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The station's computer beeped at her. In her bed, the Exile woke. Less the second later, she was out of her bed, crouched, and her stone knife was in her hand as the bright green eyes swept the room - and then she relaxed as true wakefulness hit her, and she remembered where she was.

"Lights." The voice was a low, rumbling growl, and the station's lights came up, blinding her briefly. She fought the urge to throw the knife at them, and straightened. Her room was immaculately clean, the dark matte floor tiles as smooth and unmarked as they had been when she was assigned the quarters. She moved slowly to the duplication indentation.

"Karfa, hot." There was another beep, and the cubby glowed. A cup appeared, full of some steaming liquid, and she grasped it, lifting it to her lips as she turned and moved towards the footlocker at the foot of her bed. A thick, gray-furred finger stabbed the lock, and it opened. Within, a number of neatly-folded garments lay stacked, and she selected the top one. Over her ample breasts she pulled a dark green long-sleeved garment, which instantly flowed and smoothed itself to the contours of her chest, while she pulled a pair of long pair of navy blue pants up over her legs. Lastly, she sat on her bed and pulled the flared black synthleather boots over her large paws. Dressed but for one small detail, she took her badge, and stood anew, in uniform and ready for duty.

The Exile moved to the mirror in her quarters' waste reclamation room, staring into it. A large, lupine face stared back at her from it, with thick gray fur covering it, and bright green eyes stared out at her from the polished surface. She produced a comb from a small recess in the wall beside the mirror, and neatly brushed her fur, before replacing it. The computer beeped again, warning her that her first shift began in five minutes. The Exile sighed, and exited her door, and her quarters.

The hallway outside was full of others, but as she stepped out, all activity ceased for a few seconds as the assorted aliens stopped, and stared. Feeling the pressure of all those eyes on her, the Exile fought her instinct to snarl and attack, and instead moved with swift, purposeful strides towards the lift.

And well they might stare, she thought. Few of them can ever have seen one of the Ashtem-Khoorial, after all - my predecessor was doubtless deployed to the front lines for all of their lifetimes. As she thought this, she felt her tongue press against her teeth as it attempted to slip out of her mouth in a smile, but she suppressed it. And then, once she started to move, the others in the hall seemed to remember themselves, and began to resume their business. Some returned to their quarters, their shifts ending - some were, like her, heading towards the lifts to begin theirs.

She wound up sharing the lift with a male Lapin and a female Kumir. The Lapin was tall and lean, like so many of his kind, with the short, blunt muzzle and soft brown eyes. His ears stood up over his head, twitching and moving about at the small sounds of the lift, and he quite resolutely kept his eyes facing forwards, though she did occasionally see them twitch sideways, towards her, before he forced them front again.

The Kumir, meanwhile, displayed the usual lack of subtlety that her kind was famous for, and openly watched the Exile. Her yellow eyes stayed still, as did her scaled face and form - the only sign of life from her the occasional flicking of her tongue and faint rise and fall of her body as she inhaled, and exhaled. The Exile, for her part, faced the Kumir directly, returning her gaze without fear. The Kumir's form was humanoid on her upper body, dressed in a uniform not unlike the Exile's own - though where the Exile's badge displayed a small star, the Kumir's displayed an eye, marking her as one of the Temple's initiates. Her chest was smaller than the Exile's, as well, though not displeasing on her lithe form. From the waist down, however, she had the long, smooth serpentine shape of her race, instead of the legs that the more openly mammalian races frequently possessed.

As she looked, the Kumir smiled - a human gesture that looked oddly pleasant on a face that was shaped nothing like a human's - and then the lift doors opened, and the three stepped out into the command center. A few steps across it, and it became clear that all three were going to the same place - the station commander's office. The office doors remained closed as they approached, however, and from within the Exile could hear the low murmur of his voice, though she could not make out what he was saying. The Lapin's ears twitched towards it, and his eyes focused on the door. The Exile wondered, idly, if his more sensitive hearing could pick up the conversation - but before she could even think of asking, the door clicked, and slid open.

The station commander was a weary-looking Auferin - one of the command caste, most likely, judging by his small size and stature. His face was canid, shaped not unlike the Exile's own, and was covered in white, curly fur. A pair of short ears flopped to either side of his face, while his dark brown uniform couldn't fully conceal the slight paunch that was forming - no doubt as a result of his essentially non-combat role here. The Exile and the duo with her stepped in.

"Yes?" He looked up from his desk, and then sighed. "Ah, right, yes. Come in." They obeyed.

His voice was a soft tenor, and his words were clipped as he barked them out.

"Lieutenant, allow me to formally welcome you to Station Zabraz." The words were spoken to the Exile. "I have been informed that you are here, courtesy of your government, to fulfill Clause 27 of the Treaty of Ashtem, yes?"

The Exile nodded, but remained silent.

"Good. I was sorry to hear of Khadra Vindan's death - she was a formidable ally. Let us hope that you will prove as formidable."

The Exile nodded again, and repeated herself.

"You have been assigned to the 22ndPeacekeeping Division. Your transport is already here, and I am told there will be a mission briefing aboard it en route." He looked between the duo with her. "Allow me to introduce the first two members of your support staff."

The Exile looked between her companions, unable to keep an expression of mild shock off her face, before she spoke. "Sir, with all due respect, I was not informed that I would be assigned a support staff - and I assure you, I am quite able to fulfill my duties without any need for assistants."

The station commander smiled, his tongue lolling out to one side and his tail twitching behind him as he replied.

