"Captain's log, stardate: 2264.32 - At 0152 hours, the Enterprise received a distress signal from Federation mining colony Pandora-7 which reported they were under attack then abruptly went silent. We are proceeding at maximum warp armed for battle."
"Any word from Pandora-7," Kirk asked Uhura as he stood up from his chair on the bridge. He had never been comfortable just sitting where moving around gave him something to do even though his display on the arm rest gives him all the details he needs.
"Nothing yet, sir," said Uhura at her station. She then paused at her station and said, "Captain, I'm picking up 4 more distress signals coming from Pandora-7. They appear to be from Federation shuttle crafts."
"Confirmed," said Spock as his fingers danced over the science station's controls. "Tachyon sonar is detecting 5 shuttle crafts in orbit around Pandora-7."
"Five?" Kirk asked in confusion. He turned to Uhura and said, "You said you're picking up four distress signals."
"Yes, sir, I am," she verified as she tries to establish contact.
Kirk then walked down to the helm station where Sulu said to him, "We are holding at warp 8.6; ETA, 12 minutes."
Kirk then moved towards Arex where his 3 arms moved over the controls. "Phasers and photon torpedoes are ready, shields are on hot standby."
Kirk moved to his chair and activated the com panel. He called to Scotty where the engineer replied, "I'm already trying to coax more power out of these babies."
"Spock, any information about Pandora-7?" Kirk asked as he moved back to the science station.
"Pandora-7 is a terraforming mining colony that is rich in unremarkable ores and minerals; however it is deemed an ideal location for industrialization due to a lack of a natural ecosystem and abundance of geothermal energy, and its proximity to other colonies."
"But strategically?" Kirk asked his science officer of the possibility of an invasion of the Federation.
"Strategically unsound for any possible invader due to its exposed position and frequent planetary dust storms, and any disruption in its mining would have no dire consequences for any of the colonies," Spock reported. Kirk then turned his gaze to the view screen that showed the star streaks and the gravitational lensing generated by the warp drive asking himself, "Why attack an unimportant colony?
"Any information as to who's attacking them?"
"Only a vague report of metallic skeletons with glowing red eyes armed with some form of phaser rifle," reported Spock.
"Spock," said Kirk with a confused look that the rest of the bridge crew gave him. "Last I checked it's May 12th, not April 1st."
"If you are referring to April Fools, I assure you I am relaying you accurate information that has been presented to me," said Spock as Kirk said quietly, "Yes, of course you are."
Kirk looked at the screen again for a moment as Uhura said, "Captain, I'm getting a transmission from Pandora-7!"
"On screen," ordered Kirk as he moved towards his centre chair. "This is Captain James T. Kirk of the starship Enterprise, we are responding to your distress signal, acknowledge."
A broken image started to appear on the screen which Uhura tried to clean up. After a moment a more noticeable image of a dark skinned 30-something woman appears on the screen.
"Enterprise, thank God!" she said. "I'm Edwina Traxler - chief security."
"Chief Traxler, what is your status?" Kirk asked.
"At the moment, contained," said Traxler. "But -"
Kirk and company saw how distressed she looked. He turned to Spock who then looked back at him trying to see any indicators that everything isn't what they seem to be.
"Let me start from the beginning," said Traxler as she regained her composure. "About four hours ago our detectors picked up a ship the size of a shuttle craft coming into orbit. We tried hailing it, no response. We scanned for life forms, nothing.
"When it entered our atmosphere, it - it started to do some sort of zig zag maneuver."
"Sounds like an S-turn," said Sulu. He realized not everyone knew what he talked about and turned back to Kirk. "Before using metallic hydrogen fuel, ships used atmospheric drag to slow them down during re-entry with heat resistant air foils, and it was in a zig zag pattern like what Chief Traxler said."
Kirk then gestured for Traxler to continue. "After that it landed about 40 km north northwest of our colony where we sent out a reconnaissance team of ten to the landing site to see if there were actually survivors.
"After an hour of radio silence the hopper returned. I sent a team of 30 officers to assess the situation and why the hopper was silent."
"Captain, we've entered the inner system, 6 AUs out," said Arex.
"Reducing speed to warp 2," said Sulu. "5 minutes till warp drive auto disengage."
"When the hatch opened -" Traxler started again but trailed off. She then punched some controls and an image appeared with robotic skeletons with glowing red eyes firing on the security team. "They - they killed 17 of my officers.
"We - we managed to drive them back, but our phasers had minimal effect on them."
"Wait a minute," said Sulu as he zoomed in on the rifles the skeletons used. "That's a 1-L-19 plasma rifle. An early EM weapon used during the Eugenics wars. I'm missing that from my collection."
Spock then superimposed a 3 dimensional representation of the rifle Sulu mentioned on the image as he turned the image with the rifle and found it matched 100%
"What were they doing with ancient Earth weapons?" Kirk asked himself.
"Captain, 1 minute till warp engines disengage," said Arex.
"Chief Traxler, we detected 5 shuttles in orbit," said Kirk.
"I had them launched because those things took out our hyperchannel transmitter," said Traxler. "I had the shuttles launched hoping they could send out a distress signal and boost our own signal."
Uhura confirmed with Spock saying, "Logical."
"Chief Traxler, we are only picking up 4 distress signals," said Kirk.
"I know, we lost contact with one of them," said Traxler.
"Sulu, alter course," said Kirk with Sulu knowing Kirk plans on intercepting the shuttle craft. After resetting their course, Sulu said, "Auto-disengage in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1."
The star streaks dissolved with the gravitational lensing revealing the stars with the planet shooting right up at them. The screen then displayed crosshairs identifying the target as a Federation shuttle craft.
Spock moved to his scanners. "No life signs, Captain, however I am picking up 2 bodies on board. Atmosphere is stable, life support is fully functional, helium-3 cold fusion engines and neutronic power cells are functional and on standby mode."
After his heart sank, Kirk activated his com panel. "Chief Hendorf, assemble your team. Shuttle bay, prepare to retrieve shuttle craft, containment fields on full emergency standby. Dr. Piper, Mr. Scott, and security to the shuttle bay."
Kirk had to stop himself from saying Dr. McCoy as his old friend took time off to go see his daughter. He also thought about Chekov accepting the post on the Reliant during the Enterprise-A's construction at Starbase Yorktown.
"Chief Traxler, I'm sorry to report whoever was on the shuttle craft is dead," said Kirk. He saw the sadness and the tension on her face. Her composure returned and said, "I'm transmitting the access codes to the shuttle."