Pacing the StratOps suite at the back of the bridge, Noli had her arms folded across her chest while she stared at the floor beneath her. Her Alzek colleague from Strategic Operations had joined her, as had his Bolian subordinate, intelligence officer Fyhya Kiras. Together, the three had been tasked with coming up with a plan to get the Captain the data he needed, but so far they had come up with nothing.

“What about a probe?” Kiras asked, leaning back in her chair and spinning from side to side.

“It would be detected before it could get close enough,” Noli shook her head, “and even if we hid its signature, the minute it started transmitting back it would be detected.”

“Maybe getting us aboard their ship is a mistake,” Tuca remarked, his pointed, grey ears twitching with a sudden burst of movement from the Strategic Operations officer. Reaching for the controls where Noli was standing, the Alzek tapped furiously for a few seconds, noticeably drawing information from the LCARS database using his access code. “Virtually everything we know about slavers,” he took a step back and pointed to the screen for the two to read. “What do you notice?”

Moving closer together to read the data on the screen, Bajoran and Bolian alike almost butted heads, but while one stood back and shrugged a few seconds later, the other made a connection.

Finally, Kiras spoke up. “Almost all slavery operations have a place to trade their victims,” the young Bolian looked towards her superior. “A marketplace of sorts. Somewhere to sell their slaves for the highest bidder,” she added, noting the look of confusion on the face of the Commander.

“And you think they’re headed to their port of call?” Noli theorised, but instead of waiting for a response, her thoughts began to wander, as did her feet. “If we follow them to this port, we can get all the data we need on this slavery ring and, hopefully, find the missing natives of Aquorat,” she looked pleased with herself for a moment, but then a realisation hit her. “How the hell do we get Hathaway close enough?”

“We don’t,” a different, more masculine voice interrupted the gathering from behind them.

Snapping her head to the left, Noli spotted the owner of the voice descend the steps to their position. “Who let you up here? One flyboy is more than enough,” she scowled at the newcomer.

“Aye, but then I wouldn’t have the pleasure of solving your conundrum, would I?” a smirk crossed the lips of the mysterious newcomer; a tall, grey-haired man with two unmistakeable antennae standing at attention atop his mane.

“How do you even know what our conundrum is?” Noli snapped back.

“There is no point in us being here if we aren’t useful. And I’m read into every mission development as a prerequisite of our assignment,” Lieutenant Commander Orys Ch’tosrik revealed to the tactical officer, much to his enjoyment. “Captain’s orders.”

Well, that didn’t sit well with the ship’s second officer. Noli had been one of the strongest opposing voices to the assignment of a starfighter squadron to the Hathaway, arguing that they barely had a purpose in times of war, let alone peacetime. She also hated that the squadron leader, the very same Andorian standing smugly before her, seemed to have a direct line to the Captain. That was supposed to be a privilege reserved for his most trusted advisors, and this guy had been aboard for a matter of weeks.

Sensing the tension between the two officers, Tuca decided it was time to wade into the row. “What are you proposing, Commander?” the Alzek trained his emerald eyes on the newcomer.

“You can’t get Hathaway close enough without being detected and blowing our cover,” the fighter pilot confirmed, “but my pilots can go where you cannot.”

“You want us to send your pilots to investigate this slavery cartel?” Noli scoffed derisively, “Absolutely not.”

“Actually, blondie, no,” the Andorian shook his head. “If they take you to a port somewhere, there is likely to be a lot of traffic. You’re going to need a small ship to get close enough to investigate, maybe transport in an away team. If you send a small team aboard one of your shuttles, I can have my fighters in the area to render assistance if they need it far quicker than Hathaway could get in, and probably without blowing your cover further,” the Commander suggested, looking towards the strategist and his teammate for a more reasoned review of his idea.

“It could work,” Kiras mused, nodding slowly, “but we’d need to alter the transponders of all the ships involved, to make them look less Starfleet-like.”

“I could have my maintenance team see to that,” Orys confirmed with a nod and a quick blink.

“If anyone’s going to oversee that, it’ll be Prida,” Noli shook her head, definitely folding her arms across her chest again.

