The USS Serenity raced past the Arcania Cluster and Leonis, cutting deep into the heart of the Lost Fleet’s territory. As they passed Arriana, they heard comms chatter from the USS Resolute. Admiral Reyes almost wanted to stop, to support Commander Mason in his pitched battle to defend the capital of Arianna Prime as it came under siege by the Jem’Hadar, but what could this little ship really add? Not much. This crew was green to combat, and the ship had not even a half dozen phaser arrays bow to stern.

They had to press on. Chief Petty Officer Shafir, Lieutenant Morgan and Commander Lewis had identified an opportunity to deal a critical blow to the Lost Fleet’s war effort. If they could compromise those communication arrays, the Fourth Fleet would have access to a trove of information about everything the Lost Fleet planned to do.

“Admiral, I’m detecting the quantum signature of the supernode on long range sensors,” reported Lieutenant Morgan from the Operations console.

“Any enemy ships within range?”

“Not as far as I can tell,” replied Lieutenant Commander Eidran from the Tactical station. “I can only figure they assume they think we would never risk penetrating this deep into their territory.” Indeed, east of Leonis and north of Izar was so deep in Dominion-controlled territory that there probably wasn’t another Starfleet vessel for a dozen light years in any direction. The Lost Fleet, while substantive, still had limited resources, and they’d tasked those to secure vital worlds, not patrol the barren space between the Ciatar Nebula and Saxue.

“Alright, well let’s still play it safe as we approach,” Admiral Reyes warned. “Conn, lower speed to Warp 6.5 and remodulate the injectors for quiet mode.” The slower speed would allow them to mask their warp trail and hide their emissions. “OOD, prepare to make dark.”

“All hands, prepare to make dark,” Commander Lewis relayed over shipwide comms. Across the ship, officers conducting non-essential tasks saved their work, shuttered their stations, shelved their equipment and prepared for the ship to cut all power and emissions not specifically related to the current espionage activities. Lewis looked over at Lieutenant Morgan at Ops. “Kill it.”

The room darkened and consoles not directly involved with running the ship went off.

“Let’s go,” Commander Lewis said as he motioned for Lieutenant Morgan to follow. Someone else would take over for him at Ops. The two operators headed for the shuttlebay, where Ensign Rel and Chief Shafir waited for them. 

Twenty minutes later, the Serenity slid out of warp, and the shuttle peeled away. Ensign Rel was at the conn, while Lewis, Shafir and Morgan had donned environmental hazard suits for the second time in twice as many days. Today’s affair would be simpler though, just a casual out and back with a spacewalk on a Dominion relay station.

Ensign Rel brought the shuttle alongside the long cylindrical communications array and out the back they went. Commander Lewis went first with a simple push, colliding against the duranium hull of the array and then rotating to get the magboots attached to the superstructure. Shafir was a bit more graceful, lightly driving across the narrow gap and gliding to a stop. Morgan, last to cross the gap, added a little pizzazz, doing a double flip out of the back, the angle perfect for a feet first landing against the structure, the magboots attaching instantly.

“Really Jace?” asked Shafir with an amused expression.

“I don’t get to enjoy zero-g much anymore,” Morgan laughed.

“Come on you two,” Commander Lewis urged. “Let’s get this over with.” He had no issue with zero-g, but he was all mission, all the time. The other two followed as they worked their way up the superstructure. Although they believed they were alone out here, Ensign Rel hovered nearby, making sure if they needed to retreat to it, they could do it as quickly as possible.

After a couple minutes, the three operators came upon an exterior access panel.

“Here we go,” Shafir said as she and Lieutenant Morgan peeled back the access panel and began pulling out their equipment. Typically, weightless work in spacesuits slowed you down, but these two were no novices. Morgan had done time on damage recovery teams, and Shafir did a number of break-and-enters against orbital and deep space facilities. Their experience showed, even in the little things like how they would just set their equipment dangling in the vacuum until they needed it.

Commander Lewis stood there, a sentry scanning the vastness of space for threats. Of course, it was completely illogical. The powerful sensors of the Serenity would see threats a light year before he did, but that didn’t stop him from looking. That’s just how he was.

