— USS Selene, Main Engineering —

Ensign Vanessa Constable pushed as she tried to fiddle the bioneural gel pack into place. The Selene used advanced isolinear-bioneural hybrid circuitry, which was proving to both provide excellent results but also to be incredibly intensive in having to repair it and keep it functioning. It was a computer that could get sick, with a real virus as had originally happened on the first USS Voyager. She was the one handling this because Lieutenant Junior Grade Kv’skrkks had claws that he worried would slice through the thin membrane of the bag. He watched then as the human replaced the three bags as instructed. Constable had risen to being the Assistant Chief Engineer back on the Anaheim, Seattle and Luna, before being made just a regular engineer by Starfleet brass who did not like an Ensign helping to run a department. Still what was important to her was that she no longer had to sleep in a hallway and the number of people who thought of themselves as her boss did not actually matter too much to her.

The Pahkwa-thanh engineer watched her with unblinking eyes, then nodded, satisfied that they were in place, “We’ll power the computer back up now.”

Stationed around a Class-M world they’d been given a few days to look over everything and check that the warp core was still at its best after two weeks of running at high warp factors. This also included checking on the computer system, especially since the ship had been tasked with trying out ten holographic crew members similar to the Emergency Medical Hologram that had been the Chief Medical Officer on Voyager. After nearly every venture into Artificial Intelligence blowing up in Starfleet’s face they were being cautious. Only Data, the former officer on the Enterprise D, had ever been a non-evil artificial being. Well perhaps there was more, but none that came to Constable’s mind at the moment.

The main computer powered on perfectly and seemed to be running. Lieutenant Junior Grade Kv’skrkks began to run diagnostic programs to see that this was the case. The computer controlled basically everything that happened aboard the Selene, so having that not functioning was a potential hazard that threatened everyone on board. The work was tedious upkeep, but Constable liked it. They could work at a relaxed pace, and there was a satisfaction at making things work better. Even a one percent gain in efficiency was a success worth being celebrated. Suddenly though the engineering department, and probably the entire ship, rocked.

“What’s going on?” Kv’skrkks asked.

Constable though could tell, they were under fire, “We’ll need to power everything up, the captain’s going to need energy.”

— USS Selene, Bridge —

The Red Alert was sounded as the attacking ship had dropped out of warp and instantly opened fire. Sitting the the central chair as senior officer on the bridge, Lieutenant Commander Tashai had given the order to raise shields and go to red alert. The ship fired again, this time hitting the shields, which dissipated the phaser fire.

Captain Carrillo exited the turbo lift as Tashai stood and went to the operations conn.

“Report,” Carrillo said.

“Just came out of warp and started firing,” Tashai said.

“Our sensors are having a hard time locking in on it,” at the tactical station Lieutenant Claudia Jara was reporting.

They had allowed themselves to relax, realized Carrillo, and someone had taken advantage of that.

“Hail them,” the captain said as more officers streamed onto the bridge to take up stations.”

The main view screen was suddenly looking at the attacker’s bridge, and its crew was seemingly Pahkwa-thanh, though what they said next made Carrillo realize that they were not in fact the Pahkwa-thanh. 
“You are interfering with our food, monkey,” the other ship’s captain said, looking angrily at Carrillo, “And since when could monkey people fly a starship.”

Carrillo held up her hands, “We intend you no harm, nor do we wish to disturb your food. We’re just studying the native population of this world, and training some of our students.”

“Why study our food if not to interfere with it?” The other captain said.

Carrillo realized that their food, as he said, was the population that they were studying. Obviously the Prime Directive did not explicitly say not to eat pre warp societies, but that was sort of a given. Still they were entering tricky territory, because they didn’t want to interfere with an alien race, nor did they want to let an alien race eat a bunch of innocent humanoids. But the Selene was not going to be able to fight over this, at least it was a risk and they had their own people to worry about.

“We study developing civilizations,” Carrillo said, “Our Prime Directive prevents us from interfering with them however, so we stay hidden.”

This did not seem to satisfy the other captain, “I should just eat you. Blow a hole in your pretty little ship and eat your frozen remains.”

“Torpedos loaded Captain,” Jara said beside her.

“We have scientists and people down there,” pointed out Carrillo, “So we’ll bring them back aboard and be on our way.”

The captain seemed unconvinced but nodded, “You have one cycle, and then we hunt. Do what you will. If you remain here, we will hunt you.”

The screen returned to the view of the world below, and Carrillo glanced at Jara, “Call senior staff briefing for an hour, run a tactical assessment of that ship, and get our teams up from the surface as fast as we can.”

