‘The Myth of Blood.’

Posted on Wed Sep 15th, 2021 @ 5:49pm by Captain Shran dh'Klar & Lieutenant Commander Shoniara T’ghann-Travis Dr

Mission: Breen in Paradise
Location: USS Washington

Shoniara had been down in the lab for two hours trying to replicate a viral infection carried by humans that had already infected some of the crew and killed Ensign Hennes. It had the possibility to do the same to every non human member of the Washington’s crew. Ensign Hennes was a Bolian and it had been his death that had made her very, very angry. Hers was a cold brooding anger despite the fact that she was half Vulcan. She was restless and emotional she knew that, but, that of course was the onset of her Pon Far that had not been due for another year. She sat trying to meditate whilst tests were running to replicate infected RNA. She was almost asleep when a strident alarm brought her out of her reverie.

“Infected RNA found.” Intoned the computer.

She jumped up. “Computer which sample?”

“Sample number Shran 24”

“Computer repeat! “

“Sample number Shran 24.”

She felt sick. So the transported decontamination cycle had not defeated the viral RNA after all. She needed to inform the Captain he was infected. A sudden thought came to her ‘could it be possible that the Captain had had contact with someone whilst on the ship?’ She knew he was very busy but it was news and a question that could not wait

She tapped her com badge. =/\= Dex to Captain Shran, I am coming up to the bridge. I need to speak to you urgently=/\=
Dex knew that he had to see her. Sam was not here to ask and she was not sure she could relieve him from duty, in fact she knew that at the current time there was no one to relieve him anyway Commander Grayson being on the away team.

The turbo lift deposited her once again outside the bridge and she entered.

Shran was still in his command chair in the center of the bridge as he had been when Dex last came up. For what it was worth, he looked no different than he had at her last visit, which was to say he looked in pristine health. He was reviewing tactical data as Dex approached, "What can I do for you doctor?"

It was not like Dex to be out of breath but she was. Sweat was trickling down her neck and she felt hot and anxious. She stood for a moment and took a deep centering breath. “Captain I need to speak to you privately?”

Shran noted the concern in her voice and took notice to the excessive perspiration. "Everything alright doctor? You seem a bit out of sorts." He didn't wait for an answer, understanding that she required to speak with him privately. He stood and adjusted his tunic. "Celes, you have the bridge" he said as he looked at Dex momentarily before walking to his ready room.

As the door to the ready room closed behind them he looked at Dex once more. "Do you require something doctor? Perhaps something to drink?"

Dex tried to look cooler than she felt and she knew the Captain could see sweat coursing down her neck. She put a forefinger into her collar and pulled. Her anxiety was becoming unbearable. “No,….thank you Captain. I was running through some of the samples I have already collected one of them being yours.” She took a breath. “You are infected by the virus, only recently.” She wondered if that really made a difference to how he would take the news. She waited.

Shran arched an eyebrow as his antennae began to rise ever so slightly. "Infected? Are you certain? I feel perfectly fine. Do we know how I got infected? What exactly do we need to do at this point?" He knew he was asking her a lot of questions in rapid succession, but he was truly puzzled about this turn of events and especially how it happened.

“Yes Captain I would not be telling you this if I was not certain!” She was suddenly aware that she had raised her voice to Shran but the way she felt she did not much care. Then she remembered that she had just possibly given him a life threatening diagnosis. “I am sorry Captain, yes you are infected. I confirmed the results myself. I checked the transporter logs and there was no recognition of the pathogen. Therefore we can surmise it is one of two things.” Suddenly she felt she had to sit down and did so without permission. She pulled out her medical tricorder and opened it. “May I sir?”

He nodded his approval, looking at her quizzically.

She performed the diagnostic and checked the results. “ The virus has not yet activated.” She gave a sigh of relief. “Can you remember any incident, however small since you arrived on board, someone bumping into you perhaps or at least being in such close proximity to you to inject you without you feeling it. Have you have possibly stepped on something or cut yourself. Think Captain….anything however small to explain this?” She found herself firing questions at him but she had a hunch.

On DS9 I was close only to Cmdr Kira, Lt. Cmdr. Laren her chief of security, Dr. Bashir, our officers that were missing in the Mirror Universe and their duplicates. In regards to the duplicates, to ease your mind, none of them ever got any closer than 6 ft. of me. As far as here on the ship..." his voice trailed off as he fell deep into thought. "I have been close to Cmdr Grayson, Samantha, yourself, our new counselor Jortho, our new conn officer Aiko, as well as a few of the bridge officers, Lt Hillis, Lt Celes."

Shran moved to sit on the sofa on the other end that Dex was currently occupying. "Honestly doctor, those are the people that have been close to me. I haven't cut myself, haven't stepped on anything. To my knowledge I have no puncture wounds. If you think somebody deliberately infected me, they did so without me recognizing it."

