Relentless hail battered the hull, and harsh winds tossed the shuttle around like a ragdoll. White knuckling the armrest, Lieutenant Balan took a deep breath. And then another. And another. It was all she could do to try and avoid losing her breakfast over the bulkhead. 

So engrossed in holding herself together, she didn’t even notice the shadow of a woman pass over her until a reassuring handle settled on her shoulder. “You ok Emilia?” Lieutenant Balan looked up to see Admiral Reyes standing there, completely steady on her feet even as the shuttle rocked aggressively. There was no judgment in the flag officer’s eyes, just a look of compassionate understanding.

“Was it that obvious, ma’am?” Lieutenant Balan asked meekly, embarrassed that her discomfort had drawn the attention of their squadron commander.

“Just a little,” Admiral Reyes smiled kindly. “But don’t worry, we’ll be on the ground shortly.” The admiral gave Lieutenant Balan a gentle pat on the back and then continued her walk through the cabin. As usual, Admiral Reyes was unflappable. Lieutenant Balan wished she had a tenth of that fortitude.

“Don’t worry Lieutenant,” said Lieutenant Sh’vot from the jumpseat next to her. “The tensile strength of our duranium hull far exceeds the maximum shearing forces a storm on a class P world can produce.” Like Lieutenant Balan, the geophysicist from the Advanced Science, Technology and Research Activity didn’t spend a lot of time flying getting thrashed around on rough orbital approaches, but unlike her though, he had a rational basis of scientific fundamentals to fall back on and calm his nerves.

While Lieutenant Balan could not articulate the difference between tensile strength and yield strength, her colleague’s words calmed her a bit. “Remind me again why we couldn’t just beam straight down?”

“The rich lanthanide composition of the Beta Serpentis III’s outer crust makes it an excellent source of rare metals, but it does a number on the transporter targeting scanners,” Lieutenant Sh’vot explained. “If they had a working receiver pad down there, we’d probably be okay, but the colony’s infrastructure is so dilapidated that this bumpy ride is the only way down.”

Ten minutes later, the shuttle settled on a snowpatch in the town square, and after a mad dash through the blistering cold, Admiral Reyes, Lieutenant Balan, Lieutenant Sh’vot, and four other officers from the USS Ingenuity stepped into the reception room of the colony’s main administration building. Plates of icefish, tuber roots, and other local delicacies lined the walls, and nearly two dozen colonists had come to meet the Starfleet delegation.

“Welcome to our humble home,” Administrator Thoss began with a smile. “It is not often we have guests… and even less that they come without ulterior motives.”

Whether in reference to Starfleet’s prior visits to enforce the Synth Ban, or whether meant as a warning for their present visit, Admiral Reyes could not help but notice the bite in Administrator Thoss’ words. And truthfully, he wasn’t wrong either. Even as she came to break bread, she had an engineering team discretely sifting through the colony’s subspace communications system under the pretense of helping fix their equipment.

“And on behalf of all of us,” Administrator Thoss continued. “I would like to thank you for the assistance your presence provides.”

Admiral Reyes found the phrasing odd, but she appreciated the sentiment and responded in kind: “And on behalf of me and my crew, let me say that we are honored to be welcomed into your home, and we look forward to learning your stories and building lasting friendships as we serve the important needs of your community.” She also wanted an answer as to the origin of that distress call.

Introductions and pleasantries were exchanged, and then everyone helped themselves to plates of food and broke off into smaller groups to mix and mingle. 

Lieutenant Sh’vot, the only Andorian among the Starfleet delegation, found himself talking to a young colonist with a beefy build and worn skin from his time in the elements. “I love roaming the icefields hunting krill-beasts,” the young man shared. “But sometimes on a clear night, I look up and wonder what it’s like where we came from.”

“What it’s like on Andoria?” asked Lieutenant Sh’vot, to which he received a nod. “Climatologically, it’s not all that different from here. You’d probably feel very at home there.”

“I don’t know… I hear that people out there…” the kid stuttered nervously. “I hear they’re only out for themselves.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve heard that out there, people act on their own accord, in their own self interest, in disunity without a guiding authority. I’m not sure I’d ever want to experience such a dystopia.”

