—- Chief Counselor’s Office, USS Seattle —-

The new Assistant Chief Counselor looked a bit taken aback by the news that she would at least temporarily be the Chief Counselor. Assignments on the edge of Federation space did not come along that often and she had taken this position to assist the Chief Counselor and not to be her. Yet it was hard to fault her new (and now old) boss who was clearly not happy with this situation either.

”The Captain is just short a First Officer on this mission so I got promoted seeing as I’m the Second Officer, and so you’ll have to handle most of the Chief Counselor’s duties for the time being,” Lieutenant Yuhiro Kolem said with a smile. She could feel the uncomfortableness coming off her new colleague, and did not blame the woman at all.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Torma nodded, and tried to smile at the half Betazoid, but felt anxious about it. This was her first posting as even an Assistant Chief and now she was being moved up, even if temporarily. This Was also coming off the back of a very difficult conversation where it had been explained to her that the reason the ship was predominantly staffed by women was that the male members of the crew had been poisoned and it was still recovering from that.

”Look I get it, I’m not a First Officer and yet I’m being thrust into the role,” Kolem said, “We learn on the job, you’ll learn and I’ll be handling sessions when I can get away from being Number One.”

Torma nodded her bright eyes lighting up, “And you’ll be back soon right?”

”Of course I’m not ready to be a full time XO yet, I’ve got years to go before that happens, no matter how short staffed the Fleet is,” Kolem said, hoping that sounded reassuring.

—- Ready Room, USS Seattle —-

The Captain waited as the door slid shut behind the new addition to her team. Part of the transfer of the USS Seattle to Task Force 86 had been that the teams needed some hardening. Previously they’d been on primarily a scientific and diplomatic posting and now they’d be handling all sorts of issues at the border. The USS Seattle was a ship that “punched above its weight“ but the small Rhode Island class was meant for going out and studying the unknown not cargo inspection duties. More over the crew had been built around the first job, and it was important now that the ship’s mandate was changing to bring in people with more specialized skills.

”Take a seat Lieutenant Avila,” Captain Adriana Cruz said, “Welcome to the USS Seattle, I trust you found your cabin and everything.”

The Angosian woman smiled and nodded, “I have Captain, thank you and thank you for the welcome.“

”So let me give you the lay of the land, the USS Seattle is a Rhode Island-class we’re small and we’re tough but by no means do we want to get mixed up in larger fights if we can avoid it,” Cruz said from behind her desk. Rhode Island-class ships were not that common but they were close enough in design to other exploratory or science classes that most officers were able to understand its advantages and limitations fairly easily.

Cruz continued, “Now that we’ve been reassigned to Task Force 86 we’re going to be handling more aggressive duties, I assume. So one thing that we don’t have is a Hazard Team, which I’ve brought you in to establish and lead.”

Avila nodded she had assumed as much, she had lead a Hazard Team on the USS North Star and as Starfleet was currently recovering from the Borg attack on Fleet Day her skills had been in demand. She doubted that she’d be able to recruit many people, the ship was small and at ninety crew was already near its capacity. This was not a five hundred person craft with space for another twenty. Still it was worth asking, “Would I be able to bring people on?”

Cruz nodded, “If you can think of anyone who’d fit in, sure. However we’re pretty full and even with a few people moving on it may be hard to get too many new people in so make them count. Overall I’d like you to draw from Security and now we have a ten person intelligence ops team who you can draw from.”

The Lieutenant nodded, “I also tend to like to add medical and an Operations crew member or two.”

”Of course, right now we’re down an Assistant Chief Medical Officer but we have nurses who have triage and field experience,” Cruz said.

”I’ll start taking a look at the crew roster and creating a team right away,” Avila said.

”I’d like it to be flexible, but I imagine we’ll be handling ship inspections and small scale planetary landing parties,” Cruz said.

Avila nodded, already getting an idea of what tasks lay before her.

—- Starbase 415, Section E Lounge —-

The Chief Engineer of the USS Seattle was drinking. While the ship had come out of Cardassian space unscathed it had been a harrowing journey for Lieutenant Commander James Young. He was not a particularly active social butterfly, so having gotten into a deep relationship with Assistant Chief Medical Officer T’Rala had been surprising to him, and also important. Now she’d stayed behind on a planet full of lost Romulans, breaking up with him in the process. Neither T’Rala or the crew knew when she was going to be back. 

