"Entering BorSitu's atmosphere," Blue reported from the Franklin's co-pilot seat. "Shields holding, systems fully operational."

"Good." Corsi was piloting, blue eyes narrowed in concentration, and her steady hands held the shuttlecraft on course. This, despite the sudden buffeting of the ever-present electrical storm, not to mention her hands being gloved, since both she and Soloman wore atmospheric suits. Blue's chitinous hide and Nasat physiology made such an encumbrance unnecessary for her.

Behind her, the Bynar sat quietly, absorbed in his own thoughts. He had come a long way in dealing with the loss of his mate, but she'd noticed he still disappeared into his own head when there wasn't work to do. That was dangerous if something came up suddenly, but she already knew better than to rely on him in combat.

The shuttle rocked a bit, its stabilizers fighting to compensate for the lightning and wind, but Corsi kept them on target and within a minute they could see the outlines of the outpost up ahead. It grew rapidly in their view, and Blue glanced down at her readouts.

"Matter-antimatter readings normal," the insectoid announced, and Corsi allowed herself to relax just a little. That had been their first concern. If the power plant had been bled off or jettisoned, they would have needed to reinstall and recalibrate it before they had any hope of getting power again. With the generator's matter-antimatter chamber intact, they just had to worry about finding the problems and restoring functions.

Just. Corsi realized she'd been hanging around with engineers for too long.

"The bad news," Blue continued, "is that I'm not getting any shield readings. It's down like we thought, so we'll need to use the generator and hope the damage isn't too severe."

Then the station came fully into view, and Corsi actually let a soft curse escape her. That distracted Blue enough to look, and even Soloman glanced up, then stared in shock.

The outpost was not that large -- a dozen buildings, perhaps, all clustered together -- and without its shields Corsi could clearly see each building even through the haze of the acidic atmosphere. The buildings were weathered, the air obviously having worn away edges and pitted surfaces once the shields had dropped.

But what had evoked the curse were the holes. Everywhere she looked, the buildings were riddled with them, drilled right through the walls at various angles. It was as if a giant needle had pierced the outpost, time and again.

"Approaching shuttle bay," Corsi announced, and she was angered that her voice shook slightly. At least her hands were steady. She shouldn't have been so affected by this. "Get the shield generator ready."

A minute later, the shuttlecraft settled to the deck of the shuttle bay -- which, being exposed to the atmosphere, was also pitted and warped in spots. The Franklin's engines shut down with a whine, and they all unbuckled. Corsi had insisted on everyone strapping in before they left the da Vinci, which had proved necessary in the turbulent ionization they had just flown through. As Blue set up the generator, Corsi drew her phaser as she stepped toward the exit hatch.

"Is that necessary?" Soloman inquired, gesturing toward the weapon. "Anything dangerous would have been killed by the outside air."

"Maybe, but I can't chance it," she replied, wishing in retrospect that she'd requested that Gomez let her bring another one of her own team down. "If it's safe, fine. But if there is something out there, something built to survive this stuff or prepared to handle it, I'd rather not have to waste time reaching for a weapon." The little Bynar seemed at a loss for a reply, and all three of them were silent as they gathered around the hatch. She looked at Blue. "All set?" The eight-armed blue insectoid nodded. "Okay. On three I pop the hatch, you hit the shield, and we step out. One, two, three!"

It worked perfectly, especially for a nonsecurity team. Corsi opened the hatch, Blue already extending her arm and the generator, and the shield formed just beyond the shuttle door, protecting them from the atmosphere. Blue stepped out first, being careful to keep the shield just overlapping the hatch, and Corsi followed, then Soloman. The Bynar shut the hatch behind him. Then Corsi took the lead and led the other two quickly over to the nearest building. The doors were inoperable, of course, but she knew where the manual override was and it took only a minute for her to flip the lever, pop the doors, and usher the other two inside. She noticed the head-size holes in the door and the walls, but set that aside for now -- she'd examine them more closely later.

