Chapter 2 – Shadows, Cries and Whispers

The bridge of the Enterprise was a hive of activity.

Lieutenant Marc O'Reilly was at the helm, checking the ship's precise coordinates; until such time as the determination had been made that they would respond to the call, maintaining her course so as to remain in Federation space was an unspoken imperative. He cast a look over his shoulder to see if his XO had arrived yet and smiled when the door whooshed open to admit the Commander. O'Reilly had been a more than competent pilot ever since Riker had taken command of the ship, but Tom Paris' arrival on the ship had initially caused his confidence to fly out the view screen.

It had taken Tom some time to figure out that the guy seemed to consider him some sort of living legend, and he had made a deliberate effort to invite him to some intense pilot-to-pilot bonding over tactical sims on the holodeck. Bizarrely, it was only after a spot of aerial combat in the Andorian system that the XO's presence had started to bring the Chief Conn officer more reassurance than nervousness, a development both Riker and Tom had greeted with relief regardless of how it had come about.

Lieutenant Harry Kim's fingers were flying over the Ops console, seeking to track the precise origin of the signal. So far he had come up empty. He cursed softly to himself, a habit he had developed only recently and for which his best friend laid the blame squarely on Harry finally being promoted, after seven years as an Ensign in the Delta Quadrant. "Guess now that you're a full Lieutenant, you think you can let your mouth run off with you, eh?" Tom had said, the third time it had happened. "Suppose it's okay; seems to have worked for me …"

Jorak, the ship's tactical officer, ran a series of quick checks to ensure that the Enterprise was ready for any surprises that might come her way, in addition to casting about for unidentified energy signatures in the vicinity. He had detailed a couple of ensigns to carry out additional sweeps from the auxiliary consoles; their hunched shoulders spoke volumes of the sudden tension on the bridge. This close to Romulan space, chances were good to excellent that the source of the distress signal – if such it was – came from a Romulan ship, which in turn exponentially increased the likelihood of cloaked war birds making an unannounced and unwanted appearance.

Tom took his chair to Captain Riker's right and checked his own console for updates. No source of the call was discernible, but the male voice kept coming, over and over, as clear as day: "To any Federation ship. We require immediate assistance. Coordinates …" and it cut out.

Tom's instincts told him that whoever had sent the signal had likely not survived the attempt, his last action being to hit the "repeat" command. He looked to Deanna Troi. "That voice," he asked softly. "On the level?"

The Half-Betazoid counselor listened to the replay, twice. "Based on the tone of the voice and the inflections, I would say yes. Whoever made that transmission was in fear of their life, as well as desperate. He knew that making that call was dangerous."

Tom turned to Jorak. "Any record in the database about recent trips by Starfleet or other Federation vessels?"

"None, sir. The last recorded flight into the Neutral Zone was by the Enterprise herself on Stardate 41986.0. I believe both Captain Riker and Counselor Troi were on board then." Riker and Deanna separately nodded their confirmation.

"There have been rumours that about three months after that, the USS Hiroshima crossed into the Neutral Zone. She was lost with all hands, and all indications are that Romulan war birds were responsible. The Federation Council had to agree that no Starfleet vessels would enter the Neutral Zone to look for debris."

"But that was over ten years ago, and hardly recent. We've made a lot of strides with the Romulans since, even if they still cling to the Neutral Zone like a desperately needed security blanket." Riker turned to Harry Kim. "Anything yet?"

"No, sir," came the immediate reply. "I can't trace the source, only the vector. It's definitely coming from the Neutral Zone. Where from exactly, I can't tell."

Tom Paris, who had been chewing his lower lip in his favourite 'don't bug me, I'm thinking' mode, took a deep breath and looked to the Captain. "Let's assume for the sake of argument that whatever facility or ship that signal came from, is run by Romulans. That would make it illegal for them to be in the Neutral Zone, regardless of any political strides we've made, so it would stand to reason that they wouldn't want their presence to be broadcast to the Federation."

