Corsi was following the trail as best she could, her tricorder all but useless in the radiation. Sometimes it would flash a warning that there was a Klingon ahead, or a Tiburonian, or on one exciting occasion, that there was an Andorian, a Tellarite, and a Vorta three kilometers to the west. That sounds like a very bad joke, mused Corsi.

Regardless, the tricorder’s problems were the main reason why the discovery of Lauoc’s prone body was such a surprise. Corsi didn’t need her faulty equipment to tell her that the Bajoran wasn’t moving, and with her allergic reactions still suppressed by Carol’s last cocktail, her nose was enough to inform her that the area was covered in blood.

She knelt and quickly took Lauoc’s pulse. It was faint, but steady. She rapidly took stock of his injuries: lacerations on the face and chest, a broken right leg where he’d fallen, and a bite mark on his arm. She frowned and shone a light on the last injury. Tooth marks, humanoid tooth marks, and it wasn’t a simple bite taken in the heat of battle.

Someone had eaten a chunk of Lauoc’s arm.

“That’s disgusting,” she muttered, even as she realized her quarry might still be close.

She pulled an emergency hypospray. “Sorry, Lauoc, this is going to sting.” She pressed the device against his neck, and a groan informed her that Lauoc was waking up. A second groan told her he was feeling the bloody wound on his arm.

Corsi touched her combadge, cursing the little bleep that accompanied its activation. “Vinx, I’m heading back with Lauoc. He’s injured. Whatever this thing is, it’s not averse to eating us.”

“We’re almost at the base, Commander. ”

Corsi cut the contact without another word; as much silence as possible was best under the circumstances. “Let’s get you up and back to the others.” Letting the creature that did this go, even for the moment, gnawed at Corsi’s conscience. But there was no alternative, not if it meant letting Lauoc fend for himself with his injuries. She draped his right arm around her shoulders and forced them both to their feet, and began moving back the way she came.

The small group was silent, each nursing their own thoughts. The news of Lauoc’s injury confirmed their worst fears: There was something sentient out there, attacking both natives and Starfleet indiscriminately. Madness is disturbing in every culture, thought Carol.

“What if it’s one of us?” asked Vinx quietly, Jarolleka well behind them. “What’s if it’s that Starfleeter who was left behind?”

Carol shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Whoever it is, they’re not well, and we have to help them.”

Vinx shuddered. “But…cannibalism, doll? Even Iotia at its worst, we never ate nobody.” His gangland accent was as thick as Carol had ever heard it, the stress of the moment causing him to revert to his most basic speech patterns.

Carol placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’s the madness, not the person. We’ll do what we can to stop it, and then we’ll do what we can to make certain it doesn’t happen again.”

The Iotian shook his head in horror. Carol was reminded, as she had been again and again in this mission, that Sigma Iotia had only been a member of the Federation for a decade, and had only known about the Federation for a century or so. They hadn’t had the benefits of living with modern psychological practice. Madness was madness to them, a thing to be avoided, to be feared. Just as any kind of illness was a frightening mystery to the native Coroticans. The idea that this savage wandering the woods might be a representative of the Federation, possibly even a human, was bound to disturb a man from a society heavily influenced by old Earth.

Vinx was saved from having to respond to Carol’s assurances by a sudden glimpse of a clearing through the trees. “That’s the base ahead,” he said, his voice rough. “I’ll go down first, make sure the coast is clear.” He moved silently into the brush, his Starfleet training taking over.

“Where’s Iotia?” asked Jarolleka quietly, standing in the shadows behind Carol.

Corsi was barely making any progress at all, and with the team obeying an unspoken command to radio silence except in dire circumstances, she couldn’t be certain Vinx had managed to get the team safely to the Jem’Hadar base. Worse, she wasn’t certain what they’d find there if they had arrived safely.

“Looked…abandoned,” spat Lauoc through gritted teeth. Had they served together long enough for him to anticipate her thoughts that way, or was he just a damn fine soldier?

“I’m sure it was,” she replied. “No Jem’Hadar could live without the white for this long.”

Lauoc chuckled, a grim sound more pained than amused. “We both know that’s not necessarily true.”

One step after another, she thought. Aloud, she asked if he knew what had hit him.

“Tricorder said it was human, possibly an Alpha Centaurian.”

“You didn’t see it?”

“Just a shape lurching up from the ground in front of me. The thing’s fast. Taking us down earlier wasn’t a fluke.” He paused, drew in a shuddering breath. “There was an odor, but I couldn’t place it.”

Corsi nodded, aware that Lauoc wouldn’t see it in the dark. “Would you recognize it if you smelled it again?”

He sucked in his breath as Corsi stumbled slightly over a root in the dark. “Not…sure. It was like…” His voice trailed off.

Corsi stopped and took him by the shoulders. His eyes were closed. “Stay with me, Lauoc.”

The Bajoran’s eyes fluttered open. “I am with you. And so is it. I’m smelling it again.”

She let him drop, knowing the fall would do less damage than an unprotected assault from the creature. She aimed her phaser steadily and rhythmically, first behind her and then to the left, and then forward.

Something shifted in the trees above her and she glanced up, the phaser following her line of sight perfectly. She could see nothing but darkness until something shone briefly.

Eyes. Bright blue eyes, blinking.

She fired into the branches, and something black against black moved quickly away. She knew instantly that she hadn’t hit it, and that it had moved in exactly the direction it had wanted to move, toward the Jem’Hadar base and her team.