Grace Pottinger was furious.  So much had gone wrong in such a short time.  She stormed into deck two and tapped her badge, “All teams report to Deck 2.”  She found the deck two team and glanced into the large meeting room, “Get it cleared.”  She turned to McDonald, “We need a solution to inoculate against whatever this is.”

“I’m working on it,” Aimee said, trying to keep her expression neutral, not liking Pottinger’s tone.  “I have the computer running the viral sequence right now. Inoculations don’t happen at the snap of a finger.”

O’Shea cleared his thoughts, “Given the new developments, the Mercy should be notified and its resources utilized. Any data we can access on the virus and the research should be sent to allow teams to review it and provide support. After all the ship is very well suited for this sort of support.” He looked at Pottinger and kept his face emotionless as he wondered if she would try to break protocol. Their recent discovery of her side mission relating to the team had drastically lowered any possible trust he had for her.

Pottinger returned the stare from O’Shea, “Given the level of possible infection and broken protocol, our contact and use of the Mercy will have to be one way – whether I like it or not.  They can send equipment down…but they won’t be able to send us any more bodies – the protocol will prevent any added crew unless it is an emergency.  And we’re not there.  Yet.”

O’Shea nodded in agreement, “I agree. I will brief my team on the Mercy to ensure no one comes down, not that I would expect that.” He turned to go make the calls but stopped and glanced back around the room. “While you and the others work here I will continue my search of the floor.”

Cezear, hearing the Doc ran over to the meeting room and stuck his head in the entryway. He looked over at Ensign Linwood. “Linwood, see if you can give the Doc a hand with those viral sequences. Till we know more about what happened here, this is all we have.” After seeing her nod in reply, he went back to the lab. “Ok, Captain, looks to me like you have a bigger problem than you thought. Any idea on why Jacob would even consider leaving the post? Were you aware that she,” he pointed at the form by the console, “was/is pregnant? And why would your team bring a recently deceased local back to the post?  And yes, I locked down the system as per quarantine procedures set forth by Starfleet for the release or outbreak of an unknown disease/virus that could or has affected Federation personnel.”

Pottinger continued staring at Cezear.  He was impudent at best and wildly out of control at worst.  “I was not aware of her pregnancy.  As for why the team brought a local back, I would imagine the situation must have been very dire to require such a step.  Until we find the rest of my crew, all we’re going to get is questions without viable and actionable answers.”

“Lieutenant Larkin has passed away,” Aimee announced.  “My first two attempts at a cure were failures,” she added bitterly.  “I think it was too late for Larkin, and my second attempt was on myself… I have a special medical condition that I think is preventing it from working.   I need a volunteer for a third trial.”

Neva stepped from behind Pottinger, walked over to Dr. MacDonald, and rolled her right sleeve up. Holding her arm out with mouth turning into a thin line for a moment, Neva looked at the woman as calmly as she could. “Doctor, I volunteer for that trial. We need to solve this and fast.” Gazing pointedly into the doctor’s eyes, she whispered, “Please…do it before I change my mind.”

“Lieutenant, I don’t know what the side effects may be… on Mercy, I would spend weeks on computer simulations… here I can only guess what might happen. So far, nothing on me… but that’s just me.”

Neva held herself rigidly still even as her insides were doing the Lambada. “Well, I remember Admiral Kirk once saying, ‘Risk is our business.’” She gave a half smile. “So… I’m risking.” 

Pottinger almost mimed throwing up but resisted the urge.  She was outnumbered in her own command and trying to keep the Mercy crew from outright throwing her in the brig was her goal.  They seemed to suspect something else was in the mix, but she wasn’t about to encourage them.

Aimee nodded, admiring the young woman.  That took courage.  For all Aimee knew this latest attempt could accelerate the disease’s progression. She dug into her smock and pulled out the hypospray, and injected Neva.  “Give it some time, but I will need to keep you close by for observation.”

Neva rubbed her arm reflexively and pulled her sleeve back down. She nodded silently and got up to find a place to hunker down and wait. ⁠

Aimee turned to the Chief Science Officer and her XO, “Commander Sorek, Mr. Beattie… I will need to discuss something with you in private later, but not too much later.”

Cezear nodded as Aimee said the last part; he then looked around the room. Snapping his fingers, he headed toward the nearest console and brought up the room’s large view screen. “Just thought of something.”

”Doc, do we have an estimate of how long the four people we have in the lab have been deceased? especially the local.“ Cezear began to pull up the various observation platforms and systems that were at their disposal. 

“Based on temperature and right between eight and 36 hours.  The young woman from the planet was the first to die,” Aimee replied.

