Leo felt like he'd been punched in the gut. A bioweapon in an environment like the camp wasn't just an epidemic in the making, it was an outright pandemic, one that could have already spread elsewhere.

Including the Aurora.

"Rest assured, Doctor Gillam, that medbay is preparing for a full bio-scan of the ship, and to receive any cases." The warbling tone to Diptheek's words made clear his own stress at the situation. He was, Leo recalled, a practicing xenovirologist, and this kind of problem was what he both trained for and dreaded to see.

"And we're under quarantine for the time being, until we learn more about transmission vectors," Leo added. He watched as Nysha seemed to be on the verge of a panic attack at the news. He didn't blame her, given the damage a sickness like this could do to her little community.

It was Spencer who spoke up next after remaining silent for the first few beats. "Don't panic just yet Nysha. There's someone else on this planet with advanced tech. More than that, the telepath isn't sick. Even with - the way terrorist cells work - prolonged contact. The symptoms are also all neurological, even the cough and auto-immune reaction..." At that point, she almost looked like she wanted to laugh a little bit, but she didn't. "I think this bioweapon is targeted to mundanes, or rather, designed to exclude telepaths. I'll send up some clean tissue samples for culturing, but you'll want to focus in on the serotonin and acetylcholine receptors. They're subtly different between us and mundanes - practically the only thing that shows up on the surface of a neuron in both latent and active telepaths, so that's probably how the virus is binding."

"Doctors, can you verify that telepaths are immune?" Kaveri asked them.

"Easily," trilled Ke'mani'pala. "I will examine the biochemistry of the virus and how it interacts with the samples Doctor Spencer provides. The results should not take very long to confirm."

"Could you use this information to come up with a vaccine or a cure?" Robert asked.

"Oh sure. We'd need a retrovirus, probably something custom to deliver… well I know of CRISPR-based gene-editing but you might have something better. Basically cut the mundane versions of either the AChR or the various 5-HT1 receptors, and replace with the telepath versions, along with a promoter to ensure transcription. It won't fix the damage that's already done, but it will vaccinate. Hmm. Will probably need to include something to deactivate the old receptor too. So you'll need a cocktail of retroviruses that also includes an irreversible competitive inhibitor."

Diptheek nodded his head once. "I concur with Doctor Spencer, and our iso-lab has the means to create a suitable series of retroviral agents. I'll give priority to the vaccine, we'll need to begin creating preventative zones immediately around the site to avoid the disease's spread."

"We'll need to figure out if it's spread by some sort of animal vector too. If it is, that makes our lives more difficult." She added.

Ke'mani'pala trilled in response. "I will be continuing my examination of the virus. I find its biochemistry interesting."

"Meanwhile we can talk to the cell's telepath and find out more about how they got sick," Richmond suggested, looking toward Kusko.

"I'll see what I can do. Maybe she'll open up if she believes we're trying to cure or prevent the disease." Kusko paused for a moment, and smiled, though the look was very measured. "By the way, can you stop calling her the cell's telepath?"

Abigail winced "Yeah… I wasn't going to say anything because she hasn't given anyone her name and we don't want to play the pronoun game forever but let's not denote ownership or membership."

"I was speaking loosely, in that she's part of the cell for a reason we've yet to confirm," Richmond pointed out. "But your point is accepted."

"We are due to brief Deputy Secretary Crawford on this situation," Kaveri said. "Please keep us informed of any developments."

One by one the screens shut down. The assembled glanced at one another for a moment. "Just in case, I'm going to make sure the militia's keeping an eye out for anyone else with symptoms," Nysha said. "Let me know if anything else happens."

"I'll get back to surgery," Leo said. "We still have a few cases from yesterday that need follow-up operations. Let me know if you need anything, Doctor Spencer?"

"Will do Dr. Gillam, hopefully some of the brains in the freezers still have viable cells, if not, I'll have to get creative with a microtransporter."

"Somehow, I don't think I want to know," Richmond murmured before walking away with Kusko.

The Aurora and Koenig command officers were present with Deputy Secretary Crawford's staff for the meeting in Conference Room 1. Robert waited patiently while Dr. Allen-Epstein, the Koenig's medical officer, provided the briefing to Crawford on the bioweapon. His staff betrayed understandable horror at the thought.

It was Meridina who raised the obvious question. "How do we inform the United Earth authorities?"

"Carefully," Henjasaram advised. "Minister Marias will likely accuse us of creating it, as things stand."

"That man's a few cards short of a pack," Crawford muttered. "But you're right about that."

"Neither can we keep it from them," one of the Dorei staffers said. "And their own intelligence and security services will be aware of this on their own soon enough."

"I'll make the call, and promise full cooperation," said Crawford. "It'll make for an interestin' meeting tomorrow, that's for sure." He looked toward Robert. "Anything on those guns they showed us, Captain?"

"We're developing a plan that might tell us whether there are any more on the planet, and where they are," Robert answered. "We should have the solution ready soon."

"Then I'd better get to work on my end. Now, Captain, I don't want any problems with these people, so I'd like you to be cautious about launchin' your own raids. I'm speakin' with the President's authority on the matter."

"I'll consult with you, of course."

The word "consult" was not the same thing as "seek permission", and both men knew it, just as both men knew the latitude given to Paladins. Robert hoped his tone of voice and sincerity would make it clear he wanted to work with Crawford. The older man answered with a nod and a tip of his Stetson before leading his people out.

Any further departure was stopped by the way Robert pointedly returned to his chair. Once Crawford and his people were gone Kaveri directed her attention his way. "Captain, I can see you have something more."

"Yes. A new discovery, classified, that may shed light on this." Robert folded his hands on the table. "We've been going at this believing rogue elements in the Alliance were responsible. But there's another, more chilling possibility."

"The SS?" Angel proposed. "They could've fooled with captured weapons."

