A biting wind screamed across the snow covered cliffs of Javor VI like a predator hunting its prey. Bitter ice sliced through the air in jagged sheets, reducing visibility to a flickering haze of white and shadow. It was the kind of cold that turned exposed skin brittle in seconds, and the type of silence that made even seasoned warriors hold their breath.

Commander Diako Jacob crouched low behind a jagged outcrop of obsidian rock, his gloved fingers tightening around the chilled grip of his phaser rifle. His tricorder flickered with interference yet again. A soft, persistent fuzz lined the edge of his HUD like static clinging to the corners of his mind. He let out a controlled but nervous breath, watching the vapour dance in the icy wind.

=^= Approaching outer defence grid. Fifty meters. =^= the familiar voice of his second in command, Lt Cmdr Rani broke their silence, her voice quiet but authoritative through the comm channel. Jacob shook his head with a growing sense of foreboding. “It’s too quiet…” he muttered to himself before tapping his comm badge. =^= Hold position. =^= he replied curtly, his eyes frantically darting across the landscape. He had the unsettling feeling that he was being watched and he couldn’t shake it but he just couldn’t put his finger on it. His eyes tracked across the barren fields and up to Relay Station Epsilon. It should have been lit like a shining beacon, sub space arrays humming, maintenance drones drifting through their programmed orbits, station lights pulsing through the darkness. But the compound ahead was a void, it’s dark and angular architecture buried into the cliffside like a secret trying not to be found. Three days ago it had stopped responding and it was up to him to find out why. They had spent a day and a half trudging through the hostile environment and the quiet was starting to play with his mind. Jacob closed his eyes momentarily as he prepared to give his order. He instinctively rocked forward onto his toes ready to move as he tapped his comm badge.

=^= Approach pattern Delta.=^= his voice rang out through the wilderness and he clocked Lt Cmdr Rani leading her side out onto the plains as his team followed suit, weapons poised and ready for action. To his left, Lt Darvan took point and led them into the blizzard. They stayed close to the treeline for cover but had barely got quarter of the way across the fields when Darvan stopped suddenly, frozen in place. Jacob raised a quizzical eyebrow, instinctively raising his weapon. “Darvan?” He asked as he cautiously approached. “Lt?!” He repeatedly more forcefully as he moved to within a few feet. Jacob gulped as he tried to quell his fear, reaching out to touch the young Lt on the shoulder but before he could make contact, Darvan dropped to his knees and face planted into the snow, a crimson pool seeping into the pristine white snow beneath his now lifeless body. There had been no scream, no warning. His eyes widening in terror Jacob screamed “Cover!” But it was already too late.

Figures emerged from the storm like phantoms, tall and lean and moving with impossible speed. They wore no visible armour, just form-fitting stealth suits that shimmered slightly as they bent the light around them. Their faces were obscured by tight fitting face masks with what looked like advanced visual displays across their eyes. One of Jacob’s team opened fire but before his phaser blast hit its mark, he was already crumpling to the ground as a sickening crack from his neck echoed across the valley. Another enemy leapt from a nearby ridge, landing in a perfect roll and rising with a blade in hand which had already inflicted the wound on another young Ensign before the figure had finished rolling. Jacob began firing blindly into the snow, catching only fleeting movement. He briefly glanced at his tricorder to get some idea where they were but it was being jammed. They certainly knew what they were doing. Ducking behind a nearby rock, he tapped his comm badge as he caught his breath. =^= Team Alpha, fall back! =^= he ordered frantically. =^= Reroute to the secondary access tunnel! =^=

Rani acknowledged and began leading her remaining officers towards the access tunnel just as it erupted in a deafening explosion sending a meteor shower of flaming rubble that in an instant buried Rani and two of her officers under a metric ton of rock. The detonation was precise, somehow the enemy knew their fallback paths. Jacob swore under his breath, his ears ringing from the sound of the explosion. He scrambled forward, dragging a wounded Ensign with him. Around him, the rest of his team was being picked apart, one by one in a surgical fashion, cold and calculated. Suddenly Jacob knew he was not alone.

Before he could turn to face his attacker, he was thrown through the air with incredible force. The second he hit the ground, Jacob scrambled for his emergency beacon as the figure approaching him gained speed. Without hesitation Jacob hastily whispered a message and activated the beacon, silently praying it would reach its destination. With the enemy figure looming above him, Diako glanced round for any of his team but he instinctively knew he was the last. He never even saw the blade as a scarlet arc of his blood elegantly splattered across the rock behind him. He collapsed into the snow, and was somewhat surprised that he didn’t feel cold at all. As his vision started to fail the figures began to fade back into the snow and then as though nothing had happened, the landscape returned to stillness and silence apart from the howling wind.

Jacob gingerly rolled onto his back, every inch of him in agony and every breath felt like a dagger to his chest. He laid motionless, straining for breath as the snow slowly began to cover his broken body. Trying to put the pain out of his mind, he fixed his eyes on the distant stars above and stared at them with the wonder he had done when he first saw them as a small boy. He thought of his sister Nadezhda and his gorgeous baby nephew, Anton, a faint smile growing on his lips before he slipped away and became part of the silence.

• GM