28 Shift Cycles Later

[Crash Calestorm 0]

USS Comanche Creek

On approach to Cold Station 13

Present Time

 

Following the attack by the remote protection drones, things had settled down on the main bridge of the USS Comanche Creek. Although, the crew hadn’t escaped the sudden skirmish unscathed; a report had had come in from medical indicating that various crewmembers were still being treated for bumps and bruises and lacerations that were a result of where the drones had gotten off some lucky shots and impacted the ordnance rounds against the metallic hide of the ‘Creek.

 

Damn, those little remote buggers had been tenacious. Thanks to the quick actions of the bridge crew, the “eyeballs” had been taken out. The drones had really been no match for the ship, but the entire skirmish had been the captain’s fault: It hadn’t occurred to Crash Calestorm that the remote defenses of CS 13 might have been activated, and therefore she hadn’t ordered the long range tactical scans to go active, only the short range scans.

 

She wouldn’t be caught with her britches down like that again.

 

Captain Calestorm had managed to stay the flow of battle adrenaline that had been pumping through her veins, but hadn’t quite managed to plant her bony ass back down in the command chair. The lanky commanding officer at first prowled the bridge and then maintained a standing position set just behind Commander Wesley’s helm station, arms folded across the chest of her gold uniform shirt. She kept a watchful eye on the forward view screen, which showed a real time image of CS 13 as the Kelvin-class starship continued to close the distance across the immediate airspace surrounding the station.

 

She had the slight feeling of butterflies in her stomach, and this hadn’t changed since she was a plebe at the Fleet academy. Before any mission, no matter how big or small or important or how much of a milk run the assignment promised to be, she still got the butterflies in her gut. The day that she didn’t feel some apprehension towards a mission was the day that she resigned. That apprehension showed her that she wasn’t perfect, and when a starship captain thought they were perfect, she or he and their crew could quite possibly end up dead.

 

Yet, Calestorm also felt excited about the upcoming recon mission to the station. This feeling was the same sort of excitement that she had felt when she used to read those old digital comic data slate adventures starring the fictional Captain Kirk Taggart of the Questfleet Force, captain of the USS Protector.

 

When she had been a little girl, she had wanted to be part of Questfleet and go zipping about the galaxy fighting the bad guys with Taggart and the crew. This innocent childhood fantasy had given way to a career of reality in the Starfleet, but like the slight nervousness before a mission, Crash had never really lost that child-like excitement about warping out on her own unknown adventures.

 

And somewhere back in the recesses of Cale’s mind, she was still riding shotgun along with Taggart and his crew after all these years…

 

She was too much of a professional to let the giddiness show, but a smirk still played at her mouth, pulling at the one corner of her lips as she continued to gaze at the station on the main viewer and wondering what sort of mysteries and such she and her crew would encounter and be required to solve, or who they would need to protect from harm. The station had gone dark for whatever reason, and Calestorm and the Comanche Creek crew were there to fix the problem.

 

Peace is our profession…

 

*****

 

Cold Station Thirteen

Several Weeks Ago

During the Nero attacks as depicted in Star Trek 2009.

 

Things were a whole lot simpler when I was a kid playing doctor and just had to treat my favorite teddy bear for a cold or something…

 

Doctor Miha Nishan wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but she knew that she didn’t like it one bit. The chief medical officer of Cold Station 13 had a series of X-Rays and digital readouts pulled up on the large view screen of the main examining room, and frowned at what she saw there. Or rather, what she didn’t see there. Nothing. Stomach was clear, bowels were clear. The fever was a constant but hadn’t spiked either way for hours despite the degradation of the patient. The organs were working, though say at half capacity. The subject was weak and barely responsive.

 

There was no obvious indication as to why the symptoms were now progressing as aggressively as they were. She picked up a hardcopy flimsy printout from the worktable countertop that she was working at and examined yet another diagnostic test that she had ordered to be performed on the patient. The readings were nominal, yet there were some discrepancies that she couldn’t quite track down. It was a tough call to make; if she decided to make the testing more invasive, the medical staff ran the risk of further destabilizing the subjects condition.

 

The soft sound of whimpering drifted across the sterilized and recycled air of the main medical ward examination room, and Miha turned her attention from the digital flimsy printout over to her current patient: ‘Bear’. Bear was a three year old female Rottweiller, and the pride and joy of the stations chief security officer. Nishan wasn’t a dog lover, or even particularly liked animals in general, but even she had to admit that the big brute of a dog had grown on her in the year that she’d been stationed at the research center. So, it was a bit disconcerting to see the pet dog this sick. The big dog was a complete sweetheart who liked everyone, even Klingons.