"Worse. What I'm about to tell you doesn't leave the room." Once they all nodded in affirmation Robert continued speaking. "For the last several weeks, the Starship Huáscar has been on a classified mission to F7S4."

"The hothouse Earth, you mean?" Cat asked.

"That's the one. Long-range scans by the best sensors in the Alliance found an abnormality in the Cyrannus Cluster System, or as we know it…"

"Helios," finished Gina. "The Colonies of Kobol."

"Yes. And in F7S4, it was different."

"Wait, different?" Cat's interest was piqued. "How?"

Robert answered by keying the holotank, displaying the star cluster in question. "This is Cyrannus as it appears in N2S7 and elsewhere." With another key tap he created a second image. "This is Cyrannus in F7S4. Admiral Maran and Admiral Davies dispatched the Huáscar to investigate last month."

The differences were obvious. The second Cyrannus had an extra main sequence star and several more smaller stars. Cat gawked and then let out a little shriek of excitement. "Oh my God, ohmyGodthatsawesome. I have to ask Vee!"

"She won't be able to tell you anything, even if you admit to knowing," Robert pointed out.

"Why has it taken so long?" Locarno asked. "They should've made it there in a few weeks, at most."

"The same long range scans identified a subspace dampening field around the system," Robert answered. "It'd make warp entry impossible. They had to spend a month working their way in on impulse power."

"Well now, that's a scary thought," Scotty said from his chair. "A subspace field o' that size, stoppin' all warp? Maybe those extra stars are for powerin' it?"

"They weren't. Because the Huáscar found this."

With another key press Robert replaced the image of the cluster with that of an old hulk of a ship. It was a ship, with something of the form of a squared rocket, tapering toward the nose. Two great squared oblong deck clusters thrust up from the main hull, and what might have been the track of a mass driver lay along the dorsal hull. The armour was thick, immensely thick, twenty metres or more, and was gouged and torn in every place. She hung in space, a ghost ship of an ancient battle, her bow splotched with colours which might have once been a shield or standard. She was enormous, three times the length of the Aurora by the scale on the image-three kilometres long.

"Wait a damn minute." Angel leaned forward. "I recognize that. It was in the Darglans' old records of potential threats."

The way Jarod's face went white brought everyone else's attention. "Commander?"

At Kaveri's comment Jarod rubbed at his eyes, as if to make sure of what he was seeing. "I've seen that before," he said. "From research I started earlier this year. From our trip to the Fracture." He pointed. "That ship matches old records in S0T5. It's a Venguer-class dreadnought, a capital ship of the Earthreign."

A hushed silence filled the room. "The Earthreign, ye say?" Scotty gave him a bewildered look. "Aren't those th' scunners that used t' be th' rulers of S0T5?"

"Most of the people in the Fracture just call them the Reign, and refer to their collapse as the Reignfall," Jarod clarified. "Which happened three thousand years ago." A particular look came to his eyes.

Robert nodded at him, showing he'd already made that connection. "For the benefit of everyone who doesn't know, three thousand years ago was when the Darglan were forced to give up interuniversal travel. It was when Swenya rose to prominence and led the Gersallians of her time into a terrible war that few came back from. It was about the time of the atomic destruction of the Earth in the N2S7 universe, and we believe the ancestors of the Colonists of Kobol would've left just beforehand. And, as Jarod just reminded us, it's when the Earthreign of S0T5 collapsed, their Earth vanished, and an entire section of the galaxy around where Earth is meant to be is now a shattered region of space-time."

"That's a lot of things happenin' at once," Scotty observed. "I dinnae believe in coincidences like that."

"All of these things are related," Kaveri said.

"We know the Darkness War was multiversal in some way," Robert said. "The Doctor's description was clear that they've threatened other universes before. They invaded that Darglan Facility we found at Gamma Piratus and forced the Darglan to evacuate and trigger a suicide charge on the people left behind."

"And now we have an Earthreign warship in another universe," Meridina said. "Did the Darglan bring it there for some reason? To help fight the war?"

Robert didn't answer with words. He tapped the holotank control again. A new image came up, from the interior of a ship. "Commander Fera'Xero and officers from the Huáscar took this image while examining the ship in question."

"Holy crap!" Tom leaned in. "That's an IU drive! An original Darglan model IU drive!"

Cat stared. "It is. How did the Earthreign get their hands on that? The Darglan didn't even share it with the Asgard!"

Robert folded his hands on the table. "I admit I wasn't going to show this to you just yet. I had to plead with Admiral Maran to do it now, since Portland's still going crazy at the ramifications. But given what's happening below us, I think we have to consider how this comes together."

"What, you think that some people from the Earthreign are still out here, causing trouble?" asked Lt. Cmdr. Magda Navaez, XO and Operations officer of the Koenig and an old Facility hand. "That they're behind this?"

"You think some of them survived, Rob?"

To Zack's question Robert shrugged. "I don't know if any survived in another universe, although what the Huáscar found certainly hints at it. But what I'm talking about is a regime we've already met. People who are just as ruthless and totalitarian as the Earthreign was said to have been, who come from the same region of space. People we've already run into that we know have Darglan technology."

"NEUROM," Jarod said harshly. "You think it's them."

"We know they have Darglan deflector technology," Cat offered.

"And they have advanced ships with unique FTL drives, as we saw at the Citadel and DS9," Robert added.

"It'd be easy for them to refine leftover Darglan weapons from the Darkness War into what we've found here, the same thing with any salvaged deflector systems," Tom offered. "But holy crap man, do you get what you're saying?"

"That somehow they have access to Darglan IU drives? I do, and it scares the crap out of me, but it fits." Robert gestured to the screen. "If the Darglan, for whatever reason, let the Earthreign use their drives, then NEUROM's founders might've gotten their hands on an example. Along with all of the other Darglan technology we've seen them use."