Riker stroked his beard thoughtfully. "And that would mean …"

"… That they're operating under cloak, yes. Universal emergency frequencies are designed to cut through cloaking devices on their way out, but usually they can't be traced back on signatures alone. Senders have to provide express coordinates, like this one obviously knew, and tried to do."

Tom turned to the Ops console. "Harry, why don't you try compensating for possible multi-spectral emitter overlay, and see if you can run down the source via a tachyon sweep and reverse calculation of the resulting distortion field."

Harry Kim looked up at his best friend and XO. He still found himself occasionally wondering whether Tom's year at the James T. Kirk Centre for Advanced Strategic and Tactical Command had had some more sinister aspects to it – alien possession, impersonation, or surreptitious implants of Borg technology? There were days when Harry missed the happy-go-lucky pilot who didn't care a whit about the intricate details of subspace communications, and who left coming up with the bright technical ideas to him or B'Elanna.

It wasn't that the person he had come to think of as 'Voyager Tom' had been any less technologically savvy than the 'new and improved' version – clearly his work on the Delta Flyer, various holoprograms and certain problem scenarios had proved otherwise. But that Tom Paris had generally been content to hide his at times phenomenal technical competence behind his flyboy persona, only allowing it to surface when he chose to, or when he wanted to play. And so, Harry had been allowed to excel in his field of expertise without serious competition. But now …

Harry sighed inwardly and did as instructed. Damn. "You were right, sir. I've got them. The signal seems to be coming from a … wait a minute. A planetoid?" He looked up, the mild irritation he had felt at having been shown up by Tom Paris in his own field having fled in the face of an interesting discovery. "Captain, Tom – sorry – Commander, the whole damn planetoid seems to be cloaked. I didn't think that was possible."

Riker whistled softly. "Neither did I." He exchanged eyebrow raises with his First Officer. "Now that we know where they are, can we compensate for the cloak and get them on screen?"

Jorak chimed in from Tactical. "I do not believe that that will be possible, Captain. However, I should be able to create a schematic of the region based on existing tactical star charts, and project it onto the view screen with the new planet included."

"Go ahead," Riker said. He turned to Tom again. "Looks like we've found a place the Romulans are trying to keep hidden from the Federation. Wonder what that's all about, given that they've actually been playing relatively nicely as of late. Let's have a preliminary look and report the location back to Starfleet; they should find this most interesting."

He rose from his chair and walked over to the helm, standing behind O'Reilly. "In the meantime, the Treaty of Algeron does permit entry into the Neutral Zone in order to assist vessels in distress." He turned back towards Tom. "Commander - do you agree that the exception would include responding to distress calls from … uncharted planetoids?"

Tom shrugged. "I'm a great believer in obeying the spirit rather than the letter of the law, Captain. In this case, I'd say the relevant bit of the Treaty says that it's lawful to respond to a distress call and to preserve life; the source in my view is secondary. So yes, I concur. We may want to send a heads up to Starfleet though, to cover our butt in case the Romulans take exception."

"Agreed. Harry, transmit the coordinates of the mysterious planetoid to the helm. Lieutenant O'Reilly, set a course, and try not to run into the thing. Mr. Jorak, please send a short transmission to Starfleet Command that the Enterprise is responding to a distress call from inside the Neutral Zone. No details – we don't want to attract a flock of vultures unnecessarily, in case the Romulans listen in."

He sat down in the Captain's chair again, stroking his beard. "Let's see what we find."

…..

The schematic Jorak created on the Enterprise's main view screen showed the Neutral Zone as a purple expanse between Federation space and the Romulan Empire. Several pinpoints of light represented well-catalogued star systems, uninhabited and uncolonized pursuant to the long-standing agreement between the old antagonists. As Tom had learned only recently, one of these, the Nadoo system, was well-known for the dramatic gorges and landscapes of its fourth planet – a whispered-about travel destination for adrenaline junkies and thrill-seekers, ready to risk life and limb for the cachet of experiencing the truly exotic and inaccessible.