The Romulan governments had been contacted, but it was unknown when they could get a ship out to the lost colony and how they’d treat a Starfleet Officer let alone one that was biologically Romulan. There was a chance that Doctor T’Rala never got back to the USS Seattle. Even if she was returned to Federation space, she might be returned to another ship.

Young had always been focused on engineering problems and hadn’t really reached out for anyone before he’d found T’Rala or rather she had found him. Now he didn’t know what was going to happen next, would he end up with his engines as his true mate or was there more to life.

He was studying the bubbles in his beer when he head the metal on metal scrapping of a chair being pulled out from under the table. Looking up Young saw the dark skinned Lieutenant Diya Acharya the USS Seattle‘s Chief Diplomatic Officer. He’d not really spoken to her outside of mission briefings as she was new to the ship, and in all honesty he did not spend as much time thinking about the politics of it all and just wanted to focus on his engines and taking care of them.

”Hey,” he said.

”Hey yourself. Why so glum?” Lieutenant Diya Acharya asked sitting down. She had with her a plate of papadams and a second plate of dips to go along with it, “It’s Doctor T’Rala right?”

”Yeah,” Young nodded.

”Have a papadam, it’s harder to be depressed when you’re full of papadams,” Acharya said.

Young reached out and took one of the flat breads, dipping it into a not-so-spicy dip that Acharya suggested and then he folded it in half and stuck it in his mouth beginning to chew. He had not had a lot of experience with non-Western (Earth) foods so though Indian food was popular around the globe back home it seemed as exotic as eating a plate full of something Vulcan.

When he finished chewing he nodded, “It’s good.”

”See impossible,” the Lieutenant smiled. 

“I guess you’re right,” Young agreed.

”Now you’re here, happy, and full of papadams,” Acharya said, “What do you want to do? We’ve got a whole Starbase it’s time to live a little.”

”Have you ever heard of baseball?” James asked.

—- Starbase 415, Section E ——

The USS Seattle’s Assistant Chief Security Officer was not by nature a dancer. He was not a Neanderthal, in his own opinion anyway, but dancing was not something that was in his wheelhouse. Yet his friend and fellow Lieutenant Junior Grade Thomas Winfield was a good dancer and had dragged him out to a dance club playing Andorian beat music located on Starbase 415. They had brought their girlfriends, or at least the girls who were hanging out with them which in Hume’s case was Security Officer Lieutenant Junior Grade Rosa Flores who had joined the ship after one of the Captain’s trips home to Mexico.

Though he still missed Lieutenant Kolem who had dumped him after he had cheated on her, a mistake that he knew never to repeat again, Flores was fun. She was alive and adventurous, and though she was the same rank and about the same age as him seemed much younger. Perhaps it was that she was just off Earth for the first time in her career, but everything seemed new to her.

Take for example Starbase 415. It was a good Starbase no doubt but after so many times on Starbase 72, or other places it seemed old hat to Hume. Heck Lieutenant Winfield had been born and raised on starbases, and so for him they were old hat.

Winfield had taken out Lieutenant Akane Sone the Stellar Cartographer. She also had, in her words, two left feet so Hume and her were standing on the sidelines watching Winfield and Flores dance. 

“She’s cute,” Sone noted to Hume, watching Flores wiggle around the dance floor in time to some Andorian drumming.

”She is,” Hume agreed.

”You’re not going to screw this one up are you?” Sone asked, she’d been there when Hume had gone off to cheat and both her and Winfield had given him warnings. 

“I’ll try not to,” Hume said.

”Because if you do I’ll have to kill you,” Sone said.

Hume smiled, “That’s fair.”

Winfield and Rosa came back over as the fifteen minute song, Andorian dance songs tended to be long, ended. Both of them were covered in sweat and out of breath. 

Winfield wrapped his arms around Sone and nodded to the dance floor as another tune began, “You coming dancing?“

”I can’t dance,” Sone protested.

”You don’t have to this song you just jump up and down with gusto, come on, you can do it,” Winfield said.

”Okay, but just jumping,” Sone said and the pair headed onto the dance floor.

”You going to jump up and down?” Hume asked.

”Nah, I don’t have as much energy as Winfield,” Flores joked. 

“You look good, all sweaty,” Hume said, “I know it’s just your uniform, and stuff but you look good tonight.”