"So this entire time, all these last thousands of years, those golden-uniformed jerks with their creepy dominatrix agents have had IU tech?" Zack shook his head. "But you'd think we'd have found a sign of that before now. They're willing to conquer other worlds, right, why wouldn't they conquer into other universes?"

"The fate of the Darglan, perhaps?" Kaveri kept a calm tone. "The material I have been given to read states that the Vorlons and other First One races punished them for something related to using the technology. Maybe they feared having the same done to them."

Robert nodded in agreement. "That's just what I was thinking. I mean, imagine it. They sit on it for millennia because they're worried about letting the Darkness back in, or of getting the attention of ancient races, the forces the Doctor warned us about. Then we come along. They sit, and wait, but there's no sign of any problems. No Darkness, no Vorlons coming after us. The Alliance just keeps going."

"And they figure it's safe now," Locarno said. "So they start looking into other universes too."

"Exactly," Robert shook his head ruefully. "The final piece is in Yellow warning us about Sovereign's debris. It implied detailed knowledge of another universe which might only come from, say, a Darglan database they have access to and we don't."

"So here we are with someone handing out refined Darglan weapons to destabilize the world, in a way calculated to undermine our relations when we came along."

Jarod brought a finger up. "If the bioweapon is theirs, there might be mention of it in S0T5 historical materials. Buried under a bunch of metaphor, most likely, but still there."

"It's something to look into, and it makes this situation all the more important," Robert remarked. "NEUROM's been pushing at us this year, especially that attack on DS9. This might be their opening move for expanding on the interuniversal level."

"Aye, it's always somethin' else," muttered Scotty.

"Well, if it is them trying to get through the door, I say we slam it in their face," Angel said, flexing a fist.

"If at all possible, Lieutenant, that is precisely what we should do," Kaveri agreed. "But our first priority remains the mission at hand. Commander Jarod, how soon until your sensor recalibrations are complete?"

"We should be able to commence scans by tomorrow," he answered.

"Excellent. Let us know when we get results. Everyone else, I suggest we go to standby running. If Captain Dale is correct, there is the possibility we will face NEUROM warships at some point, and we need to be ready."

"We will initiate Code Blue running status immediately," Meridina said.

"Then we are finished here, unless Captain Dale has more to share?"

"I don't," Robert said. "This is the relevant part of the information."

"Very well. You are all dismissed."

Richmond waited with Kusko while the telepath was brought back from the cells installed on the Brahmaputra. The teen still looked sullen and uncooperative, but Richmond thought she could see the signs of relenting she'd hoped for. The time to realize how much trouble she was in would hopefully press the young lady toward more cooperation.

By common agreement between the two Kusko went first.

"Hey, you doing alright? Relatively speaking?" Kusko asked gently.

The girl looked at her with hooded eyes. At first Richmond thought there would be no verbal response, but it came eventually. "I'm not in pain. But I don't matter. Linda and the others, they're real people, you should be asking them."

"You're a real person too."

"We're test tube babies. The Unies made us to spy on other people and make them obey the world government."

"Do you think that telepaths across multiple universes were created by this piddly little government?" Kusko pulled up a chair and sat down.

"I don't know about other universes, I don't even know you're really from one!" The girl gestured around. "This could be a trick. A stage you've set up to trick me and make me think this! But I know the truth."

"And what truth is that, young lady?" Richmond asked.

"Psifreaks shouldn't exist," the girl said. "We're wrong. Our powers are wrong. We're not natural. People aren't meant to read others' minds or control their bodies like that."

Richmond kept the pleased smile she felt from forming on her face. "You heard these things from that woman, Linda, right? How did she justify you doing that very thing to Doctor Gillam, after he got you away from those soldiers?"

The girl bit into ler lip and snarled. She crossed her arms and it was clear from her body language she wouldn't be answering.

"Ignore her." Kusko said flatly. You're not actually helping Lieutenant.

Richmond returned the thought carefully. The more she's angry at me, the more leeway you might have to make this work.

Point. And I get to play good cop. New at this. She replied. "Look, here's what I know. There are human telepaths in six different universes that I know of. This one, my home universe, the Spencer's, and several others I haven't met anyone from. There might be more. In all of them, telepaths emerged sometime in the early space-age across a period of thousands of years. In the Spencer's home universe I live in now, most other space-faring species have telepaths. And in all of them, the genetics are… eerily similar. Do you know what that means?"

"That other governments also want to spy on their people, obviously." The words were not said with much meaning behind them, more out of obstinate defiance than anything.

"No. If that were true, they'd all be different. Similar solutions to the same problem maybe, but not identical. In my universe telepathy manifested spontaneously in many spacedwellers-"spacenoids"-simultaneously. And a heck of a lot of us were anti-Earth Federation. Your equivalent of Dissolutionists. Spacenoid Independence activists, if you want to call us that."

Richmond turned her head back to Kusko. This is going to take more time. I think I know what will get through to her, although you may not like it.

I know. But I have to ease her into it a little… Thinking of memetic transfer for some reason before she caught Richmond's drift. Ugh. This is going to set things back…

You can work on that more later, but right now the doctors need more information. Richmond activated her omnitool. "Young lady, right now our main concern is the illness in the people you were captured with. They may all die if we can't figure out how to stop it."

"Ask the Unies. I wouldn't be surprised if they got us sick."

"The Unies aren't exactly happy with us right now, given we didn't turn you over to them yesterday," Richmond pointed out. "If we're to cure your comrades, we need to know more about this disease. When the symptoms started showing up, for instance." She glanced to Kusko. Her self-interest is warped to the benefit of her captors. She may cooperate to help them, especially if we make her feel like she's a full member of the cell.

Oh I like this even less! And Kusko really didn't, not at all. But then, it was Richmond on the chopping block at this point too. "And think, if they did it, they're not exactly going to tell us, now are they? But if you tell us what you and your people were up to and when they started getting sick, we might be able to figure out how it spreads and trace it back to the source."

