—- Captain’s Ready Room, USS Selene —-

Both doctors looked exhausted. The ship’s Chief Medical Officer T’Rala Mathews and the Academy educator turned temporary support person Doctor Michelle Mueller. Both were normally held up as the pinnacle of Starfleet and adherence to how one was to wear a uniform. Both were now covered in blood and ash, and looked like they’d been through a war zone.

“Anything we can’t treat here we’re loading on the USS West Covina, or the USS Falcon,” Mueller said.

“She means anyone,” T’Rala said. A point of difference between the two doctors was that Mueller found it easier to see illnesses and maladies and treat those and not see the patients even though they were attached to the illnesses and maladies.

“Now that the USS Falcon has chased away the Cardassians Captain Radak is eager to get Selene Division going. However with us offloading so much staff to the USS Falcon, I do want to recrew a little,” said Captain Carrillo.

She continued, “However I’ve been overruled. Captain Radak thinks the Academy students and the new holographic crew we’ve been meaning to test will bolster the ranks for now. So while we might be light we’ll be on our way once we’ve taken care on the planet. Doctor T’Rala any chance Doctor Elordi is ready for a Chief Medical Officer post? The USS Falcon still has no medical staff.”

“We can send them a few people, but Elordi is a few years away from being able to make the jump to CMO,” T’Rala answered, the Romulan clearly tired. Both doctors had been working eighteen hour days for weeks now.

Carrillo nodded, “Send who we can, but remember we’re not getting new crew for at least a few months. The Flacon is returning to Starbase 86, and can pick up new people there.”

The two doctors left, and Commander Keyana Mason entered, the former Assistant Chief Science Officer was now the ship’s First Officer, and sat at the desk across from Carrillo.

“A few more days then we’re free,” Olivia Carrillo said. It felt like a future weight being lifted from the shoulders of the ship. Getting back to exploring was what everyone wanted. While disaster relief was important work, vital work, it was nobody’s favourite type of assignment, even though who like Doctor Muller were excellent at it. Beyond that the fact that Carrillo was the junior partner in Selene Division, a junior captain answerable to basically everyone, it would feel good to have her ship under her own command and only be guided by the loosest possible of goals from Captain Radak.

“Once we’re underway we’ll fire up that new officer program,” Mason said.

Since Voyager’s return to the Alpha Quadrant the idea of holographic shipmates had intrigued Starfleet. It had worked out for the ship, having a Chief Medical Officer who was a hologram  had proven useful on several occasions. After tests and some limited success they wanted to roll out between fifteen and thirty crew on one ship. All with the hopes of one day having fully holographic crews. The automated fleet control system that had been tested on Frontier Day and other attempts at widespread use of artificial intelligence made Starfleet cautious, as every time they took a step forward something seemed to go wrong. So if the holographic screw members did not kill the organic crew of the Selene in their sleep (or even when awake) it was something they would consider rolling out across the fleet. Yet after the synth attack years ago, it was hard to see that happening.

Carrillo nodded. Mason was the only one she allowed herself to complain to on the ship, aside from her husband Lieutenant Lambert, but as Mason would be the person evaluating and managing the AI staff she wanted to hear a full reflection of their usefulness, not simple an echo of a prejudice that she’d expressed at one point early on.

Yawning Carrillo glanced at her XO, “Anything else or can I go to bed for the day?”

“We’re hosting Captain Radak, Captain Aike, and Commander Attwell for dinner on Tuesday, the day before we are set to depart. I expect Lieutenant Commander Victoria Hume will also attend,” Mason said.

“Invite some of our people. The Academy staff, umm, Doctor T’Rala and he won’t attend but invite Young as well,” Carrillo said.

“I could make him attend,” Mason pointed out.
Carrillo shook his head, “Don’t piss off your Chief Engineer right before you’re going to deep space. That’s how your toilet stops working and you have to use a communal bathroom on another floor.”

“Hard won experience?” Mason asked.

Carrillo nodded, “Five years on an Inquiry-class ship. Never piss off Engineering or Operations.”

