"Computer, start recording."

"Error, command not recognised."

Captain Rupert Forest of the USS Ptolemy lowered his face into his hands for a moment. Bone deep weariness dragged at him. I'm too tired for this. Should I just sleep? No, not yet. He moved over to his ready room console and started the recording manually.

"Captain's log, stardate 51132.3.

"We left Deep Space 6 two days ago to commence our patrol of the neutral zone border. As yet, we have not detected any sign of Dominion vessels crossing the neutral zone from Romulan space. However, in response to Starfleet intelligence reports we are on high alert and scanning at the greatest range our sensor array will permit.

"Repairs were carried out at Deep Space 6 following our last engagement. Due to lack of manpower and necessary components, our sensor array is operating at less than 70% of its design specification, and this is hampering our efforts. All essential systems, in particular shields and primary phaser banks, are showing degraded operation, and many non-essential systems are non functional."

For a long while he paused, wondering if he should commit his next thoughts to his log. But if they were attacked, and destroyed, perhaps the recording would be useful. If anyone in the federation ever found it. If the federation itself even survived.

"It isn't only the Ptolemy that is operating poorly. The crew are exhausted. They... we have not been able to rest for two weeks, constantly operating at high alert when we are not in actual combat. Doctor Mathis reports that insomnia is common among the crew, and many of those who can sleep experience nightmares. He informs me that use of medication to assist sleep is excessive, and yet he cannot recommend refusing those crew who are requesting it, as the medical need is genuine and longer term solutions unavailable.

"Judgement and reaction times are impaired among all bridge crew, with the exception of Commander Sotar, and reports from section heads appear to have devolved into little more than a litany of errors caused by crew fatigue.

"We are all in desperate need of this period of lighter duty, and I should be grateful that my recommendation... my appeal to Starfleet Command was heeded. But I cannot bring myself to feel relief. To be taken from the front lines, even at my own request, feels like a punishment. A decision that I and my crew are inadequate.

"It is clear that most of the crew also feel this. Moral is lower than I have ever seen it."

And that says it all, really.

"End of log."

He ended the recording, and sat in silence for a while. Then triggered his communicator.

"Forest to bridge."

"Bridge here." That was Sotar's voice.

"Status report."

"No change, Captain. We continue on course as planned, no contacts of any significance."

"Thank you Mr Sotar. Contact me if anything changes, or in four hours in any event."

"Aye, Captain."

For a few minutes Forest tried to review recent communiques, but the words and sentences seemed to slide past his eyes and out of his memory without making any sense. After reading the same message three times, he gave up and went to lie down on the couch. He'd long abandoned going to his quarters to sleep.

"Computer, lights out."

"Playing light jazz."

Forest swore. The replicator produced a roast duck.

Not daring to risk any more spoken commands, he hauled himself to his feet, returned to his console, stopped the music, and disabled the computer voice control. Then called maintenance. The last time he'd had to locate a contact in the ships directory was in basic training, and then it had only been an exercise. It took him two tries to fumble his way through the process.

"Maintenance." The crewman who answered sounded harassed and anxious.

"Forest here. Computer voice commands are failing. Report."

"R-report? Look, Mr Forest..."

"Captain Forest."

"...Captain, Ensign Marshall here. My apologies, Crewman Powell came aboard on DS 6 and we haven't yet had time to finish his induction. I'll see to that without delay. "

"See that you do. And the voice commands?"

"Errr... Ah, yes. A notice was sent out, it's only affecting non-critical systems. Just a moment... Ok, I've deployed a patch to your quarters and ready room. If you have any more trouble, Sir, I'll have it looked into as soon as critical repairs and maintenance allow."

"Very well. Captain out."

He went back to the couch and gathered his courage in both hands. "Computer, lights out!"

The lights faded obediently. With a deep sigh of relief he relaxed, staring through the darkness at the ceiling. He didn't think he'd actually be able to sleep. The voices on the bridge were too loud, and too urgent.

Shields at 40%. Captain, what are your orders?

Marco Polo has been destroyed! Captain, what are your orders?

Dominion battleship is blocking our retreat to rendezvous, Captain, what are your orders?!

Alarms were sounding, louder and louder.

Medical officer reports First Officer's injuries were fatal.

He could smell fire, and the acrid stench of venting plasma.