”Tip if you’re trying to be romantic don’t call a woman sweaty,” Rosa Flores said studying Hume seriously before breaking out into a grin to show that she did not mind, “And you look okay too, even if it’s just your boring old uniform.”

”Well I need to look good, I’m the Assistant Chief of Security,” Hume said.

”Oh yes sir, do you want me to salute?” Flores joked.

”Maybe, but we can talk about exactly what I need to feel important later in private,” Hume said as he wrapped his arms around the Lieutenant Commander and pulled her in for a kiss.

—- Paris, Earth —-

(Author’s Note: This continues from ‘Found Blood’ in the Contests Mission as opposed to Captain Cruz’s last appearance in this mission.)

“I’ve actually never been to Paris,” Captain Adriana Cruz told her dinner companion. She was having trouble figuring out if it was a date or not. They had fooled around at her brother’s home a few nights before and he had come to Seattle with her when she was giving a presentation on being the captain of the USS Seattle, but on the other hand where was this going? She liked her life in space too much to give it up and Ernesto her “date” had never been off of Earth. It seemed unlikely that this was going to work.

“How can you not have been to Paris?” Ernesto, and Cruz realized she still did not know his last name, asked.

”It’s not like I had access to a transporter growing up, and then when I did at Starfleet Academy there was no reason to go there,” Cruz said as the pair stopped in front of the famed Eiffel Tour. It was not as impressive as it had been made out to be.

”Besides,” Cruz said in her defense, “I’ve been to thirty odd planets and on at least a hundred starships across the known galaxy. I’ve been to Deep Space Nine have you?”

She knew he hadn’t which he confirmed. He’d never left Earth, arguing that there was enough to explore here for a hundred lifetimes. 

“This way, we’ll walk to the restaurant, it’s a nice night,” Ernesto said. Cruz agreed, she liked Earth air. While she was not someone who complained about the quality of the recycled air on the USS Seattle or starbases, there was something about the now-pollution free air of Earth that appealed to her. Paris was a more moist fresh smell compared with the dry heat of Mexico City.

”So what do you do, you’ve not told me yet,” Cruz said.

Ernesto smiled, “My family owns a brewery, tequila things like that. My brother runs it, I am in charge of the marketing.”

”So you’re Booze Bros with my half-brother,” Cruz said.

”Yes, Booze Bros,” Ernesto said smiling as he’d not thought of it that way. Certainly the two men were in the same industry, even if wine and tequila were not one and the same.

“Is this a date?” Cruz asked, “I only ask because, well I’ve never dated outside of Starfleet.”

”It is what you want it to be cariño,” Ernesto said with a smile.

Cruz was not sure how to respond to being called ‘cariño’ or ‘honey’. On one hand it felt good, Ernesto was attractive and interesting and clearly smart. But she was not going to move to Earth and all of this seemed doomed from the start. She had a few more days before returning to her crew and her ship, and there was no chance that she was staying put or that Ernesto was coming to Starbase 415 with her.

”Look Ernesto, I like you. But a few months ago my best friend turned into an ancient alien god and tried to brainwash me. I’ve been shot at by Cardassians, and attacked run from the Borg and all sorts of things I can’t tell you about, or you couldn’t relate to,” Cruz said, ”In a week I’m back to that life, and it’s not the sort of thing that ever want to leave, as crazy as that sounds.”

Ernesto nodded, “I understand. I am not asking you to marry me, just keep an open mind. I alway admired your brother, when he left for Starfleet and the ships he served on. Maybe one day I’ll see the universe too.”

Cruz sat on a bench next to the Seine River and looked across at the lights, and buildings that had stood for hundred upon hundreds of years.

”The universe is exciting, you feel like you can do anything, be anything,” Cruz said, “It took a kid like me and gave her a reason for being, and a purpose. You should see it, just stand on a starship, look out at the stars at more of nothing and everything than you thought was possible.”

She looked up at the stars and her and Ernesto sat there awhile in the cool Parisian night, until he reached out and put his hand on her bare leg just above the knee where her dress ended than leaned in and kissed her. They kissed for a while then he said, “We should be going, to make our reservation.”

Cruz nodded, “I liked that though, just so you know.”

Ernesto nodded, “I did too cariño.”

Cruz smiled, standing. She decided that she enjoyed the nickname, even if it was a bit diminutive and if anyone on her ship called her that she’d end them.

