Lieutenant Commander Shannon Tanner hated EV suits.
It had been the worst part of Starfleet training for her, despite all of the preparation and the time spent in zero-g.
She supposed if she got to the root of the problem, it wasn't really the suits. It was EV excursions themselves. They made her want to throw up. T'Sarak had thought all Tanner required was some mental discipline. Eleven months on a Vulcan science ship hadn't helped at all, though. Her body seemed program to react unhappily when she stepped into the protective suits.
At least this time she wasn't in space.
She glanced up at the crimson sky stretching above her. The orange sun blazed above them, small but close. And there was real gravity, not the borrowed gravity leant by magnetic boots. Here, up was up. At least, she could allow her brain that happy delusion without a nagging feeling that she was just trying to convince herself in order to keep her sanity and her supper.
The temperature on the planet, which was class-M, was hotter than she would have preferred, probably wouldn't have bothered the two Vulcan lieutenants, T'Sarak and Turan. Ensign Hareen Jaim, who was Bolian, probably would have suffered some effects after a hard day's work, as would Tanner. Tanner was good at pacing herself, and Bolians were hardier than humans, but Tanner had no desire to stretch the limits of their physical capabilities.
It was the threat of serious illness that had forced them into the EV suits, however, not the surface temperature. The Blessing Way's computer had detected a fatal virus in the air and the away team had suited up accordingly. Tanner had considered backing out, but she was the chief science officer and didn't really want to try and explain her reaction to Captain Yusumi. She could picture the look Yusumi would have given her. The suit was a better option.
"I am reading some large animal life, but mostly insects and arachnids," Turan reported. Tanner turned her attention smoothly back to her crew.
"Anything of interest in this area?" she asked.
"Snakes," the Vulcan man replied.
"Snakes," Tanner repeated. "Stay sharp, then."
The other two, T'Sarak and Jaim, nodded. Tanner glanced around again, taking in the scenery quickly. To the north and east, a range of hills or old mountains. They were worn and rocky, with little to no vegetation on them. The rock was mostly yellowy-brown, glaring in the sunlight. To the southwest, a large lake glimmered in the sunlight. If it was natural or artificial was another question. This planet had been inhabited, once. It appeared the virus forcing them into EV suits had killed everyone off.
If it was natural or artificial was also open to debate.
To the west was rolling landscape, mostly forested, but with some open, grassy areas, in start contrast to the barren hills. The colour transitions were abrupt and difficult on Tanner's human eyes, especially in the brightness of the small, ferocious sun. She adjusted her visor more, increasing its light sensitivity, then glanced around a final time.
"T'Sarak and I will head to the lake," Tanner said. "Turan and Hareen, head northeast. Don't go further than five kilometers. I want to be in easy reach of you in case something happens."
The Vulcan nodded and he and Jaim headed away over the rocky terrain with its patchy grasses. The grass here was thinning out considerably as it headed toward the rocky hills. Here, it was a dusty green, or more often brown, struggling to survive as the terrain grew rougher. There were a few hardier types of plants, too, braving the barrenness and the constant breeze. The suit was also a shield against a persistent wind, for which Tanner was grateful. She had worked in constant wind several times before and found it wore her down after a few hours.
T'Sarak and Tanner headed toward the lake, the ground cover vegetation increasing slightly and becoming greener as they approached the water.
"There was definitely a settlement over here," Tanner said, consulting her tricorder. "I'm reading the remains of buildings, mostly titanium and aluminum."
T'Sarak nodded.
"I'm reading it, too," she replied.
"Let's go have a closer look," Tanner said. They circled the shore of the lake for a few hundred meters until they came upon what was definitely an abandoned settlement of some sort. The buildings, those that were left, had fallen into disrepair. Some of them had collapsed in on themselves, some of them had collapsed onto their neighbours. Fallen roofs and walls were covered in dirt and sand, and it was obvious that small animals had made their homes among the wreckage.
"No life signs," T'Sarak reported.
"Let's go see if any of the equipment is still functioning," Tanner said.
They made their way into the cluster of deserted buildings, entering the first that was open and looked relatively stable. There was no way of determining what the place had been; by the looks of it, every trace of habitation had been removed. It was eerie, like standing in a pillaged cemetery. Tanner didn't like it, but swallowed on the feeling and made herself look around, peering into the shadows and the dust that danced lightly in the few shafts of sunlight that found their way in through cracks in the structure.
"It almost looks as if it's been looted," Tanner commented.
She saw T'Sarak nod. The lights from their helmets, now necessary, bounced off the dirty grey walls.
"It's entirely possible," her friend agreed. "Any races in this area may have made use of free materials. Or perhaps the people who established the base took everything with them when they left."
"But why did they leave?" Tanner asked. "And where did they go?"
