Lotharys nodded.  “We’ve already identified three meshweavers, plus a light cruiser.  Great work on the probe, both of you!”

Pelix looked unsurprised – though beneath that exterior his excitement could be clearly seen – and Tiza grinned.  “Thanks!  It was lots of fun to build!”

Over the next several minutes, the septet watched the video feeds as whatever was carrying the probe continued on its way, seemingly none the wiser to its extra cargo.  It arced around another vessel – a second light cruiser, Lotharys said – before one of the cameras caught sight of something larger.  “What’s that…?” Lotharys mused.

K’lev stood, walking up to stand behind Phillips at the helm.  “Looks like a docking arm to me… Too big to be mounted on a ship; could be wrong, but it looks like they may have a station here after all?”

A scant minute or so longer of observation answered the question; as the ship carrying the probe slightly shifted course, the camera views panned to capture an orbital station.  It was a small thing, with docking facilities for no more than two small vessels and one small shuttlebay; it was one of these docking arms that the probe had seen before.  “Well, that’s definitely interesting,” K’lev said in an excellent study of understatement.

“I wonder what it’s for?” Lotharys mused aloud.  “It’s not very big…”

“So do I, Ophelia,” K’lev replied, “but one thing at a time.  First things first; Chief, please make sure the rest of the group’s seeing this.”

Bong saw something strange occur on the feed from the probe and isolated it, enhanced it, and replayed it. “Sir. I’ve got something interesting here. I’ll put it onscreen now.”

He out the video segment on the viewscreen. It showed a faint green and purple haze in the distance, slightly out of focus to the right and just beyond the station. As the video played, the silhouette of a Tholian ship could be clearly seen approaching, then entering the area with the hazy energy field. As the vessel crossed the threshold, the ship inexplicably vanished. Bong set the video segment on repeat and zoomed in on the green and purple haze showing the ship disappearing.

“This adds a new dynamic to this whole situation I’d say Cap…I’m no science officer, but to my eyes, that appears to be some sort of vortex, subspace apperature or possibly a wormhole…I’ll prioritize filtering and enhancing segments of the feed that show this particular anomaly and see if I can catch any other ships entering or exiting it.” Bong said.

K’lev nodded.  “Good idea, Chief!  And please flag it for Blythe, Farragut, and Salvation, too; the more eyes on it, the better.”  He then turned to Lotharys at Science.  “What do you make of it, Ophelia?”

She looked at the sequence that Bong had flagged.  “It’s hard to say for sure without measuring particle emissions and radiation and such, but I’m leaning towards agreement; the lensing effect there” she called up a still of the anomaly picture-in-picture on the main viewscreen, marking its edge “could fit any of the three.  Or a black hole, but if it was one of those the system likely wouldn’t exist by now.”

K’lev chuckled.  “Who knows, maybe whatever’s carrying our probe will give us a few fly-bys of it?”

Lotharys laughed, and several others on the bridge grinned.  K’lev then returned to his seat and turned back to Chief Bong.  “See if you can get the Blythe on the line, please; I’d love to hear their thoughts on this.”

A few minutes later K’lev found himself talking with a hovering pygmy beluga wearing a monocled headset.

“You, this could even some type of pseudo transwarp conduit for all we know…oh, and the boss just arrived.” Mee Ih said before hovering out of screen as Tyler walked into the frame.

“Greetings Captain. We’re reviewing the data now. I uh, want to commend you and your crew on your ingenuity. And, uh, I’m leaning towards agreeing with the conclusion that this is indeed a wormhole, subspace tunnel or transwarp conduit. The fact that Sheliak are pushing so hard to reach it leads me to suspect that wherever that leads to is probably very disadvantageous for them. It would also make sense why the Sheliak reached out for help citing a clause in the Treaty that mentions an existential threat…”

“We thought the same thing here; what we’re not sure of is how the Tholians did it; there’s no naturally-occurring wormholes or similar known in this sector, according to my XO,” K’lev replied as he motioned to Lotharys at the Sciences station, who nodded her agreement, “ which means they had to make it somehow.  Do you and your team see any signs of a generator?  Could be something smaller, closer to the anomaly; could also be something larger and further away, like a Tholian version of our old MIDAS Array.  My latinum’s on the first one, though, and we’re looking too, but so far no luck.”

“We should maybe, uh,  get the rest of the ships on this call? That sounds like a job that might suit the Salvation.” Tyler replied.

“Works for me,” K’lev answered.  “She’ll certainly be faster and quieter than we can.”