—- USS Seattle, Security Department —-

Entering the ship with her duffle bag of personal belongings the young Bajoran woman headed towards Security where she had been assigned. Much of the crew of the ship had been given leave and rooms on Starbase 415 for the duration of their stay but engineering crews were still working and both Operations and Security teams seemed to be wandering the halls. Lieutenant Sesi Oari entered the Security Office and looked around surprised to see not a gold uniform but a blue one, that that of a blonde woman reading a PADD. She studied the woman for a while and if not for the security related displays she might have assumed that she had wandered into a science lab.

Finally she cleared her throat to catch the Lieutenant Commander’s attention. The blonde woman turned and smiled, “Oh hello. They’re all just in the holodeck for some training.”

Clicking off the screen to her PADD the woman extended her hand, “I’m Lieutenant Commander Gabriella Miller, the Chief Science Officer. I was just ready a study on plant usage in pre-industrial Vulcan and Romulan societies. I’m with Lieutenant Jara, the Chief Security Officer.”

Oari was not able to parse what ‘with’ meant at this point, but heard a sound down the hall and several security officers entered mostly out of uniform or wearing some kind of body armour, and all covered in sweat. A slender brunette woman came up to the Chief Science Officer and kissed her.

”You kill all the fake Cardassians?” asked Miller, trying to indicate the new officer with her eyes.

”No we got killed,” the woman said pulling off chest armour to reveal a tank top stained in sweat. 

Again Oari cleared her throat to draw attention to herself.

”Yes?” the woman who must be Lieutenant Jara said.

”I’m Lieutenant Sesi Oari I’ve been transferred to the USS Seattle,” Oari said fishing a PADD with her orders out of her duffle bag and handing that over to the Security Chief.

Jara looked at the orders and nodded, “I’m Lieutenant Jara, this is my Assistant Chief Security Officer Lieutenant Junior Grade Hume, and Lieutenant Junior Grade Rosa Flores. I’m done for the day other than a hot bath so Hume will show you around and then you can enjoy Starbase 415. I’ll run you through everything tomorrow.”

The man named Hume, a handsome blonde human nodded, “I’ll show you around. It’s a small ship, so it won’t take long and we’ll get you sorted away. Come on, bring your bag.“

The tour was rather brief, the ship was small compared with Deep Space Nine where she had grown up the daughter of Bajoran security officers, and even smaller than her last posting aboard the USS Victory. The ship’s layout was roughly like an Intrepid-class but smaller and so she had a pretty good idea of where everything was. Then they got to her quarters which were small and compact but she supposed on a Rhode Island-class everyone’s were.

”So here you are,” Hume said gesturing to the room.

”Here I am,” Oari said.

”Lieutenant Junior Grade Rosa and I were going out on Starbase 415 in about and hour, would you like to join us?” Hume asked.

”Sure that sounds great,” Oari said.

Hume smiled and nodded, “Okay we’ll meet at the gangplank to the station in an hour.”

—- Paris, Earth —-

The skyline was unfamiliar. It felt off seeing something like the Eiffel Tour which was an iconic landmark for humans, right in front of you rising above the city. Adriana Cruz wrapped the robe around her and studied it, wondering not for the first time what she was doing. Ever since she’d been assigned to her first post she’d never missed Earth. In a way she had been running away from it, and had taken to artificial gravity, and recycled air, and most importantly the freedom of space travel like a fish to water. Now she was back on Earth to do a few personal things and dating a man who’d never even been beyond the moon.

Was this a date? 

It had certainly ended like a successful one.

”Here’s a coffee,” Ernesto said coming out onto the balcony and handing Captain Cruz a cup. 

“Ernesto, last night we, umm I,” Cruz began feeling tongue tied.

”Last night we had fun, that’s all that matters. Did you have fun?” he asked.

”I did, that’s the problem I’m not staying,” Cruz said.

Ernesto nodded, “You have things here too. Aside from me you could help run your family’s winery and you saw how those children looked up to you. You could be doing stuff in the community, to help them using the resources of your new family.”

There was some truth to that, though she had a feeling that her half-brother would find her joining the family business more frustrating than he knew. She’d never taken business courses and knew nothing of wine except how to drink it and would likely have to work hardest at finding a roll with the company she could be successful in. As for the students she had spoken to in Seattle and Mexico City, well it was true that she could do something to help them but part of their interest towards her was that she was a starship captain, not that she ran a division of a winery.

