Re:ST: Pandora "Pandora's Light"

wreckage of the USS Cosmos was strewn across the foothills of a mountain. Indeed, it looked like the ship had skidded across the planet's surface for a number of miles, leaving a trail of destroyed brush and shrub in its wake, and had come to a rest as it had begun to slide up the grade at the mountain's base. The ship appeared to have fragmented into several large potions, with the hull and saucer of the Excalibur-class cruiser actually laying behind the nacelles, which seemed to have been tossed into the side of the mountain and had since crashed back down to lay near the rest of the wreckage.

Talona put her tricorder back into her belt holster and took a seat on a rock. She looked over her shoulder at a large chunk of the starboard nacelle that lay a short distance behind her. The fact that the ship's registration, NCC-280208, currently read upside down only seemed to make the scene all the more surreal. She unconsciously touched the grief tattoo on her face with her hand as she studied the sight.

"Well, I think my team is almost done IDing the bodies. I can't believe we haven't found anyone alive yet."

Talona turned to the familiar voice to see Redwing standing next to her. He look tired.

"Were you honestly expecting any? The ship crashed on a planet and was strewn to pieces," she said skeptically, emphasizing her point by waving her hand at the ruin that surrounded them.

"You'd be surprised. One of the case studies that everyone gets at Starfleet Medical regarding rescue operations is the crash of the Enterprise-D. The crew evacuated to the ship's saucer section and almost all of them survived."

Talona looked up at Red in surprise. "Is that normally the case?"

"Nah, but that's not the point. The point is that you shouldn't go into a rescue operation expecting it to be body recovery; you should expect to rescue people. You should have hope that some will have survived."

"Hope..." Talona said to herself, absentmindedly moving her hand to clutch the tricorder that hung on her belt.

Redwing only shook his head and looked at the nacelle beyond them. "Yeah, hope. You know, that glimmer that keeps us all going, despite the fact that both the Alpha and Beta quadrants are sinking into complete chaos."

Talona followed Redwing's gaze to the nacelle and stared at it for a few moments before suddenly looking back at him. "Red... do you hope that War'en doesn't change?"

Red looked quizzically at Talona. "Where did that come from?"

"Well... I know that you were really worried about it before he was joined to the Sadda symbiont a couple of weeks ago. You thought that the symbiont would change him into someone else."

"Wow. Umm..."

Talona looked down at the ground. "I'm... I'm sorry, Red. That was a mean thing for me to ask. I don't know where that came from."

Red gave it another shake of his head and sat down next to her. "No, it's alright. Especially since that whole thing with the weapons system started a couple days ago."

"You think the idea came from the symbiont?"

"Who knows?" Red said with a shrug. "War'en's always been someone who has to be fiddling with stuff and trying to improve it. What isn't... er, wasn't him, anyway... was marching right up to the captain and convincing him with a technically minimal explanation to detour the ship and take time out of its patrol schedule to conduct a test. The old War, he would run computer simulations for weeks before even attempting to ask."

Talona only gave a nod. That was definitely something out of character for War'en. She still remembered one time how he had agonized for weeks before approaching Pandora's old chief of engineering with an idea that would improve the efficiency of the warp drive by 2%.

The pair were broken out of their respective reveries by crewman Sloan, a woman who currently served as a nurse and assistant to Redwing. "Doctor! I have the final count for the recovery."

Redwing stood and gave her an annoyed look. "Rescue, Alex. It's a rescue."

The red-haired woman realized her mistake and apologized, practically shoving her tricorder into Redwing's face for him to look at. Redwing accepted the device and looked at the readout.

"Then again, maybe recovery wasn't a bad choice of words. Not one survivor in over 300 people..."

Talona stood up from her seat and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Red."

Red just shook his head as he looked over the data. "I was really hoping that... hey, wait a minute. That can't be right."

"Red?"

Red typed a few commands into his tricorder, which began downloading information from Pandora. After a moment, he smirked. "I knew it. The body count is 312, but the Cosmos is an an Excalibur-class ship, which can hold 400. Specifically, the Cosmos left Deepspace K-7 two weeks ago with a crew compliment of 380."

Crewman Sloan gave Redwing a perplexed look. "So 68 people are missing? But where? This is the entire wreckage site. Do you think they are hiding out somewhere?"

Talona suddenly frowned and took out her tricorder. Her fingers briefly flew over the screen as she initiated a download of information from the tricorders of her subordinates. As she read over the data, her frown deepened.

"My teams are mostly finished, but a number of key systems haven't been accounted for. A number of weapons... shield generators... and the computer core!?"

Red looked at Talona after a moment of mulling that over. "Do you want to, or should I?"

Talona, who now looked uncharacteristically angry, answered Redwing by tapping her combadge. "Lieutenant Roberts to Captain Oren-De. Dr. Redwing and I have a report for you regarding the wreckage of the Cosmos."

Oren-De's voice came back over the combadge. "Continue, Lieutenant."

"Sir, there are 68 people unaccounted for, as well as a number of the ship's weapons and equipment, including its computer core."

Oren-De was silent for a moment. "At the moment, I'd guess this is the work of that Klingon ship that was in orbit. Relay what you've told me to Mr. Sadda and ask him to alert Starfleet. Additionally, inform him that locating the Raptor is now a top priority. Understood, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. After you've finished at that site, request a security team from Pandora and move to the Klingon site. Oren-De out."

Talona looked at Redwing and Sloan. "Well, you heard the captain. Let's get this finished."

Red and Sloan exchanged glances as Talona marched off and began barking orders at her team. After a nod from Redwing, the two moved back to the medical teams to relay the orders.