“Actually, Mr Miller, it was twenty-eight days and seventeen hours,” Leonov said hotly from the command chair to the young lieutenant at Science. “And the Opportunity only passed the Pioneer’s record for furthest-travelled from Earth by point-three of a light-year, while we had first eyes on the Coriolis Nebula…”

Sitting on the bridge waiting for a landing party to finish could be dull, but Lieutenant Miller looked like he regretted trying to break the monotony by asking Commander Leonov about past Starfleet achievements. The chirrup from Communications should have been a pleasant interruption. But –

“Xiang to Endeavour, we’ve got a problem.“

Leonov stopped mid-tirade and turned back on the command chair to the front of the bridge. “Never a good sign,” she muttered, before tapping the armrest button to respond directly. “Go on, Commander.”

“We’ve got a pre-warp society down here with,” there was a pause over the comms for a moment, “yuck, muskets firing lead rounds.” So that was the quick and dirty explanation before Shu caught her breath, audibly going through the motions of slowing herself down. “Captain and I ran into some natives and with the Captain not being hot on my heels I’ve got to assume he’s either injured or captured or both.”

Or dead, Leonov thought, but didn’t say. She leaned forward on the seat. “Can you get back to the shuttlepod? We’ll call the other landing parties to reconvene and get an update and plan our next.” She looked up at the communications officer and said, in a lower voice to not be picked up by Xiang, “Get the Major on the bridge.”

The next call then came in from their armoury officer. “Gasset to Endeavour, Lieutenant Randall and I have just been attacked by the natives. They’ve taken him hostage, I’m heading to the shuttlepod now for backup!”  

“Actually,” Shu said, “I’m already at the shuttlepod. I dropped my communicator somewhere while running.” The sound of switches being flicked could be heard and the faint sound of a shuttlepod engine clearly spooling up. “Hills around here are laced with magnesite I think as well, making hand scanners pretty myopic. I’m not going to be able to be met up with our people easily. Best if everyone gets back to the shuttlepod first.”

Leonov worked her jaw and looked to the communications officer yet again. “Can you raise Lieutenant Ricci and the doctor?” she asked, and waited in silence while the bridge officer worked. After several long beats, there was nothing but a stern, disappointed shake of the head, and Leonov made a low noise of frustration before adjusting the comms to be patched through to both Xiang and Gasset. “Commander, Lieutenant, you seem to be the only members of the landing party we can reach. Run what scans you can from the shuttlepod while you wait for Lieutenant Gasset, Commander. When you’re reunited, I want you to take off. Use your judgement in doing a flyover of the nearby area, then get back to the ship. It looks like these natives are a lot more unwelcoming than we’d hoped, and I’m not losing more people while we don’t know what the hell is going on.”

“Acknowledged ma’am, I can see the shuttlepod ahead of me. I’m almost there!” Gasset said between breaths. 

The lift door whisked open and ejected the brown-and-black-uniform-clad Major Caidin onto the bridge with a purposeful hurry. 

“Commander Leonov…is it logical to assume that my urgently requested presence means that things have become…unwell?” She asked in a crisp tone devoid of emotion as if the increasingly frenetic anxious energy on the bridge deck had found little to no purchase in her yet.

“Unwell is one way to put it, Major,” Leonov drawled, not without an underlayer of tension. “It seems our landing parties have fallen foul of aggressive locals. Only Commander Xiang and Lieutenant Gasset have reported in, but we’re still getting a full picture.” 

”Alright.“ Saorise ‘Hex’ Caidin acknowledged, as she stepped down from the bridge deck and nearly leapt directly to the master situation table in two quick and long steps. “Tell what me what you need.”

“What I need is the full picture,” said Leonov flatly. “But I want your eyes and ears here while we learn as much as we can. Because there’s a non-zero chance this ends in an armed rescue mission.” She didn’t want to drop a MACO unit on a civilisation this much less-technologically advanced. But she was the XO of this ship. She knew where her first duty lay.

“Let’s continue scans of the surface,” she directed Miller. “Continue to map out our understanding of the lay of the land. And Comms? Keep on the line to the shuttlepod all the way back. I’m not losing anyone else today.”