Lieutenant Jorath, pale and trembling but upright, stepped onto the bridge, Counselor Marin steadying him on one side. Jorath’s green eyes burned with desperate resolve, his Deltan empathy radiating tension. Marin’s Halkan calm was fraying, his hand gripping the younger officer’s arm.

Day turned, and the bridge fell silent.

“Lieutenant,” Day said, breaking the tension, her tone sharp but measured. “You’re supposed to be in sickbay.”

“Captain, you don’t understand. I have to stop it,” Jorath rasped. “It’s not some anomaly or storm… It’s alive… I can feel it.”

Day’s eyes narrowed as she approached the shaking officer, putting her hand on his shoulder for comfort. “What are we talking about?”

Jorath took a long, slow breath, pushing past the anxiety coiled in his chest. “It’s an entity. Ancient. Malevolent. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s feeding… Not just on bodies, but emotions. Pain. Fear. It consumed the research team. But too quickly. It took its time with the Vaadwaur. Savored them. They’re all gone, Captain, there’s no one to save.”

Rax straightened behind the tactical station, tension radiating off his posture. “You’re sure?”

“There’s nothing left but echoes and memories,” Jorath whispered. “It’s growing stronger.”

“Captain!” Kellan interrupted, “Vex is stabilizing comms. She’s establishing a lock with the Ponderosa.”

Vex’s voice was heard over the bridge speakers in a burst of static.

“…Ponderosa, this is Vallejo. Repeat, signal lock established. Acknowledge.”

“Loran to Vallejo. We copy. We had to evacuate the Vaadwaur ship. We all made it, but Bjornsen needs medical attention. We have no communication with Commander Mehta’s team.”

The relief Day felt hearing her ops officer was palpable.

Kellan turned to the center of the bridge, “Captain, Vex was able to lock onto Renn’s carrier wave, we have comms and sensors on the surface now.”

Day tapped her combadge, “Lieutenant Loran. Acknowledged. We’re seeing telemetry spikes now. Renn, whatever you did, Lieutenant Vex was able to lock on to it. Maintain signal lock.”

“Understood. We’ll hold as long as we can,” Renn replied.

“Asha,” Day said.  “Where are the rest of our people down there?”

“I’m detecting Mehta’s team moving toward the Ponderosa. Looks like a weather system is right behind them. High levels of ionic energy…” Kellan replied. “Also, something else… It doesn’t seem natural.”

Renn’s voice cut in over the comm. “Vallejo, this is Renn Tanara. Do you have eyes on the dig team? We lost contact right after deploy.”

Kellan replied, “Affirmative. We’re reading five biosigns moving through the canyon system. Seems to be some erratic energy increasing in the vicinity… almost as if the storm is following them.”

Jorath turned to Day. “It’s not weather… that’s the entity. It follows the fear. Feeds on it. It’s latched onto them now. If they return to the ship, they will only be bringing it here.”

A heavy silence settled over the bridge.

“So, what’s the play?” Rax finally asked.

“Captain, I think I can draw it away,” Jorath said, almost reluctantly. “Someone has to stay behind so the rest of the crew can escape. I can hold its attention long enough. I can amplify and project my fear, it will be like a beacon. Then you get the away teams out and run.”

Marin looked at Jorath sharply, “You don’t need to be a martyr, Jor.”

“I’m already its anchor,” he replied, voice calm now. “I feel it in my mind, like a shadow in my thoughts. Trying to dredge up every fear and pain I’ve ever felt. Captain, I am positive that if I go down to the surface, it will come for me. Please let me save them…”

_____________________________________

The canyon shook beneath his feet.

Ensign Jeremy Ryan’s boots pounded across the uneven stone, every step jarring the unconscious weight of Commander Mehta slung across his shoulders. The storm howled louder behind them, laced with whispers Ryan didn’t want to believe were real.

His mother’s voice… his father screaming in agony, begging for mercy…

“Keep moving!” Ryan yelled over the gale from the rear of the away team. He could feel Mehta’s shallow breaths… he was alive. But none of them would be if they stopped.

Valis yelled over the storm, tricorder in hand, “It is not electromagnetic. Something is amplifying some type of neural field. I am starting to feel emotional side effects, we may all be compromised.”

Dar grunted, her own tricorder in one hand while the other held onto Dr. Pell’s, urging her forward and faster.

The jagged trail twisted around a final bend, and the Ponderosa came within sight, its exterior lights strobing against the red-tinted fog. The hatch ramp was already lowering.

A figure stood in the threshold, Lieutenant Ilias Amir, phaser in hand, covering their approach.

“Go, go, go!” he called.

