The jungle roiled on either side of the river, the trees and plants themselves undulating with apparent rage at the presence of two Starfleet officers on a silver speedboat. The planetary organism covering Dendrion IV was not sentient, but it was very attuned to intrusions—responding like any other body would to a foreign infection by seeking it out and destroying it. Every entity on the planet’s surface was connected as a very primitive hivemind that Starfleet had been studying for decades. What looked like animals were just mobile outgrowths designed to contain and destroy infections like white blood cells did for many humanoid species.

“Fascinating. I’ve never been treated like a virus before,” Captain Sitar noted from the helm station of the boat.

The captain kept a steady hand on the throttle; if she was mindful that the coiling branches behind them were the least dangerous thing pursuing them, she was keeping quiet about it. Beside her, Commander Najan Osho was reconfiguring the type-IV phaser cannon attached to an arm that had emerged from the deck.

“This is why you should have stayed on the ship, with all due respect, captain,” Najan complained as she locked the power cell into place and slid her seat on the track to face aft.

“Your objections have been noted, commander,” Sitar said as Najan began to fire the weapon.

Configured at a power level just above a flashlight, bursts from the phaser cannon sent shockwaves of pure photonic energy—i.e., light—behind the boat. Unlike most plants, the Dendrion IV organism ran from any form of visible life, preferring to suck the energy it needed from its dim red star in only the infrared bands. Tendrils and trees recoiled from Najan’s phaser fire, but the great mass of the forest was still on them like a tsunami.

“47 seconds until we are back on the shuttle,” Sitar announced.

“At this rate, the planet will have us by then,” the commander said, her heart racing as she tried to find optimal firing points to deter the planet-lifeform from pursuing them.

In the dim illumination of a planet in perpetual twilight, it was difficult to see anything, but each time a phaser blast went towards the tree line, Najan’s skin was made to crawl by the squirming mass there. The phaser was slowing them down somewhat, but she felt like she was firing at a cloud—for each moment there was a slight disruption to the forest, it came right back. There were also things in the water—analogous to carnivorous fish—and Najan could just make out winged creatures that were getting closer and closer. They needed more firepower.

“Captain, we need support from the Pallas. Direct support,” Najan said.

“Proceed at your discretion, Commander. As they say, I am keeping my eyes on the road,” the captain replied.

“Najan to Pallas. We need you down here now—with as much of a light show as you can give us,” Najan ordered before switching the phaser to auto-fire mode and moving her chair back amidships next to the captain. “I’m sending you a phaser configuration now.”

“Understood, commander,” Nate Windsor replied from back on the ship. “Hold tight.”

Najan heard the waterfall before she saw it, though she tried to focus on relaying information to the Pallas from her station. She swallowed and looked over at her Vulcan captain as the rush of water became more intense.

“Are you going to jump us over a waterfall and into the shuttle?” she asked.

“Indeed. We don’t have time to load the boat back into the shuttle from the shore,” Sitar said. She glanced at Najan. “I’m not leaving my new boat behind.”

It was a moot point anyway—they had to somehow get into the shuttle, as there was too much interference on the planet’s surface for the transporters to work correctly. Najan just hadn’t imagined her first mission aboard the Pallas involving turning a speedboat into a missile. Behind the boat, the Dendrion IV organisms were practically nipping at their stern.

Another noise cut over that of the waterfall—the whine of Federation impulse engines in the planet’s atmosphere. By now, Najan could see the waterfall and just make out the shuttle waiting for them there. Above it came streaking like a steel-gray arrow the Pallas, her long-spear-like hull recognizable from even a great distance. Streaking in at phenomenal speed, Najan saw the near-blinding blasts from the ship’s phaser arrays and forward cannons light up the forest behind them several moments before they were also hit with the sonic boom from the ship’s high speed.

Najan looked behind the boat to see the forest curling in on itself, its response to far too much UV radiation, and when she turned back around, the boat was going at full power over the cliff. She felt her stomach sink and reflectively gripped the railing under her control station as the craft arced towards the open door of the cargo shuttle. For a moment, she wasn’t sure they were going to make it, but she saw the captain manipulate the shuttle’s flight controls to bring their goal closer to them. The boat entered the cargo compartment with a thud, sending sparks flying for a moment before the cradle system adapted and locked them into place. The adrenaline rush had Najan speechless, but when she looked at the captain, Sitar was beaming from pointed ear to pointed ear.

“I have missed frontline service, commander,” Sitar said.

Captain’s Log, Stardate 2401.7

 

Our mission to repair the observation post on Dendrion IV was a success, though Commander Najan and I could not do so without being detected by the planet’s immune system. Thanks to the commander’s quick thinking and the fast response of Lieutenant Commander Windsor, we were able to exfiltrate without lasting damage to the environment. One speedboat will need to be repainted. We are now on course for the Olympia Sector.

