=/\= Bridge =/\= "Raise shields," said Rangi, and Andy complied. The steady flashing lights of yellow alert bathed the bridge in a soft amber glow, giving it, somewhat ironically, a soothing atmosphere. A sharp contrast to the tension that filled the large room. Andy reported that the shields were raised, and operating at 98 % efficiency. Engineering had been earning their pay over the past few days, after the whalloping they'd had with the "romulan" ship. Andy pondered the motive that the Kzenti might have in starting a war between the Alpha Quadrant's dominant factions. Conquest? Perhaps. But everything until now had indicated that the Kzenti had been strict isolationists. Still, their borglike body armor hardly spoke to a defensive nature, which isolationists tended to be. Welch's scans of the Kzenti guards while he attended the summit were most informative ... and rather surprising. Andy wondered idly if the Kzenti governement had recently been overthrown. "Don't change the frequency," said Rangi, breaking his train of thought. Odd. Perhaps he misheard the command ... not modulating the shields would be a pretty serious breach of security protocols. "Ma'am?" "Not yet," she stressed. "We'll take a chance lieutenant." Andy raised his eyebrows curiously, and she continued to explain. "Lets ...'suppose' ... that the Away Team are still undetected. If thats the case, Lt Kirkland will know the shields frequency, obviously. Its a slim chance I agree..but we'll gamble on them being able to transport out." Andy did his best to keep from looking dubious, but somehow felt he failed at the task. It was one thing to keep shields down in the hopes that someone would beam over ... but if one takes the precaution of raising the shields, Andy thought it kind of shot themselves in the foot to keep the shield frequency static. But she was the commander. Perhaps she had a trick up her sleeve. As Andy disabled the shield frequency modulator, Rangi instructed Dexter to continue scanning the cloaked warbird. If someone on that ship sneezed, causing it to drift a bit to starboard, she wanted to know about it. "They wont be sure whether or not our shields are raised," continued Rangi, explaing her motive, "but we'll do what we can to help them. Keep searching for a way to penetrate the cloak. If we can modulate it properly we can force a transport signal through and get them out anyway." "Aye, Ma'am," he replied, frowning, and got to work on the puzzle. Penetrating a romulan cloak. Hrmm. Pity Kirkland wasn't here, thought Andy ... they worked well together, and their ideas could run with smooth synergy back and forth between them if they were in the groove together. The time they spent together working on a field disruptor was productive. A pity the away teams couldn't have waited long enough to let them created a portable prototype. Rangi was called away from the bridge for a while -- buisiness in Sick Bay, and gave Andy the bridge. It didn't really change his duties ... he transferred a science screen layout to the command console and continued working. As long as neither Away Team could be contacted, there wasn't much more to do than hurry up and wait. It was about a half hour later, when the commander returned to the bridge, looking pensive. She asked if there had been any word from either team, and with a grim shake of his head, Andy answered wordlessly. He stood, and returned to his regular station, letting her take the command chair back. She sat for a few moments, assaying the situation, absently running her fingertips over the three pips affixed to her collar. Finally, she spoke. "Lieutenant Foster....modulate the shield frequency." "Aye, Ma'am," he said, almost under his breath, and carried out the order. Andy didn't envy her position ... personally or professionally. Two away teams out of contact, one potentially blown to smithereens just over the Kzenti asteroid, and the other, out of contact on a hostile ship. Moreover, with the XO leading the latter team, Andy could imagine that Rangi's nerves might be beginning to fray, since it was fairly common knowledge that she had a relationship with Commander Guzman, and she had just effectively cut him and the rest of his team off. Not long thereafter, she got up, returned the bridge to his command, and withdrew into the ready room. Fair enough, thought Andy. A bit of time to oneself is often helpful, especially after prolonged stress. Andy looked out the main viewscreen, periodically seeing the gentle ripple of the transluscent outline of the cloaked romulan ship, and the asteroid field below and to the left. Things were quiet, and had remained so for quite a while. As Andy watched the large rocks in the asteroid belt gently tumble and spin, a thought occured to him. What if they were to slightly reposition the Chimera in relation to the asteroid field? Could they get a different angle of the research station? He pulled up a subwindow on the science screen he was working on, and reloaded the navigation course he'd prepared for the shuttle, and compared it to a time-elapse scan of the same region, tracking the different vectors and rotations of the asteroids. Sure enough, over the course of the past day, the asteroid had rotated three times. That was a pretty fair spin. But what's more important, he thought, was that he should be able to to see a different side of the rock -- around the same location where they lost contact with the shuttle, and detected the debris fields. He was still pondering the details when Rangi emerged from the ready room. "Lieutenant," she said, "prepare to cloak the ship." Andy blinked in confusion for a moment. "Ma'am?" "I believe the Kzenti datastream is somehow being used to affect the crew...possibly its happened on the Warbird, too," she explained. "I want you to cloak Chimera. "Do everything to locate Commander Guzmans away team," continued Rangi. "If theres the slightest chance of finding them we'll drop the cloak, grab them, and disappear." Andy swallowed hard, mentally shelving his thoughts of scanning for the other team, and engaged the ship's cloak. He saw the fine blue haze over the main viewscreen, indicating scans were being filtered, scrambled, and reassembled through the cloak. He turned back to Rangi. "The ship is cloaked, Ma'am." For what good it'll do us, he added silently. She nodded and withdrew back into the ready room. ------------- Lt. Andersen Foster Operations Officer USS Chimera