“Anything new I need to know about before taking over?” Mac asked as he sat himself down in his seat.

He was ahead of anyone from Beta shift, even the early starters. It was all to either give the captain a chance to really load him up with information, let her slip away early, or more realistically buy himself a chance to swing by all the duty stations for the turbolift briefing. It was a pretty good idea to at least be aware of what everyone else was going to be doing.

“We’re about ten minutes from exiting the chromate layer,” Tikva said without looking up from the padd she was reading from. “Then we can truly start searching for the Rubic. Been told the atmospheric pressure under the layer is pretty constant for about five hundred kilometres due to temperature gradients and convection so we can move up and down with little concern once we get there.”

“That’s ahead of schedule. What about our girl?” he followed up.

“She’s holding up pretty damn good actually. Velan is pleasantly surprised, hence why he was confident enough to let me command my ship to sink faster,” Tikva said, a heft dollop of sarcasm over her words. “These Sovvies are built tough. And repair pretty damn quick too.”

“Amen to that.” He leaned over the armrest, closer to Tikva. “What about comms to orbit? The probes still holding altitude?”

“They are, but comms are shit. Ta’del reported three vessels dropping out of warp about thirty minutes ago and we’ve had no follow-up since then. But we’ve had to reconfigure the probes to repeat messages a few times to ensure everything is getting through, so one-way communications is taking way too long.” Tikva set the padd down on her lap and turned to face him. “If Ta’del is in trouble, they’ll just have to deal with it on their own. Rubic needs us and we’ve already come this far.”

“No argument here,” he said in agreement. “Besides, Gul Malek seems the sort to cut and run if it suited him. Either we succeed because of his initial work, or we’re stupid Starfleet doing stupid things and dying because we didn’t wait for superior Cardassian technology to come along.”

“Cynical much?” Tikva asked with a smirk.

“I think it’s justified with Malek,” he replied. “Anything else?”

“One of the newbies we picked up at Avalon called a security patrol on a cleaner bot on deck twelve,” she said, completely straight-faced. “Said it was chasing him menacingly. That one,” Tikva glared at the back of Rrr’s head, “and Velan are both being very tight-lipped about just what is going on.”

“Want me to look into the matter?” he asked.

“Oh, go right ahead,” Tikva answered. “But I tell you there is a conspiracy aboard my ship.” Her tone of voice wasn’t serious but hinted that the joke was wearing thin. “Get a serious answer out of them, would you? I’m going to finish my day by popping down to planetary sciences and nosing around,” she said as she stood, then tossed him the keys to the ship. “You have the conn commander.”

“I have the conn,” he answered after getting to his feet and giving the captain a nod.

Waiting till she had departed the bridge he stepped up behind Rrr at Ops, a hand on the Gaen’s shoulder as he leaned down to whisper to them. “Get Stubby under control or I’ll space him myself.”

“Are you assuming Stubby’s gender?” Rrr asked mockingly.

“Rrr,” he stressed.

“I shall send envoys to Lord Stubby and request he submit himself to Engineering for another reset and inspection.”

“I mean it Rrr. You and Velan sort out that bot or scrap it.” With that sorted, he could now start his rounds before the rest of Beta shift arrived.

“Mr Simmons,” he said, approaching Science, “how are the sensor modification plans coming along? Save the specifics for Camargo, just give me the cliff notes.”

“Lieutenant Kurtwell,” Mac announced as he emerged from the conference room, holding a padd up. “This accurate?”

“Best information we got before probe one went dark sir,” the young man at the tactical station answered without missing a beat. “Three contacts entering the atmosphere at high speed and they’re armed with disruptors.”

It had been nearly two hours since Beta shift had taken over the bridge. Nearly an hour and a half since the CUS Ta’del had reported unidentified ships dropping out of warp around Dormak VI. And now they knew why they never got a response – their visitors were hostile. At least to probes he reminded himself.

