Blood & Ice 06 - Conspiracies
BLOOD AND ICE
by Soledad
Author's note:For disclaimer, rating, etc., see the secondary index page.
The particulars of Saurian customs and physiology are taken from “The Words of the Federation”, an excellent background source by Shane Johnson. It’s not his fault that later series contradicted his ideas which, frankly, were a lot more plausible than what so-called canon later came up with.
According to him, Saurian names were always comprised of three parts. Of those, the third one contained information about the date of birth, gender, personal achievements, marital status, occupation, and even personal interests. As a result, Saurian last names were often more than fifty letters long and for common use abbreviated into three representative letters, divided by apostrophes. Based on this, I reverse-engineered Rohan’s name to R’H’N.
As for Regulan natives, the basic information about their system and origins comes from the same source. Their looks, however, are based on a picture that shows the supposedly sentient, bipedal descendant of a dinosaur I found in a rather stupid book about UFOs. *g*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
CHAPTER SIX - CONSPIRACIES
“Beverly,” Picard said slowly, not taking his eyes from the mummified face of the creature that a day ago was the best diagnostic engineer LaForge had ever served with. “Can you tell me how Mr Hodel has apparently managed to escape from IsoLab One, where he should have been under constant surveillance?”
“Ummm…” Beverly was thinking quickly, trying to find an acceptable explanation - and failed. “Well, to be honest, we thought he was dead, and I had him removed to the morgue. It was too late to save him, and we’ve learned from him everything we possibly could.”
“The crew of the Copernicus was dead, too,” Picard reminded her sharply. “It wasn’t until they became brain dead that the bloodworms finally took control, remember?”
“I... ummm… didn’t think of that,” Beverly confessed, a little subdued. “All I had on my mind was to find a cure.”
She threw Selar a quick glance that practically begged for help. Selar gave her the best Vulcan eyebrow in exchange that clearly said told you so. Which she doubtlessly had. Vulcans always took any possible dangers into consideration, and they were nothing if not thorough.
While they were arguing, Hodel stepped out of the turbolift, heading towards them with a strange, hobbling gait. Picard touched his comm badge.
“Security to sickbay. Emergency site-to-site transport, authorization Picard Epsilon 7-9-3.”
He’d barely finished rattling down his authorization code when a group of three grim-looking security officers shimmered into existence less than a metre from his position, their phasers already set to kill. They aimed at the zombified Hodel without hesitation, their training taking over.
Shock would come later.
“Wait!” Selar stopped them before they could have fired. “You must not kill him.”
The security officers looked at Picard in confusion. Picard, for his part, looked at Selar the same way.
“Care to explain, Doctor?”
“When an infected body disintegrates, it sets free an entire cloud of new spores; thousands of them,” Selar replied. “That is how Ensign Hodel got infected in the first place. Killing him would only spread the disease throughout the Enterprise.”
“But we can’t let him run free,” Picard said. “That would lead to the same result.”
“True,” the Vulcan allowed. “However, he would not do much additional harm aboard the Copernicus; and he still has his communicator.”
Picard understood the hint and touched his comm badge at once.
“Picard to Transporter Room Three. Chief, lock on to Ensign Hodel’s comm badge and beam him over to the Copernicus immediately.”
O’Brien acknowledged his order, and before Hodel could have reached them, the transporter beam caught him and pulled him away.
“That is one problem dealt with,” Picard said. “Now, Beverly, Doctor Selar, let us discuss that cure of yours and see how we could use it safely.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Away Team materialized almost simultaneously in the cargo bay of the Copernicus, in the midst of the repulsor field. The large room - large for an Oberth-class ship, that is - was fairly dark and relatively empty, save for three vaguely humanoid forms that could not be identified in the darkness, and a short, double row of metallic tubes that seemed to be standard cryogenic chambers at first sight.
Outside the perimeter of the repulsor field they could hear the zombies throwing heavy objects against the doors, obviously trying to break them. Using his tricorder, Data quickly checked the environment.
