Over the next 24 hours Lt. Dalibah receives several messages from various departments and Personnel with ideas for solving the puzzle that the captain had laid out in front of them. After going through them and looking at her own ideas she starts to compile a possible idea but it may not be one the captain will be comfortable with.

“Captain, the crew has been coming up with some good ideas and a few ideas that may raise your eyebrows. I’ve compiled them into one briefing  though the first part is that we would recommend stopping where we are, if it’s safe. We may need some extra time to set this up.”

Kr’Antren looks over from his seat towards his first officer. “Well, should we adjourn to the ready room?”

Nodding her head. “Yes sir, I think that would work the best for this.”

Kr’Antren pokes a few commands into his arm console. “Ok, let’s call them in. Ensign Yivliv and I have an idea too. So let’s hear them all out and come up with a plan of action that we can all live with and one that gets us through this alive.”

“Helm, find us a nice place to bring her out of warp and set up a race track pattern, let’s make it look like we are waiting for someone to join us. Let’s not do anything to draw too much attention. Then join us in the ready room.”

“Yes sir, I think we are in the clear in this location right over there. I’ll set the course.”

“Computer, activate ECH”

A holographic human male wading the red of command and the rank of an ensign appears in front of the captain. “How may I help you sir?”

“The command staff will be in a meeting in the ready room, continuing to fly on the course that the helm has plotted at ¼ impulse. Run long and short range scans. Make it look like we are looking for or waiting for someone to join us, just in case anybody happens to find us out here. You have the conn.”

Taps his comm badge “Command staff to the ready room.”

Receives several on our ways and affirmatives from the various sections.

After several minutes the command staff make there way to the ready room and take their seat around the table.

“I’ve brought us out of warp and according to our location we are roughly a day travel at warp 6 from entering the ___ system. On the recommendation of the first officer we decided that now would be a good time to bring our heads together and figure out our next steps. First officer Tali has shown me your work and I would like to discuss them in further detail. Number one you have the table.”

“Ok, team. Going through your individual briefs I think it is safe to say that while we don’t have a complete plan that we can act on, what we do have is our various pieces that if done correctly could work together to become one plan that all of us follow. With that being said we will go around the table so each section can brief the captain and the rest of the staff on their idea and give any information that they may have that would help to bring the overall picture together. Medical you’re up first”

Dr. K’gok’Muzi stands and walks around to the screen along one wall. “Sir, as far as medical goes the main idea we have would be changing the appearance of various crew members using temporary genetic manipulation. As we know sir this technique has been used in the past for away team missions and covert operations. Also sir, we can go with doc or Dr. K’gok makes it a bit easier on the tongue.”

First officer Tali turns her chair to face Dr. K’Gok. “ Doc, how long would the modification last? And how quickly can it be readministered if needed.”

Dr. K’Gok brings up file cards on each of the crewmen on the Rhyndacus. “ on average it should last around 12 hours, this of course will depend on who receives it and their genetic makeup. These personnel are the ones I would suggest not using it on.” Red borders form around several of the files. “As you can see this includes the Captain, chief Ruz and chief Kaha. The manipulations to your genetics would take far longer to accomplish and the length would be greatly shortened, also for chief kaha their have been reports of your empathic abilities being affected for a period of time. Sir, you would face several complications that would affect you for a longer period of time afterwards.”

Kr’Antren nods his head at this.

As far as the readministration we can do that right away the problem being the time after that it will take your body to conform to the genetic modifications. As a side note it is a quite painful experience, so some sort of anesthetization is usually used in conjunction which could have short term side effects that should last less than an hour. Any questions.” She looks around the room stooping momentarily on each person as they shake their heads negatively.

First officer Dalibah looks at the captain who she sees shake his head in a slight sign to proceed. “ Next we have ensign Tazzeth and chief kaha.”

“Computer, dim the lights and run the holo map starting two weeks prior to the current star empire issue. Ensign Tazzeth and Chief kaha both stand and take a position on either side of the view screen.

“Sir, this idea started with a thought I had after the previous meeting. How were supplies getting in and out  and what other avenues were there to get us in? I had the computer pull up sensor archives from star fleet showing any activity in the destination area starting prior to the current problem. “ an animation starts to run showing a pattern of arriving ships and how they dispersed after entering the planet’s atmosphere. “Sir, as you can see there seems to be a pattern that starts roughly every fourth day for arriving ships. Mostly contracted ships, probably moving supplies needed on the surface. As you can see they follow a set path as the approach that leads to this area here.” An area highlights green that shows a possible corridor towards the planet. “ This is where things get tricky; it looks like ships form into a convoy at this point and are met by at least two star empire ships.” Chief kaha steps slightly forward. “Sir looking over communication logs and picking up on some signals; it looks like something is transported from the contracted ships to the star empire ships, this is not a two way signal these are always one way.” Ensign Tazzeth steps towards the table to high light and point out what happens next. “after this “transaction” the convoy heads towards the planet, never faster than ½ impulse speed and always following a path that changes each time and each time at least one of the previously mentioned ship escort them to this point” a little blue arrow appears “after this point the star empire ship cloaks and we assume leaves. The convoy splits up and heads to their destination points.”

