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three of you down and let you begin surveying. Sciences is all excited about some anomalous readings that turned up while surveying the asteroid belt. I’ve decided to give in to Mr. Spock and let them go take some samples and do the spectrographic analysis. We should be gone a total of twenty hours so you’ll spend the night below. At that point, I’ll expect an analysis and recommendations for how best to proceed studying this dead culture.”
    â€œAye, sir,” Sulu said with a smile. His body language told Spock how anxious he was to get started. The Vulcan privately expressed the desire for the lieutenant to contain his emotions, but had grown to know the man well enough to know that would be a fruitless conversation.
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    Spock had finished adjusting the controls, and on the left screen, he saw the recording taken by geologist Vanani Manprasad, with sociologist Christopher Lindstrom’s playback on the center screen. Sulu’s occupied the one to the far right.
    Sulu’s screen was filled with complex constructs, clearly some control panels for a facility. Spock took close-up readings and determined that the metallic composition of the technology included fairly ordinary composites seen on other worlds. That in itself might provide a clue to the culture’s origins, but that was for another time. Turning his attention to Lindstrom’s screen, he saw the readings indicating the size and shape of the facility. Adjusting his earpiece, Spock heard Lindstrom’s observation that the scale indicated the people were larger than the human norm. Spock concluded the facility the party landed at was some form of engineering control center. Based on the conduits leading in and out of the building, and the centralized way the conduits converged many meters below, this was a substation linked to a larger facility some distance away.
    Lindstrom’s fieldwork was up to its usual high standards. Sulu’s screen showed Manprasad, tinier than the two men, with jet-black hair pulled back in a ponytail, reaching out to take samples of the building itself.
    Spock folded his arms, his eyes scanning the three screens as the routine examination of the dead planet continued. His mind, efficiently processing the information, was also looking for clues and ways to prevent what was sure to come.
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    Sulu didn’t realize he had passed out again until he opened his eyes and saw McCoy waving a scanner over his face. He had only met the new CMO once before and they didn’t really know one another, but the helmsman felt at ease under his gaze.
    â€œWill I live?” he croaked.
    â€œIf you listen to your doctor, you’ll be back on the bridge in a few days.”
    â€œDays?” He heard the alarm in his voice. He worried that his absence would somehow hurt his reputation or future at the helm.
    McCoy cocked an eyebrow at him and nodded. He checked the monitor above Sulu and then placed a reassuring hand on his patient’s right shoulder, apparently the one part of him not sore. “Don’t worry about it. It could have been much worse.”
    Instantly, Sulu flashed back to what happened and realized it could have been him that was being autopsied. Finally, realizing McCoy wasn’t leaving his side, Sulu gingerly propped himself up on his elbows, despite the discomfort of doing so.
    â€œWorse? This was my first landing party, my first time in charge, and what happens? I lose a crewman! How much worse could it get?”
    â€œSon, I’ve lost patients on the table and in the field,” McCoy said quietly. “It’s part of the mission out here. Just when you think everything is safe and sound, something happens to pull the rug out from under you.”
    â€œI guess you’re right,” Sulu said uncertainly. “But what sort of commander will I make if I can’t even survey a dead planet,” he continued, trying to keep a whine from his voice. He