“I quite like the idea of ‘Quantum Vanguard’…"

Dazia scoffed and shook her head vigorously, foot planted to spin her chair from side to side. “We're not a vanguard. ”Sounds too sciency, and we aren't all scientists," the Trill told the rest of the team. “What about Warp Wraiths?”

“The connotation suggests something dark…”

“Astral Aegis?”

The ensuing silence from the cockpit caused Ensign Donovan to turn her attention from the science station. Every member of the team was staring at the young scientist. “I mean… I just thought…”

“Astral Aegis?” Kivoss repeated, his antenna dipping as his brow raised in thought.

“Astral Aegis,” Nikti agreed from across the room.

“I could just see myself as Aegis One,” Kivoss laughed, only to be shot down with a single glance from the Bajoran at the helm. She was about to respond when a shrill trio of beeps hushed the conversation dominating the cockpit, the Commander turning back to the controls of the shuttlecraft. “We're approaching the atmosphere,” the Bajoran told, fingers tapping away and returning the controls of the craft to manual.

“Sensors show the landing pad at the facility is clear,” Kivos declared from the co-pilot's chair.

“Get yourselves ready,” Noli ordered with a jerk of her head towards the back. It was time for the guardians of the stars to get to work.

A hiss accompanied the opening of the shuttlecraft door, not just from the pneumatics of the mechanisms, but also due to the heat from the inside of the shuttle's cockpit radiating out and clashing with the bitter cold of the Quasaris morning mist. The system's yellow dwarf star had yet to emerge from the clouds blanketing the morning sky, so much of the landing platform was still in darkness, but there was enough light to make out the silhouette of the building, and the door they had to enter through.

Marching from the shuttle, each covered in their EV suit, the Hazard Team (or Astral Aegis as they were supposedly now known) made their way towards the entranceway; Noli in the front, and Kivoss to the rear. As they walked, the biologist in the team held out her tricorder and scanned the facility ahead of them.

“I'm not detecting any signs of life,” Natalia told, so focused on her readings that she nearly crashed into the team leader ahead of her.

“No sign of power, either,” Dazia frowned beneath her helmet. Dropping her engineering kit to the floor, the young Trill pulled out a PADD-like device and maglocked it to the door. Before she could even activate the device, a loud clatter from inside, distanced yet loud enough to hear, gave her pause. She exchanged concerned glances with the Commander.

“Phasers,” Noli instructed, drawing her sidearm and holding it in front of her at a rested, yet ready position. Her team followed suit, except for the Andorian, who drew his comically oversized rifle to his shoulder and shined the light beacon on the maglock.

Taking a deep breath, poor, sweet Dazia activated the device. After a few seconds of magnetisation, she was able to drag the doors apart with all of her might, just enough for the team to enter the facility.

Hazard Team took on new meaning when they entered the corridor. A constant flickering of the strobe lighting lining the hallway was the only sign of power to the facility, but it was all they needed to know that things weren't right here. Shattered glass crumbled beneath their feet as they moved forward into the lab; every window and console had been blown out, with glass everywhere. In each room they entered on their initial sweep, equipment trollies had been upturned, data PADDs crushed, and furniture scattered.

At the back of the group, Ensign Donovan was the last to observe each room, shocked at what she was seeing in the facility. “Where is everyone?” she whispered, her eyes trained on the devastation in the third room as she sidestepped out of the room, unfocused. So unfocused in fact that she walked smack into the back of Lieutenant Keesa.

“Sorry Lieutenant, I was jus…” her voice trailed off as her gaze drifted past the Orion's right shoulder and towards the darkness before them. With each flicker of the lighting, a new horror emerged. Scorch marks and blast points adorned walls and doors alike; blood spattered up the walls and pooled on the floor plating.

“What happened here?” Nikti asked of no one in particular, her voice low and concerned, eyes darting from one disaster scene to another.

