The lights in the briefing room flickered and powered back up again. They only dimmed for a moment, but it was enough to make the assembled officers stop pretending it was fine.

Captain Day stood at the head of the conference table, her hazel eyes scanning the room. Her senior officers were here. Quiet. Ready to work.

“We’ve been unable to establish communications with the research team,” she said without preamble. “Their last check-in was nearly two weeks ago. Scans have been inconclusive, we don’t even know if there are any people down there alive. There is no way to know what we are walking into, but we have to move.”

She gave a small nod to Lieutenant Kellan, who tapped a few commands in her PADD, bringing up a distorted image of the vessel in orbit. Long, narrow, and segmented, it looked menacing even powered down.

“This is the best image our sensors were able to catch before all telemetry dropped,” Kellan said.

Rax leaned forward, studying the holographic image floating above the conference table. “The discharge patterns on the surface match with that ship’s orbital vector. The strike on the research team came from that ship. Narrow beam, high intensity.”

Valis tilted her head slightly as she clearly questioned Rax’s assessment. “That is suggestive, however, it is not conclusive. Our sensors can not currently penetrate the interference to access the vessel’s internal logs or system data. Correlation is not confirmation.”

“No,” Rax agreed, “but it’s the only ship in orbit, and the energy pattern we detected on the surface before we lost the feed matched Vaadwaur tactical assessments.”

“That’s our working theory until proven otherwise,” Day said as she began to tap a few controls on the table. “But it’s one we are going to investigate firsthand.”

She changed the projection to a fuzzy topographical scan of the planet below them. Bare outlines of the surface, an incomplete terrain readout, marked with pockets of inconsistent heat signatures.

“Surface scans are badly degraded,” Kellan said. “I did detect thermal activity near the main dig site, sporadic and low intensity, but there. It could be equipment still running… or bodies… or both. I really can’t say without better sensor resolution.”

“And the ruins themselves?” Mehta asked.

Captain Day turned to Lieutenant Vama Dar, a recent addition to the crew. An unjoined Trill science officer specializing in archaeology and Xenolinguistics was a welcome addition to the team for this mission.

Dar pulled up a flickering image, an archival record sent by Dr. Virex in one of her last updates to the Federation. The interior of the subterranean chamber sputtered to life. Dark stone, crumbling walls… and something else. Symbols burned into the stone, scorched in curling patterns around a structure that defied geometry.

“These images are from the dig site records before the blackout,” Dar said, pushing aside her short raven black hair out of her eyes. “These glyphs were not present during the initial excavation. There is no known match in our linguistic or xenoarcheological databases.”

“They look burned in?” Dr. Pell grunted.

Dar just nodded. “There’s no indication they were carved. Whatever made them used intense energy. And they weren’t localized to just one wall. It looks like they ring around the entire chamber if the data transmitted is accurate. Knowing Dr. Virex’s reputation, it is.”

“Still no way to get a clearer image?” Mehta asked.

“Not unless we go down there,” Dar said softly.

Day abruptly cut the holo-display. “Which is exactly what we are going to do. We’re sending out two teams.”

She turned to Commander Mehta first. “You’ll lead a shuttle team to the surface, we can’t safely use transporters with all the interference. Renn, you’re our best pilot, other than me, of course,” she said with a friendly grin. “You’ll take the team down. Valis, Dr. Pell, and Lieutenant Dar, you’re with Mehta. Investigate the site, hopefully find the research team, get everyone alive back on board.” Turning back to Mehta, “Take Ensign Ryan with you. He’s proven pretty good with a phaser.”

Mehta gave a nod. “Understood.”

“Lieutenant Loran,” Day continued, facing her Orion Operations Officer. “You’ll lead a second team. Amir, Bjornsen, and Nurse Torel. You’re going aboard that ship. We’ll use short-range pattern buffers. I want a sweep of that vessel. Secure any logs, assess power and systems status, and verify what in the Prophets a Vaadwaur ship is doing here.”

Amir raised an eyebrow. “Transporting over in this mess is safe?”

Valis responded without looking up from the PADD in her hand. “Buffered transports at close range are viable. Interference remains localized to the broader bands. You will be fine.”

“Comforting,” Amir muttered.

“As for the rest of us,” Day said, “we’ll remain on high alert and monitor the teams. Lieutenant Vex will continue her analysis of the interference pattern. I want full redundancy on sensors.”

She turned to the last remaining officer still seated… Jorath.

The Deltan counselor looked pale. Not sick, just… thinned out. He seemed distracted… somewhere else. Day walked over to him and placed her hand on his shoulder, he snapped back to the briefing room from wherever his mind had been.

“Captain, there are… voices,” he said softly. “Not really voices… screams… but quiet? Like pressure in my skull. I’m pretty sure it’s from the planet, but I can’t isolate it. There’s many of them… they’re wrong.”

Day leaned down as the other officers left the briefing room. “I want you in sickbay. If something here is affecting you, I don’t want you alone. You do not have to push yourself. You’ve been through a lot already.”

He stood slowly, nodded once, and left without a word.