Szarka tried to quash the smile on her face as she read the message over again. Now was not the time for schadenfreude–particularly not when poor Ixabi looked queasy, as if the content of the message was somehow her fault–but if she didn’t respond to the situation with dark humor, then she’d have to develop an entirely new coping mechanism. She felt the corners of her mouth twitching upward.

Her face hurt by the time Anand jogged onto the bridge, Bohkat striding in behind him. Qsshrr joined them from her station near the captain’s chair.

“Who? Where?” Anand asked eloquently.

Szarka flipped through some screens and enlarged the Federation data file on the display before them. She started scrolling through rapidly as she spoke.

“They’re called the Hamsarai, their primary is a star about six light years away, first-contacted recently, blah blah blah, been warp capable for thousands of years, but they don’t have any wider galactic presence beyond two uninhabited systems… Ah, here’s an image.”

With the flick of a finger, Szarka summoned a holophoto of a random Hamsarai bureaucrat. Anand leaned in slightly. “Oh! They look like a cross between an axolotl and a flamingo. With ten legs.”

For a brief moment, Szarka’s smile was a little more genuine. “Hey, they do! Axolmingos, for those of us who enjoy a good portmanteau.”

“Please do not call them that to their face,” said Anand.

“Copy that,” said Szarka, spinning the holographic Hamsarai on her console a couple more times.

“So…” Anand finally prompted, “What does the message say?”

Ixabi tried to speak and only managed a sound like a hiccup. Anand furrowed his brows in concern.

Szarka smiled wider than ever as she pulled up the message. “Well, it’s mostly good news! They gave us coordinates and said that a ship will meet us there.”

She took a breath before continuing. “They also said that we’re only to contact them once to confirm receipt of this message on this specific channel. And we’re advised against contacting any other Hamsarai ships or agencies.”

Anand rubbed the bridge of his nose and muttered. “Arre yaar…”

Szarka clenched her jaw and kept all the jokes bubbling up about illicit drug deals and bricks of snakeleaf firmly behind her teeth. She reached over and gave Ixabi’s forearm a reassuring squeeze instead.

Anand must have noticed the gesture. He turned on a smile as he faced Ixabi. “Dubious wording aside, it’s still a lead. I’d been worried we wouldn’t hear anything at all.”

“It might have been better if we didn’t,” Bohkat grumbled.

Anand lightly elbowed him in the ribs. Bohkat startled, then looked affronted. “I think it’s my turn,” said Anand, “To suggest we break this glass in case of emergency.”

“It is one thing,” said Bohkat, “To overlook diplomatic protocols in the face of interstellar war. It’s another thing entirely to overlook a threat to this ship and this crew.”

“Unfortunately for you, I have complete and total faith in your ability to mitigate this threat. You can brief me after you’ve reviewed our files on the Hamsarai with your security team,” said Anand.

Szarka snorted in spite of herself. A single smart-ass comment broke free from the writing mass she was trying to keep locked down. “His team? You mean Ensign McNeill?”

Anand rolled his eyes, and Szarka suspected she might’ve gotten an elbow in the ribs, too, if she’d been close enough. Instead, she had to quickly lean out of his way as he reached across her console and sent the coordinates to the flight control station.

“Course change, Ensign Carver,” Anand called across the small bridge. “How long will it take to reach those coordinates?”

The ensign performed a quick calculation on her console. “I’d say eighteen hours, give or take. Depends on how long Lieutenant Zamora lets me push these engines.”

“Fair enough.” He turned back to Szarka. “Send them our reply. Then I need you to join Qsshrr and I in engineering. Bohkat?”

Anand gave the barest tilt of his head as he stared at his first officer, until eventually Bohkat nodded and stalked off, presumably to assemble his security team.

Once Bohkat was gone, Anand leaned in towards Szarka and Ixabi and said, in a low voice, “It can’t be that bad a decision if he only made one attempt to argue it, right?”

Finally, something of Ixabi broke through to the surface. She gave a startled laugh and nodded. “That is a good point.”

Szarka’s grin finally faded as the schadenfreude fizzled out in favor of the more powerful emotion: annoyance. She was supposed to be the one to cheer up Ixabi.

“Lieutenant Ixabi, you have the bridge,” said Anand. “It should be nice and boring for a while yet, so see how much of the Hamsarai file you can put to memory.”

Ixabi took the captain’s chair, and Anand gestured to Qsshrr. “After you, Commander,” he said as he followed the Horta off the bridge.

Szarka took only a minute to fire off a response and send it back along the Hamsarai’s encrypted channel. As she stood up and crossed the short distance to the bridge’s portside doors, she glanced at Ixabi, perhaps to offer another encouraging wink as she left. But Ixabi had a steel grip on her PADD as she sat hunched in the captain’s chair, and her eyes stayed glued to the text.