Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi, personal log, supplemental. I have now spent four days recovering after having almost been cooked to death by an ion storm in the Xi Velorum system. Commander Vistia Xe has exploited my vulnerable state to ambush me and promote me to full Lieutenant — I still have very conflicting feelings about that. Today I’m already done with my phys rehab and with my reading — finally got through Firin Deeo’s latest study on muon-assisted entanglement deconvolution, really fascinating stuff, gotta to re-read it. Diran and Sirti have suggested we meet at the Reddaurant for dinner.

Iskander stopped the dictation, put down the PADD, and rose from the small sofa. His promotion to Lieutenant had given him an access to a slightly larger quarter with a small lounge area — a quaint dark glass table, two low sofas, several cushions, all of which had already been decorated with his favorite mood-setters: a Newtonian cradle, a dissected old quantum beam retracer, a Betelgeusian perovskite, a tensegrity cupholder, and at the wall a fanciful and completely unpractical schematic of a transporter if it had been drawn in the style of XIth century Baghdad.

He stretched. He did still have some lingering pain, as the second ionic discharge through his body had left him with several deep-tissue burns, but all in all he was doing great. He walked to the mirror and straightened the brown crop top and the white capris he’d chosen to wear. He sighed and exited the room.

The Reddaurant was quite empty due to the early hour, being a bar more than a mess, so Iskander had no trouble in locating his two fellow engineers, sat next to the windows. Diran was still in uniform, slightly disheveled as always, while Sirti-nei-Plex was donning one of his suits. Iskander had trouble describing what Sirti-nei-Plex’s off-duty style was like: had he been pressed, he’d have said amphibious.

Out of the window, the familiar pattern of warping stars, elongated and rendered almost to lines by the phenomenon of Tziri-Cochrane diffraction.

They were both reading from their PADD. If Iskander knew anything about them, they were still working at something. Iskander disapproved, although he suffered from the same fatal affliction.

“Sirti! Diran!” He told them after having approached. “I hope I am not interrupting you.”

They looked up. Diran looked in particular a bit guilty, as they knew that Iskander liked to chastise them for being too work-focused.

“We were scheduled to meet now” answered charmingly Sirti-nei-Plex. “If I were to call this an interruption, I’d say it’s a justified and welcome one.”

“How about I fetch some drinks for the three of us” suggested Iskander, “and we take it from there?”

First the two younger engineers tried to fight the proposal — you’re recovering, we can’t burden you with fetching three glasses, and we’re here to celebrate your promotion, you should get spoiled by us — but Iskander had none of it.

As he came back with three drinks from the bar, the PADDs had not left the two engineer’s hands.

“So” asked Iskander putting the glasses on top of their PADDs in a very demonstrative way, “how’s life?”

“Our life? Why, that’s of no importance now! Congratulations on your promotion!” answered Sirti-nei-Plex raising his glass of algae kirbanx. “Lieutenant full grade!”

Diran agreed.

“Hrrmph” answered Iskander, toasted, and sipped his peppermint tea.

“One doesn’t need to be an empath to see you are less than happy” remarked Diran.

“I never took you for lacking in ambition, Lieutenant” commented Sirti.

“I am less than happy, and I am very ambitious, and call me Iskander off-duty” answered Iskander. “It’s just that my ambitions are all engineering-based. Climbing the hierarchy in the pursue of more numerous and shinier pips isn’t the way to build the best transporter room in the fleet.”

“You should refrain from committing more inexcusable acts of heroism, then” commented Diran. “You forced the senior staff’s hand to give you that promotion!”

Iskander smiled curtly.

“Next time I do something heroic that might get me promoted, I’ll try to die in the process and not painfully survive it.”

“The fact that you feel quite sincere in this moment is best left to a discussion with Counselor Sakar” said Diran.

“Doubtlessly” concurred Iskander.

The discussion followed quite effortlessly from there, jumping between light topics: Sirti’s music-playing, Diran’s family drama, the new color of the panels in the secondary Computer server room, Mir Durbus’ latest cinematographic discovery — she loved to tell everyone about the last movie she had watched, and was currently deep into neo-realistic black-and-white movies of the Inskivian art movement.

Iskander felt happy with his two companions — possibly the two most agreeable colleagues he had found in engineering. Diran had donned a very subtle rouge-a-levre for the evening and wore small quartz earrings — from a cursory look, Iskander evaluated that this was a I-have-small-breasts week for Diran (it was an open question for Iskander how Diran achieved their frequent metamorphosis: implants, fillings, binders, or a cosmetic quick trip to sickbay — who knew). For his part, Sirti-nei-Plex had to fetch a water basin and several time sponge his skin to moisten it: after a long day in engineering, usually he wanted to go back to his aquatic quarters, so Iskander appreciated the gesture of staying in open air for so long.

“Are you excited for our new mysterious assignment?” asked at some point Sirti-nei-Plex.

“I am convalescent” reminded him Iskander. “I have not asked Commander Durbus to fill me in, nor has she in any way offered the information.”

Diran genlty pushed their PADD, which had laid forgotten for quite a while, in the direction of Iskander.

“Just have a read of the title” they said.

Iskander sighed and looked at the PADD.

“Tellarite medical technology of 500 years ago?” he read. “That’s what we’re being given to prepare on?”

“Isn’t it at least intriguing?” nodded Sirti.

“I’ll say. What’s the assignment?”

“Did I say it’s a mystery?” asked Sirti. “It’s a mystery. Maybe not to the senior staff, but who tells us.”

“We know that we are on a course to Rellite, a pre-Federation Tellarite colony.”

“Isn’t it odd for such an ancient colony to request Starfleet’s engineering help?” wondered Iskander. “Established planets have their own engineering capabilities, they do not need to rely on a California-class ship.”

“Mystery, Iskander, mysteryyyy” repeated Sirti-nei-Plex.

“Right.”

“But it is odd” agreed Diran. “Yet, someone on Rellite asked, and someone at Starfleet Command has agreed that it is a sensible use of resources, so here we are.”

“Could you send me the relevant files, Diran?” asked Iskander.

“Why, Lieutenant! I thought you were convalescent! The thought of helping you to get back to work barely a couple of days an ion storm made you into the human version of a crisp is absolutely disconcerting to me!” said mockingly Diran.

“Ensign, you entirely misunderstand me! This isn’t for work — I am convalescent. I am just so lucky that engineering is my hobby.”

They laughed and decided to have a new round of drinks.

It ended up being a good night, with the mystery of the ancient medical Tellarite technology adjourned to tomorrow.