Dot Connections

Posted on Sat Jun 22, 2019 @ 5:03pm by Lieutenant Nicole Anderson & Fleet Captain Rhea Kennit & Lieutenant Penelope Naroot & Lieutenant JG Camille Lévesque PhD

2,692 words; about a 13 minute read

Mission: Plaga Navis
Location: Quarantine Lab

OOC: Sorry all, I messed up. Génie Oreiller should have come after "Mission is a Go" and its followup post. This should get us back on track with the plague.


IC:

Nicole and Camille rushed into the lab, taking their seats. Nicole pulled up the scans of the virus and initiated a quantum signature scan. With all the samples Maggie had set up, they had plenty to scan so redundancy was not an issue. "Has the computer finished it's analysis of the toxin?" she said, glancing at Camille.

“Non,” Camille replied. “Sensors in the bio-safety cabinet are having a hard time isolating it for long enough to run scans.”

"It's degrading too fast," she said. "Once it kills the tissue it breaks down and we lose it. We'll have to figure out a way to stabilize it so we can try to neutralize it." She looked up as the doors opened again. "Captain," she said. "I think we have a few answers."

“To which questions?” the Captain replied.

"That one, to start," Nicole said, dryly. "You had asked about the chances of creating something worse by using prions with the virus. We can safely say that is no longer a concern, because the prions have had no effect on the virus." She brought up their latest scans. "Because the virus is not of this universe."

The Captains dark eyes flicked toward the scans and then back to the Doctor. “I don’t suppose I need guess..”

"It's them," Nicole confirmed. "The virus was made from material in their universe, and designed to produce a toxin using materials from our universe. The toxin causes nearly instant necrosis in all tissues, then breaks down to be untraceable. Penny mentioned there were mirror operatives on the station. I'm betting they were there to procure the chemcials for the toxin, while their cohorts were creating more of the virus."

“Which means we will have one devil of a time trying to combat it.” Kennit said.

"That's part of the brilliance of making the virus out of materials from their universe," Nicole said. "It's slipping right past our immune system, but I'm guessing theirs treats it like rubella and destroys it before the toxin is produced, making it rather innocuous to them."

“My nanites combat damn near everything..” the Captain said. “Can they be modified to fight this..”

“Probablement non,” Camille answered, shaking her head. “It’s the molecular interaction that’s the problem. We’ll try, of course, in case I’m wrong, but I anticipate it will be just like the prions. No reaction.”

Privately Nicole had to concur, but she didn't want to dismiss it out of hand yet. She was trying to let everything coalesce in her mind, because she felt like there was a way to use them nonetheless.

Kennit didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. Anderson knew that the nanites which coursed through her veins were unlike any other nanotechnology created by the Borg. She was unique. A whisper of hostility simmered deep down within the darkness of Kennit’s mind. The urge to give the councilor a personal experience with just how very lethal the nanites in her blood could be rippled like heat from banked coals, a low flame waiting to explode into an unstoppable inferno...

“We have one advantage,” Camille said, her body language demonstrating her growing discomfort around the Captain. “The virus can’t replicate itself. All it does is make the toxin. It means the people who made this have to make a lot of it for it to work. One thousand viral particles is at most one thousand casualties, and probably a lot less. So for it to be a truly devastating weapon, they’ll need to make millions of particles constantly.”

“If it doesn’t replicate how does it spread from victim to victim.” Kennit asked.

“Probably airborne,” Camille explained. “But the original viral particles are what’s spreading. You might get infected with one hundred individual virions. The virus produces toxin in your body, degrading your lungs and making you cough. Some of the particles stay with you, but others are expelled to the next person. As I said, you’d need a lot to make sure that everyone got infected, because it’s all you get. I imagine that to kill everyone aboard the Maharshi Krishnatreya, they probably released more than a litre of concentrated virus.”

Though the movement was subtle, the Captain flexed her neck and shoulders just so - cracking the joints with a distinct cracking sound. “The logs from the freighters crew were quite clear, the illness began with one crewman and then spread. They indicated a 48 hour incubation period after infection, if it was dumped on them all at once they’d have all dropped at the same time. Instead it spread over several days, with the ship’s crew falling ill over a spread time frame. You’re missing something.”

Camille looked over at Nicole. “Was that first patient a Trojan horse? Infected with a massive amount of virus? We know the virus can’t replicate. If it came from one person, that person was overloaded. It might have spread other ways though too. We’ll check the logs again and compare to new data.”

