Honestly, it feels like Starbase rushed me for no reason. I practically ran to get to Far Reach before they left, and we're just sitting here, doing final checks.

Ambassadors Ta'reni and Nilan from home came on board and gave a little speech about how important our mission is and that we are the vanguards of our species and so on. Ambassador Vivenni stayed and spoke a little to thank us on behalf of all K'laxi for our work.

And there was polite applause, the doors were sealed, the umbilical disconnected and... that was that. We were off.

Since we were in friendly space, my work wasn't really needed yet, so after my shift was finished, I went to my cabin and put my things away. Bringing my coffee supplies (well labeled, naturally) out to the kitchen I ran into Mei'la, one of the K'laxi over in Engineering.

"Oh Hey Lieutenant!" She said brightly.

This would not do. I had to put a stop to it right away. Waving my hand dismissively, I said "Oh Please, there are only a few of us on board, and they just granted me a commission because of my position on board - some kind of thing about it needing to be an officer - Just call me Melody."

"Um, okay Melody. She looked confused. "Why don't you want people to call you by your rank? Did you not earn it?"

I mean, yes, I went to officer candidate school back on Meíhuā and yes, I earned my commission, but things here are so… casual? I really didn't want people calling my Lieutenant, or LT, or any other combination of that. "It’s okay. I'm just Melody. I'm always Lieutenant Mullen on my paperwork or on my uniform" I gestured down to the little brass nameplate that said MULLEN on my breast pocket. "But I don't feel like a lieutenant? I feel like Melody."

Mei’la nodded, but she didn’t look sure. "O-okay Melody. If that's how you feel. But, when we're around our superior officers, I'm still going to refer to you as Lieutenant Mullen"

I smiled. It was as good as I was going to be able to get. "That's fine… Ensign Nelumian."

Mei'la made a face. "Okay, you're right. It seems way too cosy here to be called that all day every day. I'll call you Melody and you can call me Mei'la or Mei." She stopped. "So long as we won't get written up about it."

"I don't see any problems with it, so long as everyone is comfortable with it." Captain Q'ari said. "But just in case, use rank until you are told you can just use their name."

I nodded "Yes Captain."

She smiled. "Perfect. I prefer Captain while we are 'working.' When we're off duty and are speaking casually, then you may call me Selem."

Noting that she was still on duty even though I wasn't, I said "Thank you Captain, I appreciate that."

The Captain looked over to my box of coffee supplies and said "What are you doing there… Melody?"

"Oh, I'm putting my coffee supplies in my cabinet in the kitchen." Everyone had their own cabinet for their own snacks and treats that fell outside of the standard food served at mealtimes. "I guess I just brought coffee and coffee making supplies for my snacks.

Captain Q'ari chuckled. "Yes, I read your dossier, that sounds like you. Even though I can't drink any coffee, I do enjoy the smell of it. I'm glad to have such a connoisseur onboard. I'm just making the rounds and checking to see how everyone is settling in. I'll see you at dinner!" and she walked down the hall towards the recreation room.

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What she means by that is that K'laxi can't eat a lot of human foods, they don't have the ability to process them like we do. Many of the things that are in our foods are toxic to them. Caffeine is one of the big ones. We made a point to make sure that all the food served during meals on board is compatible with both of our species, but we were allowed some leeway in our snack cabinets - hence my coffee. Starbase made it sound like Far Reach had coffee, but it's actually a coffee flavored substitute. With enough milk and sugar it's an... okay simulacrum of coffee, but really it doesn't hold a candle to the real stuff. Actually...

"Far Reach?" I asked, looking up. When they weren't on a screen, people tended to look up when they were asking Far Reach something. I thought it was weird when I started out, but before long I was doing it too. "Did Ambassador Vivenni really bring coffee on board?"

"Good afternoon Melody. Yes, Ambassador Vivenni did bring coffee on board, but it was determined that the amount she bought was too large for the few humans who listed the beverage as a requirement. The amount taken finally was lowered from the original 30 kilograms to 10."

My heart fell. 10 kilos is a lot of coffee, but we don't know when we're going to get more so we don't know how long it has to last. I brought two kilos with me on board so I'll have to be careful. One cup a day looks like. I hope I don't go into withdrawal!

"That's disappointing, but thanks for letting me know, Far Reach."

"No problem at all Melody. Dinner is in 20 minutes, shall I call you when it's time to go to the mess?"

"Yes please Far Reach, thank you."

It was decided that we should try and take all our meals together whenever possible. There was only a few of us and Far Reach was able to keep an eye on things and let us know if something came up, so the mess was set up with one large table in the middle that sat everyone, and smaller tables around the edge for when people came in to eat a snack or relax outside of their rooms.

In what I hope is a preview of what's to come, the meal was excellent. There was a K'laxi Chef and a Human one, but they both worked together to make the meals as harmonious and compatible as possible. "This meal is so good, Chefs" I said as I was going up for a second helping. "Is this how all of our meals are going to be?" I tried to not sound too hopeful.

Chef Klein and Chef Perinem smiled broadly. "I'm so glad you liked it! Chef Klein said. "We're going to be doing our best to make every meal as good as we can." Chef Perinem added.

After dinner, I went back to my room and studied. The Information Warfare Suite was brand new and had K'laxi integration, so I had to study hard to make sure I was up to speed before it was needed. This time, I set an alarm to make sure I didn't get lost in my studies and forgot to sleep. I went to bed on time and got a full night's rest.

The next day we were scheduled to arrive at the first Warp Gate. I had to admit, traveling this way felt a lot slower than using the wormhole generator, but I had to remember that the K'laxi and Xenni used them for hundreds of years before we met them.

Not to mention anyone we'd meet on the other side.

From what the K'laxi told us, the Warp Gates weren't exactly a point to point system. Or at least, they weren't only a point to point system. If you knew the address of a location, you could enter it into your Addressing Module, and when you approached a Gate, it would read your address from the module, and as you went through, would warp you there. If you didn't have an address entered in, you didn't go anywhere. That would imply some kind of central hub, but nobody has ever been able to find anything like that.

So, how to go somewhere when you don't know the address? Early on, the K'laxi learned that all the Warp Gates have almost like a... directory on them. One has to leave their ship and look around the Gate system itself, and you'll find... something. On some gates, it's a metal plate that has addresses burned into it. On others, they found a large piece of a black, obsidian like stone. Other gates have nothing, and the K'laxi assumed those were the end of the line for that branch. Nobody is sure though. Without a master directory, they have no way to traverse all the gates. So what we're going to do is go to the furthest gate in Xenni space - one of the ones the K'laxi never properly explored - and go see if it has any other addresses. If it does we'll... enter them in and see where we go.

When I say it like that, it sounds a lot more dangerous than it is really. We still have the wormhole generator. If things go bad, we'll link home. It'll be fine.

Right?