Star Trek Hunter
Episode 8:
The Bolian Web
Scene 18:
The Case for Quarantine
8.18
The Case for Quarantine
Commander David Pepper stood up as Dr. Tali Shae and Justice Irons stepped onto the bridge. At the same time, Lt. Commander Mlady emerged from the hatch that led to the tactical unit.
Lt. Dolphin was next out of the hatch. As Navigator Eli Strahl followed Dolphin out of the hatch, Dr. Sarekson Carrera stepped onto the bridge from the rear entrance. He was carrying an insulated case.
“Kenny, who is going after Dr. Kim?” Carrera asked.
“I am,” Dolphin replied. “Were you listening in?”
“No, but I figured you would assign someone to pick her up. We can’t beam the TMH unit aboard,” Carrera continued. “It might contaminate the transporter.”
Tali Shae rolled her eyes, her antennae mimicking and exaggerating her eye movement.
Irons put her hand on Tali’s shoulder and said, very quietly, “Deja vu?”
Carrera handed the insulated case to Dolphin. “Please isolate her in here. Be careful not to touch any part of the TMH unit so your EVA suit is not at risk.”
“Got it,” Dolphin replied, tucking the case under his left arm. “Anything else?”
“Yes, actually. While you’re out there, just use a few quick phaser blasts to vaporize the rest of the infected components. Do the same to all the critical systems you pulled off of the Atul Goel. Let’s not leave any infected components floating around out there. Use the pulse setting so there’s no chance of infected information traveling back up the beam into your phaser.”
Dolphin looked down to his left and raised his right hand. The two men briefly clasped hands, then Dolphin exited the bridge.
Justice Irons allowed herself a private smile at this display of camaraderie between her director of flight operations and director of engineering as she sat down in the captain’s chair.
“David, please debrief the away team individually,” Irons said.
“Eli,” Pep said, “You with me. Lieutenant Commander, get some sack time, I’ll catch up with you after.”
Irons turned toward Dr. Carrera as Mlady, Pep and Eli Strahl exited the bridge. “Lieutenant, I want you to listen in and assess the situation over on the Atul Goel.” Irons signaled to Flight Specialist Joey Chin, currently at the tactical station behind her.
“Channel open, your honor,” Chin said.
“Atul Goel, this is the U.S.S. Hunter, Justice Minerva Irons commanding, please respond.” Irons watched the image of the medical ship on the main viewscreen. The Atul Goel was evidently dead in space. The front of its engine nacelles were exposed to space - only a few remaining traces of its drive plasma drifting nearby. The ship’s running lights were off. No lights could be seen in any of the windows.
Joey Chin spoke up. “Your honor, we’re receiving a communicator signal. Audio only.”
Irons signaled with two fingers and Chin put the signal through.
“Hunter, this is Dr. Mettus Klox. I was working with Captain Kelley and a few others to retake our ship. Fleet Admiral Scumuk has been sedated and is in quarantine. We have treated all the staff against telepathic domination. Unfortunately the cure is debilitating, so there are only 7 of us and we are unable to reactivate the ship’s systems.”
“Dr. Klox, this is Dr. Tali Shae, Hunter’s medical director. What did you use to treat the crew?”
“Dr. Shae, we have 21 trills and two humans enduring the secondary effects of a full dose of quadropseudoprozadiazomine,” reported the denobulan doctor. “I have them either in quarantine or under close observation in the mess. We also used it on the admiral, although he is, at the moment, unconscious.”
Irons spoke up, “Dr. Klox, I assume since you are reporting that you are currently the ranking officer. What happened to your captain?”
“Captain Kelley was vaporized by Fleet Admiral Scumuk while we were retaking the ship,” Klox responded. “Your honor, I am placing the Atul Goel under full quarantine. All crew members are latently infected. We have all recovered, except for our bolian crew members, who are all dead. But the virus is still active and it is an airborne virus.”
“Dr. Klox, you need to be aware this virus is also a computer borne virus,” Tali Shae interjected.
“Computer borne? How is that possible?”
“The virus carries in its genetic code a computer virus, which, when scanned, infects medical diagnostic equipment. It is designed to take over pretty much any replication hardware, such as a transporter or a hypo-spray unit and use that to generate more physical copies of the virus. At this point it is safe to say that all of the Atul Goel’s computer systems and probably every tricorder and every piece of medical equipment you have is also infected.”
“Dr. Klox, this is Lieutenant Sarekson Carrera, Hunter’s Director of Engineering. During the attack on your ship, our tactical unit beamed out all of your transporter control circuitry, your shields, drivers for your shuttlecraft - and much more. The mere act of transporting all of that out spread the virus in our attack vessel. We had to remove nearly half of the components from that vessel. At the moment we’re vaporizing all of that removed circuitry. Your communicator badge is also infected - we’re running the signal through a communication buoy just off your bow to decontaminte it and jam the original signal.”
“Then this ship needs to be destroyed,” Dr. Klox concluded.
“That would be my recommendation,” Dr. Carrera agreed. “We just need to find a way to get all of you off of it first - and then cured. Until we can safely evacuate your crew, you will need to remain onboard and the ship in quarantine.”
Lt. Kenny Dolphin was piloting Interceptor 2. He had evacuated the atmosphere in the cockpit. Dolphin was wearing an EVA suit. The computer components he and Mlady had ejected from the tactical unit several hours before had spread out over an area of nearly a kilometer. He had matched speeds with the Tactical Medical Hologram unit, a plug-in component about 4” long, 2” wide and less than a quarter-inch thick.
He opened the bubble, exposing the cockpit to space and kicked off very lightly, floating slowly out of the cockpit, a tether trailing behind him. As he caught up with the TMH unit, he brought up the case Dr. Carrera had given him. He opened the case, let the TMH unit drift into it, then closed the case and released it. The case drifted away from him, but it was also connected to the same tether that connected him to the interceptor.
Dolphin brought up a phaser rifle and flipped up the targeting scanner. He used the scanner to individually target each piece of computer that he and Mlady had ejected. With the phaser at full power, set to wide beam and pulse mode, he set about vaporizing the other infected computer systems. A popup display inside his helmet had a list of these removed components and checked them off as he destroyed them.
He used slight twists and turns of his torso to alter his spin, turning very slowly to be able to continue targeting until he cleared the list. Once the list was cleared, he re-slung the phaser rifle, reached for the tether and pulled himself back into the interceptor, along with the case that contained Dr. Kim.
Was the sexual tension there all in Dolphin's head, or was that a deliberate tactic on Irons' part to elicit compliance from him?
