Location: Andromeda Galaxy. Odyssey Class Dreadnought USS Athena NCC 2103- Deck 2- Cabin Fifteen. Aft Mess

Stardate 2376.03

Piper Mclean

The antagonizing whistling of her cabins doorbell reached her conscious mind through the haze of blissful sleep. She didn't want to get up or wake up but sadly reality came back to her rather harshly in form of waking up.

"Welcome to Starfleet," she muttered to herself and half climbed, half fell off her bed and dragged herself over to the door and opened the door and found herself face to face with a very handsome blond male that was around her age.

Was Percy pranking her again?

She stared up at the young man as her still sleeping mind tried to process what she was dealing with. "Ahm Commander?" the young man asked.

She just stared at him, trying to muster a single coherent thought.

"Commander?" the young man asked.

Finally, Piper's brain kicked in Piper closed her mouth. "Lieutenant Commander Jason Grace, right?" Piper remembered. "Sorry, is there a problem?"

"No Ma'am, you wanted that progress report from Engineering?" he asked.

"Ohh yeah. This could have waited until the beginning of my shift, though," Piper muttered but accepted the Datapad.

"You know what, just let me take a quick shower and get into my uniform. You can brief me over breakfast. I need coffee to survive this!"

Annabeth Chase

"So, here we are!" Annabeth announced once they dropped under warp and came into view of a tropical looking planet with a number of oceans. Only the polar areas weren't green.

A moment later the other three ships of their little squadron dropped out of warp behind them and sent their digital all clear signal. "I am picking up over a dozen settlements, big ones but barely any life signs. Most of them look as if they had been subjected to an orbital bombardment. In fact, they look empty," Dax announced.

"What does that mean?" Isabel asked.

"That we have a mystery to unveil. Ms. Chase, take us down to one of the intact settlements. I'll signal the other ships to follow us," Percy announced.

"Aye aye," Annabeth replied and took them down into the atmosphere.

Around ten minutes she broke through the cloud cover and a clearly abandoned, very large city with an obvious nature vibe to it.

As they pulled in closer she realized that city had rock pillars with grass and trees on top and there was also a river snaking through the city and leaving back into the wilderness.

"Where should we land?" Annabeth asked.

"This is your Ops, Ms. Chase. You make the call," Percy announced.

"Understood," she replied and then landed them on what was had once a large marketplace.

A moment later they had landed and Annabeth powered her bird down and Annabeth got up and joined the others in the back of the shuttle. Through the windshield, she could see the rest of their expedition landing around them.

"Captain? You want to do the honors of being the first Federation citizen of setting foot on Andromeda soil?" Annabeth asked.

Percy smirked at her. "Nah, Isabel can do the honors."

The Orion teen opened her mouth and then closed it again. "Come on, girl. Just go and write some history!" Dax encouraged the girl with a grin and then opened the hatch in the back.

"Okay, sure," Isabel whispered and slowly walked down the loading ramp and then, after hesitating for a second, set foot on the market space. A moment later she had both feet on solid ground.

"Congratulations, you just entered the history books, provided we ever make it back to Federation space," Percy congratulated Isabel and Annabeth sighed. It was true though, as of this moment on Isabel belonged to the greatest explorers in Federation history.

The rest of them also filed out onto the marketplace and were soon joined by Reyna and the crews from the other three ships. "You here too?" Reyna asked Percy surprised.

"Yeah well, thought I'd leave Piper in charge for a bit. I haven't done anything this fun in a long time," Percy confirmed.

Reyna sighed, "Well sir. Should I help the others set up camp while you and Ms. Chase and lead an expedition team?"

"That was the plan, yes," Percy confirmed.

Once they had split up the groups they headed out deeper into the city. They would also be taking Zang, Levesque and two members of security along with them. Their group armed themselves and then headed down the main street.

"It's like they tried to mix the park with the city center. I kinda like it," Isabell muttered to Dax who was filming everything.

Annabeth glanced at Percy and noticed that something was wrong. He was looking around nervously and was gripping his rifle tightly. She sped up and joined Percy at the front of their small formation. "Something wrong?" she asked. Being an ex-Commando, Percy was by nature slightly paranoid and his time as a soldier in the beginning of the Dominion war had likely strengthened that paranoia. If something spooked him, it was enough to be worried out.

"This place has been abandoned for at least three decades," Percy noted and then pointed at a wall of a skyscraper close by. "And I think they might not have left willingly. See those craters on the side of the building? The shots were pretty much the only place where civilian casualties would have been minimal. It was well away from the streets and the damage to the buildings is in areas where the structural integrity of the structures aren't compromised. It's on a lot of buildings in fact!"

Annabeth looked around and realized that he was right. "What do you think happened, sir?" she asked.

"If I had to guess, the population, whoever they were, were forced north. For what reason, I wouldn't know," Percy admitted.

"Ohh," Annabeth said, imagining thousands of beings being hunted through the street. It wasn't a pleasant thought.

"Captain, I couldn't help but listen in," Isabel announced, catching up with them.

"What's up Cadet?" Percy asked.

"This looks a lot like what Orion slavers do when they raid villages. They force the population towards a certain area where they are then captured," the girl explained.

"Hmmm," Percy muttered thoughtfully. "You could be right Kadett. It looks like these people might have been enslaved."

"An entire city? How many would live here? Two million? Three million?" Annabeth exclaimed in shock and stared around the streets. Both sides of the street were lined with skyscrapers and trees.

"Let us take a left turn. I want to get off the main street," Percy announced. Annabeth didn't argue, even if Percy saw this as her mission he was much more experienced in crossing possibly hostile Terrain and he was ultimately responsible for their safety.

Annabeth glanced back. Everyone else seemed pretty relaxed. The security team members were keeping an eye out while Frank and Hazel were quietly chatting.

"Dax, you take our six. Jenkens, you take our three o'clock. Steven, you take our nine o'clock. Scan your sectors. We might not be alone. Kadetts Zang, Madevu, Levesque and Ms Chase,  you are in the center," Percy ordered sternly.

They did as he ordered and they headed down a side road and found themselves faced with a swamp that had taken over a street.

"We aren't going through there, are we?" Isabel asked, sounding positively disgusted at the sight of the stinking swamp.

"Welcome to Starfleet, luv. You won't always be saving slaves or fighting the Dominion. Sometimes you just get to take your brand new uniform into a swamp," Dax announced brightly and dipped one of her polished black shoes into the mucky water before taking a real step.

Suddenly Percy raised his pulse phaser rifle and pointed it in the direction of the building. "Form a circle, we are surrounded!"

This is it for now. I hope you enjoyed yourself.

WinterWolf over and out.