Richmond watched the girl's eyes as she considered their arguments. Her breathing slowed and her eyes lowered. "It started a week ago," she said. "We keep a cabin out on Kennesaw Mountain, near one of the streams feeding a beaver pond. Bobby was the first to get sick. He started coughing. Then he started getting these blue lines on his skin, and the blue spread to the rest of him. Linda didn't know what to do, she'd never seen anything like it, and she was an attending nurse down in Andersonville."

Richmond didn't need to see Kusko to know how much she had to bury her revulsion at that admission. "Go on."

"Mike got sick next, a couple days later, then Sandra. A few days ago most of the cell was starting to cough and Bobby, he collapsed. He died the day before yesterday." The girl's face twisted into grief. Tears formed in her eyes. "He was always the nicest to me. He… he didn't hit me when I accidentally read his mind, and he'd think jokes to make me giggle…" She sobbed.

Richmond forced any trace of sympathy down, since Kusko was playing the sympathetic one. "I'm guessing that's when they decided to launch this foolhardy attack?"

"Linda wanted to lure a Unie doctor out. She said she knew they didn't have a doctor here because another cell, uh, took care of her." It was obvious to all she meant the murder of the camp's physician. "We thought the attack would do more damage and the Unies would have to bring in their doctors. But we watched while your people stopped them. Everyone was starting to panic when Linda saw your doctor come out and start tagging people. She told Big Tom and Mark to go get a mob together and told us the plan to sneak in when the Unies showed up."

"How did she know we'd let you?" Richmond asked.

"I… I don't know, I think she was just going for whatever would work. Everyone was getting so sick. We had to leave Mike behind before the riot, he couldn't walk, and Sandra stayed with him since she wasn't feeling good either." As she spoke Richmond tapped away at her omni-tool, directing Lieutenant Lindstrom to take a team and scan for the two. "The mob gathered up and your doctor let us in, then we laid low until night. We just wanted one of your doctors, and he was the first one we could find." The girl sighed. "And that's it. Are… Are Linda and the others still alive? What's happened to them? I want to see them, I want to see them!"

"They are, though the disease is rapidly progressing. They're in isolation though, would video work?"

"I must see them, I mean, yes, video, just let me see them!"

Richmond promptly tied her omnitool into the living section's holo-viewer, then tapped it into the St. Johns' recorders. Moments later the holo-viewer came to life to show the insurgents in their beds. One sheet was already covered, showing the occupant was deceased, but the other five were visible. Their faces had splotches of blue formed by the blue lines of enlarged veins throbbing against their skin. A few coughed loudly.

The girl broke down crying at the sight. Her emotions, to Kusko, were a kaleidoscope of guilt and relief and fear and grief. She didn't want them to die, but deep down she wished they'd stop hurting her, and she wanted to be free, but she didn't want to be because freedom for psifreaks meant everyone else was their slave.

They brainwashed that poor girl rather strongly, Richmond thought at Kusko, unable to keep her revulsion from giving real heat to the thought. Apologies if that was too loud.

Part of it is the culture she lived in. The rest... She said what they wanted to hear often enough she believed it herself, and rationalized what they did to her so that it would have meaning.

"Are… are they going to die?" the girl sobbed.

"We're trying to prevent that, and you may have helped us." Richmond stood from the chair. Her eyes met Kusko's. I'm going to look into the others she spoke about, you can continue dealing with her.

Kusko nodded.

"My name is Regina," the girl said quietly. "Since you wanted to know."

"Just Regina?" Richmond asked.

She nodded. "That's the only name I can remember."

"Well, Regina, Ms. Al is going to talk with you some more, and I will return later. Let her know if you need more food, the replicators are open." For you both. She left at that point.

At Jarod's call Robert arrived in Science Lab 1 with Gina and Talara. Jarod, Cat, and Tom were present, as was Lucy. "Aren't you supposed to be translating?" Robert asked her, some bemusement in his pointed tone.

"I needed a break, and this is more interesting," Lucy said defensively. "After three thousand years, it can wait another day, right?"

"Well, unless the Brotherhood of Kohbal beats us there," Robert remarked flippantly. "Then the day will seem rather important, right?"

She had no easy response to that, so her response was to playfully stick her tongue out at him. Robert chuckled at her. "Are we ready?"

"Sensor calibrations are complete," Jarod said. "Cat's got the sensitivity set right, we should be able to make it out."

"Begin the scan, then."

They started working, operating their controls and, through them, the powerful Darglan-designed sensor systems that gave the Aurora such a wide range of detection methods with the precision and resolution it enjoyed with them. At the holotank in the middle of the Science Lab, a likeness of the Earth blipped into appearance.

One by one, returns came, briefly blinking red before turning blue. "Blue are for all naqia traces we account for," Cat explained.

"Right." Even as he replied Robert saw the first red one blink into existence. Another came, then another and another.

"Most of those are cities," Lucy observed. "Tel Aviv, Portland in Oregon, Wellington, Auckland, Seattle…"

"...Honolulu, Samoa, Manila, Tehran, Trincomalee, Alma-Ata." Robert finished comparing the red blips to the cities he knew on the top of his head. "Bangkok too."

"Rio de Janeiro, Curtiba, and Brasilia," Jarod added. "And I'm starting to notice a very concerning pattern."

"Oh?" asked Leo.

"The cities in question." Robert frowned. "They're all capitals or major cities in the nations that are considered Reformists inside the United Earth power structure."

"That would mean NEUROM is arming the Reformists." Cat shook her head. "But that doesn't make sense. The Reformists want freer government. They treat their telepaths the best. Why would NEUROM be for people who oppose everything they want?"

