[b]
RCNS [i]Anna Karenina[/i]
Valiant class cruiser
Exploratory patrol[/b]

Specialist 1st class Brandon Sommerson stifled a yawn. The early morning watch was always unspeakably boring. Call it superstition or confirmation bias, but during the hours before shipboard ‘dawn’, nothing remotely interesting ever happened. As a sensor technician, Sommerson was usually very busy analysing anomalous readings or recalibrating some fussy sensor array. But on these shifts, there never were anomalous readings, and every array on the ship seemed to behave itself. Another yawn was building, and this time Sommerson let it out. He wasn’t really in danger of falling asleep; the bridge was kept at a slightly chilly temperature to prevent anyone from dozing off.

Then there was a ping. Sommerson sat up straighter and frowned. The ship had detected...something. The computers weren’t able to figure it out, so they sent the reading along to his station for analysis. Sommerson twiddled with the reading a bit, applied some filters, sent it back to the computers, then twiddled some more.  Barely a minute later, and Sommerson thought he had something useful.
“Ma’am,” he called out to the duty officer behind him on the command platform, “we’re picking up something unusual from deeper in-system.”
The duty officer, a young junior grade lieutenant, came over and stood behind Sommerson’s station, trying to exude cool confidence like her seniors.. “What is it specialist?”
“Hard to be certain ma’am. The computers can’t figure it out, but I’m reasonably sure we just saw a power source come online. Not a power source of any kind we’re familiar with, but a spike of energy like that points to activation, then the way it cuts off all of a sudden indicates some sort of stealth system kicked in to mask the emissions.”
The young lieutenant thought hard. She didn’t want to appear too insecure and call her superiors prematurely; they certainly wouldn’t appreciate the lost sleep. But waiting too long could be disastrous, for the ship, her career, or both. But, as they said at Volkovyera Academy, ‘listen to the noncoms’.
“I suppose we’d better notify the Captain,” she phrased it half as a question, looking at Sommerson. He nodded imperceptibly. She placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “Excellent work by the way specialist.“

Captain Alana Vissla was on the bridge five minutes after the call came through to her quarters. An unusually short Yanissan, she was also unusually short tempered. It had caused her no shortage of trouble over the years, but Vissla usually managed to work her way around those problems. It helped that she had just a touch of psionics, not enough to have been snapped up by Toolbox, but just enough to help her out in tense interpersonal situations.

The Captain was the first of the senior staff to arrive, which was understandable since her quarters were the closest to the bridge. Her XO, on duty in the CIC far to the rear of the ship, would be some time yet arriving. The sensor anomaly was on display on the main holotank, Vissla gave it a quick glance, though she trusted her crew’s analysis enough not to second-guess them.
“So, analysis suggests a reactor power up of some kind, followed by active stealth systems engaging?” She queried.
“Yes ma’am,” the junior lieutenant duty officer said.
“Nothing on comms, nothing from the psintegrat bay?”
“No ma’am. The system appears to be uninhabited.”
“Well, whatever a reactor’s doing in an uninhabited system, it’s certainly worth a look. Helm, set course for-”
“Sir! Picking up a short burst transmission from the same location,” the comms officer announced.
Vissla arched an eyebrow. “Well then, consider me thoroughly interested. Helm, set a course. All stations, general quarters.”


(tl;dr a commonwealth cruiser picked up on the Starchild's facility going live and caught a bit of her transmission to the Eternal Union [@darkwolf687])