Star Trek: Infection

[Setesh]

Apologies for any grammatical mistakes or awkward lines, all my beta readers seem to have fallen off the world.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek.

Star Trek: Infection.

[Captain's log. Stardate 56869.08, today I leave the Endeavor, I'm sad to see her go. I survived the Borg, Orion pirates, and other threats, but the time to be on a patrol ship is over. I go now to take command of the Intrepid class USS Valorous. She's fresh out of dry dock getting refitted after the damage she took in the Dominion war, all of her original personal had been reassigned so the entire crew is fresh. After reading up on Janeway's trip through the alpha quadrant, I expect great things from the tough little ship.]

[Captain's log, stardate 56919.81, two weeks since I last made an entry, things have been busy. My new crew is excellent. First officer, commander Corna, though vulcan is a fascinating woman with a dry wit, no matter what she says. My only concern is the ships councilor. Tembek has become withdrawn from the crew citing a feeling of illness. The chief medical officer, Doctor Madeline, says there isn't anything wrong with him, but he does look terrible.]

[Captain's log, stardate 56938.99. Things have taken a turn for the worse. Out of 142 crew only 6 aren't sick. Myself, Doctor Madeline, and 4 enlisted personnel. The comm system was destroyed and the warp core ejected by delirious crewmen. We six are doing our best just to keep everyone alive. The scanners say there is nothing causing the symptoms, but they are happening. Not everyone has the same symptoms either. Tembek is catatonic but otherwise unharmed. Some crewmen are developing metallic or mineral formations on their skin. Others are exhibiting changes to their cellular structure that make little sense. Even worse the bio-neural gelpacks are exhibiting symptoms as well, so computer access is sporadic.]

[Captain's log, stardate.....I'm guessing 56942, acting captain Halsten of Izar, Most of the crew have disappeared, and the ship has been boarded by several lethal aliens lifeforms. A ship was found clamped to the hull three days ago just as the lifeforms attacked the few of us left. While we could fight them off to a point, they outnumbered us greatly, and some of them where phaser resistant. After T'kor and Doug were killed I knocked the captain and the doctor out and launched them off in an escape pod with Tembek who was still catatonic. The lifeforms are coordinated despite being different species and possibly non-sentient, we theorized they must be telepathically controlled and Tembek's condition the result of telepathic attack. They're right outside now and the makeshift force-field won't last much longer running on only hand phaser power. I'm dumping the captain's log into the emergency buoy, I'm sorry its not more but the computers are all down. The escape pod's trajectory is included as well.]

As the screen faded to the Starfleet insignia, the lights came back up revealing several admirals and Lurz the klingon ambassador. Seemingly out of place was Doctor Beverly Crusher chief medical officer of the enterprise, the silver suited Seven of Nine, and the Voyager's holographic doctor. Admiral Janeway stood to address them.

“And that's what we know ladies and gentlemen, an unknown alien attacked with what was presumably a medically based weapon, then took the ship. With the captain, medical officer and councilor being shot off towards a nearby class-L planet. We would like you Doctor Crusher to take command of a medical ship we have going after them.”

“Not that I'm not flattered but what if we're attacked, medical ships aren't up to prolonged combat.”

Another admiral answered, “We're sending two ships, one for medical, one for combat. A griffin-class ship, to be precise the USS Minotaur, a good ship and crew, veterans of the Dominion war. Captain Vako will handle combat, you will handle rescue and research.”

“I've had Seven and the Doctor transferred temporarily,” Janeway cut back in, “His experience in the unknown from the delta quadrant and her Borg knowledge base will be invaluable.”

“I will endeavor to be useful.” Seven quipped with a 'Here here' from the Doctor.

“Full data on the Valorous and her crew are waiting for you on the USS Behring. Dismissed.”

Now Captain Crusher, led her two new crewmen towards the transporter station.

“So what have you two been up to since Voyager returned?” Unsurprisingly the Doctor answered.

“After a brief legal battle to be declared sentient I ended up being assigned to a federation think tank with Seven. Mostly work on the Borg.”

