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Thelin turned in his chair to face Carol. “Report, Doctor?”

“Atmospheric scans commencing, Captain,” she replied. The results slowly began to populate her screen, and with each new reading her smile grew more broad and her eyes more bright, until her entire face threatened to burst with enthusiasm. “Initial results show the saturation vapor pressure point is falling…The matrix is breaking down molecular oxygen and re-bonding into ozone…And the atmospheric ionization is being neutralized. Everything seems to be happening precisely according to the simulations. It’s just…perfect!”

“Excellent news, Carol,” Thelin said, and turned back to face the front of the bridge. “Prepare for second deployment,” he announced to the crew.

“Torpedo room is standing by, sir,” Croy said.

Carol softly mumbled a few words that Thelin, even with his sensitive hearing, was barely able to make out. “Hmmm…This is strange.”

The captain turned his chair again. “What is it, Doctor?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry…” she said, apparently not realizing she had spoken aloud. “It’s just that I’m detecting some ion readings here…they don’t make any sense.”

“What sort of readings?” Thelin asked. “Are some parts of the atmosphere not being de-ionized?”

“No, no,” she replied. “It’s up here, in the thermosphere.”

“I don’t understand,” the Andorian said, his face masked by confusion. “Up here the thermosphere is always ionized.”

“But it’s concentrated,” Carol said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it looks like a plasma trail.”

“From a ship?” Thelin wondered. “That isn’t possible. All transports have been grounded for the duration of this mission. The starships are all in spacedock.”

“Well then, what else could it be?”

“That’s what I’m telling you, Carol…a ship is the only thing it could be. But if a ship were out there, we’d have visual confirmation…unless they had some sort of cloak-” He stopped short. His face suddenly grew even paler than usual.

The members of the bridge crew all stared at him. “Captain?” Croy asked with concern.

“Lieutenant,” Thelin said slowly and deliberately. “Display the coordinates of Carol’s ion readings on the viewer, wide angle.”

“Aye, sir,” Croy said, and the image on the screen changed to a wide view of the starfield, with the shining blue arc of the Earth along the bottom perimeter. Not far off in the distance, the massive structure of the orbiting Starfleet spacedock could be seen, where the few starships left in Earth orbit were safely housed while the deployment of the Genesis matrix was under way.

Thelin rose from his seat and stepped toward the viewscreen, stopping between the two separate consoles for ops and the conn. Studying the display, he pointed to a specific region on the right side. “Magnify that region.”

The area of small, tightly crowded star patterns zoomed in to fill the screen, and in its midst, two areas clearly betrayed visible distortion effects-the starfield gently rippling and pulsing in contrast with the static surroundings. As they watched, a third area slowly moved into the frame alongside the others. Aboard the Copernicus, the bridge was deathly silent save for the sound of a few muffled gasps.

“Tactical officer,” Thelin grimly addressed one of the young women stationed behind him, next to Carol. “Any indication that we’ve been scanned?”

“No sir,” she replied nervously.

“All stations go to yellow alert,” he commanded. “Ensign Lee, open a secured channel to Spacedock Command.”

The communications officer quickly relayed the observations made by Thelin and his crew, and the command center of the spacedock sprang into action. Immediate communiques were dispatched to Starfleet Command as well as the Earth defense forces, and whatever active crews were present on the docked starships were mobilized. “Starship Excelsior, orders confirmed to intercept and investigate orbiting phenomena reported by Copernicus. Patching through Excelsior communications onto this channel.”

An audible blip, and the