Captain Eryi Yusari had been sitting in his office onboard the Illustrious, reviewing reports and other items to pass the time while waiting for orders. After taking over as commanding officer, things have been pretty quiet the last few weeks. He was ready to take the ship out for a proper spin instead of just sitting here doing nothing. After what seemed like an eternity, his computer beeped with an incoming message; turning it on, he began to read what the contents were.

After reading, he realized the Shepard was also docked at Tranquility Station. Since he would be the one to confront the Captain with the orders, he would invite her to lunch to discuss the mission. “Computer, open a channel to Commander Zelenko of the USS Shepard,” Eryi requested as the computer beeped and waited for her to pick up the call.

Jimena Zelenko was seated at her desk on the Shepard, resting her chin in her hand as she read through a series of dossiers on the replacement crew being posted to her ship the next time she returned to SBB. Most were reservists who’d been planetside during Frontier Day and had switched back to full-time crew to help after the disaster. While she envied their fortune in having missed the events of that fateful day, she also felt a twinge of pity for them – they’d doubtlessly have a bit of trouble integrating with the people who’d witnessed the Borg attack firsthand and survived. That was always the case with paradigm-shifting events such as Frontier Day. Zelenko personally remembered a subtle but pointed divide between officers who’d fought in the Dominion War and those who’d joined later, even when she received her officer’s commission in 2385. Nothing bonds people like tragedy, but bonds that strong can often be exclusionary.

The ping of an incoming call offered Zelenko a welcome distraction from her worries. She reflexively straightened her posture and her uniform and tapped her combadge.

“Commander Zelenko here.”

“Can you meet me at the Elysian Lounge on Tranquility in fifteen minutes?” Eryi asked.

“I’ll be there,” Zelenko said with a slightly raised eyebrow.

“Great, see you soon,” Eryi replied before ending the communication, getting up from his chair, leaving his ready room, and heading towards the turbolift. After a while, he arrived onboard the Station and began walking towards the lounge, where he was due to meet with Commander Zelenko to discuss their orders. Upon arrival, he found a table that seemed to be a quiet space. Walking towards it, he sat down and ordered a cup of coffee while he waited for her arrival.

“Captain Eryi?” After a few moments of waiting, the Captain heard from a uniformed human woman approaching his table. She snapped to attention in front of him. “Commander Jimena Zelenko, reporting as ordered, Sir.”

Smiling. “Thank you for joining me. Please take a seat,” Eryi replied as he watched her sit across from him. “I know you’re probably wondering why I called you here as you don’t know me from Adam,” he began looking at her. “I just received orders that I will take supplies to a colony within the old Romulan Neutral Zone close to Rator,” Eyri replied as he handed her a PADD with her orders. “The Shepard is being assigned to assist with that operation.”

Zelenko took the PADD and gave it a once-over. “Close to Rator, huh?” she said as she continued reading. “Is it an independent Romulan colony? Or is it one of the ones the Rator ’empire’ still claims as a subject?”

“It’s within the old Romulan Neutral Zone, so I’d say they are independent,” Eryi replied.

“Hm. From what I’ve heard, that’s a hard road,” Zelenko stated. “The major Romulan factions may be tumultuous… but they also have much more muscle. Being independent out here often means praying that a bigger fish doesn’t set its sights on you.”

“The supplies are being brought onboard the Illustrious as we speak. We should be ready to depart within the hour.” Eryi added softly, “I am sure you must get the Shepard ready to depart so that I won’t keep you long.”

“No worries, Sir. Preparations should be reasonably simple,” Zelenko smiled back. “This isn’t our first escort duty through the old Neutral Zone. I’ll have my science and tactical departments talk to yours about syncing cloaked vessel detection and fire control systems. That way, we can relay firing solutions to each other if one of us manages to get a cloaked target lock. And… one other thing, Captain. I’m not sure if you’ve been notified of this, but Shepard is planning on momentarily meeting with a transport craft moving from the Romulan Republic to SBB in the opposite direction we’re going. They should be meeting us en route and shouldn’t create any schedule slips. We have an exchange officer we need to pick back up from some time at home.”

“I appreciate your thoughtfulness on tactical, but I will keep that on the back burner as this is a humanitarian mission that the people on that planet requested,” Eryi replied. However, he did appreciate what she suggested for the what-if scenario, but he felt it wouldn’t be needed. “Well, I don’t have anything else, so let’s return to our perspective ships to prepare for departure.” He added as the two of them stood up from the tables they were sitting at and departed the lounge.

Commander Zelenko patted her first officer’s shoulder as she strode into the bridge’s center.

“How goes the prep work, One?”

“All smooth on my end, Sir,” Lt. Commander Travers replied. “I’ve got my old cloak-detection program from our last trip into Romulan space up and running on the central computer, and Mack took some time to re-check how it syncs with fire control. Seems to be working fine, though we should have our dedicated Tactical officer double-check things when we get her back.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. Ensign Tallera was always rather particular about her Station’s functionality, so she’d probably have re-calibrated it anyhow.”

“True that,” Travers chuckled, looking towards the tactical console. “It’ll be good to have her back. Any bit of normalcy from the pre-Frontier Day times is worth its weight in Latinum right now.” His gaze then drifted from Tactical to his own First Officer’s chair.

“We all miss S’Geras, Vic,” Zelenko sighed, giving him another but softer pat on the shoulder. “Just keep your eyes on the mission. This new position will have its normalcy in time.”

Commander Brie Windrow was sitting on the bridge as the bridge was busy as they prepared the ship for departure. The Station was still busy bringing supplies onboard the ship, storing them in their cargo bays. Moments later, the turbolift doors parted, revealing Captain Eryi had returned; she stood up from the center chair for which she had been sitting to let him take his spot back. “I take it the meeting went without a hitch?” Windrow asked, looking at him before she took her seat.

“It did indeed,” Eryi replied before taking his seat. “What’s the status on the delivery of the supplies?”

“It should be done in the next twenty minutes; they are ahead of schedule,” Windrow replied, handing him the PADD she’d been looking at.

“Wonderful, we will depart once that is complete,” Eryi added.

The crew remained busy as time seemed to go by slowly. This was their first official mission of the Illustrious, and a whole new crew had never worked together before. It would be an adjustment for them to find the rhythm of working together as a team and learn each officer’s quirks as they eventually blended into a well-working crew.

“Sir, the supplies are secure in cargo bay one,” Asa said, breaking the silence from the operations station.

“Signal the Shepard to depart,” Eryi ordered.

“They report ready and are departing now,” Maysa replied from comms. A few moments later, she added, “Station has cleared us for departure. ”

Looking at Lieutenant Sovik, Eryi ordered, “Take us out, and once we cleared the station, take us to warp.”

“Aye, sir,” Sovik replied as the ship began to disembark from the Station, slowly followed by the Shepard. Once both ships had cleared the Station, they jumped to warp, heading to their destination.

The bridge crew seemed to be mesmerized by the view of the stars as they all blended together while they were at warp. Eryi sat there for a moment, just watching the viewscreen; after a few moments, he broke his gaze and stood up, turning towards his first officer. “You have the bridge; let me know once we arrive at our destination,” Eryi replied as Windrow nodded in agreement before walking towards his ready room to finish some reports and other items he needed to take care of before they arrived.