 

The black and tan canine had been throwing up foam, dribbling at the mouth, and had a fever. Her eyes had gone an odd pale grey color that was almost consistent with the milky white breakdown in the optical nerves and corneas of the deceased. Her fur wasn’t matted or falling out, but certain areas of the dermatitis layer had started to degrade and had a few weeping sores scattered across the skin.

 

Her chief assistant, Toshi, was gently taking blood samples from the incapacitated canine while Bear’s owner, Lieutenant Micah ‘Mike’ Connelly, stood vigil out in the separate outer examining area with her second medical assistant, Peter, a sandy haired young man fresh from the tech academy who was participating in the exchange program. The secure examining room was separated from the outer processing area by a decking to ceiling plating clear plexi-steel barrier, allowing those inside the examining area to remain in full view of the others in the outer area.

 

Misha spoke into thin air, and the internal automatic communications program for the research station immediately picked up the wireless signal and her voice was transmitted out into the outer area where the technician and CSEC stood waiting. “Mike, all we can do right now is make her comfortable, take scans and samples, and try and figure out why she’s so sick.”

 

The big and muscular dark skinned man known as Mike to friends and co-workers, nodded. “I understand Doc. It happened so fast. She was fine yesterday, then, all of a sudden she got sick.”

 

“She’s really deteriorating Mike, all within the last twenty eight hours…I’ll be honest with you when I say I’ve never really encountered anything like this before. The initial symptoms were flu-like, but now…this is way beyond anything I could guess at. Her systems aren’t shutting down, yet she’s not getting any better despite everything I’ve tried…”

 

Nishan trailed off, uncertain as to how to continue. How exactly do you tell a friend that he may have to put his animal down? Mike paled a bit, picking up on what she was trying to say. Then, he tried to pick up the conversation as best he could but faltered on his words and rubbed a hand across his face, trying to gather himself.

 

“She has a small prick on one haunch, like an old fashioned medical needle or dart impacted. Any ideas?”

 

“I took her with me yesterday to cargo storage when I checked that new cargo shipment that came in. I lost her for a few minutes when she disappeared among the crates and such, but it’s no big deal usually. She seemed fine. You think she got into something? Remember two years ago we had that outbreak with the rats that came in along with a shipment of supplies and foodstuffs because that flea bitten civilian contractor ship didn’t follow the correct transport containment procedures? Maybe those civvie contractors that dropped off our new supplies weren’t clean? I thought they looked kind of scruffy….reminded me more of junior mercs then a professional outfit, especially the way they handled themselves…”

 

“We can only speculate at this point, but it’s a good idea to review the camera logs and manifest from that ship. We might find something.”

 

Miha then turned her attention to her assistant, the wireless signal still transmitting her voice loud and clear. “Pete, talk with Chief Georges and have her pull all records from that new contractor ship that dropped off our supplies for this cargo quarter. We need to know a bit more about them since they’ve been the only outsiders here in the past months…”

 

The station CMO was interrupted mid sentence when Bear, who had seemed so weak a moment ago, snarled and leapt off the examining pallet with a burst of energy. The one hundred and ten pound Rottie slammed into the dark haired chief medical assistant and bit down right on the hapless man’s jugular: The man didn’t even have a prayer to try and evade the attack, much less defend himself. The medical technician’s cry of terror was lost in a gurgle as blood filled his mouth and spurted from the bite wound like a fountain.

 

The sharp tang of blood filled her nostrils, and the chief medical officer instinctually knew that Toshi was too far gone, and that she had to get herself out of immediate danger from the canine that had gone crazed. She dove for the door controls, and slammed her fingers down on the keypad, frantically entering the exit coding. She tumbled out onto the decking, and Connelly immediately dove forward to slam the access doorway shut again.

 

The medical exam room was surrounded by a decking to ceiling panel wrap around plexi-steel glass enclosure, so Miha was fairly confident the half crazed dog could be contained within the area for a while until they figured out what to do with her and could take custody of poor Toshi’s body. The Rottie kept growling, and scrabbling at the clear barrier, trying desperately and aggressively to get out; she had sighted down on and wanted to get at Misha, Peter and Connelly and rip them apart, that much was certain.

 

Garrett had a stricken look on his face, and it was obvious he was completely beside himself over the condition of his dog and what had just happened. But, the burly and muscular former marine had enough presence of mind to look right at Miha and Peter and say with a sad confidence, “That’s not my Bear. Whatever soul made her who she was is completely gone and replaced by whatever … she is now.”

