It was supposed to be an easy mission. At least, that's what the captain had said.
We were running low on dilithium crystals, and we weren't anywhere near a Starfleet base. So we had to find a suitable planet. We found one soon enough: an inhabitable chunk of ice called Hielo. Captain Picard ordered Geordi, Data, and I to the surface to collect the crystals and return to the Enterprise.
Like I said, it was supposed to be an easy mission.
Anyhow, I should have known from the moment we stepped on the planet. We had beamed down in a complete blizzard. I couldn't see a thing, and the protective clothing we were all wearing wasn't enough to keep the snow out of my eyes. All I could see was snow, snow, snow. The wind was whipping it everywhere. I couldn't even see my crewmembers, just blurred figures. I heard Geordi call out, "This way!" and I followed his voice. If anyone could see through this, it would be Geordi with his adapted vision.
A few minutes later, Geordi stopped. He waved his tricorder around. "This is it, but I don't see any dilithium crystals!" he yelled over the wind.
I took a look at Geordi's tricorder. The coordinates were correct, just like he'd said, but no crystals. "Maybe the tricorder is broken!" I shouted.
Data came over and took a look at the tricorder. "Let me try," he said. I gave Geordi a quizzical look. He simply shrugged.
We both watched as Data brushed snow off of what looked like a large boulder. Underneath the snow was a thick layer of ice. He took out his phaser and began to cut a hole through the ice. Geordi and I took ours out too, and in no time, we had broken through the ice layer and went inside.
"Wow," Geordi breathed, "an ice cavern." Even I had to gaze at it for a moment. Icicles hung from the ceiling and snow sparkled in every direction. In the middle of the cavern sat a very large hunk of dilithium crystals.
I congratulated Data on finding them and we began to work away at removing the crystals from the ice. Suddenly, Data cocked his head. "I think that I hear something outside. I will go and investigate." He walked out of the cavern into the blizzard.
Twenty minutes later, Geordi and I had pried the dilithium crystals out from the ground. Data still hadn't come back.
"Where the heck is Data?" I asked. "He should have been back ages ago."
"Well, he can't have gone too far," Geordi mused. The blizzard had died down, but the snow was still deep. We followed Data's footsteps out of the cavern.
Geordi stopped abruptly. "His footsteps end here. This is really odd…"
He was right. Data's track stopped… "Wait," I said. "See this? It looks like he's been dragged through the snow…"
"And look at these!" There were tracks other than Data's in the snow. They were shaped almost like bird tracks but they are a little different. Geordi began looking them over with his tricorder. "I don't know, but these aren't like any tracks I've seen. There's no record of these kind of tracks on any of the databases. Looks like our friend Data…has been kidnapped."
"But why?" I asked rhetorically.
"I'm wondering the same thing. There's nothing to do now though; we're too late. Let's get out of here."
We went back to the cavern to get the crystals and beamed out.
And with that last glimpse of the ice cavern on Hielo, I knew that this "easy" mission was going to get the Enterprise and her crew involved in something much bigger than we could ever imagine.