Prologue
"You see those desolate planets?" Captain Picard asks his first mate, Commander Riker.
"Man, whoever cleaned off these planets is desperate to survive," Riker responds.
Lieutenant Worf speaks up when he sees something on the radars, "Captain, we are picking up life forms on the smallest planet."
Captain Picard orders, "Riker, assemble an away team while we wait for Voyager to join us."
"Aye, aye, Captain." Riker asks Deanna Troi, the ship's counselor, and also Lieutenant Worf to join him on the away mission with simple nods. The three of them work really well together and are Captain Picard's most trusted crew members. The three of them enter the turbo lift and Riker commands the computer to let them off at the loading bay. They step onto the transporter and Lieutenant O'Brien beams them onto the planet. With coordinates chosen, they will be beamed a couple miles away from the supposed life forms.
Within a couple of minutes, they arrive on the planet. With phasers drawn, the away team scowers the scene with their eyes. Lieutenant Worf pulls out a camcorder and tries to track the life forms heat signatures. They walk a little ways until they come across a nest with three little bugs. They don't look very old. They have blades for arms because they witnessed what must have been the oldest and strongest bug slice its brethren in two and eat both halves. Deanna and Riker were taken aback by this bug and Worf called over his combadge to transport them back to the ship and to have the doctor ready with a container to hold the bug so that they might be able to examine them.
Before the away team knew it, they were back on board the Enterprise and returning to the Captain to tell him about their findings.
Captain Picard responds to their story, "My, and you said it ate its siblings?"
Worf confirms by saying, "Yes, and it was rather, revolting."
Captain Picard uses his combadge and contacts the Doctor who originally was an emergency medical hologram on the starship Voyager. He stayed behind on the Enterprise to help the doctor on the Enterprise, Beverly Crusher, learn some new technology that was installed before their journey. He responds within seconds and has already gotten the bug contained and has been running scans and tests on it. Captain Picard leaves command in the hands of Commander Riker while he goes to talk with the Doctor about the newest finding.
The Doctor greets the Captain warmly, "Good afternoon Captain."
"How are the scans going?"
"Quite well. I think we know what it is."
"I remember back in my Academy days we played a tabletop game that have miniatures that looked similar to the bugs that I saw on my first mission as captain of the Enterprise. I was never able to believe that they were real. I thought the game was made up… but they are real."
"I did some research and the bug that we have here and the ones that you have been speaking of are Tyranids. They are very similar to the Borg except they feed on every living thing on planets and leave them desolate. When they don't have planets to feed on, they start turning on each other for resources."
"Tyranids, yes that is what they are called," The captain spaces out into thought.