The green planet seemed to be harmless, but there was something strange about it. Something odd, the Malurians do not come this far and leave behind a treasure of this kind. Following the orders of his Captain, Chekov was scanning the planet for any life forms. While, Uhura was decoding the message she finally succeeded in finding it. The air around the bridge seemed pretty thin, everyone was holding their breath to listen to that message. When finally-
"Federation vessel... Kill... Help... No one left... Federation vessel... Kill... Help... No one left..."
The same four phrases repeated over and over, that left Kirk and Spock obscured. They do not see any Federation ship nearby. Moreover, this sector of space was uncharted until now. Spock spoke for the first time in what seemed like an year. "Lieutenant Uhura, I believe that you have also located the source of the signal? Was it, supposedly, from the Malurians?"
"It doesn't sound like Malurians to me, they have a strong voice but this sounds like it is refined and also some hissing at the end of every sentence", informed Uhura. "The source of the message is somewhere on the planet and it is not Malurian or from any Federation ship."
"Where does that leave us then, Mr. Spock?" Kirk asked.
"It would be wise if we send a ranger team down and get eyes on that planet, Captain", suggested Spock.
Kirk, still handling his suspicions about this planet, turned to Chekov, "How is the scan coming down, Mr. Chekov?" Chekov didn't hear the question on first time around, he was looking gloomy and keenly observing his computer screen. "The planet is supposed to be Class-M, but there is no trace of any higher intelligent beings capable of deep space communication. The only life form is plants and some bacteria, Captain." He finally made Kirk aware of this new information.
"Mr. Sulu, you have the comm. Mr. Spock, you and I are going to take a little stroll on this Earth-like planet." Both Kirk and Spock headed to the elevator and reached the transporter room where Scott was having a hurried conversation of warp speed with Keenser. "Beam me and Spock on to that planet, Scotty", affirmed Kirk. Scott was bewildered by the request of his Captain, "You want me to what?"
Kirk gave a stern look at Scott, "The co-ordinates will be sent to you by Uhura, now whenever you are ready." Scott had no way in refusing a direct order from his Captain, he entered the co-ordinates and beamed them down.
The greenery of the planet was emblazoned by the suns' shine. The four suns gave a glint of red to the sky, and also hot temperatures on the terrain. Spock spot some sort of settlement near the horizon. It was a long walk, but there was no difficulty in finding water or food. "Maybe, the next time we get on a planet we should bring some transportation", Kirk humoured.
Upon reaching, they noticed houses with small openings like an Igloo, but no sign of it's residents. They walked further into the town to find more abandoned houses. At the town centre, they finally found the machine through which the message was sent, but still no sign of anyone. They approached the machine warily, when they were sure that no one was around, they examined the device.
It had the same message with the four phrases, not in the Comman tongue (English) but in a strange hissing language. They surveyed the town for more clues, but the land seemed to be barren and abandoned long before. "Let me tell you this Spock, this whole mission is pointless, we receive an unknown message from an unknown species leading us to find an abandoned device on a strange planet, there isn't any purpose for this", said Kirk.
"Maybe you are right, Jim. But doesn't this make us curious, the very own feature we require as an explorer, to seek out the unknown. You said so yourself that there is nothing as unknown, only temporarily hidden."
"You are goddamn right about that."
"Captain, I found a video log book."
"Lets have a look."
Both of them watched the whole video log and were taken aback. "Kirk to Enterprise, we found the reason why we are here. Beam us up."