Vera scrunched her face as she watched the sensor readings. Little tiny dots of subspace disruption continued to open up; 14 so far. They were just at the edge of the sensor range but Winston hadn’t allowed her to boost the sensor resolution to figure out exactly what was going on. She could hear his gruff voice in her head.

“Damn it Vera, I’ve told you over and over again. We can’t increase power output; it’ll light us up like a beacon on sensors. Did you forget the part where we are a classified research outpost? Stop being worried about every sensor ghost and do the job you were brought here to do.”

She really hoped he’d retire soon but at this rate the man was going to die before he stopped down as director. She was keenly aware they were supposed to stay hidden but they were in the middle of the Typhon Expanse; and one of the more volatile parts of it at that. Who in their right mind would come sniffing around out here? The research they were doing was barely even important enough to be classified. It was all propulsion and communication tech; both things experienced difficulties in the Expanse so it was natural to study them here but still. It seemed like he got more irrational with each passing day.

“For God’s sake Vera, will you stop watching the sensors and do some actual work? In the Expanse, it’s filled with sensor echos and ghosts.”

She rolled her eyes as the gruff voice behind her reached her ears. “Believe it or not, I’m actually able to do both. Some of us can do two things at once, you know.” She turned to face the scowling man in his 70’s. His head was covered with thick, white, hair and a short and meticulously trimmed beard sat along his jaw line.

“Do you have those reports on the benamite synthesization tests?”

She sighed as she picked up a PADD on her desk and handed it to him. “Yes. All failed, just like the last one hundred and forty four did. I’m tell you it’s a dead end. We’ll never be able to create artificial benamite nor will be ever be able to re-crystalize it.”

The man let out a grunt. “We’ll see about that. For the next round we need to increase the frequency of…”

She didn’t let him finish before she spoke. “Winston, I am tell you. It. Will. Not. Work.” She slowed the pace her speech; almost as if she was speaking to a child. It was insulting but she didn’t particularly care.

He glared at her. “Unacceptable Vera. I will not tolerate that; the Federation Science Council will hear about your attitude.”

She stood, her chair rolling back and clattering softly against the wall. “You really think I give a shit, Winston? I’m here because it sounded intriguing and I’d be doing work that would benefit the Federation’s citizens. What I’m really doing is sitting on my ass as some old man with his head stuck so far up Starfleet’s ass he’s practically kissing the CnC on the lips makes us all do the same failed experiments over and over again. We aren’t even Starfleet officers! The only reason the Federation hasn’t pulled the plug on this little project is because they have bigger fish to fry with the galaxy falling apart every 3 months.”

At this point Winston was stuck in place, eyes wide. He remained quiet for several seconds, almost to the point that Vera felt like she needed to call the sole medical officer on the station.

“I will not tolerate this level of insubordination; I’m confining you to your quarters and you will depart when the next ship arrives to resupply us in 19 days.”

She let out a barking laugh. “You seem to forget that you don’t have any sort of authority here outside of deciding what the next test or experiment is. We’ve had enough Winston; all of us are tired of this. We’ve indulged you and your attitude so far because we were making some progress but now it’s been stalled for months. I think it’s high time that the Science Council hears about all the failures we’ve had without you sugar coating it in your reports.”

“You will do no such thing; the program directives state that all communications to the Council go through me.”

She ignored him, pulling up the LCARS display at her desk and punching in commands to increase sensor resolution.

“Stop that Vera! You have no right to expose us and place everything in danger.” He made no move to stop her though.

She, yet again, ignored him. The external sensors spooled up fairly quickly; they weren’t all that strong in the first place. The fourteen sensor echos were still present but the sensors could just barely make out ship signatures emerging from the anomalies. “Shut up Winston and look at this .”

He lumbered over to the display. “It’s ghosts and echos, just like I.” He shut his mouth as he watched the readings come in. It was clearly unknown and rather powerful ships; 19 of the so far. They were fanning out in what was clearly a search pattern.

“I need to get the others up here.” She hit a small button on her desk, summoning Andrew and Zorna. Along with her and Winston those two made up the rest of the leadership, if you could even call it that, on the station. They oversaw the three departments and the other 20 or so staff while Winston oversaw them.

