“Commander, you might want to see this.” Coming from tactical, perched above and behind the command seats on Perseus, a statement like that was usually the start of something.

Commander Jasper Riggs was quick to respond to the tactical officer’s request, having been in the rear of the bridge for sometime now, hovering over the shoulders of the young officers at their stations. The man, roughly the same age as Rachel and Tivka, had about as much experience as all the officers around him combined. Which said a lot about the state of the fleet these days.

“Huh,” was Riggs’ response, which graduated to a full “What?” when the console bleeped once more at something the ship’s sensors didn’t like. “Helm, slow us to warp six.”

The change in pitch throughout the ship as the engines slowed was all the summons required to bring forth the ship’s mistress and the squadron commander following behind mere moments later. “What’s up Jasper?” Rachel asked.

“We still can’t raise Atlantis on comms and something ahead is causing merry hell with our sensors as well.” Facts they were already aware of, but the hope had been that continuing to close with Atlantis would have resolved by now. “But someone just fired off…something.”

“Define something,” Tikva ordered.

“It looks like a subspace transmitter set to full power and just broadcasting white noise on as many channels as possible. Kind of hard to miss, but doesn’t really convey much.”

“Hard to miss?” Tikva asked, an internal question that escaped as she looked to the floor in thought. “Signal flare,” she muttered.

“Signal flare?” Rachel repeated. “Wait, like you used at Deneb to get the Dominion’s attention. And everyone else, mind you.”

“The same,” Tikva answered. “Got a fix on those coordinates?” she asked of Riggs, who turned to the lieutenant beside him, who nodded nervously a moment later. “Good.”

“Oh no, not good.” Rachel stepped in front of Tikva. “Inability to establish communications, compromised sensors and now a signal flare. Something is wrong over there.”

“All the more reason to proceed at best possible speed.”

“All the more reason to take things slowly and figure out what is going on,” Rachel countered. “My ship as well, Fleet Captain.”

“I could…” Tikva didn’t finish the statement, trailing off before nodding in agreement with her friend. Instead, she asked, “And if our roles were reversed?”

“I’d be demanding we charge in and you’d be egging me on,” Rachel admitted with a smirk. “But we’re not. I’ve got to think about this ship and crew. And probably our guest still sitting on the hull too.” The Grok’ti had spread itself along the spine of Perseus, blocking the two smaller shuttle bays and still obscuring the stardrive’s impulse engine. And still the only communication with them had just been their name and a general sense of urgency from the few telepaths and empaths aboard Perseus.

“We could get back up to speed and fire off a probe before slowing back down again,” Riggs suggested. “We’re forty minutes out at best speed. The sustainer on the probe should see it through. It’d let us get a better read on what’s going on.”

“Assuming the probe doesn’t fall afoul of whatever has Atlantis.” Tikva sighed as soon as she finished speaking. “Which is even more reason to be careful. Dammit. Good call Riggs,” she said to Rachel’s XO.

“Oh not again,” came the refrain from Ops and all eyes turned to the ensign manning the station. “Junior is moving along the hull again, big time.”

“Guess the Grok’ti don’t like going slow,” Tikva joked with a snort.

“So friends of yours, then?” Rachel asked, stepping up behind her officer and looking over their shoulder. “Well, whoever had cosmozoan, I think, wins,” she reported. “They’ve flattened themselves out and covered nearly a third of the saucer.”

“But moving forward, ma’am,” the ops officer reported. “Kinda like they want to be at the front of the ship.”

“Junior wants to be our hood ornament, they can,” Riggs chimed in. “Tenacious little bugger holding on at warp speed.”

“It’s inside the warp bubble,” Tivka stated. “As long as it stays within fifteen meters of the hull, it shouldn’t have any problems.”

“Well, we can’t really do much to dislodge them unless we want to crack out the phasers and currently it’s not doing us any harm. It’s just hitching a ride with us.” Rachel stood up and turned to face Riggs. “Get a probe ready. Helm, back up to speed for a moment and let’s get this probe launched.”

“Perseus appears to have slowed down,” Rrr announced.

“Good, they got the message,” Gabrielle responded. “How are we looking?”

“Maintaining full impulse away from the ring, ma’am,” Lieutenant Tabaaha answered. “Still a negative on the warp drive at the moment.”

“And we’re closing on some of the butterflies,” Rrr added. “The rest, well, we’re observing at light speed, so hard to say. Some of them appear to be vectoring towards us.”

“What speed are they doing?” Gabrielle asked.

“For space-based lifeforms they’re fast. Some of them appear to be keeping us with us.” Rrr’s answer wasn’t what anyone wanted to hear.

“So we can’t outrun them without the warp drive.” And if they got too close it was likely they’d impact the ship’s impulse engines as well, rendering Atlantis the next best thing to motionless. “Right, we stay this course then.”

“Commander, we may need to consider a more forceful response to these creatures.” Gantzmann’s statement was just giving voice to an idea that no doubt had been sitting in more than a few minds around the bridge by now. And she was more than in the right to state it. It was her duty after all.

“Opening fire on creatures we can’t communicate with, who might just be following natural drives, is a big step.” Gabrielle’s counter felt rote, even to herself. Preservation of life and all. But she was in the big seat now, the ship was hers to protect. “Let’s try a display, shall we? A spread of torpedoes in front towards the nearest cluster. See if we can’t scare them away.”

“Something is definitely weird in front of us and around Atlantis,” Riggs reported a few minutes later. “Like someone is stirring up subspace. Sensors are barely picking up Atlantis and Sciences report that it’s likely enough turbulence to prevent a stable warp field from being formed.”

“I don’t like that at all,” Tikva muttered.

“Neither,” Rachel agreed.

“But,” Riggs continued from the rear of the bridge, “Atlantis is moving and the field effect is following them. Just at the same speed. And it’s shrinking too.”

“How long on the probe?” Rachel asked.

“Another twenty minutes till it should arrive at Atlantis’ location, but I doubt it’ll make it there,” Riggs answered. “But hopefully it’ll give us a look at whatever is after them.”

Just then Tikva’s stomach grumbled, as did the Betazoid’s sitting at Operations. It wasn’t coincidence, as Tikva looked at Rachel. “The Grok’ti. They’re…hungry?”

“Hungry and urgent,” the young man at the front of the bridge expanded. “Kind of like…”

“A hunter facing down a prey,” Tikva finished. “Something is out there that the Grok’ti can sense, and it’s eager to chase it down.”

“Oh…good…”