2400.11.09.1400

“Captain, We have entered into a geostationary orbit above the location. “

“Thankyou Lieutenant. Tazzeth, anything out of the ordinary on the sensors?”

Nosir, not at this time. Though we can see some faint warp trails of unknown origin, they are roughly three days to a week old and extremely faint. Possibly from a small craft like a shuttle or possibly something of Runabout size.”

Skagath looked up from his console. “Hmmmm, small enough for an observation team. Would be how I would deploy one. No need to draw attention by flying a big ol honkin ship if all you need to do is get a few folks to the surface for a few days.”

“Indeed, I was just thinking the same thing, Skagath.”

“Sir, let me try something here.” Tazzeth works on his consoles for a few moments and then puts an updated scan on the main view screen, it appears as an overlay over the normal screen showing the planet.  I was able to tweak the scans a bit, as you can see captain it is one small craft coming in and leaving. Looks like it stays on the surface for a few hours then departs. By the rate of decay in the warp trails I would say it looks like they come every three days or so.”

Kr’Antren stood and walked towards the ops/helm console. “Plenty of enough time to resupply and switch teams. Don’t think they would only stay on the ground for a few hours.”

“Sneaky bastards” Skagath uses his old riding crop to point out a few things to the captain. “See here they warp to various destinations then join in the various comings and goings of the mining businesses, trying to hide amongst the crowds, cover their tracks.”

Kr’antren turned his head toward his science officer. “Is it the same ship each time?”

“Affirmative”

Kr’antren looked over at his number one sitting in her usual seat then over at his tactical officer.” Means that they are more than likely operating out of another starship or some sort of small base.“

Ly. Talibah sits forward in her seat. “ A small starship would make the most sense, a base would be harder to hide with the sensor arrays that the Ferengi has sold to the governments on the planet. Unless, sir you don’t think that Rharpaz would…?”

Kr’antren and Skagath looked at each other then back at Lt.Talibah, both started to chuckle. “Well, he is a Ferengi afterall. Tazzeth, check those scans again then cross check against the information from the planets sensors arrays and the platform based arrays.”

“Chief, while we are doing this, please inform the governor’s council that we have arrived and are in orbit above the planet. Let them know that the first teams will be heading towards the site in the next forty five minutes.”

“Number one, inform your team that they have 30 minutes till they depart.” He looked back up at the screen and then over at Skagath and her. “No, let us see if we can stir anything up. Inform your team that you will depart as soon as possible.”

Lt.Talibah hit her comms channel button and console and said something. She then turned back to the captain. “Sir, I will be going with the first team. I want to get eyes on the situation so I will know what else we can do to help besides what they asked for. I believe Doc M’Gok also expressed to me that she would join the first team so she can meet with the hospital staff and give the hospital a look over.”

“Very well, keep me informed. I’m sure the next thing we will hear from the governors will be an invite to a dinner or some such event so be ready to join me there.”

“Yes, sir.”

She stood and made her way to the turbo lift.

“Captain, preliminary scans do show an oddity or two. We have several small craft that show up on the scans much as we had surmised. However three of these craft are not what they appear. Looking closer” Sensor readings of the three ships appeared on the main viewscreen” You can see that while they are showing all signs of being Ferengi transport shuttles according to the transponder data.” The images zoom in. “ They are not in fact Ferengi shuttles.”

Kr’Antren stood and approached his usual standing spot when looking closer at the main view screen.”Well, the plot thickens.”

“Captain, checking the sensor data against the information we have. Those shuttles are Devore Imperium.”

Kr’Antren looked over at Skagath. “Skagath, I want you on number ones shuttle. Inform her and only her of what we are finding. Be yourself, sniff around and see what you can find out. Take no actions for the time being. Report back to me when the Lieutenant comes back up or I come down.”

“Yes, sir. Be good to get some fresh air and stretch these old legs for a bit.”

“Oh and Skagath do not make a move on Rharpaz, let’s do some digging first. Now get a move on it old man, I don’t think she will wait for long.”

Skagath leaves his console in the hands of his deputy and makes his way to the turbo lift.

“Tazzeth, do you have enough data on those shuttles that if they came back we could track them?”

“Possibly, sir. I could tweak the sensor arrays a bit so that it would be easier to find those particular signatures.”

“Do it, I want to be able to track those ships if and when they come back.”