Once inside, Blue set the generator down on the floor. She and Soloman turned to the consoles, while Corsi examined the rest of the room. It wasn't a pleasant sight. There were bodies on the floor, all of them largely decomposed -- the air had done the same to them as to the walls, only far worse. The air felt alive even through the shield and their suits, as the charge transferred to every surface. Details seemed to waver slightly -- Corsi knew it was a side effect of the current in the air, but it made her nervous, and she tightened her grip on the phaser for reassurance. At least the area seemed secure -- no lifesigns, no movement beyond that shimmer, and no other entrances beside the door they'd used. So once again Corsi forced herself to wait and watch while the two engineers did their work.

"Systems all check out," Blue announced after several minutes, and Soloman nodded in agreement. "The shields are functional, at least on this end."

The next step was back outside and around the front of the building, to the emitter array. Once there, it was obvious even to Corsi what the problem was -- the array had a hole the size of a hoverball through it.

"Could you give me a hand here, Commander?"

Corsi did as Blue requested, setting the generator down beside her and the phaser on top where she could reach it quickly, and among the three of them they managed to wrestle the damaged piece off the array. Then they trundled it back to the Franklin. Once inside, it took less than an hour for the two engineers to repair the damage, and only ten more minutes to restore the piece to its place. Soloman then rebooted the system and restored the shields over the outpost -- Corsi always found it creepy to hear him speaking in computer language, interfacing directly with the systems, but she couldn't argue with the effects. It was another hour before the filtration system had removed all contaminants from the air, replacing corrosives with breathable elements -- she insisted they spend that time safely inside the shuttlecraft, to be sure. Finally, the Franklin's sensors indicated it was safe to step outside, and they did so, this time without the portable generator.

Without the haze of BorSitu's atmosphere, the devastation was even worse. Every hole was clearly defined, and the buildings looked like ancient ruins, ready to crumble at any moment. But the damage was less than a day old, and Corsi knew that clues were often time-sensitive, so she didn't waste any time. Once she was sure the air was safe she allowed her two companions to go about their assigned tasks, although she kept a close eye on them. She also scanned for lifesigns -- and got a surprising response.

"We've got survivors!" she said. Soloman looked up, and Blue did as well. "Two lifesigns, human, over there." Corsi waved her phaser across the square. "Ten meters distance." She glanced up. "That's only half the size of this square. They're not on the other side -- they're at the center." She turned toward the squat building in the middle of the open area, as did the others.

"That's the power station," Blue confirmed.

"Makes sense," Corsi admitted, leading them toward the building. "You said the generator was showing as normal. And there aren't any holes in this building. So these two, whoever they are, were in the only safe place when it happened. Whatever it was."

Stepping inside, she marveled at the difference. The power station hadn't been hit by whatever had caused the holes, and so although its outer walls had been worn down by the air, the inside was fully intact. It was like stepping out of a sandstorm and into a gleaming steel playground. Corsi wasn't an engineer, but she recognized several pieces of equipment around the area -- before her eyes were drawn to the two figures slumped on the floor.

"Damn!" She slapped her communicator out of habit, and was surprised when Gomez responded.

"I linked our badges in through the Franklin," Soloman explained. The little Bynar actually sounded apologetic. "This way they have enough power to get through the atmosphere."

"I wish you'd told me," Corsi muttered.

"Told you what? Corsi, what's your status?" Gomez sounded worried.

"Sorry, not you. Status is good -- we've got the shields restored, and the air breathable. And we've got two survivors, though they're both in bad shape. I'll get them to the shuttlecraft, and then bring them up. Have Lense standing by."

"How does the station look, Corsi?" Gomez asked. "Any idea what caused the systems failure?"

Corsi paused in the act of hoisting one of the figures -- a stocky middle-aged man -- onto her shoulder, and glanced out through the open door at the holes decorating the other buildings."Oh, I've got a pretty fair idea."

Back on the da Vinci, Duffy waited in the shuttle bay with an impatient Sonya Gomez. As soon as the Franklin had cleared the atmosphere, they had beamed the two survivors directly to sickbay, where Lense was working on them.

Corsi's call had come just as they were finishing up lunch. Sonnie had instructed the computer to route any calls from the away team to her. It was her way of justifying them indulging in their date.

And it was a date. Just like the old days on the Enterprise. In fact, it was almost exactly like their dates on the Enterprise, even with all the water that had gone under the bridge in the seven years since they broke up following her transfer to the Oberth. Duffy chose to view this as a good sign for the renewal of their relationship.

