Lieutenant Commander stood in the briefing room, looking out the viewport over the main hangar as the Valkyrie-class fighters and Aspera-class bombers underwent their pre-flight preparations. He watched as the main lift raised a bomber up from the deck below and just let himself watch the work progress below as his mind drifted back to memories of watching the work on various ships.

He was jerked from his memories as the door opened and a tall female Andorian entered. “Commander Tel,” she said with a crisp and formal tone. “Reporting for pre-flight briefing.”

Joran let out a soft sigh as he turned around, “Lieutenant Sh’Tevanet, please take a seat. Commander Thornton will be with us shortly, along with the others.” He made his way to the front of the room and brought up the holographic display of the system, and settled into a chair by the controls to wait. “Lieutenant, as my co-pilot, you do not need to be so formal with me all the time.”

Teva just nodded and responded with a quick, “Understood, sir.” She took a seat in the second row and pulled out her PADD before speaking again, “Commander, as you have pointed out, we can be more informal, please call me Vara or Teva, either work.”

Joran smiled at that, “I will do that. Please call me Joran if you like.”

The smell of pipe tobacco wafted through the room as the turbo lift doors slid open. Thornton nodded at Joran as he walked down the aisle.

“Commander, thank you for the invite.” As he pulled the pipe from his mouth. Putting the pipe back in his mouth, he pulled his PADD from its customary pocket and took a seat in the front row.

Joran nodded in acknowledgement as he waited for the remaining pilots. He turned to Thornton with a question on the tip of his tongue, “This mission only calls for two ships, but if we are to scout the system and the Captain is happy to release the others from the squadron, we could do with a few other ships in the air.”

Thornton quickly typed on his PADD, as smoke trailed from his pipe, nodded and pulled the pipe from his mouth. “Set it up. If anybody has questions, send them to me.”

Joran smiled as she tapped his PADD and sent messages to the crews of the third and fourth Valkyries within the squadron, telling them they were needed for flight ops. Within a minute, he had acknowledgements from both teams. “They should be here in a couple of minutes; it will make the scouting easier.”

Over the next few minutes, the crew for the second fighter and the additional two entered the briefing room and took their seats. Once they had all arrived, Joran nodded to Thornton, “Thank you, everyone, for joining us. We have been tasked with scouting the system to see if we can detect any residual signs of the ships that attacked the colony several days ago.”

Typing, again, Thornton watched as several colored lines and dots appeared on the Commander’s holo display. “That’s the latest data from the scans; the colours denote the signatures that the folks down below and our folks up here do not recognize.”

Joran adjusted the holo so that it brought up two flight paths that divided the signatures into two distinct groups. “The readings are several days old and deteriorating fast, so we need to scout them as quickly as possible. As such, Valkyries 1 and 2 will follow flight path alpha, while Valkyries 3 and 4 will take bravo. As you can see, the flight paths are fairly similar, so we will be able to provide support to each other quickly if any issues arise.”

He turned to Thornton, “Anything you wanted to add, Commander?”

“Let me reiterate, we do not know who these folks are or why they came. That’s why you all get to go chase the “ghosts.” Thornton stood and faced the crews, pointing at the holo display with the stem of his pipe. “This is not the mission for heroics, I promise those will come soon enough.” He chuckled as he let that last part sink in. “Routine information gathering patrol, ye,p that about sums it up.” As he placed the pipe back in his mouth took a deep inhale and sat back in his chair.

Joran nodded to Thornton, “Thank you, Commander.” Turning back to look at the crews of the ships he was about to lead on this mission, he continued, “I could not have put it better myself. Any questions?”

Rarsog, the tactical officer on Valkyrie 3, lifted his arm. With a nod from Joran, he began to speak, “If we do encounter a hostile vessel, what are the rules of engagement?”

“The standard, we do not fire first, try to open communications. If that is unsuccessful, then you defend yourself. You will have your wingman as well, so you won’t be alone out there either,” Joran said. “Anyone else?

Silence hung in the air for a moment before Joran spoke again, “Very well, I want everyone in your ships in 90 minutes. If you think of any questions before them or during the mission, do not hesitate to ask. Dismissed.”

With that, the crews stood and began to make their way out of the briefing room. Joran let out a slow exhale before he shut down the holo-display and turned to Thornton. “First official mission flight together, some of them are still pretty green, but they’ll do well.” He paused for a moment and looked briefly at the PADD in his hand, “This whole attack on the colony doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel like a raid.”

