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Chapter 2 - Breaking protocol

Deep Space nine

Punctual as was expected of him, Julian arrived at precisely thirty minutes after Captain Sisko had contacted him. It was literally right on the dot, for as soon as he entered cargo bay 8 with his medical team, the six cryo pods appeared at the exact same time. He didn't waste a second and made his way up to the nearest pod. Inside of it there was a woman, eyes closed, mouth shut, not even her chest seemed to move. Suspended animation.

"Doctor Bashir."

Julian lifted his head and looked over his shoulder at the familiar voice calling out to him. Quark's brother, Rom, walked in the cargo bay, smiling broadly as always.

"Hello, Rom." Julian greeted him. "Can I help you with anything?"

The Ferengi stopped next to him, his eyes immediately stealing a glance at the cryo pod. "Chief O'Brien sent me here. In case you need help from an engineer."

"That's kind of him. But for now we can't really do anything, I'm afraid."

Rom nodded and turned to look at all the pods this time. "Are these all filled with a hu-man?"

"All six of them." Julian replied.

"Are they dead?" Rom asked.

"I hope not." And the doctor meant it.

Sisko hadn't given him much information to work with aside from that he had to be here. He learned from Kira that the six pods came from an ancient Earthen ship which Dukat had found. There had been more, but these six were the only once which contained alive enough looking humans. But were they really alive? No doubt that was the reason why he was here. As to why Miles had sent Rom to the cargo bay? Most likely in case they needed to open the pods and they somehow couldn't.

"Don't you have to open them to make sure?" Rom's voice sounded two pods further down.

Julian sighed and walked up to him. "I'm waiting for Captain Sisko to give me clearance. From what I gather, these people must have been held in a cryogenic slumber for a while. Who knows, it could be a few decades or maybe even an entire century? Until we know what we're dealing with, there isn't much for us to do but wait."

Rom stared at the doctor, repeating what he'd just been told in his head. Maybe even a century old? He couldn't imagine being asleep for that long. The decision to not do anything didn't make much sense to him. These were hu-mans, were they not? If they were sleeping, what harm could there come from opening the pods they were in? He certainly would hate it if someone were to do that to him. But Rom knew this was not one of those moments to disobey an order. Thus, he simply nodded, placed his hands behind his back and walked to the next pod.

"Doctor Bashir!" One of the members from Julian's medical team shouted loudly from the end of the row. "There's smoke forming on the inside of this pod."

As fast as his feet could carry him, Julian ran over to her, with Rom following closely behind him. Julian looked at the window and indeed there was smoke circling around the person inside of the cryo crib. What was going on? He crouched down next to the pod and was about to touch the panel when an odd noise sounded before him and a red light ignited from the other side of the window.

"By the Prophets, it's on fire!" The woman cried out and Julian quickly stood back up.

"Rom, get the extinguisher, we had to get this pod open!" He ordered the Ferengi.

"Yes, Doctor!" Rom did as he was told and within a just a couple of seconds he returned, pulled the safety pin out and nodded at Bashir.

Julian smashed the control panel as he was not sure how to control it. Luckily, the lid of the pod popped open and immediately Rom started to extinguish the flames. But even with Rom trying to get control of the fire, it was already clear to Julian that whoever had been inside the cryo bed was now lost. After a minute, once the flames were gone as well as the smoke, there was nothing left except for the shell of the pod.

"I'm sorry, I didn't react fast enough." The woman next to Julian said softly. "I should have called for you the minute I saw the smoke."

"That's alright, nurse Elin. Even then, I don't think we could have saved them." He tried to sound as comforting as he could, but a part of him was now extra worried.

Afraid that, whatever could have caused the sudden combustion from within the pod, was going to happen to the others. He glanced over his shoulder at the remaining five. Benjamin Sisko was probably still contemplating or discussing with Starfleet on what to do with them. But what if they didn't have that luxury?

"Uh, Doctor Bashir,- I heard a click." Rom pointed at the pod next to them.

A click? Julian hadn't heard anything, but then again, Ferengis were the ones with an impeccable sense of hearing. Whatever that sound had been, there was no doubt in Julian's mind that it meant something disastrous. He moved quickly to the pod and looked into the window. Staring back at him was the face of a sleeping woman. Suddenly an alarm sounded from the pod he was leaning over. He looked at the screen where he read the word 'malfunction'.

"No, no, no,-" He muttered under his breath when another alarm sounded two pods down. "We need to get them out of these pods or we'll lose them."

Rom blinked with confusion. "But didn't you say we have to wait for the captain's,-"

"To hell with that. We need to save these people! Rom, can you find a way to override the pod system, allow them to begin the awakening process?"

Under normal circumstances he'd asked Miles, but Miles wasn't here and time was of the essence. Besides, Rom was quite good at his job, if Julian was to believe his friend's judgement. And it wasn't as if he could wait because it seemed that the cryo cribs were shutting down. He couldn't allow that to happen. Julian cursed and turned his head back towards the pod.

"I'll do my best." Rom answered, trying to sound confident.

He had no experience with these type of devices, but a machine was still a machine. With enough time he would be able to figure it out. Though it sounded as if he didn't have a lot of it.

The Wardroom

"A message has been sent to Starfleet command, hopefully it won't take too long for someone to reply. The sooner we know what to do next the better." Sisko said as he sat down at the end of the table. "Chief, you managed to download the logs? I hope you have some news for us."

