Sonya shook her head. Amazing the difference only a few hours can make.

Rather than the quiet annoyance of sharing beta shift with Tev, the da Vinci’s bridge was now full of activity and energy. Alpha crew, alerted to the situation, had taken over early. Domenica Corsi stood guard over security, pulling down files on every known race from this corner of the Alpha Quadrant, searching for threats and discussing quietly with her deputy chief Vance Hawkins, Rennan Konya, and the tactical officer, Anthony Shabalala. Songmin Wong helmed the ship, and Susan Haznedl sat next to him at ops. They were still engaged in their mental game of tri-D chess, whispering moves back and forth when they assumed Captain Gold wasn’t listening.

At least they were accomplishing something.

Sonya and her team had spent several hours trying to pull additional information out of the signal, all to no avail. The best they’d managed was to clean up the audio, and being able to drop the transient intermodulation distortion to zero was no consolation.

Her one bright spot should have come with seeing Tev just as frustrated, but he never wavered. Tellarites supposedly wore their emotions on their sleeves, but either she simply couldn’t register his agitation or he hid it well. He was still certain that he would figure it out before they arrived (and likely before anyone else). It wore very thin on Sonya.

Fortunately, she finally had something new to report. “I’m starting to measure appreciable gravimetric waves.” She quickly ran through several algorithmic models to verify what she already knew. “They are centered on the signal’s origin.”

Gold nodded, glanced at Tev. “Astronomical anomalies.”

Or something. Sonya glanced again at a side monitor and was surprised at her findings. She’d allowed the computer to continue running models of what they might find, but the primary screen was displaying an increase in gravimetric waves that dwarfed her models; her parameters had simply been too small. They were increasing now at an exponential rate!

“Captain, we may have—”

She was interrupted by a severe jolt as the da Vinci suddenly dropped out of warp, unscheduled. Crew members grabbed for armrests, for the edge of panels, as the inertial dampers failed. Sonya caught herself against the command pit railing. She saw Anthony Shabalala sit back with a gash bleeding over his right eye.

Gold had stuck to the captain’s chair as if strapped in. Now he was up, moving fast, standing over his conn officer. “Wong, what just happened?”

The conn officer was already bent over his panel, fingers flying over the interface. “No idea. One moment we’re fine, and the next we’re at impulse.”

Sonya bounced back to her station. “We hit a gravity well. Those gravimetric waves were merely on the leading edge of it.” She chewed her lower lip, trying to make sense of the data streaming across her viewer. The captain was waiting on her. “Maybe a rogue planet, or a cosmic superstring…” Something with enough gravity to drag them out of warp.

“Damage report?” Gold asked, stabbing a direct look back to Shabalala as the ship trembled again.

The tactical officer shook his head. “Nothing major, Captain. Reports of minor injuries so far.”

“Distance to signal origin?”

Haznedl checked sensors. “Estimated one hundred fifty million kilometers, approaching at one-quarter impulse.”

“Captain.” Nancy Conlon interrupted from engineering. “Warp drive has been knocked offline. I’m reading severe gravimetric wave buildup. It’s interfering with the containment field.”

“Looks like we’ve found your astronomical anomaly, Tev.” When no response was forthcoming, Sonya looked over to find Tev still as a statue, his head barely moving as he glanced between the viewscreen and his own tricorder. She wondered why he’d use a tricorder instead of simply tapping into the da Vinci’s sensors through another work station.

“Lieutenant Conlon.” Tev lowered his tricorder, typed some input. “We appear to be approaching some type of anomaly that is emanating massive gravimetric waves. Their concentration is beyond the scope of what we originally believed as we entered the region.”

He didn’t look in her direction, but Sonya still felt the sting of a reprimand. Who said Tellarites can’t be subtle? She redoubled her efforts and began running additional simulations, expanding her parameters.

“When will you have warp drive back online?” Gold asked Conlon.

“I’m not sure, Captain. A warp containment field can act pretty crazy around gravimetric waves of sufficient force. I’ll give you an update in an hour, but the best course of action would be to get us away from the problem.”

“That is not a possibility yet, Conlon. I’ll let you know as soon as I can comply with that request.” A slight tone of humor crept into the captain’s voice.

“I’m sure you will, sir. Engineering out.”

Sonya clenched her fists as the simulation she ran failed to match what they were experiencing. Perhaps she was simply looking at it wrong. She’d increased her parameters significantly but that didn’t have the effect she was looking for either.

Start at the basics. She began poring over the readings coming in. The gravimetric waves were increasing. Right. Was anything else increasing? Background radiation? Any neutrino spikes? What wasn’t she seeing?

Suddenly she realized why she was clenching her fists. She took a deep breath and called out, “Tev, what have you got?”

She might as well have been talking to the wall. He continued to input data into his tricorder.

“Tev!” she called in as close to a shout as she’d had to use with any subordinate in years. Gold glanced sharply in her direction, and Sonya’s ears burned.

Tev finally looked over. “Yes, Commander?” he asked, a placid look on his gruff face.

She gritted her teeth. Did he truly not hear her before, or was he just now willing to listen? She unclenched her fists slowly. She would make this work.

“What have you got?” She began fresh, trying to immerse herself fully into the problem, leaving behind, for now, any problems with Tev. “I’ve been running simulations and they simply aren’t generating what we’re seeing. We should expect to see energy level increases across the board with this much gravimetric force washing through.”

“Commander, there is no increase elsewhere.” He paused for a moment, as though waiting for an answer. Then he shrugged. “There is a significant decrease, however.”

“What?” she asked, startled that she had not delved into that possibility.

Tev stepped over to her station and passed his tricorder to her. She noticed immediately that it was not standard issue, but had been altered subtly; it operated as a remote station, tapped directly into the full power of the da Vinci’s sensors. Impressive work, actually.

“The ambient energy level in the entire region is draining off. There’s also a spectral distortion that we’ve just picked up, centered on the signal’s point of origin.”

Sonya finally understood. Of course her simulations were failing. Regardless of how many times she’d increased the parameters, they’d not be increased enough. Not by a long shot.

“Captain,” she said, wondering why Tev had not spoken up as he’d obviously figured it out before she had. She made a quick decision; it may not matter to Tev in the slightest, but it mattered to her. “Sir, Tev’s figured out what we’re up against.”

“Of course,” Tev said, as though answering her.

She fought against grinding her teeth. She’d given it to him and he’d pushed it in her face. Sonya tried to relax. Just his way. Captain’s waiting.

“Looks like the signal is originating from a black hole.”