Chapter Five

"And you have no idea how this happened?" Sisko asked, startled.

The Doctor shook his head. On the biobed before them, the Vulcan lay deceased, a gaping cavity in the center of his chest staring up at them. The Doctor had discovered him when he was finishing his nightly routine.

"I called you as soon as I discovered him," the doctor said. "I have yet to find out the cause."

Sisko mulled it over. "Is it possible we have a murderer loose on the station?" he asked, thinking about the three missing officers from the shuttlebay.

"That's just it," Bashir said, moving closer to the body. He pointed to the fringes of the cavity. "In any puncture, there is a significant distinction between an exit wound and an entrance wound. Whatever happened to this Vulcan, whatever tore his chest apart, did so from the inside."

Sisko frowned. "Are you suggesting his chest simply exploded?"

Bashir shook his head. "My scans picked up some anomalous readings from the Vulcan, readings the computer hasn't been able to identify. After this turn of events, I cab guess what those readings were from." The doctor stepped closer to the Vulcan, as if studying the wound. "Most parasitical organisms live within their hosts, taking in sustenance. Once grown, they exit the body to start their new life apart from their host. In this case, the birth of the parasite was obviously a very violent and fatal one."

Sisko mulled over Bashir's words. "So you think the Vulcan was infected with an alien parasite."

"Without any concrete evidence to the contrary, that would be my best medical explanation," Bashir said.

"If that's true," Sisko said, staring at the doctor with a grave look on his face, "then what happened to the parasite?"

"There's something else as well," Bashir said, walking over to one of his medical displays. On the monitor was a series of DNA models. "I was able to at least partially identify that sample you sent me from the shuttlebay."

"What did you find?" Sisko asked.

"I was able to take a micro cellular sample from the edges' of the Vulcan's wounds," Bashir said, pointing to one of the DNA strands on the monitor. "This other one," he said, pointing to another model on the screen, "was taken from the substance found on the shuttle." He turned to face Sisko, letting the full weight of what he was saying sink in. "The two samples are identical. Whatever came out of the Vulcan is the same kind of organism that secreted the liquid that melted through the shuttles' warp core."

Sisko stared at the two models before him. This creature, or at least something like it, was responsible for destroying the Vulcan's' warp engine. And now this same type of organism was loose on the station. Sisko stared hard at the monitors, carefully planning his next course of action.

"I want a sample of this DNA downloaded into the tricorder of every security officer we have," Sisko said after a moments' pause. "I want this creature found as quickly and as quietly as we can."

"I'll get it done immediately, Captain," Bashir said. Sisko nodded, and then turned and left the Doctor to his ministrations.

-----

Rom noticed two things almost immediately. The first was that he was someplace dark, and cramped, and very, very warm. The second, and perhaps the most disturbing of all, was that his entire body was encased in some type of tight-fitting cocoon. Ropy strands of some kind of organic material welded his head to the wall he was affixed against, and it took all the strength his little Ferengi body could muster just to turn his head to see his surroundings.

I'm not sure, but I think I'm in the stations' reactor core. In the distance he could hear the steady thrum of machinery but the air had a murky, smoke-like quality to it, and he wasn't able to see more than a few inches in front of him. A few inches, however, was all he needed to know he was trouble. Big trouble.

Something shifted on his right. Rom looked over and saw Ensign Carson, one of the engineers Chief O'Brien had sent to help him. He was semi-conscious, strapped to the wall by the same type of cocoon that Rom was. He turned his head to the left and saw Lieutenant Mackery, also bound and gagged by that strange, organic material.

Another noise brought his attention to the front. It was a wet, pulsating sound, and it was only after he squinted his already strained eyes that he noticed the three, egg-shaped pods on the floor before them. The middle pod, the one directly in front of him, quivered again, rippling from top to bottom, and then suddenly its top opened, the sides folding back upon itself like the thick, fleshy petals of some exotic flower. Rom strained forward, as far as his bonds would allow him, trying to see what was inside the pod. Something quivered at the top, something that looked like a wet, throbbing hand. Then the pod shuddered again and the thing flung itself out of its enclosure at Rom, its bony fingers digging into the soft flesh of Rom's skull. Something hard and unforgiving was thrust through Rom's mouth and down his gullet, and as the finger's tightened and his entire face was covered by that bony organic parasite, his movements ceased and his consciousness fled.