The Franklin soon settled in next to the da Vinci's other shuttle, the Archimedes, and the hatch closed. Sonnie turned her attention to Corsi as soon as she exited -- Duffy wasn't surprised that the tall blond security chief had a full report ready for them.

The content of the report was a bit surprising, though, and more than a little alarming. As soon as Corsi finished, Sonnie called a meeting of all staff, excepting the good doctor.

"We've got a problem," she informed the others when they'd all reached the observation lounge -- Gold was there as well, but he'd deferred to her. "Apparently something took out this outpost by holing the buildings and letting the outside atmosphere leak in. But the shields themselves weren't damaged."

"I thought Pattie said they'd repaired part of the shield," Carol said.

"No, we repaired a piece of the array that was damaged," Pattie replied. "The shield itself was fine." The cultural expert still looked puzzled, and Pattie explained. "Usually, when a shield is hit, the shield itself absorbs the damage. It may cause feedback in the controls or the array, shorting out circuits that have been overloaded, but the shield integrity is what gets hit the most. If you reduce a shield to half its normal strength, then shut it down, when you turn it back on it's still at only half-strength until the integrity has been fully repaired. I replaced part of the array, which had a hole in it, but when we switched the shields back on they were at full strength. No damage at all."

Fabian cut in. "So the only thing that knocked them down was that hole."

"Precisely."

"Which means something got through the shield itself and then damaged the array," Carol said. "Okay, yeah -- that's bad. What can ignore a full-strength shield and then do physical damage to things on the inside?"

"Nothing. At least, that's what we thought." Sonya glanced around. "Which is why we have a problem. Sure, you can tune a weapon to the same frequency as a shield, and bypass the defenses that way -- if you know the frequency for that particular shield. But that only works with energy weapons, most of which wouldn't work in this atmosphere. If someone's got a way to physically penetrate a shield, without affecting the shield..."

"We're talking a major impact on starship combat tactics," Corsi said. "Shields would be functionally useless."

"If that's what this is," Duffy said. "I recommend we investigate with a full team."

"Agreed," Sonnie said. In fact, she'd already decided on this course of action before the meeting started, but she also suggested that Duffy make the recommendation and have her agree with it to present a united front. Duffy had to admit to liking the new Sonya Gomez -- after her ordeal on the planet Sarindar, she had become more sure of herself. Duffy liked the change, especially if it meant more lunches like today....

She turned to Fabian. "Did you have any luck with those attack scenarios?"

Fabian shook his head. "None so far. I mean, there are ways to hit the outpost from space, although that atmosphere's like a natural defense grid -- it'll dull or even stop most attacks from penetrating through to the surface. But I don't know anything that can do what Corsi described. I'll need to get a firsthand look at the damage."

She nodded. "That'll be your job. Soloman, did you have a chance to work on the computers?"

The little Bynar shook his head. "We were concentrating on the shield controls, Commander. I volunteered to remain behind to examine the rest of the station's systems, but Lt. Commander Corsi felt the team should stick together."

Corsi smoldered at that, but Sonnie defused that quickly. "That was the right choice. We don't know the terrain well enough to leave someone there alone. When we head back down, you'll get to work on that. First priority is the transporter -- if we can get that running again it'll make all our lives easier. Then check on the station logs, see if you can get any idea what happened. Duffy, give him a hand -- you're better at sifting through entries."

Kieran groaned -- he hated research, and Sonnie knew that -- but he nodded anyway.

"Pattie, you and I will check out the power station -- I want to know why it wasn't hit. There's got to be a reason, and I have a feeling it's important somehow." She glanced at the others. "Corsi, continue what you were doing before -- give us a full sweep of the place. Not just possible dangers, but see what their security systems were, and how they were bypassed. Carol, I want you and Bart to do some digging. See if you can find anything out about this place, both the planet and the station, and any reasons why someone might want to put it out of commission. Everybody clear?"

She glanced around once more. Corsi, to Duffy's total lack of surprise, spoke up. "Commander, I want a full security team this time."

"That's fine. Everyone else, gather what you need -- we'll meet at the shuttle bay in fifteen minutes."

As everyone got up, Gold said, "Be careful down there, people. We still don't know a damn thing about what happened here."

"We will, sir," Sonnie said with an encouraging smile.