T'Sarak didn't say anything; Vulcans weren't given to attempting to answer rhetorical questions. Tanner supposed the virus was a good enough reason to leave. Had they unleashed it accidentally upon themselves and then fled? Or had someone else set out to destroy them? Had they succeeded? She felt a twinge of frustration and took a deep breath to wash it away. Eleven months living on a Vulcan ship had taught her a lot, not least the ability to control her emotions.
The sound of the com cut through the dead air around them.
"Turan to Tanner."
Tanner tapped her combadge.
"Tanner here."
"Commander, I believe you and Commander T'Sarak should join us. We've found something."
Tanner and T'Sarak scrambled up the rocky slope and found Turan and Jaim just over the crest of the hill. The area in which the other team had been sent to work was hilly and rocky. Tanner wondered if the planet had been this inhospitable when it had been settled, or if the virus was responsible for the way the area was now.
"What is it?" she asked, not needing to raise her voice. The com links inside the EV suits relayed her words to all three of her team members. Jaim was crouching down next to a shallow hole in the ground and Turan had risen and turned to face the human and Vulcan women. Jaim looked up, beckoning them over, and Tanner and T'Sarak hurried across the uneven ground.
The hole contained several scraps of cloth, a black metal instrument of some kind, and a small silver device.
"What is it?" Tanner repeated.
"The remnants of a Starfleet uniform, an old communicator and old tricorder," Jaim replied.
Tanner and T'Sarak exchanged a look; Tanner had never seen her friend look surprised. It was a bit disconcerting, on a Vulcan face. But they had checked the Federation database before beaming down, and there were no records of any Starfleet or Federation ships in this area, let alone away teams on the surface.
"How old is it?" Tanner asked.
"Judging by the tricorder readings, approximately one hundred years," Turan replied.
"One hundred years," Tanner repeated softly, to herself.
"And there are other graves," Jaim said, nodding to her right. Tanner followed the Bolian's gaze and saw the tell tale low mounds on the surface. "We've counted eighteen in the area."
Tanner raised her eyebrows.
"Buried with their instruments? Why?"
Jaim shook her head.
"No idea," she replied. She looked away for a moment, then back.
"Ensign?" Tanner said sharply.
"Nothing, sir. Just– dizzy. These suits."
Tanner almost nodded in agreement, then stopped herself short. Jaim had never complained about the EV suits before. Of course, she wasn't required to tell Tanner she disliked them, but it seemed wrong. Tanner had always listened to her intuition, and T'Sarak had trained her to do so even more now that her telepathic abilities were active.
She rose carefully, looking around her, and cautiously opened her mind. Sensations flooded her mind instantly; after a hundred years, they hadn't diminished. For a moment, Tanner felt she would drown in the panic and the desperation, but kept herself afloat. She set her jaw and balled her hands into fists in their gloves.
"Commander?" Turan asked.
She shook her head, holding up one hand, aware T'Sarak was watching her carefully. Tanner concentrated on the graves, then felt a stab of nausea hit her. She turned back to her crew.
"We need to get out of here," Tanner said. "This place isn't safe."
"Commander," Turan said again, but T'Sarak gave her a quick look. She alone out of all the crew knew about Tanner's genetic anomaly.
"Something happened here, something– evil." There was no other word for the sensation she was getting now. Something had killed these people, deliberately. Jaim moved to stand up, then pitched forward, almost falling into the grave. Turan, with his quick Vulcan reflexes, caught her, hauling her back and holding onto her. She swayed a moment, then collapsed altogether. Alarmed, Tanner hit her combadge.
"Away team to Blessing Way. Emergency beam–" She heard her own voice catch and tried to swallow, but felt as if she could not move. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw T'Sarak stumble, as if she'd been hit or her legs had given out. Tanner tried to move to catch her friend, but her body no longer worked. She saw the empty red sky again as she fell, and felt the impact on her knees before everything vanished.
Shannon Tanner awoke in the darkness, unable to move. Instinct tried to kick in, but Starfleet and Vulcan training overrode it almost immediately.
Don't panic, she told herself, bringing her fear to heel. She lay very still – mostly because she could not do anything else – and very carefully dropped the mental walls T'Sarak had so patiently taught her to build. It was her Vulcan friend's presence she sensed first, followed by that of Turan, then Jaim. All three of them seemed to be unconscious.
The next mind she picked up was Doctor Fahad el Naser, the Blessing Way's chief medical officer. There was no one else around, but Tanner's ears were still working, and she could hear the faint hum and beeps of machinery. It seemed she was in sickbay.
That was a good start, but she had no idea what had happened to them. Trying to read el Naser's mind was impossible. His thoughts were too scattered at the moment and his mental voice was a mixture of English and another language, probably Arabic, which Tanner did not understand.
She pondered her options for a moment, then decided she really only had one good one. It made her nervous, but Julian Bashir had told her she could trust el Naser, if she needed to. Now she needed to, quite desperately.
