Treylana lay there in the milky substance staring at the ceiling as if almost in a trance. The faint lights glistened off the interior cave walls. She could hear voices, but not from anyone within the cave. They were voices coming from within her. Voices from the symbiont and it’s past hosts. Narissa, Vilaar, Ejom, Lillu…all of them. Each one attempting to share their experiences simultaneously. She remembered trying to decipher what each one was saying, but it was too much for her to take in all at once.

The memory of the Caves of Mak’ala and her joining were so vivid in her mind it was as if it was yesterday. However, that memory was cut short at the sound of the computer waking the Trill from her deep slumber.

“Incoming priority one message from Starfleet Command.”

Rubbing her eyes, Treylana glanced over at her bedside table. Upon it sat a replica of an antique Earth timepiece, mechanical in nature, the hands pointing to a quarter past two. What could Command want at this ungodly hour? She thought to herself.

She sat up and slipped out from under the covers and sat on the edge of the bed for a minute before walking over to her closet and grabbing a silk nightgown from a hangar to wear. She didn’t care who was on the other end of that call, she was not going to give them the satisfaction of forcing her to put on a uniform.

Once she felt she was presentable enough, she instructed the computer to activate the terminal atop her desk as she sat down in the chair behind it.

The screen illuminated and an elderly man in a red command uniform donning a bar with four pips indicating the rank of Admiral appeared on the screen.

“Good morning Captain. I’m sorry to have woken you.” The man said apologetically, noticing the bedroom attire.

“It’s okay Admiral. What can I do for you?”
“There is a planet, not far from your location that is home to some wreckage, a ship, that we need you to investigate. This wreckage could contain the missing piece to a puzzle Starfleet has been trying to solve for a very long time.”
“Are you certain?” she asked with a quizzical look on her face.

“Quite certain. We’ve known about the existence of this ship for some time.” he paused for a moment, “Or at least we think it’s a ship. We haven’t been able to send a team down to investigate. The inhabitants of the planet are not warp capable.”

“And therefore, off-limits due to the prime directive.” Treylana replied, almost cutting off the Admiral.

“Formerly off-limits. We have reason to believe the recent Omega outbreak across the galaxy has something to do with the Tkon Empire.”

“The Tkon? I remember studying them at the Academy. It was rumored that they could move stars. You don’t suppose…”

“I’m not suggesting anything. We’ve had archeologists studying the Tkon for decades. The only lead we have is that they lived beyond the galactic barrier in a system we’re calling Horizon. To this day no one has been able to traverse past that galactic barrier and this wreckage may yield the answers as to why. I’m sending you coordinates. I want you to take Atlantia and investigate that wreckage before anyone else can get their hands on it. The Omega Directive is still in place for the duration of this mission. Use whatever means you must to find out more. However, I urge you to keep contamination levels to a minimum if possible.”

Treylana took the Admiral’s words under careful consideration before responding. She knew the risk of violating the Prime Directive would be high. The only thing that eased her mind with everything that had been told to her was that this mission fell under the jurisdiction of the Omega Directive and therefore it superseded any other directive. “Understood.” She replied with mild skepticism.

“Don’t worry Captain, you aren’t the only officer I’ve had to give orders to that put them in a moral dilemma. And you won’t be the last. If we didn’t trust you to make the decisions you’ll undoubtedly make over the next few days, we wouldn’t have given you a command. I will look forward to reading your report when this is all over.”

Treylana nodded to the console reassuring the Admiral before the console went black and the screen was replaced with the Starfleet insignia. She thought she had pushed her crew to the limit in trusting her and now she was going to have to tell them they were being ordered to go somewhere and potentially violate the one principle held dear to all Starfleet officers. Something however that was going to wait until morning.

She walked back over to her bed, once again sat on the edge, and reached for her combadge, tapping it as she picked it up. “Captain to the bridge.”

“Go ahead Captain.”

“In the last communication from Starfleet Command, there are some coordinates for a nearby planet. Set course for those coordinates and notify the senior staff that I’d like to have a meeting first thing. Hess out.”

With that, she set the combadge back on the end table and slipped back under the covers. Hopefully she could get at least a few more hours of sleep before having to get up for the day.

Treylana wasn’t the only one up at such an irregular hour. Paul had been laying in his bed for the past hour staring at the ceiling in hopes that he would fall back to sleep. He had a lot on his mind recently after hearing in a communiqué from Starfleet that his parents had been involved in an accident with an avalanche while skiing in the Swiss Alps. He wanted to be home to make sure they were alright and look after them.

