Phase Two

Posted on 20 Oct 2018 @ 11:20am by Commander Rhyan

2,282 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Empty Creche
Location: Biological Sciences Laboratory, USS Redemption
Timeline: ED1 1200

Rhyan’s day had gone from bad to worse and then back again. News of Captain Ashcart’s imminent departure still weighed heavily on the Vulcan’s mind and he could not shift the feeling that more unsettling changes were coming for the crew of the Redemption. Rhyan, himself, had only been assigned to the Redemption at Ashcart’s request; which begged the question of whether Captain Barron would want to keep the recently promoted commander around after Ashcart left for Earth. Even though he had not asked for the assignment, Rhyan now considered the Redemption his home and he did not want that to change any time soon.

Despite these thoughts, he suspected a short leave of absence would be in order for what he was going to have to do next.

While Rhyan was distracted by his executive officer duties, interesting developments were taking place in the biological sciences laboratory. A short time ago Lieutenant Aeryn Tigan had contacted him and asked to meet with her immediately. It appeared that, with less than twenty-four hours access to his research, the science officer had succeeded where he had previously failed: she had found a potential cure to the Zal virus.

Rhyan stepped through the threshold to the laboratory and was immediately greeted by an excited Trill in a teal uniform.

“Commander,” Lieutenant Tigan began as she leapt up from her seat and paced quickly towards her senior officer. “Thank you for coming to meet with me on such short notice.”

Rhyan nodded back at the young woman and then asked the obvious question. Part of him did not believe that the news was true. “You led me to believe that you had found a cure to the second virus?” As he said the words he nearly found himself referring to the ‘Zal’ virus, but corrected himself before he had a chance to let slip. The President had been very clear that no one other than Sutherland and himself were to know about her illness.

“Yes,” Tigan replied, her speech hurried with excitement. Despite this the Vulcan noticed that she couldn’t quite make eye contact with him. Keisha’s comments entered his thoughts briefly before he quashed them back down. Aeryn continued. “I won’t bore you with the full analysis that I have performed, commander, as it will be included in my final report. But to answer your question, yes, I think I have found a cure.”

Rhyan’s heart rate quickened slightly. “You think or you know,” said the Vulcan, colder than he had intended. The younger science officer looked a little taken aback but seemed to brush off the comment.

Lieutenant Tigan hurried over to the incubation chamber situated at the periphery of the laboratory and gestured for Rhyan to follow her. He complied. She pointed one of her slender fingers at a petri dish that was in the back row of approximately twenty to thirty other dishes. Unlike the others, however, this dish did not display the same viral growth as the other dishes. It was clean.

“That hasn’t happened before,” Aeryn said, making a direct reference to the clean petri dish.

“Indeed it has not,” Rhyan replied, so pleased at the prospect of finding a cure for President Zal that he forgot about all his other worries for the moment. He turned to face the lieutenant and noticed again that she refused to make direct eye contact with him. “Have you verified your results?”

Looking a little uncomfortable Tigan moved herself away from Rhyan and approached one of the computer terminals. He could see the screen displaying fragments of RNA and text describing a number of unrelated pathogens. Her fingers dances across the LCARs interface and the display changed to biometric graphical readouts. He read the results and noted sample ‘delta-8’ recorded a viral RNA level of zero.

“Zero?” He said aloud to no one in particular.

“Yes, commander,” the lieutenant responded, catching Rhyan a little off-guard. He realised at that moment that he had spoken out aloud without intending to. A flaw he had developed while growing up with humans.

“So you are certain you have the cure?” Rhyan allowed a little excitement to enter his voice.

“Well,” Aeryn replied, her mannerisms not filling Rhyan with confidence. “Not exactly.”

“What does that mean?” He asked again, trying not to turn their meeting into an interrogation of the lieutenant’s research. But Rhyan knew that time was not on their side with this problem.

“It means I don’t know how my anti-viral will work until I know exactly whom it is intended for,” she said, her tone implying annoyance at the commander’s barrage of questions.

Rhyan understood the lieutenant’s frustrations, as he knew she was working on the solution to a problem with only half of the facts. But he was under strict instructions not to share Zal’s identity with anyone. Even if he felt it was in her best interests, Rhyan couldn’t break the trust that had development between the two of them over the last year. He respected her too much for that.

He paused for a moment to debate his answer and then spoke. “I cannot tell you who the anti-virus is intended for.”

“Well, then,” she said, “I am not sure how much farther I can take my research. You have a working laboratory cure, but without knowing the intended recipient I won’t know if the anti-virus will cure or kill them.” Aeryn locked eyes with Rhyan for the first time in their meeting. She was telling him that he was wrong to deny her the information that could lead to the development of a working treatment.”

“I am under strict instructions, lieutenant.”

Her dark grey eyes now refused to break with Rhyan’s own. “I know you could finish this research without me, Sir. I don’t doubt it. But you will get your cure quicker if you just told me something, anything, about the infected person!”

“They are a joined Trill,” Rhyan said, the words falling out of his mouth before he had a chance to reconsider speaking them.

“Good,” Tigan said as she finally broke off her stare and resumed avoiding eye contact with Rhyan. “That’s something useful. In fact, I can probably tell you now that in theory the anti-viral should work on a Trill without any modification.”

“In theory?”

Aeryn sighed. “I’m sure Doctor Afton could explain it better than I, but basically we won’t know for certain how the recipient will react until they are injected with the anti-virus. Normally there are multi-phased trials to test a new drug before it is ever given to someone infected with the pathogen it was designed to target.”