The team didn’t break stride, hurrying for the salvation of the shuttle. Ryan was the last aboard, crossing the ramp in a lunge and collapsing to one knee as he eased Mehta onto the deck. Dr. Pell was at his side in an instant.

Amir was already sealing the hatch. As Ryan looked up at his friend in exhaustion, he could see in his eyes… terror. Not fear… Terror.

Amir’s hand trembled slightly as he held his phaser stiffly at his side. “You felt it too?”

Ryan simply nodded.

Valis moved quickly to the forward console of the now cramped shuttle, her Vulcan restraint evident. “Ensign Renn, we must launch immediately.”

“On it,” Renn said, firing up the engines and engaging launch sequence. “Hold on.”

The shuttle rumbled beneath them as the engines flared.

“Engines and thrusters at full,” Renn said, fingers dancing across the console, “but we aren’t lifting…”

The shuttle shuddered again, the hull creaking as if something immense pressed against it from all sides.

Lieutenant Valis began tapping into the auxiliary sensor suite. “There is a localized gravitational distortion centered directly on the shuttle.”

Loran’s dirt-smeared emerald face tightened as he looked toward Valis. “Can we counter it?”

“No,” Valis said simply. “Not from here. The interference is dampening our field outputs. Any attempt to break free would compromise structural integrity.”

Dr. Pell was still working on Commander Mehta’s injuries. “He needs more than I can do on this shuttle; we need to get back to the Vallejo.”

A scream split the cabin. Not a cry of pain… a shriek so primal it seemed to pierce the durasteel walls of the shuttle.

Ryan turned just in time to see Lieutenant Bjornsen convulsing on the deck, his back arched, eyes wide with terror. His hands clawing at his face.

“No! Ivar, stop!” Ryan lunged towards him.

Too late…

With a wet, tearing sound, Bjornsen gouged out his own eyes with both thumbs, dark red blood streaming down his cheeks as he screamed again… gurgling and guttural now… before collapsing into the blood pooling beneath his head as Dr. Pell stood over him with a hypospray.

Everyone on the shuttle froze.

Then came the laughter again, laughter heard inside their heads.

Soft at first… a chorus of voices… male, female, young, ancient… blending and overlapping in a ghastly harmony. A child’s giggle overlaid with a dying man’s rasp.

Ryan grabbed his ears, collapsing back to the deck. “Make it stop!”

Valis’s breath caught as she watched the bedlam. She felt the fear welling in her and pushed it down… harder than she ever had to before. She thought… this is a direct psionic attack.

Valis began tapping her control panel, faster than should have been possible, as she called back, “Dr. Pell bring me a hypo with 2 CCs tri-ox.”

At the rear of the shuttle, Dr. Pell and nurse Torel worked to stabilize Bjornsen. Without looking up from her patient, she replied to Valis in a grumble, “What the hell do you nee…”

“Now, Doctor!” Valis replied more forcibly than anyone had heard her speak before.

As Dr. Pell approached with the hypospray, Valis grabbed it from her hand. In one smooth motion, she pressed it to her neck while her other hand initiated the life support protocol she had just finished entering.

With a hiss, the cabin filled with anesthizine gas. Renn’s fingers slipped from the controls, her head lolling as she sagged into her chair. Dar’s tricorder clattered to the deck, her body crumpling beside it. Ryan’s hands fell from his ears, his eyes rolling back. Amir and Loran collapsed to the deck, their phasers skidding across the floor. Pell dropped her medical kit, falling back onto the deck.

Valis stood alone, the tri-ox compound coursing through her copper-based blood, hyper-oxygenating her system. The gas’s faint sting brushed her senses, but her Vulcan physiology, bolstered by the tri-ox, held firm.

The shuttle’s shuddering eased, and Valis disengaged the engines, gravitational distortions loosening.

The past few minutes had been a whirlwind. She needed to inform Captain Day. With a tap of the comm system activator, “Vallejo, this is Valis. We are all aboard the Ponderosa. There are injuries, some severe. I have rendered the others unconscious with anesthizine to reduce our emotional output. Lieutenant Dar and I have deduced that whatever is affecting the crew was imprisoned here. It is possible that the dig team or the Vaadwaur attack released it. I fear we cannot risk returning to the ship, even if we were able.”

With a crackle of static, Day replied, “Understood. Jorath may have a plan, but I am not a fan of it. Your data, is there any way to re-seal whatever this entity is?”

“Possibly, I believe it was some type of psionic containment matrix, but I do not have any knowledge of how it works. I am transmitting our tricorder readings now.” Valis replied. “Captain, I suggest that whatever plan we are going to execute, we do so quickly. I am not immune to this entity. I can already feel my emotional defenses weakening…”