Captain Zelgadiss Greywers sat quietly in his ready room. He always found waiting for orders from Star Fleet Command rather... boring. He casually stood up, tugging down his uniform, and proceeded at a slow pace toward the replicator. He spoke without emotion, "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot."
    The matter condensed on the consol. Zelgadiss lifted the glass cup and carried it past the bubble aquarium with orange fold fish and stood where he could see a repetitive view of black and stars out the ready room window.
    As he began sipping his tea, an electronic sound paused him. Setting it down on the desk, he sat behind the polished table again, "Come."
    The door hissed open and a young girl that looked no more than sixteen years old, with outstanding waist-lengthed red hair entered, "Sir!" She stood upright with respect.
    "Ah! Number One!"
    The girl held back her annoyance, "Please.. don't call me that!"
    Zelgadiss recalled teh pop in teh head he had received the last time he slipped his tongue, "Oops, sorry, Lina. Now, what was it you came to report?"
    Lina drew a deep breath of relief, smiled and continued formally, "Admiral Rodimus Axaven wishes to speak with you, sir. He is on the private link."
    Zelgadiss smiled inwardly at that, finally, orders! "Thank you, Lina. You are dismissed."
    She nodded ad briskly left the ready room, returning to the bridge.
    Taking another quick sip of tea, he turned the small desk top view screen to face him and opened the channel.
    "Captain!" The admiral, gray with age addressed Zelgadiss, "We may have an emergency on our hands."
    Zelgadiss solemnly watched teh view screen, "What is it, Admiral?"
    Rodimus cleared his throat, "We received a strange... distress signal... at least, that is what we can make of it. It came directly to headquarters as an encrypted message and was only picked up by our satellites a few hours ago. It took our translators that long to decode what they could. Enough to scarcely understand it's implications."
    Zelgadiss sipped his tea once more as Rodimus paused, "I'm listening."
    "The point I'm getting at, Captain, is that the Enterprise is the ship closest to the point of origin. Please brief your crew, and I will send the translations and details of the message to you shortly. We are still working on some of the coded combinations, but you will be informed immediately if there are any new developments."
    "Yes, sir. We will be underway as soon as we receive the information and the coordinates," he paused shortly, drawing in a breath, " A question, Admiral?"
    The old man nodded.
    "Do you have any clues as to who sent the signal?" He had that feeling again. The feeling that always arose whenever something quite unusual was about to happen.
    "Captain Greywers," The admiral regretfully sighed, "No, we don't. Sorry. For all we know, we could be dealing with a new race or species with an entirely different language. Be careful, Captain."
    The screen turned black. Zelgadiss picked up his tea cup again and leaned back into the beige, leather chair. Another leap into the unknown the crew of the Federation Star Ship Enterprise would embark upon...