“Right, so let’s hope that Ta’del got away and is bringing help. In the meantime and down in this gas giant, we’re on our own.” Mac stepped up beside Kurtwell, not staring at the tactical console but somewhere in the imaginary middle distance. “Start thinking of ways to fight multiple opponents with our sensors so heavily reduced, shields barely operational and helm very sluggish folks.”

“Torpedoes aren’t a bad choice,” Kurtwell jumped in immediately. “Have their own seeker heads, manoeuvrable can be set to contact or proximity detonation. Wouldn’t want to use anything more powerful than –“

“Contacts!” shouted Lieutenant JG Samantha Michaels from Ops where her focus had been intent on her instruments. “Multiple contacts bearing zero two six mark three four seven. Ten kilometres and closing.”

“On screen,” Mac found himself saying without thinking, chucking the padd over the tactical rail into the empty captain’s chair and planting both hands on the rail’s upper edge as he brought his focus fully onto the viewscreen.

At first, all he was greeted by was the same soup of gasses that Atlantis had been swimming in for over half a day now. Sensors could make something out, but visually there was nothing there. “Little help Sam,” he muttered just loud enough to be heard and was treated to an overlay appearing on the viewscreen, highlighting the obscured shapes.

It wasn’t much help at all.

But over the course of a minute, the shapes became more defined as they neared, the gasses giving way to a multitude of large bulbous shapes drifting along on the currents. Each bore three fins along the sides and top, while the ventral aspect was the source of a veritable forest of tentacles dropping lazily down. Each of the creature’s main bodies was easily the size of Atlantis’ primary hull, with the tentacles the length of the entire ship.

“Well, that’s different,” Mac uttered as he relaxed. “Ensign Tabaahah, let’s move around these things, shall we?”

“Aye sir, adjusting course,” came the response from the young woman at the helm. She’d grown more confident of late – the magic of the first hollow pip doing its thing.

“How many are out there?” Mac asked as he started down the ramps to the centre seats. “And is this going to cause a problem with finding the Rubic?”

“Looks like twenty-six of them,” Samantha answered. “Various sizes too. Kinda reminds me of a jellyfish.”

“And as for will this slow us down,” Gabrielle Carmargo spoke up finally, the next most senior officer after Mac on the bridge, “it certainly will.”

“Oh?”

He could see her shaking her head from side to side while reading her displays, taking her time to put everything together before turning around to present her initial findings. “Evolution or environmental contamination has worked dilithium into their biology. Not surprising with so much of it in the gasses here. But those creatures are way more concentrated than the gas clouds.”

“And that means?” he asked.

“Dilithium is subspace responsive. It’s one of the reasons it can survive contact with antimatter and is used in warp drives. But in this density, literally flying around in it, comms are short and sensors are blind. Those creatures’ biology is picking up our sensor scans, refracting the signals and bouncing them around before ultimately coming back in our direction. Weakened for sure, but still being bounced back at us. Where those things are currently there’s a large sensor arc that’s just blinded and can’t see anything beyond basic electromagnetic and that’s even worse than the subspace scanners.”

“So, if they show up again, we’re blind in that direction?” he asked, getting a head nod from the ship’s senior science office.

“Which is basically aft of us,” Samantha interrupted before he could speak. “They’ve changed course and are pursuing. Not fast, but definitely following our trail.”

Mac could hear Gabrielle’s chair swivelling as she turned back to the issue. “Can confirm,” she finally added. “I need to get a probe in amongst them and behind them to see why they’re following up.”

He thought for a moment, taking the time to pace back to the centre seat and pick up the padd he’d abandoned. “We’re a big ship, we can do many things. Gabrielle, launch those probes. Michaels and Tabaaha, keep those things to our aft and watch out for more while most importantly keeping an eye out for the Rubic. And as for you Mr Kurtwell, compare what limited data we got from our sentry probe and get me a list of possible visitors we have waiting for us.”