 

Captain Sitar had just finished recording her log when the chime to her ready room sounded. She tapped the button on her desk to open the door and looked up to see Najan wearing an expression somewhere between concerned and pensive. In their week or so together, Sitar had found Najan quite free with her emotions—and that wasn’t necessarily a weakness, but it did make Sitar wonder how the Bajoran woman had managed to serve Starfleet Intelligence so well for so long without a poker face.

“Captain, I just wanted to report that the first scheduled data upload from the planetary monitoring station has just come in successfully. It looks like our repairs held,” Najan said.

“Very well, commander. Will you sit?” Sitar asked. “My intuition tells me that you didn’t ‘just’ come to report that.”

Najan nodded and sat opposite her captain, giving the other woman an appraising glance as she did so. A career intelligence officer, Najan had extensive experience undercover on Vashti and came with a reputation as an excellent sapient intelligence gatherer, so Sitar was curious how her new first officer would judge her performance.

“No, captain,” Najan agreed. “I was hoping we could discuss your decision on the composition of the away team so that I can understand your thinking better.”

Sitar smiled. “You seek to understand whether serving under me will always be so exciting. I do not intend on ‘stepping on your toes’ often, commander, but in this instance, I felt it necessary to create a situation where both of us could see each other’s performance in the field,” she explained.

“You wanted to see how I would handle a potentially dangerous situation,” Najan summarized.

“Not entirely—I also wanted you to see how I would handle one,” Sitar clarified. “You may or may not be aware that the last time I had permanent command of a starship was fourteen years ago. I needed you to see that I am capable of handling myself.”

“Well, after today, that’s definitely not in doubt, captain,” Najan agreed. She cocked her head. “How did I do?”

“It was clever to call in the ship to use their weapons to protect us. I had considered bringing the shuttle in on autopilot, but the risk of losing it was too great,” the Sitar said. The captain folded her hands on the desk. “Your performance met my expectations based on an extensive review of your service record—which is to say that you performed favorably.”

“Thank you,” Najan said, though she still seemed a little uncomfortable. “In the future, Captain, can we please limit your participation in away missions to circumstances where there is no danger that you will be consumed by a planetary organism, though?”

“That seems like an eminently reasonable request,” Sitar agreed. Najan nodded and stood up. “I would like to find more reasons to use the speedboat, though. It was certainly invigorating,” she added.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Najan said with a laugh. “I hear Olympia Station is in orbit of a pelagic world.”

“That’s something to look forward to, then. Dismissed,” Sitar said, watching the first officer’s retreating back before turning to her duties.

Commander Najan Osho’s Personal Log, Stardate 2401.7

 

Captain Sitar is certainly an impressive officer. Without her skill at the helm today, I’m not sure we would have survived our mission to Dendrion IV. Even with all of my experience with Romulans, it still strikes me as odd to see a Vulcan smile—though I realize that isn’t all she is. I didn’t expect serving under a member of her species to require managing up. In many ways, I’m still hoping to learn as much as I can from her as a captain and as an officer. But, clearly, her long service record was not the sign I thought it was that she’d prefer to stay on the ship.

Momentarily satisfied that Captain Sitar wasn’t going to be forcing her way onto every away mission but still not quite sure what to make of her, Commander Najan left the captain’s ready room and entered the atrium lounge. This space, aft of the bridge and spanning the space between the captain’s ready room and the first officer’s office, had large skylights that showed the streaking stars and slight distortion from the ship’s warp field. Intended for both crew recreation and diplomatic functions, the atrium was a cross between an arboretum and a crew lounge and had beds of flowers and plants from across the Federation, along with several sunken seating areas—one of the small nods to luxury aboard the ship that reminded Najan of the optimistic (and perhaps naïve) grandiosity of the 2360s that now survived on in the larger Odyssey.

The first officer passed through the atrium and returned to the bridge through its single aft entrance to relieve Lieutenant Commander Windsor. The two of them had served together before on the Arcturus, but she still found herself taken aback by the young man’s height—there must have been something in the water on Penthara IV.

The bridge was sleek and modern, as befit the command center for a brand-new ship like the Pallas: science and operations were on either side of the bridge, with the helm and tactical stations forward. It was a novel, experimental design with a standard viewscreen forward and white lighting panels wrapping the curved walls of the forward command area, a step down from the mission operations area aft. When so ordered, those panels could project a holographic display of the area all around the ship, making it seem as though the bridge crew were fully immersed in the stars. Instruments pulsed and chirped softly. Najan found Windsor leaning over the science station, studying something with Lieutenant Commander Zaos Sarcaryn, the ship’s science officer.

“Report, gentlemen,” Najan requested; the two men stopped their conversation, and Sarcaryn sat up straighter when he noticed her presence.