"I can think of a few things," Robert muttered. "Triggering a devastating new war on the planet's the most likely of those reasons, but we've got to be careful for the other ones." He turned to the others. "Thanks for this. Relay those results to my secure systems on the Jayhawk, I need to consult with Admiral Maran and Crawford."

"Sending the data now," Cat answered. "So, you're not going down there lightsaber swinging, are you?"

"No, definitely not, but I'll be doing something," he promised.

After Lt. Richmond left, Kusko found herself sitting at the interrogation table across from Regina. Admittedly, it was nice to finally have ner name. She was still on the verge of crying for people who most definitely didn't deserve her tears, but there was nothing for that right now.

"I'm sorry about Bobby." She said after letting a moment of silence pass. He was the only one who might be worth it. "I've lost a lot of comrades…that seems to be the one commonality among all human telepaths other than the genetics. Loss."

"Doesn't matter…" Regina replied weakly, her eyes still watered over with barely choked back tears. "Psifreaks aren't real people. We shouldn't exist so the only good we can do is strike back at our own creators so the world can be put right again…" She'd finally answered Richmond's question at least.

Kusko mulled that over, turning it around in her head, trying to figure out what the best approach would be. "So what if we were created? We still hurt, bleed, feel, mourn, love. Why does that make us less than human? Is genetically modified corn somehow… not corn?"

"Still doesn't change the fact that people have a right to not get snooped on. People's thoughts should be private…"

"Or… people should adjust what privacy means. If the world was blind, but suddenly some people could see, should they put their own eyes out to avoid looking at people; or should people start wearing clothes to hide their nakedness if they care so much?"

The logic of that argument - flawed though it admittedly was given the limitations of analogous experience and language - created a crack and Regina lashed out emotionally. Not telepathically, but in a way that belied the fact that the poor girl had almost certain helped kill people. In so many ways, Regina was still a teenager, a child.

"You don't understand! You can't! You don't know what I've been through, you haven't seen what I've seen! You can't be right, it has to mean something!"

That was when Kusko did it, Regina was relatively powerful, but she'd never actually been trained and her blocks were like tissue paper to someone trained - even briefly - in the Corps. The memories she shared were flashes, horrible flashes of anguish and grief for friends whose bodies rejected the implants and destroyed themselves from the inside-out. "But I do kid. And I thought the same damn thing. I was willing to throw my life away for it. When Newtypes - telepaths - were discovered in my home universe, we were celebrated as proof of Zeon Zum Deikun's predictions of our evolution as a space-faring people. Then he was murdered, and Oldtypes took over. They did that to us, and I convinced myself it was for the greater glory of Zeon… but it was just power-grubbing Oldtypes."

Kusko's words were heard, but Regina's reaction was from the memories shared. Flashes of memory came from her mind, of being strapped to gurneys, of drugs, of surgeons poking in her brain, people talking in words she didn't understand. She remembered the bed and darkness, the feeling of the cloth over her eyes that kept her blind, and all of the panic and fear of the minds around her as they languished in the darkness. Kusko though was caught up in her rant, and didn't catch it.

"We were put into the service of an ideology which wanted to dissolve the Earth Federation-we were told we were special, so we had to sacrifice more. To be experimented on. To harness our infinite potential to win the war. To turn ourselves into machines. They made trading cards with our images and they ordered us to kill, and kill, and kill. So kill we did. Zeon called us the future, the Dissies call you Psifreaks. But you and I got treated the same way, and that's because Oldtypes feared us. As long as we let them have power over us, we'll never realize our true destiny, no matter what that is. We'll just be their pawns."

"So we're all really tube babies," she said, her voice hollow as the memories kept rippling through her. Kusko's words melded with the memories scything through her psyche. "You are too. Our powers come from things in tubes. And… and at least the people at Andersonville were trying to destroy our powers, they were trying to free people from us!"

"No!" Kusko slapped that down hard. "They were trying to murder something they didn't understand, like some Oldypes have always done. And what they can't murder they subjugate. Created or not, the legacy of humanity is ours too, and they have no right to take it or our future from us!"

The words came to her ears. They echoed with a voice from her thoughts. Regina. I'm Regina! I'm Regina! Where did that thought come from?

The anger. She felt the anger again. Was it anger? It was vibrant, red. The fury burned through the darkness.

'What the hell is this?' Kusko thought to herself, p'seeing that broadcast loud and clear.

The trembling voice. "What the hell is this?" Then the screams, the cries of agony and the smell of blood, flesh ripping. A door opened somewhere, not just any door but the Door, and people screamed as they fell in. The straps came off, the darkness ended. Her eyes hurt from the light. Through it she saw the woman, clad in darkness, the blades singing through the air as they cut through the men and women in the pale blue suits. The dark woman glared at them and stabbed a finger in the air. "Get out!"

There was running then, a tide that pulled her along. The thought I'm Regina in her head. She felt the door opening again, heard the roaring flames, the cries, the burning that seemed to sear her skin when no flame touched it. She remembered being grabbed and pulled away from the tide.

Thomas' mental voice came over Kusko's communicator; loud and clear was an understatement. "That's one hell of a flashback. I'm on my way."

The face filled her vision. Linda. The name was Linda. She looked over her. "What's your name, teep?" Regina. I'm Regina! The woman's hand came up, stinging pain on her cheek. "Talk like a real person, dammit, that hurt!"

Linda took her along. Others came. They hid, they fought. She remembered their disgust, she remembered the first slaps for hearing their thoughts. The end of the war, defeat, the Unies everywhere. "If you try to go to them, we'll kill you dead, psifreak", Big Tom warned frequently. "We'll kill you good and dead, like any other freak."

But I only wanted to sing… She asked to sing and they said no, all except Bobby, who made her laugh and never ever hit her, he just wanted the Unies gone, he even stopped Big Tom from beating her one time when she sang in her head. But now he was dead and he wouldn't make her laugh anymore.