Ernesto was older, like Captain Hawthorne her last Captain before she took over for him on the USS Seattle he was what you might call a bit grizzled. Unlike Hawthorne it was not life, or duty, or disappointment that had beaten him down, you got the sense that he’d always gotten everything that he wanted, it was just experience. 

Cruz sipped her French coffee, “My friend is half-Betazoid and a counselor. She calls me a serial monogamist. In the past year I’ve had two serious relationships. She’d think I was crazy if I threw my career away for you.”

”You’d marry me, be my wife,” Ernesto said.

”You need a house manager not a wife, I’m not taking the demotion,” Cruz said.

Ernesto smiled, “We could do this, have fun, enjoy ourselves, experience pleasure. All the time. You said yourself your job was now more border enforcement than exploring, stay with me and explore the Earth. See everything young Miss Cruz did not back when she was a child.”

Cruz shook her head, “As surprising as the proposal is, I’m not ready to settle down. I don’t think I’m made to be an Admiral but I have a few more years of discovering the undiscovered country left in me. Maybe then I’ll be ready to see Berlin, or whatever we’ve decided is worth seeing here on Earth.”

—- USS Seattle, Holodeck 1 —-

Lieutenant Junior Grade William Hume hurt in muscles that he did not even know he had. As Lieutenant Commander Jake Dornall the ship’s Chief Intelligence Officer helped him to his feet it was clear that one of them had years of experience under his belt and the other was named William Hume. 

Lieutenant Rebecca Avila who was over seeing everything was walking through the remainder of the Hazard Team that she was assembling and shook her head. Even though they had yet to add in Operations or Science personnel they were still too soft. The members of the tight knit intelligence team worked well together with their own, but trying to meld the ship’s security and intelligence departments into one was not going smoothly. 

“Maybe a break?” suggested the Chief Strategic Operations Officer Eleanore Dorian in her Irish accent. 

Avila nodded, “Yeah okay, we’ll all rest and come back at sixteen hundred hours for another session.”

Nurse Chief Petter Officer Rachel Smith was attending to Rosa Flores who had broken her wrist when she’d fallen from a Borg bridge onto a lower level, “Come on I’ll take you to Sick Bay to get patched up.”

The team shuffled out defeated. Aside from the intelligence officers they were still unfamiliar with their new roles as enforcers. They were fine probably for shipboard security duties, but the task Avila had been given was to assemble a Hazard Team to deal with tense away missions that stemmed from the USS Seattle’s new role as a border enforcement asset. So ten intelligence officers could not be all that she had to rely on.

Dornall slapped Hume on the back, “We’ve got a few hours want to grab a coffee or something on the Promenade of Starbase 415.”

Non pulsed Hume shrugged, “Sure.”

The two men were not friends, and not just because Dornall was dating Hume’s ex-girlfriend Lieutenant Kolem. Hume was not sure how long the intelligence officers planned to be on the USS Seattle, and did not like how things had gone down with them running a questionable operation out of the ship when they had gone deep into Cardassian territory to rescue an old war informant. Still there was no point in not being friendly, and the one thing the offspring of two Starfleet Officers had been taught was that you had to get along with all types of people.

—- Starbase 415, Section E —-

The Assistant Chief Of Security for the USS Seattle took a seat. The Chief Intelligence Officer took the other as the pair settled into a two seater in an English Themed Pub on the station’s Promenade. Though Hume had never been to England there had been enough English influences in Vancouver to support a few pub’s that stuck him as more authentic than this one that was run by a Bolian. 

“You ever been to England?” he asked Dornall as he took a sip from his pint of beer.

”Never been to Earth, I heard good things though,” The Risian answered. 

“It’s lovely, I’ve never been to Risa,” Hume said.

”I thought all humans made the trip to Risa, to get your debauchery in,” Dornall said.

Hume coughed on his drink, not sure if the other man was kidding or not. Certainly the planet of Risa had a reputation as a destination that many young Starfleet officers hoped to experience. Hell it was said that they had over two hundred Nuvian masseuses on the world, which given how sore he felt right now sounded great.

”Well maybe one day but you know I have a girlfriend,” Hume said.

Dornall smiled, “Good. I’m glad to hear it, given your history with Lieutenant Kolem.”

Hume sighed, this was the topic he had hoped would not come up but he feared it was inevitable, “Look man, I screwed up. I was hurt and angry and I did something stupid. I’m not going to be a problem for you okay.”

