Chapter 8
"Nyota!" Stella shouted before lunging across the table to wrap her arms around Nyota's shoulders so the woman wouldn't fall face-first in her salad. "Ritha, cover your nose and mouth with your shirt. We have to get oxygen masks and then get to Sickbay."
Flashing yellow lights activated in the mess hall as Ritha launched herself to her feet and wound an arm around Nyota's waist to help Stella with her. Chaos was erupting inside. People were either collapsing from the effects of the gas or running for the emergency supplies locker on the other side of the room where there would be oxygen masks waiting. At least Starfleet had thought of this possibility when they'd decided to install fire extinguishers and oxygen masks in every room.
"Stella, get her and yourself down on the floor under the table. All the oxygen vents are in the ceiling. It'll take longer to reach you on the floor. I'll get us some masks."
"Just be careful! I don't want to have to call Mom and tell her you died of poison because you wanted to run off and play hero."
"Play hero? This is not about being a flipping hero! It's about you having the medical training to help her when I don't."
"You know what? Now might not be the best time for this!" Stella shouted.
Ritha gave her that point. Now wasn't the time for more bickering. "Just get on the floor and stay under the table so no one tramples you."
Tugging the collar of her uniform shirt up over her nose and mouth, Ritha took off across the mess hall. Getting there was more of a challenge than she would have liked just from the sheer number of people all herding in the same direction at the same time. She loved all the crew. Everyone deserved to get an oxygen mask, but at some point, one had to set priorities. The lives of her sister and her friend were infinitely more important to her than everyone else in the room.
So she chose option two. Rather than shoving her way through the crowd of people in front of the emergency supplies locker, she beat-feet for the door to race into the hallway. Others were rushing out of nearby entertainment rooms with their masks already in place to get to their stations, but shoving through them was much easier than fighting the other crowd. The cinema's locker was empty. The game room, the pool area, and the holodeck foyer turned up no oxygen masks left. Her last option was the gym, where she managed to lay hands on three masks. Go figure. The gym was the least populated area on the entire entertainment deck.
Nyota had roused by the time she made it back and was shouting something about contacting the captain, who was off-ship along with Bones, Spock, and Paul. Ritha didn't give her an option of complying. She merely jerked the mask on over the woman's mouth and nose and tossed Stella the other one, at which point, she shot to her feet.
"There are more masks in the gym if this locker is empty!"
"Nyota, you're going to Sickbay whether you like it or not. Ensign Chekov will have already ordered someone to contact the captain. Right now, I need to check you out, because we have no idea what effect this gas will have on your baby."
The lieutenant was a smart woman, one of the smartest Ritha had ever had the pleasure of knowing, so in the end, Nyota nodded and carefully got to her feet with Stella's help. "I can make it there on my own two feet. Let's go."
"Stella, are you all right?" she asked.
"My stomach feels like it's going to collapse on itself, but I'm conscious and thinking clearly," her sister responded.
"Can you get her to Sickbay without my help? I need to get down to Engineering and try to figure out where this gas is coming from."
"Go," Stella returned. "And Ritha, I love you."
Ritha paused in mid-step and looked back at her sister, her heart melting at hearing those three little words from Stella after so many years of silence. Her expression softened, her lips curling up in a huge grin. "I love you too. And I love you, Nyota!"
"We've established that we all love each other," Nyota commented. "Can we possibly get going to Sickbay now?"
The theatrics out of the way, Ritha took off again, racing past people who were clogging the hallway with stretchers inbound for Sickbay. More people were leaning against walls or crumpled on the floor gripped by spasms, but the best way she could help them was by getting to Engineering and flushing the oxygen recyclers. The sooner they found out how the gas was being pumped into their environmental systems the more people would be spared from its effects.
Engineering was in much the same state of chaos as the rest of the ship. Starfleet officers were trained extensively for these kinds of situations, but having to face one in real life was a test to every officer. Some people were checking systems and running diagnostics. Others were panicking. That was just the way it worked when there were so many people thrown into the mix.
"Give me diagnostic scans of our environmental systems, and I want every oxygen filter manually checked for foreign substances!" she shouted over the din. There were no loud bangs that could be mistaken for thunder, nothing to make her voice waver or doubt the commands she was issuing.
"Ensign Monroe," Chekov began via the intercom in Engineering, "sensors indicate the substance is tetrahydine. It is native to Istabul Major and remains inert until exposed to heat."
"We're trying to track it down now, Ensign Chekov. I'll report back when we've located the source of the contaminate." That tetrahydine was inert until exposed to heat didn't really give her much to go on. Everything in the environmental systems was exposed to heat just from the sheer amount of power required to run it.