As he lay there, he remembered a time when he was a little boy and fell off a play structure at school and shattered several ribs and nearly snapped his spinal cord. Doctors were able to repair his physical injuries, but the trauma from the fall and ridicule from several bullies took months to heal. He remembered however, that his mother was there every step of the way during his recovery and now he wanted to do the same, but his present assignment in the Delta Quadrant made that impossible.

Realizing that he was not going to get back to sleep with his mind as active as it was, he decided to get out of bed, get dressed into his workout clothes, grab a towel and head to the ship’s gymnasium.

The gym was empty when Paul arrived, as was to be expected at that hour. Everyone else that would have been up at that time was likely already on shift, still sleeping before the start of the morning rotation, or getting ready to head to bed for the afternoon rotation. He walked over to the free weight section, draped his towel over the workout bench and grabbed some adjustable dumbbells, locking in his desired weight.

He proceeded with his workout routine, starting with a dumbbell bench press, moving on to dumbbell rows and squats between sets amongst various other activities. All the while trying to keep his mind clear and focus on the ship’s present mission, which seemed to be up in the air after they had concluded with the Molgeth. It was a shame that they had been at war with the Rorneans for so long only for Rorneans to be wiped out from their own doing. He still didn’t know what caused the explosion. The captain was not at liberty to discuss it. She obviously had her reasons, but it was not like her to keep her crew in the dark. Especially those she had served with for so long like him, Allan and William.

With his strength training now completed and that previous mission now on his mind, Paul moved over to the cardio section and climbed up onto one of the treadmills. Starting up the machine he began to think about work related tasks that needed to be accomplished. The plasma manifolds needed to be cleaned, the mess hall had a replicator that was malfunctioning and he remembered that they were having continuous alignment issues with one of the warp coils ever since the detonation of the gravimetric torpedoes. If they couldn’t permanently stabilize the alignment soon, they were going to have to put in for some time at a starbase and have the coil replaced.

Paul was now sweating up a storm. His cardio workout now complete, he grabbed his towel, wiped down the treadmill and headed out of the gym back to his quarters so that he could jump in the sonic shower and get dressed for the day.

Wanting to get his day organized, he spun the computer terminal around on his desk while trying to throw on his tunic. He noticed an incoming notification from the bridge. Senior staff meeting at zero-eight-hundred hours. Paul surmised that a stop at main engineering would be wise to see if there was anything last minute that needed to be reported to the captain and quickly replicated some toast with peanut butter, a banana, and a large mug of coffee with cream and sugar for breakfast.

Roughly thirty minutes later, Paul found himself walking through the doors to engineering. He wasn’t aware of anyone on the other side of the door, nor thedid unsuspecting crewman. As he went to take a swig from his coffee he inadvertently walked into the crewman that was trying to exit at the same time. Hot coffee went flying from the mug completely soaking the two. The crewman attempted to apologize profusely, but Paul reassured her that he was just as much at fault for the accident and told her not to worry about it.

The duty shift Lieutenant noticed Paul’s arrival “Paul! What an unexpected surprise. Are you okay?” he said, eyeing Paul’s uniform.

“I’m fine Walter. A slight mishap. I’ll sort it out momentarily. I was unable to sleep this morning, so I thought I would pop by and check on things before I report to the captain at zero-eight-hundred. Anything new I need to be aware of?” Paul asked in reply.

“Nothing we haven’t been able to handle. A couple of minor power fluctuations, a broken sonic shower, and a level three diagnostic of the lateral sensors.”

“Any issues with the warp coil we’ve been having problems with?”

“The last check we did at zero-two-hundred hours showed an alignment deviation of point-two degrees, but still within tolerance.”

Paul wasn’t keen on hearing that. They had just realigned the coil two days ago. They couldn’t continue to keep making band-aid alignment fixes. He was going to have to come up with an alternative to keep the coil aligned, otherwise they could end up losing warp capability before being able to make it to the nearest repair facility.

“Alright.” Paul replied, “I’m going to take care of this uniform and draft up a report for the morning briefing. If you need me for anything urgent, I’ll be in my office.”

“Aye sir.” said Walter as he left to continue with his duties.

