On hearing that they were boarding an automated freighter, Wren felt his mood lifting a little: without people aboard, there wouldn’t be any casualties for him to treat. Still, it felt like tempting fate to return his medical kit to the equipment locker, so he sinched the cross-body strap a little tighter. When he stepped up onto the transporter pad, the six standard pads were taken, leaving him to get a little too close to Carter as they crowded onto the center pad, generally reserved for cargo or for non-humanoid beings. After negotiating nonverbally for a few seconds, they settled on standing back-to-back. Whatever solace the automated nature of the freighter had given him, Wren’s pulse was once again at warp nine: he didn’t like liking Carter because that made things complicated. It also made him basic and predictable. As Wren was facing to the rear of the transport chamber, Xi and Aiden both caught his eye, their intent to tease him evident on their faces. Thankfully, Costa extracted them all from that situation moments later when he gave the order to energize.

For a moment, Wren could see the bright lights of the Arondight transporter room simultaneously with the dim interior of the freighter before he was plunged into the darkness for good. The room they were standing in was very similar to the one they had just left, though with more utilitarian finishes evident even in the red auxiliary lighting. The air was stale, and the ship was far too quiet: the atmospheric processors must have been offline. Wren began to panic as he wondered whether anyone had bothered to check whether there was a breathable atmosphere aboard. What did a robot freighter need with oxygen, anyway?

“Starfleet personnel detected. Activating life support systems,” the ship’s computer announced as it raised the lighting to standard levels. Wren instantly felt the air begin to move in the room as the ventilation panels hummed gently from the sudden rush of air behind them. “This is the Starfleet Auxiliary Freighter NAR-505310. Please authenticate your identity and state the reason for your visit.”

As the away team stepped down from the transporter pad, Costa moved over to the only active computer console in the room, the one next to the door. He placed his palm on a square pad.

“Computer, recognize Costa, Lieutenant Commander Paulo Matteo Navarro, first officer of the starship Arondight,” the commander said. “We’re responding to the automated distress call sent from this vessel.”

“Identity confirmed,” the computer replied after a moment. “Working,” it said after another moment. “Alert: a general system fault has been detected. The primary and secondary computer cores are offline.”

“What caused the system fault?” Costa asked.

“That information is unavailable from this terminal. In the event of an emergency, a backup record would be created in the local memory bank on the main bridge,” the computer reported.

“Okay, can you tell me anything else about this ship from here?” Costa asked. “What about internal sensors?”

“Internal sensors beyond this room are offline. Access to other ship status information can be restored by reinitializing at least one of the computer cores.”

“Great,” Costa said, turning to the rest of the team. “All right, not having access to the computer makes things more difficult, but we still have our mission. Xi and I will go to the bridge and see what we can learn from there. Shadi and Carter, go see if you can reinitialize the main computer. The rest of you: check the hold,” he said.

Wren nodded, sidling up to Hawthorne, his assigned partner for the mission. Robinson and Aiden were the rest of the team assigned to verify the ship’s cargo manifest.

“What are our orders, commander?” Aiden asked, coming to a respectful parade rest as she looked at Hawthorne.

“At ease. Let’s… not do that,” Hawthorne said, though he looked somewhat bemused. From what Wren had heard, he’d only been promoted a few months back. “This should be fairly straightforward: we need to inspect the cargo hold to see if anything is missing or damaged. We also need to verify that we’re the only lifeforms aboard.”

“Lifeforms… like stowaways?” Wren asked, his brow furrowing.

“It’s just protocol. Arondight didn’t detect anyone, remember?” Hawthorne reminded him, his voice mostly reassuring. “Let’s get down to the hold.”

The corridors were cramped, and the turbolift was a squeeze for the four officers. Wren was used to feeling short in his friend group, thanks to Xi and Carter both standing much taller than he did. Crammed into the lift car with Hawthorne and Robinson made him feel entirely dwarfed, though, literally having to look up to the senior officers because his eye line was only up to their chests.

“Not bad for a first away mission, right?” Robinson asked. “I got sent to a bog planet for my first one. The absolute worst kind of planet. I swear I was finding mud on myself for a week after that one.”

Hawthorne tutted. “Mm. That sounds like a personal hygiene issue, Robinson,” he quipped.

“Yeah? Want to tell them about the time you and Costa were flirting so hard the first time you took a shuttle out that you almost got engulfed by terraforming emulsion?” Robinson retorted.

