Things had gotten dire, very fast.

Amira paced around her office as the rest of the medical staff were either attending to their own, or setting up triage outside in the towns city hall. If the pressure wasn’t on before, it certainly is now. The virus which she has nicknamed ‘FEAR’–the irony was not lost on the good doctor—was indeed airborne. It could take up to weeks or simply hours to go into affect, but everyone on the Morro Bay was infected. Including her. Multiple crewmen have already started showing signs of infection or full blown organ failure.

They’ve had to turn the holodeck and mess hall into triage for multiple people and install a multitude of quarantine issues–with Medbay itself holding the infected crew members who fell under ‘aggressive’ or very obvious flight risks. She knew Jetta was currently discussing with the nearest starbase about potential plans, but for now? They had to shelter in place.

“Doctor,” A Ensign peaked her head into the Doctor’s office door. “I’ve stabilized Ensign Mazev and Lieutenant Hollis. Lieutenant M’Har and is…still trying to break the forcefield to escape. Ensign Rraal–” Before she could finish, Lieutenant Ampere came shoving past the Ensign and glaring at Amira as she held a now bloodied wrist.

“Wh–Ampere, are you oka–” Amira was cut off very quickly.

“I am not tending to a man who hisses at me when I try to aide him.” She glared. “Nothing is worth my life. I am sorry, Doctor, but you will have to find someone else to tend to your more violate patients.” And without a word, she had left.

Amira watched as Gigi left and turned to the Ensign, letting out a sigh. “Still?”

The first people to come down with symptoms were the Caitian’s. Then any Betazoids. The last to fall have been Bajorans and Kizinti—in which, Sylvester knocked out four security officers and temporarily dislocated one’s jaw. Fight, Fawn, Flight; all the fear responses. Most had chosen flight or fawn, but some were fight. All Caitians or animal-adjacent humanoids seemed to fall back to ”base instincts” and chose fight.

“RRAGAAGHHHH!”

And some were still very combative.

With a start, Amira leaped upwards and grabbed her emergency hypospray out from under the table, running out into the medbay–only to come across a destroyed restraint set, a handful of security officers, and a bleeding-from-his-mouth-Sylvester. He swung backwards and threw one poor Ensign against M’Hark’s area, who screamed and bolted straight into a forcefield, slamming backwards into the ground. That caused a chain reaction of other crewmen to react, and it soon sounded like a zoo inside the medbay.

“WHAT is going on?! How did he break the forcefield?!” Amira shouted as Ensign Prias wrangled the Commander with a grunt.

“He–stay STILL, damnit!” She snarled as Sylvester thrashed around. “–acted like he wasn’t breathing, some sort of hunting mechanisim, and got us to open the forcefield!”

“Commander…” Amira slowly approached him as a few other of the security officers were able to hold the man down. “Sylvester, it’s me. Amira. You remember me, right?”

For a moment, the Kizinti looked truly terrified as he was bound. Through all the anger and rage, the poor man was truly and utterly horrified at the situation. What was he seeing? What was going on inside his mind? His breath labored and eyes darted around the room like the stars during warp. Each step Amira took closer to him made his eyes trail on her like an injured animal looking at it’s attacker.

“Just relax. We’re going to help you, alright? You just need to let me get this hypospray on you. . .” She let out a shaky exhale. If there was one thing that made the good doctor nervous about Commander Mikhailov–it was, without a doubt, his teeth. Sharp fangs designed to tear easily into food, they could do serious damage…and she had to get right up next to his neck.

With an uneasy gulp, she was able to administer the hypospray and get the larger XO a rightfully due sleep–but not without him flopping to the ground and causing the rest of the security team to fall as well. With a sigh, Amira motioned for the crew to grab him as she spoke.

“Please try to get the rest of the medbay under control–I have to focus on some more research.” She rolled her eyes. “And, please, up the forcefields just a smidge more. Half of these people are runners.” With a wave of the doctors hand, the security team in the medbay got to work as Amira swiftly made her way back to her desk. Despite the commotion outside, she was able to find herself slowly getting lost in the research. . . . .

. . . . .

“It has a carrier.” A voice cuts through the doctors office as Amira nearly jumps out of her seat, looking upwards with a start. There stood Lieutenant Hollis, with an annoyed look on his face.

“I’m sorry?”

“Your forgiven.” He scoffed, walking over and putting a PADD down in front of Amira. With a delicate hand, she grabbed it. “The virus has a microscopic carrier that evolves in ones blood cells when infected. Without the carrier, this is just a common cold.” Amira’s eyes scanned the PADD quickly–if what Hollis was saying was true, then the data of his findings added up.

“How did you figure this out? Why is it not picking up on my scans?” She instantly turned to the monitor and started entering the new data. Surely enough, with re-aligned frequencies, a carrier bacterial infection was on every strand of the FEAR virus.

“I can smell it.” Hollis snapped, glaring at nobody in particular. “I can smell the damn virus, and it’s because of a specific genetic mutation. I didn’t even know anyone could get that type of mutation, but it’s rare. I believe, nonetheless, that this was intentionally added on.”

“I can see where that theory is coming from.” Amira furrowed her brow. The more she looked into the origins of the bacteria, the more it seemed almost welded on. “How did you even think to look into this, Lieutenant?”

“I…” Hollis looked to the side, a little embarassed. “May or may not have grown to like medical work. It’s not important.”

“Not important? Hollis, you may of just saved everyones lives on this damn ship.” Amira stood up. “Congrats, Lieutenant–I’m officially temporarily promoting you to my junior doctor.”

“Why??” Hollis raised his brows, genuinely taken off guard.

“Because it says right here, you’re immune to this little virus.” Amira grabbed her PADD and hastily jogged over to the door. “Now. Lets go make a cure!”