Star Trek?

As Ship's Counselor on the U.S.S. Quantum I've had occasion to prowl through the ship's computer memory banks as a way of relaxing. I found the following listed, perused it, and ordered up a copy of the micro-tape from Starfleet Command. I've deleted the name of the ship, but you'd recognize the voices if you heard them. Rather than prejudice you further I'll let you read the log entries before I say anything else.

The last known contact with the team members, all Vulcans, was by sub-space radio. The distress call was severely garbled, but a universal translator could be heard saying words that appeared to be "cannibals" and "murderers." Whether these words were translations from comments made by contact team members or other individuals is not known at this time. Static consistent with the violent destruction of an active sub-space transmitter was received soon after these words were spoken, and nothing more has been heard of the party.

Little is known about the inhabitants of Vegga. Indeed, little is known of the entire Flora Cluster. Vegga's star is Beta Carotene, an orange Population II star on the cluster's edge nearest the Federation. Vegga is listed as a class M planet. It is known to have an unusually high CO2 to O2 ratio and is almost uniformly of a tropical temperature. Little other information is available at this time.

Vegga was serendipitously discovered by the crew of a scoutship experiencing uncontrollable, sporadic hyper-power surges in its warp drives. A routine scan during a lull between surges enabled the ship's crew to detect communication by old style radio waves. Audio communication was established and the Veggians expressed an interest in further contact with the Federation. However a warp power hyper-surge allowed the ship's crew only time to promise future contact before they were thrown megaparsecs beyond radio range."

A salvage team has been dispatched to the orbiting U.S.S. Friendship, the vessel that brought the contact team to Vegga. The ship is basically spaceworthy. The salvage team reports that the ship has been hurriedly and thoroughly searched, and it is likely the computer memory banks of have been tapped and copied. Its antimatter fuel supplies are missing, as is its shuttlecraft. There are signs of energy and projectile weapon discharges, and of general hand to hand combat. The sub-space communicator has been destroyed. No life forms were found on board, nor were their any bodies."

It is unfortunate that the Friendship's orbit keeping skeleton crew were dining when members of the natives' military (and accompanying honor guard), were conducted on a tour of the ship. The new and unknown, confusion, and the military mind's penchant to attack a perceived threat, as well as the Vulcans' vegetarianism and pacifism, all lead to the wholesale slaughter of the Friendship's diplomats and crew.

I have assigned a prize crew (all carnivores) to rehab the Friendship and return with it to the nearest starbase.

We are currently enroute to Starbase 6 to pick up a team of medical specialists. We are to transport them to the planet Hypochondrian in the Gamma Globulin system. The Hypochondrians have been swept by a wave of mysterious illnesses. Although the diseases seem to match descriptions of illnesses found in their copies of Starfleet medical journals, none of the listed treatments have proven effacious. No Hypochondrian has yet died from these puzzling illnesses. Their repeated requests for aid, and the urgency of their requests, has resulted in a high level of awareness of their plight throughout the Federation, and a concomitant high priority by the elected members of the Federation Council."

Now I'm not sure if I should take these log entries seriously or not. But there was one more comment on the tape. It went: "Bones, hand me another Saurian brandy." You decide.

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