“Anything interesting yet?” Lieutenant Commander Gabrielle Camargo asked as her latest rounds around the bridge brought her back to the science station. With the warp drive a dream for now, the captain and XO had redrawn several duty assignments to give folks experience in areas they needed. And in Gabrielle’s situation that equated to officer of the watch assignments.

“Dependsss on your definition of interesssting,” Lieutenant W’a’le’ki answered, her slight hiss on the letter s coming through as she concentrated on the feeds coming through. “I think we’re going to have to call shore leave off, however.”

“I’m not taking the credit for that,” Gabs commented as she pulled the seat from the station next to W’a sideways and sat herself down. “What have we got?”

A few keystrokes and a series of windows were brought to the fore on the console. A combination of readings from Atlantis’ sensors as well as the probes that had been launched in system highlighted the radio emissions emanating from the M-class planet that had been identified. They’d only been observing the system for a full day now, but already the readings indicated an advanced civilization.

“It’s all radio and at this distance, it’s an absolute mess to make out, but that we’re detecting it means it’s powerful.” W’a then brought up another set of readings. “And we’re picking up data transmissions as well from the planet, but aimed it looks like at space probes around other worlds. These are cleaner due to their more directional nature, but it’s all just code.”

“No signs of warp drive?” Gabs asked, hanging out hopes that maybe they could still get that shore leave if they could make first contact.

“None,” W’a answered. “Or least nothing I’ve seen so far, but we’ve only been here a day so far.” A tap and a system diagram was brought up. “I’ve identified the largest gas giant in the system though. The sixth one out from the primary, forty moons spotted so far. Plenty of survey work we could do there while we wait for someone to come and help us out.”

“And far enough away from prying eyes.” Gabs nodded her head in approval. “Kelly, W’a’s going to flick you some details for a course change,” she said over her shoulder to the young woman at the ship’s helm who frankly looked downright bored just watching her console, arms folded as the ship plodded along at a quarter the speed of light.

“Aye ma’am,” Lieutenant JG Kelly Tabaaha responded. The excitement of a minor course change clearly did not do much to impact her boredom.

“So, likely pre-warp civilization,” Gabs continued. “Guess you’ll want to soak up everything we can get our hands on and start studying the locals?”

“It’s why I became an anthropologist after all,” W’a answered with a huge grin. “I’ve already tasked one of the stealthier probes towards the planet to avoid detection. Though if this is an information age civilization I’m going to need as many eyes and ears as I can get to help comb through everything they’ll be busy blasting into space for all to hear.”

“I’m sure we can dig up a few folks to watch the local news,” Gabs said with a smile. “After all, not like we’ll be going anywhere anytime soon right?”

Hours disappeared, and the routine monotony of running a ship dragging on before a series of chirps from Science once more grabbed everyone’s attention. All eyes turned in W’a’s direction as her console demanded attention. Everyone waited for anything before W’a’le’ki turned, looked in Gabs’ direction and waved her over, pointing silently at a single screen.

“Camargo to the Captain and Commander Kendris, please report to the bridge.”

That didn’t do much for the tension on the bridge, save ratchet it up. This was the only thing happening right now and everyone had to wait. But eventually both women arrived and Gabrielle turned it over to W’a without any fanfare.

“We won’t be able to head for the M-class planet,” W’a started. “Or the system’s largest gas giant either.” And with a single key press she brought up two images on the main screen.

One was a primitive spaceship, a needle with engines at one end, its outer skin white and silver in places with a few dark green markings on it. The other image was a massive sheet of copper-silver with slight gaps between the six triangular segments, all meeting in the middle where one end of another ship poked through and hinting at much, much more hidden behind the solar sails.

“It would appear we’re just in time for the end of a space race,” W’a continued. “We’d be making orbit at about the same time as both of them would be. At those ranges, we could hide from their sensors but someone would eventually see us with a camera.”

Silence hung in the air as the captain stared at the two images on screen. “How big is that sail?” she finally asked after nearly a minute.

“About two hundred metres across,” W’a answered after a brief double-check of her scans.

“Well, guess we have to change course. Lieutenant Tabaaha, find us somewhere scenic, your choice, and lay in a new course.” And with that, Tikva turned and headed for the nearest turbolift.

With the captain gone, Kendris looked around the bridge, her gaze sending everyone back to their stations and work before she settled on Camargo and W’a’le’ki. “Was it just me, or was the captain practically buzzing?”

“She loves primitive space flight systems,” Gabrielle answered. “And this is our second space-age discovery.”

“First solar sailer,” W’a added.

“How bad is this going to get?” Kendris asked.

“Very,” both scientists answered.