Her chest ached, like she'd been punched. Her lungs ached as if they had been starved, no matter how briefly, and her mind was reeling as her consciousness stirred. Talla thought about moving, as much as she was able to think about anything, and then heard the sounds of forest detritus being crushed underfoot by footwear much heavier and more solid than anything any Union officer wore as part of the standard uniform. Instinct told her to be discreet, to remain still, but she was able to open her eyes the bare minimum at least and confirm her suspicions.

Those people were not Union officers. Their clothing was dark but mottled enough that they had been able to blend into their surroundings. Her skull was throbbing but she could piece together that much and the longer she watched them from her place on the ground the more her body and mind fought fiercely to recover from whatever had been in that thing they had fired through the trees.

Some kind of concussion grenade, she thought. Not an explosive in the traditional sense of the word, meant to overpower and subdue an enemy more than damage them.

The figure closest to her turned and she let her eyes slip closed again, feigning unconsciousness until she heard the tell-tale sounds of them moving off again. They moved closer first and she felt their shadow pass over her and linger there for several seconds, close on a minute. Her heart picked up its pace, beginning to race in anticipation, but when they moved off again she felt a surge of relief. She might have been regaining consciousness much faster than any of the others but that didn't mean she felt up for a fight.

"She out?" Talla could just make out the one speaking, their back turned to her. All of their backs were turned to her. Two of the figures were even further away than the others, most likely checking the rest of the team. Most of the figures were close to the tree behind which Captain Mercer had been taking shelter.

"Yeah. It did what we needed it to do." The grenade, she assumed.

"Good." That was the first one again. The way he carried himself told Talla everything she needed to know about his place in the hierarchy of this little group: he was in charge and there was no doubt about it. The others were all looking to him, even the pair over by the rest of the downed landing team. "Let's get what we came for and clear out. We've got about six minutes before the jammer gives out."

Talla's heart jumped, just about ending up in her throat. The jammer. She had heard Captain Mercer contact the Orville, or rather she had heard him try. Now that she thought about it she hadn't heard anyone respond. Kelly would have responded. Whoever these people were they had done something to block the ship from communicating with them and vice versa.

If she could have cursed then she would have.

That feeling was only worsened by what happened next: two of the men crouched, jostling with something, and when they straightened it was plain to see that they had retrieved the Captain from where he had fallen. They had an arm each, which they proceeded to drape around their shoulders. Captain Mercer's head lolled forward, completely unresponsive, even when the men started to move, taking him with them.

Talla's heart practically stopped beating then and she fought frantically to overcome the last of the fog that was sticking stubbornly in her brain. As the group moved off she was finally able to count them and the number she came up with made the bottom of her stomach threaten to drop out.

Eight. And one of them was a Moclan.

In her current state she was in no condition to take on more than two, at best, and that was if she went up against regular humans. But she couldn't just lie there and do nothing. She had to do something.

She had to wait until they had moved far enough away that she could heave herself up from the ground without making it obvious that she was doing so, fighting to catch her breath and keep her balance as she did, having to catch herself against the tree she had used for cover once she was up off the ground. The group were about thirty feet ahead of her now, give or take, and gaining ground fast.

Using her comm would have been a waste of time and her PM-44 wouldn't do her much good against so many hostiles but she had scooped it up from the ground habitually anyway and returned it to its holster. The world spun dizzyingly on its axis as she stepped around the tree and made her way as quickly as possible to the next one, and steady pulses of nausea worked their way up from the pit of her stomach as she forced her heavy body forward.

Maybe she wouldn't have even been able to take two of them. Her vision was swimming intermittently as well, she noticed alarmingly, on top of everything else.

She just had to stay on her feet and keep the hostiles in sight. She had to follow them as far as she could. Commander Grayson was relying on her. So was the Captain.

Keeping up with the group proved more difficult than it had any right to be and Talla didn't even realise she had buckled against a tree and sunk halfway to the ground until she heard raised voices, one in particular calling to the others to hurry it up, we're almost out of time.

