My ship picked up a very faint distress signal following it, we came across a temple deep in the forest we could see a group of monks we carefully approached and I heard them chanting:
“A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y” followed by the ringing of a bell. As my crew and I got closer, we saw that the monks were hefting a massive golden chest with a Starfleet insignia on it. They walked it into the temple, set it on a raised dais, and the monks left into the temple’s depths.

My away team and I are slowly approaching. If we are caught, we could violate the greatest of our directives: not to interfere with civilizations younger than ours.
As we approach the chest we carefully and quietly open it a bright light emanated from the chest briefly blinding me. But when my eyes adjusted I could see it was an old leather book laying upon the cushions in the chest. In gold letters, it said “Captain’s Log.” I took the book and we quietly left.

“My name is Captain Alvin A Smirk, of the Starship Smaug, the year is 2295 I think. About 30 years ago our ship crashed on this backward planet all communications and computer equipment were destroyed in the crash.

We were able to get the replicator working enough to get clothes and this book was made so I could keep this very log. We set the distress beacon and set out into this world.
We managed to slip into the populace unnoticed and lived our lives amongst the people always hoping that the next day rescue would come.

If you look close enough at the temple you would find that it’s what remains of our Constitution class ship. When the locals found it we destroyed anything that could give them tech above where their discoveries were. It’s pretty much just a shell now. I hid the distress beacon in a locked compartment buried in the wreck. I never thought they’d make it a church…”

“My full account lies in the pages ahead, I had left these pages blank with the purpose of later providing an introduction. As I began you will see I kept a daily log. That soon changed to a weekly one, then a monthly one, and so on. As my hopes of being rescued went away.

My final request is that my family or any surviving relatives be gifted this log and be told that I did my best to uphold the rules of Starfleet and the Prime Directive. Any actions otherwise were only in an attempt to survive.
Marcus took out his PADD and looked it up the USS Smaug was a Constitution class ship thought destroyed in 2265 in the Romulan Neutral Zone. Miri III which the Merced now orbited was not that far from what was the newly drawn border lines. Today this was Federation space but certainly, when the Smaug was here it would have indeed been in the Neutral zone.

Suddenly a voice came from his comm badge “Doctor Anvers, report to sickbay.”

Marcus put the book down on his nightstand and patted his badge “On my way” As he left the book sat just waiting to tell more of its stories.

—end—

Doctor Marcus Anvers
Chief Medical Officer
USS Merced
“Merced is a ship on the rise.”