"The 'Les Mesdemoiselles Federation' Affair": Chapter TWO, part one

Lt. Ling Yi, the assistant science officer, sat at the computer console on the bridge and tried to look occupied. Unfortunately, there wasn't much for him to look occupied about. Milk runs! It was stupid to tie up a valuable starship just to ferry a bunch of females to -- of all things -- a beauty contest, even if it was intended to promote interspecies harmony.

The reason there wasn't much for him to do was because all traffic in the sector had been rerouted to pass the Lexington well beyond sensor range. The surrounding space-scape to the limits of detectability was, therefore, totally devoid of anything interesting, yet it had to be watched. For what? The Lieutenant sighed and rose to run another sensor sweep.

To his surprise, the long-range DeBroglie sensors were now picking up something at extreme range almost directly astern. Instantly alert, he checked it out on all frequencies. Nothing except on the DeBroglies. How peculiar. Could it be a glitch, or was he maybe seeing things? He checked it three more times. Still there, but only on the motion sensors. He glanced around the bridge, manned only be the night crew, of which he was nominally in charge.

“Hey, Sandy, c'm'ere,” he whispered to the on-duty comm officer, Sandra Leblanc. She looked up, then came over. “Check this our, will you? Full sensor sweep.”

Clearly puzzled, the young woman did so, looking into the scope and pressing the proper switches. After a moment, she looked up again. “Well, there's something at extreme range on the DeBroglies, but nothing anywhere else.”

“Then I'm not seeing things,” muttered Ling thoughtfully. “Could be a glitch, though; these things are the devil to keep accurate.”

“That's always possible. I'll check out all frequencies just in case it isn't, though,” replied the dark haired girl, returning to her place.

“Do that, Sandy,” returned Ling absently as he ran the computer through a self-check. “Because if there's something there...”

“Yes. We'll have to call Wes.”