“That’s simply not an accurate description of those events,” Hawthorne retorted, a tinge of pink appearing along those high cheekbones of his; his response made Wren very curious to hear the real story. “It was a simple maintenance issue.”

“Sure,” Robinson said. The lieutenant’s eyes glinted with a desire to egg him on further, but he dropped it. “You’re the boss.”

A few moments later, the lift doors opened into a vestibule in the lower levels of the freighter. The computer prompted Hawthorne to provide an authorization code, then opened to show the cavernous interior of the hold. The lights on the ceiling seven decks above them turned on in sequence aft from their position to show the thousands of containers stacked in neat rows.

“Robinson, see if you and Aiden can get the inventory computer online,” Hawthorne ordered. “Wren and I will go down the center aisle to check the high-security container.”

Wren fell into step behind Hawthorne as they walked deeper into the hold. He found the looming stacks of cargo around them to be very unsettling, given that they were the only people on the ship. Starships were often noisy, crowded places, but this was some sort of ghost ship. It made him shudder.

“So, how are you adjusting to Arondight, ensign?” Hawthorne asked.

“I, well, it’s fine, sir. It all seems very sudden, still,” Wren replied. He reflexively reached up to toy with the pip on his collar. “I thought for sure I’d spend a year or two on a starbase before going out into deep space.”

“Understandable,” Hawthorne said. “Frontier Day changed a lot for many of us. But you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have the aptitude,” he said.

Wren nodded—it was something he’d been told before. And he appreciated that Hawthorne was trying to be nice, but he found it difficult to take encouragement from him. He frowned to himself, wondering if he really was a black cat after all.

“Isn’t it weird that classified cargo would be on an automated freighter?” Wren asked as they came up to the large container that was obviously different from the rest of the ones in the hold. The exterior material was black and shiny, likely something that would defeat sensor scans. “Since they’re not guarded or anything?”

“It’s absolutely unusual,” Hawthorne agreed. “As is that.”

As they came around the corner, Wren noticed what Hawthorne had: there was a large circular hole cut into the container. They both pulled out their tricorders. Wren’s first instinct was to look for lifeforms, and he found none.

“This was cut open with a disruptor,” Hawthorne said. He tapped his badge. “Hawthorne to Costa. We have evidence of sabotage down here.”

“Costa here. The logs on the bridge have been wiped, too. I don’t like this. I’m going to request a security team from Arondight.”

“Understood.”

Wren got closer to the hole. He could see that there was nothing left inside the container. Whoever had been here, they’d taken whatever had been inside. While he was still new to Starfleet, he didn’t think that it was an organization where secrets would be kept without a good reason. He started to do a deeper scan of the container and heard an unusual beeping sound. He looked down and saw a round, green device with a blinking red light. He froze, barely processing Hawthorne shouting at him to get out of the way before the commander tackled him, pushing him to the side and covering him with his body as the plasma explosive went off.

Ears ringing, Wren was dazed for a moment, not hearing anything Hawthorne was saying as he checked him over. They both sat up on the deck of the cargo hold as Robinson and Aiden sprinted towards them. As he realized that he was intact, Wren began to calm down. He saw Hawthorne reaching down to his side and then holding his fingers up to show bright red blood.

“Well, that’s not good,” Hawthorne managed, grimacing.

“No, no, no,” Wren exclaimed as he helped Hawthorne get his uniform jacket open.

In saving Wren, Hawthorne had taken a hit. There was a substantial piece of shrapnel sticking out of his abdomen, and blood was already soaking through his undershirt. Following his training, Wren pulled the medical tricorder out of the kit he’d brought. No vital organs had been hit, so he was safe to transport.

“We need to get you to sickbay,” Wren noted before tapping his badge. “Wren to Arondight. Requesting emergency transport for myself and Lieutenant Commander Hawthorne directly to sickbay,” he said as he reached over to help keep pressure on Hawthorne’s wound to avoid him bleeding out.

“Acknowledged. Stand by for transport.”

Wren felt the transporter beam begin to engage. But something was off. It was taking longer than it was supposed to. Then, the beam stopped entirely.

“Bennett to away team. A scattering field has just gone up. We can’t beam you back,” he reported. There was a pause, and Wren could hear the faint sounds of electrical static in the background. “An Orion ship has just emerged from the planetary rings. We’re under attack. Hold out as best as you can there.”

Wren’s stomach sank. He looked down on Hawthorne’s blood on his hands and then at the man’s blue eyes, looking wide with panic. So much for a quiet first away mission.