The newer memories were sharper, ones she could grasp, but they still hurt when joined with the older ones. They rose again, looping endlessly, and the tears flowed from her eyes. She didn't want them back. She just wanted to hear the song again. "Girls just wanna have fun," she wept, trying to sing. "They just wanna have fun".

Then, the loop stopped. Frozen. Her consciousness felt like it swam in an endless void for a brief instant. A tapping sensation and then her self shattered apart into a million pieces as something sorted through them finding the corners then expanding out to the edges, and found pieces from a different puzzle. Then a voice, another person, this one kind manifested in the darkness.

'You've been through hell little one. Not all of it your own. My name is Thomas Spencer and I'm here to make it right.' The pieces started to assemble into recognizable events, connected to other fragments, faces she'd forgotten, birthdays she'd celebrated, camping trips, soccer practice, songs, so many songs. Songs she sang with her family, with friends. Then a pause, stasis.

Thomas closed his eyes and sank into the chair Kusko had been occupying. 'Regina' was face-down on the table, unconscious in her chair. It had been forty minutes. "This is going to take a while… I don't have all the details yet, but her memories were disrupted and co-mingled with another person's drug-induced mania. I have to reconstruct her episodic memory." He tapped the communicator on his wrist "Sis, I'm gonna be a while…"

"Figures with that mess!" She replied with her typical bedside manner. Which was to say, acerbic. "I've got things covered here. Too bad, you're missing out on some fun virology!"

"Hey, you better fill me in! I can't remember my first wife's name without thinking about rancid-" she cut him off.

"Science appreciates your donation. Don't sweat it, you didn't need those ones. She was terrible and you need to remember that or else you might go crawling back! Bye!" She cut the connection.

"It's been twenty years and she still won't let it go…" he muttered.

"Wait. What was that about not needing your neurons?" Kusko asked, slightly horrified.

"Oh. We needed samples for testing because none of the bodies on ice had good tissues. So I volunteered and she found a cluster of about ten neurons that I…" he paused and grumbled the next few words "didn't need."

The next morning Kaveri and Meridina went over the Gamma Shift logs together at a working breakfast with Crawford in Conference Room 1, giving their insights to the questions he and his staff posed as they worked.

Robert arrived as the breakfast came to an end. "Mister Deputy Secretary." He handed him a digital pad. "The scan findings."

"Well now, let me see here." Crawford looked them over. His face grew into a solid frown as he did. "Captain, if this is right, then Minister Marias may very well have justification for his paranoia. Someone's arming the states most likely to oppose their central government."

"For what it's worth sir, this could be a setup of some sort. If we tell the United Earth government, and show them this evidence, they'll certainly launch some kind of pre-emptive strike and start a war."

"And if we don't show it, they might find out, do it anyway, and figure we were involved." Crawford shook his head. "Well, talk about being squeezed between a rock and a hard place."

"I could launch my own operation," Robert suggested. "My team and I could take out these locations one by one, especially with Major Anders' Marines working with us."

Crawford pursed his lips in thought for a moment before smacking them. "I get what you're aimin' for, Captain, but I'm not for that. Not right now. Landin' Marines, or anyone, for an operation like that, well, that'll give Mister Marias what he wants too."

"This may be the best way to prove the origin of these weapons, sir. Recovered information from the cache locations."

"I understand that son, I really do, but for the time bein', I think it's best to let sleepin' dogs lie. We'll keep talkin' to these folks and see how it goes. Why don't you remain on standby in case we do gotta move?"

A look passed between them. Crawford knew Robert could choose to go anyway, and Robert knew that might make the situation worse. He finally nodded. "Of course. I'll stay on standby until it becomes necessary."

"Right, Captain. Now, why don't you dig in to this fine breakfast Mister Hargert's kitchen made? We'll be beamin' down soon ourselves, and nothin' helps diplomacy like a good hearty Texan breakfast."

After a morning run with Miko and some breakfast at one of the cafes in the Colony's Visitors' Quarter, it was time for Julia's next appointment with Doctor Schneider. This time she came in full duty uniform as if she were heading to the Aurora bridge, and she carried herself like it.

Schneider grinned at her and bid her to sit. "How are you doing, Captain?" she asked.

"I'm improving every day," Julia answered.

"Any nightmares?"

"Only a particularly strange dream about a Volus, a Ferengi, and a Brakiri trying to sell me broken down engine parts," she answered. "And the Ferengi threw in my old motorbike, which was a little unfair."

Schneider laughed. "A real dream, or are you being sarcastic with me, Captain?"

"A real dream, I take this therapy seriously. But I'm not happy with it."

"You believe I was unkind?"

"I believe you might have an agenda, or are otherwise pushing something."

"You're being forthright. Good, that's good for you. Did you think on what I said?"

Julia nodded. "I did, and I think it's crap. Yeah, I put a lot of stock into being a captain, because it's the kind of thing I've always wanted to do. But commanding a starship doesn't define me. I could join the colony government here if I wanted, or go become a trader, or maybe even go back to playing women's basketball professionally." Julia listed those items off with steel in her voice. "But I'm a damn good captain and I can still serve the Alliance, and I've put a lot of time into my service so far."

"There are other ways to serve the Alliance, Captain, than starship command," Schneider pointed out. "You could be a naval advisor on diplomatic teams. You could command a space station, or a planet-based facility, or a shipyard. Given your place in this Alliance's foundation, you could even begin a political career. Maybe stand for election to the Alliance Council?"

"Maybe I'll do any or all of those things one day, but right now, I believe I serve best as a starship captain," she insisted. "It's not a role just anyone can have, especially not on one of the fleet star cruisers. It's not just about combat tactics and strategy. It's about managing people. About balancing the act of being a diplomat and an explorer and a fighter, and knowing which role you have to focus on in each situation." Julia knew her voice was getting passionate, but she didn't hold it back. "Being the captain of a ship like the Aurora means getting to be the first face of the Alliance to a newly-encountered world or species. We make decisions that can write history. I've already done that, and I know I have what it takes to do it again, Doctor. And I'm determined to do it."

