Stardate 53852.1—First Officer’s Log, Commander Sonya Gomez, U.S.S. da Vinci. We have encountered a ship known as the Dancing Star, an alien vessel that runs on solar radiation. During the Dominion War, the ship entered the Randall system and suffered a catastrophic buildup of its engines. Had the buildup run its course, it would have caused Randall’s sun to go nova. Rather than endanger Federation outpost R5-3791, which was hidden in one of the system’s asteroids, the alien ship’s captain contained the buildup within the vessel, instantly vaporizing the entire crew. Shortly afterward, the da Vinci was sent to investigate the ship. Commander Salek—my predecessor as first officer and head of the S.C.E. team on the da Vinci under Captain Gold—sacrificed his life in order to save the system from a second catastrophic buildup, and also to keep the knowledge of both the Dancing Star and the outpost from the enemy. After that, the S.C.E. piloted the ship into the sun, which should have destroyed it.

However, the vessel has turned up in interstellar space, over a hundred light-years from the Randall system. Having familiarized ourselves with the da Vinci ’s previous encounter with the Dancing Star, we are now considering what to do next.