The words seemed strange. That certainly was not how Lieutenant Sh’vot would have described the universe beyond the tundra of Beta Serpentis III. Maybe it was the kid’s experience growing up on an isolated backwater where your survival depended on those around you? Or maybe it was just due to having spent his entire life with only a few thousand like-minded people? Still, the look of terror that washed across his face seemed out of proportion even to that.

Nearby, Lieutenant Balan found herself in an equally curious conversation with another young man, this one a specialist who manned the sensor grid for the colony. “Your starships, I watch them on my scopes. There must be hundreds – thousands even – but what I can’t figure out is what are they all doing out there?”

“They’re doing all sorts of things,” Lieutenant Balan explained. “Starfleet has a multi-purpose mission to support the people of the Federation through exploration, discovery, diplomacy, defense, and humanitarian activities, among others. I could not hazard a guess as to what they’re all doing.”

“And what about you? What does your ship do?”

“We are explorers, researchers and diplomats on a mission to discover the infinite depth and diversity of our universe,” Lieutenant Balan answered with a twinkle in her eyes. “What more could you ask for?”

The Andorian looked absolutely confused. “Why would you seek diversity?” He could not figure why anyone would willingly seek out such things.

For as confused as the Andorian was, now Lieutenant Balan was confused as well. There was no mission more important and no experience more incredible. The depth and diversity of the universe is what made it beautiful. She tried to explain it, but she didn’t make much progress. It was almost as though they were speaking two completely different languages. Maybe it was because all the young Andorian had ever known was a homogeneous colony composed almost completely of Andorians.

As opposed to the curiosity of the young Andorians in the room, the older farmer that found himself opposite Admiral Reyes was far less curious and far more skeptical. “When you leave, which I am sure will come in the not too distant future, will we ever see you again? Or will you be like the sleetgulls?”

“The sleetgulls?” Admiral Reyes asked, not understanding the reference.

“The sleetgulls from the western shore fly in, shit everywhere, and leave,” explained the old man. He had seen too much to hold anything back at his old age. “And then we’re left to clean up their mess. That’s what your colleagues did, the last ones that came through here.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Synth Ban, Admiral,” explained Administrator Thoss as he came up alongside the pair. “People like Ch’loran here, they slaved over their crops, but without the synths to tend to the fields, we lost more than we saved. It takes the work of three men to feed one here on Beta Serpentis III, and we don’t have the luxury of unending energy to just replicate all our needs, so your little decree, it almost killed us. It’s simple math. Only with a synth workforce do we have enough of a workforce to feed our people.”

“And your people, they brought no solutions. They only took away the ones we had,” the farmer grumbled, a mix of weariness and frustration in his eyes. “We considered leaving, but we would lose our soul in doing so. And so instead we suffered.” Those years, they’d been impossibly hard, and he wanted her to understand that. “Which brings me to my other question. What brought you out here, Admiral?”

“An opportunity to connect with you all,” smiled Admiral Reyes.

“Now, now, Admiral,” Administrator Thoss countered condescendingly, almost like a teacher schooling a student. “That isn’t the whole truth, now is it?” He’d just received news that confirmed his suspicions.

“Excuse me?” Admiral Reyes asked, somewhat taken aback by the shift in tone.

“What I think you mean to say is that you came here to distract us with gifts and kind words,” Administrator Thoss replied as his eyes narrowed on her. “While your people stick their noses where they don’t belong.”

And suddenly, the phasers were out, a dozen or more, drawn in synchronicity by the colonists of Beta Serpentis III and leveled at their banquet guests. The movement was so fast that even the two undercover members of Lieutenant Cruz’s security team had no chance to respond, and Admiral Reyes was thankful for that. If they had responded in kind, it might have provoked an escalation, but as it stood now, maybe there was still a peaceful way out of this.

“Let’s just take it easy, everyone,” Admiral Reyes encouraged as she raised her hands. She could feel the barrel of a phaser pressed into her back, and she was now staring down the barrel of another as the old farmer leveled his own sidearm at her. “There’s no need to escalate this further.”

“Wise words, Admiral. Do as we say, and this ends in salvation for all.”