It was Desiree's turn on the bridge.  Nothing much had happened over the last few days as they waited in the cluster for the replacement communications array to arrive.  Meanwhile, Desiree got to read the communiques and status updates from around the front lines.

Just then, one came in actually meant for the Marduk.  Looking over the summary, she noticed it was marked for the Captain.  She reached over to the bosun's whistle, a button she found she liked pushing, and keyed it for the Captain's cabin.  “Captain, a priority message for you just came in.”

Sky was three hours into what should have been a six hour sleep when the call came in.  Startled awake, he fumbled for a light switch for a moment, before realizing he was on the Marduk, and therefore could just use the computer.  “Computer, lights.”

As the room brightened, he crawled out of bed in a daze, reaching the replicator.  “Computer, one Sioc, Mango flavor.” bzzzzsshhht.  He sure was glad he'd discovered this drink during his time in Starfleet Academy.  It wasn't regulation per se, but every cadet he'd studied with swore by it.  They'd even taken to keeping the formula on personal isolinear chips so they could bypass the regulations restricting it on starships. With a bit more energy in his system, he quickly got into his uniform before heading to the bridge.

“Here you go, sir.” Desiree handed Sky the PADD with the message on it.  “Were you expecting any messages?”

“Not really EX, but they could be new orders, we've been here a while.”  Sky took the PADD with him as he started departing the bridge.  “Good work EX, I'll see you in the mess after your shift.”  Heading to his makeshift office in the spare room, he entered the passcode to unlock the message.

Later that day

The USS Orange NCC 87099 (California Class) dropped from warp fairly close to the USS Marduk.  Towed behind it was the new comms beacon.  As the crew of the Orange began the fairly lengthy process of setting up the comms beacon, a single shuttle departed from the main hangar on the Orange, making its way to the docking port on the Marduk. Waiting in the entryway, Sky and Desiree were discussing the benefits of Sioc versus Raktajino.

Their conversation was interrupted by the ding from the airlock computer's cycle.  The Door slid open to reveal two starfleet officers, one in red and one in blue.

“Welcome aboard the USS Marduk Captain Shaw and Ensign Olivet, we're glad to have you."  Sky was glad.  Glad he'd somehow managed to keep this section of the ship factory-new.  It was a matter of pride, being able to show up another captain with subtle ways like how ‘fresh’ his ship was.

“Well Captain,” came the gruff voice of the other captain, “I've got your new crewmate here for you.”

“I heard, it's not everyday that the Marduk gets a new face.  Welcome Ensign, what's your specialty?"

The Ensign seemed a bit, well old to be an Ensign.  Most Ensigns you saw around starfleet were one of two types.  They were either the ‘forever ensign’, or they were the trouble making kind that hadn't always been Ensigns, but had returned to the rank through whatever shenanigans they had pulled.

“I'm a scientist sir, specializing in energy waves.  I was part of Project Henshin II most recently.”

“I'm sorry, did you say Project Henshin? the failed personal shields project from 30 years ago?”  Sky was surprised, to be sure.  Project Henshin was famously a massive waste of time and resources, with no unit being functional without a massive generator being brought alongside the operator.

“Not quite, captain.  Henshin II was an attempted redesign utilizing some of the technology brought back by Voyager, we had some limited success with a much more mobile design.”  the Ensign looked quite proud of this.

“So why are you here then, and not enjoying success with that project?” Sky was confused, most scientists would rather stick with the big-ticket project rather than be on a no-name vessel in the middle of nowhere.

“Put simply sir, the project went the way of Henshin I, even though we had limited successes, we still couldn't shrink the device enough for Starfleet to continue providing the resources for our research. I saw the light earlier than most and took the chance to try my luck with Starfleet academy.”

“Well, either way, welcome to the crew, I'm sure you'll be a fine addition.”

The Orange continued the labor of setting up the new comms array.  Aboard the Marduk, Ensign Olivet and Ensign Rios were manning the bridge, checking the incoming transmissions the ship was still expected to sort and pass along.

“Well, whaddya know? that don't look right.”  Olivet was peering at some of the data on the transmissions themselves.

“What was that Olivet?” Desiree looked over at the station that Olivet was using.

“I thought it was nothing, but there's a variance on these messages.”

“A Variance?”

“Yeah, these messages should be coming in at a cyclic interval of .045, but they keep coming in at an interval of .67.  Something out there is bouncing the message."

Desiree ran the telemetry on the messages.  “There's no spacial anomalies in the way of the messages on scans.  What could be causing this?”  Nothing in the academy detailed anything other than spacial anomalies causing this type of interference.

Olivet turned to Desiree, “The only thing I can think of would be the signal is being interrupted briefly before resuming. But I can't think of what would interrupt it so briefly while still allowing the whole signal through.”

“Let's take this to the captain.”