Zachariah Urle felt reassured in the knowledge that he'd done everything he could possibly do to prepare.

Yet as the officers of the Craton arrived and took their positions, he felt an unexpected tightness in his stomach.

He went back over his checklist. For a Star Angel the necessary actions were many and intensive, but they hadn't forgotten anything.

And he was not nervous about being in command for this. It was far from the first time he'd had to arrange a formal welcoming for a dignitary, and from all accounts Star Angels seemed incredibly hard to upset or insult.

A message popped up in his HUD, and he saw it was from Hannah and Persis. They were still ten minutes from the ambassadorial shuttle's landing, and he brought it up.

An animation of him shaking hands with a giant glowing, angel-like being appeared, followed by cartoony, smiling faces of his girls.

"Good luck, Captain-Dad!" they said together.

He couldn't help but smile as he tucked the message away and backed it up.

But his stomach felt worse now, all the same.

He'd always wanted to be the captain of a star ship. It had been one of his many dreams that he was determined to make come true.

And part of him was excited that it was his chance.

He'd been overlooked before - many times. He occupied a strange position where he had not wanted to leave the Craton - or stop working with Ian Brooks - and it had cost him career advancement.

Perhaps he felt guilt.

Most of all, though, he'd never wanted it to be like this. To have his advancement come at his closest friend's cost.

He shook his head. Why did he even keep thinking this way? This pervasive sense of doom about Brooks, that he was truly going to be stripped of his command.

He had to shake the idea, and focus on the moment.

Every officer was in position, standing starkly at attention. His scanners picked up no sign of anyone being ill, but tension still seemed high.

The shuttle carrying the new ambassador was preparing to dock, and the stray thought that the Craton really should have its own ambassadorial staff ran through his mind again. If the Diplomatic Corps wasn't so busy elsewhere, perhaps they would . . .

"Attention! Docking procedures completed. Coupling is now initiating. All personnel, wait for the all-clear to open vacuum hatches."

Then, a moment later; "Pressure established. Shuttle Hatch Doors opening now."

Urle snapped to attention, every other officer following suit.

The shuttle doors opened, and two men and a Sepht in diplomatic corp uniforms came out gravely. Between them, carried by drones, was a casket.

For a moment his system identified it as a coffin, sized for a baby. His heart rate jumped, but then his system corrected and noted it as being a Faraday cage.

"Greetings, Captain," the oldest of the diplomats said. "I am here speaking on behalf of the Ambassador."

"Greetings, Ambassador," Urle said, knowing that in such cases he should address the man as if he was the ambassador.

"The Ambassador expresses its pleasure at being on your vessel, and hopes that you and it will get along in peace and equanimity," the Ambassador replied.

Urle imagined that the man was somehow communicating to the Ambassador within the casket, but he didn't actually know.

"You have my deepest thanks, Ambassador, and I hope for the same."

The man nodded. "With your permission, Captain, the Ambassador would like to move proceedings to Fusion Reactor Seven, so that it can greet you more directly."

"Of course," Urle said. "Follow me."

Dismissing most of the officers, Urle led them out of the hangar.

They travelled down through halls and lifts, but it did not take long to reach Reactor Seven.

The reactor personnel were prepared, and snapped to attention as they entered.

"The Ambassador would like them to be comfortable," the man said. Urle could see now that he had some kind of device in his ear. Bulkier than any normal communication device, but probably scratch-made just for communicating with the Star Angels.

Urle had the techs connect the casket to the fusion reactor. They'd already prepared systems that would allow the Star Angel to transfer into it without trouble. It had been developed and tested before, outside of their ship, but to Urle, this was still the most dangerous step.

"Successful transfer," the older man said. "We should give the Ambassador several minutes to become acquainted. It will inform us when it is ready to speak again."

Urle nodded, and the other man grinned suddenly. "I can't tell you how excited I am, Captain Urle."

"I am as well," he said, not feeling it as much as he said. Yet, he was excited. The Star Angel was an entirely new form of life, and now it would be partners with them, joining them in their travels of the cosmos.

It was hard not to be moved by that.

The ambassador shook his hand. "William Prince. I was lead on the project to decipher and understand the Star Angel language."

"That must have been extremely challenging."

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The man nodded. "I admit - it was. Everything about them defies our theories of life itself. We're going to have to re-define a lot of terms! Star Angels have no concept of food, ecosystem, or matter, for instance. Yet they are highly intelligent and emotional beings - how this came about in their plasma environment seems to be just an incredible stroke of fortune."

He shook his head and laughed, at the absurdity of how much stranger reality could be than fiction.

"It helped greatly that they are the most patient and good-natured beings I have ever met. I have yet to find one be anything close to cross or angry. Far more patient than I am."

He looked to the fusion generator. "Yet it was worth it."

He stiffened suddenly. "Ah, the Ambassador is ready to speak to you. Can you jack into my system?"

Urle did so with a thought, and scanned the special software the man had in his ear piece. It was a complex translation package, as advanced as any he'd seen. It did not simply convert words, but very carefully attempted to parse feelings between beings as disparate as flesh and plasma. To convey at least some sense of the feeling behind it. Prince had even gone so far as to come up with a way of transposing the specific frequencies of Star Angel speech into something approaching human sounds - to approximate, as much as was possible, the radio waves into a voice.

He heard a very pleasant woman's voice in his ears.

"Greetings, Captain," it said. "Thank you for allowing me aboard your vessel!"

"It was my honor," Urle replied. "Are you comfortable?"

