Joshua grabbed his PADD and headed out of his office. On it, he had downloaded all the information about the starship Dawa and he encountered in the nebula. There was a formal report, for sure, but it was always good to meet face-to-face for a more detailed debrief.

Stepping out of the turbolift, he made his way to the Security Office. The doors opened with a woosh and he was greeted by a receptionist in the Security office. “Can I help you, sir?”

“Yes, I’m here to meet,” Joshua checked his PADD, “Ensign Ward regarding a debrief.”

The receptionist nodded, “I’ll let him know you’re here, have a seat please.”

PADDs littered the desk despite Byron’s attempts to reintroduce some sort of order to the shared office; counteracting the disorganised workflow of his colleagues seemed to be an aspect of his Academy experience that followed him into active service.

The familiar chirp of the comm alerted him to the arrival of the next appointment on the list with the intention of continuing his battle against the disarray after lunch.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting, we’ve been busier than usual this morning.”

With an apologetic smile, Byron motioned for the taller man to enter the office first, extending every courtesy in order to make a good impression, “I don’t want to keep you longer than is necessary.”

Joshua waved away the apology. “No worries; I’ve blocked out the day for reports and debriefs. I wanted to come down and speak about the unidentified starship my associate, Ensign Dawa Vlček and I encountered in the Paulson Nebula. I filed most of the information in my report, but more of a follow-up and to any answer questions.” He looked around at the PADDs on the desk, “It won’t take long, it looks like you have a lot on your plate already.” He sat down at the chair across the desk.

“I read through your report this morning. The encounter was brought up with the department heads at their daily meeting and I was ordered to make this a priority,” Byron explained as he occupied his own seat, his demeanour relaxed as he quickly shuffled the strewn PADDS into two neat piles. “I’ve run some preliminary checks against other reports from that area, but so far, there haven’t been any secondary sightings. That being said, the nebula hampers any real chance of locating the ship without dedicated scans.”

“You’re telling me,” Joshua said with a chuckle. “We didn’t see it on sensors until we were practically on top of it. It looked like a modified Peregrine-class starfighter. It might have been an isolated situation, I know a lot of smugglers pass through the nebula. I marked it on the star maps, whatever good that did with the interference.” He frowned, “We were mostly troubled by its armament. It was carrying quantum microtorpedos, which I didn’t even knew existed. It seemed like it was built for defense, not speed. We outran it pretty quickly,” he rubbed his side, “but it left us hurting for sure.”

“Isolated or not, that ship launched an unprovoked attack on a Starfleet vessel. It seems odd that a single smuggler’s ship would risk attracting that kind of attention.” Ward mused, equally concerned about the unusual weaponry deployed. “Defense or attack,” he countered, his gaze studying the screen in front of him as he scrolled through Bryant’s report, “Why would anyone go out of their way to modify such a small ship for smuggling? You’re a science guy, is there anything out of the ordinary about that nebula?”

“My specialty is botany. I’m better with the ground than in space. Still,” Joshua thought a moment, “Dawa and I spoke about that very thing. I felt the exactly opposite was true though. I think the ship didn’t want to engage us. If we hadn’t exposed it with our sensors, it would have stayed hidden on the asteroid waiting for us to pass.” He paused, “I’m not sure why they would chose something small, perhaps for its maneuverability. Or it could have been for smaller cargo that would need to move relatively undetected.” Joshua pondered, ”To your question though, there are a lot of natural debris floating throughout the nebula. We had difficulties avoiding obstacles even before we encountered the ship. A starfighter wouldn’t be able to outrun most ships. It couldn’t keep up with us when we retreated, even in our damaged state. If it came across trouble, it would need to stand and fight. When it sufficiently crippled its opponent, it would make an easy getaway.”

“Of course,” Byron agreed somewhat apologetically and somewhat sheepishly, hoping that he hadn’t offended the other man. He probably should have familiarised himself with the two officers involved in the incident; looked at the bigger picture instead of focusing solely on the tactical implications and the objectives set by his CO. “If this was a defensive engagement, then I wouldn’t think there’s any real threat to fleet operations in that area, but, there was still no threat posed to them. I’d recommend active surveillance in the area, that should give us more of an idea of what we’re dealing with.”

“That sounds like a solid plan, and that’s why I wanted to share this information with you. I agree there doesn’t seem to be risk of retaliation on future ships. Listen, I’m heading back out to do more relief efforts at the colonies. I’ll get as many scans as I can while I’m there. And you can compare them with your surveillance notes.”

Byron offered an enthusiastic nod of his head before closing off the console and rising from his chair, “I’ll submit the recommendation that we send a science vessel to monitor the system, see if we can determine what exactly is going on out there.”

“Excellent,” Joshua said, rising from his own chair. He shook Bryon’s hand. “I hope I was able to provide something to work with. If you’ll excuse me, I have a stack of reports on my own desk.” He turned and walked out of the office.

[Nope, that’s perfect for me, thanks]