Outpost 4871, near the Black Cluster, has recently gone comm silent. The outpost is a minor one, but is still home to over five hundred people. Curious to find out what’s wrong, Starfleet has tasked Commodore Cromwell with his first mission: Travel to Outpost 4871 to find out what’s going on and render aid if needed. However, what seemed to be a milk-run mission at first turns out to be something much greater and far more dangerous.