10:00, 9:99, 9:98…

Encore’s ears twitched in small circles as the barely perceptible currents that flowed from the air recycling units wafted across their sensitive ear hairs. The breeze was not so forceful as to be consciously obtrusive and would likely have passed across the top of any other officer with little notice, but the flutter of oxygen-rich air buzzing about the Caitian’s ears only served to exacerbate their already annoyed state of being.

“What are they doing?” Encore muttered around their short fangs as they batted at the empty air above them with a slender clawed hand. On the console, a blinking red dot that represented their Klingon allies swayed back and forth across the small map, charting a seemingly aimless course through the cluster of grey asteroids. “It’s like they’re chasing flies.”

“It is an odd search pattern.” Bale acknowledged, her attention still fixed on the sensor algorithms that scrolled across the screen, the data freezing sporadically as she entered a modification before setting the feed flowing once again.

“Calling it a pattern is generous.”

“There is a certain logic to it,” Bale noted as she leaned across the small booth they were sharing at tactical and summoned a circular dotted line that followed the ship’s drunken pathway. “They’re definitely tracking something.”

Encore raised one brow in surprise, causing a series of large wrinkles to appear in her hairless forehead.

“Perhaps the signal is bouncing around between the asteroids?” Encore mused as they pinched the tip of their ears between finger and thumb, rubbing them to dismiss the itching niggle caused by the air filter.

“Either way, we’re not seeing the same thing.” the young woman thumped the corner of the console lightly with a frustrated fist. “I’ve tried every algorithm I can think of and there’s nothing unexpected, maybe they’ve just got better eyes.”

“I find it hard to believe that a fifty-year-old K’Tinga class would have better sensors than us,” the tall tactical officer purred.

“Maybe the issue is us, I must have missed something.” Bale rubbed her temples in frustration.

“Or perhaps lieutenant, we’re simply seeing it differently.” Encore’s ears twitched again as they stelled back slightly against her skull, a familiar sign she was following a lead. “Do we have access to the raw data stream from the Klingon vessel or just the summary data?”

“There’s a small delay but I can access the uncompressed stream yes.” Bale looked up from the small screen to see the Caitian’s eyes narrow, a hunter suddenly tracing the footsteps of their prey. “But that’s a massive amount of data Encore, way too much to read through.”

“Send the stream to Maksha’s console, perhaps the three of us can chart the source of our ghost signal.”

…07:23, 07:22, 07:21…

“So I’m looking at…” Sehgali rubbed her brow in confusion, her golden bangles tinkling quietly against one another in the quiet of the bridge. “…nothing?”

“Not quite Commander, something is emitting a signal that the Ho’Nang can see but we cannot.” Maksha dismissed the wall of data on his console, endlessly scrolling characters giving way to a local map. Grey jagged shapes filled the screen as a solitary red dot snaked across the screen. “Though even they cannot get a solid fix it seems.”

“They’ve been following a signal as it bounces around the asteroids, reflected by their high metallic content.” Bale summoned an overlay onto the map, a faint pulsing yellow icon that appeared to bounce between the grey craggy shapes. “We can see the repeated frequency in their sensor data but our sensor palettes can’t isolate it from the background noise.”

“That’s suspicious. Why can they see it and not us?” The Commander’s forehead furrowed as she twisted her brain around the concept. Starfleet sensor technology was generally considered more advanced than that of the Empire, the possibility they could see something Daedalus could not, had concerning implications.

“Klingon sensor palettes operate slightly differently to Starfleet’s. They prioritise different data for consideration, likely a result of several centuries of charting cloaked vessels. ” Encore chewed at her lips with the tips of their short fangs. “The signal is only momentary and constitutes a barely noticeable burst of energy, initially our sensor algorithms dismissed it.”

“But not the Klingons?”

“Not if their sensors are in the habit of noticing minute, directed pulses of energy.” Maksha summoned a waveform alongside the map where the red dot continued to chase the tiny fleeting light of the yellow signal. “It’s barely enough energy to flash a torch, but…”

“Enough to notice, if you were looking for it,” Sehgali mused.

A collective silence descended on the small corner of Daealus’ bridge as the four officers stroked their proverbial beards around the science station. Whilst the revelation was useful in explaining the Klingon ship’s erratic course corrections it did not necessarily bring them closer to their quarry, and time was slipping away.

Finally, Sehgali broke the silence, turning towards the young operations officer with her bright azure hair. “You said we were seeing reflections, now we know what to look for can we triangulate the origins?”

Bale nodded, the calculations already beginning to tick over in her head.

“Do it, let’s find out who’s flashing that torch.”