Zedd arrived first to the briefing room and made note.

It seemed to him that he always arrived first to briefings. He preferred it this way, hoping to keep a certain dynamic of people arriving and him waiting on them as opposed to them waiting on him. He decided he would probably prefer it that way. It kept people from feeling like they were wasting their time waiting.

He set his PADD on the table and sipped his raktajino, then placed it beside the PADD and stood at the head table, looking over the space for a moment. The briefing room was small but would work well for what they needed to discuss. The table was long and had 12 available chairs which should be plenty for everyone to attend. New Ferenginar rotated outside the window, reminding him they were still in orbit, but not for much longer.

He pulled up a general ship system status on the nearby the wall panel, so there would be nothing that would give away the meeting to come.

Mei-Lin came in a few minutes later with her own PADD in one hand and a mug in the other. She had a particular expression, looking almost put out for having to be there. She took a seat that was a couple down from the head of the table and looked over the wall display and then at Zedd.

"What are we covering today?" she asked.

"I'll cover it hen everyone's here" he answered.

She accepted his response and made a note on her PADD about something else that came to mind from her work earlier that day. Her note would help her to revisit some calibrations she needed to re check.

Lindsy came in shortly after and took the seat directly to the Captain's left. She had her char archive open on her own PADD, with her hair in the practical knot she usually wore on duty, her mind still on work as well. A moment later she set her PADD face down on the table to show she was present and ready.

Tiraa entered the room, and when she saw those already there she gave a warm smile and slight nod. "Good morning."

She moved to the chair to the right of Zedd and sat down with a practiced poise not even remotely unexpected for someone like her. She was put together, polished, and completely at ease sitting and waiting for the last of their crew to join them so they could address their first upcoming contract. Rallid who had entered with her as naturally as a shadow simply stood by the door, not taking up a seat, but being present nonetheless.

"Good morning, everyone" said Avery Morgan. "Plasma's running a little hot, hope I'm not late. Still watching the warp drive carefully. The new crystals can be a little unpredictable. Thanks to Mei-Lin, engine efficiency is improved. Sorry. I tend to get a little long winded."

Zedd gave a nod to Avery. "I appreciate the work on the warp core Avery. You and Mei-Lin did quite a job. All updates on the new setup are always appreciated."

T'Vara came in next took another seat without saying anything. She looked at the display and then at Zedd so she could acknowledge her being there.

"Before we begin, I want to know what the medical contingency plan is. If we are going somewhere so dangerous, I need to know what we are getting into so I can have sickbay prepared before we enter that region instead of after."

Zedd looked over at her. "That is why this briefing is taking place, so we can establish that" he said. "Your input on what sickbay needs will be part of the planning for everything."

"Good" she said, and left it at that.

Ragnar came in without a PADD, because either this was going to be explained out loud or someone was going to have to enjoy watching him pretend to read quickly. He slowed just inside the briefing room, taking in Zedd already at the head of the table, Mei-Lin with her mug, Lindsy looking composed in the way people did when they were either very calm or quietly planning a murder, and Tiraa already settled on Zedd's right with the particular ease of someone who already knew what this was about.

His eyes moved to the wall display and stayed there for half a second. General ship systems. Nothing useful, nothing specific, nothing that gave away why they had all been dragged in here, which meant it was probably either very boring or very much not. "Subtle" he said, and took one of the empty chairs without making a thing of it.

He sat back with a loose sort of laziness, one arm resting on the table, shoulders eased, mouth faintly amused as if he had only come in to be difficult and maybe steal someone's drink. It almost worked. The problem was that none of him had really settled. One foot stayed tucked under him, his weight not quite committed to the chair, ready to move if the room changed shape around him. He looked back at Zedd, then briefly at Avery who had just sat down beside him. "If this is about unpaid docking fees, I vote we blame him. But we can also blame anyone not here yet."

Avery chuckled in response. The guy was quite a character.

Cormus came in right behind his roommate and found the seat across from Mei-Lin open so he took it.

"Are we in trouble?" the young pilot asked.

"No," Zedd answered, almost annoyed.

"Good," Cormus said. He looked over at Mei-Lin across the table. "Do you know what this is about?"

"He said when everyone is here, he would begin. So your guess is as good as mine," she said.

"So no, then" Cormus replied.

"So no then" she confirmed, the corner of her mouth moved slightly in a way that Cormus took notice and made a note of.

Zedd waited a moment to let the room settle and thought about everyone there, considering how each may respond, and then deciding there was no time like the present.

"Alright" Zedd began. "This map is why we are all here."

He tapped a couple buttons and pulled up the full display of the Gatrao nebula, rendered on a layered chart that Lindsy had built, the clusters, the triangulation data, any interference profiles mapped across the sector, and a total of three approach routes she had decided upon. He allowed the room to look at it for a moment before he continued on.

Cormus leaned forward in his chair and looked over the nebula data , focused and processing what was on the wall. "That is quite alot of interference" he said, almost more to himself than to the rest of the room.

"It is, but we are going to review it and come up with alternatives" Zedd answered.

Cormus looked at him and then back at the display, then sat back, waiting.

"Recently, Lindsy purchased four salvage tokens" Zedd said. "Three of them were worthless. The fourth one pointed us here at the nebulae." He pointed at the far side of the display where the derelict coordinates sat. "Token three was logged by a vessel that detected something significant on the other side, but then changed course and left at maximum warp. The mining station that operated in the system shut down approximately two years ago and nobody has been paying attention since. Nobody except us."

T'Vara held that for a moment. "If the vessel left at maximum warp without a report it, either did not have time or deliberately decided not to. Both options have different implications for what we are looking at walking into." She looked at Zedd. "I want to know which one we may be dealing with before we are there rather than after."