Talla's breath caught in her throat and she gathered what little strength she had in her body to not just move around that tree but sprint from behind it, covering as much ground as possible. Fallen branches and leaves rustled and cracked beneath the soles of her boots but she didn't have the time or the mental capacity to care about that, not with so much riding on her covering the ground needed to bring her back within sight of the group she was following.

They were in another clearing similar to the one they had landed their shuttle in and as she caught herself against another tree, thankful for the large thick bush that aided her concealment, she got her first good look at their own vehicle. It was a shuttle as well, scuffed and scarred and well-travelled, its back door lowered so the group could board. The pair bearing Captain Mercer's weight between them were just boarding as Talla braced her suddenly-all-too-heavy weight against the tree at the edge of the clearing. She had to bite her tongue to keep from uttering a curse or any other sound of frustration.

Her knees were about to give out on her. Her vision was starting to blur again. That pounding in her skull was picking up in not only speed but intensity.

She clutched desperately at the rough bark of the tree's trunk as the sounds of its engines firing up filled the small clearing and it was then that she got a good look at the markings along the shuttle's outer hull. The bottom of her stomach didn't just threaten to drop out then, it gave way completely, right as the rear hatch sealed and the shuttle lifted off from the ground.

Talla's knees hit the forest floor as a heated curse spilled breathlessly from her lips and she had just enough time before darkness claimed her again to swat at the comm on her wrist and all but gasp Commander Grayson's name, hoping against hope that it would go through.

"Com—der G—son—"

No sooner had that gasped and broken communication come through the ship's system than Gordon was turning in his seat to look in her direction. Kelly turned her head to look at Bortus in a sort of unintentional domino effect, even as Isaac busily worked the controls at his station to try and get the answers to the questions she hadn't even thought to ask yet.

"Was that Talla?" Gordon's voice was puzzled but suitably concerned. The last they had heard from the landing party had been Ed's promise to take plenty of pictures at Kelly's request. It had been a joke. It had made them chuckle, a lazy sort of amusement that had been well-suited to the calm ease of the situation as a whole but now it didn't feel the least bit funny.

"Talla?" Kelly tried, rising from the Captain's chair as she did so and pacing that bit closer to the forefront of the bridge. When nothing but silence came back across the line she tried again, "Lieutenant Keyali, come in?" Still there was nothing and she turned again to the Second Officer, who was working his own station. "Bortus, you have the conn. Tell Doctor Finn to meet us in the shuttle bay."

Bortus was already rising from his station. "Aye, Sir."

She turned forward again. "Malloy, you're with me. Isaac? You too."

The three of them left the bridge and as one they moved as quickly as possible through the ship. True to form Claire was awaiting their arrival, her own response prompt and efficient, her face a mask of concern. "Do we know what's happened?" she asked as the four of them boarded the shuttle. Gordon moved immediately for the helm and started pre-flight, running through the process as swiftly as possible. Within a couple of minutes they were rising from the deck and heading through the launch shield between the open bay doors.

Kelly had responded to their Doctor's question with a serious shake of her head as she had taken the other seat at the front of the shuttle. "Last we heard from the landing party everything was fine," she said as Gordon turned them on a dime once they were past the engines and set them on a direct course for the planet. "Isaac," she went on without looking back, "had you picked up anything unusual on your scans?"

"Negative, Commander," the Kaylon responded from his place behind the front seats. "Our scans had not indicated anything of note while the landing party were on the surface, certainly not anything that contradicted our earlier readings."

Kelly was running scans as they went, shaking her head to herself because what she was seeing didn't give her any answers and that frustrated her. What she saw on the screen in front of her matched almost perfectly with what she had last seen on the screens aboard the Orville. Nothing out of the ordinary. No unusual signals. Nothing at all to be concerned about.

So what the hell had happened down there?

