Star Trek Discovery*

Pathogen

Chapter One

To the Unknown

Captain Christopher Pike sat behind his desk in his ready room with his elbows on the table-top, his hands entwined loosely together while his chin rested on top. He was miles away in his mind, his eyes unseeing as he stared ahead of him. Michael had found and lost her mother in twenty hours and before that she'd paid the ultimate sacrifice by giving her life up for the cause and he'd watched it all, he still did when he closed his eyes. That and her mother's words chilled him to the bone.

"Christopher Pike, USS Enterprise. In temporary command of Discovery-" he recalled Doctor Burnham's voice, cold and distant. "I could tell you more about your future but I don't think you'd like that," she finished in a softer voice.

He shuddered as he thought back upon it. That and the mission itself which was sanctioned by Starfleet yet the latter seemed so inhuman and brutal lately that it sickened him. His faith in the Fleet, in the entire Federation, had crumpled then and there, the minute Admiral Cornwell had agreed to lure the 'Red Angel' to them using his science officer as a bait. If this was what Starfleet had become, some darker version of the peace keeping and diplomatic organization he had signed on for then maybe it was time to leave.

Pike had met many strange races during his first five year mission, he'd made a few first contacts that had gone south, he'd lost crewmen and gotten injured but the Enterprise's crew were a tight bunch, they worked like a well-oiled machine. Whatever happened they'd deal with it and move on. He'd never felt as lonely back out there in the unknown as he did now back in Federation space onboard the Discovery. He'd gotten used to not having backup and to rely on his crew and his own experience to get out of sticky situations.

He felt weary of Admiral Cornwell and he was annoyed at having Leland on his tail all the time. Now Cornwell had left the Discovery and Leland had taken off which had left Pike utterly confused because the Leland he knew would never flee from anything or anyone.

"Captain Pike, please report to sickbay," the PA system sounded.

He straightened in his chair and blinked a few times then he ran a hand through his hair and sighed. He'd asked Doctor Culber to call him immediately if there was any change, for better or for worse, in Ash Tyler's condition.

He got up and walked over to the com unit. "I'm on my way," he said and exited the room.

OOOOOO

Tilly came to a halt just inside the door to their shared quarters and smiled ruefully at Michael's back. Her roommate was curled up on her bed facing the wall.

The ensign sighed wearily. "How are we going to get back to normal after this?" she said in a subdued voice. "First Lorca, then the mirror universe, Georgiou's evil twin, Saru's transformation, Airiam's death and now this and what's up with Leland-"

Michael slowly turned around on the bed. "Tilly," she whispered in an effort to get her friend to talk less, to give her some space.

The ensign, however, seemed oblivious to what she so subtly meant.

"Why would Captain Leland go all crazy and try to kill Ash?" she questioned. "I mean-"

At this Burnham sat straight up in bed with a look of concern etched on her face. "Kill Ash? Tilly what's-"

"Oh, sorry I thought you knew already but of course you didn't. I mean you've had enough with your mum and all that-"

"Sylvia!" Michael admonished, momentarily halting the younger woman's rapid monologue. Even though they were good friends Michael rarely used her first name.

"I'm sorry, Michael, I don't know. It was just a rumor I heard. He's been pretty banged up but I'm sure Hugh and Tracy can fix him."

OOOOOO

"Easy," Hugh cautioned. "You're only going to injure yourself further."

"I'm surprised that you care," he wheezed.

"I was out of line back then," the doctor replied, managing a somewhat ashamed look.

Tyler chuckled bitterly and groaned as it caused the pain in his side to renew. "You must love this. I mean, I did kill you," he whispered sarcastically in a pain-filled voice.

"I have him, Hugh," Tracy said kindly as she nodded at her friend and colleague. "Take a break."

The senior doctor shook his head and was greeted with a stern look that left no real room for discussion. He took a step back. "Fine," he mumbled in resignation just as Pike walked through the door.

Even through the haze of pain Tyler was fast to catch on. He spotted the captain immediately as he walked through the door. "Sir," he urged and broke into a coughing fit.

The alarms next to his bed went off and Tracy shared a worried look with her superior. He nodded sternly and started to prepare a hypo.