“Yes, sir”

240011.09.1445

USS Desert Sands 

Skagath looked over at the XO. “Ma’am, The captain wanted me to pass some information to you. He said for now it was meant for your ears only.“He started in what he thought was a whisper, but in reality coming from a tellarite it was more like a slightly lower tone from his normal one.

“I was wondering why you came running up at the last minute. Lucky for you we had just got the message from flight control to wait for you. 30 seconds later and you would have been watching us leave, but I guess we would have had to turn around and come pick you up.” she chuckles as she imagined the scene in her head of him standing there watching them leave. “So what’s the news?”

“Well ma’am it looks like we have some Devore Imperium shuttles masquerading as Ferengi transport shuttles.” He then proceeded to give her the rundown of what they had figured out on the bridge.

Talibah slams a fist onto the console in front of her. “Damn Rharpaz, Ferengi and their stupid rules. I’ll throttle him when I see him.”

“Ma’am, the captain asked that we don’t. Believe me I had the same reaction. He said that he wants to investigate deeper to figure out what he is getting out of the deal and what the Devore’s end game is. Hence, why I am now tagging along. Besides the fact that I needed to stretch my legs and breathe some fresh air.’

Number one looked out the side view panel to look over at the Nile Oasis as they both flew through the planet’s atmosphere making their way to their final destination.

“So where do we start? “

“Well ma’am I believe that the best course of action would be for us to act as normal as possible. Keep our eyes and ears open. Once we get situated on the ground I’ll start with some light questions with the native crews and you could do the same with the governors. That should give us a base to start building off of.”

She nodded at this as she clenched and unclenched one of her hands.

“Sounds like a plan. Had almost forgotten you had done security work in the past.”

“Not as much as you ma’am, but some.”

She nodded again.

They both looked out of the side view panels as the two runabouts made a graceful descending turn towards starboard. Below them they could see an open field in the center of a forest valley; a river was located about 4 kilometers from the site towards the north. As they descended they could see the progress being made on both the hospital compound and the village area that surrounded the centrally located hospital.

“Looks like they picked a good site ma’am. No visible dilithium in the area, pretty secluded in that valley.”

“Looks like it, Looks like three avenues of travel besides shuttles. Easy to control access to the area. I can see why they choose this site.”

The shuttles levelled off and head towards the east from the site

“Ma’am, flight control gave us the coordinates to the landing zone for the site, it’s about a kilometer to the east, should be there in the next few minutes.”

“Thank you, ensign”

“Another safety and security precaution? Makes sense to me.”

“I would guess the same thing ma’am. Makes me wonder though.” Skagath taps his commbadge. “ Tazzeth, Skagath. Can you run a scan for me?see how many open areas you could find within oh lets say 10 kilometers of the site, big enough to land a shuttle.”

“Will do.”

Skagath looked over at Lt.Talibah. “Gotta start somewhere, and that’s as good of an idea as anything else.”

She nodded at this as she was looking at her PADD reading over her notes from what Skagath could see as he looked over her shoulder.

“Lieutenant, I was just thinking of something as we looked over the site. If you were out here running an observation team, how would you handle communications? I would think that the frequencies would be watched over somehow and anything odd would stand out and cause flags to be raised.”

“True, though you could piggyback on someone else’s channel or “ Skagath snapped his fingers “ Hide it in plane site, encode it in something else that nobody else would bother to look at.”

The lieutenant looked over at Skagath. “Like in a cargo manifest or a requisition form of some sort?”

“Yes, that would work.”

“Which leads us back to a particular Ferengi.”

“Or any one of a number of other businesses” Skagath interjected as he watched the shuttles make their final approach for landing.

“True.” Lt. Talibah stood and made her way to the hatch so that she could be the first person off of the Runabout.

“Ma’am, we will be staying here. The Nile Oasis will be returning to the Osiris in case she is needed for anything.”

Lt. Talibah nodded and let out a deep breath. “Always did hate doing introductions for the first time. Got to set the right perception for everyone.” As the hatch opened, she exited the Desert Sands.

240011.09.1600

“Sir, Incoming transmission from TAsk Force 17 and the USS Discovery.”

“Very well, send it to my ready room. Lieutenant Shrybaas you have the conn.” Kr’Antren stood and made his way to his ready room.

“Aye sir, I have the conn” he made his way to the captain’s chair and took a seat.

A few minutes later.

“Chief, I want all available department heads in the Cairo briefing room in thirty minutes. Looks like we have had a breakthrough concerning Blood dilithium.”

“Yes captain.”