Captain, what are your orders?

Fire suppression has failed, what are your orders? Captain? Captain?!

The alarms were blaring, drilling through his head and drowning out the urgent, frightened voices.

"Bridge to Captain."

Forest sighed into the darkness. "Forest here."

"Sir, we have detected a vessel drifting close to the neutral zone, and without power. I recommend we divert to investigate, do you authorise?"

He sat up hurriedly, adrenaline kicking him to full wakefulness. "Computer, lights." He glanced at the chronometer. Almost three hours sleep, that almost counts as a good night these days. "What type of ship?"

"Regrettably we are unable to determine that at this range."

Forest thought for a moment. No other Starfleet vessels are supposed to be here. Could be a civilian ship. Their families should know. Unless... "Is it drifting into the neutral zone?"

"Negative, Captain. It appears to have drifted from the neutral zone into Federation space."

If it's Romulan... If we can prove the Dominion have attacked a Romulan ship, or the Star Empire has attacked the Dominion...

"Yes, diversion approved! ETA to intercept?"

"At current advisable cruise velocity, given unresolved issues with the starboard nacelle, approximately two hours."

"Thank you Mr Sotar, I'll be there shortly."

"Unknown vessel in range for detailed scanning."

"On screen."

The Ensign at the the Conn station glanced up, whistled softly at the image that appeared, then glanced back down at his display. "Vessel confirmed as Jem'Hadar fighter. No power, no life signs. Large areas of the ship have been breached and are hard vacuum, those areas with retained atmosphere are too cold for survival."

Captain Forest stared at the ruined ship. The entire dorsal surface appeared to be crumpled, like waves on a rough sea. Some areas had been wrenched upward, to the point of hull sections having been ripped off, while others looked as if a giant fist had punched them down into the body of the ship, punching clear though in some places. It's port nacelle had been partly ripped clear of the frame of the ship, the rear third of it bent out at an angle.

There was also a large hole at the rear of the ship with scorched, melted edges that looked like the result of phaser fire – except that a phaser should have burned straight through the ship, not just through the hull.

Forest realised that he was grinning in a most unprofessional manner. And he didn't care. "Mr Sotar, your thoughts?"

His Vulcan chief engineer who, since the battle of Tyra, had also been acting as first officer, seemed lost in thought for a while, his eyes almost closed.

"Mr Sotar?"

Sotar's eyebrows momentarily twitched down a fraction of a millimetre, his equivalent of a furious frown. Forest sighed, and waited. He may be the best engineer I've served with, but for a Vulcan he's a seriously emotional prima-donna.

Then Sotar's eyes flicked open. "I regret I'm unable to say with any confidence what may have caused the damage to the dorsal surface. While it appears as if it may have been caused by gravitational distortions, I'm unaware of any weapon that could cause such high frequency, localised distortions. Certainly no Federation or Klingon ship could have caused such damage. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, could the Romulan Star Empire. Certainly no such weapon has been used by them against the Federation. I can only conclude that it is the result of a previously unknown Romulan weapon, or a race previously unknown to the Federation have proven hostile to the Dominion.

"The stern damage would be consistent with a low energy plasma pulse, or possibly a high energy proton beam. Both of which would discount the possibility of the ship having encountered a natural gravitational anomaly."

Forest irritably rapped his fingertips once on his armrest. "So that damage is caused by unknown or unknown, plus unknown. Well that's useful!"

"That is only three unknowns, as opposed to the multitudinous unknowns we may have been faced with." Sotar very nearly sounded annoyed.

Forest longed to have his old science officer back, but the irrepressibly cheerful Trill had been transferred to the USS Ampere weeks earlier. He knew he was doing Sotar a disservice; the Vulcan was trying to fill three senior posts, and largely succeeding. But he was just fundamentally unlikeable.

"Very well. I suppose we'd better take a look. Mr Sotar, prepare an away team. I'll lead, and I'll want yourself and one of your engineers along to assess what may have happened."

"Sir."

I hate environment suits. Forest turned up the heater in his suit, trying to clear the condensation that had started to form the moment they'd materialised, and tried to take stock. The transporter technician had placed them in a section of corridor that appeared largely undamaged, offering access to a fair proportion of the ship.