Considering the station had two decks as was barely big enough to fit the 27 people it currently held it didn’t take long for the two of them to arrive in the command center.

“What’s up?” Andrew was the first through the door; he was in his 20’s, wicked smart but much like Vera didn’t really pay attention to formalities; he was keenly aware they were all civilians here. Zorna was right on his heels. She was half Vulcan, half Human and as such had a higher tolerance for Winston’s antics but was no nonsense.

“Ships have appeared out of nowhere right at the edge of our sensor range. Looks like they are on the hunt for something.” Vera pulled the readings onto the main screen that hung from the ceiling.

Andrew cocked an eyebrow. “Appeared? As in no warp signature?”

Vera nodded. “Correct. I picked up fourteen subspace anomalies and they emerged from those.”

“That isn’t too surprising.” mused Zorna. “Just look at what has happened over the last 14 months.”

“Point taken.” Murmured Andrew. “Ships appearing out of nowhere is pretty much just a run of the mill Friday.”

“They do appear to be rather powerful and that search pattern has a high likelihood of discovering the station.” Zorna ran the numbers in her head quickly. “I estimate a 77% chance they will come across the station in the next 49 hours. Likely longer considering the volatile nature of this region.”

Andrew let out a soft whistle of appreciation. “And that is why the made you lead of the propulsion division.”

“It is myself and eight others; I hardly call that a division.”

Vera waved her hand around. “We’re getting off track here. I don’t think those ships are friendly; unknown ships rarely are. We need to contact Startfleet for a rescue ship; our uplink with DS-17 is still stable. We can have a ship here in, what, 40 hours? Gives us a few hours to get everything transferred over and to get out of here.”

“That would be advisable. The scans are fairly low resolution that far out but it would be a good assumption that they have strong weaponry considering those power levels and aren’t friendly.” Zorna glanced between the two. “I don’t think I need to remind you all we have at our disposal is a shield grid that barely holds back the regional radiation and a shuttle pod for experiments.”

While the three had been wrapped up in there discussion, Winston had made his way over to his desk. He sat down, tapping away at his console.

Andrew turned, a suspicious look on his face. “What are you doing there, boss?”

Winston didn’t answer; moments later a loud klaxon blared throughout the station. The lights dimmed to near black as every console powered down and the doors sealed with a hiss. As the klaxon faded all they could hear with the soft hiss of the environmental systems and their own breath.

“What the hell did you do?” Anger laced Vera’s voice; face growing red.

“Lockdown protocol initiated. Communications systems severed. All staff shelter in place. Power reduced to minimal levels. Do not use external power; sensor avoidance protocol in effect.”

“I did what I’m supposed to do, nothing that you would care or understand.” She was used to his usual confident, rather booming, voice but no it sounded small and hollow. “We can’t risk detection, it’s too dangerous. If those sensors scans didn’t give us away then contacting Starfleet would and they would make a beeline right to us before Starfleet got here. We wait for the danger to pass. We have enough supplies to last until the next scheduled cargo run; we can evacuate then.”

“Are you crazy? We had an easy out! The lockdown protocol is a last ditch, break glass, about to be blown up thing!” Vera had never seen Andrew this angry. It was an odd look for him but considering what happened, it was understandable.

Winton stood, walking over to the weapon locker. He entered his keycode and pulled out four hand phasers. “I don’t expect you to understand what I did what I did. You are all shortlisted. Loyal only to the next discovery. You know nothing of what duty means.” He passed the hand phasers out to each of them. “If they find us we must guard our research with our lives.” He sat back down at his desk; a vacant expression on his face and he stared forward into the dark.

There three other didn’t have words; it was all too much to process quickly.

Vera looked down at the phaser in her hand; its power level screen glowing a faint yellow in the darkness. She glanced at her coworkers, her expression conveying the message. She glanced again at her phaser before turning and focusing her gaze on Winston. A cold chill ran through her. She would do what she needed to in order to protect herself, her friends and the people on this station.

The night would not claim her.