All op the purist Propaganda stories that I had posted are now combined into one. The Lily Plague Crisis.

What started as a story about an attack against Dr. Bashir for being geneticaly enhanced evolved into a four part crossover sogga, and has now evolved into a full blown novel. I am posting it now as a single story, which I belive it was always ment to be. There are still chapters I need to write to fill in the blanks inbetween. There are new things to be found, and corrections that have been made. I hope you will enjoy this new improved version more than the some of it's parts that you have been reading over the last few months.

Lyda Mae (RavenDove) Huff

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Star Trek is the Property of Paramount Motion Picture Studios, but it's dream belongs to the masses that have kept it going for nearly 40 years.

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The Lily Plague Crisis

by Lyda Mae (RavenDove) Huff

Chapter One: Cold Sleep

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Dr. Julian Bashir lay on the operating table with an IV tube attached to his right arm and another tube going from his nose into his stomach. Captain Kira Nerys held his left hand. He was the last one to be prepared for the journey to the new Central Quarantine.

Julian felt cold. He'd been running a fever for more than a day, so the cold had felt good at first, but it was almost unbearable now. The thermal reactant in his system was working a little too well, and he was afraid that he would go into shock before Simon finished prepping him for the modified stasis tube. The other virus victims had been unconscious, but he was still aware. His teeth began to chatter, and he felt a hypospray touch his neck..

"It's alright Julian," Dr. Simon Tarses1 said, " Your body temperature is dropping at the proper rate." Simon moved so it would be easier for Bashir to see him. "I've administered the neural blocker. I'll be able to make the incision in a few minutes."

Bashir tried to nod, but he couldn't. The sensation of Kira holding his hand was slipping away.

"Is there anything you want me to tell your parents when I contact them?" Kira asked.

"Just tell them I still plan on meeting them in Sudan at the years end." Julian managed through chattering teeth.

"I'll tell them." she promised.

Simon poked Bashir's toe with an instrument to test if the neural blocker was working. "Did you feel that?"

"F-feel what?" Julian said.

Tarses pulled the sheet back from Julian's abdomen and used a laser scalpel to make an incision on his right side angeling from the umbilicus to the hip. He then inserted the nozzle for the thermal reactant applicator into the cavity. "I'll have to put you all the way under in a moment." He tried hard no to let his voice falter. He did not know for certain that he would ever see Bashir alive again. If they found a cure for the virus before the stasis measures began to fail it would be easy to revive all of the victims, but finding a cure for a bio-weapon could take longer than even this measure would buy.

Julian could feel himself slipping into a dream even as Simon spoke. He could fight the inevitable no longer. He saw Simon's hand place the delta wave inducer on his forehead, but his eyes were already beginning to close.

Kira put down Julian's hand and moved away as Dr. Tarses began inserting a tube into Julian's throat. "Are you certain that you will be able to revive him?"

He didn't respond at first as he concentrated on the placement of the tube and adjusted the surfactant/thermal reactant/oxygen levels. "Once we have found a way to fight the virus, we'll be able to purge his system of the chemicals used to stabilize him and give him a transfusion of warmed blood."

"It doesn't sound pleasant."

"It won't be," Tarses admitted, "but there is an old Earth medical saying."

"What would that be?"

"You're not dead, until you're warm and dead." Said Simon.

"You'd just better be sure to bring him and the others back warm and alive." Kira said as she turned to leave.

"I'll do my best Captain." Tarses said.

When Simon was satisfied with the readings he signaled for the stasis tube to be brought next to the bed. Two nurses helped him lift the naked Bashir into it. They transferred all the life support tubes to the connections inside the chamber, and once they were all adjusted it was closed so that only a small window showed the face of it's occupant. It was filled with the same thermal reactant and a sterilizing cycle was run. Then the stasis field was activated and a diagnostic cycle run before Tarses would certify it for transport to the Defiant by antigrav.

Tarses would pack his gear and be aboard the starship before they could make it with the cumbersome container. He knew that Commander Eilis Vaughn2 would already be aboard and pacing the deck. Vaughn's daughter Ensign Prynn Tenmei3 had only just been confirmed as arriving in the same manner as Dr. Bashir.

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1. Simon Tarses was first seen in the Star Trek: The Next Generation fourth season episode The Drum Head. It was there that the young medical technician was reveled to be one quarter Romulan instead of his claimed one quarter Vulcan. He appeared in a Star Trek: The Next Generation Novel that was intended to take place shortly after that episode, and then was not seen again until the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel Avatar: Book One at which time he was a recent graduate from Starfleet Medical. He has served as a regular to the Deep Space Nine novels ever since.

2. Eilis Vaughn is the current First Officer of Deep Space nine. He is a former intelligence operative of one hundred plus years in age who first appeared in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Section 31 novel, and was added to Deep Space nine in Avatar: Book One when he found one of the lost Orbs. He has since appeared in a few Lost Era novels. Most notably The Art Of The impossible, where he rubbed noses with no less than Captain Rachel Garret, Lt. Ion Andrew Troi, Colonel Worf and Mogh Son Of Worf.

3. Ensign Prynn Tenmei was introduced to Star Trek: Deep space nine in the novel Avatar: Book One and is the daughter of The station's current first officer Commander Eilis Vaughn, with whom she does not always share the best of relationships.

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