There was still a thin, cold atmosphere here, but enough had leaked away that removing his helmet would be borderline fatal. The walls and floor sparkled in the beam from his helmet light, frost that had formed as the ship cooled. The cold blackness, pierced only by the dancing beams of light as the away team looked around, and the blank, functional design of the ship, felt deeply disturbing.

"Captain, have a look at this."

He looked over to where one of the security detail, crewman Wesker, was pointing to a patch of wall. He moved over awkwardly. While the magnetic seals in his boots clung to the decking, he found it hard not to sway around uncontrollably. Sotar and the junior engineer were already up on the 'ceiling', studying what looked like a ruptured plasma conduit.

He bent over and peered at the wall. There was a deep, ragged edged hole in the plating, surrounded by a dense scattering of pockmarks. They looked oddly like meteor impacts in miniature, each surrounded by ring of raised metal. Several of them had punched straight through the plating.

"This almost looks like... a projectile weapon?"

Wesker shrugged. "I guess so. There's some burn marks over there, could be from a phaser or plasma blast.

Forest peered closer at one of the pockmarks, At the centre, half buried in the plating, was what looked like a tiny sphere. Pellets? A memory rose up from his academy days studying the history of warfare. A... shotgun?! "Sotar! Does this corridor connect to that large burned hull rupture to the stern?"

"It does connect, though indirectly. Scans showed several pressure doors between here and there, retaining some atmosphere in this section."

"So perhaps whoever hit the ship burned a hole in the hull and boarded, and there was an exchange of fire in this corridor. But what sort of lunatic would use a projectile weapon on a ship? Especially one that can blast through plating?"

"Someone who didn't care about collateral damage?" Wesker had turned to keep an eye, as best he could, on the entrances to that corridor section.

"But you could rupture plasma conduits, cause equipment to explode... you'd be in almost as much danger as whoever you were fighting. Very odd... Let's have a look in here."

Sotar joined them. "From our closest assessment that would be storage, but scans don't show that it connects elsewhere."

"Even so," Forest said, as he stepped into the black void through the open doorway, "we might learn... oh. Oh... shit."

Everywhere he looked, the beam of his light showed blood. Frozen blood crackled under his feet, red frost glittered on the storage crates, the walls, the ceiling. And the bodies. In front of him, the rigid corpse of a Jem'Hadar floated, rotating slowly. As it turned, he realised that one of its... his eyes was gone, and there was only a hole drilled through his skull from front to back. Another, glued to the floor by blood and ice, had a massive hole through his chest. He was still holding his pistol. And... Oh no. No, no no... another looked as if his face had been torn off!

Over the suit communicator he heard loud retching, and heard Sotar say calmly "Crewman, control yourself."

Twisting round, he realised Wesker was starting to double over, his hands moving up to his helmet. "Wesker, leave your helmet on! Captain to Ptolemy, emergency, one to beam back, crewman Wesker!" Wesker's anguished face suddenly disappeared behind a sheet of yellowish fluid, a moment before he was transported out.

There was an agonisingly long pause before... "Ptolemy transporter room here, we've got Crewman Wesker. We're giving him first aid for inhalation of vomit before transferring to medical, but it looks like he'll be ok after treatment." Forest could hear loud, harsh coughing and a deep groan in the background.

He realised he'd been holding his breath, and let it out in a rush. "Thank you. Captain to bridge."

"Bridge here."

"Please send over someone to replace Wesker. Someone with a stronger stomach!"

"Right away, Sir."

"Is everyone else all right?"

There was a muted chorus of "Aye, sir". Sotar didn't say anything, but just gave him a sardonic look, as if the idea of a Vulcan being upset by the sight of mutilated corpses was ridiculous whimsy. Which, he supposed, it was. Do all Vulcans practice lifting one eyebrow in that supercilious way, or is it genetic?

His musing was interrupted by another suited figure beaming in.

"Ah, that was commendably quick, crew... Lieutenant Trathal?"

"Thank you, Sir!" The slight little Andorian engineer cut a somewhat ridiculous figure, as the environment suit she was wearing was clearly a size too big. She was also not looking at him at all, but peering down at her tricorder as she fiddled with it.

"Lieutenant, I don't recall your service record mentioning security experience. Why are you here?"

"Oh, I reminded Lieutenant Commander Pashzto that before I joined Starfleet I was a crime scene investigator with the Imperial Guard. She thought I could be useful. Ok, I've finished recording." She looked round with a critical expression. "Did you touch anything before I got here?"

