Clumsily trying to wrap his fingers around the shredded remains of his half-eaten burrito, Ilucci said with an evil grin, “I’ll keep the bunk warm for ya.”

“Yeah, you do that, Master Chief.” One thing Xiong was not going to miss about the Sagittarius was “hot-bunking.” Because of the ship’s acute lack of crew accommodations, only the captain and first officer had private quarters. The other twelve personnel shared four single-bed compartments, sleeping in shifts and taking whichever bunk was empty. As a result, life aboard the scout vessel had a nomadic quality both inside and out. Strangely apropos, Xiong mused as he left the galley.

Less than a minute later, he reached the aft ladder. Before he could adjust his duffel for the climb, the mellow-voiced first officer, Commander Clark Terrell, leaned down through the ladderway and extended his hand. “Pass it up to me.”

“Thanks,” Xiong said, then lifted his bag until Terrell grasped one of its shoulder straps and hoisted it effortlessly up to deck two. Clambering up the wide-planked ladder, Xiong heard the low hum of a transporter coil energizing above. He emerged into the transporter bay to see Captain Nassir standing with Commander Terrell. The two men were like night and day: Terrell was brown, beefy, with close-cropped hair; Nassir was slender, pale, and, like most Deltans, completely bald. A few meters behind them, science officer Ensign Vanessa Theriault was adjusting the settings of the transporter panel, seemingly at random. Nodding in her direction, Xiong said quietly to Nassir and Terrell, “Does she know what she’s doing?”

The two senior officers turned in unison, looked at Theriault, then looked back at each other. Terrell shrugged at Xiong. “Probably.” Xiong didn’t like the sound of that. He was about to suggest that maybe Ilucci could take over for the attractive but undeniably kooky young redhead from the Martian Colonies when Nassir and Terrell both lost their poker faces and snorted with suppressed laughter. “Relax,” Terrell said, patting Xiong’s shoulder. “She’s a pro, you’re in good hands.”

Captain Nassir recovered his composure and took Xiong aside. “Before you go, there’s something I’d like to give you. A going-away gift, I guess you’d call it.” The captain opened a storage panel along the lower half of the wall and took out a neatly folded green jumpsuit. It had a U.S.S. Sagittarius patch on its shoulder, and smelled clean and freshly sanitized (like everything else on the ship within reach of Dr. Lisa Babitz, the ship’s medical officer). Xiong’s rank insignia and surname were stitched on its front. “For the next time you visit,” Nassir said as he handed it to Xiong, who accepted it abashedly.

“Thank you, sir. It means a lot to me.”

Nassir’s voice was deep and fatherly. “You’re a good officer, Xiong. You’ve got an explorer’s soul. Try not to let it go to waste sitting on that space station.”

“I won’t, sir. I promise.” He shook Nassir’s hand.

“You’d better get going. Captain Gannon’s a busy woman. Best not to keep her waiting.”

“Aye, sir.” Tucking his new jumpsuit under his arm, he stepped onto the lone transporter pad. Because the Sagittarius was equipped to land on M-Class planets, its one and only transporter was used mostly for emergencies. Which would explain the thin layer of dust on this thing, Xiong noted.

The captain stepped behind the control panel with Theriault and keyed a switch. “Sagittarius to Bombay. One to transport.”

“Acknowledged, Sagittarius. Commence when ready.”

“Safe travels, Mr. Xiong.” Turning to Theriault, Nassir said, “Energize.” Theriault cast a frozen stare at the controls for a few seconds, then hesitantly reached out for one of the sliders. Nassir gently guided her hand to a different bank of switches. “Begin the dematerialization sequence first,” he instructed gently.

Alarmed, Xiong protested to Terrell, “I thought you said she knew what she was doing!”

“It’s all relative,” Terrell said as the transporter sequence began with a rising whine of sound. The first officer added with a farewell wave, “Vaya con Dios.”

By the time Xiong realized that he was a live test subject in Ensign Theriault’s transporter-training regimen, he had already rematerialized safely in the far more spacious transporter room of the U.S.S. Bombay.

A blue-jumpsuited technician worked behind the transporter console. First officer Commander Vondas Milonakis greeted Xiong as he stepped off the platform.

“Welcome aboard, Ming.” The short, balding man grasped Xiong’s hand in a firm, radiantly warm handshake. “Good to see you again. How’s everybody on the Sagittarius?”

“Fine.” It wasn’t that Xiong disliked Milonakis; he just found it difficult to trust someone who was always so extroverted. Xiong decided that the bold new hue of gold that Starfleet had recently chosen for command officers’ jerseys suited Milonakis perfectly.

Giving Xiong’s jumpsuit a once-over, Milonakis said, “I see Captain Nassir’s still keeping things casual.”

Not wanting to prolong the conversation or start an argument, Xiong mumbled a dismissive “Mm-hmm.”

“Let’s get you some quarters. I think we have a spare bunk on deck five”—he shot a conspiratorial smirk Xiong’s way—“if you don’t mind sharing the room with a Tellarite.”

“Not at all, sir.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Xiong followed the Bombay first officer out the door, then left toward the turbolift. The corridor was busy with personnel moving in quick strides from one task to another. This was the first time Xiong had been aboard the Miranda-class starship while it was deployed, but it was just as hectic as he had always expected. Within a few short weeks of his arrival on Starbase 47 it had become obvious that, of the three ships permanently assigned to the station, the Bombay was the unsung workhorse—the one that did all the unappreciated labor that enabled the Sagittarius to speed away to the edges of known space and the larger, more renowned U.S.S. Endeavour to spend its time “showing the flag” and making official first contacts.

As the two men walked, Milonakis made a point of greeting almost every passing member of the Bombay crew by his or her given name, reinforcing the first impression he had made upon Xiong weeks earlier—that he was a man who excelled in one-to-one exchanges and could manage dozens of such personal interactions simultaneously. To see him work his way through the lounge on Vanguard, or run into “an old friend” every twenty paces no matter where he was, made it seem as though he very well might know someone on every ship and base in Starfleet.

Milonakis led Xiong into the turbolift, grasped the throttle control, and said, “Deck five.” He half-turned toward Xiong. “Bet you’ll be glad to get back to Vanguard, eh?”

“Not really.”

The first officer nodded once. “Ah, I see. You’re a man of action. I can respect that.”

More than his assumption of camaraderie, what irked Xiong about the man was that there was no way to take issue with anything he ever said without looking like an ingrate or a misanthrope. Of course, the latter term had been applied to Xiong more than once in the twelve years since he first joined Starfleet, but it was an epithet he was eager to shake off.

“I just like to see things with my own eyes,” Xiong said.

“Makes sense.”

The turbolift stopped. As the doors opened, however, a woman’s voice sounded over the intercom. “Commander Milonakis, report to the bridge.”

The first officer thumbed a switch on the turbolift control panel. “This is Milonakis. On my way, Captain.” He released the switch, looked at Xiong, and pointed down the corridor. “Quartermaster’s in five-bravo two-twenty-one. If you need help—”

“I’m fine,” Xiong said, stepping past Milonakis and out of the turbolift. “Thank you, sir.”

“All right, then.” Taking hold of the turbolift throttle once more, Milonakis said to the computer, “Bridge,” and the doors hissed shut. From behind them, a deep hum rose and faded in a heartbeat as the turbolift shot up toward deck one.