Paul disappeared into his office around the corner from the warp core and set his now less than half filled mug on the desk and sighed. He’d hoped the coffee incident was not going to be an indicator for how the remainder of the day was going to be.

Treylana strolled out of the turbolift onto the bridge at precisely a quarter to eight. The lights were dim as they usually were from the night shift. The team liked to simulate a nighttime atmosphere in order to have any sense of time on the ship. Treylana checked in with the watch commander for her daily morning briefing and let him know the senior staff would be meeting shortly and it would be a little bit before the shift was relieved.

Satisfied that there was nothing urgent to deal with, she made her way to the briefing room. As the doors opened, she noticed Phil already present mindlessly gazing into a PADD. “Morning.” she said, almost startling him.

“Oh! Good morning Captain.” he replied instantly, turning his attention to her instead of the device.

Not wanting to pry in case it was personal, but curious what had her first officer’s attention so focused, she poked him inquisitively while heading to the replicator for her morning coffee. “Anything important?”

“Oh this?” Phil replied, holding up the PADD, “Not at all. I was going over the Federation News that came in with last night’s communiqué from Starfleet. The Pike City Pioneers went into four extra innings last night beating the Cestus Comets six to five.”

“I’m not a fan of baseball unfortunately.”

“That’s okay, I don’t largely follow it either. I just happen to have a cousin that plays for the team, but I’m guessing baseball is not the reason for you calling this briefing this morning judging from that priority one call you received last night.”

“In due time Phil.” she replied as other members of the senior staff began making their way into the briefing room.

Paul was the last one to enter, a few minutes later than the rest and past when the briefing was scheduled to start. He embarrassingly apologized to everyone as he took his seat. “I’m sorry Captain. We’re still experiencing alignment issues with one of the warp coils. I was trying an alternate solution and lost track of time.”

Treylana nodded and then commenced the briefing, “Before we get to the topic at hand, are there any important matters to discuss from each of your departments?”

Not seeing anyone taking the immediate initiative, William decided to chime in, “Well, first off, I with yours and the Commander’s permission, I would like to rotate up the shifts in Security for a bit and get some of the junior staff some exposure to some busier shifts. We have a few crewmen starting to slip through the cracks and I think it would benefit them. Other than that, I’d like to work with Commander Tamura to install and configure a new tactical program I’m working on. It will however require taking the weapons systems offline for a few hours.”

Treylana looked at Phil briefly, then back over to William, “Make sure you run your schedule changes past the Commander, but I don’t see any problems with that. As for your tactical upgrades, that’ll have to wait until our next mission is complete. Which I’ll get to momentarily. Paul, you mentioned the warp coil alignment?”

“Yes Captain. As I’ve reported previously, our encounter at Rornea and the use of gravimetric torpedoes caused an alignment issue that we’re having to repeatedly address. Workarounds are keeping it stable for now, but I highly recommend we put in for some time at a repair facility and have an overhaul done on the entire warp coil assembly.”

“How long before your fixes cease to work on correcting the issue?” Treylana inquired.

“At the present rate of misalignment, I can maybe give you two weeks before we lose the ability to go to warp entirely, and even then, I’d advise no more than warp six to avoid putting a strain on them.”

“Very well. Are there any other matters that need addressing?”

Treylana looked around the room. The attentive gazes upon her combined with the silence acknowledged that she could continue with the topic that mattered.

“What does anyone know about the Tkon?” she posed to the entire room.

“Only what was taught in history lessons at the academy and mission logs from the Enterprise-D thirty-five years ago. It was an advanced empire that existed some six-hundred-thousand years ago, rumored to be able to move stars.” Sumiko said, volunteering what information she remembered from her academy days.

“More or less.” Treylana responded.

“Last night I received a call from Starfleet Command. They want us to investigate some wreckage on a planet that might be linked to the Tkon. I can’t go into the reasons behind this investigation, but what I can tell you is that any information or technology we encounter, no matter how insignificant it may seem, will be treated with the utmost importance. The only caveat to this whole endeavor is that Command informs me that the wreckage lies on a planet that is inhabited by a pre-warp civilization.”

“Pre-warp?” Kalela interrupted, “What about the Prime Directive?”

“The Prime Directive continues to be lifted for the duration of this mission. That is why we are being ordered to check this planet out. However, Starfleet will not sanction any unjustified breaking of the directive, but understands the necessity of having to do so and each violation will be addressed individually. We’ll make sure to survey the planet ahead of time. Any away team members will see Dr. Brant for any surgical alterations if necessary. We’ll keep the away teams small that way there’s less of a risk of contamination. We can even supply the away team with holo-projectors to conceal their activities. We’ll beam in, find what we’re looking for and beam it all out using the cargo transporters if need be. Any questions?”

