By the time they reached the house, the rain had dulled to a mist, but it clung to everything, the walls, their uniforms, even the air itself. Quelis Drevan’s boots made dull, wet thuds against the stone walkway as he approached the location.

He could feel the music before he could properly hear it. It pulsed through the ground in a slow, insistent rhythm, vibrating the puddles that had collected in the street. A deep, synthetic bass thumped over and over, but they weren’t at some club. This was just a house, a large one with high-arched windows and decorative stonework, but still a home. A home that was bleeding music into the neighborhood like a wound refusing to close.

Twelve officers stood at the perimeter, half Risian law enforcement, the other half Starfleet personnel from the Io. Quelis signaled them with a closed fist, and the group quieted instinctively. Not that it helped. Even standing right beside Commander Patel, Quelis had to raise his voice slightly just to be heard.

“All right,” he said, stepping in closer to the doorframe. “Same drill. Kindle, scan for contraband the moment we’re in. Commander, you’re on diplomacy, if this crowd pushes back, you smooth them down. I’ll take point.”

Kindle’s eyes were squinting slightly, his tricorder held awkwardly like he wanted it to be something else entirely. “Do these people even know the power grid’s barely stable? Subspace comms down? Weather systems off?”

“They probably think it’s part of the ambience,” Patel muttered, staring at the window where lights flickered within.

Quelis just grunted and stepped forward.

He tried the door controls. Predictably—nothing.

The door chime? Dead.

He turned slightly, rain streaking down the smooth ridges of his blue skin, and looked at Kindle. “Short EPS pulse. Cut their amps.”

Kindle crouched beside the panel, hands moving fast. The tricorder emitted a high-pitched whine, followed by a sharp spark. The music died mid-beat.

Not faded. Not paused. Dead.

And the sudden silence hit them like a slap.

Quelis exhaled through his nose. The tension in his jaw didn’t ease. He stepped up to the now-dead door and slammed his hand against it.

“Starfleet Security! Open up!”

There was a pause. Then a crash. Something inside—a glass or bottle—hit the floor.

Footsteps. Whispers.

Quelis raised his voice again. “We know you’re in there. This is an unauthorized gathering. Open the door and cooperate.”

A window creaked open above them. Someone leaned out, a young man, eyes glassy, cheeks flushed.

“Get lost, fascists!” he shouted, and then slammed the shutters closed.

Quelis looked up for a second, chuckled, and turned calmly to the Risian Sergeant.

“Sergeant Vitra. Breach it.”

Then he turned to the officers behind him. “Phasers out. Set them to Stun.”

They complied with quiet efficiency. Quelis drew his own weapon, gave the setting a habitual glance, it was already set to stun, of course. Still, checking it calmed something in him.

Vitra placed the small breaching charge on the door and stepped back. A hiss, followed by a spark, then a shudder, and the door released with a reluctant click.

Quelis pushed it open and stepped through.

The interior of the house had once been elegant. Now it was crowded with bodies, the scent of sweat, sweet vapor, and something faintly metallic hanging in the air. The hallway was narrow and cluttered, shoes, drink canisters, a discarded jacket or two.

Two startled partygoers froze just inside. One bolted and was tackled instantly. Quelis didn’t slow. He moved with deliberate speed, his team flowing in behind him.

The living room was crowded. Lights blinked lazily from makeshift speakers mounted in corners. Decorations, streamers, even a floating orb lamp, made it clear this wasn’t just a get-together. Someone planned this.

“Listen up!” Quelis shouted, cutting through the renewed murmur of voices. “This party is over.”

Dozens of heads turned. Most looked stunned. A few angry. One, a human male with an open shirt and glitter in his beard, spat toward Quelis’ boots.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than police innocent people?” he sneered.

Quelis didn’t react. “These phasers are set to stun,” he said calmly, sweeping his eyes over the room. “They won’t kill. But they’ll ruin your night.”

He let the words settle like cold fog.

“Turn over any illegal substances now, and we’ll handle this quickly. If we have to find them ourselves, you’re coming with us.”

The silence was thick. No one moved at first.

Then, slowly, a woman stepped forward, holding a small container in both hands.

Quelis gave the woman a curt, appreciative nod and gestured to one of the security officers to take the container from her. She held it out with trembling hands, but before the officer could reach her—

A deafening shriek tore through the air. Not a voice. A sound, high-pitched, metallic, and wrong. It was the kind of noise that instinct overrode logic for, every head in the room turned skyward at once.

Quelis’ hand went straight to his combadge. “That’s not local,” he muttered, eyes darting toward the ceiling as the frequency climbed higher, vibrating the windows. “Everyone hold—”

BOOM.

An explosion hit like a dropped starship engine.

A tremor caused the floor to buckle, glass shattered inward and the walls flexed with a groan of stressed stone. Quelis was already moving, instinctively throwing himself forward to cover the woman as light and smoke burst in from the front of the house.

Somewhere behind him, a phaser was drawn. Someone else screamed.

But Quelis didn’t hear them over ringing ears and his sharp pulse throbbing in his eardrums. He’d trained for warp-core failures, for boarding actions, for ambushes in corridors.

But this?

This was something else.

Quelis pushed himself off the woman slowly, the blast had left his ears ringing, the sharp scent of scorched building material lingering in the air. His back ached proof that instincts to guard the woman had paid off, his frame had taken most of the impact.

He braced himself to offer to help her up, but he stopped cold.

She wasn’t moving.

He looked at her in shock as blood trickled from a wound near her temple, where a jagged shard of glass had found its mark despite his effort to shield her. Her chest was still, and her wide eyes stared past him, almost through him, into nothing.

Dead.

He’d failed.

A heavy, suffocating moment dragged by as Quelis struggled to grasp what had just happened. Then a voice sliced with fury broke through the haze, snapping him back to reality “That big blue brute killed Chasara!”

Quelis turned sharply to the source of the voice, it came from the man with the glittered beard—the one who’d spat defiance earlier. He jabbed a finger toward Quelis with theatrical outrage. “It was them! Starfleet did this!”

Quelis opened his mouth to respond, but his voice caught.

Before he could find it again, Sergeant Vitra stepped forward, her tone flat but firm. “No. This wasn’t Starfleet.” She looked around, scanning the fractured ceiling and blasted entry. “I don’t know what happened—but it came from outside.”

Quelis felt Patel step up beside him. The Commander’s face was pale, eyes tracking the wreckage like he was searching for some kind of sense too. Quelis asked the question they were both thinking:

“What the hell just happened, Commander?”

Patel didn’t answer, instead, he tapped his combadge. “Patel to Io, We’ve had an explosion. Casualties on the ground. Please advise.”

Silence.

Quelis’s chest tightened, the Io wasn’t far, even with long-range interstellar relays down, they should’ve had short-range comms.

Should’ve.

Another beat passed, the only sound were the chaotic voices of the panicked crowd and the commanding attempts of the security officers to contain them. Partygoers had begun pushing back, anger and fear rising in equal measure.

Patel tried again. “Patel to Io, please respond.”

Finally, the familiar voice of Commander Byrrynathalorim broke through, distorted but unmistakable.

“Commander, this is the USS Io. We are currently engaged with a potential hostile force. Please stand by.”

Quelis stared at Patel. Something wasn’t right, and none of this felt random.

He looked back at the lifeless woman, Chasara, and for the first time in years, he felt something creeping in at the edges of his usually steeled mind.

Helplessness.