Melanie had never seen a giddy Vulcan, and she suspected this was about as close as she’d ever get.

“It’s essentially a small gangway,” Skell continued, his pace quick and voice a bit higher and less controlled than usual; the Vulcan equivalent of what Melanie deemed giddiness. “With better-than-standard magnetic hold and pressurization.”

The device he stood over looked to be little more than a neatly organized pile of telescoping pylons and extravehicular pressurization fabric — like a collapsible fabric container squashed into its closed position.

The door to Main Engineering slid open and Commander Al Ganbold strode in, never lessening his brisk pace as he wove past the harried engineering crew, which seemed to be scurrying in all directions to maintain the engines. He walked beside Ensign Da Silva and crossed his arms.

“Do we know the hull composition of the spacecraft yet?” he asked.

“No,” Melanie said, turning to him. “We won’t until we’re close to dropping out of warp.”

“Well,” Ganbold said, “That will be pretty soon, I believe.”

“Indeed, sir,” Skell said. “The possibility of a magnetic coupling failure is a real one.” Again, Melanie detected the faint whiff of excitement emanating from the Vulcan.

“And that’s why we’ve got this,” said Commander Joel Bush, passing behind Skell and kneeling by the device. He dialed in a command on a small control panel on the side of the device. From one end, where the mouth of the tunnel that would attach to the drifting vessel, a series of barbed spikes shot out from the frame. “This is the backup system. No pressurization lost on the tunnel, so we can grasp the other ship no matter what.”

“Like a grapple,” Melanie offered.

“Quite,” Skell responded, pleased that the functionality, though seemingly crudely old-fashioned, made sense.

“And quite logical,” Ganbold said with an undercurrent of amusement in his voice.

“Quite,” echoed Commander Bush. “And automated functions all have manual backups. I made sure of that.”

Melanie smiled. “If it were up to him,” she said to Ganbold, “there wouldn’t be any automated functions.”

“Damn right,” Bush said with some satisfaction.

Ganbold shook his head but showed a smile. “Well, Mister Bush, you’ll have to tell the story of what made you so skittish about automation some time.”

“What, were you asleep on Frontier Day?” Bush said. Confrontation was not something he avoided.

Ganbold had to concede the point. He felt like he was doing that a lot in recent days. “Fair,” he said.

Skell, who had a Vulcan’s equivalent of a lack of patience, continued. “I will conduct the extravehicular maneuvers, aligning the gangway device and controlling the force field.” As Skell spoke, Bush knelt down and activated a command on the control panel, and the blue flash of a force field activating sparked around the end of the device without the barbed grapples.

“Assuming the vessel’s air lock does not work,” Skell said, “We can pressurize the gangway.”

“A backup airlock,” said Ganbold.

“Bingo,” Bush responded as he turned off the force field and returned to his feet. “Hell, we could operate this thing remotely from Tactical if needed.”

Melanie nodded.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Ganbold said glibly.

Skell responded with earnesty: “Indeed.”

“Good,” Ganbold said. “I’m sure the captain will be pleased. Da Silva, Skell, thank you.”

“Of course sir,” Melanie said. She gave Skell a glance and together, they headed to the turbolift.

As the door shut behind them, Joel walked closer to his executive officer. His typical look — jacket open, sleeves up, hair disheveled — gave him the air of an old-fashioned engineer, the kind who still populated private space facilities and who were almost always playing catch-up on any number of half-finished and half-baked projects.

“So,” he said to Ganbold as he mirrored his arms-crossed stance, “We’re just walking into this trap?”

“What do you mean?”

“Commander,” Bush said with a wry grin. “I know we’re just now getting to know each other. But I also know that any X-O worth their salt suspects that this is a trap. Maybe a lone vessel from the Lost Fleet looking to go out in a blaze of glory.”

“Yes,” Ganbold said with a you-got-me sigh. “Or pirates.”

“Or pirates,” Bush agreed. “Or some other kind of criminal, bandit, raider or any other damn ne’er do well.”

“Or a former colony coming out of the shadows to claim territory…”

“…in the aftermath of a sector-wide disaster.”

Ganbold let loose a sly smile of his own. “Bingo.”

Bush uncrossed his arms so he could throw up his hands. “So what? We just … show up and check?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s our job.”

Bush sighed. “Sure but… No escort? I figured the Fleet would at least send some little cutter with us to do the shooting if things — when things turn out that way.”

The first officer’s coy smile grew into a full grin. “Say, Commander, were you asleep on Frontier Day?” Joel rolled his eyes, admitting defeat, but Ganbold continued. “There’s just not enough security to go around right now.”

The chief engineer scratched his chin. “And what does the Captain think?”

“We’re making all the preparations we can,” Ganbold replied. “But I don’t know what Captain Ralin thinks. I can’t read her mind.”

“Well,“ Bush said, casting his eyes up at Ganbold from his hunched pose of thought. “That’s not exactly encouraging.”

“No,” Al said quietly. Then, more loudly: “But this,” he gestured at the device, “looks good. At least we’ve got that.”

“I’m used to keeping things together with polymer tape,” Bush said, “so I guess I’ll just keep things moving.”

“That’s the job,” Ganbold said as he made his way to the corridor.

“It sure is,” Bush said after Ganbold was already out of the room.

As the wide double door to Engineering was nearly closed, a lanky figure moved into the doorway. The doors paused, half-closed, for an instant before receding at the approach of Ensign Del Roosevelt, whose head was turned fully to the right, his eyes locked on the first officer.

Before he even crossed the threshold, Del turned to Bush. “That was Commander Ganbold.”

“Good,” Bush said with playful condescension. “Pretty soon you’ll know a lot of names, maybe even most of the senior staff.”

Del smiled and shook his head. “Okay, okay,” he chuckled as he strolled to the master system display table Joel hovered over. “I just mean, did I miss something important?”

“Nah,” Joel replied as he pulled off his jacket. “C’mon, Mister Roosevelt,” take a look.  He knelt by the improvised docking device and Del knelt next to him.

Ganbold was already on the turbolift when his commbadge chirped.

“Bridge to Ganbold,” said the captain’s voice. “I need you up here immediately.”

“I’m on my way now. Everything alright?”

“Well,” Ralin said, “we’re being hailed. By Correolan Colony.”

This was a possibility Al had hardly considered.

“That’s unexpected,” was all he could say. The doors whizzed open and he stepped onto the bridge. “What the hell is that about?”

The captain glanced back at him and, to his surprise, Al saw a glint of excitement in Abigail’s shadowy eyes.

“I think we’re about to find out. On screen.”