She tried to explain in detail every aspect of the mission to avoid any confusion. Inevitably there were going to be questions. The room remained silent for a moment. Treylana thought she was in the clear and then Xenie spoke up, “In the event we’re discovered or caught by the local population, what measures should we take to prevent us from irreparably contaminating their culture?”

“We’ll have to play it by ear based on the severity. A single humanoid, we might consider wiping their memory if our technology is compatible. A larger population may require more sophisticated measures. At the end of the day it’ll be my call to make and my responsibility for any repercussions of those actions.”

Satisfied with the captain’s remarks, the room remained silent.

“Alright. Dismissed. Phil, if I might have a word.”

Phil looked at her with slight concern. He had a feeling she was going to say something he was not going to like and he was right.

“Under normal circumstances, I would have you lead the away team. However, due to the nature of this mission, I want an away team of three with my most hands-on technical guys on the team. I’m going to put Paul and Sumiko on this one with a member of William’s team for security. As my most senior staff member, I want you to be available as a mentor for the teams from the altered shift rotations. I hope you understand.”

He knew she only had the best interests of the mission in mind, but that didn’t make him feel any less important. “Of course, Captain. As the Vulcans would say ‘It’s only logical.’” he replied with a slight chuckle.

“Alright, I’ll join you on the bridge shortly. Oh, and if you’re planning on writing to your cousin, tell him congratulations on their win.”

“Tekris, wake up! Your father is waiting for you in the field!” a distant voice yelled.

Rubbing his eyes and giving a long stretch, Tekris, a young boy in his early teenage years kicked off his covers and slowly got up, perching himself on the edge of his bed. He looked out the eastward facing window of his bedroom. The sun was just cresting over the horizon. He was not a fan of waking up so early, but he made a promise to his father that he would help out on the farm.

“Another shout came from beyond the bedroom, “Tekris are you up?”

“I’m awake mother,” he replied.

Not wanting to hear his mother yell for him again, he peered around his room and eyed a small pile of clothes on the floor at the end of his bed. He reached over and grabbed a pair of oil-stained coveralls that were sitting on the top. His mother had not had the chance to do the laundry. He gave them a sniff. They only hinted at the smell of livestock. Nothing that was unbearable, and given that he was going to be working in the field anyway, he threw them on. He then ran his hand through his greasy black hair, attempting to straighten it as best he could from the mess his pillow made before heading downstairs to the kitchen.

When he reached the kitchen, a steaming plate of fresh cooked eggs from the local fowl and some pan fried vegetables that resembled potatoes that had been cubed sat atop the table in the spot where he usually liked to eat his meals. He stared at it for a minute. He wasn’t particularly hungry that morning.

“Hurry up and eat. You don’t want to keep your father waiting.” said his mother, sensing his presence with her motherly intuition.

“I’m not really that hungry.”

“Nonsense. You’re going to be out there all day. You need to eat something.” his mother replied as she placed a couple slices of toast onto his plate to go with the rest of his meal.

Tekris sat down in his seat and ate his food while enjoying some casual conversation with his mother ranging from the weather to his studies. The topics were irrelevant. He simply knew that his mother enjoyed the company. When he finished, he got up, gave his mother a kiss on the cheek and scurried out the door so he wouldn’t be later than he already was.

Some twenty minutes later he found himself standing at the entrance to the family barn. He’d proceeded there on his way to the field when he began hearing the clanking of tools and fierce grunting coming from the structure as he got closer. Poking his head inside, he could see his father lifting a medium sized metal contraption from a piece of farming equipment and putting it onto a wooden cart that they typically used for delivering food to the animals.

“Everything alright dad?”

“Oh?! There you are.” began his father, pointing at the machine on the cart while wiping the oily grime off his hands, “This? Varan down at the blacksmith shop said this thing would make our lives a lot easier. Said it would revolutionize farming as we know it. Since he’s given it to me it’s been nothing but trouble. I want you to take it into town and either find out what’s wrong with it, figure out how to get it to work the way it’s supposed to or get our money back for it.”

