Jugal Teym’s brain had already ached, even before Ensign Grisanick had begun his indepth explanation of the complexities associated with Risa’s planet-spanning weather control system. As the tall ears of the ensign’s avatar drifted back and forth across the lab’s holographic display, cutting wakeless grooves through the swirling white clouds on the holographic Risa, the low throbbing was threatening to turn into an acute stab of confusion.

“You seem confused cadet?” Grisanick observed with a high pitch squeak.

Teym’s throat fell into her stomach like a leaden weight, all awareness of the officer’s current train of thought falling off the cliff in her brain. A nervous dryness spread across her tongue and a churning acidity rose in her stomach, as the bat-like features of Grisanick bored into her forehead. He had been saying something about deep space resonance, but that could have been several minutes ago. Then he had mentioned something about proton scans, possibly?

‘Say something Jugel, anything. Literally anything,’ she begged herself.

“I was thinking.” Teym finally answered, the heat of all four pairs of eyes in the lab beginning to warm her skin. Across the small lab, Simmon’s eyes narrowed as he fought off the twist of a knowing smile. Was her lack of attention so obvious?

“About anything in particular, cadet? Care to share?” Grisanick prodded with an unsavoury superiority that Teym had encountered with some ensigns, a product of giving a single gold pip at their neck compared to her empty one.

A followup question, crap.

“Clouds,” she blurted out with an innocent smile as she nodded towards the large hologram of Risa behind him. On its surface, swirls of white stormclouds rolled and bubbled in a serene ballet of cumulus and cirrus as several large weather patterns charted courses across the pleasure planet’s atmosphere.

‘Idiot,’ her inner voice hissed with a disparaging tone.

“Is there a specific part of the clouds you were considering?” Grisanick tilted his head as a patronising smile spread across his face, two small fangs poked through his lips, accentuating his creepy vampire visage. “Does it relate to our predicament, charting the course of the civilian ships?”

“Just the whole thing.” Teym shrugged awkwardly. “Why they are so big and…”

Grisanick’s upper lip pulled back in barely concealed disgust at her lack of attention to his very important presentation.

“Well, they’re just really big,” she finally finished, causing her inner voice to roll its nonexistent eyes.

Across the lab, Simmons barely stifled a laugh that quickly evolved into a thin cough as Akki shot him a scolding look with her large, unblinking compound eyes. On his podium above the team, where the orbiting green and blue sphere gave him the appearance of a minor deity, Grisanick looked less than pleased. Venom cascaded from his dark round eyes towards Teym, etching a burning and hateful path into the deck.

A long breath of frustrated air whistled out from between the ensign’s teeth as he turned to resume his presentation.

“Well, considerations of their voluminous grandeur aside-”

“-They are very big, though.” Post mused from her chair as she leant it back on its heels. With the tip of her boot she tapped the console, causing the hologram to swell as it focused on one particularly gigantic cottonball of atmosphere. “You could hide the whole of TF47 in that one. Except maybe Nobel, she’s got a fat-”

“-what does this have to do with the sensor upgrades?” Grisanick looked like he might leap from the dias in a blood-thirsty rage. It didn’t take much for Post to rub him up the wrong way despite her supposed apology at the mouth of his quarters.

“It doesn’t.” Post continued, seemingly oblivious to the lava-like fury in his eyes. “It’s just odd that it’s so massive. Doesn’t Risa have weather machines to keep those sorts of things in check?”

“Risa Control has been reporting some faults in the weather control systems for several weeks. It’s an old system, bugs are expected.” Rommigan advised, barely masking his welcome for a change of topic from the ensign’s extensive and dry presentation.

“What bugs?” Akki asked, falling victim to Teym’s distracted avenue of thought.

Grisanick threw his hands up in frustration before slumping down onto his stool in a silent tantrum, his briefing derailed by the team’s inquisitive nature.

“Increase in atmospheric production and densification, some odd temperature fluctuations over the southern island chains. A number of communication dropouts on several minor atmospheric platforms.” Rommigan recited information from a small screen set into the console where he leaned on one arm, attempting to stay awake through Grisanick’s talk.

“But that thing is almost the size of a small continent.” Post furrowed her brow.

“And it’s not moving. And it’s the wrong shape.” Simmons extended a hand in front of his face, spreading it wide as a crude measuring device against the hologram. “Computer, replay the last twenty-four-hour feed, one thousand times speed.”

A delicate chirp filled the lab as the hologram began rolling backwards in time. Across its blue and green surface, weather systems rewound their choreography, swelling and diminishing as they bounded across the planet’s surface, swinging in wide circles around one another. At the centre of it, over the planet’s vast southern ocean, the suspect storm cloud hung unmoving, like a statue carved out of grey and white marble. After a silent minute, the hologram froze, the simulation having reached its twenty-fourth hour.

“You said something about hiding Persephone?” Akki chittered as she rose from her chair and stepped up onto the dias, a gleam of thought bubbling within her large, multi-faceted eyes.

“Yeah, you could hide the task force in there if you wanted.” Post offered a small laugh. “Varen might not be happy about the rust but…”

“Duranium doesn’t rust,” Simmons interjected.

“And it’s Captain Varen, Persephone.” Akki chided as she brought her long face close to the storm, frozen in time over the surface of the holographic Risa. “It’s also not the point.”

“We hadn’t got the point of my presentation yet,” Grisanick mumbled quietly behind his huffing pout.

“Rommigan, can you run a directed multi-spectral scan on the storm?” Akki waved a dismissive arm to the Chiropteran ensign.

“I’d have to repurpose some orbital satellites?” The golden-skinned lieutenant offered a wide-eyed tilt of the head, requesting approval. Despite their equivalent rank, the man was happy to let Akki take the lead, he had never yearned for the responsibility of command.

“Do what you can.” Akki’s attention remained fixed on the immobile storm cloud, a strange mystery that now consumed all her focus. “Tomas, Persephone, give him a hand.”

As the trio began their work, Teym joined Akki on the dias, approaching her reverently lest she derail the train of thought that steamed behind the Xindi’s eyes.

“Do you think it’s something dangerous Akki?” She whispered.

“We have some missing ships and a storm that hasn’t moved for at least a day. Perhaps someone is taking advantage of our distraction with the blackout.”

A tense minute passed as the trio muttered barely audible instructions and information back and forth before Rommigan erupted with a fist punch into the air.

“Yes!” He shouted, “There in the centre of the storm, multiple metallic signatures.”

In the centre of the room, the hologram faded slightly as it returned to its current live feed and a thin blue sheen of light fell over it. Five dark silhouettes of curving lines consistent with the form of interstellar ships shimmered in and out of focus, nestled between the thick white clouds.

“Our civilian ships?” Akki asked.

“Possibly, I’ll need a little more time.” Rommigan’s golden fingers resumed their work at the console as he began a new sweep.

“What’s that?” Teym asked quietly as she pointed to a nearby glow that raced over the hologram, slicing up the edges of the storm cloud as it drew a thick trail of orange flame behind it.

“Something is having an uncontrolled descent into the atmosphere,” Post announced as she enlarged the display, highlighting a large fireball that plummeted towards the surface of the planet. Within its heart, a mishapen hull was barely visible, warped by the immense forces of friction and gravity.

“Inform Risa Control, we may-,” Akki instructed, her attention still fixed on the storm.

“-It’s moving.” Simmons interrupted with a panicked whisper, his eyes open wide.

“The storm is moving.”