Fungicide

Posted on Sat Sep 19, 2020 @ 12:15am by Captain Maritza Soran & Commander Caleb Ryan & Commander Amia Telamon M.D. & Lieutenant Alanna Wells

2,101 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Et In Arcadia Ego
Location: Sickbay
Timeline: MD05 1600

[ON]

Maritza stared through the glass at Ensign Mayhew in the isolation chamber, sedated and surveilled by the best medics the station had. Pursing her lips and crossing her arms in frustration, she turned to her chief doctor and top scientist. "What the hell is it, where does it come from, and can we get it out of them? And my station," she added.

"It's a crystalline life form, origin unknown," Alanna said. "What worked on the power conduits won't work for a humanoid, but hopefully the doctor will come up with something."

Amia let out a puff of air and rolled her eyes. "You're putting a lot of faith in me!" she sighed. "I can only think along the usual medical lines of removal of a parasite that is attacking the host, but this is no lifeform, not in the way we would define it. If we were to zap it with anything, I imagine it would tighten its grip, so that's more of a danger to the host than ever. I wonder if we might try to regenerate the cells that it's replacing with its own crystalline forms. Maybe if we stimulate the host to rebuild we might push it out much in the same way it's trying to push its own agenda. The other angle we could try is to make the host less attractive to it."

"We witnessed it leaving the old woman on the promenade, presumably to find a new, healthier, more attractive host. So what made Ensign Mayhew so much more attractive? We need to turn that off somehow. I wonder if we could change her polarity, not in electrics but in neurals, or perhaps if we put her into a medical coma so she wasn't offering any more activity for it to feed on?" Amia shrugged, thinking out loud. "So much to try to see what works and so little time to find out. What happened to the body of the woman who fell, the host that was rejected? I need to do an autopsy right away. Wait, I'll get River to do one, and I can keep on trying some regeneration and a change in neuron activity here while she does."

Amia left the others for a minute so she could step aside to speak to River on the comm and explain what she wanted done, and then returned and began to kit up in full protective equipment ready to go back in with Jessica. "Any theories anyone has a leaning towards for the first I should experiment with?" she asked, more lightly than she was really feeling.

"It grew like blue blazes in the EPS, so whichever produces the most heat or electrical power I guess," Maritza decided. "It would have thrived on one of those two things. Heat from the plasma or the charge it created."

"I think it might be the charge. There were other hot places it avoided," Alanna said.

Caleb stood quietly back, arms crossed, staring through the windows at Jessica with concern. She was the first person in Security to invite him aboard when he arrived. She’d served as his front desk assistant.

“The woman that infected Ensign Mayhew was a member of the crew of a civilian freighter docked here for repairs. It was reporting power issues. This means this...thing could be more widespread on the station if it can jump to biological hosts. Wasn’t there a Caitian engineer that was exposed when we first discovered this crystal? Has he been accounted for?”

"He hasn't reported to Sickbay, but if he was either Patient Zero or close enough, perhaps he's come to a bad end like his shipmate?" Amia said, slightly muffled by the protective helmet she had just put on.

"The Caitian had the crystalline dust on his fur," Alanna said. "He was supposed to report to sickbay." She raised an eyebrow. "Have there been any other ships reporting problems?" She still had a sample of the crystal. She could run some tests to see if there was some compound that repelled the thing instead of destroying it.

"Someone should find him." She was mindful of the footage Amia had shown them from the Katarian. "Or what's left of him. And have we figured out where they're all trying to get to?" Maritza looked to Ryan. "Maybe if we find the source we can find a cure."

Caleb looked to Alanna. “Do you know who that Caitian was?” he asked. “Ops should track down his comm badge. Ah don’t know what the woman’s destination was. She was on the Prom. That could lead to anywhere on the staton, or the docks. Ah haven’t seen any reports on mah desks about other ships. Those reports don’t usually get as high as me. We’ll have ta check with the dockmaster.”

"He was an engineer on the station. He worked with Lovok," Alanna said. "I don't remember his name."

Caleb nodded. He relayed the information to engineering and asked them to search for the engineer.

* * * * * * * * *

The Bajoran woman walked into sickbay with her daughter. The eight-year-old held something in her hands and held it out as she approached the duty desk.

“Can you help it?” she asked, showing a small songbird. “I found it in the arboretum. I think it’s sick.” The bird was remarkably calm in the girl’s cupped hands, and its feathers were dusted with some kind of crystalline dust. So were the girl’s hands.

River was in Reception, having handed the care of Ensign Mayhew to Amia on arrival. She turned, and the dust made her heart sink. Such a pretty little child who only wanted to help an injured creature. "Um, perhaps," she said, moving between the child and her mother and the rest of the staff they were approaching. "Contamination procedures," she said urgently but quietly to Opal, who was behind her.

"On it!" Opal replied, pressed a red button which set off a silent alarm, and gestured for all to stand back.

"Emergency Medical Transport for three to QA2," River instructed, and blue lights shimmered her and her two patients away into Quarantine Area Two. Opal leaped into action and got everyone else straight into the cubicles for a scan to see if anyone had been affected in the passing of the two infected arrivals.

Everyone stayed calm, but bustled a bit, making sure they were as immediate as the situation demanded, but without starting any panic.

