“Commander,” Jevlak said, “we’re receiving a signal on civil emergency bands. It’s intermittent. Weak. There’s a structure to it, but the carrier’s very poor.”

“Origin?” Parr asked from her seat next to the captain, her voice even, neither alarmed nor dismissive.

“Bearing zero-nine-five mark three, within the broader scope of the trade corridor, but not by much.” Jevlak said.

Ayres and Parr exchanged the sort of glance the crew had learned to recognise as the command conversation taking place at speed.

Ayres nodded. “Let’s hear what it sounds like.”

Jevlak’s hands hovered, then settled. The bridge speakers obliged with a whisper that might have been nothing more than static, had there not been an underlying rhythm just out of reach. It did not sound like distress.

Ayres folded his arms. “What would be the course to the source of the transmission?”

“Plotted,” the helm officer said. “It’ll put us off our grid by less than a sector, ETA 16 minutes.”

“We can spare the detour,” Parr said. “We’re out here to render aid as much as we are to explore.”

Ayres unfolded his arms and nodded again. “I agree. Follow the sound, helm.”

The stars shifted their lines.

Jevlak tuned the signal again, as one coaxes a shy instrument: increments of patience, tiny gestures of encouragement. “I think,” Jevlak began, then stopped, not from uncertainty but from the need to be cautious with oddness. “I think it’s a voice. The universal translator is having trouble until the signal gets stronger. But I believe it may be a song.”

Ayres furrowed his brow, turning to face Jevlak at her console. “A song? Don’t tell me. A pirate shanty.”

The flash of anger on Jevlak’s face was worth the joke, Ayres decided. She always composed herself quickly. “I will continue to study the transmission.”

“Engineering to bridge,” came Velkar’s voice over the comm, calm, but with a degree of curiosity that meant the Vulcan was measuring a new variable. “I am observing a slight fluctuation in the resonance of some of the bulkheads surrounding the main sensors.”

“Fluctuation how?” Parr asked.

“It is,” Velkar paused, “a musical harmonic resonance of some kind.”

“Wow,” Parr raised her eyebrows. “That’s no coincidence. Yellow alert, captain?”

“Just raise the shields for now. Velkar, please coordinate with Jevlak’s analysis of the transmission.”

“Aye, captain.”

“Captain,” the helm officer interrupted, “we are approaching the coordinates of the transmission, preparing to transition from warp to impulse speeds.”

The Farragut dropped out of warp and space resumed its actual speed. The ship’s hum settled.

“On screen,” Parr said.

It appeared at first as an interruption, a silhouette only slightly lighter than the surrounding dark, then as a ship: a civilian freighter of no particular note, her lines honest rather than beautiful, her hull scratched by years of work. She drifted. Running lights were dead. The registries along the flank were scorched and unreadable in places, legible in others. The letters that had survived spelled out enough: Valdur.

Jevlak exhaled. “Sensors show an atmosphere but very little energy activity. And captain, the transmission has stopped.”

“Life signs?” Ayres asked, though he already feared the worst.

“Nothing clear,” Jevlak said.

“Scoring along the portside umbilicals,” Kincaid remarked from the tactical station. “Hull breaches around two cargo locks. Pattern is consistent with deliberate cutting rather than battle. Otherwise I see no evidence of a space battle.”

“Boarded,” Parr said softly.

Ayres stood. He did not need to; he could command perfectly well from the chair. Standing was theatre and covered his combination of anxiety and a desire for action. “Now we go to yellow alert. Helm, bring us close enough for transporter range and then gradually orbit the ship. Kincaid, prepare an away team, security with medical equipment. But let’s assume a hostile posture for now.”

The freighter drifted. That was the worst of it, so far: the passivity. Ayres thought that ships in trouble are often noisy, even without power: venting air or chemicals, sounds from the interior that the sensors could detect, or life signs fluctuating in need. The Veldur offered almost nothing.

“What do we think?” Ayres asked quietly of his bridge crew.

“The briefing said pirates,” Parr spoke up first, “this appears consistent with that idea.”

“Captain,” Jevlak brought up an overlay of information on the main viewscreen, “The ship is called the Valdur, an independent freighter known to traverse this route frequently. And not known to cause trouble. The ship is even logged as stopping at Framheim.”

“Crew complement?” Parr asked.

“Twenty-eight, according to the most recent manifest we have.”

Parr stood. “Captain, permission to join the away team?”

“Granted, commander.” Ayres stood, gesturing that he would walk Parr to the turbolift. “Remember, we don’t know enough about these parts to be confident.”

He wanted to say more. He did not. He stepped back, retreated to the rail, and resurrected the face he had been practising ever since realising, long ago, that leadership requires you to obscure your own fears.

Parr stepped into the turbolift. The doors sighed shut. The bridge adjusted itself to the new balance and it took a moment for Ayres to realise he was just standing there, motionless. He returned to the chair to wait.

Minutes past. Ayres found himself staring at the freighter as the Farragut rotated around, observing all the shapes and marks of what must have been decades of service.

“Parr to Farragut,” came Parr’s voice at last over the comm. “We’re aboard.”

“Report.”

There was a pause, Parr taking in her environment. “I don’t see any immediate damage to the bridge. No-one is here, there are no bodies. All the consoles are dark. We’ll see what we can do to get the lights back on.”

“Understood. Proceed with caution.”

“Yes, captain. Parr out.”

More time.

“Farragut,” came Parr’s voice, steady. “We’ve reached engineering.”

Ayres’ hand tightened on the armrest.

“There are bodies,” Parr said. “Arranged. Captain, they’ve been mutilated. Some kind of – mask – has been fused to their faces. It’s… It’s grotesque.”

Ayres could hear more motion over the comm.

“There are words cut into the bulkheads. I don’t recognise the script. But the pattern repeats.”

“Touch nothing you don’t have to,” Ayres said, his discomfort rising. “Can you bring the power back on?”

“Hold on,” Parr said, her voice uneasy. “Yes, Kincaid has got the power core firing back up… Captain, we came across what must have been a few fights in the corridor but the ship itself appears largely undamaged.”

“Understood,” Ayres felt relieved that they had power, however irrational that was. Like turning on a light when you hear a strange noise. “Keep investigating, I want to make that ship safe before we bring more people in to figure out what happened.”

“Aye, sir.”

The bridge resumed its work. Anxiety took hold in the corner of their minds, waiting for more information while staring at consoles. Ayres stared into the middle distance. He found that he was breathing a fraction more shallowly than he should.

Time passed.

“Farragut, we’ve found something else” Parr’s voice was matter-of-fact, “a small black box. Portable. No obvious power source, but it’s warm. An unusual design.”

There was a sound in the background of the transmission that might have been a laugh and might have been a sob and was neither, precisely.

“Parr, what was that?” Ayres leaned forward in concern.

“Nothing, sir. Permission to bring the box aboard, in quarantine.”