“I too had some,” the statuesque blond paused, “Difficulty fitting in on my return, I moved in with my aunt before being approached with several offers. The 'think tank' was most appealing, far more so as it was here on earth. The Doctor joining was a happy coincidence, he knows more than any one else the amount of maintenance my remaining implants require.”

A quick transport left them on the Behring. A vulcan woman with a commander's rank greeted them.

“Greeting Captain Crusher, I am your first officer Commander T'Janikrel.”

“Hello, I'm sorry about the short notice but we have to leave as soon as possible. The bridge should be receiving rendezvous coordinates for the Minotaur shortly.”

“At once Captain, we have already made the necessary accommodations for Lt. Commander Seven of Nine and the Doctor. A Borg alcove modified to your specifications is in your quarters.” She told Seven before turning to the Doctor, “This ship was retrofitted with your delta quadrant difficulties in mind Doctor, there are holo-emitters throughout the ship, your now the highest ranking hologram on the ship.”

“Oh, you have others?”

“Three EMH mark IVs, and multiple Holographic Medical Assistants. The HMA's are essentially basic holograms who can act as nurses and orderlies. In emergencies they can be given temporary skill upgrades for more specialized care. With the continued personnel shortages from the Dominion war its turned out to be a better use of resources. We carry only 220 crew, instead of the full 350 compliment as most secondary medical staff is holographic.”

Seven appeared mildly amused at this. “While watching the Doctor learn of his new 'relatives' is amusing we should start compiling the Valorous data immediately.”

The Doctor and Seven worked almost constantly in the six days it took to reach the Minotaur flight path. Co-opting the other EMHs, nicknamed Chico, Groucho, and Harpo, after the 20th century comedians whose likenesses they copied, to spell Seven for regenerations and occasional sleep.

Crusher stood in the transporter room waiting on the captain of the Minotaur[i/]. In a swirling sparkle of energy he appeared, he to her in fact appeared familiar.

“Permission to come aboard, Captain Crusher,” the exceptionally tall alien rumbled in a deep bass.

“Permission granted, Captain Vako.”

He moved with remarkable grace for so large a being, “My brother, Homn sends his best wishes.”

“Mr. Homn is your brother, I knew you were the same species but..”

“Yes, most of my people rarely travel, Homn and myself are considered something of eccentrics at home.”

After introductions were made in the research lab Seven stood to give the briefing.

“We have made a slight discovery, with so little to go on the best we could do is narrow a point of origin for the pathogen. After comparing all possible vectors against the six unaffected crew-members we made a single point of difference that is common for them all. The infected crewmen spent their pre-launch shore leave on Risa, those not afflicted did not.”

The Doctor cut in at that point, “We've informed starfleet medical of our suspicions, and have tracked down 22 personnel between the two ships that were on Risa at the same time. We'd like some of them to volunteer to heavily scanned a tested to see if they are indeed carrying an unknown pathogen.”

“There is some urgency,” Seven picked up without missing a beat, “This has many similarities to the Rezjyer's, species 664, preferred method of warfare.”

“In what way?” Crusher asked.

“They posed as interstellar traders and infected the population with a virus engineered to lie dormant for years, even decades until specific conditions were met. Usually a time limit, enforced by something similar to telomeres, the virus would reproduce just enough to infect others then go dormant. Once active it in one person it would trigger it in every member of his species he came near, until they were all dead.”

“Could it be these Rezjyer?”

“No, all unassimilated Rezjyer were wiped out by survivors of their victims. There are worse things, from the assimilation of the Rezjyer the collective learned of species 669. While the Borg never encountered a member of the species, they are believed to be extra-dimensional, the Rezjyer were merely tools to try their new weapons. Several other species the Borg encountered did much the same but with differing types of weapon. The Collective has long held the theory that the primary reason for this testing was the eventual invasion of our reality.”

“If it is species 669?”

“Than life as we know it may never be the same.”


[Seven of Nine, examination log 43. Ensign Julio Lytton, has returned for a new scan. This time the Doctor will be using a Vidiian medical scanner.]

“Alright just hold still this won't hurt a bit.” the Doctor told the prostrate crewman.

“As long as you do not accidentally push the button for the organ harvester.” Seven quipped and the ensign's dusky complexion paled. The Doctor glared at her for a moment before going back to the scan. It was only a few moments before the device made an odd beeping sound.