The source of the distress call, based on Harry Kim's calculations, came from something orbiting a yellow dwarf star – not unlike Earth's Sol, but slightly smaller – that showed on the existing star charts as having three planets in slightly eccentric orbits, too close and too far, respectively, to sustain life without artificial environments. The search for multi-spectral emissions, however, had disclosed a fourth body, in between the first and second known planet and sufficiently close to the latter that it could possibly be a moon.

"We can't determine size and dimensions at this time, Captain, but the distress signal is definitely originating from there. And it is definitely subject to some form of cloak."

Riker shook his head, still finding it difficult to "Time to arrival?"

O'Reilly punched in a few commands and turned around to face Riker. "Fourteen hours at warp nine, sir." Riker nodded his confirmation of the instruction, then looked at Tom. "Time for a chat. Mr. Jorak, Counselor? And Mr. Kim, please ask Commanders Torres and Cran and Dr. Crusher to come to the briefing room as well, then join us. Marc, please ask Henley to take the helm."

…..

The briefing room was quieter than usual; with the ship headed deep into the Neutral Zone, neither Tom nor Harry felt like engaging in their usual banter. Deanna Troi looked from one officer to the other, gauging the level of tension their unexpected course change had generated.

There had already been some tangible unease among members of the Enterprise's crew in light of the ship's current mission. Relations with Romulus had improved considerably over the last few years but were still delicate, and many crewmembers were veterans of past engagements. Starfleet Command had made it clear that further rapprochement with the Federation's erstwhile bitterest enemy was both possible and desirable – especially in light of potential threats from the other Quadrants - but generations worth of mistrust and enmity were difficult to jettison, on both sides. Confidence building measures were needed, but first came the need for intelligence.

Given the Enterprise's proximity to the Neutral Zone on its return from Andor, Fleet Admiral Nacheyev had tasked the flagship with a delicate mission: she was to patrol the outer rim in order to investigate rumours that vessels of unknown origin had been crossing into the prohibited space on a regular basis over the last several years, while the Fleet was busy fighting on other fronts. Their findings would form important background for a planned major mission to Romulus, to be headed by the Fleet's newly appointed diplomatic troubleshooter, Admiral Kathryn Janeway.

Harry Kim's Ops team had been working around the clock trying to find and trace potential decaying warp signatures, so far without results. But the mere proximity to the Neutral Zone and all it stood for had the crew on edge, the feeling of unease not being helped by their most recent experience as hostages of Andorian politics. As Troi had pointed out to her imzadi on a couple of occasions, what everyone really needed was a week on Risa, not looking for shadows that, if any were found, could bite them in the face.

Riker called the meeting to order as soon as Beverly Crusher, who had the farthest to come from Sickbay, had walked in and taken her seat at the table.

"Analysis?" he asked, looking at Jorak and Harry Kim in turn.

"Universal distress signal," Harry summarized for those who had not been present on the bridge when the signal had come in. "Cut off before the sender was able to provide coordinates or details. Source appears to be a planetoid inside the Neutral Zone. A fully cloaked, presently uncharted planetoid."

Jorak took up the thread. "The cloaking technology appears to be consistent with that found on Romulan war birds, but with a much broader dispersal range. So far we have detected no evidence of cloaked ships in the vicinity, despite numerous tachyon sweeps."

Tom, who had been chewing his lower lip in deep thought, said in a low voice, almost to himself, "I wonder whether that planet may have been the destination for those alleged ships we've been tasked to look out for. Would stand to reason, wouldn't it?" he looked up at the Captain, and around the table for confirmation. "I mean, if they really are entering the Neutral Zone from the Federation side, what other possible destinations are there? Romulus is too far at the other end of the Zone, and tourism into the Nadoo system is not that developed."

