The dark cloth banners hung heavy overhead as they stepped beneath them, the jagged strokes of white paint flaking as the fabric brushed against the shoulders of their shield jackets. Once they had passed them, the sound of the rest of the colony of Holsavar – not just fear and tension, but life and survival – fell to nothingness behind them.

The street beyond was wide and straight, the kind Airex had seen on a hundred young colonies: built for easy access of industrial equipment, with ground-level loading doors. The housing blocks were modest and flat-roofed, but every doorway gaped open. A chair lay overturned in a porch. A crate of root vegetables had spilled in the dust, pieces trodden underfoot.

In the silent emptiness, even the rhythm of their boots on the paving felt too loud.

Kharth took point, rifle at a low ready, Walker a half-step off her right shoulder, Jain and Griffin spread to either side, sweeping doorways and windows. Treviorn and her soldier stayed just behind the Starfleet line, wary. Airex and Starik fell naturally to the rear, the doctor quiet at his side.

‘Life-signs?’ Kharth asked without looking back.

Airex checked his tricorder. ‘Nothing within fifty metres but us. Some scattered in housing – impossible to tell if they’re hostiles or civilians sheltering in place. There are clustered signatures about three hundred metres in, location matching with the storage hall.’

‘That’ll be them. Hostages and hostiles.’ Walker’s voice was low.

Airex glanced at a nearby wall as they advanced. Someone had painted a colourful mural of Holsavar’s fields there, its crops in orderly rows, a stylised sun breaking overhead. White paint had been slapped across it; some the same jagged ovals, others more crude, hand-shaped smears dragged across faces and places where people might stand.

Some of the smears were red.

Starik followed his gaze. ‘Marking territory,’ he observed.

‘But who’s supposed to see it?’ Airex breathed. ‘And what are they supposed to think?’

Then Jain lifted a fist, and the whole group stopped. The crossroads ahead opened in a wider junction, supplies and equipment and belongings abandoned by walls and doorways, left fallen where they had been dropped.

But for a moment, Airex thought a figure stood there.

When he blinked, he realised it wasn’t a person, but a dummy, a mannequin – an effigy. Man-height, someone had stuffed supply sacks to form a torso and limbs, and lashed them to wooden poles. A cloak of rough cloth hung from the shoulders, tattered and stained. Around its base, someone had scattered grain. Not at random, the kernels laid in looping curves and circles, the pattern already disturbed by the breeze and by boot-marks where someone had walked the spiral.

And atop its head rested the skull of some beast, long-muzzled, equine, and antlered, lashed to the sack-head beneath with wire. The ivory nose was streaked with red that had not yet fully dried.

Kharth had taken a knee, rifle ready. As she took in the scene, she made a low noise. ‘Don’t like that.’

‘Then they’ve done their job,’ Walker said, not quite flippant.

‘Does this mean something to you?’ Airex asked Treviorn. ‘The imagery, the motifs?’

Her brow was set, but she looked frustrated, not troubled. ‘I told you they cling to folk tradition. The aesthetics of old spiritualism – and I say aesthetics because nobody has followed these faiths in thousands of years. The sorts of primitive beliefs that strength and blood would bring victory and the harvest.’

Walker looked up from his tricorder. ‘I’m not picking up any energy signatures. No sign of explosives, transmitters.’

‘Just here to freak us out,’ Kharth said quietly. Proceed.

They had not fully entered the crossroads when Jain’s foot caught on something. And a wire strung low across the street snapped.

There was a moment where the security officer looked down. Then a metal drum by the corner fell over, tumbling down a step with a crash that sounded like it had more cans inside it. The rattling cacophony bounced between the walls, rolling down the street in waves of thudding that for a moment sounded like a heartbeat under the pavement.

‘Down!’ Kharth barked, dropping to one knee, rifle snapping up. The first shot came a heartbeat later.

It sizzled through the air above them, a blast of an energy weapon, and blew a chunk out of the wall behind Starik in a spray of dust. Jain swore and dove behind a cargo crate. Another shot came from further left, this one chewing into the paving by Griffin’s boots.

‘Contacts, high and left!’ Walker’s voice had gone flat and sharp as he’d ducked into cover. ‘Commander?’

‘Jain, Griffin, cover us!’ Kharth was hunkered behind an overturned stall, rifle against her shoulder. ‘Keep weapons set to stun!’

