Stardate 2261.646 - Commander Spock recording.
The landing party experienced several minor tremors during the hours of darkness, but no injuries or damages to equipment were caused by them. Once the sun has risen fully, the landing party will be divided into two teams. Lieutenants Vogel and Kiyosaki will begin to clear the entrance to the underground portion of the outpost while Doctor McCoy and myself locate the sensor and transmission relays.
McCoy waited quietly as Spock recorded the plan for the day that he had mentioned the night before. Once the recording was ended, McCoy passed Spock another of the rations. Leaning forward enough to open the entrance to their shelter, McCoy glanced at the sky. They had a few minutes left to eat before the sun would be clear of the horizon.
Opening one of the sealed bags of water, McCoy took a long drink before commenting.
"At least the wind has died down. We won't have dirt constantly being blown into our eyes."
Merely nodding as he ate, Spock gave a moment's consideration to the tendency humans had of engaging in what his mother called small talk. To Spock, it seemed to consist mainly of making a verbal observation on the obvious. Sarek had stated once that learning how to converse with humans at their social gatherings, in a manner that made them comfortable around him, had been harder than learning the Terran common language had been. Fortunately, McCoy neither expected or demanded response to his comments and the remainder of the meal was silent.
Once finished, they exited their shelter to get ready for their mission. While Spock gave his orders to the two Security men, McCoy idly turned on his own tricorder and scanned the immediate area for lifeforms. Nothing registered but the four of them. Not even insects were still alive in the area, if there had ever been any in the first place. Glancing around, McCoy wondered if there had ever been anything living on this world other than the few scruffy plants hanging onto life.
His thoughts were interrupted by Spock coming back to his side.
"Ready, Doctor?"
"Ready, Spock. Let's get this show on the road."
Knowing from the information sent by Starfleet where the equipment should be, it didn't take them long to find the equipment. Working in tandem, they began to perform basic maintenance tests on the equipment - Spock inspecting the transmitters while McCoy checked the sensors. It was basically the same procedure as the maintenance checks McCoy was used to doing on his laboratory equipment, so he required very little in the way of instruction from Spock.
Each man was concentrating on his own task, so it took a moment for McCoy to notice that Spock had stopped working and was looking back toward the outpost. Stopping work himself, McCoy began to notice an annoying humming sound on the edge of his hearing. Automatically scanning with his tricorder, he saw the two expected life readings from Vogel and Kiyosaki, but before he could shift his search, first one, then the other life reading disappeared.
"Spock! They're gone!"
Spock's head snapped around.
"Gone, Doctor?"
"Gone. Both of them. I'm still picking up you and me, but just us."
Without further delay, Spock led the way back to where they had last seen the pair. It was apparent that the two men had been working hard - the entrance to the underground area was nearly cleared. McCoy was the first to spot a disturbance on the upper area's floor.
"Over here, Spock. The pattern in this dust - it looks like one of them fell here, but I don't see any sign that they got back up."
Eyes narrowing, Spock searched around and found some traces of blood on one of the rocks.
"It would appear one of them fell here as well and injured himself. It is as if they were teleported away."
"That sounds like technology that a two man outpost wouldn't have."
"I would have to agree. While I see no evidence that anyone has emerged from that doorway, our missing crewmen must be somewhere. We will finish clearing the door and see what is below."
Agreeing that seemed to be their best option, McCoy pitched in. Once unblocked, the door opened easily, but only silence emerged. As a precaution, both men had their phasers out and ready as Spock led the way down.
If it hadn't been for the dust, McCoy would have thought the scientists had only stepped away for a few minutes. The monitoring equipment was running and a PADD was on top of a nearby table. It didn't take long to inspect the area - sleeping quarters, kitchenette, bathroom, work spaces. Nothing seemed out of order outside of the collected dust.
Poking around in the kitchenette, McCoy came back out with water, offering some of it to Spock.
"Replicator is in perfect working order. I scanned what it made for purity. I swear, it looks like they abandoned everything and simply left."
"Or were somehow teleported away as our two crewmen were, Doctor. Isolated Federation outposts have continual security monitoring. Perhaps the recordings can give us some insight as to what might have occurred."
It took Spock a few minutes to determine which computer maintained the security logs, but he soon had it linked to one of the outpost's monitors and was reviewing the recordings. Since hanging over Spock's shoulder watching wouldn't do anything but annoy him, McCoy used the time to run additional tests on the other equipment in the outpost. Nothing was wrong beyond the need for a thorough cleansing of accumulated dust.
Enough time had passed that McCoy was about to return to the kitchenette to prepare some food, but Spock called him over before he could get started.
"I have had to go back quite some way to find any recordings with the scientists present. This is the last visual of them. By the date, this occurred the day following their last known transmission to Starfleet, so this recording is from six weeks ago."
Pulling over a seat, McCoy sat next to Spock as he began to play the recording. He recognized both scientists from having read their medical records. Of the two, Ozaba seemed calm, but Linke was very jittery. Linke was also complaining long and loud about still being on the doomed planet - which escalated when a tremor hit that caused him to drop his PADD.
Ozaba was speaking soothingly to his fellow scientist when a low buzzing began to be heard on the recording. Both men looked puzzled and started searching to see where the noise was coming from. The tone didn't change, but Oazaba grabbed his head as if in immense pain, then disappeared. Startled, Linke called out Ozaba's name and started over to where he had disappeared from. Halfway there, Linke stumbled and grabbed his own head, disappearing himself a moment later.
The recording continued, showing only the empty room. The background noise had stopped as well. Spock turned off the monitor at that point.
"From that point, there are no changes on the recording. As the noise was similar to the one I heard before you reported our men gone, I can only assume that they were taken in the same fashion."
Spock stood suddenly, knocking over his chair in the process. Before McCoy could ask what the matter was, he began to hear it himself. The same weirdly pitched humming. With his more sensitive hearing, Spock was wincing in pain and staggered on his feet, striking his forehead against the nearby storage cabinet. McCoy was reaching out to steady Spock when he found himself reaching for empty air. Spock was gone.
McCoy barely had time to process the disappearance before the noise seemed to fill his head, drowning out everything else worse than the worst migraine he'd ever experienced. He felt his vision greying out, then nothing.
In the outpost, only the disturbances in the dust showed that they had ever even been there.