"Mmm," Nicole said noncommittally. *Massive infection, most likely physical contact initiated, spread airborne from the lungs, major point of infection...

Her conversation with Nassau weighing heavily on her thoughts, the Captain’s attention shifted to the Doctor who was uncharacteristically silent. Thoughtful and silent herself, Kennit crossed her arms and just waited. Idly without thinking about she began to bite at her fingernail, the said. “So if it doesn’t replicate, then the colony at Golemon V must have somehow been hit with a massive load of this nasty little pet of yours. There are roughly 327,000 people on Golemon V. And they’re getting sick. Fast.”

"What???" Nicole and Camille said together in horror, looking at each other, then the Captain. "When did this happen?" Nicole said, standing up.

“According to Admiral Nassau, the virus was identified approximately 8 hours ago. The colony has been placed under quarantine to attempt to slow its spread. I do not have a current number, but 8 hours ago they had 15000 identified cases.”

"A colony," Nicole said, her heart sinking. She refrained from an "I knew it" but it was in her eyes. Containment wouldn't be possible if the virus had already spread...

"Except it doesn't replicate..." Nicole said. She stood up quickly, gesturing to the two of them. "Sickbay," she said, tapping her combadge as she headed out the door. "Anderson to Naroot."

"Go ahead," Penny said.

"Medical Emergency. Set course for Golemon V, best possible speed. They've been infected with the plague. Once we're on our way, report to Sickbay."

"Underst--"

“Belay that..” the Captain snapped. “Our orders are to stay clear of Golemon V. No vessels are to enter that shelter per Admiral Nassau’s direct command.”

"Well unless Admiral Nassau has an idea that can potentially save some of their lives, I suggest we tell him to kindly go gul-tvi-rivak himself and get our Collective asses over there. Or would you rather let him dictate the fates of an entire colony?"

In a deceptively mild voice, the Captain said “I’ll pass that along to him at our court-martial. Do as the doctor demands Lt. Naroot..”

"Aye, Captain," Penny said, then closed the channel.

Nicole ran into a turbolift, Camille and the Captain jumping in as well. "Sickbay," she ordered. As the lift took off she looked at the Captain. "I need every nanite you can spare between now and when we arrive," she said. "If we can't cure this virus, we're going to contain it. This won't be a long term solution, but I think if we can buy time, we can effectively curtail the plague."

“Curtail it...” the Captain echoed.

"Yes. With nanites," Nicole said. As Camille opened her mouth to object, Nicole held up a hand. "I know, they probably won't be able to affect the virus, but they can repair damaged cells and tissue at an accelerated rate. If they can counteract the effects of the toxin long enough, the toxin will break down and become inert."

“So we’re going to treat the symptoms,” Camille observed. “Let the toxin burn itself out. Except the virus will use the host body to continue churning out more toxin.”

"The toxin is half the battle, yes," she said. "We also need to contain the virus. Literally contain it. The virus may not respond to prions or nanites, but that doesn't mean we can't physically restrain it. We program the nanites to repair flesh and encircle any virions they encounter, physically restraining them from attacking more cells. The ones they can't get to right away they'll still counteract the toxin."

Camille shook her head. “C’est fou. That would take—“

"Billions of nanites, yes," Nicole said. "So we need to maximize what we've got. Given that the nanites and the virions will be almost the same size, we'll need to use them to build something inside the body to hold the virus."

The doors opened and they ran out towards Sickbay. "If it can be contained and removed from the body and centralized, we'll be able to save them. This won't be a solution for every target, but we can save this one."

As they entered Sickbay, Nicole let out a whistle. "Listen up! I need a padd and we need to get the Captain on a biobed and get a sample of her nanites." Someone put a padd in her hand, but no one made a move towards the Captain. Nicole rolled her eyes and looked at the Captain. "Biobed one," she ordered as she began entering data on the padd quickly. She'd gotten through most of her thoughts when the doors to Sickbay opened again.

Penny ran into Sickbay and dipped around a nurse coming up behind Nicole. "You called?" she said.

"Penny, how long would it take you to write a program for Borg nanites to these specifications?" Nicole said, handing her the padd.

Penny tilted her head, reading over the padd. "Not long," she said.

"All right, get on it," Nicole said, chucking a thumb towards a terminal.