Within minutes, diagnostic scans on the environmental system reported the presence of the gas, with elevated amounts in the oxygen ducts. Obviously. An air born gas had to be cycled through oxygen ducts and filters for it to affect the entire ship. But that gave her no clues on where the gas was originating from so it could be cleaned up. It was no good just flushing the systems if there was a hidden reservoir of gas waiting around to poison the air again.
***
"The background check you requested on all those assigned to the research and development team contracted by Emperor Tien is complete, Jim. My findings correlate with the information given to us by President Tobra. The program was shut down eleven years prior to Istabul Major joining the Federation. However, two of the lead scientists are on record as having attended anti-Federation rallies."
"Participating in a rally doesn't automatically mean you make the leap to full-fledged terrorist, but it's worth looking into. Bones, how are you coming?"
A violent sneeze erupted from Bones, whose head was barely visible over a large stack of data pads he had spent the past several hours looking through. Were his eyeballs starting to cross? He wouldn't be surprised. They'd been closeted away inside a dusty room with data pads and actual papers that were covered in an equal amount of dust as everything else in the room.
"Well, Jim, where to start? I know more about empirical government than I ever wanted to, can recite the Istabulian code of ethics and moral conduct by heart, and even read a fascinating report on criminology. As far as anything useful? Emperor Tien resigned from government life after the majority vote to join the Federation and retired to some estate in the southern hemisphere. Now, anyone want to take a gander as to why an emperor willingly gives up that much power instead of using his son as a puppet ruler?"
"It is not beyond the realm of logic for a man who spent most of his life in a leadership position to crave some leisure time upon retirement. Being a leader comes with certain responsibilities and pressures. A lifetime of said pressures can make abdicating from one's throne easier."
"We'll put him on the list of suspects anyway just to be thorough. Who are the scientists who participated in the rally?"
"Doctors Kolra Ko Kerva and Jiet Je Jong. Both reside in Bulta and are active professors in the college of sciences at the university."
"Jong. Isn't that the tradition-kissing assistant's first name?" Bones asked.
"Surname," Spock corrected. "In Istabulian society, the surname always appears first, followed by the name of the maternal line, and concluding with a personal name. Therefore, Jong Je Jin is the son of Jong, belonging to the matrilineal family of Je, and concluding with the personal name of Jin."
"Yeah, I got it without the need for an example."
Shuddering, Bones used a handkerchief to brush the dust off the next data pad in the stack waiting for him. There hadn't been time since their meeting with Tobra to talk to Ritha, but he'd finally come to the conclusion that he should apologize, even if he didn't think he was in the wrong. He might not trust women, but the idea of actually hurting a woman went against his southern gentleman roots. Women were to be treated with respect, gentility, and even chivalry. She was still the one in the wrong, though. After all, Ritha was the one who had made assumptions and hadn't given him the time to explain his statement.
His head jerked up so he could see over the stack of data pads when Jim's handheld activated. Chekov's voice emanated from the device.
"Ensign Chekov to Captain Kirk."
"Kirk here," Jim said once he'd made a two-way connection.
"A chemical native to Istabul Major has been introduced to ship's environmental system. Countless crew members suffering from toxic gas. Please, return to ship immediately."
"Goddamnit!" Bones shouted, instantly on his feet.
Even Spock's face registered surprise. He asked, "Have you enacted containment protocols by ordering a general use of oxygen masks and shutting down the environmental systems to stop the spread of the gas?"
"Da! We await further instruction from the captain."
"Understood, Chekov. We'll be back in about forty minutes, so hang in there, okay? Kirk out."
Bones didn't wait for Jim or Spock when he tore out of the old room at Federation headquarters, because the only thing he was capable of seeing was a sickbay filled to the brim with poisoned crew members and Stella trying to control the organized chaos. She was a competent doctor to be sure, but he had no idea if she was a competent leader.
Tension crackled the interior of the hover-cover as its driver fought through Bulta's congested traffic to get them back to the dry dock outside the city. He was too busy coming up with a treatment plan and hazarding a guess as to whether the gas was a different version of the poison found in Bulta's water sanitation plants. By the time they arrived, most of the crew had abandoned the ship in favor of not succumbing to the gas. Cranes and scaffolding along the ship's exterior that were previously being used to make repairs to the hull were empty, but what immediately got his attention was the triage Westin had set up on the grounds outside the ship. Chaos it was. People were running everywhere. Rows of stretchers and cots were being set up for the afflicted, who were in turn being tended to by his efficient nursing staff headed by Christine Chapel.
He flew out of the hover-car as soon as the doors were open to join Stella in the triage. "Report!"
"So far we have one hundred three crew members that have collapsed from the poison," Stella shouted to be heard. "Another fifty-seven are suffering from extreme nausea, vomiting, and headaches. Twenty-nine have gone into convulsions."
"How are you treating them?"
"Blood filters to get the poison out of their systems, respirators for those whose lungs have been affected, Lorcet and Phenegren for the headaches and nausea, and muscle relaxants for the spasms. There aren't enough blood dialysis machines to go around!"
