Chief Medical Officers log Supplemental

The shuttle loads of patients have arrived and we’ve sorted them into our triage center built up in the main shuttle bay. I’ve run trauma centers before but this one is different. Most pathologies run a similar course. Incubation, prodromal stage, illness, and convalescence. However in this instance, the patient’s symptoms are difficult to diagnose due to the near catatonic state their illness has placed them. Curiously whatever they’ve been afflicted with, it doesn’t appear to be airborne. Still, I’ve set all decon and ppe measures to maximum to protect the crew. I need to run some more tests to determine what exactly I’m dealing with, but so far, I’m not getting any hits on our database. According to Starfleet medical, this bug, whatever it is, doesn’t exist. And the captain thinks this ship is supposed to never see any excitement. Nothing like a little wild frontier medicine to shake things up. Hopefully we can figure out what this is before its too late for the afflicted. 

Sariel sighed, logging out of his terminal and donned the rest of his environmental suit. In a lot of ways it resembled a vac suit, but the hands were slimmer to allow for more dexterous use of medical tools as needed. The shuttle bay was eerily quiet. None of the patients made any noise. Like none. They didn’t talk, they didn’t moan. Not even a cough or sniffle. Whatever was happening to them, it was like they were tuned out. No one was home. Sariel had never seen anything quite like it. 

He ran some secondary scans on a few of the first patients he came across. They looked the worst for wear. He wasn’t sure if it was grace or luck that whatever they had seemed to numb the patients to it. But when he looked closer, he could see something that defied medical explanation. Whatever they had was breaking their bodies down. All their specialized cells were reverting back into stem cells. Reverse differentiation and mitosis. How odd. What purpose would this serve? What was the sense of forcibly reversing a bodies cellular make up back to stem cells? Without the specialized cell structure it would die. Unless…

Sariel ran a new scan, this time scanning for… and there it was. Quickly he drew a blood sample from an afflicted orion male. The typically dark green blood had a runny clear tinge to it. This wasn’t good. If it kept up, their skin would literally liquify. He needed to brief the captain. If the crew caught this he wasn’t certain he could stop it. Whatever these patients had contracted, it was doing something to them. For what ends though, he wasn’t sure. He tapped his combadge.

“Triage to the bridge. Captain, I think I need to brief you on what I’ve found.”

“Ok, how long will it take you to clear decon?”

“Too long. Gather the staff. We’ll do it via holo.”

“Understood. We’ll message shortly.”

Sariel paced impatiently in his small office area. It was little more than some plastic erected into four walls to form a small office with a large holoprojector and desk. After a few minutes of wearing out a small figure eight into the deck plating, the projector pinged active and displayed the attendees up on the bridge. 

“Alright Doc, you’ve got us all Save for Chief Bennett who is coordinating things in the bottom half of the ship. Go ahead.”

“The plague that’s been affecting the crew of that ship? They’re being transformed somehow. Their DNA is rewriting itself.” Sariel then went to great lengths explaining his findings and could pretty much tell when each of the senior staff mentally checked out of the medical nuances of his explanation. All except for the chief science officer. The Saurian. Sariel liked that one. 

Lt. Vossk’s scaled brow arched but his eyes narrowed. He knew something. Sariel knew that suspicious and thoughtful look. He’d worn it often enough himself when treating complex ailments. “You look like you’ve got something on your mind. What is it Lt. Vossk?”

Vossk’s head twitched at an angle. The science officer clearly wanting to be succinct and delicate with his wording. “I have a hypothesis and very little to base it on. I dislike the position of not having enough evidence to back it up. But for now it feels the most correct.”

“Well, don’t leave us all in suspense Vossk, lay it out.”

“A review of facts. We know the ship is currently undergoing a metamorphasis. Non organic areas are converting themselves into what can amount to organs. A heart, flesh, muscles and nerves. Likewise a similar change is taking place in the crew. What if the two afflictions are connected?”

Sariel understood now. “What if the ship is what’s causing their sickness?”

“Transformation doctor. As you said, they are undergoing cellular differentiation. Their bodies are being rewritten. Much like a larger body changes stem cells into more specialized cells, I believe whatever effected the changes to the ship is changing the crew as well.”

“The ship is turning the crew into its cells?” The captain asked. 

Vossk’s head bobbed in agreement. “In a manner of speaking yes.”

“Are we at risk by having brought the crew aboard? Is this condition infectious?” Tib asked.

“No, I don’t believe so, but it’s best to leave the decon measures and ppp levels at max for now. I haven’t seen any signs its transmissible, but I don’t want to risk it getting loose in our own ship. Pinning it down once it got loose feels impossible. Otherwise there’d be a few non afflicted members of the crew we fished out of that ship.”

“Are we harming them by bringing them here?” 

“Unknown. So far I haven’t detected any indication of harm. But I’ll monitor them closely.”

“Doctor!” Someone shouted from within the bay. 

“One moment.” Sariel said before trotting out of the makeshift office to see what the commotion was. When he got to the source he had to push his way through a small gathering to find… a chrysalis. It was roughly humanoid shaped. Sariel drew the tricorder at his waist and took several scans to confirm his guess. The epidermis had formed a hard exoskeleton while the body reduced itself down to reconfigure within the chrysalis. 

“This is going to make for some interesting reading in the next medical journal…” Sariel mused at the readings. This was a patient who’d been infected the longest. Which meant more should be forming these chrysalis very soon. 

“So what comes out then?” an ensign from his department asked.

“That ensign, I can’t answer. Not yet at least. But I suspect we’ll find out long before we rendezvous with the hospital ship that’s enroute.” Sariel handed the tricorder to the ensign. “Get everything you can.”

“Sir?”

Sariel trotted back to his office where the senior staff sat patiently waiting for him to return. He tapped a few keys on the desk console and uploaded the tricorder’s scans remotely. 

“What are we looking at Doc?” The captain asked. 

“One of the patients just formed a chrysalis.”

“Like a moth?” Tiberius asked.

“Close. Moths make cacoons out of silk sir. Butterflies form chrysalis out of their own bodies.” Lt. Vossk replied.

“That’s correct. Right now one of my patients just formed a hard leathery shell around their body while it turns into something different inside.”

Tiberius frowned, turning to Lt. Jel’kan. “Put extra security on the shuttlebay as a precaution and put two checkpoints on either side of the entry point.”

The Thraarken nodded stiffly. “I’ll have them posted as soon as the meeting is done.”

“Only our people go in and out.” Tiberius added. He turned back to the holoprojection of Dr. Sariel, “And Doc? Try and see if you can figure out what’s going on.”

Sariel sighed. “With this equipment? You’ll be lucky if I can give you best guesses. This is something for the Enterprise, not us.”

Tiberius nodded sympathetically but wasn’t dissuaded. “I understand. Just do the best you can with what you have. Right now we’re all that’s out here. We’ll be linking up with the USS Hopkins outside of the triangle, but that’s a few days at cruise speed. Till then, we learn what we can.”

“What about the ship?” Lt. Vossk asked. “It would seem unwise to leave it here where it might infect others.”

Tiberius frowned, thinking it over. 

“We could just tow it out with us. The Rubidoux can handle it. We’d have to go slower, she’s got the power to handle a warp tow.” Commander Kael said.

“Any evidence to suggest doing that would risk exposing anything or anyone else?” Tiberius asked.

Vossk shook his head, and Sariel shrugged. “None that I’ve seen so far. Whatever happened doesn’t appear to be something that is contagious beyond the initial event.”

“Alright. Then we tow the ship to the Hopkins. Let them study it. Dismissed.”