Jorak nodded as enthusiastically as his firmly controlled Vulcan mind allowed. "The Commander's logic is sound. I will focus our sweep for warp signatures on the main vectors leading towards the planetoid's location from Federation space."

"Good idea," Riker said. He turned to B'Elanna. "Can you have your team look into what might be required to expand and amplify Romulan cloaking technology to cover a planetoid? As in, how many transmitters they might require, where they might be located – on the surface or in orbit? Would it be some kind of grid, or a series of arrays? I think what we have on file about their systems should suffice for some basic calculations."

"Yes," Tom added. "And do consider that whatever they use on the planetoid could also be utilized to conceal ships in orbit; we may have to take the cloaking system out if there's hostile action. So if there's a network, the sooner we get potential coordinates for targeting, the better."

B'Elanna nodded her confirmation. "We'll get on it right away, although we may not be able to make much progress until we come out of warp and get a better read on the frequencies of the multi-spectral emissions. Right now we'd be basing everything on projections and deductions."

Tom turned to Beverly Crusher. "Dr. Crusher, you may want to get ready for casualties. If the distress call was accurate and an attack caused it to be disrupted, we should be ready for injured survivors. Plus, Jorak - we may have the need to separate factions. Any survivors we find may not get along with each other. I'd suggest mobile surgical units that can be deployed on the surface rather than bringing people aboard, plus some mobile force field containment units."

Harry added, "And given you can't transport through cloaking shields when they're still up …" Tom completed his best friend's sentence, "… we should have a number of shuttles ready. Marc, can you set up a roster for your pilots, but make sure you leave a couple of the most competent, including yourself, onboard in case we get company and need to make a quick getaway?"

O'Reilly blossomed visibly under the unrehearsed compliment and nodded forcefully. "Aye, sir." Tom knew that the chief pilot still seemed rather self-conscious around him; sooner or later, Tom hoped, they'd be able to hang out at Sandrine's and swap shaggy dog stories. Unfortunately, the Captain was by now too far removed from his own piloting days for this most basic of flyboy pleasures.

"Commander Cran," the Captain addressed the Chief Science Officer. Petra Cran was the only member of his senior staff he'd never felt tempted to address by her first name; somehow, the highly competent but bone-dry astrophysicist did not invite familiarity. "I'd be grateful if you could go through all available data bases, in particular those that pre-date the Treaty of Algeron, to determine whether there are any old records about a star system in this part of space."

It was one thing for the Romulans to cloak a whole planetoid now, but quite another to erase it from historical records. Somewhere, somehow the existence of this body must have been recorded, and any information about it would be useful. Cran nodded and got up from her seat; as far as she was concerned now that she had a job to do, any second spent listening to matters that did not involve the Astrometrics lab was a waste of time.

Riker watched her stalk out with amusement. "Dismissed," he said to the briefing room door as it whooshed shut. The others chuckled. Lieutenant Commander Petra Cran's utter inability to relate her actions to the people surrounding her – including her superior officers - was legendary; once she was set on a task, her focus on that became absolute.

Riker turned back to the remainder of the senior staff. "Now, ordinarily when it comes to distress calls, rescue takes absolute priority. But this is different. We're in the Neutral Zone and will be closer to Romulan than Federation space."

Tom took up the thread. "Not to mention the fact that a cloaked planetoid may suggest that there is something the Romulans wish to hide. There is also the possibility that the distress call is a lure. So - the primary protocol for tomorrow is defensive; humanitarian posture comes second to the safety of the ship. And the Admiralty would also remind us that we are not to upset the delicate balance we've achieved with the Romulans to date."

He looked to Riker for affirmation, and was rewarded with a nod. "Yes, that's right. We don't know what we're getting ourselves into tomorrow. But we've still got twelve hours before we get there, folks. So I suggest we all go and get some rest. Dismissed."