“I see where you are coming from, but you know as well as I do,” Rhyan said, thinking back to when Sarah was infected with the first Ee virus, “that sometimes we just have to go for it with these things.”

There was a brief period of silence as Tigan pondered something that Rhyan had said. She gazed blankly at the computer terminal in front of her before eventually responding. “You were in Paris before you boarded the Redemption and we departed Earth.”

A bead of sweat began to form at the back of Rhyan’s neck. Suddenly he felt uncomfortable. Had she worked out the identity of his patient? “Where I was prior to our departure for Hadronus is none of your concern lieutenant.”

Aeryn made an attempt to respond to Rhyan, but his comm badge cut her off.

“Commander,” an unfamiliar voice erupted from the communications device. “There is a priority one message incoming from Starfleet Medical on Earth. They are asking to speak with you immediately.”

The timing of the message couldn’t be any less appropriate. “Acknowledged. Put it through to the communications terminal in the biological sciences laboratory. Rhyan out.”

Tapping the delta on his left breast to deactivate the comm channel, Rhyan looked over to Lieutenant Tigan who was still looking confused and frustrated with the commander. He took a deep inward breath and then spoke to her again. “I should ask you to leave for this conversation, lieutenant.”

“I understand, commander,” Aeryn replied, looking disappointed as she started to walk towards the laboratory door.

“I said ‘should’, lieutenant. Stand over there,” he said, pointing to an area of the laboratory not within shot of the communication terminal’s camera, “and don’t say anything.”

“Aye, Sir,” she replied, obeying the command in full and without question.

Rhyan walked towards the terminal and pressed the alert that was flashing on the LCARs interface. Immediately the screen erupted to life and the image of a muscular, human male appeared on the screen. He was wearing a gold Starfleet uniform with two silver pips across the turtleneck. Rhyan recognised him as Lieutenant Johnston, the President’s personal security guard.

“How may I help you lieutenant?” Rhyan started the conversation.

Johnston appeared grim as he replied. “Commander, thank you for speaking with me.”

“Any time,” he said, concerned for why a close colleague of the President was contacting him. Were they too late?

“I have news of the President,” Johnston continued, his expression becoming ever more solemn as he spoke. Out of the corner of his eye Rhyan could see Lieutenant Tigan reacting to the mention of the Federation President. He knew she had worked it out for herself, which was why he did not see the point in excluding her from this conversation.

Johnston spoke. “President Zal slipped into a coma early this morning. She has been transferred to Starfleet Medical in San Francisco for treatment, but” he choked slightly, which was uneasy for the Vulcan to watch, “there is talk of switching her to palliative care.”

Rhyan turned his head to look directly at Aeryn and then returned his attention to the screen in front of him. “How much time are we looking at, lieutenant?”

“The doctors there are giving her to the end of the day at best,” he said, a pained expression on his face as he said the words. Rhyan didn’t know the lieutenant well, but he could tell that he thought highly of Elesa Zal.

Rhyan began to feel himself choking up at the thought of losing Zal. “Can you convince the doctors to do everything they can for the President until I can get to Earth?”

“I don’t know, Sir. I will do my best.” Johnston did not look convinced that he could sway the doctors at Starfleet medical.

“That is all you can do. We think we have a working anti-virus here on the Redemption. If I cannot convince the captain to turn the ship around, I will leave by shuttlecraft immediately. We could be in San Francisco by late this evening,” Rhyan said, almost pleading with Johnston to stop the doctors from making any stupid decisions before he could get to the President.

“I will notify them of your imminent arrival. If you have the cure,” Johnston started, but Rhyan cut him off.

“We do not have a working cure right now,” The Vulcan said hurriedly, “but I am confident that it will be completed in the next few hours. Just keep Elesa alive until I can get to you with it.”

“Aye, Sir,” Johnston said as he cut the communication channel.

Almost as soon as the screen went blank, Aeryn jumped towards the medical replicator opposite the incubation chamber and input a series of commands into it. Rhyan made a number of attempts to speak with her but her concentration was solely on the task at hand. “Lieutenant!” He shouted, finally getting a response from her.

The replicator whirred to life as she turned to hear what he had to say. Rhyan addressed her firmly. “What you just overheard was for our ears only,” he said.

“Don’t worry, commander,” she replied as reached within the replicator and withdrew a small canister of an emerald liquid. “I will not have the opportunity to share this news with anyone on the Redemption.” She walked from the replicator to a med kit hanging on one of the bulkheads and removed an empty hypospray.

Rhyan was confused. This was only confounded when he saw the small canister being inserted into the hypospray device. “What do you mean?” He did not understand why the lieutenant would be unable to share the information with the crew. There was something about her actions with the replicator that was making him uneasy.

“That’s because,” she started, as she raised the hypospray to her own neck, “I will be accompanying you to Earth.” There was a familiar hiss and Rhyan watched as the contents of the hypospray emptied into Aeryn’s jugular. Instinctually, he lunged towards her and prised the empty hypospray from her grip.

“What have you done?” he asked, examining the device in his hands.

“The only thing that could be done to save the President’s life,” Aeryn replied, sharply. She inspected the backs of her hands as she held them out in front of her. “I’m carrying out a single-subject phase two drug trial.”

“A what?” Rhyan shouted as he grabbed the lieutenant’s hands and pulled her closer to him.

“Basically, commander,” she started, with an empty smile on her face, “if I am still alive by the time we reach Earth, you will know that the anti-virus is safe for use by the President.”

OOC: This is just setting up my little side-mission with Rhyan that I never quite got to do in the last episode!

 

RSS Feed