“Captain, entering point bravo. Sixty-five seconds on the clock.” Viameli called out.

They watched the three probes launch and enter warp.

“Give us the sensor sweep, zoltia.” Aryanna turned her head toward her science chief.

“Working, captain.”

“30 seconds” Viameli stated

“Sweeps are finished, good to go on my end captain.”

“Take us to point charlie, viameli”

The Dragon disappeared in a flash of light just as fast as they had arrived. The process repeated itself two more times over the next forty-eight hours as the Dragon looked to shrink the blob or find where the supposed Breen Fleet was waiting to move.

“Viameli, being well behind enemy lines has its own sets of risks and issues, we can’t stay in one place too long but at the same time, we need to stay in the receiving distance of those probes. Zoltia, Scamandrius as soon as we start receiving data work it as fast as possible. I need to  know if we need to go back and take another look.”

<< “That would be interesting, a little on the wild side even for you.”

“True, but if there is a fleet forming out there then don’t you think we owe it to the people in the Deneb sector and the fleet to provide all of the intelligence that we can?”

“I do, but remember you have a crew and a ship to think of now. Don’t forget.”

“I know, I won’t go that far.”>>

“Ma’am we are receiving the data from alpha probes, so far nothing. The probes will stay in their current position which means they could work as an early warning system if they detect anything coming in range of it.” Zoltia said from her console as she was looking over the incoming data from the first set of probes. “And there is the Bravo set, ma’am. Looking normal so far. It looks like they are not positioned towards the deeper side of the confederacy or close to Deptrock.”

“I concur ma’am” Scamandrius joined in. 

“I’m not hearing anything out of the ordinary either, ma’am.” the comms officer added.

“Though ma’am we did pick up those faint warp trails while we were in both alpha and bravo, looks like  some of the fleet moving to their location, they were barely detectable and the computer is not able to fix a good direction of travel on them,” Zoltia added

Aryanna turned toward Skagath. “Can we tell what types of ships and numbers?”

“Not for sure, but best guesses is that its warp trails of at least two Chel Baolg class warships with several Chel Grett class cruisers came from the deeper regions of the confederacy. If that is the start of this fleet they are looking to hit somewhere hard and fast. Looking at the information I’m not sure how the computer got that out of it. The warp signatures were roughly older than a week and starting to degrade quite a bit.”

Meadow stood and walked towards the ops station. “ If they have been out there that long it can’t be too much longer before they move, can it? 

“Who knows, lass? “Skagath said as he shrugged his shoulders. “ We don’t know where they are going or what for. They could be waiting to see what the fleet does, see if we leave any holes anywhere, Or if we are close to their intended target. Which could make them wait longer or switch targets for something easier. Or they could just be waiting on someone to say go.”

Aryanna looked at her console. “Speaking of which. We got the latest update to fleet locations a few hours ago. I have been looking it over, trying to put myself in their shoes. If I were them I would be looking at the Jandor system or they could be looking at making a run towards Farpoint station itself. According to the report the Mackenzie is at Jandor and the Arcturus is between there and Farpoint. So if they know that, they could be waiting to see what the fleet does.”

Meadow returned to her seat and pulled up the information from the captain, turning on her holo map of the area near the Vadlox Nebula. “Captain, there is one other possibility that we haven’t considered,”

“What’s that Meadow?”

“Well if they are looking for slave labor.” She zoomed in on the Vadlox nebula and then zoomed out till the Lappa system in the Ferengi Alliance is shown. It’s a location that no one would be expecting them to go after and it would close down the B-T corridor if they added it to their current boundary lines.”

Aryanna let out a low whistle. “ Makes sense from a strategic point of view and we know how the Ferengi look at war and profits so some may look at it as a chance to gain.”

Skagath chuckled “ Rules 4, 21, 34, 62, 92, 110… Just to name a few”

Aryanna shook her head, “Figured you would know those. Hmmmm, looks like the Atlantis is in Ferengi space, may want to add them to the list.”

Arayanna turned to face her comms officer “Send an encrypted priority message to Bravo Fleet command to let them know of our preliminary findings, and add the data we have collected so far. Let them know we are still working on the issue and we will let them know once we have more information.” She then looked at Meadow. “This way they don’t think we are out here twiddling our thumbs.”