Airex had brought a pistol, not a rifle, and knew they were working at distances this would be of limited use. Old instincts had moved him to the nearest open doorway, and as he flicked his tricorder back open, he peered just around enough to see.

One figure was visible on a distant rooftop, a flash of dark clothing and white-painted cloth around the arm. Shapes flickered in a window at another building, half-obscured by shadow and hanging cloth. They fired wildly, exchanging shots with Starfleet, but neither finding their marks at this distance – until one did.

The impact took Griffin in the upper arm, spinning him to the ground with a shout. His rifle clattered away, and he clutched the limb, flesh seared under the burnt field jacket.

‘Griffin!’ Kharth’s voice rang with a tension Airex didn’t often hear.

Starik was already moving, the Vulcan crossing the open space in a low lope that somehow felt unhurried even though he reached Griffin in seconds. With one strong hand, he hauled the crewman into the shadow of a building, reaching for his medical kit.

‘One life-sign on the roof!’ Airex called as his attention snapped back to the fight. ‘Three from the building!’

Another shot spat dust over them. Walker answered immediately with a single, precise phaser blast that lanced up the rooftop. Airex watched the extremist jerk back, hit square in the torso, and tumble out of view.

‘Target down,’ Walker reported crisply. ‘Stun setting. Can’t confirm they’re out of the fight with unknown physiology.’

One gunman from the window snapped off another shot, this one lower, aimed closer to where Starik and Griffin were sheltering. Before Airex could think, Kharth stepped out from cover and fired twice in quick succession. Her first blast took the edge off the window frame; the second took the shooter in the shoulder, knocking them back into the darkness.

‘Advancing!’ Kharth snapped. ‘Walker, Jain, cover me!’

The security officers moved in controlled, disciplined steps: focused fire, rapid movement. But as Kharth crossed the junction, no more shots came from rooftop or doorway. Airex checked his tricorder.

‘Life-signs are retreating!’ he called. ‘Looks like they’re dragging their injured.’

‘We should pursue,’ Walker said sharply. ‘Apprehend for intelligence or leverage.’

‘Stand down,’ Kharth growled, eyes still scanning the view. ‘Starik?’

‘I have stabilised Crewman Griffin,’ Starik said, already releasing a hypospray from the young security officer’s neck. ‘He should be withdrawn from the field.’

Kharth turned to Treviorn. ‘Your man can take him.’ As Treviorn hesitated, she added, ‘If you could pick your tactics, you’d have ten fire teams here already. You don’t. So you follow my tactics.’

Treviorn took another beat, then looked to her guard. ‘You will escort their injured.’

Griffin could walk, and with one arm slung over the Orvas soldier’s shoulder, the two could head back the way they’d come.

Kharth turned to the remaining team, jaw tight. ‘Either they don’t have the manpower to face us at all, or they chose to only deploy a handful. I don’t think this ambush was to stop us. I think it was to rattle us.’

Walker nodded. ‘The markers, the snipers. It’s all to make us feel like their control – their threat – is everywhere.’

‘They’re about to know what control and threat are.’ Kharth turned on her heel to the way they’d been heading. ‘Let’s push on.’

The streets narrowed, and the markings grew denser as they advanced: more sigils painted on doors and walls. Down one road, strips of long red fabric had been hung from lines stretched across, dangling low enough that they brushed faces as the team passed through, forcing them to push the cloth aside with gloved hands, the scent of fresh, dripping red dye strong in the nostrils. It was like walking through a field of crimson wheat that refused to bend.

‘We’re almost there,’ Airex whispered as they broke free of the segment. ‘Readings are converging.’

As they reached the industrial heart of the district, the street opened into a wide, flat loading yard that felt suddenly exposed, every approach line laid bare. Beyond it, the storage hall rose: a long, low structure of metal and stone, its broad cargo doors sealed shut.

Here, the jagged ovals were daubed in red, clustered around the doors, marking each threshold. The symbols overlapped, bled into each other, until it looked less like paint and more like something trying to force its way out.

‘I can’t confirm life-sign numbers,’ Airex said as he read his tricorder. ‘They’re on top of each other inside and we don’t have a clean read of Orvas physiology. But there’s at least a score, and I’m picking up none others nearby.’

Kharth stared at the doors, then the roofline, the approach, the lack of cover. ‘We walk out and they see us. And even ignoring being spotted on the approach, even ignoring the hostages, we can’t breach with no idea of what’s inside.’ She looked back at him. ‘Airex?’