"I'm glad to hear it, Lieutenant, but the matter is not up for discussion. These two are not being assigned to you as combat support, but as societal and diplomatic aides. You are the only extant member of your society involved in the Coalition's forces, and it is standing order 2342 that all representative individuals from voluntarily non-involved races be granted a support staff to assist them in interacting with Coalition races. In short, they are ordered to assist you in your dealings with other races, and you are ordered to allow them to. Combat operations are your responsibility, non-combat operations are theirs."

He walked around the desk. "Ordered is ordered, Lieutenant. Do not break the chain."

The Exile nodded again. "Understood, sir."

He looked at her, and sniffed at her lightly, before nodding himself and walking over to the Lapin. "This is Junior Bard Samuel Kelkin. He will serve as your cultural and communications assistant." The commander cleared his throat. "In short, he will tell you who is who and which is which." Then the Auferin walked over to the Kumir, and gestured to her.

"This is Acolyte Salasdra, of the Temple. She will serve as your medical and religious assistant. I trust that her duties will be self-evident - in time, if not immediately." With that, he returned to standing directly in front of the Exile. "Do you have any questions about your orders, Lieutenant?"

The Exile resisted the urge to shove the small male backwards, and instead saluted by placing one hand over her eyes. "No, sir. The orders are entirely clear."

He nodded, and returned the salute. The other two saluted as well, though the Kumir's was far more perfunctory than the other two.

"Then you are all dismissed. Do not miss your transport - it leaves in two hours."

Aboard the transport, the three of them had been assigned conjoined quarters. It was a Gaurug ship, designed to allow whoever occupied the central chambers access to all the conjoined quarters. As soon as she felt the ship detach from the station, the Exile pressed the communication button on the console in her quarters. "You will both meet me in the outer room of my quarters."

After both acknowledged her response, she released it, and moved to the room indicated. It had a table, and six chairs set around it. She sat in one.

The Bard was the first to enter. He had changed out of his uniform, and was instead dressed in a robe of thin, light blue cloth, his white fur tinted slightly by the light reflecting off of it. He wandered about the room for a few minutes, until the Kumir joined them, bare as the day she hatched. The Exile looked between them, and then spoke.

"Sit." She indicated the chairs, and then, a moment later, added a quiet, "Please."

The Kumir slithered over to the table, and wrapped herself around the chair beside the Exile, ending up at roughly head height, her small breasts swaying slightly with the motion. The Lapin, after a long moment of staring at an apparently unremarkable patch of wall, moved to sit as well, choosing a chair equidistant from both of them. He carefully kept his gaze on the tabletop, while the Kumir kept her yellow eyes firmly on the Exile.

The Exile, for her part, looked between them, then spoke again. "If we are to work together, we must at least know something of each other. I am the Exile, from the sanctuary-world of Khoorial." She shifted in her chair to return the Kumir's gaze. "Is there a reason you stare at me so? Do you wish to fight me?"

The Kumir's eyes widened, and she quickly looked away. "Not at all, Lieutenant...Exile? Among the Kumir, to turn the gaze away is to indicate disinterest - and possibly disrespect. I sought only to show - interest." The gaze swung back at her, as intense as ever. "As you know, we in the Temple have some lore regarding the Khoorial, and I will admit, to spend time with one and learn more of them has long been a goal of mine."

The Exile nodded, and turned back to the Lapin. "And what of you? All the sources I could find say that the Lapins are a garrulous and social race, and yet you've not said two words since I met you."

The word 'garrulous' earned a small smile from the Lapin, and he turned his brown eyes on her briefly before answering.

"It's true that the Lapins have a - quite accurate - reputation for being talkative. And social. And annoying." The last word was said in a swift snap, like the crack of a whip. "I heard rumors of what my assignment would be, and didn't want to start us off by annoying you."

Salasdra spoke next. "You keep avoiding our gaze, too. A gesture of contempt?"

Samuel shrugged. "I have no contempt for you, Acolyte, nor for you, Lieutenant. Among the Lapins, meeting the gaze is considered to be a somewhat socially intimate gesture - it signals personal friendship, possible sexual interest. Both pretty inappropriate for one's first meeting with one's new commander and coworker."

The Kumir's eyes flashed, and she made that odd human smile again. "Well, then, at least it's not contempt. I'll take it - for now." She turned back to the Exile. "What of you? What do we call you?"

The Exile shrugged, and returned the Acolyte's gaze. "They took my name when I was sent into exile. Khadra Vindan had to earn her name - I will have to do likewise. Until then, simply 'Exile' will do."

The Lapin leaned back slightly in his chair, relaxing a bit. "You are here because of the Treaty, right? Your people refused to join the Coalition, but agreed to supply them with forces. Given the nature of your 'sanctuary', I'm betting that they don't have enough population to send more than one soldier at a time - so they send their best."

The Exile let her tongue spill out of the side of her mouth, and her tail thumped against the back of her chair. "Exactly so."

Samuel grinned at her, and nodded. "All right. Well, as a Bard, I'm trained to know the histories and folklore of over a million species - and their more famous artforms, cultural norms, that kind of thing. I also have a few sorcerous tricks up my sleeve, though for more serious work in that area, you probably want a full-on sorcerer."

Salasdra chuckled, and they both looked over at her. "Which is where I can take the fore. As a Temple Acolyte, I have not only medical training, but am a sorceress of the third degree." Their blank looks earned another chuckle from the Kumir. "That is to say, while I am not yet one of the great sorcerer-engineers, I do have some proficiency with and knowledge of the more arcane sciences, as well as being quite well-acquainted with Temple structure and practices on many worlds."

The Exile let her smile grow more pronounced. "Then I begin to see why you were assigned to me, and I will strive to lead you to glory."

The two with her smiled as well, and the ship flew on into the galactic night - but following behind, invisible and without so much as a hint of radiant energy, two dark ships closed in.