Captain Alvarez fiddled with a loose button on his right sleeve. The bridge was calm today. Most of the seats were empty with crew on-call to fill them if necessary. There had been some questions about why they had remained in orbit around the gas giant so long after they had finished refilling their deuterium tanks, but most of the crew were enjoying the extra time off.

Damn this waiting…

A door slid open. Footsteps entered and came to a halt just behind Alvarez. It was Chief Mate Richard Fabian, his identity announced by heavy footsteps and an extremely loud mechanical wristwatch.

“Mister Fabian, hadn’t I given you the remainder of the day off?” Alvarez asked without turning.

Fabian, as always, was quick but professional with his response. “Sir,” he said, “we’ve been hailed by an approaching spacecraft.”

Beads of sweat began to form on the back of Alvarez’s neck. He had been anticipating this moment for weeks, without knowing the exact day it would arrive - like a bleeding doe waiting for the inevitable wolf to appear. He put his hand to the small of his back and felt perspiration soak into his undershirt. Several crewmates who were within earshot turned to face him, stunned.

A haiku came to mind: I am a rowboat on the lip of the abyss fighting the rapids.

Alvarez turned to Fabian. The man’s sharp edged face was like a stone, but Alvarez knew him well enough to pick up on the subtle fear-cues. Fabian held his hands behind his back, and slight movements in his right arm suggested that he was tapping on his watch.

Alvarez cleared his throat. “Who is our on-call communications officer?”

“Officer Hogan, sir. I already called her in,” Fabian said.

Before Fabian had finished speaking, a blonde woman rushed into the room. Her uniform was wrinkled - it had probably been washed weeks ago and remained unused since. She had tied her hair up into a lopsided bun, but few wild strands of hair still wandered across her face.

Alvarez nodded to Hogan as she rushed past him. “That was quick,” he said, “I appreciate the enthusiasm.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said, bobbing her head, before nearly leaping into her chair. She flipped a few switches to activate her terminal, then began reading off her screen.

“The vessel has identified itself as the Argo V,” she said, “it’s… an Andromech…”

Alvarez nervously rubbed his right thumb against the side of his pointer finger. After a moment he turned to face Hogan. The woman was staring back, dumbfounded and speechless with eyes like the twin moons of Vitrum.

“Is that all?” Alvarez bellowed.

Hogan’s head snapped back to face her screen. “No sir, uh… requesting an approach vector and permission to dock.”

Words were exchanged in hushed tones between crew mates. A few anxious eyes darted between Alvarez, Hogan, and the chief mate.

Alvarez snatched one of his gloves from his breastpocket and dabbed the back of his neck. He dropped the glove onto the chair behind him and snapped his fingers.

“Alright, wake up everyone,” he commanded, “stop gawking and get back on task. Hogan, hail the vessel. Make sure we’re on a clear frequency. Miss Lu’onga,” Alvarez turned to the chief dock controller, “please find our visitor a port near the bridge - preferably somewhere out of view of the civilian living quarters.”

Fabian stepped up to the captain. “Sir, you’re letting it board?”

“Yes. Prepare a welcome party. Keep it small - bring Fleischer and Hughes to my office for a brief. Fetch them in person. Go now.”

Fabian drew in a sharp breath, straightened to attention, then turned on his heels and rushed from the bridge. He was alarmed by the captain’s laissez-faire approach to the situation. Encountering another vessel (especially an Andromech of all things), after so many years of complete isolation, warranted a high degree of caution. Yet, the bridge was being run by a skeleton crew and the vessel was being allowed to dock without questions.

Fabian considered the possibility that the captain had known about the arrival ahead of time. He must have known bringing an Andromech on board would be subject to controversy, hence the sparsely manned bridge. This raised the question of whether Captain Alvarez had intended for Fabian to find out about the Andromech coming aboard. Nothing about it was regular. If the rest of the crew discovered an Andromech had secretly boarded, it could shake the crew’s trust in the captain.

Alvarez sighed as he slowly sank into his chair. Within moments of Fabian’s exit, a red light began to blink on the console next to him. He nodded to chief Lu’onga, and she flipped a switch on her control board. Leaning down, she spoke into a microphone.

“Argo V, this is Hippogryph control,” she said, “you are cleared to dock at port S1R4. Approach from Theta-one-three-five, Gamma-zero-six-zero, Rho-plus-one. Hold at one-thousand feet and await docking sequencing.”

She flipped the switch again, took a slow breath, and leaned back in her chair with hands folded pensively under her chin.

The radio crackled as the pilot of the approaching vessel opened his end of the line. The room fell into silence as the crew collectively simmered in a few infernal seconds of static noise.

“Understood,” a voice said over the radio. It sounded eerily smooth. “However, I would prefer to dock manually.”

Lu’onga leaned forward again, but Captain Alvarez held out his hand.

“Wait,” he said, “I’ll take it.”

The captain held down a button on his console, opening his end of the line.

“Argo V, this is Captain Alvarez speaking,” he said, “may I ask why you would like to perform a manual docking operation?”

“Salutations, Captain,” the voice responded. It was pleasant, but there was a hint of distortion in the baritone range of the voice which gave it an uncanny quality.

The voice continued, “I am not one to waste time. Your ship’s automated docking sequences are… suboptimal.”

Alvarez could feel tension building in the room. There was a palpable anxiety in the air. He cleared his throat. “I hope you understand that our situation is sensitive. It would give us peace of mind if we follow our standard docking procedures.”

The voice paused for only a moment before responding. “Apologies, Captain Alvarez. I meant no harm.”

Alvarez nodded again to Lu’onga. He saw the mark of fear behind her calm, professional demeanor. The corner of her eyebrow twitched slightly when she was nervous. He hoped he could reassure her. Whether or not his crew would accept this newcomer depended entirely on his ability to maintain control of the situation.

“No harm done,” Alvarez said, “we look forward to your arrival.”

Shutting off his end of the line, Alvarez pointed to Lu’onga. “What’s the ETA?”

“Zero eight fifty hours, sir.”

“Good. That gives us time to prepare. Miss Hogan, send those transcripts to my desk. I do not want copies saved on our servers.”

Alvarez stood to address the entire bridge crew. “I wish we had better procedures to handle confidential operations, but unfortunately we are running on century old tech- our servers are less secure than a whiskey cabinet on Kepler Prime.”

A few mild chuckles wafted up from the crew in response to the captain’s jab at their former home-world.

Alvarez continued, “For the time being, I only want to keep a tight circle of officers in the know. So, I am trusting all of you here to keep this under wraps for now. Send physical records to me, and do not save digital copies. This isn’t ideal, but we’re working with what we got. Understood?”

A tentative “yes sir” arose throughout the room.

“Good,” Alvarez said, “I will give you all a full brief in zero nine thirty. Gather in the conference room behind my office. Assign replacements for your posts. If anyone asks, you can tell them we are having an additional meeting to discuss a departure date.”

Alvarez scanned the room for any faces he felt he could not trust, but he was pleased to see that only his best officers were present. He felt his years weighing down the sides of his face as he came off an adrenaline rush. A pre-migraine pressure began to build behind his right eye socket.

“If you need me, I will be in my office.”