Bounding into the runabout’s cockpit was the only exhilaration he’d felt in days.  Leading an away team on a duck-blind mission had required far too much sitting and static standing for Kellin Rayco’s liking.  In his days gone by as a security officer, Kellin had been well accustomed to keeping watch, but he felt a certain resolve when he was looking out for danger.  As an executive officer on a science expedition, observation for the sake of observation had a tendency to leave him yawning.

The call from Ensign Dolan had given Kellin a revived sense of purpose. Even the simple act of moving his body, striding into the forward compartment, offered him a sharper mental acuity.  That acuity prompted him to stop short and avoid running into Yuulik.  The entire away team crowded into the cockpit: Science Chief Yuulik, Science Officer Dolan, Nurse Rals, Security Officer Jurij and Engineer Addae Danbo by Kellin’s side.  After clearing his throat, Kellin raised his voice to be heard above the ruckus of conflicting questions and status reports coming from each of them.

“We’ve been here for days and you haven’t been able to locate the Borg energy signature any more clearly than Constellation’s probe or orbital scans,” Kellin said.  Cheekily, he asked, “What fortune has smiled on Ensign Dolan to locate it now?”

Seated at the science station, Dolan visibly shrunk into his chair.

“Aye, commander,” Dolan affirmed.  “I understand why you would doubt me.”

Ruefully, Kellin blurted out, “That’s not what I–“

“It has been days.  I won’t deny that, commander,” Dolan sternly went on.  “The energy readings have only become weaker since we landed on the surface.  Whatever piece of Borg technology is hidden on this planet, its micro-fusion reactor must be failing, going cold.  We suspect it’s beneath the surface, but I couldn’t quite–“

Squeezing between Yuulik and multi-limbed Jurij, Nurse Rals shuffled closer to Dolan.  Before Dolan could say anything further, Rals clapped Dolan on the shoulder in a supportive gesture.  They had all spent long hours in close quarters since their arrival.  It affirmed Kellin to see the team coming together rather than picking at each other’s seams.

“C’mon, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Rals said encouragingly.  “Anyone would have been fooled by those sensor ghosts last time.”

“And the two times before that,” Addae chimed in.  It sounded like encouragement and it was factual but was perhaps less helpful in the team-building sense.  As he spoke, Addae sidled up to Rals, his husband, and placed a hand on Rals’s lower back.

Kellin raised his voice again, seeking some semblance of control over the evolving situation.  He asked, “If you think you’ve located the energy source now, Mister Dolan, what’s changed?“

Five seconds and then ten seconds passed without anyone in the cockpit speaking.  Only the LCARS telltales chimed as Dolan urgently tapped through the controls on the sensor panel.

Predictably, Lieutenant Commander Yuulik was the one to break the silence.  She spoke to Kellin in a semblance of a whisper, but her voice was so naturally loud it carried across the entire cockpit.

“Dolan did nothing but warm a chair, commander,” Yuulik said.  “We debated this with Captain Taes.  You were there.  I told you.  This away team should have been automated with probes.“

“The computer has located the Borg technology because that technology is emitting a new transmission,” Yuulik said. Then, she continued in more of a gossipy timbre: “Dolan was just sitting there, like a drone in an alcove.  Just as sedate as he was on Frontier Day.  The poor boy didn’t even kill anyone when he was assimilated.  Sad.  Can you believe?”

Kellin threw his palms up in surrender through Yuulik’s barrage of sardonic disdain.

Furrowing his brow, Kellin spat, “Wait, wait, you said transmission?  What is the Borg device saying?“

The self-satisfied sneer on Yuulik’s face faded in a single blink.

“It’s a homing beacon,” she said.

“Ensign Danbo,” Kellin called out to Addae, their discussion of a quick jog around the runabout at the top of his mind.  The prime directive only permitted the away team on the planet as long as their runabout was disguised as an unremarkably rocky outcropping.  Kellin asked, “Status of our holographic shell?”

Addae tapped at an engineering panel set into the bulkhead before he answered, “The Borg transmission is having no disruption effects on the holographic emitters we mounted on the hull.”

With a note of distress tightening his voice, Rals asked, “Uhh, whatever Borg probe or data node is buried out there… If it’s transmitting a homing beacon, will our holo-emitters hide us from a Borg ship?”

Lieutenant Jurij quickly offered his security analysis with a “No.  Their sensors would easily penetrate our disguise.  Constellation’s long-range sensors have detected no Borg ships in the vicinity, but we remain within the trailing edge of what we understand to be Borg territory.  Given the increased activity of Borg ship movements since we arrived in the Delta Quadrant, we have to assume the homing beacon will be answered.”

Defiantly, Yuulik posed the question, “So what if they do?”  She cocked her head to the left and jutted her chin out at Jurij.

Yuulik declared, “Every Starfleet encounter with the Borg has found them debilitated by the neurolytic pathogen.  Starfleet defeated them on Frontier Day and destroyed a Queen Cube.  We could outwit a single Borg cube with the crew members on this runabout alone.  And if that cube crossed Captain Taes too?  We would massacre them.”

Jurij’s response was dry.  “I wouldn’t be so sure, commander,” he said.

Scoffing, Yuulik said, “Nurse Rals held your guts in place when the Jem’Hadar blew up your torpedo bay.  We wouldn’t have even made it to the Battle of Farpoint without Ensign Danbo keeping the deuterium flowing through a twisted injector.  Even sweet, simple Dolan was essential in tracking down the coordinates of the lost fleet’s origin point.  You don’t get to underestimate them.”

“But you do?” Jurij asked.

Yuulik disengaged, behaving as if Jurij had said nothing more.  Scurrying over to Dolan, Yuulik clapped him on the shoulder.  Her body language appeared awkward –as if she were mimicking Rals’s earlier gesture– and Dolan’s recoil suggested she hit him far too firmly.

“You’ve been an ensign for years, D,” Yuulik said to Dolan.  “Didn’t ol’ Flavia ever recommend you for promotion?”

“N-uh, no she didn’t,” Dolan replied.

Hesitantly, Yuulik asked, “Have I ever recommended you for promotion?”

“No, commander,” Dolan said, “You haven’t.”

Speaking as saccharine as a jumja stick, Yuulik asked, “Don’t you wish I would?”

Kellin regarded Jurij and ordered, “We have to deactivate the homing beacon.”

“Agreed,” Juried replied.

“Contact Captain Taes on Constellation,” Kellin went on.  “I’m formally requesting authority to take a small scouting mission into the woods.  We have to protect our crew and the inhabitants of this planet, whether they know we’re here or not.  Let’s go kill that homing signal.”