Safely behind the tree, Sam leaned his back against it and peeked out. He spotted Vaughn waving to him from behind another tree, twenty meters north. Their positions allowed them to triangulate on the ship hatch. Perfect,Sam thought. Now all we need is Nog to bring up the rear….

Defiant’s chief engineer was progressing slowly across the top of the ship, but Sam couldn’t blame him for taking his time. Footsteps on the hull would alert the ship’s occupant too soon. Better that Nog be slow and silent than to make noise in haste.

Sam took a moment to recheck his tricorder. The heat signature was still there, moving only a little. It seemed to be sitting on its haunches.

Suddenly Sam heard the sound of sand skidding over metal. The heat signature grew brighter, and began moving inside the ship more alertly. Sam looked out, saw that Nog had frozen in his tracks above the hatch. His foot must have pushed against some loose soil on the hull. It was sliding off in a steady, noisy stream.

Dammit!

Sam looked questioningly at Vaughn, who nodded. Checking the setting on his phaser, Sam flattened himself against the tree and called out, “Attention occupant of the Dominion spacecraft. We’re from the United Federation of Planets. We mean you no harm, but we wish to speak with you.”

Ten seconds went by. Then twenty. Then thirty. No one came out. Sam looked at his tricorder again, resetting it to detect EM signatures. There was no indication of any power sources inside, which meant no energy weapons. The chances were good that if he approached, he wouldn’t be fired upon. On the other hand,he told himself, a bow and arrow or a slingshot wouldn’t show up either, and they could kill just as effectively as a phaser. There has to be a way to—

Movement. Something big and green shot out of the opening and flew straight toward the forest canopy, lost almost instantly among the forest green. It looked a little like a crane. No one fired.

Sam checked for life-signs inside the ship. Nothing.

Vaughn stepped out from behind his tree, scowling as he walked toward the opening, where Nog was already climbing down from off his perch.

“Sir, I’m sorry, I really thought it was humanoid,” Sam said, joining his shipmates.

“I was thisclose to shooting that thing,” Nog said. “What was it anyway? A bird?”

Vaughn shrugged. “Look on the bright side, Sam. You weren’t that far off. It was a biped.”

Sam smiled ruefully. “Coulda sworn there was something humanoid in there. But readings are clear now.”

“Then let’s check it out.” The commander tapped his combadge. “Vaughn to Defiant.”

“Dax here. Go ahead.”

“We’ve located Objective One, Lieutenant, and are proceeding inside.”

Nog was spooked.

It wasn’t even the wreckage of the Dominion ship that troubled him, although that had certainly had its share of creepiness. Moving through the smashed interior had been like navigating one of Uncle Quark’s pleasure mazes in the holosuites, except that the surprise in the center was something out of a nightmare instead of a dream come true.

Nothing on the ship worked, so they had only their wrist beacons to cut the gloom. In numerous places much of the vessel’s inner workings had broken through bulkheads, making a number of corridors impassable. Complicating matters was the tilt of the ship, which caused the decks to slope almost twenty degrees to starboard. Worse still, the hull plating topside must have ruptured, because steady trickles of water could be found in a number of places, streaming through much of the ship and completely flooding the lowermost decks below ground. The stench of decomposition wafted up through the deck plates into the upper levels, where small animals and fungi seemed to be thriving in the dark.

They had to cut their way into the bridge, which had been one deck above the level into which the away team first entered the vessel. Though the bridge seemed to have suffered less structural damage than the rest of the ship, it was by far the most grisly: Eight Jem’Hadar and one Vorta had fallen in a heap against the starboard side, presumably killed in the crash. Nog had spent several minutes just staring at a Jem’Hadar skull, feeling strangely numb.

As with the rest of the ship, nothing on the bridge functioned. Whatever secrets its databanks once contained were beyond recovery. But based on observations of the damage throughout the craft and tricorder readings they’d taken along the way, Nog and Bowers had agreed that the ship had most likely been shot down. Unfortunately, any residual energy left by the weapons used against the ship had long since dissipated, so it was impossible to say who their attacker had been. If it had indeed been a Federation starship, there was nothing here to prove it.

Vaughn seemed impatient, even restless. Having found nothing useful during their inspection of the wreckage, the commander told Nog and Bowers to complete their scans of the ship and to search the surrounding terrain for additional clues that might explain its fate. Vaughn would move on toward the source of the transponder signal alone. Bowers hadn’t liked that idea, and said so, but the commander made it clear it wasn’t open to discussion. That was when Nog’s anxiety began to escalate dramatically.

It was difficult to pinpoint, but the longer they walked, the more Nog became convinced that something wasn’t right with the forest. He felt like they weren’t alone, that something was nearby, watching them. Bowers had continued scanning for life-signs, but found nothing unexpected within range of his tricorder. The nearest of the larger creatures they’d detected from orbit was to the north, kilometers distant. Locally, there were only small lizardlike animals, dense plant life, and a few green-quilled avians like the one they’d seen earlier hopping among the treetops.

But something else was out there. Nog could feel it in his lobes. A presence…

“Sir,” Nog said to Bowers, “I think something is watching us.”

Bowers surveyed the terrain and frowned. He tapped his combadge. “Bowers to Defiant.”

“Dax here. Go ahead, Sam.”

“Lieutenant, anything new on sensors?”

“Negative. Atmospheric interference is still playing havoc with our scans.”

“How’s our transporter lock?”

There was pause on the other end. “Chao reports the locks are solid. Is anything wrong?”

“Not yet. But stand by. Bowers out.” He frowned and turned back to Nog. “How sure are you?”

Nog shrugged uncertainly. “It’s just a feeling,” he admitted.

Bowers seemed to consider that for a moment, then checked his tricorder one more time. “Still nothing. But let’s assume you’re right. What do you think you’re picking up on?”

Nog squinted his eyes and listened to the sounds of the planet. After a moment he shook his head and resumed scanning. “I’m not sure. I’m probably wrong. But I can’t shake the feeling that—” He stopped, staring at his tricorder.

“What is it?” Bowers asked.

“I’m picking up a large creature about two-hundred meters north,” Nog said. “One of the sauropods we detected from orbit.”

Bowers nodded and checked his phaser. “We’ll search elsewhere till it moves on. Keep track of it.”

“Sir,” Nog said, “that’s not the problem. When we scanned this area the nearest of its species was kilometers away. That animal didn’t wander in. It just appeared out of nowhere.”

Sam examined the tricorder log with a growing sense of disbelief. One second the forest area had appeared as normal. The next, as Nog had reported, the animal had simply appeared out of nowhere.

“A hundred and ninety meters,” Nog said, his voiced hushed. He was tracking the current position of the animal while Sam tried to ascertain its origins.