“The repulsor field is working within acceptable parameters, Commander,” he then reported. “There are thirteen life signs in this room. Ten of them are very weak, presumably coming from people held in cryogenic suspension. The remaining three are: two humans and one… Regulan?”
The surprise in his voice almost reached human levels. Which was understandable, considering that due to the one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old quarantine there had been no contact with the native species of Regulus II for roughly the same length of time. Perplexed, Ryker switched on his palm torch and flashed the beam around in the cargo bay, to have a closer look at its occupants.
Two of them were human enough indeed: one a middle-aged man with tired blue eyes and deep lines on his leathery face. The other one was just slightly older, not very tall, thin and unassuming, but his sharp features spoke of a keen intelligence. Both were wearing the blue uniforms of the science department, with the rank pips of a lieutenant commander and a full commander on their collars, respectively.
The third one was a reptilian biped in civilian garb. At first sight it showed vague similarities with the Saurians, one of the most respected and intelligent Federation members. It had the same naked, bulbous skull, the same bulging yellow eyes with vertical black slits for pupils, the same long, graceful, almost bird-like limbs. The lover part of its face was similarly thin and pointy, too, with a lipless mouth full of small, razor-sharp teeth.
But with that, the similarities ended. Unlike the purple or ruddy Saurians, the Regulan had greenish-yellow skin, prominent eye sockets that dominated the entire middle part of its triangular face, and only three long fingers on its slender hands, two of which were opposable. It was also at least a head taller than the tallest Saurian Ryker had ever met - which, considering the average height of Saurians, still wasn’t much. It was wearing a nondescript overall in yellow.
In any case, Ryker thought, things had just become a great deal more complicated. There was definitely more going on than just a violation of the Regulan quarantine, for whatever insane reason that might have happened. He had the uncomfortable feeling that this whole thing was way above his league - but that didn’t make him back off.
He wanted answers, and he wanted them now.
“I’m Commander William B. Ryker, executive officer of the USS Enterprise,” he introduced himself. “We received your distress call and came to your aid - only to run into a deadly trap. Would you care to tell us what the hell has happened here?”
“I’m Dr. Robert Crusher, chief medical officer of the Copernicus, “the somewhat younger human answered; then he nodded towards his fellow officer. “Commander Yarell is - was - our science officer. He was the one who identified the threat we were facing. However, by then it was already too late.”
“Where is the rest of the crew?” Ryker asked.
“Over there,” Dr. Crusher waved in the direction of the cryogenic chambers. “They’ve been infected but might be saved, eventually, should a cure be found.”
“Only ten out of eighty left?” LaForge was undeniably shocked.
Dr. Crusher nodded. “Except us, of course… and the zombies,” he glanced at the unconscious body of Carli. “I can freeze him too, if you’d want. If nothing else, cryogenic suspension will slow down the spread of the worms until we can come up with a more permanent cure.”
“What I want are some answers,” Ryker told him bluntly. “Why did you violate the Regulan quarantine and how did the worms get aboard in the first place?”
“You want answers?” Yarell laughed hysterically. “I’ll give you answers. We violated the quarantine because he,” and he pointed a finger at the strangely blasé Regulan, “flew our ship there, falsifying the course records. That’s why.”
“This is our conn officer, Lieutenant R’H’N,” Dr Crusher explained, “or Rohan, as we used to call him while we still thought him a Saurian hybrid and a genuine Starfleet officer. As it turned out, he was neither.”
“And whose fault is that?” the Regulan asked sharply, his voice an angry hiss. “Less than two hundred years ago, we opened the lush plateaus on the southern continent of Regulus II to human habitation, and your people came by the thousands. At some point, the Federation colony counted sixteen hundred inhabitants, and we shared a steady, mutually beneficial trade with them.”
“What changed it?” Ryker asked, somewhat baffled, because this was the first time he’d heard about those things.