"I believe crewman Wesker stepped on something, precipitating his episode of emesis." Sotar was regarding Trathal rather coolly. "Your act of making recordings is illogical. We are entirely capable of assessing the situation here."

Trathal shrugged, crouching over the spot where Wesker had been standing. "Preserve the crime scene," she glanced around and pulled a face "or combat scene, then record, then analyse. Standard procedure for making sure no-one misinterprets or overlooks anything." She looked up at Forest. "But if you want to follow non-standard procedure, Sir?"

Forest suppressed a smile. She may have been skirting the edge of insubordination, given Sotar's iron clad rule on all engineering work being done by the book, but Sotar had that effect on most of the crew. "No, I respect your experience."

She looked back down at the ground, looking smug. Then her face went blank. She peeled something off the floor and held it up. "A face. No wonder Wesker had problems, if he saw he'd stepped on it. Taken off that one, it looks like." She waved the frozen, folded wad of tissue at the faceless Jem'Hadar. "I can do a proper check later."

Forest swallowed hard. "I doubt that will be necessary."

Slowly, cautiously, they moved from room to room, corridor to corridor, recording and assessing. Fortunately they didn't find any more cases of deliberate mutilation, but whoever had gone through this ship killing off the crew, the effects of their weapons were brutal enough. Sometimes bizarrely so. Most of the Jem'Hadar appeared to have been killed by primitive projectile weapons, but some had been violently hurled into walls, or the ceiling, breaking bones and rupturing organs. Others had been burned. Several, it looked as if their own weapons had exploded. And Trathal had calmly declared that one of the Jem'Hadar had been frozen solid while still alive, then shattered into pieces.

When they'd first seen the wrecked fighter, Forest had grinned in satisfaction. Now he just felt a growing sense of dismay and disgust at the people who'd done this.

After an hour Forest called a pause. We should return to the ship, take a proper break. Nothing's going to happen here, we can come back later. But... I want to be done with this. "Mr Sotar, I want you to take Lieutenant...?"

"Paris, Sir."

"Paris, thank you, with you, locate their power systems and see if you can restore any power safely. Take crewman Thompson to cover you while you work. Trathal, you were in the Imperial Guard, you have combat training?"

She lifted one shoulder in an small half-shrug. It was odd to see an Andorian using body language so easily, they tended to rely on their antennae. She seemed more comfortable with other races than most Andorians. "Basic combat training, enough to seek cover, pick my targets and not panic."

Forest hesitated for a moment. "Good enough. I doubt there's anyone left alive here. You and I will head for their computer core and see if we can retrieve any data."

"Yes Sir. May I recommend that Commander Sotar or Lieutenant Paris scan each area before entering it, using raw tricorder settings without filters? We can filter and compress later, but I've found that technical settings can lose data on organic matter, and medical settings lose data on trace transuranics."

Forest winced inwardly. He shouldn't have indulged her earlier, this was turning into a problem; one that Sotar was ill-equipped to resolve. "Thank you, Lieutenant, Mr Sotar is well aware how to use a tricorder."

"Yes, Sir. My apologies, Commander."

Sotar inclined his head, and turned to Lieutenant Paris. "Mr Paris, I believe the maintenance duct in the previous section will give us access to engineering, but please calculate alternative routes while Crewman Thompson and I assess its integrity." He gestured for Thompson to precede him. Just before he disappeared into the darkness, he looked back. "I will bear Lieutenant Trathal's suggestion in mind."

Forest shook his head wearily. Most Vulcans had at least some understanding of other races' emotions, and how to maintain discipline. Sotar seemed oblivious.

"Come on Ms Trathal. Computer core should be forward on the next deck down."

Forest had read the reports that Dominion ships were designed to be utilitarian, with no concessions to comfort. He'd even studied the schematics from crashed or captured ships. But none of that could prepare him for the reality. As they painstakingly picked their way through the ruined vessel, abandoning one route after another as they proved impassable (and Ptolemy confirmed there were no spaces that could be confirmed clear and large enough to transport them to), he found it easy to become disorientated, with nothing to distinguish one room or corridor from another, except the degree of damage or (in some cases) a particularly memorable corpse. He started to feel as as if they were crawling through the endless bowels of a machine where living things were never supposed to intrude.