Dornall nodded, “I know. I just wanted to check, and besides you seem like a fine guy. You screwed up, we all do. Just I know Kolem is special, and I’d hate for her to get hurt.”

”I’m done hurting her, okay,” Hume said, “Fact is the last interaction we had she recruited me into a cult after she became a god and we tried to take over the ship.”

Dornall nodded, “I read the reports. Betazoids can be freaky sometimes.”

”We all can be,” Hume said.

“So explain hockey to me, I never got the appeal,” Dornall said, changing the subject to something a little more comfortable.

—- Sánchez Family Vineyard, Just Outside Mexico City —-

Ernesto smiled, Andrés Sánchez watched him get in the shuttle and head across the city and along with his half-sister Captain Adriana Cruz waved a good-bye. Once the shuttle had disappeared from sight he nodded at his sister.

”You know you could have any job at the winery you wanted,” Sánchez said. 

“I know you think that, but I’m only good at being a Captain. I’m afraid I’d be terrible at everything else. Besides he wants a wife, not a whatever I’d be,” Cruz said turning back to the large villa.

Her half-brother made a noise that suggested he did not agree but was not going to argue about it. While it had been easy enough for him to translate his science background from Starfleet to the winery he knew that it was not so simple for his half-sister. She might make a good people manager but she was headstrong and willful good qualities in a Captain but they often needed tempering for civilian life.

”It’s not over, he’s coming out to Risa on my next rotation,” Cruz said.

”Risa? I can’t believe you’re my sister, dirty dog,” Sánchez teased. 

Cruz rolled her eyes, knowing the double standard that allowed male crew members to go to the planet and get celebrated for it and females to have their moral characters questioned. While she could tell that her half-brother was teasing she doubted that he’d have made a similar joke if she were a man.

“He needs to get off Earth and I would have suggested a bunch of other locations but Risa was the instantly appealing one,” Cruz said, “For some reason Vulcan just doesn’t have the same allure.”

”Do you think you’ll ever settle down? Or are you a lifer,” Sánchez asked.

”I don’t feel like I’d fit in well with the Admirals, but I’d like a long mission to explore,” Cruz said, “A five year mission or something like the original Enterprise, USS 1701.”

Sánchez nodded, “That’s what I always wanted, but I kept getting stuck on short assignments. Fighting pirates or something.”

”Or getting taken over by an ancient god from a dead civilization,” Cruz joked.

Her half-brother smiled, “Yeah, that was something. After that, well what’s the point. It was the new worlds and new civilizations that were missing. Now though I’m helping my family and making wine.”

Cruz smiled, and held back from saying dramatically that she had not family. Sánchez was only a recent addition to her life, and her mother had passed long before the father that she had never met. She’d gotten used to being alone, and felt no obligation to another person. Instead her life was her own, which was why she was not looking to last herself to a man who’d never left the planet Earth or wanted to see beyond the stars.

—- Starfleet Academy, Classroom —-

The building, as it had ever been, was mostly glass and chrome. Like one of those historical Apple stores that had once existed everything seemed clean and prone to fingerprints. Captain Adriana Cruz adjusted her uniform from the USS Seattle and watched as students’ wandered the halls. To her they had once been her contemporaries and now they seemed like children in their uniforms indicating what year they were, and what educational specialization they were in. She slipped past a gangle of students to enter a classroom pushing a glass door open and standing silently at the back of the room.

A woman with greying hair was pointing at the weak points of a Borg Cube. Or what they assumed were the weak points. She too was in a uniform, though hers indicated that she was a Command officer and that she was an instructor there. She noticed Cruz and smiled, giving the students their reading for the next week and dismissing the class.

”Well Captain Adriana Cruz,” she said as the students cleared off, some pausing to look at the officer at the back of the class but none overly impressed. Adriana Cruz was not famous, and they had all seen a Captain before, heck the course was being taught by a Captain. To them Cruz might have been in charge of the facilities’ janitorial team rather than a starship on the frontier between Klingon and Romulan space.

”Ma’am,” Cruz said, out of force of habit more than anything.

”We’re both Captain’s now call me Camila,” the woman said.

”That feels weird, Camila,” Cruz said testing the name as if it might break.

”You lived with me for two years, you should be used to it,” Captain Camila Delgado said.