"Fahad," she thought. He nearly fell off of his chair, so great was his shock. Tanner felt it like a blow. She recoiled mentally for a moment, then rallied.
"Shannon?" she heard his voice asking, hesitantly. Then a couple of reluctant footsteps.
"Yes, it's me. Listen carefully. You're not crazy. You're hearing my voice in your mind. I'm a telepath."
There was more shock and confusion. She heard the words "I didn't know you were a Betazoid" flit through his mind and wanted to shake her head.
"You have to speak out loud. It's hard for me to get clear words from your mind. And I'm not a Betazoid. I'm human."
She heard him come closer, the sound of his boots loud and lonely on the hard floor of the sickbay.
"How?" he asked, stunned. Then she felt realization dawn in him. He was a smart man; Tanner had guessed he'd put it together quickly. "Your brain wave readings."
"Yes. I have a genetic anomaly in one of the sequences coding for my brain, or something like that. It's a long story. I'll explain, but right now, I need you to tell me what's happened."
Tanner heard him stop and the strength of his presence was such that she suspected he was standing next to her. The sound of a tricorder confirmed it, then she felt his hand on her arm. Despite his shock, which was strong, she felt a profound sense of concern. Tanner was surprised herself; she'd never realized he cared so much about her.
That was for another time. She set her own emotions aside, as the Vulcans had so painstakingly taught her to do, and refocused her concentration.
"You and the others were infected by the virus on the planet's surface. We don't know how yet. Engineering is working on it, but Aleshma told us it looks like the virus was designed to penetrate your equipment."
"Designed?" Tanner asked. She could feel how discomfited el Naser was by the sound of her voice in his head. She understood. Try being on my end, she thought wryly, but kept that to herself. At least he was trying. Starfleet officers were trained to deal with the unusual and unexpected and to act like professionals under any circumstance. El Naser was doing an admirable job.
"It was genetically engineered," he replied. "It has distinct markers, although they're subtle. And the virus was designed to paralyze its victim so he or she couldn't seek help. That means, without any external assistance, the victim would die. A dead host isn't beneficial to a parasite."
"What about the rest of the crew?" Tanner demanded, fighting to keep another wave of rising panic down.
"We had the four of you in containment fields until we eradicated it from the environmental systems. Deraan and I devised a vaccine to keep the uninfected from being exposed, but we haven't been able to find a cure for any of you yet."
"How are the others?"
"Unconscious and paralyzed, but alive. We're able to keep their vital systems going on life support until we figure this out."
"Fahad, you said this virus was deliberately engineered. We have to get back to the planet."
"We're not going anywhere near there!" el Naser replied firmly. "The captain's already put up warning buoys."
"No, listen to me!" Tanner insisted. "We found graves on the surface. At least eighteen Starfleet officers were buried down there! With their tricorders. They were murdered, Fahad. Left to die from this virus. We need to get ahold of those tricorders. Whoever put them in the graves might have done so for a reason."
"Starfleet officers?" the doctor asked, shocked. "There's no record of any Starfleet ship in this area."
"I know," Tanner replied. "But the equipment was about a hundred years old, by Turan's judgment."
"A hundred years? Are you sure?"
"No, I don't know anything about equipment from that time. But Turan is certain."
"There was no treaty with the Klingons back then," el Naser said. "This was too close to the border for comfort."
"They were here," Tanner said. "And we need to find out why. Eighteen people, maybe more, died because of this. It wasn't an accident."
"And what am I supposed to tell Captain Yusumi?" the doctor enquired.
"Whatever you need to," Tanner replied, keeping the resignation out of her mental voice.
El Naser hesitated; Tanner felt it.
"How many people know about this?" he asked. "About you, I mean."
"Including you now, four," Tanner replied.
"I'll think of something to tell Yusumi," he promised her. "In the meantime, we'll keep working on this. Do you have any objections to being treated by the EMH if necessary?"
Instinct made Tanner want to shake her head. It was frustrating not to be able to.
"No," she replied.
"Good. We'll get to the bottom of this."
It was oh-six hundred when everyone convened in the briefing room, looking tired. Captain Atri Yusumi looked slightly worn, but calm. Commander Vanek, who was Vulcan, looked exactly like he always looked: composed and rested. El Naser felt a twinge of envy for that Vulcan constitution. Lieutenant Commander Aleshma Sh'rain, their chief engineer, looked as if she hadn't slept much. Deraan, el Naser noted, looked about the same. He wondered if their other mates, Treiss and Ch'lan, hadn't slept well either. He had no real idea what it like for Andorian mates, how closely they felt the stress of their family members. The ship's security and tactical chief, Zimna Dein, a joined Trill, looked as if he'd rested well enough. El Naser had always wondered if that was an effect of the symbiont: either the ability to sleep when necessary or a strong immunity to fatigue. Ensign Marik Meress, their chief helm officer, looked unsettled and restive.
