A Starship Captain

Jaqui Sanchez was an engineer working for the Federation. She was a Starfleet officer with a rank of Lieutenant. Her first assignment was working in the Z sector of the neutral zone bordering Romulan space.

This was way after the Earth-Romulan War of 2156 that ended in 2160 and the Federation had not had any contact with the Romulans since then. That was 62 years with no contact whatsoever!

Jaqui Sanchez was working on Space Station 484 (Starbase 484) in the year 2222 at the age of 27 when she made what could have been the worse decision of her life.

"Hey, you there!" Lt Sanchez shouted at the cloaked stranger.

The cloaked figure continued walking away from Sanchez so she chased him down, grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around to face her.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" the Lt said, more sternly.

The hooded figure looked up and whispered, "please don't sound the alarm, I'm not a spy."

"What are you talking about?" Sanchez started to say when the hooded figure removed his hood to reveal Vulcan-like features.

"You've probably never seen a Vulcan that looks quite like me. I'm actually a Romulan," came out of the stranger's lips as the Lt froze in place not quite sure what to do.

"Let me explain. My name is Rebim. I'm an astrophysicist. I served aboard a civilian science vessel with a small science crew of 47. We were mapping a sector of space near the neutral zone when a rather larger Orion ship nearly destroyed us. We lost over half our crew and the rest of us were taken as slaves," Rebim explained.

"You were taken by space pirates? Is that how you ended up here?" asked Lt Sanchez.

"Yes. The Orions crossed the neutral zone to sell us.

Those of us who survived were scientists and engineers and we plotted an escape that ended up crippling their ship. A few us managed to take escape pods while the rest of the crew made sure the Orions wouldn't blast us out of space. Those who made it off the Orion ship flew our escape pods in different directions to avoid recapture. I don't know how many survived or where they ended up," Rebim said as he lowered his head. "All I know for sure is that I ended up here, aboard this starbase."

"How did you make it aboard, if I may ask?" was foremost on the Lieutenant's mind.

Rebim heaved a heavy sigh. Could he trust this Human when Humans and Romulans had a deep mistrust of each other? Rebim looked into Jaqui's eyes, for a moment he doubted, but that doubt

washed away and he found himself telling her everything. "I knew my escape was small enough to be difficult to detect and I made sure to only approach the station near the refuse section. Enough debris was being ejected into space that I was able to fly into the debris field and make my way into the station through the ejection port. I've been hiding in here ever since then, which was three days ago. You're the first person I've run into."

All her Starfleet training urged her to turn the intruder over to security. And yet, she hesitated. She heard his story and stood there for what seemed an eternity knowing full well what she needed to do yet unable to do it! I'm typing
It's listening I wonder if words are coming in there you go thank you Sarah another speed what day is it.