"Oh, there you guys are." Tank walked into the room and took a quick look around, her muscular frame occupying most of the doorway. "Asuka asked me to head for Engineering to keep an eye on things, but when I got there, everybody was gone." She grinned at Marissa and waved a hand at her head. "Hey, nice haircut."

"Thanks." Marissa ran her hand over her scalp. "Time to shave again, though. If I let it grow for more than a day or two, lint from my pillow sticks to my head." She frowned. "If there are any pillows around here. Or razors."

"I use a hair-removal cream. Only need it once every month or so." Tank shrugged and ran a hand over her scalp. "Of course, I didn't have a chance to pack before we ended up here. But I guess there are more important things to worry about -- like what we're gonna do about food."

"Yeah." Seth shrugged before turning back to the large screen on the wall in front of the pilot's console. "Sorry we missed you, by the way. Something came up. And then something else came up."

"We've lost two of the shuttles," Asuka muttered, pointing at the screen, which held an image of Roger's and Kamala's shuttle disappearing into the cavernous landing bay of a sleek ship shaped a bit like a stretched-out ovoid. "Lopez sent us these images while he was outside. First we lost contact with Morrison and Luana. I thought something might've collided with their shuttle, but when we saw Roger and Kamala get swallowed up, we figured the same thing happened to the first shuttle."

Tank's jaw dropped and she stepped closer to the screen as the ship turned away. A reddish vortex swirled into existence a few hundred meters ahead of the ship, which accelerated into it. The ship vanished and the vortex dissipated.

"Hey, that looked like ..."

"A hyperspace entry point." Marissa nodded. "And we have no way to track them."

"Jesus." Tank tugged on her T-shirt collar and shook her head. "You sure Luana and Morrison got abducted, too?"

"Well, we lost their transponder signal and no one else has been able to find their shuttle." Asuka turned to Seth and pointed at his console. "Hey, see if you can find that ship in the Challenger's records. Maybe someone's encountered it before."

Marissa walked to another nearby control panel. "Seth, let me know if you find anything, and I'll see if there's any detailed info on its homeworld, or planets it's visited, or something. Maybe we can at least find out why they were taken."

"I'm on it." Seth tapped hesitantly at the controls.

Tank frowned at the screen and turned to the door. "Since everything's working except the engines, which can't even be fixed, I guess I'll grab another shuttle and take a look around."

"Okay. Be careful. We have no idea what else might be out there." Asuka crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the screen. "If you wouldn't mind, I'd like you to check in frequently, just so I know you're okay."

"Sure." Tank stuck her hands into her pockets and stepped through the door.

A series of sharp beeps came from the console Marissa had just left. She frowned, returned to it and looked at its monitors. Her frown deepened.

"Something's moving -- something that's not us, I mean."

"Those spider-centipede things?" Asuka said.

Tank poked her head back into the room and raised an eyebrow.

Marissa shook her head. "They're still confined to the medical bay and a few other areas. This is in the morgue."

"Any of our people in there?"

"No, I've got them on the screen, and none of them are anywhere near the morgue. The spiderpedes aren't nearby, either." Marissa gasped and covered her mouth. "The only things that could be moving in there …"

"The corpses." Asuka scrunched her face up and groaned. "Jesus Christ!"

Tank's jaw dropped again. "You've gotta be fuckin' kidding me!"