— USS Selene, Briefing Room 1 —

Captain Carrillo sighed, “I don’t like being told to run with our tails between our legs.”

“I do not have a tail,” Pr’Nor the Chief Flight Control Officer informed the captain.

“It’s a saying,” Lieutenant Commander James Young, the Chief Engineer said helpfully, “It means to run away scared.”

“What’s the rules here?” Carrillo asked, “Can we intervene?”

“We could,” said Commander Travis McCleod, he had come back on the first shuttle back to the Selene, as they continued to shuttle up the cadets’ camp site, and clear off the blind studying the local population that were apparently now going to be eaten.

“Tactically we’re outclassed,” Jara said, the Chief Security Officer bringing up the scans they had of the threat vessel, “If we did survive a serious fight we’d likely never make it back home. Help is at least two weeks away, that’s on top of the four days it’ll take for a report to reach Starfleet.”

“So we’re not looking for a fight,” Carrillo said, adding, “I also am not a fan of allowing sentient life to be eaten.”

“This is clearly a pre-existing relationship, for all we know these people were settled here, like humans might repopulate a river with salmon only to fish them later,” said Jara.

Lieutenant Commander Keyana Mason added, “Humans hunted whales until well into the twenty-second century. They now serve along side them, as we have two on board.”

“One’s a dolphin,” pointed out Jara.

“The point stands, we should not point fingers, as distasteful as we find it, we can not interfere,” Mason said.

There was general murmuring and debate continued to flow for awhile, but nobody said anything other than the decision felt wrong. No one had any alternatives, though there was some talk to negotiating with their adversaries, but Carrillo could tell that would not get them anywhere. The fact was that as much as they felt morally offended, eating an inferior species was not unknown to humans, or many of the Federation’s member species.

“Alright, unless anything changes we leave orbit at 18:00 tonight, I want everyone onboard and ready to ship out.

— Planetside, Observation Blind —

“Most deployments aren’t like this,” Lieutenant Óskar Erosarson said as he continued to load large pallets onto the runabout. They’d had to deconstruct the blind in record time, and take it off world unsure of what was left did not interfere with the local species. They did not know what was going up in orbit, as for security reasons it was being kept a closely guarded secret.

With the last of the observation blind stored away, the runabout took off and headed to the Selene.

“I imagine we’re not often changing out mind and packing out in hours,” Lieutenant Eshita Das said. 

“What’s that in orbit next to the Selene?” Erosarson asked, spotting the ship and bringing up preliminary readings. He opened a comm channel with the ship, “What’s going on?”

The communications officer on the other end was curt, “Just get back here.”

The cadets had been quicker at packing up, and were already on board. Closing the comm link Erosarson sighed. Then there was a crash in the back of the runabout as something knocked over a box of sensors that they’d set up. Das rose from the co-pilot’s seat and returned a few minutes later with a small child, roughly two or three years old, clearly one of the villagers.

“We have to go back,” Das said.

Swearing Erosarson contacted the Selene, “We have to return for a minute.”

“Negative, return to the Selene,” said the officer on comms.
“We have a local girl aboard,” Erosarson argued, “She’s young, we can return her with no damage to…”

“Say again?” Communications asked.

“We have a local girl, approximately three years old onboard,” Erosarson repeated. There was a long pause and then another voice, this one a stern female voice returned to the comm link.

“Return to the ship now,” the voice said, “That’s an order from your captain.”

— USS Selene, Bridge —

The two science officers and the young girl who still had not spoken, entered the bridge to see a steam of four shuttles descending from the large vessel in orbit beside them to the ground. The science team still did not know what was going on, but everyone seemed serious and upset.

“We have to give this girl something to erase the last hour or so of her memory and take her back to the planet,” Erosarson said, “She’s now seen the runabout, and our ship.”

“She’s not going back,” Captain Carrillo said. 

The Romulan Doctor T’Rala was on the bridge and approached, “Come on dear let’s go check give you a check up.”

With that she ushered the young girl off the bridge.

“What? Why?” Das asked, the Lieutenant confused as to why they were kidnapping someone against the Prime Directive. 

“Those shuttles are filled with hunters, going down to eat the villagers,” Carrillo said, “Unless we want to get into a fight I don’t think any of us will be surviving, we have to stay out of this.”

Looking around the bridge the two officers could tell now that this was something that had been argued about and debated almost the entire time they were down there. If there was any solution they’d have found it.

“The girl,” Das said.

“I’m not sending a child down to be murdered Prime Directive be damned,” Carrillo said, “We’ll have to talk about what happens to her next, but I don’t care I’m not sending her to her death. Lieutenant Pr’Nor, resume course, maximum warp.”

They were running, but for now, that was all they could do.