24010220.0800Kr’antren exited his ready room as the Dragon dropped out of warp.

“Not bad, Lieutenant Sustram only a couple of minutes earlier than you had forecasted. Not bad at all.” he walked toward Commander Rigras who was sitting in the center chair. “Anything to report Aryanna?”

“Nope, we came out of warp a bit earlier than originally planned, as I thought it prudent to get a look at the area before arriving at the deployment coordinates. The last update we had from the Osiris was forty-eight hours ago and they just did a quick pass-through. However, they were showing Breen patrol activity while they were here.” she stretched as she stood. “ you have the conn, Captain.” she handed him the dragon chain ring.

Taking the ring from her and placing it in his pocket he took a seat. “I have the conn.”

He turned toward his science chief. “Lieutenant Zoltia, conduct long and short-range scans, please. Let’s see what is out there.”

He turned toward the aft station. “Anything on your end, Lieutenant?”

“Hmmmmm, nothing besides what we would consider ordinary comms.”

Kr’antren turned and looked toward his operations chief who he could see was nodding in agreement.

“Aryanna, Didn’t the Osiris report picking up a tail while they were in the area? Albeit closer than we are, at the moment, to the Confederacy’s security zone.”

“Yes, sir, looks like they picked up a two-ship formation. Looked to be two Confederacy interceptors. They stayed just on the edge of the Osiris’s long-range scan distance. I expect that we will garner a bit more attention than a couple of interceptors.”

“Never can tell with the Breen. Let’s make sure to keep our eyes and ears open.”

“On it.”

“Captain, scans are complete. Analyzing the data now. Looks like we are in the clear sir.”

Kr’antrne nodded and ran a hand through his beard. “Helm take us to the deployment coordinates, impulse. Science, keep running those scans. I want to know if you see anything out of the ordinary.”

“Expecting company?” Aryanna looked from the main view screen to Kr’antren.

<<” He’d be stupid not to be, the Breen are not something to take lightly.”>> 

“This close to the confederacy?” he shrugged his shoulders and continued to run a hand through his beard.

<<” Have you ever noticed that he does that with his beard when he is thinking or when he feels that something is off?”

“I have.”>>

“Lieutenant Zhaishi, are your crews ready?” Aryanna asked the chief engineer.

“Yes. ma’am. Ensign Shichui is standing by with the shuttle Quetzalcoatl and the shuttles Lindwurm and Amphithere are also standing by. The Quetzacoatl will be handling pieces one and four. 

Aryanna nodded.”Nice to see you on the bridge, chief.”

Zhaishi nodded and smiled.

“Captain, the latest scans are showing a warp trail roughly twenty-four hours old. Looks to be from a Breen cruiser. We are not picking anything else up right now.”

Kr’’Antren ran his hand through his beard one more time.

“Sir, the deployment location is roughly 1000 kilometers forward of us.”

“Acknowledged, helm. Take us to 250 kilometers from the predetermined coordinates and start a slow orbit of the location.”

“Aye, captain.”

“Captain, I’m just barely picking up a faint signal.” Lieutenant Scamandrius, stated from the intelligence station. “Even with the upgrades to the sensors I am just barely picking up the signal.”

“Any idea on what it is, lieutenant?”

“It’s not a ship, that much I can say for certain. Doesn’t seem to be moving.”

“Distance?”

“Not sure, it seems to be inside the Breen security area though.”

“Not a ship?”

“No sir seems to be emanating from a stationary position from what I’m seeing.”

“Kr’Antren, could be a subspace comms array similar to the one we are deploying or something like it,” Aryanna said from her seat.

Kr’Antren turned back toward the main view screen as the Dragon started to enter its orbit.

“That was the first thing that came to mind. Though I don’t like what that would mean. Have an idea, might as well use the assets we have at our disposal.” he tapped on the internal comms button on his armrest.“ Commander Thornton, Captain Kr’Antren. Change of plans, can you come up to the bridge please.”

“Which plans, captain? The patrols? or the look-see?”

“The look-see, I’ll explain when you get up here.”

“On my way.”

“You, going to ask him to go take a look.”

“That’s the idea, it’ll mean extending our time here. But I think we should be ok.”

“I agree, I’d rather know what’s out there than not know. Besides, I’m sure the task force would be interested in the information.”

“Lieutenant Sustram, Deploy Blue. Just on the other side of our short-range scan distance as planned. Have them patrol in the opposite direction of our direction of travel.”

“Aye, Captain.” They watched as a three-ship formation exited the forward shuttle bay of the Dragon and entered into warp.

“Lieutenant, give the go order to the Quetzacoatl. Chief, the deployment operation is all yours.”

“Yes, sir.” She tapped her console’s comms button to open the channel with the  Quetzacoatl and Ensign Shichui. “Ensign, you are a go-to start phase one. ”

“On our way, ma’am”

“Ensign Boyd, you are cleared to open the starboard bay iris. Deployment to commence when you have confirmation from the Quetzacoatl that they are in position.”

“Yes, ma’am. Opening the starboard iris, now.”

Kr’antren nodded as he heard the conversation. Hearing the turbolift doors open he turned to face them. Seeing that it was Commander Thornton in a flight suit, he stood and made his way toward the intelligence console. “Commander, over here.”

“Here’s the latest. Lieutenant Scamandrius is seeing signs of something just over in the Confederacy security zone. Now I know we still see this as part of the Expanse and open for all traffic but as you know the Breen are sticklers for what they consider theirs.”

Scamandrius nodded as the Captain talked. “Sir, it may be something similar to what we’re doing.” They all look at the main view screen watching as the shuttle starts to move the first piece of the array.

“That’s a bit outside their controlled space,” Thornton mumbles around the pipe. 

“That’s what I was thinking, and I can only think of a few reasons why they would put something out this far from their borders.”

“Either they are taking an interest in what we are doing or…” he pointed with his pipe toward the main view screen.

“Yaaaa, it’s the or part that has me thinking.”

“Let me guess, you want us to go take a look?” as he placed the pipe back in his mouth.

“Can you?”

“How far is it?”

Scamandrius pulled up the information on his holo display. “Roughly two days at warp 7 in an Arrow.”

“Hmmmm.  This is the type of thing the arrows are meant for. We would have to do some reconfiguring. Could we get a few extra crew, preferably one of two from his department. “ he nodded toward Scamandrius and then looked toward the view screen for a minute, “an operations officer and two engineers should do it. Along with two flight crews from us to rotate for shifts.”

Kr’Antren looked over at Lieutenant Zhaishi. “Lieutenant, can you give up two engineering officers to join the commander and his crew on a little excursion?”

“I think we can do that.”

Scamandrius looked up from the holo. “I have two good analysts that I think will be good for this one, I’ll pass a message to them now.”

“It’ll take us a few hours to reconfigure, then we should be ready to go, Captain.”

“Let’s do it.  Zhaishi and Scama tell your folks to report to Commander Thornton.”

Commander Thornton gave each of them a curt nod and departed the bridge.

Kr’Antren returned to his chair. 

“So intelligence gathering or expansion?” Aryanna asked from her chair.

“I’d prefer the first over the second, easier to deal with. The second one tends to get messy.”

“I would have to agree with you on that. Any ideas?”

<< chuckles ” You mean, besides yours?”>>

“Besides continuing with our mission, not much else we can do right now till we hear back from Commander Thornton. Let’s get ourselves ready though just in case we have to move quickly if he runs into any complications.”

Aryanna nodded.