Sickbay was calm, lights dialed down almost like a meditation chamber rather than a medical facility. The bright lights had made the alien’s vitals spike, and Beckett wasn’t in the mood to find out if the spikes came before or after spontaneous self‑combustion.

The biobed’s containment field flickered in a way Beckett still hated. He stood over his patient with arms crossed and a grimace. He had treated crystalline blood, triphasic organs, telepathic tissues, and once a Klingon with three spleens. But nothing reacted like this shifting just out of understanding every time the scanner swept it.

Thalen’s voice broke the quiet. “Doctor… readings destabilizing again.”

“I see it,” Beckett muttered. “Drop scan output another twelve percent. Slow and gentle.”

Thalen adjusted controls. The soft whine of the scanner dipped. The alien’s pulse steadied: weak but no longer spiking.

Beckett exhaled. “Good. It hates being observed. Every time we push, it pushes back.”

The doors hissed open. AJ entered slowly, “Report,” he said quietly.

“Alive,” Beckett answered. “Barely. And the more we try to analyze them, the more their body tries to rewrite themselves. Psychoreactive physiology is my best guess.”

Delar was a few steps behind AJ, that all too familiar Denobulan smile on his face. “If their biology responds to emotion, fear alone could destabilize them.”

Beckett sighed. “Perfect. First patient in medical history allergic to diagnostics.”

The alien’s skin rippled ever so slight, a light shade of green as the monitors chirped a warning.

AJ frowned. “Is that a good sign?”

“It’s something,” Beckett said. “They’re reacting to you. Or to the room. Maybe to the ship.”

The doors opened again. Massi stepped in. The moment she crossed the threshold, she inhaled sharply. “They’re afraid,” she whispered.

Beckett straightened. “Massi!”

“I’m not reaching for their mind,” she said. “I don’t have to. The emotion is leaking through them.”

AJ turned. “What else?”

Massi approached the containment field. “Fear, but not of us. Of being seen. Exposed.”

Delar nodded. “A protective adaptation.”

“Or a warning,” AJ said.

“We need calm,” Beckett added. “Quiet. Nothing that feels like pressure.”

The alien’s eyes fluttered once, barely a twitch, and Massi gasped. “They heard us,” she whispered.

AJ sighed, “I hope that they know we’re just trying to keep them alive.”

The ship shuddered, but this wasn’t a normal course correction. Delar tapped his badge. “Bridge, what’s going on?”

Static. Then Keller: “Ion surge. Something in the storm reacted.”

AJ glanced at the alien. “Or reacted to them.”

Sickbay’s lights flickered. The alien brightened, soft and rhythmic, as if answering something external.

Beckett checked vitals. “Okay. That took something out of them.”

Massi steadied herself. “They’re trying to warn us.”

Before anyone asked of what, Keller’s voice cracked through the comm. “Captain, I swear we picked up a Romulan signature in the storm. Whatever it was they’re masking their presence.”

AJ groaned softly. “Quiet never stays quiet.” He straightened. “On my way. Doctor, keep them breathing.”

Beckett nodded. “I’ll do what I can. The rest is up to them.”

AJ left as Sickbay, outside the Galileo another alien pulse echoing faintly in synch with the storm outside.