“Commander, we have picked up a gravitational anomaly 3 degrees off of our present course,” Windsor replied, stepping aside so that Najan could see the console more readily over the Risian scientist’s head. There were several oscillating graphs that Najan couldn’t immediately interpret until Windsor clarified. “We believe it’s a rogue planet.”

Najan was surprised—rogue planets weren’t the rarest phenomenon in the galaxy, but she’d never encountered one, let alone been part of one’s discovery. They were tricky to detect because they didn’t generally emit any radiation of their own, so often, their gravity or reflected light were the only ways of spotting them.

“Spectrographic readings indicate that there may be carbon-based lifeforms on the planet,” Sarcaryn added. Najan’s eyes settled into the navigation data being presented and saw that it wasn’t too far out of their way. “I think it’s worth investigating.”

That was an understatement—as rare as they were in the first place, a rogue planet that could also support life was a true unicorn. Najan found herself wondering what type of beings might exist there. She also briefly thought that perhaps the photophobic lifeforms on Dendrion IV would be a lot happier on a planet with no sun at all.

“Najan to the captain,” Najan said.

“Go ahead, commander.”

“Sir, Mr. Windsor and Mr. Sarcaryn believe they have discovered a rogue planet capable of supporting life. It’s a twelve-hour detour. Should we alter course?”

“Affirmative. We should at least flag it with a marker buoy to avoid any navigational hazards. Have Mr. Sarcaryn continue his analysis and prepare to brief the senior staff in eleven hours,” Captain Sitar agreed immediately.

“Understood. Bridge out,” Najan said. She turned to Windsor. “You heard the captain. Let’s go check out this rogue planet of yours.”

Windsor smiled, all dimples and easy enthusiasm. After a career with Starfleet Intelligence, Najan found Windsor’s lack of apparent guile to be refreshing.

“Yes, sir,” the helmsman confirmed before moving down to relieve the ensign at the flight control station. With a few taps on the panel, Windsor altered the ship’s course while Najan took the command chair. “We will intercept the rogue planet in eleven hours, fifty-seven minutes.”

“Do you think they’ll let us name it?” Lieutenant Hidalgo piped up from the operations station. “If it’s never been seen before, it doesn’t even have an alphanumeric designation. Maybe we should call it Sarcaryn Prime since he spotted it.”

Sarcaryn chuckled. “I believe, in technical terms, it’s the captain of a starship that would receive such an honor, as we all work for her,” he demurred.

“True, true,” the operations officer said. “Sitar Prime is a good name, too.”

“I think for something to be ‘Prime,’ there has to be more than one of them,” Najan interjected. She was willing to entertain some silliness on the bridge, but she could tell that the young men under her command would need some coaching to stay professional—all of them except Lieutenant Andretti at tactical, at least, since he didn’t seem to say much. “And that, gentlemen, is a good reason for all of us to dust off the protocols for surveying rogue planets.”

“Aye, Commander,” Sarcaryn and Hidalgo replied in unison.

“Commander, permission to work from the planetology lab?” Sarcaryn asked.

“Granted, Mr. Sarcaryn,” Najan replied. “Don’t stay up too late—I want you to get at least a few hours of sleep between now and our intercept.”

Time of day was always a difficult thing to internalize on a starship, given that you were just as likely to run into a red alert or a black hole at midnight as noon, but this time, they at least had at least twelve hours of notice before an unknown mystery presented itself at four in the morning. No sooner had the crew settled back down did the shift change chimes sound, marking the end of alpha shift and beginning of beta shift. The relief crew entered from the turbolift, and Captain Sitar herself stepped onto the bridge.

“It is very nice of the universe to give us time to do our homework, is it not?” the captain asked.

Najan wasn’t truly religious, but that comment made her wonder if they were being given time to prepare for something if beings like the Prophets really did impact the comings and goings of temporal lifeforms. She also hoped that it wasn’t a sign that they were about to be jinxed.

“It’s a rare concession from the powers of fate,” Najan replied diplomatically. “I’ll keep you updated on our progress.”

“I appreciate that, commander, but I would like to hold the bridge myself for beta shift,” Sitar said. Najan blanched, and the captain clearly noticed. “It is not a reflection on your abilities to monitor long-range communications. As mostly a Vulcan, I simply need less rest than you do, and I want you sharp for 0300 briefing.”

That comment made Najan laugh involuntarily. She cleared her throat and stepped out of the command seat for Sitar. In her experience, most captains didn’t appreciate being laughed at.

“My apologies, Captain. I’ve just never heard someone describe themselves as ‘mostly Vulcan’ before,” the first officer admitted.

Sitar smiled. “Unlike many of my genetic peers, I am quite comfortable being both Human and Vulcan—though my Vulcan traits are genetically dominant, so I don’t think I can really label myself the other way. Not with these ears,” the captain quipped. “You’re relieved, commander. Try to have a pleasant evening.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Najan said before following the rest of alpha shift off of the bridge.