“What's this?”

He loaded the devices data into the computer so Seven could see it.

“It appears to be a dormant nano-technologic device. It is masked as a neutrophil type white blood cell . Can you extract a sample?”

“I believe so, his blood stream appears to be saturated with them.” A light shot out from the Vidiian device into Julio's arm, “There we go I have 150 of the nanites in the storage buffer. Now we add them to cell samples to see how they infect, before we try to take one apart.”

As the Doctor began placing the samples, Seven activated the holo-display. The image of several blood cells and appeared in mid air. She made several adjustments to the scanner the sample dishes were in, eventually the teardrop shape of the nanites shimmered into view inside some of the white blood cells. They watched as they began to move shedding the masking cell walls as the unfolded to show three 'arms', propelled by flagellum that unfurled behind them. Several of them came together to form a structure while the others suddenly attacked nearby blood cells killing them and pulled them towards the structure. As the cells were fed into the structure new, smaller nano-machines exploded out of the structure like a cloud of fog. The full sized nanites disconnected and reformed their masking cell wall. While the cloud was absorbed into red cells only to slowly change shape. Within an hour the infected red cells were false white cells with the teardrop shape of dormant nanites inside.”

“Fascinating,” Seven said, “The only sign the nanites were working to the standard medical tricorder was when they were active outside the cell wall.”

“Fascinating is not how I'd describe it. Somehow the nanites were able to exactly duplicate their concentration in Ensign Lytton's blood inside the sample. While it will make studying them easier it does raise some troubling questions.”

“Indeed,” It was then Seven noticed the confused yet terrified Ensign was still there, “You are dismissed Ensign.”

“And don't worry to much about this,” the Doctor quipped, “All the ones inside you are dormant.”

Sehlot 4, Class-L planet.
Madaline looked out over the wind swept rock formations. Behind her, Captain Charles Farley took another shot at their pursuer. She was very happy to be a Uroplecian at this point, her homeworld was much like this planet, a hot dry world. The name 'Madeline' was a affectation, her name required the ability to produce ultra-sonic clicks and pheromones to say. Her own speech was translated by an implant behind her chelicerae. She had been told she resembled an earth creature called a scorpion though longer and with a manipulator claw on the end of her tail instead of a poison stinger. A quick clacking noise sounded as she reset her upper body to her 'human' posture bending her mid-segments so her upper section was at 80° to the rest of her. An adaption as important to her species as opposable thumbs was to humans. Though she worried for her captain, he was human and not used to such conditions. The creature chasing them seemed to be adapting rapidly to the climate, which did not bode well for them. From her upright posture she took aim with her thras'hui and fired at the skulking shape. Not the hum of a phaser but a sharp crack sounded as a purple flash shot out, making her more annoyed as it twisted out of the way before running off.

The Captain panted for a moment as he looked at his tricorder. “Its gone for now, probably looking for water. Speaking of which,” He waved it around for a second, “There is some in a cave of some kind, that way.”

“I hope it is potable for you Captain, I do not wish to carry you.”

He smiled at her as he stood to walk again. “Under the circumstances I think you can call me Charley.”

They made their way to the cave carefully checking for local life along with their unwelcome guest.

“So what is that weapon of yours anyway?”

“The thras'hui is a standard side-arm of my race. While I can preform most tasks with human equipment, the phaser is designed with humanoid ergonomics in mind. So I carry the thras'hui, it literally translates as light thrower, its an ultra-violet laser. My people specifically developed it for use in shipboard combat against other species.”

“Oh, why is that?”

“Ultra-violet light, is harmless to us, the beta-carboline in our shells becomes florescent when it strikes us, and we are resistant to extremes of heat, I was struck by a thras'hui once and the worst it did was melt the waxy coating on the outer layer of the shell. It can lead to water loss but on a spaceship that is not much of a problem. Your turn Charley, you've wormed a great deal out of me, tell of yourself.”

“Not much to tell, my family has been in Starfleet since the beginning. My many times great-grandmother served with Archer, and her eventual husband was the first ambassador to Andor. I grew up on starbases, with only sporadic contact with my father. Mother was a geochemist with a doctorate in cosmochemistry. I joined the academy as soon as I qualified.”

