Dolan tried to speak, but the only thing that came out of his mouth was soil.  

At least, he hoped it was soil, judging by the texture of it.  Dragged this far underground, he couldn’t see what had come out of his mouth.  He couldn’t see anything.  The light wouldn’t penetrate this down deep.  The prehensile graspers and palps that had wrapped around his limbs had only stopped dragging him through a warren of tunnels to deposit him in an underground burrow.  The burrow’s opening was so tight that Dolan had no space to stand.  He could just about kneel in a slumped-down position.  Even then, he still had to drop his chin to his chest, and his head was touching the overhead.

After a couple more coughs, Dolan hissed, “Kellin?  Addae?  Are you still with me?”  He tried not to think about how many of Kellin’s turns of phrase were still second nature to his vocabulary.

Through a couple of choking coughs, a voice said, “I’m here.”  It was only Addae who responded, the source of his voice much closer than Dolan expected.  

Dolan crawled towards Addae on his hands and knees, but he quickly lost his balance.  The proverbial floor of the burrow was angled deeper.  Only by dropping his chest down did Dolan avoid tumbling further beneath.

“Can you move?” Dolan asked.

“Not when you’re laying on top of me,” Addae answered tartly.

Reaching a hand out experimentally, Dolan’s palm connected with something that felt the size and shape of Addae’s shoulder.  The texture against his skin felt very much like the material of a Starfleet uniform.  Gliding his palm down Addae’s firm arm, past the elbow, Dolan instinctively recoiled when his grasp was filled by something clammy and spongy.

“…That’s not me,” Dolan whispered.

“That… uh… that should be distressing,” Addae said in a philosophical manner, the same way one might assess a case study in training.  He asked, “Do I sound uneasy?  I can’t… I can’t hear myself properly.”

After sucking in a deep breath, Dolan continued his physical examination of Addae.  Palpating below Addae’s chest, Dolan found the spongy material firm yet giving.  It reminded him of fungus he’d seen growing out of trees in holo-simulations.  The spongy material encased Addae’s hands and lower chest.  It felt like it had engulfed Addae down to the feet.

“You sound uncannily calm.  I don’t like it,” Dolan said; his own timbre was matter-of-fact.  “I’ve heard you panic in the Avalon mess hall if Rals so much as went for seconds without you.  Could you be… concussed?”

Dolan recoiled again –with a “Gah!”– when he felt the fungal matter moving beneath his touch.

Addae remarked, “I don’t feel dizzy?  I feel clear.  I feel– I feel– I feel cozy?  Like I’m back in my parents’s apartment?”

The fungus rippled further across Addae’s chest.  Beneath Dolan’s grasp, the fungus was expanding over Addae or it was sucking Addae deeper within itself.  In the dark, Dolan had too little perspective to judge the difference.  The fungus emitted high-pitched popping sounds, and its flesh undulated in a way that captured pockets of air and angrily spat them back out.  Dolan clasped Addae under his left armpit and tugged at him, but the body wouldn’t give.  Crouched over in the burrow, Dolan couldn’t manage any leverage.  He helplessly pulled again and again.

Addae’s combadge made a muffled chirping sound from beneath the fungal matter.  

A stilted voice spoke from the combadge, saying, “Give.”  The voice had a feminine lilt.  Only when it repeated the word, “Give,” did Dolan recognize it as the simulated voice of a Starfleet computer.

“What?” Dolan sputtered out through a groan as he fitfully yanked at Addae again.  “Who’s there?” Dolan asked.  “What do you want to give us?”

The popping sounds from the fungus came faster, rising to a higher pitch.

“Give back home,” the combadge said.

Scoffing, Dolan muttered, “You have taken us.  We have nothing to give?“

“Give back home,” the combadge repeated.

“Home?” Dolan echoed.  Then he groaned sympathetically, muttering, “Oh… oh…  your home?  We didn’t scoop a great big hole out of your forest.  That was the Borg!”

“Lies,” the comadge said.

Gasping, Addae protested, “Dee, the prime directive!”

“Don’t,” Dolan insisted.  “It’s literally communicating through your universal translator.  It’s eating you, dummy!  This is first contact.”

Dolan coughed again and then asserted his best impression of Captain Taes’ formal timbre.

“I am Ensign Melchor Dolan of the United Federation of Planets,” he said.  “I represent the starship USS Constellation.  Our crew is on a peaceful mission of friendship and exploration.”

“Lies,” the combadge said.

“I’m Starfleet!” Dolan said in defence of himself.  Recalling his academy squadron’s mantra, he declared, “We don’t lie.”

“Give,” the combadge said, more loudly this time.

“We don’t have your patch of forest!” Dolan shouted.  “The Borg stole it.  I would give it back if I could!”

“Then do,” the combadge said.  “Give me your legs.”