“Human greed was what changed it,” Rohan, if that was his name indeed, answered bitterly. “Your people developed a taste for the giant eel-birds on Regulus V; for their rainbow-coloured feathers, for their jewelled eggs, for their metallic-scaled skin. More and more flew to the fifth planet, for hunting trips, bringing those magnificent creatures to the brink of extinction. But that wasn’t enough for them. Further and further did they get into the unexplored areas of the planet, looking for fresh prey; and so they came over the bloodworms, got infected and brought the disease over to our planet.”
“And no-one had natural immunity to the worms,” LaForge summarized.
“We had,” the Regulan answered, “but the Federation colony became extinct within a standard month. By then, the plague spread over to the third and sixth planets as well. All colonists with red blood died. The Federation then put a quarantine on our system, stating that, while immune ourselves, we must be carriers - and that was the end of it. The end of our contact with other people, the end of our economy - we had already become dependant on the trade - the end of all our hopes. For a hundred and fifty years, we’ve been living in a ghetto, and when one of our ships tried to leave the system, the Federation patrols shot it down, without bothering to ask questions first.”
“And yet some of you must have managed to slip through, or you wouldn’t be here,” Ryker said. The Regulan snorted.
“The fact that you’re deadly afraid of us doesn’t make us stupid; or certain third parties less greedy. We have waited for our opportunity and trained a number of agents with very special tasks, should they manage to get out. And when the opportunity finally offered itself, we just grabbed it.”
“I assume the opportunity came in the form of a Ferengi ship,” Ryker said grimly.
“You are free to guess as much as you want, Commander,” the Regulan shrugged. “I certainly won’t tell you anything that might lessen the chances of others to get out. I was the very first to succeed; others will follow. We won’t allow your precious Federation to commit genocide by closing us in and letting us die. You have no right to do so; especially as the outbreak of the plague was your fault, not ours.”
“But what did you hope from releasing these altered bloodworms into Federation space?” Data asked.
“That was never my intention,” the Regulan answered. “My plan was to get in touch with either the Klingons or the Romulans; or both. They are immune to bloodworms; we hoped that if they learned the true story behind the quarantine, they would support our demands of it being lifted.”
“That still does not explain what has happened here,” Data said.
“It was an unfortunate incident,” Rohan sighed. “I flew the ship in the Regulan system to take it and the crew hostage. We hoped that way the Federation would at least negotiate with us and we might be able to send a message to the other prominent powers. But I was injured, and one of the medical technicians wouldn’t leave my wound alone. She accidentally got in contact with my blood, and that was how it all started. You see, I am a carrier. We all are by now, as a result of the quarantine and the lack of medical research sources.”
“And knowing that, you consciously chose to enter an entire quadrant full of potential victims,” Hernandez growled in disgust.
“Yes, I did, and I would do it again,” the Regulan returned sharply. “My entire species is at the verge of extinction, and not because of the bloodworms. A hundred and fifty years are not enough for a species that had lived on a certain technical level to learn how to survive in the equivalent of the Stone Age. Because that is what the quarantine has forced us to endure.”
“What makes you think the Federation would negotiate with terrorists?” Yarell scowled. “When Starfleet Command learns how you’ve altered the worms, you could call yourselves lucky if they don’t shoot your lousy planet to pieces, together with the rest of those bloodworm-infested dirtballs in your system.”
The Regulan rolled those large, luminous eyes of his in exasperation.
“You are truly insane, you know that? How could we have altered the worms when we no longer have the means to deal with the simplest diseases on our planet? Our population has already been decimated several times after we’d run out of inoculation stuff against common diseases! You really believe we’d have the infrastructure - or the medical knowledge - for risky genetic experiments?”
“But somebody has altered those pesky things,” Hernandez insisted.
The Regulan shook his head. “No. It’s a spontaneous mutation that occurred on Regulus II only. Since we’re immune, the spores in our bloodstream are dormant. In order to survive, though, they had to adapt to our specific blood chemistry rather drastically.”
