"I want to start a full investigation immediately," Anzyl turned to his Security and Tactical officers, Zide'Mok and Veirik, "If this was another skirmish, I want to know who shot who first. If we don't find answers before others show up, this could spark a Quadrant War!"
The two men nodded with a "Yes Sir!" both typing away.
"Nolan, you and Tey'un get some random pieces of wreckage and bring it to the cargo bays, get your Xindi and Whale friends to help you analyze the data that you and the guys find." Captain ordered,
Nolan nodded and left the bridge.
"I have a bad feeling about this." Anzyl muttered to himself, gazing upon a horizon of silent death.
---
In one of the many ship's cargo bays, pieces of torn, shredded, and exploded ship wreckage strewn across the metal ground. Nolan and Tey'un scanned the debris with their tricorders, while holographic images of the aquatic Xindi Yolec and Tulkun Kayuli floated and swam in the air around the debris.
"Most interesting…" Kayuli spoke up, "Brother, can you lift this piece up for me?" He asked, Kayuli shrunk its hologram to the size of a goldfish to get a better look.
Teyu'un lifted a piece of hull debris up, and his Whale brother swam underneath. "Most interesting indeed!"
"What do you see Kayuli?" Nolan asked scanning away.
"At first glance, this appears to be typical space battle wreckage," the Whale elucidated floating up over the wreckage, "but there are no blast patterns, No burn marks, no plasma burns. This debris looks… shredded."
"I concur…" the manatee-like Yolec agreed, "these shelves of metal were torn and shredded apart. What blast marks and burns are from the interior of the hull. As if forcibly ripped open and exploded from within."
"I don't like this." Tey'un shook his head vigorously, "I don't like this at all… this is dual-layered reinforced Tritanium alloy, and whatever did this ripped it apart like leaf paper…"
Nolan flared his dinosaur nostrils letting out a deep sigh, "I need to tell the captain…"
---
In the meeting boardroom, the chief staff sat around the table, Captain Praxas was not amused.
"Ripped? As in… Torn apart? By what?"
"We have no way of knowing Sir," Nolan stated.
Veirik spoke up, "Sir, I can agree with this assessment." He explained, "The ship wreckage, residual weapons fire, and debris dispersal patterns do not align with a typical space battle, the Vaadwaur versus the Alliance." he continued, bringing up a 3D analysis of the debris field, different ships highlighted in different colors.
"We would see one of two things; 1, If the Vaadwaur attacked the Delta Alliance, a majority of alliance ships would be on one side and the Vaadwaur on the other of the debris field, with blast patterns and weapon residue to match. 2 would reverse that. If the alliance attacked the Vaadwaur, all the alliance would be on one side, and much less debris from the Alliance, as this would be a very one-sided battle. The Alliance outnumbered the Vaadwaur 7 to 1."
Neil pointed to the rather randomized debris field, "but they look all mixed together, no one side, and every ship was destroyed."
Veirik nodded, "There was a third party involved."
Anzyl thought hard, "Nolan you and your team confirmed that the ships were shredded."
Nolan nodded.
The captain turned to Two of Three, "The Borg utilize Kinetic Cutting beams yes? The collective is still active in the Delta Quadrant."
"Yes and no captain." Two of Three explained, "Yes, the Borg Collective uses Kinetic cutting beams, but, so do we, one is installed in our omni-beam array. Yes, the collective is still active in the Delta Quadrant. No, the collective did not do this. The ships would be assimilated and residual Borg energy signatures would still remain; we would detect them."
Nolan added, "and the shrapnel was not cut by Kinetic energy beams, it was physically shredded… by something."
"Then what the bullox did this then?..." Neil's Irish accent came out.
"Captain you may want to see this," Heluna spoke over the intercom, "Right now."
---
On the bridge, Anzyl, Neil, Veirik, and Nolan looked over Heluna's shoulder at her console. "We have incoming sir, and whatever it is… it's big…really big."
A large silhouette that resembled an arrowhead moved towards their proximity; it also had dozens of small little dots pinging around it.
Like a swarm of wasps escorting a hive.
They looked in disbelief, and Veirik muttered "What… the…F