Blood on your Hands Pt6
Posted on Mon Nov 2nd, 2020 @ 9:20pm by Captain Rhenora Kaylen & Lieutenant JG Sarah Wilson & Chief Petty Officer Remal Kajun
Mission:
Diplomatic Masquerade
Location: Liberty
19 Hours remaining.
Back in the Liberty Sickbay the Captain had asked for a padd and all incoming communications be routed through to her. She hooked into the sensors and saw the locations of the away teams, still working like ants in an anthill trying to find answers. Only 19 hours remained.
Dr Wilson was also head down backside up in lab results, trying to understand the nature of the pathogen that had infected two of the Liberty’s crew. Currently sanitation crews were disinfecting every surface the Captain had touched over the last few hours - trying to eliminate further spread - and a health alert was announced, calling for all crew with similar symptoms to attend sickbay immediately.
“ Well I’ll be damned, it is Cardassian in origin” She murmured as she cross-referenced the genetic structure of the pathogen against Starfleet’s Medical Database.
“ I knew it.. That slimy oily Maccet” Rhenora retorted from her biobed, overhearing Sarah’s mumblings to herself.
"Oy. What hit me?" Remal grumbled from his bed, the sedative was beginning to wear off. He moved his arm to see his fingers, then wiggled them. "Ooh that's interesting." Why were there so many digits? He asked himself as his fingers bled into a wave.
Rhenora's head snapped up as did doc Wilson's. They moved over to his bedside, Sarah with her tricorder in hand.
"What exactly is interesting?" She asked cautiously, running the scanning device along the length of Remal's body. The pathogen was spreading.
He watched the waves of his fingers turn into colors of the spectrum he didn't know existed. The voices surrounding him seemed distant and strangely modulated so that they were almost foreign. His only saving grace was that he would recognize Rhen's voice from anywhere in the universe. This other voice though, he was not so sure. "I don't know what was in that but whoo I feel like I am tripping balls." He grinned from ear to ear.
"Keep him calm, I've got a hunch I think may buy us some time" Dr Wilson said, gesturing for the Captain to keep close to her husband.
"You got it" Rhenora moved closer, picking up Remal's hand with her good one. The opposite hand was wrapped in a bandage with several different concoctions within it, hoping one of them would work. Every so often the nurses would check for any progress and make any adjustments.
There was that voice again, grounding him, forcing his mind back to a straight and narrow path. The moment she stopped speaking though he would wander away once more. His mind liked a certain spot in time and it kept trying to pull him there. A time of euphoria, of pure and utter joy and happiness. A stone path lay before him, one he had laid. A path of greenery, flowering pedals with assorted colours bordered the path, which he had planted.
"Hrmmmm" Dr Wilson pondered the latest set of scans, comparing the treatments she had tried on her two patients. The Captain seemed to be responding to some degree, the pathogen not advancing any further into her system and the lesion on her hand not progressing. It wasn't healing yet either. Remal on the other hand still was experiencing hallucinations, some mild, some not so much. The lesion on his face had stopped growing with the dermal treatments she had tried, yet she was worried he was being affected on a neurological level.
He had walked this path many times over the course of his young life. Before he met her, this was his life, one of peace and solitude, dirt and flowers. He bent down and touched one particular flower he had bred to have golden petals and a fiery red center. It had taken him thirty tries to get it right, but now they bloomed in abundance along the path. He peered into the center of the flower, which began to spin wildly. He stood, maybe too fast because the world, his stone path began to fall away one after another into the gloomy blackness of space. He blinked
And contemplated running, but then there was his work, his flower. He peered into the spinning bud and mouthed the word out loud, “Rhenora”.
On the bed next to him Rhenora bolted upright at the sound of her name. Remal had been quiet and recuperating since the hallucination, the concoction of medication in his system designed to let his body rest and heal. She was off the biobed like a rocket, reaching towards his hand with her good one, squeezing it to let him know she was there.
“ Hey, I’m here, you’re safe” She said soothingly, rubbing her thumb over the back of his hand in smooth repetitive strokes.
There it was again, that little delicate flower was grounding him in place, keeping him steady and strong despite how tired he was feeling. Despite the path which had long since been worn away to the surrounding stars. The flower was his center of the universe and all that mattered now. He could feel the flower gripping his hand but in a way that didn't hurt his spirit. It would all be over soon, one way or another.
Doc Wilson came over and took another scan - her treatment was starting to have some positive benefits, however it required rest in order to be most effective.
“ This is another dose of medication Remal, plus something that will help you rest. We’ll have you back in one piece in no time” She said calmly, injecting the hypospray into his neck before he woke up too much and became agitated.
Like a pop in his brain, suddenly the flower, the path, the cabin on the beach were all gone. His hallucination had dissolved into nothingness. Finally he could rest.
“Doc - am I right to go for a few minutes?” The Captain asked, Remal was settled and the latest concoction was proving positive on her hand.
“ Sure thing, I want you back every 2 hours or if I call you” Sarah advised, giving the antsy Bajoran the go ahead for a short reprieve from her sickbay jail. Rhenora moved over to Remal and squeezed his hand, giving him support before vanishing out of sickbay. She had a call to make.
A few minutes later she emerged on the bridge, receiving a brief but accurate summary of the last few hours from Lt Commander Lexington. The away team were making progress, they’d found what appeared to be some ventilation shafts, and Lt Vali was certain there was an underground colony. Rhenora knew never to question those with such abilities.
“ Ops - hail Gul Maccet” She ordered, slipping into her command chair with the effortless ease of one that had done it for many years.
“Yes Ma’am”
The oily image of the Cardassian Gul appeared on the main viewscreen, his beedy eyes not giving away anything.
“ How may the Cardassian Union be of assistance to you Captain? I trust you are calling to let me know you’ve found nothing and are preparing to leave.” He leered, choosing his words to portray that he held the balance of power at the present.
“ Touche Maccet, I believe we may be of assistance to you. We have become aware of a pathogen that was brought on board by someone in your party during the dinner. It’s Cardassian in origin and causes skin lesions, and in some cases, hallucinations and paranoia. Our medical team has discovered a workable vaccine and would be willing to share it with you” She said, keeping her hands clasped in her hand, the now lightly bandaged one underneath.
His smile, if you could call it that, dropped. “My dear Captain, I have no idea what you could be talking about. As I understand it, if I were to bring a pathogen aboard your ship, which I’m not suggesting I did, but if I did why didn’t your transporter system detect such a thing? No. I believe you have something of a bigger mystery on your hands, but I do hope it does not interfere with your discoveries on the surface, dear, Captain.” He closed the channel, effectively hanging up on her.
“Why the hell is she still breathing?!” He yelled to those surrounding him. “That infection should have put her in a medical ward!” His rant had seemed to unnerve him at the core. “And what is the status of our envoy on the surface? What could be taking them so long to secure that package?” His leverage was of course, on the line. There were no answers yet, only more questions.
Rhenora exhaled deeply as Maccet terminated the connection - knowing full well he knew exactly what she was talking about. His confirmation or lack thereof was enough for her to know that a) he was responsible for the pathogen and b) there was more going on here than he was letting on. Still they were nearly on top of the pathogen, the away team however she felt was in danger. She called the away team and shared her concerns, feeling the inability to personally protect them keenly. Sometimes being the Captain sucked big time.
