saved lives today, and with no casualties,” Mason observed, “Starfleet needs captains, you’ll end up somewhere.”

“It feels like this is where I belong,” Carrillo said.

“Maybe, but where ever you go, you’ll manage,” Mason said.