”I always called you ma’am,” Cruz said. In a way despite the formality the woman was more a mother to Adriana Cruz than her own mother had been. Coming from a broken home, with no advantages in life, it was here at Starfleet Academy that she’d grown from the Mexico City street rat into something else. An officer worthy of Starfleet. When she’d needed housing, and adult guidance Captain Camila Delgado, also from Mexico City had seen potential and took her in. 

”That you did,” Camila nodded, smiled and began to put away her PADD in a leather messenger bag. 

“I have my own ship now,” Cruz said, caught somewhere between wanting to be modest and wanting to brag about her achievements to the one person in the world that had believed in her. She wanted Captain Delgado to understand that the effort that she’d put into a young Adriana Cruz had paid off.

”USS Seattle, I know. I Captained one of the first Intrepid-class ships. A Rhode Island-class is quite an achievement for a new Captain,” Delgado said.

”It’s small but we get by,” Cruz said, “I have a good crew.”

“And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,” Captain Delgado said, quoting an old navel poem, “Though a good crew helps a lot. A Captain is only as successful as the crew that she had behind her. What would Captain Kirk have been without Ambassador Spock, or Captain Picard without Data?”

Cruz nodded, “I was taking some extra training. I kind of got the Captain’s chair suddenly so they’ve decided to put my through a few days of courses. Were you free for dinner?”

Delgado nodded, “There’s a good sushi place off campus, let’s go there.”

”I haven’t had sushi since I lived here,” observed Cruz. She’d never felt replicator sushi was up to the standard of good sushi and none of the Starbases that she’d visited had been as fresh as those resturants on the Pacific. Unlike the food that she’d grown up with in Mexico City, she found that you had to do sushi right, or it was all kind of bland.

As the pair left the classroom Captain Delgado nodded, “Well then you‘re in for a treat. I’ve got two more classes but I’ll meet you by the shuttle loading dock at six o’clock.”

Though the Starfleet Academy on Earth was mostly human Cruz saw everything from pointed ears of Vulcans to the blue heads of Bolians as she walked around campus. She made it to her next class easily enough and sat through a lecture on first contact, and was amused to see that the USS Seattle’s disastrous first contact where the male crew members had all been poisoned was mentioned as to what not to do. Not that half the ship almost dying was a laughing matter, but when she’d been an Academy student most of their references had pre-dated the Enterprise C, and not been at all current.

The courses were not particularly intensive, and did not come with any grading. It was not as if they were going to take the USS Seattle away from her, it was just a refresher of what to do and what not to do now that she had moved from First Officer to Commanding Officer. The fact was the days of too many good officers and too few ships was almost inverted now, as since Fleet Day and the Borg attack Starfleet was struggling to put enough Captains in chairs.

The sushi place was a small restaurant located beneath some apartments about twenty minutes away from campus. Orders were inputed on a touch screen at the table and then a plate of sushi materialized at the table. Years ago it would have come past on a conveyor belt, allowing patrons to pick and choose the pieces they wanted to.

”They offered me a new command after Fleet Day,” Delgado said, “An Excelsior II.”

Cruz nodded sticking a piece of roll in her mouth, “Those are nice, you obviously didn’t take it?”

Delgado nodded, “I’m not young anymore. There’s no more horizons for me to conquer. I like teaching and I’m good at it. I’d be a fine captain again, but realistically even if my knees were better I’m not going to run around fighting the Gorn or whoever attacks us next.”

”Could still be the Borg,” Cruz said.

”They’re nothing if not persistent,” the teacher agreed.

”Awhile ago I found my father, or rather his family found me. Turns out I have a half-brother and half own a winery,” Cruz said.

”So you’re half important now,” teased Delgado.

Cruz smiled, “Half. Anyway my brother’s retired from the fleet and is asking me to as well. I’m not going to but it’s tempting sometimes, being offered this life that’s far more idyllic than anything I could have imagined.”

”I can’t tell you what to do with your life, but you’re meant to do this. I don’t say that to every student I have, and I don’t take every student into my home and feed them either,” Delgado said, “You’re more than  someone who works at a winery.”

Cruz nodded and ate her next piece of nigiri, a salmon on rice. It was not as if she was thinking of leaving Starfleet, but it was good to be told that she was making the right choice in at least for now leaving the winery business to her brother. Her future was in the stars, no matter how idyllic life on Earth might present itself as.