"No-," Tyler managed through the coughs, "-important."

"Just something for the pain," Tracy explained although it was clear she didn't like it.

Tyler grunted. Had she gotten her way he would probably have been put into a medically induced sleep.

The captain looked equally unhappy as he walked up the bed flanked by a doctor on each side. He came to a stop next to Tracy. "It seems Leland ran off with fifty percent of the data from the sphere the minute we lost Doctor Burnham."

"It's not Leland," Tyler croaked. "Not anymore."

A chill ran down Pike's spine at the words but he gave no outward sign of it. Instead he causally looked from Tracy to Hugh and then back at Tyler again. "What do you mean?" he asked.

Tyler swallowed, his throat raw and dry after the coughing. "Control has somehow taken over him. He's dangerous-" he trailed off to take a shallow breath. "He tried to kill me."

Pike considered it sadly for a moment. "Believe me when I say that Captain Leland has never been one of the good guys, Tyler," he replied darkly. "With Control ordering him around I'd not like to encounter him at all if I can avoid it."

"He's after Doctor Burnham, sir. He's going to do anything in his power to find her," Tyler said weakly.

"And when he finds out that the data transfer isn't complete we don't have to chase him, he'll come chasing us," Pike deduced unnecessarily.

"And when he does-" Tyler paused to catch his breath and coughed slightly. "When he does, he's going to come for Michael and Spock-,"

"We'll protect them. I know how he thinks-" Pike began softly.

"That's the thing. He's going to hunt you down, sir."

At that Pike pursed his mouth in a thin line of displeasure. He nodded at Tyler and glanced at the vitals displayed over his head. "I'll deal with that when that time comes," he assured him. "I think you need to rest and recover, Tyler."

Tracy swiftly produced a hypo and quickly emptied its contents through Tyler's jugular. "He'll be out for several hours," she reported.

"Good, by the looks of it he's going to need it," Pike replied and turned to leave.

"Captain," Hugh began as he took a step away from Tyler's bedside. "If you don't me asking, sir. What are we going to do now?"

Chris shook his head sadly. "About Leland? I'm afraid there is nothing we can do at the moment," he replied kindly. "Before all this happened we had three more red signals to look into. We might as well continue with that."

"She said she didn't know about them," Hugh said as he recalled Paul's words when he came back from the planet. "If she doesn't know about them then what are they?"

Pike gave a cautious shrug. "I'm sorry I can't help you there, doctor," he offered.

OOOOOO

Although no one voiced their concern Michael could see it in their eyes as she walked onto the bridge. Neither her captain nor her brother was present so the trip had been for nothing. Saru gave her a nod of acknowledgment and a genuine, warm smile as he turned toward her in the captain's chair.

"Michael, I'm glad to see you, although I thought you'd ended your shift for the day," he said kindly.

"I needed to keep my mind off of things for a while," she let on with a tight smile. "And I was actually looking for the captain."

"There was a general call for him to report to sickbay earlier," Saru explained with a frown. "Didn't you hear that?"

"I- I was occupied in my quarters and had the system on muted setting," she replied sheepishly.

Saru was about to say something when Pike's voice sounded loud and clear over the PA system. "This is the captain. All senior department heads please report to my ready room," he said in his usual soft tone of voice yet it held note of authority and urgency that made Saru and Burnham immediately turn to the door.

Within a few minutes seven people were seated around the conference table in the captain's ready room. There was Commander Michael Burnham, Commander Saru, Doctor Culber, Commander Paul Stamets, Commander Nhan, Jett Reno filling in for the chief engineer and the captain himself.

"So," Pike began seriously as he clasped his hands together in front of him, his eyes wandering from one officer to another until he'd made eye contact with everyone around the table. "As you're all aware we had to let go of Doctor Burnham and the time suit, we blew up the facility on the planet and effectively ended the download of the sphere data to Section 31. But not until Captain Leland had managed to retrieve 54 percent of the files from Discovery."

"There are still no trace of him anywhere, sir," Nhan said dejectedly.

"I know the universe is ridiculously big but the guy can't just disappear," Reno protested while chewing on a gum.

