Abigail was pacing at the head of the conference table. She didn’t notice, but the seven other officers gathered before her, some old friends, some total strangers, and some something else entirely, did notice.

“17 hours?” one said in clear exasperation, unshielded by decorum.

“Less than two to execute the rescue by the time we arrive, assuming we depart Starbase 514 within the hour,” said another. He was a square-faced, dark-haired man, looking around middle age and rather short for a Vulcan. He wore an operations gold uniform with two hollow rank pips, indicating a chief petty officer.

The exasperated man, a Human with dark eyes and a bit of stubble on his chin just stared incredulously.

“What Chief Skell is saying, Captain, is that we’ll have about an hour, give or take, to conduct the rescue operation.” The woman next to Skrell was another Human, large and beautiful with wide shoulders and big eyes, also in gold.

Commander Ganbold finally broke his disbelieving silence as a small smile broke through for just a fleeting moment. “Oh, thanks for clarifying, Ensign Da Silva.”

She smiled. “Wouldn’t want you thinking this won’t be a good first challenge for us, Commander.”

“And it will have to be done by EV extraction,” calmly added an Arkenite science officer sitting near the head of the table.

“And we may or may not be violating the Prime Directive,” said a notably less-calm Tellarite security officer.

“I’m beginning to think you set this up yourself,” Ganbold said to Da Silva. He looked at the Vulcan. “Skell, did she put you up to this?”

Chief Skell only replied with the common Vulcan reflex of a raised eyebrow, though one that, to a trained appreciator of the subtleties of Vulcan expression, clearly implied some amusement.

Ganbold turned in his chair to face Captain Ralin. “Is this some kind of test, Captain? Is Starfleet teasing us? Or these Starbase guys?” He was joking, but the crew did feel almost entertained by the complexity of this sudden mission.

“I think we can go ahead and take this one at face value,” Abigail said in a light tone. She leaned on the table and grew more grave. She could feel, ever-so vaguely, the nervous energy of her senior staff, and her whole crew for that matter. It was fuzzy, immaterial, hard to touch, to focus on. But it was also impossible to ignore. Her mother always told her it would be hard to parse. It felt increasingly difficult to Abigail as she had been thrust into her new role as the captain of a Starfleet ship. Command of a ship is something different than being a member of the crew. The captain is the Federation, is the ship. And that was especially weighty to those with even rudimentary empathic abilities. Hers were better than that, but not quite so honed as the psionic skills of a full-blooded Betazoid.

“Skell,” she said, her pace picking up, “I know your ratings, and I’ve seen you work in null grav. I know you can ace the EV maneuvers.”

“Yes, captain.”

“Ensign, I need your contingencies ready to deploy as you monitor from the tactical station.”Da Silva nodded casually, as if it was already done, and in fact it was. She had prepared the moment Ralin was called into the station commander’s office. She had already read the comm traffic on the situation.

“Mister nd’Luku,” she said, looking at the Arkenite, “I need you and Mister Roosevelt on the shuttle.” She looked at the conn officer, Roosevelt, a tall Human man, young and sporting a carefully trimmed mustache. “We’ll need incredibly delicate flying, maintaining synchronous movement with a primitive ship that’s dead in space.”

“No problem,” he replied. “I’ll run through it on the holodeck while we’re en route.”

“Good man. Doctor,” she said, addressing a sharp-featured human woman. “I want a triage team on that shuttle, too. Whoever we pull out of there is gonna need it.”

The doctor nodded.

“And remember: We hide our presence until we know we can act. Is that clear?”

Everyone nodded.

When Abigail dismissed them, they all quickly dispersed to program the variables, run their simulations, or brief their teams. All except Commander Ganbold, who walked close to her.

“Worried this really could be some kind of set-up, captain?”

“No,” she said honestly, “but I’m worried it’s a test I might fail. Right out of the gate.”

Ganbold gave her a full-eyed look. “We have an ancient expression in Mongolia…”

“Is that so,” she said archly.

“Many, in fact.”

“Yes,” Abigail said with a smile. She liked his playfulness. Irreverence was a good quality in a first officer. “You know, in just, what, 72 hours, I’ve become acquainted with a great many ancient Mongolian proverbs.”

“Indeed, captain.”

“And?”

“And this one goes: The last camel gets the heaviest load.”

Her pert eyebrows softened a bit. “Meaning?”

He sat on the edge of the table, legs forward, with both arms and legs crossed and his head bowed somberly. “Well, many things, really.”

“Oh, Great Bird–” she began to exit the conference room, causing Ganbold to stand and spin to face her as she turned back from the door.

“Okay,” he laughed. “The good version is something like: Perseverance lends strength.”

She regarded him.

“Well,” he searched. “A lot of us assigned here have been … knocking around the various services for a while. Starfleet NCOs, Merchant Service.” She knew he was talking about himself as well — and her. “So, now we’re here. A proper starship. Doing proper starship stuff.”

“Carrying a heavy load.”

“Exactly,” he said with no trace of irony.

“Is that load a reward or a punishment?”

Ganbold resumed his ponderous pose, now on the opposite side of the table. “That really depends on what we do with it. You see, there’s a great oral storytelling tradition in Mongol culture, and I actually helped an Efrosian researcher at the Academy study it once, and there’s this wonderful aspect of—”

Abigail rolled her eyes. ‘Okay,” she said with a gesture of surrender. “Thank you for the advice, number one.”

He allowed himself a chuckle. “Call me Al.”

She smiled and shot him with a look of mock seriousness. “Let’s see how our camel fares first, commander.

Ganbold picked up a PADD and began relaying orders to department heads, a broad grin on his face.