El Naser himself hadn't had any sleep, trying vainly to find a cure for his four patients in sickbay and struggling to think of some way to cover up Tanner's abilities while at the same time convince Yusumi to return to the planet.
"Eighteen graves," Sh'rain said, saving el Naser an entire night's worrying and devising. "Their tricorders recorded this shortly before we beamed them back to the ship. The unusual thing about these graves is that the one they examined, at least, had Starfleet equipment in it."
There was a shocked murmur from around the table; el Naser joined in, and not just for appearances. It was one thing to hear it from Tanner. It was quite another to have it confirmed by her team's tricorders. It made it seem more real.
"How old?" Yusumi asked, demonstrating her uncanny ability to hit the nail right on the head.
"About a hundred years, according to the scans they took."
"Why would anyone bury their dead with tricorders?" Dein asked.
"To send a message," el Naser said. All assembled shifted their gazes to him. He made an almost dismissive gesture with one hand, thinking of Tanner lying in the sickbay, able to communicate with him despite the fact that she could not move. It was a strange sensation, having someone else's voice inside one's head. "We discovered the virus was engineered. That means the people buried on the surface probably died of it. What if they wanted to tell us something? To get a message to the people who would eventually find them?"
Yusumi didn't look convinced, but Vanek was nodding slowly.
"That is a logical conclusion," he said. He glanced at Yusumi and saw her doubt. "Captain, there is no logic in deliberately burying someone with his or her equipment unless it was meant for someone to find. Tricorders do not generally constitute grave goods."
El Naser covered up a smile at the comment and noticed Dein trying to do the same. Who said Vulcans didn't have a sense of humour?
"Good point," the captain said, either not noticing or ignoring the expressions of some of her officers. "But we can't go back there and get back to the surface, not without being exposed to the virus."
"We could beam up the equipment we know of," Sh'rain suggested.
"And if Deraan and I can come up with a cure for this thing, we might be able to flood the atmosphere with it. If we can destroy the virus, we can easily get back to the surface and find what we're looking for," el Naser said.
"How big of an 'if" is that?" Yusumi asked.
"I think we can do it," el Naser said, leaning forward, folding his hands on the table. In fact, they had to do it. He had no intentions of letting the four science officers in sickbay remain comatose for the rest of their lives, dependent on life support. "I have the EMH running as well; it could be useful in conducting our research."
"How?" Vanek enquired.
"The EMH contains almost all of the medical knowledge available to Starfleet medical," Deraan replied. "It probably knows about research Fahad and I have never heard of." The human doctor nodded his head in support of his colleague's statement.
"Keep me updated," Yusumi said. "I don't think we have a choice but to go back there. At least one Starfleet officer was buried on that planet, where no records exist of any Starfleet mission ever finding this place. Someone is trying to keep us in the dark. Dein, I want you and your teams working on our sensors and weapons. If whoever did this is still around, even after a hundred years, I want to know immediately. Sh'rain, work with the doctors in establishing decontamination procedures for any equipment we bring on board, and get a team together to prepare atmospheric charges. Vanek, you and I are going to research every piece of information we can find on this sector. We might be able to use T'Palik's help here, too. Meress, work with engineering to make sure engines and navigation are at one hundred percent. If we need to leave in a hurry, I want to be able to do so. Dismissed."
The assembled officers rose and filed out, leaving Yusumi and Vanek in the briefing room to begin their research. Deraan bid good-bye to Sh'rain and joined el Naser in a turbolift heading toward sickbay.
"Any progress overnight?" the Andorian physician asked as the small capsule bore them quickly toward the medical bay.
"None," el Naser said. It wasn't really a lie. He'd made no progress in reviving any of his patients. And it hadn't really been him who had made progress communicating with one of them. Tanner had done that on her own.
"I was afraid you'd say that," Deraan admitted. "You look like you've been dragged through a warp core. Get some sleep."
El Naser shook his head.
"You'll need my help," he pointed out.
"Those four science officers do, too," Deraan replied. "But you won't be any help to them if you're exhausted."
"Chief medical officer," el Naser replied.
"I can override you," Deraan said.
"Do me a favour and don't. Not this time. I need to do this."
Deraan shot el Naser a look the human doctor decided not to interpret. The turbolift doors hissed open, admitting them to an empty corridor. They stepped into sickbay a moment later, greeted by the smiling face of the EMH who was helping Lieutenant T'Sarak sit up. One of the nurses, Ensign Kelly, was assisting Lieutenant Turan. Both Vulcans looked bewildered – an expression el Naser was definitely not used to seeing on any Vulcan's face. They looked tired as well, but, aside from that, fine.
"Good news," the hologram said. "Two of your patients have recovered."