"Chief Science Officer's Log: Stardate 60707. Long-range sensor scans indicate the presence of a warp signature in the Alara system. Alara II-3 is a Class-M moon roughly the size of Earth orbiting a gas giant primary. The Virgo previously visited this area but detected no visible signs of civilization. A sentient race was discovered, but this race is somewhere between AA and A on the Planetary Development Scale: no use of fire, very crude tools, and extremely limited language capabilities, not unlike genus Australopithecus of Earth's prehistory. Warp capability is as far removed from the Alarans as the Q Continuum is from the Federation's civilization. Either this race is evolving far more rapidly than we had originally assumed, or another civilization has also made contact with them.
"Commander Lataro, Lieutenant Commander Benton, and myself are to beam down to the surface of Alara II-3 and observe the situation firsthand. This will be my last away mission as the baby is due any week now."
Lataro, Benton, Jenara, and Ensigns Danforth and Valparaiso beamed down to the surface of Alara II-3 near a grotto known as a gathering place for the hominids who populated the moon world. Nothing seemed to have changed from the previous visit a little more than half a year earlier. Jenara opened up her tricorder and scanned the area while Benton and the two ensigns fanned out looking for any signs of technology more advanced than sharpened sticks.
"How are you doing, Jenara?" Lataro asked.
"This scan seems significantly different than the last scans of this area. Something's changed but I can't quite put my finger on it."
"How are you doing?" Jonathan asked once again.
"Oh. Everything's fine. I won't be able to use the transporter much longer for safety reasons, so I'm glad to get out of the lab for a while. According to Dana the baby's doing just fine," Jenara replied. Since the incident three weeks earlier at her birthday party Jenara felt much more at ease dealing with both Benton and Lataro.
Suddenly the tricorder started to alarm. "Commander, I'm picking up an ion trail! Something passed through here really fast not long ago."
Just then Lataro's com badge chirped. ["Benton to Lataro. There's something I think you need to see just over this ridge,"] Benton reported.
"On my way," Lataro replied. Jenara and Lataro moved westward toward the ridge. Upon cresting it, they saw what had Benton so concerned.
A small band of the Alaran hominids lay convulsing on the ground. Two infants were already dead, but their mothers seemed not to know this. The cries of all the primitive hominids were mournful and pitiful, as if they were trying to cry out for relief to gods they had not yet discovered for themselves using words they could not form.
Jenara scanned the band with her tricorder. "These individuals appear to be suffering from a massive systemic infection. It's extremely virulent and propagating rapidly! It doesn't appear to be native to this planet. The amino acids are all wrong."
Lataro produced his own tricorder and began scanning, but was cut short by a loud ripping sound. A huge triangular vessel shot low across the sky at them, trailing a fine mist behind it. The three of them ducked.
"My scans show there to be five individuals aboard that craft, and none of them are one of these," Lataro responded, pointing to the sickening hominids.
"Sir, that mist the vehicle was trailing appears to be composed almost entirely of virus. The virus is identical in amino acid content to the one we see in the hominids."
The three officers looked at one another. Only one possible conclusion existed.
Lataro tapped his com badge. "Lataro to Captain Maruu. We have some fairly significant evidence of biowarfare experimentation on this moon. Not thirty seconds ago an aircraft passed overhead on a line laydown, and Ms. Tomme has identified the laydown as a virus not native to the system."
["Transmit your findings to the Virgo and stay on station. It appears that someone else has decided to violate the Prime Directive. The vehicle which passed over your position has now achieved orbit and is attempting to rendezvous with the warp capable vehicle we detected. Medical assistance will be available shortly. Captain Maruu out."]
"Okay, then, we sit tight," Lataro instructed the team.
Two hours later another craft performed a line laydown. By that time, Dr. Nori's team was ready to do what it could to correct the abuses of another race, while Captain Maruu had been trying to raise the unknown vessel without success. Oddly enough, the configuration of the vessel was similar to something he'd read about at the Academy.
"Virgo to landing party. We are now in position. Prepare for transport," the Captain ordered.
The five crew members on the planetary surface assembled for transport. Lataro entered the coordinates in his tricorder and sent them to the Transporter Chief. Five vanished from the surface of the planet. Only two showed up on the pads. Ensigns Danforth and Valparaiso.
"What happened to the others?" the captain asked.
"We honestly don't know, sir!" one of the ensigns responded. "Suddenly, they just vanished."
Maruu tapped his com badge. "Maruu to all hands. All department heads are requested in my office for a meeting at 1630 hours today!" With that, Maruu left the command chair and entered his ready room.
Something looked like it didn't belong (or belonged perfectly, depending on one's perspective). Maruu consulted the ship's computer.
"Computer, correlate the findings of the away team with Federation databases. Does the aircraft seen at the planet's surface correlate with any known configurations?" Maruu asked.
<The aircraft seen in the atmosphere's lower levels is identical to those used during the invasion of Tanzara in January 2261.>
This is looking more ominous by the minute! the Captain noted to himself.