Schneider jotted down a few notes. "You sound like you're ready to fight the entire service, if need be, to get your ship back. Would you really try to do something like that? A slower, more patient approach might see you given even greater command authority, might even get you into the Admiralty before you're thirty-five given your age."

"I don't think so," Julia answered. "And while I'll love to make admiral one day, right now my place is at the command chair of a ship. I never agreed to give that up, not unless I couldn't do it, and I know I can."

"You believe you can. You cannot know."

Julia looked at the old woman with increasing suspicion. "Why are you trying to talk me out of this?" she asked. "You're supposed to judge my mental state, not try to guide my career."

Schneider folded her hands on the table. "You're being rather aggressive today, aren't you? You feel threatened by me, then?"

"More like I'm getting fed up with what I feel are attempts to manipulate me," Julia answered. "I've seen psychiatrists before, as part of my duties and earlier in my life. I've never seen one act like you. It's like you came out of the gate looking to burn any bridge I might form with you. And all this harping about my future, I'm honestly considering issuing a complaint, Doctor. I consider this inappropriate."

Schneider didn't lose her smile. "You fight for yourself quite admirably, and you're not afraid to be direct. Interesting. I'd say you're treating me in the same fashion you speak of with star cruiser command. In our last session you were the diplomat, looking to set a tone for our discussion and making what you thought was a concession in your appearance to win my approval. Today you are the fighter, finding ground and taking a stand on it." Schneider jotted another note down and Julia wished she could pull the pad to her hands like Robert could. "How does this training with Princess Miko progress? Is she doing well?"

"It's not really your business, but yes, she's learning the style of t'ai chi well, I think," Julia replied. "It's taken her a while but she's learning the forms and the flexibility in it."

"Good, good. Have you had any traumatic episodes related to your ordeal…?"

The questions came and Julia gave honest, simple answers to them, keeping her patience as she did so. Their time was soon up and she got up to leave. "Still no clearance to return to duty?"

"I'm close to my decision. One more session, I think, will do it."

"One more session." Julia nodded at her and left. I need to get ahold of Lieutenant Commander Borja, or Lieutenant Vajpayee. Something's rotten here.

After Julia was gone for five minutes, Schneider noted an incoming call on a private line. She turned it on. "Doctor Gertrude Schneider, how may I help you?"

The image that appeared was that of Admiral William Davies, Vice-Chief of Naval Operations for the Alliance Stellar Navy. Like Dr. Schneider he hailed from the H1E1 universe of the Earth Confederacy. "Dr. Schneider. I'm sure you know the case i'm calling about."

"Captain Andreys, I imagine," she replied. "You're aware that there is attached privilege here, even with military regulations."

"I am, but you're also required to share your general thoughts with us on the patient's suitability in service," Davies answered. "And as I've hoped has been made clear, the service has certain expectations. If we find out someone's not upholding them, they won't be happy with the result."

"I've been made aware of your 'expectations,' Admiral," she answered. "But you may be disappointed. Captain Andreys is going to fight to return to duty. She's even ready to issue complaints about me if I refuse her."

"She said so?"

"She didn't need to. I can see it in her. She's a fighter."

"Don't let it deter you from making the right call, Doctor. Here in Portland we've had grave doubts about her suitability for some time, and the trauma she endured only makes our concerns more acute. We can't let her be returned to service on sentiment. I hope your findings are made as appropriate."

"My findings are not finalized, but I'll give the Stellar Navy the results it hired me for," she replied simply. "Now, I have another appointment coming in soon, so I must be going."

"Of course. I look forward to your final determination being made soon, Doctor. Davies out." He disappeared from the screen.

With the morning rounds done Leo headed for the lab. He found Abigail Spencer present and openly conversing with Ke'mani'pala over an open comm. "The process you describe is fascinating," the Gl'mulli scientist was saying. "Your mental communication ability, unique compared to the rest of your species as it is, holds similarities to how my species exchanges information."

"Huh. I wonder if some of the necessary genes were borrowed… it's not entirely unique though. Most of the species in my home universe have had telepathy grafted on." She replied. As Leo entered, she didn't even look up from what she was going over "Hello Dr. Gillam. Thomas won't be joining us just yet, he had a memory to reconstruct. 'Regina' was a mess.""

"I heard." He stepped up to one of the scanners. "All of the bombing survivor cases are in recovery now. Doctor Walker finished the last surgery this morning." His eyes tracked the readout on the display. "Any luck with the vector?"

"Oh yes!" Abigail replied enthusiastically. "Regina gave us the location of infection. The virus is present in both the water - concentrated in a beaver pond - and in the local mosquitoes, mostly Culex quinquefasciatus. We're still working up the physiology of how that works, but it's in the salivary glands, and Dr. Ke'mani'pala is just about to get other results..."

"The cultures you provided have proven the hypothesis presented," Ke'mani'pala said. "The virus is unable to bond with the neurons in the marked cultures, only with the control sample without the receptors your cultures contained."

Abigail took in an exultant breath and grasped the air with her gloved hands, bringing it in to her chest. "Rightness. It is mine. You hear that universe?" She pointed at nothing with her other hand. "Mine. And won't my brother be pleased!"

Leo felt relief, not just in identifying the vector, but finding a possible weak point to beat the virus. "And now that we've confirmed that, Doctor Ke'mani'pala, how fast do you think we could use this to stop the virus?"

"Oh, I've already begun some chemical work on deriving a retroviral solution. Altering receptors to prevent the virus from binding shouldn't take long at all with all of the samples I have available. A more complicated effort for a counter-viral agent will be a greater undertaking, but I will consult with Dr. Diptheek to begin those efforts as well."