“Captain, should I send a message to  Task Group 513?” the comms officer asked.

“No, the admiral said to trust only the fourth fleet and that’s what I’m doing. If those buffons at 513 took the threat seriously then maybe we wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

“Yes. ma’am”

<<” There’s the woman I know, was beginning to wonder.”

“Shut it, old man.”>>

“Viameli, let’s move. Hmmmm maybe somewhere between the blob, I guess that’s what we are calling it for right now, and Deptrock. Maybe we can pick up something passing through that area that can give us some more information on what is going on in the area.”

“Course laid in and we are ready when you are captain.”

“No need to wait, viameli.” 

Aryanna exited the turbolift with her PADD in one hand and a large cup of something steaming in the other. “Good morning everyone.” as the captain’s whistle sounded. “ I’ll Never get used to that. Anyways, anything to report?” as she looked around the bridge noticing Scamandrius and a small group huddled around his console.

“Well, ma’am yes and no. We are still trying to go through the data.”

“Clarify” as she took a sip from her mug and placed the PADD in her seat. 

“Well, we got the data from the last two sets of probes. Not sure how but one of the Charlie set must have exited warp near a communication array as it picked up some sort of signal from a beacon.” he pulled up the signal on his console for Aryanna to see.

Aryanna nodded as she found Lieutenant Nema “I have the conn, lieutenant.” she accepted the dragon ring from the gamma shift leader.

Nodding, she pointed at the main view screen with her mug, Scamandrius, understood what the captain was asking and transferred the data to the main view screen.

“So what are we looking at?”

Chief Adam, the gamma shift comms officer, stepped forward “Ma’am we think it may be a location beacon, at least that’s what it would be if it was a federation signal. It’s just a steady pulsed signal.”

Aryanna took another sip from her mug. “Ok, so we have a signal? Can we trace it to its location?”

The main view screen changed to show the overhead map. “ Well, that’s the other news. We received data from the Delta set last night also. The problem is shortly after the signal started we lost two of them, the third was lost about an hour later after it picked up the beacon signal only this time, from what we can tell it was not through a repeater array.”

Aryanna spun around to face Scamandrius, “Are you telling me we found them? How long ago did the information come in?” 

“The data from the last set was received about an hour ago as I was coming on shift. We were all just going through it as we couldn’t believe it. We were just working on trying to triangulate the data to see if we could pinpoint the location, with the computer’s help of course.”

“All three were lost? Do we have their approximate locations when we lost contact?”

“Yes, ma’am” he pointed at the main view screen as glowing blue dots appeared representing the last known approximate locations of the three probes, one blinking representing the one that was able to pick up the signal.

The turbo-lift opened as the day shift crew started to report for duty, many noticed the main view display and moved quickly to their posts. Aryanna gave a quick overview to Meadow as the latter stood beside the captain with her own mug of something in her hand. 

“Scamandrius was just about to show us what I believe we were hoping for.”

“Yes ma’am. Using the three locations where we lost the signals we can draw a circle here. A green ring appeared on the map over an area towards the southeastern side of the breen confederacy. “then if we used the two locations where we picked up the signal, where they crossed should be the location of the beacon. A third would prove it but two gives us a general idea.”

“Viameli or sustram how far is that from the breen border and the nebula?”

Viameli typed on her console “According to our calculations we could do it roughly in two days to the border and a third to our previous location outside the nebula. But that is a single ship, doing warp 8 A fleet would have to move slower as they would want to arrive at the same time, and not all of their ships can do warp 8.

“So probably closer to three days and a day and a half on the other side. Probably a few days to traverse the nebula so we are looking at a week give or take a couple of days. Doesn’t give the fleet much time.

“No it doesn’t,” Meadow said as she took a sip from her mug.

“Comms, send a new message to Bravo Fleet Command to let them know we have found the Breen Fleet, we do not have information on size or ship composition. Let them know that the best guess from the information we have is they have roughly a week to two weeks if the fleet begins to move till they reach the federation side of the Nebula. We are working on a plan to try and slow them down from this side.”

Aryanna looked around the bridge while taking a sip from her mug. “Ok folks, we need ideas. I’m open to anything. If you have something, now is the time.”