She turned back to Camille and gave her a sad smile. "Bedtime's going to have to wait," she said quietly. "I'm going to be a while. Could you have the computer pull together weather patterns for the planet? After that, you should get some rest."

Before Camille could voice her next concern, Nicole veered off toward the Captain. She sighed. She would do her part for now, but would need to send Nicole a quick message later. Before their arrival. She left sickbay quietly to return to her quarters, prepare a short root on weather patterns, and catch as much sleep as she could.

Nicole walked back over to the Captain. "All right, let's fire up the nanite producers."

The Captain’s expression was fierce and somehow almost ... afraid?

“No. I am not going to become a medical experiment again. You have samples of the nanites produced by the Borg systems in my body.”

"You are not an experiment," Nicole said, putting a reassuring hand on her arm. "I need fresh samples, and I need a lot of them if we're going to replicate them, and for that I need your help. We have the tools at our disposal to save potentially thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people. And you are, without a doubt, the biggest tool on this ship. So, what's your choice?"

Though Rhea let out a snort at being called a tool by her ever challenging Chief Medical Officer who no doubt was pleased inwardly with her play on words..

Beneath the Doctor’s gentle touch on the Captain’s arm, the muscle just beneath her skin was rigid and tight with tension. A steady, intense vibration ran through her as muscles locked and adrenaline rushed. The memory of being held on a bio bed once before, inside a sterile laboratory with so many drugs in her body she had been both hyper aware of the torture inflicted and so sick and disoriented she hadn’t been able to move while a test device attached to her pumped raw energy into her, a second device draining the unique nanites from her for further “experimentation and study” as she lay prone and in agony..

Admiral Bennett had come, tracking down where she’d been taken along with John, pulling her out of that hell and killing those responsible.

The absolute last thing she wanted was to get on that fucking bio bed and allow Dr. Anderson to start it again, the draining sensation as the nanites were harvested.. the way it burned deep in her veins as her body fought to replace the loss.

She’d rather sterilize the site from orbit than submit to this..

Moving slowly Kennit moved to the bio bed and turned, eyes locking with the Doctor as she sat down and the swing her legs up and laid back. Knowing if she didn’t, more innocent lives would be added to her tally.

Nicole went to her office and brought out her black bag. "Curtains!" she shouted, and a moment later, privacy screens were set up, cutting off the Captain from the rest of Sickbay. Nicole set her bag down and opened it, mumbling a few words to herself. She began pulling out small pieces of equipment and setting them down on the tray. She attached a small shelf to the side of the biobed and rested the Captain's arm on it. She took out a small, black rectangular prism and attached a scanner to it. She set it next to the Captain's wrist and tapped the activators on the back of her hand, causing two assimilation tubules to eject. She pulled her hand back quickly as they made contact with two apertures on the box and began injecting the nanites.

She pulled the nearby stool and sat down, sighing and yawning. "I was going to sleep tonight," she said, idly. "So much for that." She looked the Captain in the eye. "You'll be all right," she promised. "If the discomfort gets to be too much, let me know and we'll stop."

Kennit nodded once, but didn’t speak. She was tense, clearly agitated and not at all happy about the process.

Nicole had rested her head on her hand and her eyes drooped closed a bit. As her head slipped off her palm, she suddenly sat up with a jerk, blinking. "Sorry," she said, weakly. She pulled out her flask, looking at her bedraggled reflection and sighed, uncapping and drinking the last swig. "Going to need a refill," she said to herself, replacing her flask in her bag. She checked the storage container and took the Captain's pulse. "Are you okay?" she said.

Every pulse of nanites that surged into the collection container generated by the torturous machine Anderson had hooked her up to sent a deep intense jolt of pain through her arm and up her neck. Kennit’s entire body ached, the unnatural forced production of nanites throwing her body out of synch, draining energy. She felt almost feverish..a distinctly unusual sensation. “You’re draining me.. drip drip drip...”

Nicole looked up at the biobed readings and scowled. "I told you to tell me when it got uncomfortable." She checked the readouts on the box and mulled it over. "All right, we'll make do with what we have." She deactivated the Captain's assimilation tubules and as they retracted, she pulled the container of nanites away and put it in her bag, snapping it shut. "Get some sleep," she said, reclining the bed more. She lowered the overhead lighting and kept the curtains closed, stepping away and bringing their new weapon to her lab to gestate.

"Let's get to work," she said, grabbing Penny and puling her along.

 

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