She kept waiting for the Captain to walk through the doors, but the longer she sat, the more she knew he wouldn’t. Ceixs’ cup of coffee, now cold, still stood on the table, as if he had just gotten up and headed to the bridge. But it had been days since he’d left the Callisto.

The slow, creeping nausea – the kind that comes from knowing that what’s next is worse – had become unbearable, as had the silence that pressed in on her like a physical force, threatening to take her breath.

“Computer.”, Una said slowly. Her own voice sounded wrong, too loud in the empty room. “Start a personal log.”

The affirmative beep was jarring, and Una shifted uncomfortably in the Captain’s chair before she rose. It was too big, too empty, and more accusing than any living stare.

“I…”, she started. “I do not know if this will reach anyone. And if it will matter. I am trying to tell myself that this is a means to share information. But perhaps, it is simply an attempt to keep me sane. To remind me of what happened.”

Una leaned against the vacant desk, momentarily focussing on the sensation of cold metal beneath her fingertips. She took a slow, shaking breath before she continued. “It is… difficult to know where to start. Not only because I can scarcely believe that we have only been here for five days, but because I feel him eroding my mind, adding himself to my memories. Meditation does not work – but then, it never has for me.”

Memories flashed through her mind, those of a kind mentor encouraging her attempts at vulcan meditation techniques, advising her when she needed it, and-…

No. She shook her head, and told herself to focus. It wasn’t real. He wasn’t real.

“We were sent to check up on the USS Givens. They… had not returned from their own rescue mission in response to the disappearance of the Qualle, a civilian vessel researching the pre-warp civilization native to Asada.
When we arrived, we found both the Qualle and the Givens unresponsive to hails, with no life signs on board. We feared the worst. But our away teams quickly determined that the crew had not been killed or succumbed to illness. Instead, they… they had beamed down to Asada.
All of them.”

For a moment, she fell silent, letting the weak hum of the ship’s engine fill the void left by her voice.

“We were unable to locate them on the planet’s surface, and the prime directive prohibited us from sending shuttles to search. We were considering ways to retrieve them, but… but in that time, something happened.”

Una found a chair at the conference table, and sat. If she closed her eyes, she could still see the others sitting beside her – Keller with his cold glare, Brennan with her kind smile, Pereira with his quiet wisdom.

“Members of the crew began talking about someone they called Naeric. He had not been mentioned before, and was not found on the crew manifest. People described him as Human, Trill, or even Andorian, unsure what his function aboard the Callisto was.

But within hours, they talked about nothing else.”

It had felt so odd to be excluded from the other’s excited accounts. Una had felt hurt, and now, she wondered why the sense of dread she was now feeling hadn’t set in earlier.

“Jonathan Keller was the first. He decided to leave Starfleet, and requested to beam down to the planet. I was made acting Chief of Security. Of course we did not oblige his request, but soon, the numbers of those wanting to leave grew.”

“This… phenomena seemed to spare the ships’ telepaths, myself among them. We took it upon ourselves to find the cause. Our scans showed traces of psionic energy, and our research into the personal logs of the Givens revealed Naeric referenced there, too. We… came to the conclusion that Naeric is a telepathic entity. Unlike anything we have encountered before.”

Una’s shoulder slumped as she recalled the conversation with Ceix, and how disheartened she had felt when their concerns were dismissed. She should have known then, she had known, and yet…

“Captain Ceix did not listen. He assured us that we were wrong, and that Naeric had been part of the Callisto’s crew for years. When… when further groups wanted to leave, we were overwhelmed, and had no other choice than to allow it. The Captain decided to go with them. He assured that he was unaffected and had no desire to leave Starfleet. It… was my mistake. I let him go.”

Her fault. She raked her fingers through her hair, pulling just a little too firmly, hoping that the sensation would ground her. It did nothing of the sort.

“My fault.”, she echoed her own thoughts. “I allowed the Captain and our First Officer to form an away team and beam down with the rest. They have not returned, and their badges are deactivated. Only Ensign Leski who made it back, and he talks of a strange settlement, far away from Asada’s mainland, where Naeric is worshipped as a deity by the lost crews.”

Her eyes closed. She was tired. Too tired.

“I see him now. He comes to me in the form of a Vulcan, and I… I seem to remember him being my mentor. I know this not to be true, but… for how long? I spoke to him – a first contact if you will. It took… every ounce of energy to try and explain to him that what he was doing was wrong but he… he is apathetic.”

Una’s delicate brows knit together in a frown. She shook her head. No, that wasn’t the right word.

“Not apathetic. He… doesn’t understand. What he offers, he says, is true happiness. A calling beyond what traveling the galaxy can offer, a place that is safe, a community that is family. It is… an enticing promise.” The words came slower now. “I.. miss… the people I have come to call friends. And knowing that it would be so easy to see them again is… it is difficult to resist following them”

She opened her eyes and rose from her chair, startled by her own thoughts. By saying out loud what she had felt for a while.

“I broadcasted a distress signal. It is… risky, I know, but I had no other choice. We are no longer able to escape, and I fear that soon, the Callisto will be just another lost ship – and a trap for those who come to help us unprepared.”