Tapping the right point on the console she raised her voice to say, "Commander Grayson to Captain Mercer, come in?" There was no answer and she felt her heart skip a beat. "Ed? Can you hear me?"

Gordon was shaking his head as well, briefly lifting his gaze from his screens to glance in her direction.

"Commander Grayson to anyone in the landing party, please respond." Nothing. Dead air. Kelly could have cursed but instead she bit her tongue and drew in a deep breath. Losing her composure wouldn't help anyone, least of all those on the planet's surface.

Gordon directed the shuttle to the exact same clearing in which the landing party had set the first and Kelly made a point of handing out weapons before they stepped out of the rear hatch and onto solid ground. Since they didn't know what had happened they had no idea what they were dealing with or what they were about to walk into. "Isaac?" The Kaylon turned his head in her direction. "Take point."

"Yes, Commander." With that the Kaylon stepped out of the shuttle with scanner in hand, taking only a moment to ascertain which direction they needed to travel in before setting off at a swift but steady pace. The rest of them followed in his wake, weapons at the ready. Kelly brought up the rear and watched their six as they travelled, wanting to keep their Helmsman and Doctor in the middle and that little bit more protected as a result. She trusted Isaac to break out the big guns, literally speaking, if they ran into trouble, and now that the Kaylon were known as a real force to be reckoned with throughout the galaxy she didn't expect many opponents to take him on directly, certainly not without hesitating long enough for their little group to deal with them first.

As they moved Kelly tried not to let her imagination run away with her but she only did a subpar job of that at best. The sound of Talla's voice, breathless and harried, was still ringing in her ears even now, and the silence from the whole party was wreaking havoc with her composure in general. The sooner they found their people and got some answers, the better.

"I have pinpointed the location of most of the landing party, Commander," Isaac said from the front of their little procession and his words gave Kelly pause.

She wasn't the only one, clearly. "Most of them?" Gordon glanced back at her, frowning. "What the hell does that mean?"

"I am only detecting the presence of five individuals," Isaac clarified. "They are approximately forty-five feet ahead of us."

He wasn't wrong. In next to no time at all they had come across the individuals in question and Kelly could see at a glance that none of them were Ed or Talla. There was no distinct blue command jacket and the two officers in red were male. She had to take another deep breath to gather herself. "Doctor?"

Claire had already moved forward and was scanning the seemingly unconscious officers one at a time. Once she had finished her scans she looked in Kelly's direction. "They're unharmed. Just unconscious."

"Where're Ed and Talla?" Gordon was looking around, keeping his PM-44 halfway raised so it was ready to fire at the first sign of trouble.

"Isaac?"

"I am detecting another life sign in this direction, Commander." And Isaac set off again, leading the way once more.

No one spoke as they moved on. Kelly had debated leaving one of their small party with the unconscious officers but without knowing what had happened to their Captain and Chief of Security she was reluctant to spare any of the few people she had to support her if they encountered any sort of resistance and she wasn't keen to leave anyone else in a vulnerable position. Maybe that was the wrong choice to make and perhaps she would regret it later but she was having to deal with one problem at a time. All she could do was hope she had made the right call.

"They are directly ahead, Commander."

Kelly moved up and to the Kaylon's side just as the figure came into view. "Talla!" Against her better judgement she sprinted forward the short distance to bring herself to the Xelayan's side. She was lucky it wasn't some sort of trap, that she didn't come under fire the second she got within a couple of feet of her friend, but she wasn't in the right frame of mind to even feel relieved by that fact as she looked the other woman up and down to check for injuries. She couldn't see anything but Claire was coming down beside her within moments and running her scanner over the Xelayan's frame, from head to toe. "Talla? Talla, can you hear me?"

Gordon and Isaac were standing nearby, the former scanning the area with his eyes while the latter used the device in his hand to do much the same.

Their Helmsman opted to raise his voice to call to the last member of the party still unaccounted for. "Ed?" When no call came back he raised his voice further still, putting more force behind it as he shouted his friend's name. "ED?"

