**********On the planet**********

Neelix puffed as he attempted to catch up with the lean Bajoran. "Ensign!" he shouted loudly, and she obligingly turned around. As he caught up with her, Neelix sat down hard, panting. "Just. . . just. . . give me a minute," he said, regaining a bit of his breath.

Tal smiled slightly at the out of breath Talaxian, and apologized for walking so fast. "It's just that we lost contact with Voyager at the same time as the Captain and Ensign Sai. I want to make sure nothing happened to them." She squatted down to his level and offered him a flask from her equipment. "Water?"

Neelix nodded and reached for it, stopping as his eyes widened at something behind Tal. She twisted around to catch sight of the Delta Flyer angling straight down towards the bubbling black liquid and the bulky rock in the middle of it. Whipping out her tricorder she took scans of the shuttle.

"I don't think that's their planned trajectory!" Tal yelled. "The magnetic particles in the air are blinding the shuttle's sensors, in a way that couldn't have been anticipated. They're going to crash!"

She and the Talaxian could do nothing but watch as the shuttle dipped slightly and rotated to narrowly avoid the colossal rock, but crashed directly into the boiling fluid surrounding it.