“The only thing we can do to try to find out if you were infected on DS9 or here on the ship is to have you go through the transporter. In theory if you go through a decontamination cycle and the virus is cleared from your system we will know that you were infected here.” She looked at him worried for his safety. ”can you spare the time to do that with all this happening?”

"Of course doctor. Shall we make our way to the transporter room?" he asked, not sure if this idea would work.

As they walked swiftly to the transporter, Dex said, “I am not sure if site to site on the ship will work. Although the decom should work for every transfer” she hesitated… “Captain I get the feeling you do not really trust me and that saddens me. I know I have not been here long or integrated into the crew but I know my job and am an expert in viral medicine. If you have seen my history you still see that I have been integral in curing several viral plagues and my research speaks for itself.” she stopped as they had reached the transporter room. She clenched her fists feeling unusually aggressive due to the early onset of her Pon Far. She knew that she would have to address this soon.

Shran looked at Dex, "I trust you just fine. I'm just used to Samantha handling such matters. All things come in time as the humans say. Your record does show that you are in the elite of your field. As I said, I'm just used to Samantha dealing with medical matters. So, shall we get back to the matter at hand?" He didn't wait for an answer, simply turning and entering the transporter room.

"Chief, the doctor wishes to have you perform a transporter experiment on me for medical purposes" he said as he entered the room.

"Whatever you'd like captain" replied Chief Light, an older human male who had the look of experience about him. "Just step up on the platform and I'll get the particulars from the doctor." He looked at Dex, "So, what can I do for you doctor?"

“Chief. I want to perform an experiment to see if the decontamination unit can remove something from the Captain when he transports site to site.” She moved onto the transporter pad and used the medical tricorder to perform another scan. ‘Yes it is still there’ she thought. There was no need for the Chief to know that Shran was infected with a virus that could kill him. She stepped off and nodded. This could prove that whoever planted the virus was amongst the crew. She held her breath. “Chief?”

"Sounds simple enough. Would you like me to transport him to another transporter pad or would a longer transport to his location do the trick?" asked the Chief.

“To be honest I think the longer the cycle the better for my experiment.”

"Not a problem. If you'll input the specifics of what you want the decom cycle to check and eliminate, when can get this underway."

Once the data was input, the Chief set the controls. "No worries captain. You'll hardly notice a thing. Maybe an extra 30 seconds to a minute for the transporter sequence to cycle. Here we go." The transporter activated and Shran disappeared in a blue hue, and then the hue returned as he rematerialized, though he was in a static stance as the prolonged decom cycle went through the search parameters input by Dex. The controls beeped, indicating it had located the viral component and then eliminated it before completing the transport cycle.

Shran looked at Dex as he rematerialized. "So doctor, what is your medical opinion?"

She ran the tricorder over him and snapped it shut. “Shall we discuss this on the way back to the bridge Captain?”

"Very well" he replied flatly. The two exited the transporter room and began the trek back to the bridge.

“At least you are clear, there is no sign of the virus in your system. All we need to do is run all our human crew members through a transporter cycle to kill any virus left. Then I will develop a vaccination and eliminate it from our nonhuman crew.” She stopped and turned to look at him. "Someone deliberately infected you once you returned onto the ship, this means they are still on board. You know that?”

Shran looked at Dex, "Yes, that seems to be where the evidence is leading us. The matter of who that might be does make me wonder who and how." He began walking again. "I'll let you work with the Chief to cycle through the crew to get this virus out of any of the crew that might be infected, and perhaps you might program the transporters to spot it and eliminate it during decom moving forward so when the away team returns we don't have any more surprises. As for the vaccine, that still seems like a top priority."

They reached the turbolift and entered. Shran gave the destination of the bridge and the turbolift began its journey. "I'll have Ayana work with you to root out our potential assassin. With luck you can get this all figured out in short order."

Dex felt her aggression begin to build again and the feeling of being out of control was the worst thing. At that moment she actually felt like picking a fight with her Captain. She pushed the feeling away. Sweat began to pour off her again and all she wanted to do was get away. “Yes Captain I will work on the vaccine as a matter of urgency but, if whoever brought it onto the ship finds out and has the ability to re work the virus we are again in trouble. I realize that our current situation does not allow for this but afterwards perhaps we need to eliminate the threat.” ‘Eliminate the threat…I can’t believe I just said that’.

Shran looked at her and understood her meaning. "Ayana should be able to assist in that regard doctor." He was quiet for a moment as he looked at her, "Perhaps you should ensure you are not infected as well. You have looked out of sorts since you first came to draw my blood. Last thing I want is for you to fall ill doctor." As he finished his thought the turbolift arrived at the bridge and he stepped out, took a few steps and looked back, "You'll figure this all out doctor. Of that I am sure."