Literally crawling in places, where rooms or corridors had collapsed or buckled. Even though there was no gravity, as he dragged himself through some narrow gaps, he had to fight a growing conviction that something would give way and crush him.

Trathal's small size proved useful, as several times she could slide through a tight gap and confirm whether it was possible to carry on that way. Usually she kept up a calm running commentary. Only once did she suddenly stop talking for several seconds, before saying, "Sir, if we have to go this way, you might want to keep your eyes shut."

He was relieved when she announced shortly after that the way was impassable, and soon came snaking her way back.

Still, even without seeing that particular nightmare, he saw more bodies in a couple of hours than he'd seen in 20 years of service. During a short pause, as he hung limp with his eyes closed, trying to centre himself and steady his breathing, he heard Trathal ask "Are you alright, Captain?"

Am I alright? I'm the Captain. I'm the one who's supposed to keep it together when everyone else is falling apart.

He took a moment to carefully consider if he really was alright. He shouldn't allow his pride to compromise the mission. He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Yes, Ms Trathal. I'm having some difficulty, but nothing I can't cope with." He looked at her thoughtfully. She hadn't sounded concerned, exactly, more asking for information. In fact, the whole time they'd been searching the ship for clues as to what (and especially who) had happened to the Jem'Hadar, she had seemed eerily calm.

"Are you alright? You seem a bit... detached. Are you coping?"

She nodded, once. "I saw a lot of bodies before I joined Starfleet. People who couldn't cope soon quit, or were moved to less challenging duties. I was one of those who was able to cope." She was silent, briefly, then added "But I will see our counsellor when we get back."

Forest gave a rather forced chuckle. "I think we'd all best do that." He stretched and flexed his weary muscles. Damn, moving in zero gravity is harder than I remember from training, I'm tensing up way too much. I'm going to ache tomorrow. "Ok, last push. Let's get this over with."

A few more minutes took them almost to the computer core. Then they found the Vorta.

Forest found it difficult to even look at him, and Trathal became very intent on her tricorder for a while, before she pushed herself to approach the body.

"That's... disturbing."

The Vorta was arched violently backwards, and his limbs were contorted. But the worst of it was, his eyes were wide open and bulging, and his face seemed to be forever frozen into a horrified scream. Forest badly wanted to turn the body so it was facing away from him. "What happened to him?!"

"I... I don't know. None of his injuries should be fatal, and I don't think he froze to death. Um... If you agree, Sir, I'd like to send this body back to the Ptolemy for Doctor Mathis to examine."

"Agreed. Forest to Ptolemy."

"Ptolemy here."

"One deceased Vorta to beam back to medical for examination. Ah, please inform Doctor Mathis that the body has a somewhat bizarre and possibly disturbing appearance."

"Aye aye, Sir."

As the Vorta's body was beamed away, Forest felt somewhat relieved that the imperturbable Pashzto hadn't bothered to ask for more details. I don't know how I'd describe that and not sound half crazed.

He looked around, and indicated one of the three doors leading from this junction. Fortunately not the buckled one. "That's the core, lets get this open."

"Aye, Captain." Trathal started heating the door with her phaser on a high stun setting, to clear the frost. "Do you think the Vorta was heading here?"

"Hm. Or away from here. Hopefully everything's intact."

"What if Commander Sotar can't restore power?"

"That would make things easier, but at a pinch our suits might have enough spare power to at least retrieve data. The Ptolemy's computer can handle the access and decryption."

"Okay, Sir, the door's free."

With a little effort they managed to slide the door open, and shone their lights inside. For a long while, neither spoke. Then Trathal started laughing. Forest felt more like banging his head against the wall in frustration.

He sighed and tapped his comm badge. "Forest to Commander Sotar."

"Sotar here."

"Progress report?"

"We have reached main engineering and are assessing. However, my preliminary conclusion is that it will be impossible to restore power. There is significant damage, apparently caused by a combination of sabotage and close combat collateral damage."

"Understood. Record what you can and return to the ship, we're not going to be getting any information from their computer."

"It is also damaged, Captain?"

Forest looked again around the computing core. An entirely unconscious action; it wasn't as if his light would show him anything different this time.

"Hard to say. We'd have to find it first."