Kr’Antren sits forward in his chair, looks over at ensign Yiv with a slight crooked smile starting to form on his lips. “Ensign Yiv I think we just got The other part of our idea.”

Ensign Yiv raises an eyebrow “perhaps,sir” “Tazzeth or chief kaha what does the outbound side of this look like.”

“That’s the thing, to borrow a saying from earth, there isn’t a set plan. It looks like the ships all depart roughly 12 hours after they arrive and they just leave.which raises a question, where are the blockade ships”

Kr’Antren raises an eyebrow and a slight chuckle emanates from him. “ I think that raises more than just that one question Tazzeth but that is a good first question.”

Kr’Antren leans towards the map a bit more studying the patterns and the times associated with each section. “Is this info up to date?” “ Yiv where is that asteroid field in correlation to this corridor”

Ensign Yivliv types on his PADD and two circles appear around the planet one vertically and one laterally. “Well sir, I think Tazzeth can confirm the actual layout, make up and speed of the field. But if we assume the corridor that Tazzeth and the chief laid out is at the 12 o’clock position on the lateral ring than the field starts at about the 2 o’clock extends to the 5 o’clock position and on the vertical axis it in the area from about the 1 o’clock and extends out from there forming a tail that extends always out from the planet.”

Kr’Antren looks up at Ensign Tazzeth and the chief. ”Have you taken a look at the field yet? Could this be where the blockade is basing itself out of ?”

“I haven’t yet sir, the one thing that I did notice on the data that we received is that the makeup of that field makes it difficult for sensors to penetrate.” Ensign Tazzeth reaches over to his console on the table standing behind his chair, looks up at the captain. “Sir, it does look like this asteroid here, here and here could be big enough to hold a base of sorts. If something is there it’s going to be mainly underground and not very big, looking at this data they would just be big enough to hold the crews for four to five star empire ships and maybe a small support team. Again that field is throwing off some weird signals making it difficult for the sensors to get a good reading, which if that is the base could be why they chose that area.”

Kr’Antren lets the smile broaden a slight bit more “that’s why I would put one there.” Looks over at his first officer “Any thoughts number one” 

“Well sir if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking it’s all going to depend on that 12 hour window. But it may work.” “Chief Kaha, how long till the next delivery period?”

Chief kaha pulls out her PADD. “Ma’am from now we would have roughly 36 hours till they start to rendezvous at this point.” A yellow dot appears “roughly 3-4 hours before the star empire ships make their appearance from that” a red count down time appears in the upper right corner of the view screen.

Kr’Antren looks up at the ticking down clock, nods his head. “We need more information on this blockade and that possible base, let’s start reaching out to whom we can for any info we can get.” Looks over at Ensign Yivliv “You think you fly this girl through that field. Without scratching the paint too much?”

Ensign Yivliv looks at the map, looks at the captain, Nods his head “ maybe a few small scratches for the chief to buff out sir.” “Let me take this data and load it into the holo suite, get me a better idea of what we are looking at. With your leave sir” Kr’Antren nods, ensign Yivliv picks up has PADD and heads out of the ready room. 

LT. Talibah looks at the captain “sir we do have one more piece and you may want to sit down for this one.” Smile on her face, Chief Kaha picks up a slight feeling of amusement and surprise coming across from the number one looks at Chief Ruz and tilts her head towards their seats. “Chief Ruz, the floor is yours”

The saurian stands blinks his eyes a few times, takes a deep breath.”Sir, Romberg when we discussed the pod when you first came on board and we discussed what modules to add to it.”

“Yes Chief, I remember.”

“And I told you that there we had added a sensor, science and communication module to it.”

Kr’Antren nods ears perking up as this is starting to sound like a peculiar set of questions.

“Well sir, if petty officer Stimeck and I are correct, those may not be the only mods installed. It looks to us like something was left over from the scientist crew that originally commissioned the Rhyndacus might have had added. We didn’t think anything of it during the original diagnostics as it looked like it was a piece to a smaller insignificant communication array so we just left in place and plugged it into the module”

Kr’Antren looks at his first officer and raises an eyebrow, she nods back.

“Sir the weird thing is that it seems to have some embedded code in the computer that we can’t get to open. And furthermore it seems to be attached to a few other systems, nothing serious mind you but nonetheless it’s a bit peculiar.”

Kr’Antrem stands up, “Chief, what did those scientists do to MY ship”

Chief Ruz looks down at his PADD and enters a few commands and a code block shows up on the screen. “Sir, with the systems that this includes I have a feeling that being scientists was only part of it. “

Kr’Antren picks up his PADD notices that everything is written is science blue and quickly types his command code in.

“Command code authorized for program Plain Sight”

Everyone moves to be in front of the view screen, Chief Ruz looks at the Captain blinks once and states” please show any and all systems used by and the data pertaining to this program.”

Affirmative, as the screen splits into two sections of data scrolling up. Kr’Antren laughs “hidden in plain sight, what were these scientists up to. Not very original in their naming rights where they.” 

The first officer looks at the captain and tan at the team “well with this program and the information that was just presented, I think we may have a plan sir”

Kr’Antren nods “yes indeed” looks at the countdown timer. “Ok you have six hours to look this all over and give me a finalized plan. Let’s get moving folks, as you can see we don’t have much time.”