The USS Andalucia is conducting a routine flight between two Starbases, in route to pick up an Andorian dignitary who is returning home after an extended period away from his native land.

However, the chief scientist, Commander Lubomirska, alerts Captain Segura that she’s receiving some confusing signals. It appears to be some kind of distress signal, but it’s corrupted.

After numerous analyses, they manage to identify the source: a black hole some distance away. The captain orders pilot Andrea to head there; they must investigate. The signal has a very old configuration, predating the creation of the Federation itself; it appears to be Vulcan-type. But it’s badly corrupted, and it’s not possible to determine much more precisely. The captain wonders how no one has been able to receive it before. Chief Engineer García reports that the sensors have recently been upgraded with much more sensitive experimental processors, and the fact that this is a very rarely traveled region of space may also be a factor.

Security chief Delger warns that it may be a ruse by some pirates, so the captain orders a yellow alert as a precaution.

As we approach the vicinity of the black hole, the source of the signal is located, although its content remains extremely unclear. A ship is detected right on the black hole’s event horizon, just before it is finally pulled into the hole.

The ship is identified as the T’Plana-Hath. It’s unprecedented; the surprise on the bridge is total: it’s the Vulcan ship that made first contact with Earth on April 5, 2063. It went missing several months after that event; it was presumed lost.

The news quickly spread throughout the ship, and excitement was immense. Chief of Operations Crocker suggested that recovering the ship would be of great historical value. The captain agreed, and soon the entire crew—Everdene, Weidman—every department in the world was focused on finding a way to recover the ship.

After a few hours of discussing options and endless calculations, the decision was made to get as close as possible to the Vulcan ship and attempt to pull it with the tractor beam. It’s very risky, and it’s unknown if it will work, but the goal is to try to recover the ship without damaging it beyond the countless damages detected in the scans.

It’s true that, due to its position right on the event horizon, the scans are imprecise, and we’re not even able to identify whether there are life forms on board or not.

After preparations aimed at preparing the ship for what lies ahead, and after informing the fleet command of everything, Commodore Pitarelli responded that a rescue attempt should be made and that more help has been sent; but it will take a while to arrive, given our isolated location.

We finally approach the black hole. It’s a bumpy ride, and some systems fail, but the engineering team is quick to intervene. As we approach the Vulcan ship, the distortions in space-time begin to affect us. We manage to capture the ship with our tractor beam and move away from there as quickly as we can.

As we exited the black hole’s radius of influence, elated at being able to retrieve the T’Plana-Hath ship from its space-time limbo, we found five fleet vessels waiting for us, including a Vulcan vessel that had overpowered its engines to arrive. What seemed like a few minutes to us felt like almost seven days in normal space-time.

As rescuers, we’re allowed the privilege of being the first to board the ship. As the chief medical officer, I’m told to join that first group. Within a few minutes, we’re aboard the ship, in our spacesuits. The ship is damaged, though not fatally, only to the engines. There are no survivors, the escape modules are missing, and the emergency signal is still garbled. After scouring the ship, we managed to reach the bridge and analyzed its logs.

They manage to put them back together, and according to the logs, the ship was traveling through this region of space when a cloud of meteorites struck it, causing severe damage to the engines. The crew attempted to make repairs, but the damage was so severe that, seeing that they were inexorably approaching the black hole, they ordered the ship to evacuate. Unfortunately, they were already within the black hole’s area of ​​influence, and upon abandoning the ship, they were pulled toward it. The ship became erratic and remained right on the event horizon. According to the logs, all this happened just over a year ago, such is the influence of space-time distortions.

We’re saddened to realize that, if the crew hadn’t abandoned the ship, we would have been able to rescue them, as life support would have allowed it. A feeling of sorrow runs through us.

We informed the fleet, abandoned the ship, and other groups boarded it for further investigation. Along with the other ships, we formed a convoy to escort the T’Plana-Hath ship to Vulcan.

We’re happy to have found a piece of Federation history, though saddened by the fate of the crew of the T’Plana-Hath ship.

Happy First Contact Day.