Following the all hands meeting chief Ruz and petty officer stimeck make their way back to the engineering area.

“Stimeck take crewman T’vrek and check the power relays in section 2 bravo. They are showing a 5% lass than optimal operation, with this being the second extended length of time in warp I want to make sure we catch any small  problem areas before they become major problem areas.”

“On our way chief.”

About an hour later, “All done chief.. the last test we ran before buttoning it all up was showing optimal ranges.” Holds up a power relay board, “this was the culprit, looks like we got a faulty board in that last batch from the fleet yards. Told T’vrek to head towards his off time but that I want him to check the boards from that batch, just in case.”

“Sounds good, something to keep her busy during the shift will be good. Though I also want her to work on that study material I sent her, this may be a small ship but there is no reason why she can’t be ready for the bigger ones.”

“Ok, so let us look into the puzzle the captain laid out for us this morning. What suggestions or ideas can engineering come up with?”

Chief Ruz and Stimeck start to brainstorm ideas, randomly throwing out suggestions between the two of them, if it sounds interesting or a possibility the room goes quite for a number of minutes as the both work their consoles running the idea through the computer.

“Well I’ll be damned if those science guys were hiding something. Hey chief, remember when we were inspecting the pod and installing the modification the Captain asked for.”

“Yes”

“And we noticed something was off with the coding, almost like there was something extra in there but we just thought it was part of the communications pod and modifications we added. Did we check to see if anything was different with the arrays that we modified?”

“Hmmmm, not that I remember. I think we just choked it up to the pod build. Why?”

“Look at this Chief, I can’t get into it. Looks like it won’t take my codes, but something is hidden in the programming for that communications array in that pod.” 

“Let me try”

“Computer, chief Engineer Ruzguzee. Open communication program” checks the console “Plain sight, RuzguzeeGammaZulu5789Vulcan2.”

“Command code not recognized for Plain Sight”

“Stimeck, run a diagnostic on that program, let’s see what all is connected to it.” 

“Roger, chief.”

“Computer, what was the original mission of the Rhyndacus when she was commissioned?”

“The Rhyndacus was commissioned thru star fleet by science team Thomas expanse Zulu three, for exploration and planetology studies of the region. The team was disbanded when the idea and mission of task force 47 was being discussed by star fleet and bravo fleet command.”

“Computer, did those studies include the border regions?”

“Affirmative, those were the first areas planned to be explored and charted. 

“Stimeck, I think there might have been more to those scientists than we thought. I have an idea on what that  program may be, but I want to investigate it further first. Though we may have just found a way to get past the blockade if it is what I think it is.”

Chief Ruz taps his comm badge “LT Talibah, chief Ruz here. I would recommend stopping a day out from the destination to discuss possible answers to the puzzle that the captain gave us all in the meeting.”

“Chief Ruz, I was just thinking the same thing. I’ll pass the recommendation to the captain.”