“How’re we looking?” asked Lewis.

“Recursive deep learning side channel attack got me straight through their archaic encryption,” Shafir replied. “Training the LSTM now so we can speak their protocols natively.”

“And Lieutenant?”

“Working on tweaking the piggyback signal protocol to match the frequency coming off the relay,” Morgan replied. “This way, our backdoor will appear as a natural part of their carrier wave.”

“How long do you think?”

“Take a chill pill Jake,” replied Shafir. “These models are awesome, but they take a while to train. At least two hours to train and do the rest of what we’ve got to do before we wrap.”

Commander Lewis nodded, not because he understood any of what they said, since he didn’t, but he knew what two hours meant. It meant an awful long time sitting here waiting for a Jem’Hadar patrol to happen upon them. He went back to staring numbly into the vacuum.

Back on the Serenity, Fleet Admiral Reyes monitored their progress over the shoulder of a science officer who was validating the work as they went. Lieutenant Commander Eidran’s voice pulled her from her thoughts. 

“We’ve got incoming,” Eidran reported from tactical. “Jem’Hadar battlecruiser, bearing 314 on a heading of 010 at warp 9.6, distance 0.7 light years.”

“Gator, how close does that get them to us?”

“0.32 light years at the nearest point of their current heading.”

“TAO, is that close enough for them to see us while dark?”

“Unknown,” replied Lieutenant Commander Eidran. “But highly likely if they go active at that range. Based on intelligence from the Dominion War, I would assume anything closer than 0.5 light years is too close.”

The Admiral debated her options. She didn’t want to risk the Jem’Hadar discovering what they were doing. If they detected the Serenity sitting here, they’d investigate, likely discover the hack, and then this entire mission would be blown.

“Reyes to Lewis,” she said as she tapped her combadge. “We got a battlecruiser incoming.”

“How long until they see us?”

“Less than two hours before they pass within range to light us up.”

“Well that is certainly unfortunate,” the Commander replied flatly. “We’re at least two hours from being done here.” There was nothing he could do to urge it to go faster either. It had nothing to do with his operators. It was wholly and completely a limitation of compute time.

Reyes was silent on the other side of the line as she debated her options. They could abort, but then they’d just have to come back and attempt again later. That meant losing valuable time. There was another option though. “I assume you’re good if we bail on you for a while?” she asked Commander Lewis.

“Of course.” The shuttle was loaded with provisions. He never left the ship on an away mission assuming it would still be there when he got back. “Are you thinking of a little goose chase?”

“Exactly,” Reyes confirmed. “We’re going to bail this joint, drag them around the sector a bit, and then loop back to pick you up once we lose them.”

“Sounds good. We’ll just chill on the shuttle. She’s way too small to pick up when she’s dark.” Indeed, running with just minimal emissions, the Type 11 would look like nothing more than a small piece of space trash. “Just try not to have too much fun without us. Lewis out.”

Reyes closed the link, thankful for Lewis and his team. Normal officers might have been nervous at the prospect of being left behind enemy lines with nothing more than a shuttle, but Lewis’ operators never faltered or waivered.

“Helm, bring us about, bearing 180 at warp 6.5,” ordered Reyes. The first order of business was to get the Serenity far enough away from the array that the Jem’Hadar had no reason to suspect they were messing with it.  “We will hold this line for 30 minutes, staying dark, and then we turn for 270, increase to warp 9.4, and go full emissions. Light up the sky for them to see us.” At that point, the Serenity would cut straight across the battlecruiser’s course, and it would almost certainly give chase.

“180 at warp 6.5 aye.”

From the superstructure of the communications array, Lewis, Shafir and Morgan watched as the Serenity flipped around. If all went well, she’d pull the battlecruiser’s attention far from them, but it would put her straight in the line of fire. The Duderstadt class was faster than any Jem’Hadar or Breen ship, but if the Lost Fleet pulled more resources to give chase, it would be possible for them to catch her in a dragnet.

“Godspeed,” Lewis said under his breath to no one in particular.

A couple seconds later, the Serenity was gone.