"The location of the computing core is clearly indicated on schematics from Starfleet Command, Sir." Sotar very nearly sounded reproving.

"Oh, we've found the core. Just not the computer. The whole lot is gone. Ripped clean out and removed."

"Interesting. Lieutenant Paris and I have also noted the removal of equipment and systems components."

"Okay, I think we're done here..."

"Captain!" Forest looked round hurriedly, hand going to his phaser, half expecting an ambush. But all he saw was Trathal standing by a small open hatch on one wall, tugging on a handle inside. She looked over, and pointed at the handle. "I've found the flight recorder, but it's frozen in and I don't want to risk the phaser. Could you help me?"

The Ptolemy's somewhat reduced team of senior officers sat around Forest's desk in his ready room. Usually he'd have held a meeting like this in the briefing room, but these days he felt uneasy about being too far from the bridge.

"Ok, so whoever hit the Jem'Hadar fighter then boarded them, apparently not by beaming in but by burning a hole in their hull, then killed off the crew, and despite being clearly as technologically advanced, or more so, then go on to take their entire computer system and plunder a random collection of items of tech?" Lieutenant Commander Grant shook his head irritably. "It doesn't make sense."

Forest had a good deal of respect for his operations manager, but even he'd admit that Grant wasn't the most flexible or imaginative of men.

The security chief, Pashzto, cleared her throat. "It may not make sense to us, but it must have made sense to them. They're clearly a very violent people, might they have taken the tech items as trophies?"

"I do not believe we have enough data to conclude that they are particularly violent."

"Mr Sotar, they did kill the entire Jem'Hadar crew."

"Were we to be faced with direct combat with Jem'Hadar, since Jem'Hadar neither accept nor offer surrender, I believe we would be forced into similar action."

"They ripped someone's face off!"

Command meetings are turning into arguments too often, lately. "Thank you Mr Grant, that's a point worth making, but I agree with Commander Sotar, we're lacking any clear knowledge of our unknown attackers. Have you had any luck pulling data from the flight recorder we discovered?"

Grant rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Yes, some, but there's less data on there than you'd expect. Probably just in case it gets captured. Mostly sensor logs and low-level systems alerts. It looks like they were tracking a gravitational anomaly, probably whoever it was who attacked them. I've passed that to our astrometrics to see if they can pick up any traces. And my team are working to extract some more heavily encrypted material. I'd hoped to have it ready for this meeting, but Jem'Hadar encryption is not trivial to crack."

"Thank you, hopefully it will help." Forest turned to Dr Mathis. "Doctor, were you able to determine cause of death for that Vorta?"

Mathis shook his head, though it looked more like a gesture of frustration than anything else. "Not really. I can tell he suffered massive neural disruption, but I can't tell what caused it. While he had several broken bones, including an open compound fracture, he clearly died before they could have proved fatal."

"You mentioned an implant in the brain stem...?"

"Ah, yes. I'm not sure what that was for, but it's definitely a one-activation device, and it wasn't activated."

"Hm. Mr Sotar, have you been able to spot any pattern in the tech that was removed from the fighter?"

"I have not. Some items, such as the computer core, sensor array components and communication equipment would have taken significant effort to remove, and were clearly targeted. This suggests knowledge of their purpose, which is consistent with the ability to attack the Dominion vessel effectively. However, their removal also indicates a need to analyse the technology, which suggests a lower tech level. Other items removed, such as medical equipment, uniforms and melee weapons appear to be either random scavenging or trophy hunting."

There was a chime from the door. Forest grimaced and called out "Come in!"

"Sorry to interrupt, Captain." An ensign entered and offered him a pad. "We just got some security recordings decrypted, and thought you'd want to see it as soon as possible. I've highlighted the relevant section."

Forest almost snatched the pad from her. "Thank you Ensign. Does it show the attackers?"

"I'm afraid not, Sir, but there is information about them."

"Very good. Dismissed." As she left, he set the pad to send the relevant recording to the large screen. "Let's see what we have here."

The image that appeared on the screen showed the Vorta overseer standing in the fighter's control centre, with the bridge crew at their stations. One of the bridge crew was speaking.

"... detected at the termination of the gravitational anomaly."

The Vorta's response was laconic, almost indifferent. "Identity?"

"Unknown, Overseer."

