Personal Log: OPS Lt. Cmdr. Solan Arquette

Personal log, stardate six-nine-three-one-six point seven.

Two hours of sleep is not enough, especially after the day I had yesterday. Every muscle in my body hurts, and even the hypo that Dr. Trane gave me wasn't enough to eliminate my headache. I'll keep this short, sweet and to the point.

Despite my formal agreement with Commander Jalando in my Operations Log, I do not, in fact, agree with his decisions. I do not feel that we exhausted all options before firing on the photonic entities' rifts, and, as they had as yet not shown us any hostility, it was wrong of us to attack them first. It is worrisome, to me, that Commander Jalando was so willing to lash out at the rifts, at least as much from fear as anything else as far as I can determine. While I respect him as a man, I feel that his decision was wrong and based on the biases of an unknown situation; to whit, the Atlantis was under attack, according to a probe we retrieved, and therefore the rifts might attack us. Unfortunately, we knew nothing of the situation that Atlantis was in – it is quite possible that, like Pandora, she fired first.

I find it worrisome, this trend to 'shoot first and ask questions later.'

Perhaps my passivism is a thing of the past; the wars Starfleet has had to endure lately seems to have changed it, and not always for the better. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps I am misreading things. In any event, I would like to speak with the councilor in the hopes that he can help me see something that I may have otherwise missed.

Computer, end log.

Chief Operations OfficerÂ’s log, stardate six-nine-three-one-six point one. It has been a long day, so I will attempt to keep this brief. I will file a more formal and detailed report tomorrow, but I feel it necessary to take down some of the more important facts so they aren't lost.

Captain Kane and the admirals of the Frontier Fleet went missing this morning, which was the first sign that anything was wrong. I still don't know where they were taken or how, and I've been too busy putting out the proverbial fires caused by the events of the day to ask questions. Whatever the case, the events of the day truly began for Operations when a series of subspace distortions arose around Pandora Station, cutting us off from the rest of Starfleet. Our attempts to contact other vessels in the area, as well as the rest of the Frontier Fleet, proved fruitless.

There began to appear signs of ... strange activities around the station, which rapidly proved to be an important discovery: apparently the subspace rifts were caused by the presence of photonic entities from what I can only imagine is a different ... dimension for lack of a better word. I am not a scientist; presumably Lieutenant Vrass will be able to give me some explanation in the near future. I encountered only two such entities today: the first was a young girl named Alice, who entered the science labs when Lieutenant Vrass, Commander Jalando and I were investigating a discovery from the Atlantis – a probe that we had managed to capture using the Epimetheus' tractor beams and transporters. It came with a message: they were under attack by the same rifts that had, until then, shown no true hostility to our station beyond that previously mentioned.

The second was intentional, in a hallway on Deck 80. I beamed to an area and was joined by Virt, who proved most helpful in my brief dialogue with the entity. Apparently it viewed Virt and other holographic images as more real than the humans, vulcans, andorians and other carbon-based lifeforms aboard the station. It wanted its questions answered but refused to give a great deal of detail itself. According to the entity we are not lifeforms, holographs are 'empty shells' – except Virt, who he recognized as being different.

Later, Commander Jalando – against my advice – decided to give the entities until 1930 hours before he would attempt to close the rifts. His plan was to employ anti-leptons to close the rifts. In theory this would work and, when 1930 hours came, it did at first. However, almost immediately the rifts began firing a great number of torpedos at Pandora. While none of them were individually capable of harming us, the sheer number employed was too great for the shields to hold. We suffered some damage, particularly around the anti-lepton emitters and the communications gear, which we will have to repair quickly. Through quick thinking Ensign Gatto, Commander Jalando and I developed a plan to attempt to communicate with the entities. It worked.

The long story made short, almost as suddenly as they had come, the rifts withdrew. As they did so, Captain Torn of the Atlantis appeared in Main Ops. That was.... a few hours ago. Since then the major repairs have been begun on the station, but we still don't have full communications ability. All in all I am proud of the way my department handled the crisis, and I intend to suggest several members of the crew for letters of commendations, not the least of them Ensigns Kaylin and Gatto. Ensign Kaylin has proven herself a good leader and I also plan on requesting that she be made Assistant Chief of Operations formally.

Computer, end log.