Reaching a 36' shear cliff face blocking their way was somewhat disheartening. Returning to her horizontal posture Madeline started scaling the cliff wall with relative ease, securing a rope for him to scale. Just as he started the tricoder beeped out a warning.

“Our friend is back.” Charley stated.

“Climb, I'll keep a look out.”

As he climbed she spotted their pursuer, it had changed greatly. It now had the posture of a cat, on four legs, though it still had scales they shifted in color to match objects nearby. It would have been excellent camouflage against most species, but her vision was different enough to tell what was brown rock and what was scale. Its jaw had lengthened to something more akin to a monitor lizard, and inches long fangs protruded down past its lower jaw. The eyes were still featureless black orbs but seemed to track Charley. She waited taking as careful aim as she could, until it shifted and charged. It ran at amazing speed towards the cliff face. Charley climbed as fast as he could ignoring the loud cracks of Madeline's thras'hui as she fired at the creature. Madeline trilled in victory, as she scored a hit to the creatures side, eliciting a hissing roar of pain as a chunk of its flank burned away. It turned with a final roar of rage and loped away.

“At least it will go away for a while longer.”

“Maybe we'll get lucky, uuuhhh,” Charley struggled over the ledge, “And the blasted thing will die out there.”


USS Behring
Several hours, and many experiments later, the Doctor and Seven were rejoined by captains Crusher and Vako.

“While we are still unable to assess what the ultimate purpose of the nanites are we can now explain some of their function. They enter the body as a nano-virus swarm, the swarm then builds the full nanites out of their own structure, then the full nanites form nano-virus factories, consuming red blood cells for material. The viral forms infiltrate red blood cells consuming them from the inside to both build the nanite and to transform the cell wall to mimic a neutrophil, one of the most common types of white blood cell, 94% of federation member species have them.”

The Doctor started then “From the tests we've conducted the nanites will remain dormant until conditions set off their programming. So far the only response we can get is replicating themselves to reach and maintain a stable population withing the body.”

“Terminating the nanites,” Seven continued, “has also proven extremely difficult. While dormant they are invisible to the bio-scan of the transporter. The only methods we've found to kill them also kills the host. Anything less causes them to break down into the viral form, where they are even harder to eradicate.”

“Is it species 669?” Vako asked.

“Impossible to determine with this level of data. It is certainly up to their level of technical expertise.”

[Chico to the Doctor] the comm interrupted.

“Go ahead Chico.”

[Eighteen crewmen have collapsed, sir. They are all the infected on board, and six we were unaware of.]

“Have them all transferred to the isolation ward.”

[Aye, sir.}

Vako stood quickly, “I shall return to my ship to check on my infected crewmen. If they have collapsed as well I'll have them beamed over. ”


Comments are the lifeblood of creativity.

[Themightytom]

Maybe settle on a style, screen play, narrative, first person, third person, whatever, and do more to set up events. Describe scenery, actions etc. It seems like your characters mostly exist toe exchange dialogue.

Still better than anything I've done of course...

[Setesh]

Maybe settle on a style, screen play, narrative, first person, third person, whatever, and do more to set up events. Describe scenery, actions etc. It seems like your characters mostly exist toe exchange dialogue.

Still better than anything I've done of course...

Yeah defiantly not my best work, I know what I want to happen to who when, but the TNG and Voyager characters who I need to use are a pain in the ass to write. Out of them the Doctor is the most interesting, but I really didn't want to write paragraphs of just the Doctor, I'm thinking this is one of those fics I'm going to have to comeback and rewrite the first chapter. The second is going so well I don't want to stop and go back to the painful introduction scenes I need to do in chapter one. (its twice as long already and I haven't found a good stopping point yet)

[Caiaphas]

I have only a few minutes here, so pardon my bluntness.

Dialogue needs work; it just seems too stiff and unnatural. There needs to be more scenery description, because I honestly can't tell what the hell is going on. Other than that, the general idea I find to be intriguing. If you want a more detailed critique, just PM me and I'll try and help you over a weekend.

Long live the Federation!