The Truth Is Out There

It was 19:00 hours, Lieutenant Taline was again on his "quest" to find out the mystery of the shield generator. Lucas was alone, since Lieutenant Hansen had left ten minutes ago for some sort of tabletop tournament in the Rec Room. Taline was running scans every five minutes, analyzing any changes in-between scans.

So far, he found nothing. His will power and persistence slowly diminished as time passed. It grew to 20:00. Lucas changed scans to every ten minutes. Then 21:00. Taline changed scans to every twenty minutes. Finally, it grew to past 22:00 hours. Lucas said out loud to himself, "I'm not pulling another all-nighter."

He chuckled to himself as he stood up and began to put away his materials and such. Taline reached over and took the scan results, which he had loaded to a disc and turned to leave, but unbeknownst, Lucas left his watch on the table next to where the scan results were shown. Oblivious to him, Taline walked on and as he reached the door, he turned to walk down the corridor to his quarters. The same woman who had visited him when he had discovered the shield generator match-up, had come to "visit" him again.

"How'd I guess you would be in here ?" She said sarcastically, but not angrily.

Lucas gulped. He cleared his throat nervously, "Lucky guess." He grew very tense.

"Should I make appointments from now on ?" She chuckled as Taline relaxed with relief.

"How about tomorrow ?"

"20:00 hours?"

"20:00 hours it is. I'll see you in holodeck two ?"

"Fine." She turned and left. Lucas smiled to himself and began to walk to his quarters. He looked at his right wrist for the time.

"Oops! Almost forgot my watch," He turned and walked back to Engineering. He went over to the desk and slipped his watch on. He looked at the machine and realised he had forgotten to stop the periodic scans. As he leaned over the console to terminate the program, a tiny blip caught his eye. Forgetting, the past ten minutes, he anxiously sat down and plopped the disc into the input drive. He had the computer compare the two scans The older one, taken at 22:00, was clear on the port side, with no ships at all. The one that had just popped up, at 22:20, had detected a small ship on the port side. Probably a scout ship, judging from the scanning results.

*Hmm, it would seem we aren't alone...* Lucas thought. He loaded the recent scan onto the disc and had the computer run the scans one after another in pattern.

The first 85 scans (19:00-22:00) were all alike, but when the 86th one appeared (the one taken at 22:20), the blip appeared. Lieutenant Taline ended the periodic scans and ejected his disc. He rushed to his quarters. Lieutenant Hansen had just exited the Rec Room, happy from winning the tournament. Taline blew down the corridor, but Hansen stuck his arm out to stop him. Lucas stopped short. He was breathing hard.

"What's the rush Lucas ?" Hansen said jovially.

"I've {gasp} found something-gasp-else." Lucas struggled to choke out. Hansen's smile faded. Taline continued to rush to his quarters, with Hansen not far behind. As they entered his quarters, Hansen grew very serious. Lucas entered the disc into his personal computer. He compared the blip with the shield generator results that he had discovered earlier. Hansen leaned over Taline's shoulder and saw what he was doing.

"You don't think that...." Hansen's voice faded as the computer compared the generator and the recent ship scan. Hansen moved his hand to tap his combadge.

*Talk about Deja vu.* He thought as he tapped the combadge. [Hansen to Bridge.]

[Go ahead Lieutenant.] The voice of Captain Devore answered wearily.

"I think Lieutenant Taline's found something again."

[You boys sure got a bad habit of late-night calls.] The Captain said jokingly. He grew serious, [Well...what is it ?]

The computer finished its analysis. No match. "I'll try again." Taline said, nervously.

"One moment Captain, we're running a comparison check."

[All right...]

The computer finished. Again, no match.

"Sorry, Captain, false alarm."

[Very well. Let me know if you find something. Devore out.] The Captain said impatiently. As the Captain cut the link, Hansen looked down at Taline.

"I know you've found something. Don't be discouraged, keep trying. I'm counting on you to figure this one out." Hansen turned and left Taline's quarters.

He smiled as he thought to himself *I'll figure this one out, I know it.* Lieutenant Taline went to bed.