Kelly couldn't blame him, she had wanted to do much the same but she collected herself enough to tap her comm instead. "Grayson to Mercer." She waited. "Ed, it's Kelly. Can you hear me?" Nothing. She turned her head and looked back at the Kaylon. "Isaac?"

For a few moments he was motionless beyond the slightest turn of his upper body as he waited for the scanner in his hand to finish whatever process it was currently running. When he turned his head in her direction she felt her chest tighten in anticipation, but of what she didn't know.

"I am detecting no further life signs, Commander."

"What?" Gordon lowered his weapon to his side and turned fully on his heel to look over the Kaylon's shoulder at the scanner as if Isaac had misread the data. "That's impossible!" He actually reached for the device then, all but snatching it from Isaac's hand. To the Kaylon's credit he let it happen without any sort of resistance. "He's gotta be here somewhere." At which point he started to turn on the spot, his eyes glued to the screen, before he paced several steps away and did another three-sixty spin on his heels with the scanner held up in plain view.

Kelly's heart ached just watching him, the obvious signs of building desperation making her want to go to him and put her hand on his shoulder at the very least. It wouldn't do any good, she knew, just as nothing would have helped her in that moment. Her heart had started to beat faster and her breathing had grown a touch shallower, her mind going a mile a minute and grasping at straws for explanations on what could have happened to Ed.

Claire was in the process of suggesting they get the unconscious members of the landing party back to the shuttle when the figure on the ground between them uttered a low groan. Kelly's gaze dropped instantly. She had left her hand on Talla's shoulder while they tried to locate the last member of the team and now she gave the other woman's arm the slightest squeeze. "Talla? It's Kelly."

Isaac had moved off from the group without a word into what looked like a moderate sized clearing just ahead of them. Kelly paid very little attention to whatever he was doing, the majority of her attention focused on the rousing of the Xelayan on the ground. Talla gave another groan, this one thicker and longer, more aware, and Kelly looked to Claire for reassurance.

"Talla? Can you hear me?" the other woman said to the Security Chief, and as they watched the Xelayan's eyelids began to flutter open. It was an obvious struggle, her body clearly fighting her, but soon she was blinking off the worst of it and looking from one of them to the other. "There she is," the Doctor said quietly, bringing Talla's gaze back to her face.

"Claire?" Talla's voice sounded a little sluggish as she said it and she winced as the name left her lips. Even so she started to push herself up. Kelly could have told her to take it easy but she wanted to make sure the other woman was all right, and see if they couldn't get some answers as well.

"Talla, what happened?" She couldn't hold the questions back any longer. "Are you all right?"

The other woman's initial response was a low groan and then she gave a groggy sort of nod. Her simple side-swept ponytail had come loose, Kelly noticed, and her hair was in an uncharacteristic state of disarray. She lifted a hand to her head, her eyes closed as she tipped it back and managed to say, "Attacked."

"You were attacked?" Kelly looked back at Gordon who was still scrutinising the comscanner in his hands as though he could change its mind on the negative readings it continued to feed back to him. "By who? Or what?"

Isaac's voice interrupted them before Talla could respond, turning their attention to the clearing in which he stood. "Commander Grayson." He waited until he was certain he had Kelly's attention, at least, before going on to say, "I believe there was a shuttlecraft in this clearing recently. The ground has been disturbed, and there are several sets of fresh footprints."

"Yeah." Talla sounded like she was in discomfort but when Kelly looked at her the other woman's eyes were open again and she was awkwardly twisted in her place on the ground to look into the clearing as well. "He's right." She turned her head and looked Kelly directly in the eye. "There was a shuttle. They're the ones who attacked us."

Gordon had moved over, crouching down to the Xelayan's level. "Talla, where's Ed?"

Talla looked like she felt nauseated and as soon as the words she said next left her mouth Kelly understood why. She felt sick to her stomach just hearing them.

"They took him. Bounty hunters. They took the Captain."