He nodded, and reached for his belt pouch to pull out a compact device no larger than his palm. With a couple of taps, the micro-drone extended into a more cylindrical shape and hovered above his hand, recessed lenses in its casing housing visual and audio pickup.

‘We use this for collapsed structures,’ he explained to Treviorn. ‘Search and rescue. No weaponry.’

Treviorn gave him a level look. ‘I doubt this is the first time it’s been used for surveillance.’

Kharth gave him a curt nod. ‘Deploy it.’

Controlled from his tricorder, across the open yard it hovered, staying high to escape notice. Airex found a ventilation shaft to direct it through, and the drone slipped into the dark of the building. As he shifted to its visual feed on the tricorder, the team drew close enough to watch, Jain monitoring the yard.

The image was grainy in the low light, but shapes formed. Stacked crates. Hanging preservation units. Figures standing, some pacing, some kneeling. Dark clothing, white cloth tied around arms and heads. At the back, a cluster of bodies huddled together – hostages, bound and gagged.

‘There.’ Walker pointed to the feed. ‘Roof brace above the main floor, nowhere near the hostages. This thing’s got a basic cutter – we sever the brace, drop it as a distraction, then breach through a side hatch.’

Starik looked at him. ‘You cannot manage the risks to the civilians of structural collapse.’

Walker scowled. ‘They’re nowhere near it.’

‘Without further assessment of the structure, you cannot guarantee what will collapse and how debris will fall.’

‘Leaving them in there,’ Treviorn cut in, ‘guarantees nothing except their use as shields and bargaining tools.’

‘Except they’ve not bargained. Or attempted to bargain,’ Airex said, brow furrowed deeply.

‘Because they are zealots,’ Treviorn said, sounding like she thought him rather dim.

‘They’ve attempted to transmit their rhetoric,’ he continued, looking at Kharth. ‘But they’ve made no effort to communicate. And they know we’re coming; we hit their welcome team earlier. But they’ve made no move to warn us, and seemingly no move to use the hostages.’

‘It is policy to not negotiate,’ Treviorn snapped.

‘And I think they know that,’ Airex said to Kharth. ‘Which means their goal must be to send a message through some means other than dialogue.’

She watched him. ‘You think they want us to try and breach. You think they want a bloodbath.’ As he nodded, she grimaced. ‘I don’t see an alternative.’

‘I do,’ Airex said. ‘To try and talk.’

‘Again,’ snapped Treviorn, ‘they are zealots –’

‘No matter their methods, no matter their plan, their intention is communication,’ Airex pressed, now looking at her. ‘Even if it is communication through violence. Everything we’ve seen here – the sigils, the effigies – is to convey a message.’

‘Yeah,’ said Walker, ‘that they’re not just hostage-taking extremists, they’re trying to get under our skin. Anyway, we’ve no comms connection. They just broadcast on open channels then shut things down.’

Kharth’s eyes narrowed as she looked at Airex. ‘No.’

‘I didn’t -’

‘You’re about to propose that you go out there and speak with them in the open, using everything you’ve just seen as anthropological leverage, and get your head blown off.’

‘Alright,’ he allowed. ‘That is my suggestion, yes. But simply because…’ He glanced at Treviorn, then back to Kharth. ‘I don’t think anyone has even attempted to speak with them before. And their underlying motivation is for societal change, not simple carnage.’

‘They seek to trigger change through carnage,’ Treviorn said, and turned to Kharth. ‘Commander, this is madness.’

‘I agree,’ said Walker, voice a lower drawl under tension. ‘Even if Airex is right, I reckon they shoot him to make us want to launch a bloodbath.’

‘I’m relying,’ Airex admitted, ‘on negotiation being confusing enough that they at least talk. And on one fairly universal anthropological principle.’

‘That being?’ Walker snapped.

Airex didn’t look at him, but kept his eyes on Kharth. ‘That people want to be understood. That they want to explain themselves. They might be violent, they might be irrational, they might be ready for violent martyrdom. I’m not saying I can change that. I’m saying I don’t think they’ll give up a chance to talk.’ Kharth didn’t reply for a moment, gaze inscrutable, and he sighed. ‘We have to try.’

‘Commander,’ Walker pressed, ‘this shows our hand and exposes a senior staffer to unacceptable risks -’

‘Thank you, Walker.’ Kharth cut him off in a cool voice, eyes not leaving Airex’s. Then she nodded. ‘Alright. We’ll do it your way.’