— Captain’s Quarters, USS Selene —

It felt like a million years had passed in the few weeks since the Selene’s arrival in the planet’s orbit. While she had not actually stepped onto the planet’s surface, reading the causality reports had been hard enough, and while the bulk of the medical team had come from the USS West Covina the Selene’s own medical staff had been deployed and taken the toll. The scientists had found no wrong doing for the quake, just the typical shifting tectonic plates, no secret Cardassian weapon at work. Sometimes bad things simply happened.

The USS Falcon, which had no medical staff at the moment, had gotten to play a hero, and win a standoff with the Cardassian ship. The other two Starfleet ships had been side actors, not a role that Carrillo was used to. Thus it would be good to stretch their legs and do some exploring. It was time to run, as it were.

The Captain had changed rooms to the Commanding Officer’s Quarters only by renaming the First Officer’s Quarters and the Commanding Officer’s Quarters. It was easier than moving all of their belongings to an identical room. Removing her tunic she found her husband Lieutenant Pierre Lambert sitting cross legged on the floor playing with their adopted daughter.

Removing her command tunic as she entered Olivia Carrillo sighed, sinking into a chair with a vantage point of the window. She watched Lambert and the alien child they had adopted play, with Lambert talking to the girl and her just making nonsensical noises back to him imitating his French but not close enough that the translators could pick up on any words. She had learned the intonation of the French language without learning any actual French.

She sat in her chair reclined, just the dark cotton shirt that went beneath her uniform on, relaxing for a moment until she fell asleep, tired after a stressful day. She dozed a bit, falling asleep into a half sleep as her husband and daughter played.

When she woke up Lambert already had on his formal dress tunic. Though not a member of the senior staff he went to a lot of these pointless formal events because he was married to the captain.

“Where’s Aimée?” Carrillo asked getting up off the chair and heading to her own clothes.

“I took her to medical bay, Doctor T’Rala is going to look after her,” Lambert said. If the ship had more families they’d have a dedicated child care service on board. As it was it was a hodge podge of officers having to care for their daughter when they were unavailable.

“T’Rala is supposed to be at dinner,” Carrillo said.

“Her exact words were ‘I’d rather date a Tholian’,” Lambert said.

Carrillo nodded, she understood the sentiment. The only one looking forward to it was Commander Chehrush Dvap of the USS West Covina, who seemed to appreciate the fresh cooked meals on the Lamarr-class ship.

They had spent weeks dealing with the aftermath of a planet wide earthquake, and nobody felt like putting on monkey suits and having a fancy polite dinner.

—- USS Selene, Senior Staff’s Observation Lounge ‘Delphi’ —-

After all of the annoying speeches and more annoying protocol dinner had been less of a disaster than Carrillo had anticipated. After making his formal appearance Captain Radak the head of Selene Division had retired back to the USS Falcon, and Lieutenant Commander Hume had left a bit later. The rest of the time had been relaxing, as three remaining captains and their first officers sat around with drinks.

“So Captain Radak is your boss?” Commander Chehrush Dvap asked. The West Covina was not part of Selene Division, and had just been assigned to this case.

Captain Paul Aike the CO of the USS Falcon nodded, “He’s taken over my flag bridge. Pulls the strings.”

“You make it sound sinister, getting orders from Starfleet is nothing new. All that’s different is that we have a name and face to the orders now,” Captain Olivia Carrillo said.

Aike laughed, “Spoken like someone who had a deep space assignment coming up, and gets to get away from the Vulcan.”

“Everyone has a boss,” pointed out the USS Falcon’s new First Officer Commander Ashley Attwell. Hers was Aike and his was Radak.

Commander Chehrush Dvap who had eaten quite a lot stood and nodded, “Well I’ll miss you all, we get to stay here for another month handling this.”

Lieutenant Lambert rose, “I’ll take you to the transporter room.”

Attwell also rose, “I’ll come too, we should start preparing to return to Starbase 86.”

“Good luck commanders,” Carrillo said nodding at the two as her husband lead them away.

Captain Aike rose a glass in toast, “To long range deep space missions where you don’t have to hear from a bossy Vulcan all day.”

His fellow captain, Captain Olivia Carrillo smiled, “You haven’t met my Chief Flight Control Officer, I get stern talkings to from Vulcans all the time.”