"It just showed up. It's barely within sensor range because of the ionization. We know it's there, but we can't make out any details." Bristol was trying to sound calm.
"Alright." Kirk said calmly. He pivoted the chair over to T'Nia. "What have you got, T'Nia?"
She was already looking at sensor readings. "They're erratic, Commander." T'Nia confirmed. "I cannot get an exact size of the craft, but it appears to be relatively small... perhaps some short range vessel."
"Put it on screen. Maybe we can get a better look at it." The screen shifted from a rainbow collage of reds, oranges, and blues with occasional rock debris to a location apparently off the port side and a little low. All they could see was snow with a darker red image in the middle.
"Commander, that's as good we're going to get. With the sensors trained that far out, we aren't getting much. Wait." As she spoke, the red blob started to grow in size. "It's moving towards us."
Kirk was about to say to engage the sensor mask when Ensign Davies spoke. "Commander, we're being hailed. It's one of the runabouts from Starbase 173." Everyone immediately relaxed except Stephen.
"Uh, oh. This should be an interesting conversation. Put it on screen, Leiutenant." He pivoted the captain's chair to face forward as the face of a young cadet, barely twenty, appeared on the giant screen. He still had pimples.
His face was priceless. Try as he might to act 'normal', the image of the Warlord wasn't something he was prepared for. "Um...this is the Runabout... um... Valeri. I'm... looking for the USS Nightengale. Have you seen her?" He tried once again to look calm.
Commander Kirk smiled. "All this for a snot-nosed cadet in a Runabout. Some warship crew we are." he thought to himself. He took a deep breath and let it out audibly. "Good afternoon, Cadet. I'm Commander Stephen Kirk of the USS Warlord. Let's just say we know where the Nightengale is. What business do you have with her?"
The cadet looked even more shocked. "YOU'RE Commander Kirk? I was told you were in command of the Nightengale." His face turned to utter confusion.
"It's alright, Cadet. Calm down." Stephen assured him. "In a manner of speaking, I am. I'll explain everything in just a moment. Did you need to talk to me?"
That seemed to be enough of an explanation to ease the cadet a bit. "Yeah...I mean, yes, Sir... I mean... a lot has happened in the last couple of hours. We got an encrypted message from someplace in Romulan space, we've had just about every Admiral in the fleet contact us, it's been nuts. Oh!" the cadet suddenly remembered he had something more important to say. "Uh, Starfleet Command has been trying to contact you for the past couple of hours. There's a priority one message for you. When they told us you were in charge of the Nightengale, we said that you guys were probably still in the Dedry nebula and couldn't receive communications. They sent me in to go looking for the Nightengale. I've been in here for a little over an hour. This isn't the Nightengale, though."
The only way around this issue is through it, Kirk thought. "Look, Cadet. I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. The USS Warlord is a brand new, experimental starship capable of changing its appearance to look like anything we want it to be. We masked ourselves to look like the Nightengale to avoid any un-needed suspicion so close to the Neutral Zone." Kirk sat forward in his chair, cupped his hands under his chin and put his elbows on his knees. His brown eyes and voice became stern. "Cadet, our true identity and capabilities are highly classified. You are not to disclose any of what you've seen or heard about this vessel to anyone. Do you understand?"
The cadet's eyes ballooned larger than before. "Wow..." was all he could say. Commander Kirk cocked his head and stared at the cadet even more intently. The cadet got the message. "I mean, I understand, Sir. I won't tell a soul."
Stephen sat back in his chair. "Good. I'm counting on you, Cadet. You must keep our secret for now. If anyone asks you; you simply tell them that you successfully contacted the Nightengale and relayed the message."
The cadet's chest swelled and he grinned from ear to ear with this kind of responsibility. "I understand, Sir. You can count on me." He almost yelled the last sentence.
"I know I can, Cadet. Warlord out." Kirk winked as the screen switched off. The viewscreen resorted back to the previous view of the runabout. It quickly turned around and was back out of sensor range. Stephen let out a heavy sigh of relief, as did the rest of the bridge crew. He suddenly realized the yellow alert siren was still going off. "That was close," he said finally. Looking over his shoulder, he spoke to Leiutenant Davies. "Leiutenant, stand down from yellow alert."
"Aye, aye, Sir." she answered quickly. The alarm stopped.
He then looked toward Ensign Bristol. "Tyler, get us out of this nebula, best speed."
"Understood, Sir." he replied. Bristol still looked a little dazed. The past few minutes were quite stressful and a bit unnerving. His hands slid across the navigation panel. Within moments, the great ship had altered course and was increasing in speed, slowly, as to avoid overheating the impulse engines.
Looking over his other shoulder, Kirk ordered Tony next. "Leiutenant Moreaux, get that sensor mask back online. It's time for us to become the USS Nightengale again."
"Roger that, Commander." Tony replied. His hands started flying over his keyboard.
"Leiutenant Davies, as soon as we're clear of the nebula, get me Starfleet Command."
"Aye, aye, Sir." She replied. He didn't hear her, though. Instead, he was staring at T'Nia, who momentarily looked back at him. He could tell she was sharing the same thoughts as him. His heart began to race. A Romulan encrypted message? A priority one message for Kirk? Dear God, they couldn't actually be wanting us to DO anything, could they?