“For someone without medical knowledge, you seem to be quite the expert where bloodworms are considered,” Ryker commented suspiciously.
“No, I’m not,” the Regulan laughed; it sounded like a hiss. “But after I’d escaped from my home planet, I hid for a while in the lab of some Rigelian scientist, on a remote moon, near the Federation border. She examined me very thoroughly. Including my blood, because she hoped to find a cure with the help of my natural antibodies. As far as I know she’s been working on this cure all her adult life.”
“You mean Professor R’Nata?” Dr. Crusher asked. “Yeah, she is the expert on bloodworms, and the most vocal member of a small group of independent scientists who’ve been fighting to have the quarantine lifted for quite some time. No wonder she took you in; you must have been the answer to all her prayers.”
“Well, did she find a cure or not?” Hernandez asked impatiently.
The Regulan shrugged his bony shoulders. “I don’t know. She seemed to think that she was close to a major breakthrough, but according to her assistants, she’d thought so before, repeatedly - and was wrong.”
“She’s known for her unorthodox methods and bold theories,” Dr. Crusher nodded. “They cost her the one or other academic position several times, so that most medical scientists no longer take her seriously at all.”
“That’s bad luck for us,” LaForge commented. “Time is rapidly becoming the most important factor here.”
“What do you mean, Geordi?” Ryker asked with a frown.
“The repulsor field is weakening,” LaForge told him. “Another hour, and we’ll all become zombie food, unless the Enterprise finds a solution, and that soon.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“How is that possible?” Picard stared at Ensign Clancy, LaForge’s right hand-woman in shocked disbelief.
“Well, sir,” the pretty, no-nonsense blonde explained, “the repulsor field has been drawing a great amount of energy from the antimatter containment tank. If they keep it up longer than another hour, the antimatter could - and probably will - come into contact with matter, resulting in a cataclysmic explosion.”
“Are you telling me that the Copernicus may actually explode, unless our people terminate the only thing that protects them from the zombies?” Picard clarified with growing horror.
Clancy nodded. “Aye, Captain. And,” she added grimly, “if the Copernicus is destroyed, so will be the Enterprise, unless we hightail out of here at maximum Warp within the next five minutes, leaving the Away Team behind.”
“That is out of question,” Picard declared flatly.
Clancy nodded again. “I thought you’d say that, sir, but we must be realistic. There’s no way to prevent the exploding of the Copernicus, and in such close proximity, she’ll take us with her. Is there any real chance that a cure would be found in time?”
“Not a real cure, Ensign,” Picard replied grimly, remembering what Selar had told him. “Just an emergency measure; and a rather desperate one, I’m afraid.”
Their discussion was interrupted by a call from sickbay.
“Crusher to Picard.”
“Go on, Doctor.”
“Captain, I’m ready to beam over to the Copernicus.”
“You better hurry up, Beverly,” the captain said. “We’ve got less than an hour before the Copernicus goes off like a supernova. Which means all I can give you are exactly fifty minutes, not a nanosecond longer. Anyone not cured within the time frame, must remain behind. Is that understood?”
“But Julien, we cannot…” Beverly started to protest, but Picard interrupted her harshly.
“Is. That. Understood, Doctor?”
“Aye, sir,” Beverly said reluctantly.
“Good,” Picard replied. “We can’t - and won’t - take any infected person back to Federation space. It’s simply too dangerous.”
“I’ll cure them all, Captain,” Beverly promised. “Beaming over now.”
“Make it so,” Picard answered absent-mindedly before hitting the ship-wide comm button. “All hands, this is the captain. Prepare for emergency Warp. This is not a drill. Assume your emergency station. All civilians, go to the appointed emergency shelters and stay there under further notice. I repeat, this is not a drill.”
He switched off the intercom and leaned back in his seat.
“Well, Beverly,” he murmured, “it’s up to you now.”
He only wished she’d have the common sense to take Selar with her but knew better than ask.