Miles nodded and cleared his throat. "Couple of things, actually. One thing I figured out, is why we couldn't find a name on the hull. It's because it wasn't written on this part of the ship.

"This part? As in, it's not complete?" Kira arched an eyebrow.

"This is but a small part of the original." Miles explained to her. "According to the logs, it was the front area of a colony ship called 'the Aurora'. What Dukat found was where the crew was based. Along with the cockpit, a small mess hall and the cryo chamber. It seems the crew area is got separated at some point, but I haven't found anything on that in the logs yet. Apparently there were about four or five containers behind them, carrying cargo, supplies and,- colonists." His voice went quiet.

"Did you find out when the last log entry was?" Jadzia asked.

"That I did." He replied before turning to Sisko. "Last log entry is from 270 years ago. The year 2103."

A quiet spell fell over the Wardroom after hearing the date. 2103. It wasn't the first time something from a couple of centuries ago was found in space, but usually they were bits and pieces of something. Hardly ever a ship containing actual survivors. Sisko folded his hands together and leaned back in his seat. Currently, there were six people aboard his space station. All in a deep slumber.

"I don't know for sure if that's the last one though, a lot of the logs have been wiped from the data base. Considering there was a cryo chamber on board, I suspect they were on course for a long trip. A couple of years at most."

"No idea on their destination?" Sisko frowned.

"Sorry." Miles apologized.

"Alright." The captain let out a sigh and pushed his chair back. "While we're waiting for Starfleet command to,-"

"Bashir to Captain Sisko."

"Go ahead, Doctor."

"Any word from Starfleet yet?"

"Not yet. But I expect to hear from them soon enough."

"I see. That's a little unfortunate."

Sisko blinked and threw a glance around the room, meeting the other's eyes who were watching him with an equally puzzled look. "Meaning what, Doctor?"

There was a pause for a couple of seconds before Julian's voice sounded again. "I'm afraid they no longer have a say on the matter. You'd better come to the infirmary."

The infirmary

His explanation had been a short but clear one. In order to save the lives of the people inside of the cryo pods, Julian had made the decision to start the awakening process. With help from Rom, as he had no idea how to do that properly. Clearly the pods were delicate things, he learned that the hard way. If Rom hadn't been there, they probably wouldn't have been able to save any of them. Julian still wasn't sure what had caused the cribs to malfunction, but he was certain if he were to ask Miles to figure it out he wouldn't hesitate to help him. What he had to do now, was place all his focus on his patients.

Julian reached for his medical tricorder and hand scanner, when Sisko walked into the infirmary followed closely by Jadzia Dax. He didn't look too happy, whereas Jadzia smiled with a bit of excitement.

"How many?" Was the first thing Sisko asked.

"Two." Julian replied, his voice soft. "One of the pods caught fire on the inside. That's when the rest of them started to break down. Rom managed to override two of the pods in time, as for the others,-"

He couldn't finish his sentence. It was always painful when these things happened, especially when he thought there would have been a way to save them, had there not been a protocol to follow first. But that was an opinion he was keeping to himself for the moment. Julian nodded to the back of the infirmary where the remaining survivors of the ancient Earthen vessel were currently resting.

"They're awake?"

"I'm sure they'll be soon enough, but if you want me to wake them, that won't be a problem. You'll be interested to know that their scans showed up clear. They're healthy. Both of them." Julian didn't know why he sounded so cold. Perhaps he was still feeling guilty for the loss of the other four.

"In that case, wake them. Perhaps they can tell us more than what the Chief found on their logs." Sisko replied and he made his way to the beds. As he walked away, Jadzia moved closer to the doctor.

"You did a good thing, Julian." She told him supportively.

"Thank you. But I wish I could have saved all of them. It happened so fast, I had no idea what to do. If Rom hadn't been there,-"

"Thank goodness he was there then." Another smile followed and Julian exhaled deeply, thankful for the woman's encouraging words.

Without waiting another minute, Julian made sure everything was ready before stepping next to the bed of the male survivor first. With a small dosage of netinaline, he pressed the hypospray against the man's neck. He took a step back and watched quietly as his patient woke up. The guy groaned, blinked a couple of times before opening his eyes fully and turned his head to look around.

"Hello." Sisko greeted him.

"Where am I?" The man croaked.

Sisko looked at Julian for a moment, who then cleared his throat before taking over. "You are on a space station called Deep Space nine."

"Deep Space nine?"

"Yes. No, wait,- careful now." Julian reached for the man just as he was about to sit up, but instead toppled slightly sideways. "You've been asleep for a very long time."

"Cara?"

"Cara?" Julian followed the direction into which the man was looking.

He glanced over his shoulder at the bed behind him, the place where the other survivor was sleeping. The woman from the pod Julian had been standing next to when the first 'malfunction' warning had appeared.

"Is she alright?"

"Perfectly fine. If you give me a minute, I will wake her up too. Jadzia, if you could, please?" Julian motioned for his friend to take over from him.

As Jadzia spoke to the worried gentleman in a soothing voice, Julian grabbed the other hypospray containing netinaline and used it on the woman. He then set the spray aside and placed his hands on the side of the bed, again watching observingly as she started to stir beneath the sheets. He could see her eyes moving from behind her closed lids. She parted her lips and inhaled deeply. Julian smiled as her eyes opened this time.

"Good morning, Cara." He said.