Cezear started to pull up various screens showing the populace of the planet, looking for signs, hoping to find any, but deep down, knowing that he would. “I may be a geologist, but every good science officer should have a foot in several areas. Doc, if I’m guessing right, we should see signs of the disease’s progression amongst the populace. The oldest trail should be Jacob. Then we should see signs spreading out from the post from the rest of the crew. If I’m right, and the body of the local deceased that we have in the lab would be from Jacobs trail if your time of death is near to the actual one. May not help us fight or slow the disease, but it should help us find where all of the members have been, and from that, we can figure out where they may be going. “

The screens showed a population going through their regular day.  The people moved with little urgency, and none of the officers gathered could see any sign of panic or movement that would suggest something was amiss.  The day was normal, and nothing unusual was drawing any kind of attention.  Pottinger stepped forward and scanned the screens.  There would be an answer, but it wouldn’t be outright visible.  She, along the rest of the crew watched the screens as the various cameras changed.  Then it dawned on her.

“Children.  You don’t see many children.”  She frowned, “The initial study mentioned schools, but they weren’t mandatory.”  She slipped over to a console and tapped carefully, “Yes.  Initial reports and the filed reports for the last year report that many children work in business, fields, factories…but they would be seen on the streets.”  Pottinger deepened her frown, “Children and the elderly are often the first to go in epidemics.  They’re weak…and death kills quickly.”  She turned to the group, “Whatever it is, it’s in the world.  We have to find my crew, and we have to figure out where this disease has spread and how long before it expands its influence.”

Cezear turned from the console he was at to face Captain Pottinger. “Captain, you mentioned at one time that the observation systems had audio capabilities. Are there any notes of families with children and their location in the system? If we can’t see children, maybe we can listen in to see if we can pick up what’s going on behind closed doors.”

Grace tapped at the console and felt her heart pick up speed.  There had been a hard data deletion over the last few weeks – something she had long been told impossible.  She continued to work at the console, her concerns about her crew and the mission growing by warp speed as the minutes ticked by.  What the hell had they done?

The science chief continued, “Commander Sorek, I think we have another problem to figure out. Manpower? We don’t have the manpower to continue the work needed here and search for the missing team members. Doc is needed here; either Ensign Linwood or myself will need to stay to help Doc and continue to watch these systems, and I would think either the Captain or yourself would need to stay for command and control. That leaves O’Shea, Neva, Ensign Linwood, or me and between the captain and you to search. Four people to look for five whom have at least a 36-hour head start. “

Sorek had quietly stood to the side, watching and listening as the team did their work.  The task ahead was indeed formidable. “Yes, we have problems, but we will do what we can.  This crew has already defeated Death in our first mission together,” said Sorek.

“Utilizing an ancient computer game called World of Warcraft as a model, the United States Center for Disease Control developed a lot of our outbreak models,” Aimee replied.  “They have since been updated to be more accurate.  However,  there will be a certain number of the population that will spread the disease intentionally.  A larger number of people will also contract the disease in their efforts to cure the sick, protect the healthy, and deal with the disposal of the dead.  You probably do not see children on the streets because the only ones about are the ones dealing with the disease.”

Pottinger cleared her throat, her face stricken with a look none of the gathered officers had seen before.  It resembled concern or even worry – possibly even panic.  “I’ve checked several times.  I am not sure how it was done…but there was a hard removal and deletion of the surveillance data for the last few weeks.  All video and audio records have been wiped – I’ve attempted to recover them using my senior command codes…but the computer reports that the data has been removed both surface and internally.”

Crawford’s eyes widened, “They…pulled the data storage units?” Pottinger gave her a severe look, and she responded, “They pulled the data storage units, captain?”

Pottinger shook her head, “I’m a scientist, not an engineer…whoever did this has the data with them.  We’re going to have to find them.”  She glanced to each member of the team, “We’re going to have to stretch our resources and our people while doing this manually.  I will stay and run command and control.  Doctor MacDonald will remain here to coordinate the medical response.”  She turned to the Vulcan, “The rest of you are ordered into teams and identify the pathogen, the impact it is having…and search for our crew.  We’ll have to replicate or have the Mercy replicate clothing that matches the current environment.”

She tapped at her PADD, “Commander Sorek, you are assigned to Lieutenant Cordon with assistance from Ensign Crawford.  Lieutenant O’Shea, you are assigned to Lieutenant Beattie – you will take Lieutenant Dougal with you.”  Pottinger nearly growled but held it, “Let’s get to work.  Commander, get in touch with Mercy – you all will need some appropriate clothes.”