Chapter 07 - Last-minute Rescue
by Soledad
Author's note:For disclaimer, rating, etc., see the secondary index page.
The particulars of Saurian customs and physiology are taken from “The Words of the Federation”, an excellent background source by Shane Johnson. It’s not his fault that later series contradicted his ideas which, frankly, were a lot more plausible than what so-called canon later came up with.
According to him, Saurian names were always comprised of three parts. Of those, the third one contained information about the date of birth, gender, personal achievements, marital status, occupation, and even personal interests. As a result, Saurian last names were often more than fifty letters long and for common use abbreviated into three representative letters, divided by apostrophes. Based on this, I reverse-engineered Rohan’s name to R’H’N.
As for Regulan natives, the basic information about their system and origins comes from the same source. Their looks, however, are based on a picture that shows the supposedly sentient, bipedal descendant of a dinosaur I found in a rather stupid book about UFOs. *g*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
CHAPTER SIX - CONSPIRACIES
“Beverly,” Picard said slowly, not taking his eyes from the mummified face of the creature that a day ago was the best diagnostic engineer LaForge had ever served with. “Can you tell me how Mr Hodel has apparently managed to escape from IsoLab One, where he should have been under constant surveillance?”
“Ummm…” Beverly was thinking quickly, trying to find an acceptable explanation - and failed. “Well, to be honest, we thought he was dead, and I had him removed to the morgue. It was too late to save him, and we’ve learned from him everything we possibly could.”
“The crew of the Copernicus was dead, too,” Picard reminded her sharply. “It wasn’t until they became brain dead that the bloodworms finally took control, remember?”
“I... ummm… didn’t think of that,” Beverly confessed, a little subdued. “All I had on my mind was to find a cure.”
She threw Selar a quick glance that practically begged for help. Selar gave her the best Vulcan eyebrow in exchange that clearly said told you so. Which she doubtlessly had. Vulcans always took any possible dangers into consideration, and they were nothing if not thorough.
While they were arguing, Hodel stepped out of the turbolift, heading towards them with a strange, hobbling gait. Picard touched his comm badge.
“Security to sickbay. Emergency site-to-site transport, authorization Picard Epsilon 7-9-3.”
He’d barely finished rattling down his authorization code when a group of three grim-looking security officers shimmered into existence less than a metre from his position, their phasers already set to kill. They aimed at the zombified Hodel without hesitation, their training taking over.
Shock would come later.
“Wait!” Selar stopped them before they could have fired. “You must not kill him.”
The security officers looked at Picard in confusion. Picard, for his part, looked at Selar the same way.
“Care to explain, Doctor?”
“When an infected body disintegrates, it sets free an entire cloud of new spores; thousands of them,” Selar replied. “That is how Ensign Hodel got infected in the first place. Killing him would only spread the disease throughout the Enterprise.”
“But we can’t let him run free,” Picard said. “That would lead to the same result.”
“True,” the Vulcan allowed. “However, he would not do much additional harm aboard the Copernicus; and he still has his communicator.”
Picard understood the hint and touched his comm badge at once.
“Picard to Transporter Room Three. Chief, lock on to Ensign Hodel’s comm badge and beam him over to the Copernicus immediately.”
O’Brien acknowledged his order, and before Hodel could have reached them, the transporter beam caught him and pulled him away.
“That is one problem dealt with,” Picard said. “Now, Beverly, Doctor Selar, let us discuss that cure of yours and see how we could use it safely.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Away Team materialized almost simultaneously in the cargo bay of the Copernicus, in the midst of the repulsor field. The large room - large for an Oberth-class ship, that is - was fairly dark and relatively empty, save for three vaguely humanoid forms that could not be identified in the darkness, and a short, double row of metallic tubes that seemed to be standard cryogenic chambers at first sight.
Outside the perimeter of the repulsor field they could hear the zombies throwing heavy objects against the doors, obviously trying to break them. Using his tricorder, Data quickly checked the environment.