"Oh, yes - I know you must have gone through much trouble to prepare this, but it seems to be working quite well. It is more comfortable than the box, for sure!"

Prince spoke. "Ambassador, you had mentioned picking a name for us to call you once you settled in. Perhaps now might be an auspicious time?"

There was a pause. "Perhaps soon," the Star Angel told him. "For now you may keep calling me Shine."

"It is a play on sunshine," Prince said to Urle. He was surprised that the man said it so plainly in front of the Ambassador, but reminded himself that the Star Angels seemed to be near uninsultable.

"Yes," the Ambassador agreed. "But it is not my name. Soon I will have one!"

"At your leisure, Ambassador," Urle said, offering a bow, though he was unsure if the being saw outside of the reactor yet.

A laugh that was melodic and beautiful came from the being. "You are so kind, Captain. I am really quite glad we are getting to meet. Let us talk again soon - I hope I am not being rude, but I would like some time to grow acquainted with the insides of your reactor."

"Of course, Ambassador. I will be only a call away," Urle replied, bowing again.

*******

Tred let out a soft breath as the dignitaries left. He got very nervous when important people were around. It felt like his normal clumsiness was increased a dozen times over, and he had suffered many nightmares of ruining some sort of vital diplomatic event. Getting in trouble, yelled at, humiliated. Or even causing a diplomatic incident that led to war!

He was most certainly capable of that level of clumsiness, at least when he was nervous.

His eyes went automatically over the numbers on his screen. Everything was . . . right.

Well, it was off, because they'd had to change a lot of things for the Star Angel. It bothered him deeply, to see everything so close to right, but off by just a few minor points.

He wanted to fix them, set it back to how it should be, but of course that would probably kill the Star Angel. Or make it explode or dissipate or become so powerful that it would eat the universe.

Yep, just more problems to be laid at his feet that way.

He shook his head. When Cutter had put him on this team, he'd tried to hint that maybe he'd get passed over for the next few Response missions that needed an engineer.

But of course Cutter had looked at him with those unreadable compound eyes and missed it. Or ignored it.

He couldn't rule out that the Beetle-Slug got all of his hints, but just refused to entertain them. The work-ethic of his kind was impeccable. The idea that he wanted to get out of some duty - even if it was dangerous - was something he likely wouldn't entertain.

A new light pinged on his console - the Star Angel was communicating.

"Ah, hello?"

The voice was a feminine, soft and soothing with just a hint of confusion in it. It immediately made him think of Rayla McCarr or Audriana Kesley, one of those famous thespians who had the perfect combination of wit, grace, and charm, and utterly lacking in arrogance.

He suddenly felt more nervous.

"Hello, Ambassador. How may I help you?" he asked. His voice didn't waver, at least.

"Oh!" the voice exclaimed.

"Huh?" he replied.

"Who are you?" the voice asked.

"Ah - I'm Chief Fusion Engineer Boniface Tred," he said, unwittingly coming to attention.

"I don't know what all of that means, but it's very nice to meet you!" the voice came.

"Ah . . . to you as well, Ambassador."

"Ambassador is very formal . . . Do we have to speak that way when it's not some big event?"

He blinked rapidly and swallowed. This was just a voice coming from a ten-meter long plasma alien that spoke in radio waves. It was only a fantastically well-made computer program that gave it the voice an angel should by all rights have.

"You could just call me Tred, ma'am. But . . . I don't know what your name is, to be honest, Ambassador."

"Oh, I quite like your name! But Tred, I'm afraid I don't have a name among your people yet. I have not yet picked one."

"You don't? Oh, I'm sorry," Tred said, unsure what to say beyond that.

"My people all have a unique frequency. It's all we need for a name . . . But it seems quite important among your kind, so I didn't want to rush picking. I like how so many of them have a meaning. Could you help me think of one? I've been thinking about it, but I haven't found any I like."

"Oh, er . . . Sure. I'd be glad to help," Tred said.

His cheeks were burning, he realized. He was blushing.

There were many others in the room, though no one seemed to be paying particular attention to him. But he knew this was all being recorded, that even the Star Angel would know that, so this was hardly a private conversation, and he was little more than the engineering equivalent of a bellhop to the Ambassador.

But it felt like it was a private conversation.

A name came to his mind, unbidden.

"Jophiel," he suggested.

There was a pause. It was very long, and he worried for a moment that he'd somehow offended the ambassador.

"Does it mean anything?" she asked.

He had to check his system for a translation. "Ah . . . it means 'divine beauty'," he said, blushing even more fiercely.

There was another long pause.

"I'll be Jophiel, then!" the Ambassador returned. "How wonderful, it sounds delightful to me! Thank you for helping me!"

"Just happy to help Ambas- I mean Jophiel," he replied.

"Will you be around all the time, Tred?" she asked him.

"Just . . . sometimes," he replied. "I work here, I keep the fusion reactor operating in a way that's healthy for you. But humans need to take rests, or I may have to do other work, so . . . not all the time."

"Oh, I see. That's okay. I can be patient! My kind rest sometimes, too. I'm very . . . tired, does that translate correctly?"

"Yes," he said. "I think so."

"Good! I am very tired and need to rest. But I'm very happy I got to meet you Tred. I hope we get to talk again soon!"

"Me too," he replied.

The line clicked twice as it disconnected, and he started, not sure what to make of that. It was an intentional double click, he checked the log.

Jophiel must have done it for a reason. Like some kind of . . . special goodbye.

He found himself smiling.