[snip]

About fifteen minutes after Kord had left the Bridge, Captain Glen arrived in Transporter Room A ready to meet the Landing Party for the beam down to Alstair Prime.

Glen was glad to see the happy face of Lt. BJ Hunnicutt there, standing at the Transporter console. He had thought the Lt. had seemed a little anxious about his new post when they met before leaving the space station, but appeared to have quickly settled right in. There was still another five minutes until Glen had told the Landing Party to assemble so Glen used it to catch up.

“Good Morning, Lieutenant Hunnicutt,” said John Glen. “How are you finding the Merrimack? How are your quarters? Is the cabin as large as you expected? Have you found all the facilities? I also heard that you’ve been showing other new crew around. That’s very thoughtful and kind of you.”

Glen continued, “There will be a party seven to beam down today to Alstair Prime, and I’m quite happy we won’t be using ‘All the Stairs’ eh!” It was a poor joke that Glen immediately regretted saying. In any case, the name was not really pronounced “All-Stairs” but was a more of a musical note when spoken in that sing-song way by the female Alstairians.

Inola arrived soon after the captain, fiddling with her communicator. She had gotten odd looks in the halls as she imitated the musical language of Alistairs, but she had finally mastered the tone changes. “Captain, Lieutenant,” She nodded to each of the men in the room, then smiled. “Ready to speak with the Tri-Council?”

“I most certainly am,” replied Glen. “I’m also concerned that I know so little about them and their society. I don’t think they quite understand the size of the spacefaring community they are joining. They did seem a little concerned about the possibility of hostile groups and war, but the real threats to them are much more mundane - rapid economic growth, new contagious diseases, dealing with technological change. I want to gauge how ready they are for those things, without worrying them so much that they close their borders and withdraw from known space. Also, personally speaking, we recently had an extremely bad First Contact experience with a belligerent race of bottle-nosed Dolphins that has resulted in an ongoing conflict. So, I’m very keen for this to go well.”

Cadet Coleman showed up in the transporter room in his dress uniform. Of course, it was slightly different than everyone else’s as it has a red (instead of white) strap holding up the tunic. The rank on the tunic strap was Senior Cadet. He had a standard tricorder and a communicator with him. He tried to not seem nervous because this was his official first landing party for official duty.

“I am ready to proceed” said the Cadet.

“Cadet Coleman!” replied Captain Glen, “Don’t look so worried. You’ve met aliens before in the Academy. There must be hundreds of species in the Federation of Planets now. Pretty soon it’s likely that the Alstairs will be members too. So, it’s just another day at the Academy, okay!”

Hal arrived in the transporter room with two of his security officers in tow. “All set to beam down to the surface, Captain?” He asked.

CoS

“Good Morning, Lieutenant!” the Captain replied to Hal and his officers. Glen looked over the two redshirts. it was important to make a good impression today. He didn’t need sharp-shooters, instead he wanted the quiet but dependable sort, who could deal with a nearly endless number of potential situations. He wanted people with that air of authority, and a demeanour that meant that you would never dare to mess with them, but at the same time, were also gentle, respectful of others and their space, and knew how to influence others and quickly diffuse tense situations. Hal seemed to have chosen well. Given the quick once over by the Captain, these appeared to fit the bill.

• Glen, CO