“The repulsor field is working within acceptable parameters, Commander,” he then reported. “There are thirteen life signs in this room. Ten of them are very weak, presumably coming from people held in cryogenic suspension. The remaining three are: two humans and one… Regulan?”
The surprise in his voice almost reached human levels. Which was understandable, considering that due to the one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old quarantine there had been no contact with the native species of Regulus II for roughly the same length of time. Perplexed, Ryker switched on his palm torch and flashed the beam around in the cargo bay, to have a closer look at its occupants.
Two of them were human enough indeed: one a middle-aged man with tired blue eyes and deep lines on his leathery face. The other one was just slightly older, not very tall, thin and unassuming, but his sharp features spoke of a keen intelligence. Both were wearing the blue uniforms of the science department, with the rank pips of a lieutenant commander and a full commander on their collars, respectively.
The third one was a reptilian biped in civilian garb. At first sight it showed vague similarities with the Saurians, one of the most respected and intelligent Federation members. It had the same naked, bulbous skull, the same bulging yellow eyes with vertical black slits for pupils, the same long, graceful, almost bird-like limbs. The lover part of its face was similarly thin and pointy, too, with a lipless mouth full of small, razor-sharp teeth.
But with that, the similarities ended. Unlike the purple or ruddy Saurians, the Regulan had greenish-yellow skin, prominent eye sockets that dominated the entire middle part of its triangular face, and only three long fingers on its slender hands, two of which were opposable. It was also at least a head taller than the tallest Saurian Ryker had ever met - which, considering the average height of Saurians, still wasn’t much. It was wearing a nondescript overall in yellow.
In any case, Ryker thought, things had just become a great deal more complicated. There was definitely more going on than just a violation of the Regulan quarantine, for whatever insane reason that might have happened. He had the uncomfortable feeling that this whole thing was way above his league - but that didn’t make him back off.
He wanted answers, and he wanted them now.
“I’m Commander William B. Ryker, executive officer of the USS Enterprise,” he introduced himself. “We received your distress call and came to your aid - only to run into a deadly trap. Would you care to tell us what the hell has happened here?”
“I’m Dr. Robert Crusher, chief medical officer of the Copernicus, “the somewhat younger human answered; then he nodded towards his fellow officer. “Commander Yarell is - was - our science officer. He was the one who identified the threat we were facing. However, by then it was already too late.”
“Where is the rest of the crew?” Ryker asked.
“Over there,” Dr. Crusher waved in the direction of the cryogenic chambers. “They’ve been infected but might be saved, eventually, should a cure be found.”
“Only ten out of eighty left?” LaForge was undeniably shocked.
Dr. Crusher nodded. “Except us, of course… and the zombies,” he glanced at the unconscious body of Carli. “I can freeze him too, if you’d want. If nothing else, cryogenic suspension will slow down the spread of the worms until we can come up with a more permanent cure.”
“What I want are some answers,” Ryker told him bluntly. “Why did you violate the Regulan quarantine and how did the worms get aboard in the first place?”
“You want answers?” Yarell laughed hysterically. “I’ll give you answers. We violated the quarantine because he,” and he pointed a finger at the strangely blasé Regulan, “flew our ship there, falsifying the course records. That’s why.”
“This is our conn officer, Lieutenant R’H’N,” Dr Crusher explained, “or Rohan, as we used to call him while we still thought him a Saurian hybrid and a genuine Starfleet officer. As it turned out, he was neither.”
“And whose fault is that?” the Regulan asked sharply, his voice an angry hiss. “Less than two hundred years ago, we opened the lush plateaus on the southern continent of Regulus II to human habitation, and your people came by the thousands. At some point, the Federation colony counted sixteen hundred inhabitants, and we shared a steady, mutually beneficial trade with them.”
“What changed it?” Ryker asked, somewhat baffled, because this was the first time he’d heard about those things.
