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“Both?” Leybenzon asked. “That is unusual, if not outright impossible.”

“Yes, Lieutenant, thank you.” Miranda wished she could have taken the snappish tone back, but Leybenzon didn’t seem put out by the rebuke. “In any event, we might as well go with that one.” She pointed at the one that was in front of the direction she happened to be facing.

“Very well,” Worf said, and started walking toward the cavern.

Leybenzon stepped into his path. “Sir, I recommend I take the lead.”

Worf opened his mouth to speak, but stopped. Miranda figured his instincts were still that of the chief of security, but that was Leybenzon’s task now. “Of course, Lieutenant. Take point. I will bring up the rear.”

They walked at a brisk pace, Leybenzon keeping his phaser in front of him. Miranda asked, “Are you sure that’s necessary, Lieutenant? There’s no one and nothing around—aside from the bugs,” she added as she brushed her free hand at a perfectly symmetrical insect that was buzzing around her nose.

“I would rather have it out and not need it than the other way around,” Leybenzon said without looking at her. He was too busy regarding the path in front of him. Miranda noticed that his head never stayed still.

Shrugging, Kadohata turned back to her tricorder, which wasn’t telling her anything different. Within fifteen minutes, they’d reached the mouth of the first cavern.

Two hours later, having thoroughly inspected two of the three caverns, they turned their attention to the final one. As with the first two, it was a cave about thirty meters deep, the cavern curved and twisty, in the exact same pattern. The concentration of dilithium and topaline remained constant, and in the same places as the first two.

This has got to be the dullest away team I’ve ever been assigned to, Miranda thought dolefully.

Less than ten meters into the final cave, Leybenzon stopped.

Miranda almost didn’t notice and came within a hairsbreadth of bumping into him. “What is it?” she asked.

“I—” Leybenzon hesitated, sounding far less confident than Miranda had ever heard him sound in her brief association with him. “I do not…understand.”

“What is wrong, Lieutenant?” Worf asked.

“I cannot move.” He backed up. “Let me amend that—I cannot move forward. Something is stopping me.”

Miranda held up her tricorder. “I’m not reading anything different here. Certainly nothing that would indicate this.” She walked past Leybenzon and then stopped. Blinking, she tried to move forward, but her legs suddenly stopped obeying her brain’s commands. “All right, then. This is…odd.”

“Report, Number One,” came Picard’s voice from all of their combadges.

“There is some force preventing us from advancing all the way into the final cavern, Captain.” As Worf spoke, he stepped forward, his own tricorder out, and didn’t get any farther ahead than Miranda had. “We are detecting no cause for this—no barrier, no force field, no indications of telepathic or telekinetic energies.”

Miranda admonished herself for not checking, especially since she was the one who brought up Talos IV, which was probably what put the notion in Worf’s mind. That’s why he’s the first.

Leybenzon started, “I believe—” when they were all distracted by the sound of snarling.

Whirling around, Miranda saw four quadrupeds standing in the mouth of the cavern. They were each about three meters long, covered in short, spiky black fur, a long snout, a two-pointed barbed horn sticking out of their forehead, and claws that looked like those of a wolverine.

“There’s no sign—” Miranda started, then noticed that now her tricorder was reading the creatures.

The two rows of teeth were bared at the landing party, and the creatures were growling very loudly. Miranda knew the look of a predator about to pounce on its prey and immediately used her free hand to unholster her phaser.

However, Worf was saying, “Enterprise, beam us up, n—”

The creatures and the cavern dissolved as they re-formed into the transporter room.

“—ow!” Worf holstered his phaser. “Well done,