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, all in twenty hours, and before that she'd paid the ultimate sacrifice by giving her life up for the cause only to be resurrected by her long-lost mother. He had seen it all; he still did when he closed his eyes. It went against everything he believed in; to sacrifice someone, no matter the stakes. What he had just witnessed and Doctor Burnham's words chilled him to the bone and would continue to do so for a long time.

"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 tone.

He shuddered as he thought back upon it, wondering what she'd seen. However, the worst thing wasn't what Doctor Burnham might have indicated about his future but the mission itself and what had taken place at Essof IV.

His skin crawled at the mere thought of a mission, sanctioned by Starfleet, in which the purpose was to sacrifice a life of a very capable and bright young officer under his command. It had seemed so inhuman, so unnecessary, that it had sickened him. His faith in the Fleet, in the entire Federation, had crumpled there and then. The minute Admiral Cornwell had agreed with Burnham to lure the 'Red Angel' to come to them using her, his science officer, as a bait, he'd been ready to hand in his resignation. He'd felt that, if this was what Starfleet had become while the Enterprise had been away, some darker version of the peace keeping and diplomatic organization he had signed on for, then maybe, it was time to leave.

Christopher Pike had encountered many strange species during his first five-year-mission. He'd made a few first contacts that had gone south, he'd lost crewmen and gotten himself injured but he'd also made a lot of friends out there, solved mysteries, mapped large regions of space and seen things he'd never thought existed. During that time the Enterprise's crew had become a tight bunch, they worked like a well-oiled machine. Whatever happened, whatever they'd encountered, they'd dealt with it and moved on. He'd gotten used to not having backup and to rely on his crew and his own experience to get out of sticky situations. Now this, smaller vessel, was different. He'd never felt as lonely back out there in the unknown as he did now back in Federation space onboard the Discovery.

He felt weary of Admiral Cornwell, not sure what had become of her, and he was annoyed at having Leland tracking him all the time. Now, Cornwell had left the Discovery and Leland had taken off at a run which had left Pike utterly confused because the Leland he knew would never flee from anything or anyone. Or was it simply that his old friend left to gather his forces?

"Captain Pike, please report to sickbay," Bryce's voice suddenly sounded over the general communications channel.

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. "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 in the mess hall, for that I apologize," 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 rewarded 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 came into the room. "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, she'd rather put him into a medically induced sleep.

Tyler grunted.

The captain looked equally unhappy as he walked up the bed that was flanked by a doctor on each side. He came to a stop next to Tracy and nodded at the two medically trained professionals before he turned to Tyler. "It seems Leland ran off with fifty four 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 carefully looked from Tracy to Hugh and then back at Tyler again. "What do you mean?" he asked.

Ash 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. "He believes she's a threat to him. We have to stop him."

"She's not his top-priority at the moment. 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.

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

At that Pike pursed his lips into a thin line of displeasure. He nodded at Tyler and glanced at the vitals displayed over his head. "I'll deal with that when the time comes," he assured him. "I think you'll 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 the conversation he and Paul had had when he'd come 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 a muted setting," she replied sheepishly.

Saru was about to say something when Pike's voice sounded loud and clear over the com-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 eight people were seated around the conference table in the captain's ready room. Commander Michael Burnham, Commander Saru, Doctor Culber, Commander Paul Stamets, Commander Nhan, Spock, Commander 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 then blew up the facility on the planet and effectively ended the download of the sphere data to Section 31. Unfortunately, Captain Leland still managed to retrieve 54 percent of the files from Discovery."

"There is no trace of him anywhere, sir," Nhan reported.

"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 curtly, 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. "Long range sensors recorded a signal from the gamma quadrant. Not much is known about that particular area of space yet. Three years ago, Starfleet Command ordered the Enterprise to pick up a set of probes on a scheduled supply run. We were to travel as close to the gamma quadrant as we dared without compromising our maximum dilithium range and send a message."

Spock leaned forward in his chair and added in an even voice; "Eleven months, ten days and seven hours later, one of the probes that the Enterprise dispatched returned. It carried a message on its own."

"It deliberately sought out the Enterprise and it nearly destroyed the ship," Nhan added coldly.

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

"No, they didn't," Pike replied. "After the probe incident and a few months in drydock we set out to investigate a nebula. Let's just say that 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. He was pretty sure they both thought back upon Una and her fascinating companion, working as one.

"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. "During the probe incident, 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 Christopher Pike had 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 Captain Pike had had to work hard 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 and elicited a faint upward twitch of Pike's lips.

"I was one of the seventy," he admitted 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 archive places the signal's origin from somewhere in 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, '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 as he slipped out of the room.

"Are we notifying Admiral Cornwell, sir?" Saru asked curiously as he got out of his chair.

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 as she walked up to him. "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.

"How are you doing, sir?" she asked curiously.

He frowned, wondering what she was getting at.

"I heard what my mother said to you about your future," she let on.

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. Why don't we head to the bridge and see just what the future might bring, shall we?" he suggested and gestured for her to follow.

OOOOOO

To be continued