“Human greed was what changed it,” Rohan, if that was his name indeed, answered bitterly. “Your people developed a taste for the giant eel-birds on Regulus V; for their rainbow-coloured feathers, for their jewelled eggs, for their metallic-scaled skin. More and more flew to the fifth planet, for hunting trips, bringing those magnificent creatures to the brink of extinction. But that wasn’t enough for them. Further and further did they get into the unexplored areas of the planet, looking for fresh prey; and so they came over the bloodworms, got infected and brought the disease over to our planet.”
“And no-one had natural immunity to the worms,” LaForge summarized.
“We had,” the Regulan answered, “but the Federation colony became extinct within a standard month. By then, the plague spread over to the third and sixth planets as well. All colonists with red blood died. The Federation then put a quarantine on our system, stating that, while immune ourselves, we must be carriers - and that was the end of it. The end of our contact with other people, the end of our economy - we had already become dependant on the trade - the end of all our hopes. For a hundred and fifty years, we’ve been living in a ghetto, and when one of our ships tried to leave the system, the Federation patrols shot it down, without bothering to ask questions first.”
“And yet some of you must have managed to slip through, or you wouldn’t be here,” Ryker said. The Regulan snorted.
“The fact that you’re deadly afraid of us doesn’t make us stupid; or certain third parties less greedy. We have waited for our opportunity and trained a number of agents with very special tasks, should they manage to get out. And when the opportunity finally offered itself, we just grabbed it.”
“I assume the opportunity came in the form of a Ferengi ship,” Ryker said grimly.
“You are free to guess as much as you want, Commander,” the Regulan shrugged. “I certainly won’t tell you anything that might lessen the chances of others to get out. I was the very first to succeed; others will follow. We won’t allow your precious Federation to commit genocide by closing us in and letting us die. You have no right to do so; especially as the outbreak of the plague was your fault, not ours.”
“But what did you hope from releasing these altered bloodworms into Federation space?” Data asked.
“That was never my intention,” the Regulan answered. “My plan was to get in touch with either the Klingons or the Romulans; or both. They are immune to bloodworms; we hoped that if they learned the true story behind the quarantine, they would support our demands of it being lifted.”
“That still does not explain what has happened here,” Data said.
“It was an unfortunate incident,” Rohan sighed. “I flew the ship in the Regulan system to take it and the crew hostage. We hoped that way the Federation would at least negotiate with us and we might be able to send a message to the other prominent powers. But I was injured, and one of the medical technicians wouldn’t leave my wound alone. She accidentally got in contact with my blood, and that was how it all started. You see, I am a carrier. We all are by now, as a result of the quarantine and the lack of medical research sources.”
“And knowing that, you consciously chose to enter an entire quadrant full of potential victims,” Hernandez growled in disgust.
“Yes, I did, and I would do it again,” the Regulan returned sharply. “My entire species is at the verge of extinction, and not because of the bloodworms. A hundred and fifty years are not enough for a species that had lived on a certain technical level to learn how to survive in the equivalent of the Stone Age. Because that is what the quarantine has forced us to endure.”
“What makes you think the Federation would negotiate with terrorists?” Yarell scowled. “When Starfleet Command learns how you’ve altered the worms, you could call yourselves lucky if they don’t shoot your lousy planet to pieces, together with the rest of those bloodworm-infested dirtballs in your system.”
The Regulan rolled those large, luminous eyes of his in exasperation.
“You are truly insane, you know that? How could we have altered the worms when we no longer have the means to deal with the simplest diseases on our planet? Our population has already been decimated several times after we’d run out of inoculation stuff against common diseases! You really believe we’d have the infrastructure - or the medical knowledge - for risky genetic experiments?”
“But somebody has altered those pesky things,” Hernandez insisted.
The Regulan shook his head. “No. It’s a spontaneous mutation that occurred on Regulus II only. Since we’re immune, the spores in our bloodstream are dormant. In order to survive, though, they had to adapt to our specific blood chemistry rather drastically.”
