As they crossed the plaza, a shuttle flew overhead, one of a half dozen tracing wide arcs over Lepia IV on a mission to disburse the payload that would free this world from its blight. The irony was not lost on Ambassador Drake that the solution had not come from futuretech and technobabble, but from the Federation’s past, the same past that had once seeded this place and walked away.

Utilizing the Ingenuity‘s specialized capabilities, Dr. Verhoeven had reengineered the regulator organisms used in terraforming projects long past, and to avoid repeating past mistakes, he’d embedded self-regulating mechanisms to avoid runaway. In parallel, Ensign Lunaire had conducted a planetwide survey to determine the most effective deployment pattern, while Captain Lee and Lieutenant Brunell tasked their engineering teams with building deployment vehicles, both static injectors for hotspots and aerosolized spreaders for shuttle-based delivery to blanket the surface of the planet.

The injectors were now deployed and the shuttles overhead, the rehabilitation process well and truly underway. Early signs showed it was working, but one problem still remained. Even as the biome cleared, the effects of the neuroactive alkaloids would last far longer, a lingering human consequence not so easily resolved.

Ambassador Drake was no biologist. He didn’t know the finger points of bioaccumulation, cognitive attenuation, or neural plasticity, but what he did understand was that if they didn’t do something, the suffering of the Lepian people would extend well beyond that of the planet itself. Lieutenant J.G. Anders had received only a few days’ dose, but the effects had lingered for over a week. Dr. Verhoeven cautioned that for the locals, who had lived with this mind-altering contamination for months, the recovery would take far longer.

Thankfully, Lieutenant J.G. Anders’ recovery offered a solution, one they’d packed nice and neatly into the hiss of a hypospray. It had something to do with enzymatic chelators and neuroregulatory stabilizers, but again, not really the ambassador’s department. What was his department, though, was getting the  colony’s government to authorize a planet-wide inoculation program, and that was what brought him and Captain Alleyne back to Lepia IV’s government complex once again.

As the pair stepped through the grand doors of the ministerial headquarters, they found Givas, the planet’s foreign minister, waiting for them. Standing next to him was a woman neither recognized, but by the ornamental robes she wore, Ambassador Drake could hazard a guess.

“Ambassador Drake, Captain Alleyne,” Minister Givas began as he gestured deferentially to the woman. “May I introduce Governor Talam.”

Ambassador Drake bowed his head slightly. “Governor, it is a pleasure to finally meet you.” In all their prior interactions with the government so far, even when they’d requested permission to begin bioremediation, it had all been done through Givas as the proxy. That they were now meeting the governor herself, Ambassador Drake took that as a positive sign.

The governor looked at the old Federation ambassador with weary eyes. “A pleasure…” she began, her voice muted as if simply going through the motions. “If I’m honest, I’m not sure what to make of it all though… your people, coming and going… your ships overhead… strange equipment in our fields and our town squares…” It was a lot. Too much. All of this had been too much, for far too long.

“I assure you, ma’am, that this is all in your interest,” Ambassador Drake offered warmly, noting the fatigue in her frame, the effects of the blight in full bloom. “All to better your world.”

“To repair your past mistakes,” Minister Givas noted. When they had come to ask his permission to begin the restoration operation, he’d learned much of Starfleet’s past transgressions, and where the governor had grown weary from the impact of the neuroactive alkaloids coursing through her blood, he’d grown more irritable and suspicious as a result.

“Yes, our past mistakes,” Captain Alleyne admitted, her voice laced with regret. “We accept responsibility.” This was personal to her. She had seen the impact firsthand of what happened when the Federation  lost interest as soon as the crisis-of-the-week moved on. “Our forebearers should not have abandoned you. The mechanisms of terraforming that created this world were primitive, and their consequences were left unmonitored. So too were their shoddy efforts to rid the sector of this blight a few years ago, quick and dirty, again with no monitoring to detect signs of reemergence.” It wouldn’t have taken much to have stopped this before it started.

“So are you going to do a quick fix and then leave us on our own once more?” Minister Givas inquired pointedly. The Federation never really been more than a name on the map to him, but now it was worse. Over the last week, he’d come to realize it wasn’t just that they hadn’t helped his people, but that their negligence had actually caused all this suffering.

“No. We are here for the long haul,” Captain Alleyne replied with conviction. She meant it too. Just as she continued to check in on Janoor III even more than a year after she finished her work there, so too would Lepia IV be a place she would not allow to be forgotten. None of these colonies out here deserved to be forgotten. “You have my word.”

Governor Talam could sense her sincerity, and for the first time in as long as she could remember, she actually felt a positive emotion. Maybe there was a light at the end of this tunnel. 