Stepping forward slowly, the tactical specialist in the group shouldered his rifle long enough to pull his tricorder from his utility belt. Stopping at one of the blast patterns, he ran the scanning device over the residue and watched the results stream in. Flipping the device closed, the Andorian holstered it and turned back to his comrades.

“Blast patterns and chemical residue point to small-scale photon grenades. Energy dispersal pattern in the blast points suggest two energy signatures; Federation,” he revealed before letting out a sigh, “…and Cardassian.”

“Shit,” Noli closed her eyes and let out a sigh audible enough that everyone in the group could hear it over the communications array between their suits. Her shoulders dropped at the thought of a Cardassian attack on another Federation facility so soon after the attack on Outpost C-91.

“Let's remember that a Cardassian energy signature doesn't prove anything other than Cardassian technology was used here,” Dazia chimed in, the engineer stepping forward to conduct her own analysis of the blast point.

Noli glanced at the engineer long enough to give her a nod of approval and then tapped a control on the wrist of her EV suit. "Hazard Team to Lakota,' she called out. To her surprise, nothing. With the silence, her tension levels rose. A quick point to Lieutenant Keesa and the Orion repeated the call to their ship. Silence greeted her, too.

Drawing her own scanning device, the youngest member of the group scanned the environment around them and frowned. “The radiation levels are dissipating. There's certainly not enough to stop communications from getting through,” the young Human told her teammates.

Looking down the corridor, the Commander of the team decided upon her next course of action. “Alright, listen up. We're going to split up. Dazia, you're with me. Kivoss and Natalia, you're with Nikti. We'll take the rooms on this side, you take the rooms on that side,” she instructed, hands waving as she distributed her tasks. “Search for any evidence of what was going on here before, what happened now, and any sign of life. When we're done here, my team will head to the command center. Nikti, take your team to the main science lab."

Even before she could finish, the Bajoran could see the words of objection forming on her Orion deputy's lips, shutting them down in an instant with a hand raised to silence her subordinate.

“Get to it,” the Bajoran told sternly, watching as the team reluctantly began to split up and perform their different tasks, searching side rooms and making their way slowly, methodically, down the corridor of devastation.

Her mind was abuzz with questions as she joined her Trill colleague in her search. Where were the facility scientists? Where had dozens of people just disappeared to? They couldn't have just evaporated into thin air, could they? And the evidence seemed to point to some sort of Cardassian involvement, but just how much was yet to be established. Could they be dealing with a larger threat than they anticipated?

Suddenly, a blood-curdling scream echoed down the hall. Noli instantly dropped the scientific device she had picked up, something akin to stirrups you might find attached to a medical bed, and headed for the door. Albeit slightly slowed due to the cumbersome nature of their EV suits, Trill and Bajoran alike ran from ‘Analysis Room Beta’ and barged into a room two doors down. There, Nikti and her team were huddled, staring at something in the room.

When she joined the group, the Commander wedged herself between her teal-wearing colleagues. As her eyes caught sight of what they had seen, she let out a gasp.

A pile of bodies, if you could call it that. It was difficult to make out how many people were there, but Noli counted at least three pairs of feet protruding from the mound.

And one long mane of red hair.

“That's Doctor Orta,” Nikti choked between pumps of her heart. “Zinn made me brush up on station personnel before we left. She's one of the lead scientists.”

“Was,” Kivoss corrected her coldly, drawing a look of exasperation from the younger team members not used to his acerbic nature.

“They weren't killed by weapons fire,” Nikti shook her head slowly. “Dismemberment is my initial cause of death; the amount of blood clearly shows they were alive when they were,” she took a deep breath as she finally looked at the Commander, “…attacked.”

“What the hell could have done this?” Natalia asked through tears.

“It doesn't matter,” Noli eventually spoke. ”What matters is we are down here, without any way to contact the ship at present. We need to get to the command center and try and re-establish communications. If we can't, we'll head back to the ship and inform them. We'll try and establish what happened when we've got more support down here," the XO told, turning away from the poor souls laid before them.

“Let's go…”