"Put those in danger of going code black on the dialysis machines. Everyone else gets double the dose of blood filter. Nurse Chapel, find healthy crew members with intermediate field first aide training and draft them to your ranks."
"Yes, Doctor," Christine said while handing Bones his medical kit and tricorder.
"Is Ensign Monroe among the afflicted?" he asked of Stella, sounding cool and collected under the pressure.
"She's still on the Enterprise. When Chekov ordered the general evacuation, she and a team of engineers and science officers stayed behind to figure out where the poison is coming from. Chekov is with them."
A string of expletives issued from him at the news, but there was little he could do about it. He couldn't abandon his post to go gallivanting aboard a death trap to drag her out of there, especially considering in the middle of danger was where she needed to be right now. The only thing he could do was hope she made it out of there alive. If she died before he got the chance to explain himself, he'd regret it for years.
Anyone who said a doctor didn't have a physical job needed to be slugged. Over the next several hours, Bones shifted and lifted patients until his back wanted to break under the strain, delivered so many hypospray injections his thumb got sore and then went numb altogether, and that wasn't even accounting for the strain on his feet. So many faces looked up at him in misery, silently begging for him to do something to relieve their symptoms, there was no way he would remember them all.
Blood filter, thirty-five ccs. Lorcet and Phenegren cocktail, combined seventy-five ccs. Muscle relaxants, ten ccs. The poison has progressed too far, make him comfortable, eighteen times. It was all imprinted on his mind. The initial flurry of activity left them with thirty-one dead crew members, including those who had died before his arrival. Thirty-one people were beyond his ability to save, beyond the wonders of modern medicine, but all he could do was block it out and distance himself from the horror that was biological warfare. These people had lived through Nero's attack. They'd survived all the clusterfuck missions the Enterprise had been on in the following year, and had just come through defeating three Klingon war birds only to be killed by biological-fucking-warfare. It made him sick.
But still he worked, ticking off each patient who was logged into the triage on his mental tally of those they had managed to save. Each one was a miracle in and of itself. If it was the twenty-first century, half of them would be dead. If it was the fifteenth century, ninety-seven percent would be dead. Of course people in the fifteenth century would have prescribed hanging a dead rat around their necks to ward off the evil eye.
Bones didn't get a chance to take stock of things until well past dusk, at which point, he paused in his work only to have Nurse Chapel shove a bottle of water and can of soup into his hands. The exterior lights were starting to collect clouds of insects in front of them. Not the most sanitary of conditions, but like the old saying went, beggars couldn't be choosers.
"Hydrate and get some nutrition in your stomach," she said matter-of-factly.
"Thanks, Christine. How is everyone holding up?" He popped the cap off the water and chugged most of the contents in a single gulp.
"Better than any other medical crew in Starfleet. There's been no update from the ship for an hour, but they're having a hard time pinning down exactly where the poison was deposited. The air is still registering as contaminated even with the shuttle bay doors wide open."
"The joys of having an air-tight ship where you can't throw open any windows to air the place out. Any word on the health of Chekov's team?"
"They have oxygen masks, so the poison isn't getting into their systems. However, some are reporting topical irritations and inflammation to their derma from overexposure."
"Well that's just great. Our damn ship has turned into a giant, hazardous tin can filled with Agent Orange, and we sent people in there without a general order to wear HazMat? Get on the horn with everyone inside and tell them the CMO said to drop what they're doing and put on HazMat gear. And if you see Jim, tell him I need to talk to him."
"I'll pass along the message, Doctor. Last I saw him, he was arguing with some native guy dressed in pink trousers."
"That would be the assistant to President Tobra. I need a report on Scotty. Where did you evacuate all the patients previously in Sickbay?"
"We evacuated them over by Building Three. Crew members erected a clean tent to cut down on air born germs. Scotty's okay. We didn't have time deal with him throwing a tantrum about getting to engineering, so we just sedated him ."
"I think I'll just go and check on him to make sure he isn't giving anyone a hard time."
Bones finished the can of soup in record time, pitched it in a waste container, and took off across the triage grounds. Scotty was a stubborn bastard. He wouldn't be surprised if the nurse assigned to keep watch over patients in the tent had been forced to sedate him just to keep his ass in a cot. If the Enterprise was in danger, sedatives were the only thing that would stop him. Considering the Scotsman had held an unofficial wedding ceremony between himself and the Enterprise, he felt justified in his assumptions.
Pushing back the tent flap, he stepped inside. There were only a handful of cots inside, but his eyes immediately went to the one empty cot at the back of the tent. He just knew that was supposed to be Scotty's cot. A check of the data pad at the foot of the bed containing all his records proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
"Scotty, Goddamnit, I'm going to nail your butt to the bed!"