The piercing pain that pulsed from her neck around to her forehead caused Heva to stir. She blinked her eyes open and it suddenly occurred to her that she was not familiar with her surroundings. This had to be the setting for some sort of awkward dream.
The walls were a dark shade of rust and bore supplies that one would think only applied to the capture of large animals. There were nets, spears, guns, and many other weapons similar to those. The surface she laid on turned out to be a shipping crate. Several more were lined up along the walls of this room. All of them were locked tightly, Heva found this out by later attempting to pry them open. Wherever she was, it was much too quiet in a most foreboding sense. She walked down a corridor to her left and made her way through several doors, observing everything closely.
The vessel was dark, quiet, and eerie. There were not many lights on and there weren't many rooms to search. Each one she did search, however, was empty save for the same shipping crates like that of the one she awoke laying down upon.
Heva closely examined a com panel in one of the corridors to find some sort of clue. There was no response, at least none that she could understand. Languages were never something she strived in. She put a hand to her chest only to find that her com badge was gone. Panic engulfed her and she frantically searched the ground to see if she'd dropped it; nothing. Wherever she was, there was no way she could tell anyone about it for now.
With no success, Heva tried to remember what happened to her. The last thing she remembered was falling down. Her hand quickly touched her nose and upper lip. There was dried blood here. Looking down at herself she found stains on her uniform. After the fall she could remember nothing no matter how hard she tried.
Heva had no idea how long she had been on this ship, who brought her here, or why. Yet no matter how nervous these things made her feel, the separate feeling of fear that consumed her was what made her the most desperate to leave. The air of darkness was almost overwhelming.
Whatever ship this was, someone obviously had to be flying it.
"Computer?" Heva inquired, not knowing if this ship was one she would understand. There was a faint sound like a bird's tweet that responded instead of a voice. Hopefully this meant that the system understood her language. "Lead me to the bridge by igniting lights along the wall panel."
To Heva's left on the wall panel a small, lit, red circle appeared. She walked in the direction it was in and along with her many more circles lit up to lead her way. After going through a labyrinth of corridors, turbo lifts, rooms that were interconnected, and a few dead ends even Heva finally reached the bridge. Since the vessel was medium in size, the bridge wasn't as vast as the Enterprise's. It was also very dark and seemed to be empty save for whoever was at the helm.
She stared at the back of the man's head for a moment and then rushed forward, sighing with relief. "Data!"
He turned to look at her and once their gaze was matched Heva halted and her blood ran cold. The eyes looking back were as unfamiliar as the ship she stood in. The face, the body, everything she observed around them belonged to Data. The eyes, however, were strangely cold and morbid. While the blissfully ignorant relief in her brain told her to move forward, another new and frightened consciousness whispered one frantically urgent request to her:
"Run."

"Mr. Data, report."
The Captain's voice seemed so far away. It was as if Data were under water and any voice that beckoned him was above the surface, out of reach. His focus was in and out of control over those past couple of hours after Heva was kidnapped. Try as he might, nothing could seem to pull him out of the tunnel he found himself in.
"Commander." The Captain's voice was much closer now. It was less stern than before. There was a new tone to the melody; concern. There was no time for concern. There were so many elements to this enigma and not enough time to solve them all. They had to search and search hard if they were going to find out just what the hell was going on here.
"Data."
Data snapped out of his own thoughts and looked to his right to find Picard knelt beside him. The Captain studied him closely, his face drawn down with worry. "I am sorry, sir. I just-"
"Data, I know that you're upset, I know that you are worried, and I know that just like the rest of us you want to find Heva. But in order to do that you need to keep yourself together. There are many things on the line here. Heva is one of them. If we are going to save her along with billions of other lives before it's too late we all need to keep our heads taught on our shoulders instead of worrying about what could happen if we ARE too late. Do you understand?"
Everything in his mind made Data want to argue. However he knew that as an officer of Star Fleet he needed to be strong and do his duty and do it with precision if there was any hope of finding Heva. Though only having had emotions nothing short of 19 months, there was still a little trouble dealing with feelings of this nature. But if the Captain and all of those around him whom he respected and honored for their courage and dedication could do it, so could he.
He looked straight into the eyes of the man beside him and nodded. "I understand, Captain."
Jean-Luc gave a curt nod and stood up straight. "Report, Mr. Data."
"So far our scanners have not reported any other ships in this sector. I have also been scanning for any low level transmissions made by any vessels without a Star Fleet designation. Unfortunately there is nothing to report on that either."
Picard sighed. "Just keep sending those scans, Commander."
"Aye, sir."
"Mr. Worf, have you dug up any information on our mystery culprit?"
Worf briefly scanned over his station monitor then replied "The freighter is a supply vessel that was stolen from a base on Starkemmer Three. The report given on the theft was filed eight months ago. There was no weapon's system or warp capability installed at the time of construction, however my scanners indicate that some alterations were made to the ship recently that have given it both of those elements."
Will turned to look at Worf, puzzled. "Why would someone alter a supply ship with weapons and a warp engine? Or better yet, how could they do that in only eight months?"
"Were any of the weapons fired recently, Lieutenant?" Jean-Luc asked, grimly.
"Yes. The photon torpedoes and high impulse phasers have both been used in the past few months." A screen just beside the one Worf had been looking at blinked at him, signaling the income of new information. His eyes grew wide and he felt his heart slow to a deadly stop. Will and Picard both stared at him quietly, waiting.
"Sir…" Worf began quietly. "New readings show that the ship is carrying large quantities of bio-engineering equipment. There are also some storage tubes that are filled with what appears to be a combination of the bacterial and chemical compounds Pestis, Yersinia, Celiosianistis, Thelioctonix, and Restonispin."
The bridge seemed to die; the silence was so loud. Every living being therein at that moment suddenly became aware that the time they believed they had was sliced down to smaller an amount than anyone could ever want. It was Data, however, that sounded the dreaded bugle that confirmed and named their hopelessness. "The plague…"