River and the two now rather bewildered patients materialised inside QA2 and River offered them chairs and asked them to sit down with the bird, but separately. It was clear the little girl had crystalline dust on her hands, but perhaps her mother might not have been affected yet.

Scans and tests had to be done, and the computer was now making the alarm in the quarantine rooms, the staff room, the main clinical areas, the wards, and the labs, very clear and loud, initiating lock down of the interconnecting doors at the same time.

Amia stopped mid-suiting up. "What now?" she said out loud and in frustration, but immediately recovered her composure and smiled at Jessica, who was watching her suit up through the toughened glasspex window.

“Oliver to Commander Telamon,” Opal's voice was calm, but a little urgent at the same time, as her tone was low and steady, but her words were coming out faster than usual. “A second case of possible contamination has been admitted to Sickbay a few minutes ago. Commander Weston has taken the child involved into QA2 and is conducting tests on her and her mother there. We will have an update very soon. In the meantime, Main Sickbay is under lockdown and we are testing everyone who was in here at the time that they arrived. Again, updates to follow, ma'am.”

Amia's face locked into her most rigid professional doctor mode, and she continued to hold the smile in Jessica's direction, but spoke through gritted teeth back into the open channel linking herself with the civilian doctor apparently doing an excellent job, thank the Spirits, but unexpectedly in charge of the whole Starfleet facility. “Thanks, Dr. Oliver. I'm grateful for your calm and efficient help. Are you in a position to maintain supervision and control of the situation out there?”

“Yes, ma'am, without a doubt,” Opal's voice replied with as much reassurance as she could convey in such a serious situation. She was really more than capable, and it was a simple matter of a cool head, following medical protocol, and keeping everyone, staff and patients alike, calm and upbeat. What could go wrong? she asked herself with the kind of humour and irony that she knew Caleb would have enjoyed if it hadn't been so serious. She thought of Caleb with a quick stab of concern. She knew he was in the quarantine section too, and her heart skipped a beat, throwing calm to the devil for what felt like a lifetime as she struggled the rush of feelings back down and under control again. She returned with determination to her testing.

Maritza had seen the lockdown with alarm. This was not good. "We need to find the source before this gets any worse." She looked back at Ensign Mayhew, and at Caleb trying not to fret. "Find the freighter. It may give us something."

"Have you tried the high-pitch frequency ship wide?" Alanna asked. "We know it works, but we don't know what affects the tone will have on some of the personnel. If nothing else, we can bathe the cargo bays with sound and see what happens."

“Should we try it on Ensign Mayhew?” Caleb asked. He looked to Soran. “Who has Ops? Looks like we’re gonna be stuck down here for the foreseeable future.”

"CPO T'Renn has it. She can handle it for a bit," Maritza supplied.

"Maybe. I'd like to see if we can find a way to either ionize the crystals or the patients to make the entity leave. If we can find out what it was with the old woman that drove off the entity, we can do that to others," Alanna said. She began to pace as she thought about the crystals, the dust, and the old woman. "The universe works on a twenty-one centimeter radiation band. Can we adapt that to Humans to make them less palatable?"

Caleb tapped his comm. “Ryan ta Ops. We have a situation in Main Sickbay. The captain an’ I are under lockdown quarantine until we can be cleared. You’re in charge for the moment, but feel free ta contact us for anythin’ serious. Alert emergency services that all medical cases should be referred to the secondary medical facilities until further notice.”

The reply from OPS was clipped and prompt. "Yes, sir. Do you need anything else at all?"

“Not yet. Keep us updated,” Caleb replied.

Opal opened the Emergency Sickbay as instructed and diverted the appropriate fresh staff down there. "Keep me up to date on anything unusual," she instructed, and sent out the standard alert for all On-Call Medical Emergency Staff to report in.

Caleb looked to Amia. “Ya’ll got a spare station the captain an’ Ah can set up at?” he asked. “Do we need ta get sequestered away?” It would be hard to run the station locked in a quarantine room, but it could be done.

His padd pinged. A message from Engineering. Ensign Molok was last seen two days ago. His commbadge was currently located in the main docking bay, aboard a ship, but is not responding to hails.

“Ryan ta Security. Send a Security team to the main docking bay, slip twenty-three. Retrieve Ensign Molok. Hazmat procedures,” Caleb instructed over the comms.

That did not sound good. Alanna wondered if the Caitian were still alive if he'd been on the ship for two days. She tapped her combadge. "Wells to Oaxaca. Close down the arboretum. A little girl found a crystalized bird there. Check everyone who works in the arboretum to see if they've seen or touched anything that had crystals or crystal dust. Any who have should contact sickbay."

"Oh dear. I'll lock everything down and report back if I find anything. Oaxaca out."

[OFF]


Captain Maritza Soran
Commanding Officer

Lieutenant Alanna Wells
Chief Science Officer

Lieutenant (jg) Brianthe Oaxaca
Botanist

Commander Amia Telamon
Chief Medical Officer

Doctor Opal Oliver
Civilian Physician

Lieutenant Commander River Morgan
Assistant Chief Medical Officer

Commander Caleb Ryan
Executive Officer

Ensign Jessica Mayhew
Security Officer

 

RSS Feed