“No, it doesn’t.” as Thornton stoof and started to slowly walk around the holo map. “Why here? Why now? As far as I can tell, there is nothing of importance on the planet.” He stopped at a console and typed in a command, the holo changed to display of the planet showing its geological and mineralogical makeup. “Nothing stands out to me. No, this was not just a simple raid. The pieces are not fitting together, if you know what I mean,” he said as he stood beside the commander.

Joran nodded slowly, “I know what you mean. We are missing something, an angle or a key piece of information that will make it come together.” He looked at the display of the planet and then zoomed out to the wider system, “Maybe one of these signatures will actually give us the information we need or point us in the right direction, but you know as well as I do, most, if not all, will be nothing but sensor ghosts.”

Eight Hours Later

Joran’s eyes were fixed on the sensor display that took up a large portion of the cockpit around him. He loved flying, but had to admit that when you were just travelling from point A to point B, there was rarely anything of interest to see. The last seven hours had seen the four fighters trek all over the system, and so far, had turned up nothing except for sensor echos and what may have been a very degraded warp signature that may or may not be of use in the future.

“Five minutes until we reach the last set of coordinates, my screens are completely clear. You getting anything on tactical Vara?” Joran asked through their shared comms.

“Tactical is clear,” came the, as always, short and direct response from Lieutenant Sh’Tevanet.

The minutes crawled by the cluster of asteroids where the residual signature was initially detected, slowly loomed out of the void before them, a slightly darker set of spots that stood out from the blackness of space around them.

The comms channel activated, and Lieutenant Thanen’s voice, the pilot in Valkyrie 2 and wingman, came over the channel, “Our sensors detected a possible energy source on the far side of one of those chunks of rock. It was very faint, could have just been a sensor echo or background radiation.”

As he spoke, your display highlighted the asteroid, and a short data feed moved across it. “This is exactly what we are here to check out,” you remark as you send the data packet back to the Gagarin. He checked his sensors and noted that Valkyries 3 and 4 had just cleared their final set of coordinates and were about 15 minutes away at maximum speed. He quickly sent a short message for them to form up on you before responding to Thanen.

“Move in slowly, I don’t want any surprises, Lieutenant. We will circle wide around the asteroid to see if we can get a better signal, and it gives time for Valkyries 3 and 4 to get here.”

As the two ships moved around the asteroid, ensuring that their passage didn’t give any outward appearance that they were investigating it, the sensors on both ships were able to pinpoint a small probe-like device partially embedded in the rock of the asteroid.

“Sir, it seems to be a homing device. I cannot break the encryption here, but there is a definite signal being broadcast from the device,” Vara responded from her seat at the tactical station.

“Any idea on the range of the signal?” Joran asked as he began to feel a little uneasy about the situation.

“It’s strong,” Vara said. “Once back on the ship, we can get a more accurate figure, but I would estimate that the signal would be able to reach many light-years, easily.”

Joran opened a coms link to the other fighters and back to Thornton on the Gagarin, “I think we found a signal. There is a device of some kind sending out a broadcast. Thornton, do you want to send a Runabout out to collect this for investigation, or shall we destroy it?”

Before Thornton could respond, the deep voice of Lieutenant Itocu, came over the channel. “Sir, we have just detected several faint signals appearing at the very edge of our range towards the system’s limits. I think someone either just entered the system and then went dark or just left.”

“We are receiving the data now. Hmmmm,” as a mumbling and light chewing is heard over the broadcast. “Yes, cleverly hidden, too, I might add. If someone didn’t know what to listen for, it might be overlooked as common background noise. Probably why we missed it at first.” Some more mumbling is heard along with some quick tapping of someone quite skilled who was entering commands in their console.

“Commander, we have the signal locked in,” he stopped mid-thought as he heard the message from Itocu. “ Well damn, wouldn’t you know it,”  Thornton mumbled to himself. “ Commander,  bring the Valkyries back to the nest. Let’s see if someone rang the dinner bell or sounded the alarm.”

“Confirmed Commander, you heard the order. Form up and let’s head back to the Gagarin but keep an eye on your sensors, I don’t want anything or anyone trying to sneak up on us,” Joran said as he marked a location two hundred thousand kilometres from their current location to rendezvous. As he did, he brought up the fighter’s inventory and selected the small sensor relay it was equipped with and activated it. As the fighter sped away from the asteroid cluster, the small relay ejected itself from its port and disappeared into the inky black of the void.

‘With luck, we might catch any visitors…’ Joran thought to himself.