"At home it would take weeks to incubate a vaccine, here… well you can make HIV or whatever with the relevant modifications inside a few minutes once you've got the details worked out. We really need to step up our rollout of that tech…"

"Keeping up with the advance of medical technology in the Multiverse feels impossible half of the time," Leo admitted. "Sometimes I think I should relegate one of my staff to nothing but reading medical journals."

"You mean you don't already? Huh. Memetic transfer is a hell of a drug…"

"Not all of us are born with the ability to share information that easily," Leo lamented with a relieved grin at their success still on his face. "Doctor Paxson on the Discovery did write a paper once recommending a PA-level medical professional be assigned to each star cruiser to brief the medical staff regularly on new advances, but Personnel never got around to acting on it."

"Ah. Bureaucratic inertia. Still, we can't possibly retain everything. No sapient can, not really. It's a matter of not being in unknown unknowns territory, but known unknowns and knowing where to look. We cheat shamelessly, but there are definite limits on the degree to which we prosper. Anyway, Thomas probably wants to know that his donated neurons were useful. Then I need to start work on setting up vaccination infrastructure. I'll back." With that, she bustled out of the bay with a jaunt in her step. The camp was sprawling and there was a lot to organize. They had to assume that everyone in camp had been exposed if it was transmitted by mosquitoes, to say nothing of off-site teams.

Leo turned his attention back to the reader. "Ke, we'll want to synthesize as much of the retroviral agent as we can so we can nip this thing in the bud. See if the Federation ships can be ready to help out."

"I will communicate with Dr. Selana on the T'Pol and Dr. Eisenburg on the M'Benga." Ke'mani'pala formed manipulating digits from her gelatinous body to use a control in her lab. "It was interesting to speak with Dr. Spencer on communications. Human telepaths communicate not dissimilarly to Gl'mulli."

"So I've heard," Leo answered. "And since the high end ones can sense EM fields, there may be a biophysical connection there."

"Indeed. It will make for an interesting paper. Perhaps I will ask her to co-author one with me?"

At that Leo grinned. "Well, you two will already have first dibs on a paper about—"

A hot, stinging pain struck Leo square in the back. His muscles seized up and he collapsed on his side. He struggled to try and breathe while most of his body's muscles refused to respond to commands. He was barely able to turn his neck enough to look up at his attacker. The name formed on his lips, but he had little air to speak.

"Rose?"

Rose Williams finished locking the lab door. She turned back, her hand gripping a Darglan-style pulse pistol. She walked toward him.

"Doctor Gillam?" The trilling in Ke'mani'pula's electronic voice betrayed her worry. "Leonard? What happened?"

Rose got close enough to look into the viewer. She lowered her weapon at Leo and pushed her thumb up the power control. "Destroy all of your work," she demanded, glaring into the viewer at Ke'mani'pala. "Or I'll kill him."

The day's meetings narrowed down to Gupta, Fluck, and Kanegawa, while Meridina had likewise returned to the Aurora to assume the watch given the situation in Atlanta. This left Kaveri and Bet'tir with Crawford's team with the discussion now on the mechanics of Earth T7C8's admission to the Multiversal community. "It is important for us to be capable of asserting our sovereignty over our world," Kanegawa said. "As thankful as we are for your assistance, we feel we must take the time to consider all of the options the Multiverse provides for us."

"We've got no objections to that, Mister Minister," Crawford said. "Our concerns are about your vulnerability. Your world needs time to recover, after all, and while you're rebuildin', you're susceptible to unfriendly governments offerin' you snake oil to get in on what goods you can still make." Crawford gestured to one of his staff. "Now, my people have a suggestion to make for—"

The room's comm system let out a loud ring. Kanegawa sighed and, with an apologetic look on his face, answered. "Is there an issue?"

"Sir, this is Captain Ollanda of the Council Security Unit. We have armed security forces surrounding the Berlaymont Building and other structures of the Union Quarter. We've asked them to disperse and they're not responding."

The Alliance diplomats could tell their hosts were unsettled by that, but it was Kaveri who openly frowned. She'd seen this before, indeed, just half a decade ago. Images of Earthforce Marines and Nightwatch personnel storming EarthDome's offices, the Senate, and ISN came to her. And now it happens here.

"Captain." The voice was Meridina's. "We're detecting a general transmission from a source in Brussels, it's overriding the planetary communication system."

"Put it on to my omnitool, Commander." Kaveri's hand tapped at the blue light controls surrounding her left forearm, generating a holographic viewscreen that got the attention of everyone at the table..

Security Minister Marias' face filled the screen. "Attention, loyal citizens of the Earth National Union. I am Security Minister Paul Marias, and I am forced by circumstance to make this announcement with the support of several of my peers on the Executive Council. After significant investigation, we have determined that those governments that adhere to the so-called 'Reformer' political doctrines are in fact in collusion with Dissolutionist rebels and off-world agencies. We have proof that they have subverted the President and the Executive Council with telepathic agents."

"He's mad!" Gupta shouted, furious. "This will provoke another war!"

"In light of this evidence, as a patriot of our new global nation of Mankind, united under a single flag to a common destiny, I am taking the President and the Executive Council into custody, and have ordered the arrests of all suspected traitors in the Union government." Marias raised a fist. "I take this action with a heavy heart, but we must act to save ourselves from division and off-world conquest! All security forces of the Union, in conjunction with our proud fighting men and women, must move quickly to seize traitorous elements in all of the regional governments of the world, before civil war claims us all." Marias raised his chin. "And lastly, I call upon the representatives of the Allied Systems, as they call themselves, to honor the principles they claim to cherish, and to stand aside while we secure our world from future conflict. I will regard any interference by the Alliance in this action as proof of their collusion in their conspiracy, and all off-world personnel will be dealt with as enemies of the Union. God save the United Earth and the Human Nation!"