"Unknown? That is not acceptable."

"Your pardon, Overseer, but the vessel does not match any profile in our databases, and has no design similarity to any other vessels."

"Hm. Details."

"Three singularity power sources are present, but the vessel does not even approach the design configuration of any known Romulan vessel. There is no trace of any warp core or warp signature, or any other use of subspace fields. The vessel appears to manoeuvre by manipulation of the local gravitational field, but there is no detectable graviton flux. There are multiple masses of an unidentified exotic form of matter on board the vessel, five massing several tons, which are associated with main power systems. The vessel is generating low-power, high frequency gravity waves, possibly to scan its local environment.

"Weapons appear to consist of a main weapon of uncertain function running the length of the vessel, and several low power plasma and proton beam weapons. There also appear to be torpedoes of indeterminate capability and function."

"Really? How very fascinating. No subspace fields at all?"

"No, Overseer."

"Do they show any sign that they have detected our approach?"

"No, Overseer."

"Well well well. I think the Founders will want to study this vessel. Maintain approach at low warp, and target their power systems."

"... If I may advise, Overseer?"

The Vorta's attitude changed from laid back to sharp and threatening in an instant. "Are you questioning my orders?"

"No, Overseer. But I am unable to identify any single point of attack that would disable the vessel without destroying it."

The Vorta sighed in exaggerated impatience. "And your advice, First?"

"The main weapon is an unknown quantity. The secondary weapons read as being entirely unable to breach our shields. I suggest we disable their main weapon and demand their surrender."

"Oh, very well. Close to firing range... no, on second thought, close to minimal range at low warp, and fire when able. We don't want them sending a volley of torpedoes at us, eh?"

There was a delay, as the two Jem'Hadar silently entered commands at their consoles, while the Vorta monitored. Then, a rapid flurry of overlapping reports from the two Jem'Hadar.

"Dropping from warp."

"Multiple high frequency gravitational distortions detected."

"Firing. Minimal damage, target's main weapon..."

"Target manoeuvring."

"... is offline."

There was the sound of audio feedback from the fighter's shields, and the three bridge crew shifted position, as if the ship had shuddered under attack."

"Shields at 92%."

Another shuddering impact. "Shields at 87%."

The Vorta actually looked toward the First. "Low power plasma and proton beams?"

"Target's weapons power output is far higher than sensors indica..."

"Shields at 80%."

"Well, I think they've got the point by now. Open hailing..."

"Oversee...!"

The recording stuttered, jumped and froze. On the final blurred and distorted image one Jem'Hadar had been thrown vertically toward the ceiling, while the Vorta and his First had been sent sprawling to the floor.

Forest realised he'd been holding his breath, and let it out slowly. His senior officers, apart from Sotar, shifted in their seats.

"Okay." Forest checked the data on the pad. "That looks like the point where the security recordings stop. So," He looked around at his officers. "...we have a mystery. A ship entirely unknown to the Dominion. Which means they weren't from the gamma quadrant. And from the sound of it, probably unknown to us as well. Mr Sotar, have you ever heard of a race that makes ships with no use of subspace fields?"

"I have not."

"Mr Grant, do we know where this encounter took place?"

"Hm. Omicron Quisquilia, just barely inside the neutral zone. No habitable planets within seven light years, so they're not a local race with sub-light drives.

Forest pondered his options for a short while, then came to a decision. "Very well. We have a likely first contact situation with a militarily inclined and capable race who now have every reason to be hostile to the Dominion. I think we need to try and make more peaceful contact, and see if an alliance is possible. Before I inform Starfleet Command, I'd welcome your thoughts."

Pashzto leant forward, looking concerned. "That does seem risky. These people may be more of a liability than an asset. And now we've got proof the Dominion are moving through the neutral zone. If we abandon our patrol, they could gather an attack force unhindered."

Forest nodded. "I'll include that risk in my recommendation to Starfleet. Anyone else?"

No one else spoke up, so he stood. All of a sudden he was feeling more positive and energised than he had for some time. "Right. Mr Grant, see if astrometrics have been able to find any sign of our mystery vessel's trail. If not, Mr Sotar, I want you to see if you can improve our scanning capability. That will be all. Dismissed.

His senior officers filed out, and left him to try and explain to Starfleet Command why, in time of war, he was going off-mission.