Tekris sighed dejectedly. It was bad enough that he was going to be working on the farm all day, but now he had to run an errand for his father that was even less exciting. Even if he would be pulling the cart by hand for several kilometers into town, he was going to try and make the most of it. “Fine,” he replied, and grabbed the cart by it’s handles and started pulling.

Drenched in sweat from the heat, he finally made it to town. It took him nearly three hours to pull the cart into town, a walk he could have completed in two if he had not been hauling that extra weight. Setting the cart down and using the sleeve of his coveralls, he wiped the sweat off his forehead to prevent it from getting in his eyes so that he could get his bearings and locate his destination.

From his current position, the blacksmith shop was several more buildings down the street on the right, but before he could pick the cart back up and continue his journey, he was interrupted by the hollers of a couple of teenage boys running in his direction calling his name.

“Tekris! Tekris!” they continued to shout until they were nearly on top of him.

“Look what we found!” said the eldest of the two boys, Dotan.

Tekris took the item from Dotan and examined it at every angle. It had some strange markings all over it. Markings that were not common amongst the citizens in the town. “Where did you find it?” he asked.

“We found it in a cave on the outskirts of the west side of town. The cave looked to be a lot deeper, but we didn’t want to go exploring any further without the proper gear. We also didn’t want anyone to know we were in there. You should come with us later! We were going to head out when the sun went down. What do you say?”

“I don’t know. I’m already going to be out most of the day getting this contraption fixed. I don’t think my parents would be fond of me spending the rest of it out with my friends, especially after dark.”

“C’mon! We want you to be there with us. We might find more stuff like that piece.”

“Listen. I’ll see what I can do, but I’m not making any promises.”

Tekris didn’t want to get the boys’ hopes up, but in their mind all they heard was that he was going to be there. Elated, the younger of the boys exclaimed as they started parting ways again, “You won’t regret this Tekris! Meet us by the town well. Bring a lantern. We’ll see you tonight.”

Feeling as though he was already committed before he could even confirm anything, he wondered how he was going to tell his parents, let alone get away with it. Something he could think about on his way home. For now he needed to get to the blacksmith.

“Captain’s log supplemental. Telemetry has come back from the probe and it would appear that the inhabitants of the planet are in a stage of development similar to that of Earth’s late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries as they appear to be experimenting with internal combustion engines and other technologies invented around that time.

“The local population are bipedal, with a small cranial ridge about three centimeters in length and spots not unlike those of the Trill. Their hands appear to consist of two main digits and an opposable thumb. Based on these scans, it shouldn’t be a problem for Dr. Brant to perform the necessary surgery on the away team and the computer is presently analyzing and preparing replication patterns for the wardrobe.

“I’m not thrilled about sending a team into a place where the risk of cultural contamination is so high, but Command has made it clear that locating any information about the Tkon is paramount. The away team is set to depart in short order. I can only hope that we’re taking every possible precaution to prevent such contamination from happening. End log.”

Treylana leaned back in her chair with an exasperated sigh and started to massage her temples. She was beginning to feel a little stressed from the last couple of missions and her mild headache was proof of that. Some rest and relaxation was in order, but it was going to have to wait until the Tkon business was dealt with.

With the pain beginning to subside, she gathered what was left of her thoughts and left her ready room. She noticed a bunch of younger faces on the bridge. Phil and William had managed to get their plan to rotate the shifts in order and got a quick shift change in while they had been waiting on the probe data. Not wanting to disturb them, she quietly nodded to Phil who had glimpsed her arrival onto the bridge and nodded in kind. “I’ll be in sickbay if you need me.” she told him.

By the time she made it to sickbay, Dr. Brant was just wrapping up surgery on Sumiko, affixing the cranial ridge to her forehead. She almost wouldn’t have recognized her senior officers if it had not been for their normal human features, but to the naked eye they were a spitting image of one of the planet’s inhabitants. With any luck, they would not have to test the integrity of the doctor’s surgical abilities.

Paul was going to be in charge of the mission, so Treylana made sure to approach him first as she drew closer to the three away team members and the doctor. “Remarkable work doctor.” she said, eyeing the level of detail he had applied to Paul’s spots.

She wasn’t expecting a response and continued to address the team, though mostly directing her instructions to Paul. “We have reason to believe the wreckage is buried below the surface. It’s the most reasonable assumption if it’s been there for hundreds of thousands of years. There are some mountainous ranges west of the settlement we observed that could contain caves. That’ll be your primary means of access. I would rather not use the ship’s phasers to cut our way in. You understand your mission?”