“For someone without medical knowledge, you seem to be quite the expert where bloodworms are considered,” Ryker commented suspiciously.
“No, I’m not,” the Regulan laughed; it sounded like a hiss. “But after I’d escaped from my home planet, I hid for a while in the lab of some Rigelian scientist, on a remote moon, near the Federation border. She examined me very thoroughly. Including my blood, because she hoped to find a cure with the help of my natural antibodies. As far as I know she’s been working on this cure all her adult life.”
“You mean Professor R’Nata?” Dr. Crusher asked. “Yeah, she is the expert on bloodworms, and the most vocal member of a small group of independent scientists who’ve been fighting to have the quarantine lifted for quite some time. No wonder she took you in; you must have been the answer to all her prayers.”
“Well, did she find a cure or not?” Hernandez asked impatiently.
The Regulan shrugged his bony shoulders. “I don’t know. She seemed to think that she was close to a major breakthrough, but according to her assistants, she’d thought so before, repeatedly - and was wrong.”
“She’s known for her unorthodox methods and bold theories,” Dr. Crusher nodded. “They cost her the one or other academic position several times, so that most medical scientists no longer take her seriously at all.”
“That’s bad luck for us,” LaForge commented. “Time is rapidly becoming the most important factor here.”
“What do you mean, Geordi?” Ryker asked with a frown.
“The repulsor field is weakening,” LaForge told him. “Another hour, and we’ll all become zombie food, unless the Enterprise finds a solution, and that soon.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“How is that possible?” Picard stared at Ensign Clancy, LaForge’s right hand-woman in shocked disbelief.
“Well, sir,” the pretty, no-nonsense blonde explained, “the repulsor field has been drawing a great amount of energy from the antimatter containment tank. If they keep it up longer than another hour, the antimatter could - and probably will - come into contact with matter, resulting in a cataclysmic explosion.”
“Are you telling me that the Copernicus may actually explode, unless our people terminate the only thing that protects them from the zombies?” Picard clarified with growing horror.
Clancy nodded. “Aye, Captain. And,” she added grimly, “if the Copernicus is destroyed, so will be the Enterprise, unless we hightail out of here at maximum Warp within the next five minutes, leaving the Away Team behind.”
“That is out of question,” Picard declared flatly.
Clancy nodded again. “I thought you’d say that, sir, but we must be realistic. There’s no way to prevent the exploding of the Copernicus, and in such close proximity, she’ll take us with her. Is there any real chance that a cure would be found in time?”
“Not a real cure, Ensign,” Picard replied grimly, remembering what Selar had told him. “Just an emergency measure; and a rather desperate one, I’m afraid.”
Their discussion was interrupted by a call from sickbay.
“Crusher to Picard.”
“Go on, Doctor.”
“Captain, I’m ready to beam over to the Copernicus.”
“You better hurry up, Beverly,” the captain said. “We’ve got less than an hour before the Copernicus goes off like a supernova. Which means all I can give you are exactly fifty minutes, not a nanosecond longer. Anyone not cured within the time frame, must remain behind. Is that understood?”
“But Julien, we cannot…” Beverly started to protest, but Picard interrupted her harshly.
“Is. That. Understood, Doctor?”
“Aye, sir,” Beverly said reluctantly.
“Good,” Picard replied. “We can’t - and won’t - take any infected person back to Federation space. It’s simply too dangerous.”
“I’ll cure them all, Captain,” Beverly promised. “Beaming over now.”
“Make it so,” Picard answered absent-mindedly before hitting the ship-wide comm button. “All hands, this is the captain. Prepare for emergency Warp. This is not a drill. Assume your emergency station. All civilians, go to the appointed emergency shelters and stay there under further notice. I repeat, this is not a drill.”
He switched off the intercom and leaned back in his seat.
“Well, Beverly,” he murmured, “it’s up to you now.”
He only wished she’d have the common sense to take Selar with her but knew better than ask.
Chapter 07 - Last-minute Rescue