These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before. We need to neutralize the homing signal. Each unit has total environmental control, gravity, temperature, atmosphere, light, in a protective field. Sensors show energy readings in your area. We had a forced chamber explosion in the resonator coil. Field strength has increased by 3,000 percent.

Sensors indicate no shuttle or other ships in this sector. According to coordinates, we have travelled 7,000 light years and are located near the system J-25. Tractor beam released, sir. Force field maintaining our hull integrity. Damage report? Sections 27, 28 and 29 on decks four, five and six destroyed. Without our shields, at this range it is probable a photon detonation could destroy the Enterprise.

Communication is not possible. The shuttle has no power. Using the gravitational pull of a star to slingshot back in time? We are going to Starbase Montgomery for Engineering consultations prompted by minor read-out anomalies. Probes have recorded unusual levels of geological activity in all five planetary systems. Assemble a team. Look at records of the Drema quadrant. Would these scans detect artificial transmissions as well as natural signals?

Now what are the possibilities of warp drive? Cmdr Riker’s nervous system has been invaded by an unknown microorganism. The organisms fuse to the nerve, intertwining at the molecular level. That’s why the transporter’s biofilters couldn’t extract it. The vertex waves show a K-complex corresponding to an REM state. The engineering section’s critical. Destruction is imminent. Their robes contain ultritium, highly explosive, virtually undetectable by your transporter.

Shields up. I recommend we transfer power to phasers and arm the photon torpedoes. Something strange on the detector circuit. The weapons must have disrupted our communicators. You saw something as tasty as meat, but inorganically materialized out of patterns used by our transporters. Captain, the most elementary and valuable statement in science, the beginning of wisdom, is ‘I do not know.’ All transporters off.

Resistance is futile.