“Get in, find whatever it is we’re looking for and get out. Avoid contact with the locals if at all possible.” Paul replied.

“Good, I’ll leave you three to it then. I’ll expect hourly progress updates.”

Paul nodded and Treylana left the three of them to finish their preparations.

Tekris had finally made it back home about the time his mother was finishing dinner. He was famished after having spent the better part of his day hauling his father’s equipment. Fortunately the errand was not in vain as the town blacksmith was able to repair it. The trip home however gave him the time to think about what Dotan and Horom had shown him. Whatever it was looked very old and the markings were not something he recognized, but he certainly wanted to learn more. If nothing more than to satisfy a curiosity. But how will I convince mom and dad to let me go? He thought to himself.

He took a seat at the dinner table just as his father was coming in from outside. “Ah Tekris! You’re home. What did the blacksmith have to say?”

“He said he was able to figure out pretty quickly what was wrong with it. I don’t remember exactly what it was he said was wrong with it, but after a few hours he told me it was as good as new. I left it out on the cart outside.” Tekris replied.

“That’s great. Maybe I can get your help later to hook it back up?”

“Actually dad, when I was in town today, I ran into Dotan and Horom. They asked if I wanted to join them for a night of camping under the stars. I told them I would ask you and mom first.”

Tekris knew what he had just told his father wasn’t the complete truth, but it was close enough. He would in fact be with his friends, and the camping idea would be a good enough alibi for being out all night.

“Son, you’ve already been out all day. Granted, you were doing me a favour, but I really could have used your help. I would really appreciate it if you could stay here tonight and give me a hand.”

Tekris felt a sudden wave of disappointment hit him and his mother could see it in his face. Doing as any mother would when a child was sad or hurt, she came to his defense. “Tekram dear, let him go spend the night with his friends. It won’t be long before his studies begin taking up much of his time again. Let him have at least one night of adventure before then.”

With a sense of being outnumbered and defeated, Tekram moved to embrace his wife and kissed the back of her head. “As always my dear, you are right. I’m sure I can manage on my own tonight.” he said to her before looking toward his son “Go and enjoy yourself, but when you return, I’m going to need your help if we’re to make up for the last couple of days.”

Tekris’ face turned from the look of disappointment to one of sheer excitement. “Yes father! Absolutely!” he exclaimed in response before rushing upstairs to his bedroom to pack some supplies.

The away team materialized in an open field with but a few trees nearby. The three of them gazed around at their surroundings to make sure they hadn’t been spotted. Noticing a small town to the East of their location some few kilometers away, it was safe to assume that no one had seen them appear out of thin air.

Paul pulled out his tricorder for a deep pocket in the right side of his garment and opened it up. He conducted a quick perimeter scan to get his bearings. The mountainous region still a couple of kilometers to the West was their destination. He wasn’t registering any cavern entrances in the immediate vicinity but was picking up a very faint energy signature. He hypothesized that if they made their way toward that energy reading, they might find an entrance there.

He motioned for the others to grab their gear and then pointed in the direction they were going to go. The sun was beginning to set, so they would have to hurry if they were going to find an entrance before dark.

It took them well over an hour to reach the base of the mountains. It was now almost completely dark. The only things keeping them going in the intended direction was the now rising moonlight and the steadily increasing energy signature.

Paul scanned with his tricorder once more, “There appears to be a cave about fifty meters that way.” he said pointing North from their present location.

The cave was narrow at its entrance, but once inside and the team’s lights began to reflect off the walls it opened to a much wider area. The walls appeared damp to the touch and there were a multitude of stalagmites and stalactites. To the right observer, one could say almost picturesque.

“We’ll set up a camp here.” Paul began, “Sumiko, why don’t you ignite a couple rocks for some extra light. Lieutenant Mathers and I will scout up ahead and see if we can find anything.”

The two men continued through the passageways following the energy reading they were detecting until they came upon the edge of a small cliff that bordered a vast area at least several hundred meters across and about ten meters down. It was too dark to see even with their Starfleet issued flashlights to be precise. Paul could just make out the silhouette of what appeared to be a ship or what was left of it in the pit below. He also noted additional stalagmites at the base of the cliff. They were going to have to rappel down to check it out, but it was doable with caution.

The two headed back to camp to meet up with Sumiko and get the gear they needed for the climb down.