The foreign minister, though, still looked full of doubt, and Ambassador Drake addressed him directly: “In time, we will prove it will be different.” He knew he couldn’t change hearts and minds in a day, but at least this was a start. “But let us start by healing your world.”

Minister Givas still didn’t seem fully convinced, but at least his expression softened a bit.

Governor Talam, though, was just looking for hope, and that’s where her questions lingered. “Do you know how long it will take?” She didn’t understand what the it really was, but she knew their world had gone sick, and these Starfleet people said they were doing something to heal it.

“You can smell it already, the biological processes at work,” Captain Alleyne offered with a smile as she took a whiff of the air. “That sharp, mineral scent, that’s the nitrates turning over and the balance shifting as the stabilizers do their work. In the next few days, the fungus will begin to die out, and within a few weeks, the soil will begin to breathe life back into your world.”

As she inhaled deeply, the governor could smell the difference. “Is this what you people do? Do you really go from world to world doing things like this?”

“It’s our calling,” Captain Alleyne nodded proudly. And never had the galaxy needed it more.

For a moment, no one said anything, their thoughts lingering on the captain’s words. For the governor and the foreign minister of Lepia IV, it was a strange concept, but one that gave them hope they’d been lacking as long as either could remember.

After letting that silence settle for effect, Ambassador Drake decided it was time to  make the uncomfortable ask. “There is still one matter that needs to be addressed, one aspect of healing we still need your help on.”

Minister Givas looked at him warily once more. Now, there’d be an ask. Of course there would. That’s how it always went. It was as he’d expected. A price. He doubted, from the beginning, that any of this would come without strings.

But that wasn’t where the ambassador’s mind was. “Do you remember how you used to feel back before the fields started dying?” Ambassador Drake asked, trying to lead them along on the journey.

Minister Givas was on guard, showing no visible reaction, but Governor Talam nodded. It seemed like forever ago, but she could still just barely remember those days, back when she walked the halls with energy, when she was proud to lead her people, and when they lived and loved together. Lepia IV had never been much by interstellar standards, but it was their home, and it’d once been full of happy times.

“The feeling you feel now, the one that has overcome all your people, the fatigue, the fog, and the apathy,” Ambassador Drake explained. “That is a byproduct of the fungal growth.”

How they were feeling wasn’t natural? That got the governor’s attention.

“With the remission of the blight, the compound that caused these feelings will go away, but the brain is a curious thing,” Ambassador Drake continued. “It changes shape based on many factors, environmental exposure included, and unfortunately, that means even with the passing of the blight, we anticipate that the psychological effects it caused will linger for many months if nothing is done.”

They were stuck with this, even when the plants came back? The hope left the governor’s eyes.

But Ambassador Drake reached into his jacket and withdrew a hypospray, turning it over in his hand. “It is not our way to just give up on you like that, and my team, we have developed an inoculation, something that will speed up the recovery process.”

Talam and Givas eyed the curious metallic cylinder in the ambassador’s hand.

“Is it… is it safe?” Governor Talam inquired. She wanted this to be over. She wanted to go back to how she felt before, and if what he was saying was true, she wanted what he held in his hand. But she was wary too. How did he know this would work? She’d heard of Starfleet’s first experiments to kill the blight, the ones that had scorched the parts of their fields that they tried it on. “How do you know this won’t harm my people?”

“We have developed this based on one of our own people who came down with exposure sickness, and we observed a positive response,” Ambassador Drake answered honestly.

“That wasn’t her question,” Minister Givas noted.

“I will only ever be honest with you, and I can’t assure you that it’s perfectly safe,” Ambassador Drake replied calmly, their responses exactly as he had anticipated. “None among our crew have experienced the extended exposure that you all have. We used the best available science and the utmost care in the creation of this inoculant, and we have every reason to believe it will be safe and effective, but I cannot guarantee it.”

“So what can you guarantee then?” Minister Givas probed.

“We would like permission, under close medical observation, to conduct trials on a select set of your people,” Ambassador Drake closed. “And if the trials go well, then we would like permission to begin a planet-wide inoculation program to speed up your recovery process and make your colony all it deserves to be.”

That was a lot to ask. “Who would be willing to sign up to be the guinea pig?” Minister Givas frowned. “After all the science gone wrong from you people, it most certainly won’t be me.” Only a fool would be the first to take it.

“No, it will be me,” Governor Talam offered with a meek smile. “I’ll be the first.” She was ready for a leap of faith. After so long left to fend for her people with no path to a better tomorrow, she was ready to believe again.