"He will come back," Pike said shortly, effectively ending that discussion before it had even begun.

Reno frowned at the tone of voice from the man opposite her. Pike was not usually the one to tell someone to shut their mouth, not even this polite. He encouraged people to speak their mind. There was something, a warning note in his voice that made her weary and she decided to let him off the hook.

"In the meantime we have other things to do," he said seriously. "Sensors recorded a signal from the gamma quadrant. Not much is known about that particular area of space yet. The Enterprise assisted command three years ago and by that I meant that we sent out a set of probes when we'd travelled to maximum dilithium capacity without compromising our original mission. Only, last year one of the probes we sent away came back. It sought out the Enterprise and it nearly destroyed the ship."

"Admiral Cornwell said they didn't call you back to fight the war-," Michael began with a frown.

"No, they didn't," he replied. "We had our own private little hell back there. Still, I can't even begin to phantom what you've been through while we were away-," he trailed off sadly and shook his head.

"I'm not so sure, sir, that you faired any better," Saru said diplomatically. "I'm certain you've had your share of insecurities and battles, seen things none of us ever dreamt about."

'You have no idea,' Chris thought bitterly but he didn't voice it, instead he nodded slowly as he felt Nhan's eyes on him.

"I have seen the specifications of the Enterprise. She's a class one heavy battlecruiser, codenamed Constitution class," Paul began. "It takes a fair amount of pounding to cripple her."

Pike leveled his eyes with Stamets. "Yes," he finally said. "I lost thirty good people, seventy crewmen got injured, one of the lower decks lost containment and several bulkheads blew. So it did some damage."

Reno gave a low whistle while the rest of them looked somewhat uncomfortable. During his time onboard he'd never talked about his own ship and crew. His focus had been entirely on them and the Discovery, on building trust and to be a supportive captain.

Culber glanced around the table feeling somewhat ashamed. Everyone onboard the Discovery had their demons to fight and he knew Pike had had to work on getting their trust and their respect but they had never considered that the captain had endured things equally gruesome to their experiences although in another way. Discovery could at least jump back into known space using the spore drive, the Enterprise on the other hand could not. The doctor swallowed and turned directly to the captain. "And you, sir, where you one of them?" he asked with concern.

"I was one of the seventy," he said in a subdued voice before quickly changing the subject. "That experience has left me a little weary of the gamma quadrant which is why I've been hesitant to follow that lead but now I don't see that we have any another choice. We have to follow the signal."

Paul nodded. "I understand. I will get the spore drive up and running," he said as he got out of his chair.

"The sphere place the signal's origin from the Arax system, it's a smaller solar system not entirely unlike the Sol system," Michael explained. "It was one of the last things Airiam managed to obtain before she-" the commander trailed off and looked at the captain with worry. "Sir, the Control, it must know of the Arax system."

"As far as I know, the ship Leland commands has no way of travelling that distance," Pike replied calmly as if reading her mind. He glanced around the table. "Are we ready to leave within an hour?"

"No problem," Paul replied confidently.

"Are we notifying Admiral Cornwell, sir?" Saru asked curiously.

Pike shook his head. "We notify no one of our intentions, Mr. Saru. If Leland is around and can tap into our systems, which I highly doubt, I won't give him a chance to come at us."

"Sounds like a good plan, sir," Reno said positively and sauntered out of the room.

The rest of them soon followed suit, all except Michael.

"Something on your mind, Burnham?" he asked softly. "Are you all right?"

She nodded and gave him a tight smile. "I will be. It might take some time but I'll get through this," she reasoned.

Pike smiled back at her, a ghost of a smile but still a smile. "Of that I have absolutely no doubt," he replied.

"You are good at deflection, sir. You deliberately changed the subject," she said with a smirk.

He widened his smile. "Where have you heard that?" he asked innocently.

"From your own science officer, my brother Spock," she said. "I heard what my mother said to you about your future."

He made a face. "I can't worry about my future in all this, Michael, we're on a mission. I'm here because I signed on for it so let's see what the future may bring shall we?" he suggested and gestured for her to follow him to the bridge.

OOOOOO

To be continued