The bridge of the Antares I-class looked old, worn down over the years, but it was styled in such a fashion that it grew into a second home. The metal floor had received some furs as the walls looked repaired a few times but held together. The walls were painted dark red with white, blue, and yellow stripes that were also visible on the outer hull. The logo on the front of the Duchess was a crystallize purple blueberry. Back in the bridge, everyone was doing their assignments, following the convoy through the Grim Wall on the Pilgrim route that would eventually bring them to the edge of Klingon space.

Dazren blinks at the communication that just came in as his high pitch Ferengi spoke, “Captain, Saturn just pinged the net. It seems they have a wind that is intermittently showing up during their tail-sync alignment. We are advise to keep aux shield standard and report any structural ticks” Dazren shrugs, not happy to be in the hands of these people again.

A wind, Sarah looks up from her PADD. So they got an ultra-low-frequency on subspace. She thinks for a second and give Dazren the not to adjust the shields. “Send the update to all post, if they notice something, they should inform you.”

The young Cardassian looked over his shoulder, “Captain, I noticed minor trims from the Grim Wall. I shall adjust the systems” He sees Sarah nod and looked back at his console as he starts tapping. Mek was the Cardassian who felt more at home at this ship than he ever could in the Union. The Duchess gets pulled back into the centered mid-column to realign with the other cargo ships. Everyone could feel the ship breathe with the convoy, tiny yaw, pitch nudges here and there.

Meanwhile, in Deck 3

Both Juno and Aivri pause for a brief moment, looking around, seeing some material float for a second as the Duchess addresses the correction. The catwalk handrails give a feather-light tremolo that fades the moment the alignment completes. They look at each other as they resume to their respective designation, “I need to get the comparative data from the next realignment. This journey feels already like a headache” Juno complaints with Aivri grinning next to her.

Cargo Office

The journey continued through the Pilgrim Route as Dazren walked into the office “Got the data for you Vek” He throws the PADD towards Thenira as she captures it “Don’t know what you are, so focus on this cargo, we already checked everything at Hecate?”

Looking at the PADD, Thenira looked at her the console, “Because things don’t add up. Yet everything matches in this PADD as well”  Thenira shrugs as her eyes stop at a glyph “Except this, the 7th glyph” She looked at Rhys who was looking at the data also “What do you think?”

His black pupils looked at Thenira and shrugs, “The contract checks out, Starfleet confirmed it and it’s fine. Minor administration errors are deemed to happen” He raises his finger to stop Thenira “But your paranoia is valid. The data got overwrite by a regional node before we entered the Grim Wall. Legit on paper, but suspicious in timing for sure” He taps on the screen.

Thenira walked to the screen and looked at the data, “Not only that, this is also shady” She taps on a sentence below it.

Looking at where his boss is pointing at, “As the ship’s contract liaison, I can only agree with you. Schedule adherence, relief clinics are waiting. That is outrageous targshit, but a good cover color and not a blocker for suspecting anything”.

“Let’s find out what this is” Her Bajoran earring wiggles as Thenira smiled walking to the exit.

Shaking his head, “That woman is going to be our downfall”

Bridge

The Ferengi enters the bridge and shrugs after the interaction with Vek and only could agree with Rhys on his last statement. He looked at the console, seeing the Saturn asking for an update. Duchess logging faint structural tick coincident with tail-sync. Transmitting the timestamp of the enviro-mic sample for the noise floor. He shrugs, feeling that Saturn is being too noisy with their operating the ship. “It’s like they know the Duchess better than we do….the sheer audacity” Dazren mutters.

He looked at the data and sends a request to Wakefield. Custody mirror of Addendum 17-B, mismatch in observational hold. We notice ledger deviation. He scratches behind his big ear as Dazren knew that this suspicion would at least keep Thenira off his back. But he had a suspicion that Sarah will be breathing down his neck. If I go down, I drag you with me, Vek. He thoughts for a second.

But his attention gets drawn back to the console as a message returns from Wakefield.  Maintain posture; escalate on safety trigger only. Dazren looked legit confused on the reply, does Starfleet know more about the cargo hold then they let them know?

Engineering

The engineering was humming as a hardworking animal, but Juno seemed unphased by it as she looked at the data on the wall panel. Taking a deep breath as she overlays the leash audio/EM trace that the Saturn tail-sync timestamps had provided. “It is a miracle that they even shared this information, but I guess it affects us as well” She mutters. Taking the logs of the helm and the strongest nodes on the Pilgrim Route. Taking a step back she rubbed her template looking at the flare during the rear-guard realignments “There is a pattern” Seeing that the convoy’s collective geometry amplifies something, most distortions coming from cargo hold 3. “How peculiar”

Bridge

Sitting back in her chair, Sarah notice Juno standing there with Thenira “Do tell what brings the infamous Tarell on the bridge”  She leans back in her chair looking at the two women. She hears the suspicion of the cargo hold, and her facial expression doesn’t break her usual poker face. Her crew are smarter than she gives them credit, but this is a part that is in their best interest to not continue investigating, “Check the cargo in 3 and do a reseal of the cargo. Vek stop your witch hunt, we got more important things to focus on. The Klingons are sending out their famous battle poems out, so get your head back in the game”.

They wanted to protest, but again their Captain made it pretty straightforward of their mission and simply nodded. Sarah could see Thenira shrug, knowing that this would eat her up. She grabs her arm and pulls her gentle to her, looking at her, “Drop it, I know you longer than today.” She lets go of her arm and looked back at her PADD.

Thenira felt defeated, but simply nodded and went to check the resealing of the cargo.