“What? Don’t trust my people?” Orys let out a sigh and dropped his arms to his side in an attempt to placate the Bajoran. “Look, Lieutenant Prida approved all of the transfers to my maintenance team, and they all came from her department. If you don’t trust them, you don’t trust her judgement,” the Andorian shrugged, hoping that his words might help the woman see sense, especially by confirming the input that Prida had had on his team after their arrival.

“Moving out of the asteroid field now,” Henry’s voice travelled from the forwardmost areas of the bridge and let those in StratOps know that time was short.

Holding up her hands, Noli surrendered to the Andorian. “Fine. We’ll suggest it to the Captain, yes?” she looked around the three other people in turn, each nodding in agreement.

Taking the lead, Noli ascended the steps and stood at the entrance to StratOps.

“Captain,” she called out, “can we borrow you for a moment please?”

The next ten minutes were a whirlwind of explanation and suggestion, with the discussion surprisingly civil. To her credit, and despite her misgivings, Noli even supported the idea from Commander Ch’tosrik and credited him with the suggestion to use the starfighters.

“So, we launch a shuttle with an away team aboard, potentially have the fighters in the area as cover, blending in, and the away team beams to this location and gathers the intelligence we need,” Gor reiterated the facts for those around him, ensuring that he had the basics of the plan committed to memory.

Standing beside the Captain, arms folded and pursed lips, the XO listened “What if it isn’t a planet?” Giarvar questioned.

“It is,” Lieutenant Okan interjected, marching through the archway and into StratOps. “We’ve projected the ship’s course, a planet called Eohiri. We won’t have an idea of what we are walking into until we get closer,” the Risian told, handing a data PADD of information to the XO.

“Then we’ll proceed as suggested,” Gor nodded. “Noli; put together two teams to travel by shuttle. Make it as diverse as possible so that you can blend in as off-worlders. Commander Ch’tosrik, prepare your squadron.”

Both Commanders, alike in rank and little else, silently nodded in receipt of their orders and dispersed to carry out the bidding of their diminutive master.

“Akaria,” Giarvar called out, heeding the earlier advice from his colleague about her naming preference, “you know that fabulous review of Aquorat you gave us earlier?” he asked.

“I know,” she dropped her head with a smirk, “you want it again,” she replied.

“And in half the time,” the XO added sheepishly.

“I’ll get right to it.”

Almost twenty minutes later, Lieutenant Commander Ch’tosrik had gathered his pilots in the briefing room attached to shuttlebay two, going over the plan for the mission to come. It had been met with a mixture of emotions from the four other members of the Hellhounds. Lieutenant Varru Ina, a Bajoran female and Orys’ de facto deputy had been somewhat disapproving of rushing to the aid of people who had been less than kind about their assignment to the Hathaway. Lieutenant Gosia Keahn, codenamed Hound Three and a Trill female, had been more than happy at getting off the ship. Hound Four (one of Starfleet’s few Romulans and identified as Lieutenant Xorin) couldn’t wait to get his first experience as a fighter pilot since transferring from flight control. Then there was Ensign Sira. Hound Five, or Newbie as she was affectionately known by her team. She’d never flown an actual mission outside of the Academy and was nervous about her first outing with the squadron.

All the details of the plan had been laid out for the squadron to understand, and, once they had left to prepare their craft, Varru and Ch’tosrik were left alone for a moment.

“Are you sure this plan of theirs is going to work?” the Bajoran asked her superior, a man she had flown with on dozens of occasions.

“All you need to worry about is doing your bit,” the Andorian reminded his XO, “and let them do theirs. We need to be in the right positions at the right time, but be on hand to intercept and intervene if the situation calls for it.”

He was right of course. There were many factors that could play a role in the success or failure of the mission, they had to make sure that the squadron was a positive factor and not a detrimental one.

Outside, on the flight deck, work was already underway, with engineers and maintenance crew alike working their backsides off to not only ensure the craft were ready to fly, but to make sure their modified transponders would work.

Everything out there would depend on the element of surprise.