"Mr. Scott, there is something strange about the sensor readings." Chekov had scanned the whole sector, finding nothing, really. However he had had a strange gut feeling about something, but until now, he hadn't known what it was.

Or he had, of course. First of all, Kirk had ordered the corridors to sickbay should be cleared, then Scotty had gone down to personally beam up the landing party. Neither Kirk nor Spock had come to the bridge since then, and when Mr. Scott had come back with an expression of deep worry on his face, they had all known that either Spock or Doctor McCoy had been critically injured down on that planet.

Although not the friendliest of people, the Meriahn were considered a peaceful race and the mission had not been thought about as dangerous at all. Their prime minister had invited them as guests to their capital to discuss the diplomatic relationship with the Federation once again.

Doctor McCoy had commented, that that had sounded kind of unfriendly, to which Spock had pointed out, that the Meriahn were unable to lie and therefore "their polite invitation should be taken without unjustified suspicion, Doctor".

Chekov recalled the whole conversation on the bridge now, it had been the usual:

"Spock, the human concept of politeness is something you don't understand. And maybe the Meriahn don't either, if they're unable to lie, then you can be sure they're unable to be polite as well."

"Are you saying that one must be a liar to be socially accepted within human society?"

Whenever these battles of wit between McCoy and Spock broke out, Chekov tended to side with McCoy, knowing at the same time that Spock had the better arguments. Spock and McCoy were like "Sense and Sensibility", to quote a famous female Russian author. Maybe McCoy's sensibility had been correct this time. Something bad had definitely happened on that planet.

"What is it, Chekov?" Scott walked over to the helm from where Chekov had been scanning the whole sector, not finding anything, which was kind of unusual in itself, and frustrating.

"Our sensors flicker, Mr. Scott!"

"Flicker?" Scotty couldn't help feeling criticized. "Well, they do that every now and then, there's always some interference, you know? They realign themselves immediately. ... Wait, you shouldn't be able to see that." Scotty was impressed. He could see these flickers, but he was the chief engineer, Ensign Chekov, however, ...

"I know, Sir. But these flickers appear exactly every 242 seconds."

"What? You sure?" The sensors shouldn't be disturbed so easily, and what was more not so regularly, either.

"Yes, Mr. Scott. They usually only flicker when our impulse engines are powered up, or when we drop out of warp."

"Well, our engines are offline, we're in the stationary orbit of Meriah Five. It must be something else." Scott watched Chekov's console with interest.

"Twenty seconds, Sir." Chekov announced, and then they heard the turbo lift doors open and Captain Kirk entered the bridge. He looked tired, Scotty thought and tried to interpret what Kirk's being here indicated regarding Leonard's medical condition. Spock was still missing, so this was a bad sign. However, he would have expected Spock to be here and Kirk to be with theDoctor. Something was not right.

"Anything?" Kirk asked gruffly.

"Not at first glance, Captain. There are no ships in the vicinity and none have left or arrived on Meriah Five in the last 24 hours. But Chekov may have discovered something."

"What is it?"

"There", Chekov pointed at his console "in five, four, three, two, one, now!" There was an ever so slight flicker of the indicator lights for the scanner, Kirk thought. But he wasn't sure if it hadn't been his imagination only.

"Aye, that is strange, Chekov. The scanners are affected by something. I believe it does not come from the Enterprise."

"Could it be something from the planet? A power source, communication, a scanner?" Kirk asked.

"No sir, at least there's nothing I have detected." Uhura said from her station. Kirk turned to her, smiling. He had asked her to throw the diplomatic protocol out of the window, and she hadn't objected once. He asked himself if that was good or not. Right now, he needed her skills as a spy and not as a United Federation of Planets communications officer, so he guessed it was good.

However, sometimes the loyalty of his own crew scared him.

"What did you pick up from their communication channels, Lieutenant?"

"There has been no communication between Meriah Five and an alien ship or planet, as far as I can tell."

"And?"

"Well, you didn't tell me to eavesdrop, Captain. Nevertheless, I couldn't help hearing what was said. They are searching for Secretary of Defense Delihan. So far they haven't found him."

Kirk had sat down in his chair and was chewing the inside of his cheek, trying to make sense of everything.

"Scotty, we're in a stationary orbit around Meriah Five, right?" Kirk had a suspicion, but he needed to think aloud.

"Aye. We're exactly 35,876.12 km above the planet's surface, where the forces of gravitation and rotation are balanced, so that we don't need any power to stay in orbit."

"If we were a little closer to, or a little farther away from the planet, we'd need to power up our engines to keep us from crashing onto the planet or from drifting off into space, correct?"

"Aye", Scotty followed his Captain's thoughts, and he didn't like the conclusions that they had to draw, "we wouldn't have to have our engines online constantly, it would be enough to power up the impulse drive for a few seconds to give us a little boost into the right direction."

"For example every 242 seconds." Chekov concluded.

Kirk nodded. Gotcha. "Lieutenant Uhura, get Mr. Spock up here, we're looking for a cloaked ship. Possibly Klingon."

"Yes, Sir." Uhura turned to her console to call Spock over the intercom, but she was thinking about Dr. McCoy. If Spock could come up to the bridge, then the doctor was probably the one who had been hurt.

The doors swooshed open again, and there he was, Dr. McCoy, coming up for probably no reason, but plain curiosity. Uhura almost made a sound of joy, but caught herself. The doctor's wrists were bandaged. So it had been him. He looked okay, though.

"Bones. What are you doing here?"

Kirk seemed ... unsure. Something that did not happen very often, Uhura noticed.

"I am looking for you."

"Me? Why?"

"Come on, Jim. Something is going on, and you're not telling me."

"Not now, Bones. We have a situation here."

"Good. I can wait."

"Go back to sickbay, you're not in any condition to walk around, yet."

McCoy's eyebrows shot up. "You're a starship captain, not a doctor. I'm perfectly alright."