“What would keep the Jem’Hadar from a planet?”  Ensign Jake Shaw sat at a console in the science office, his eyes searching the data streaming from the sensors.  He was talking mostly to himself.  He was alone, and his shift had been over hours ago, but the problem continued to bother him.  With Presley Atega’s departure, he had been promoted to the Chief Communications position.  He muttered, “Victory is life is a pretty unstoppable mantra.  They flew into a Galaxy-class starship.  These guys aren’t going to let a planet get in their way.  Except…it did.”  He tapped at the various sensor readings, searching for the telltale signal of something unusual.  The readings were coming back as normal as they had been when they’d first passed the planet during the aperture incident.  “If you look normal, you should be normal.  The Dominion hated normal.  They wanted to take over normal.  Why did they give this normal planet such a wide berth?”

The console next to him beeped, and the signal from the three probes they had launched earlier was attenuating.  They were heavy-duty and built to survive just about anything.  Shaw slid over and clicked open the feed, eying the visuals and the data sets.  He felt a cold shiver trickle down his back as he examined the data and pictures.  They were very different from what the ship’s sensors were telling him.  The sensors suggested an M-class planet with idyllic views and wide vistas of open land.  The probes were telling a different story.  The clouds hung low and thick, and a muted darkness lay across much of what the various probes could see.  “What the hell?”  Shaw began recording the visuals for his report.  Why was there such a discrepancy?  How was that possible?  Suddenly, there was a flash of movement at one of the probes, and the video link went dead, and the data stream abruptly fell silent seconds later.

Shaw turned to the other two screens, watching intently.  The second probe’s camera flickered off within a few minutes, and the data showed ‘offline.’  He grumbled, “Shit.”  Tapping his badge, he called for Chief Fowler while watching the third probe.  It was on the other side of the planet.  He hoped that would grant him the time he needed for the science chief to get here.

The door flew open, and Lieutenant Sadie Fowler walked in with a cup of coffee.  “I was in the middle of my Olympic Journal reading.  This better be good.”  He pulled up the last images the cameras had recorded and played them for her.  She sipped at her coffee as she watched.  Sadie watched as one probe went down and then the other.  She rewound the footage and watched it again, twice.  “That’s not good.  Third one still up?”  He checked the feed.  It was.  She motioned him out of the chair and took over, handing him the coffee, “The disparity between readings is unusual.  It’s not the first time it’s happened, but to this extent…isn’t normal.  You see the temperature spike before the attack happened?”  She pointed to the console he was at and sent him the data, “There, and there—a spike of over fifty degrees centigrade.  There’s hot, and then there’s that hot.”  Sadie’s hands worked the data stream until it had disconnected, “There’s something else…a slight tremor in the ground leading up – you see here?  It starts thirty seconds out – it’s slight, but the sensor is sensitive enough to pick it up.”

Jake examined the other probe, “The other probe was maybe five miles from the first – whatever it was moved fast. The third…well, it’s at least over 5,000 miles.  Anything?”

Sadie shook her head, “Nothing yet.  If the readings are correct – whatever it is could be underground.”  She tapped at the console, “None of the probes could detect any landing sites or presence of Dominion forces in the past.  Whatever story was told about this planet must have been good enough to scare the Jem’Hadar.”

“What if the story was that someone landed on the planet and never came back?”  He pointed out, “Look, Jem’Hadar are bred and born for this—what if they kept sending them to take the planet, and eventually they realized the planet was eating their soldiers? As for the probes not finding any landing points, whatever is down there would have destroyed it…leaving no trace anyone had ever been here.”

A beep interrupted their conversation as Fowler grimaced, “Looks like the third probe is detecting the tremors in the ground…it matches the frequency.”  They watched, curious if their antagonist would show.  The probe began to shake, a bright light flashed, and the screen went blank.  “It’s gone.  Same as before.”  She stood, “Better get a fresh uniform on, Ensign Shaw.  I’ve got to interrupt the captain’s evening with this news, and she’s not going to be happy.”  She walked out, snapping the still-warm coffee out of his hands, “Mine.  Get your own.”

Shaw sat dumbfounded.  He clearly needed coffee.  He smelled his uniform.  Fowler was right.  He needed a fresh uniform.