 

Nishan was not religious, and she knew that Connelly wasn’t as well, but she understood what the security chief was saying nevertheless. “I know Mike.” She redirected her own jangled nerves and mindset back into her safety zone of medicine, and walked over to a workstation that had a computer console on the desktop. She efficiently entered her medical access code and transferred all of the data and tests that had been recorded in the examining area to her current access console.

 

Pete gently jumped into the conversation at that moment, keeping on topic with regard to first stage containment procedures. “Doc, what are we going to do? Knock out gas would be the best thing at this point for the dog, so we can get past her and get to Toshi. This is insane … Oh my God. Doctor Nishan…”

 

Misha glanced over at Peters change in tone, and then followed his now horrified gaze back to the enclosure; Toshi was standing. He was obviously covered in blood from the dog attack, and his life blood continued to soak through the stark white of his hospital scrubs uniform. He seemed dazed, looking around the examining room as if he wasn’t sure why he was there.

 

Reflex reaction. He’s still alive. Oh God. Did I screw up with my assessment? Was he still alive and I should have tried to get the dog off him and get him out of the exam room?

 

“What in the name of … " Nishan moved back towards the enclosure, but didn’t code open the entry way, not with that dog still in there. Instead, the senior medical lead thumbed the room to room intercom that would allow her to speak with her injured assistant.

 

“Toshi? I need you to listen to me. I want you to sit down and keep calm. You’re bleeding, and I need you to stay still…”

 

Toshi sighted down on her as she spoke, and his visual gaze started to track her with an animal like intensity. With a howl, the Asian man launched himself at the barrier, bouncing off several times as he made contact with the plexi-glass separation. The man continued to snarl and growl, and the cracks were audible as he broke several of the bones in his hands making contact with the barrier, seemingly oblivious to the pain. Spittle and white foam flew from his mouth, and his eyes were the same odd color shading as Bears.

 

Like the dog, the male Humans almost feverish intentions were very clear-- he wanted out, and he wanted to get at the doctor and her second assistant.

 

Connelly was blown away by how fast the situation had spiraled out of control, much less how quick the assistant had gotten infected with whatever Bear had, but his protocol training kicked in and he jumped into action, spouting orders to the civilian doctors. “We need to figure out what we have here. Peter, call up to main control, and tell them to shut down the air circulators. Shut ‘em down now! Tell the operations officer on duty to shut down the goddamn air circulators!!”

 

The younger medical assistant stood frozen for a few seconds, not really believing what he was hearing, much less the carnage he had just witnessed. Doctor Nishan meanwhile had accessed a wall panel set off the outer office area and withdrew several rebreather facial units.

 

“Pete!” Her tone wasn’t unkind, but it brooked no argument. She pushed a lock of long dark behind her ear in a reflex reaction. “Do as Mike says. Move it! Contact the Central Control deck!”

 

Peter did as he was ordered, but deep down he knew with a certainty that some of the staff and crew wouldn’t live to see any sort of rescue or relief from what was rapidly becoming a big time problem…

 

…things were getting out of control…

 

****

 

The training vids at Starfleet academy simply did not cover this sort of stuff…

 

Ensign Romero ‘Romeo’ Boyle refused to die on some medical station out in the middle of nowhere.

 

It just wasn’t dignified…he just refused to let it happen this way, to go down without a fight.

 

The last six hours had been a waking nightmare. Something had gone down, something bad, and some sort of medical…screw up was sweeping through the station at warp speed.

 

He’d seen the devastation first hand; people’d get really sick, like they had a bad flu virus or something but way worse. And after puking their guts out and bleeding all over the place, they went to sleep -- or passed out -- and woke up going all stark raving crazy. If they survived the virus and the deterioration to their body and systems or whatever long enough, they recovered. But the really screwed up thing was, during the time period that they were still Infected they could take a chunk out of someone and then infect them.

 

The viciousness of the cycle was scary, and no one seemed to be immune to the virus or whatever the thing was once it got into their systems through a bite, and the doctors couldn’t come up with an explanation or anything, much less some kind of antidote.

 

The cycle just kept going, and any possible survivors had been trapped on the station when the whole damn place went into lockdown. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way, and Romeo really didn’t understand all the details; the control tower had tried to launch the proper containment procedures, and then the computers started acting like the station systems had gotten Infected or something weird like that.

 

Now, everyone that managed to survive the initial onslaught of the Infected were scattered across the station in self made bunkers, trying survive and make it to the next day.

 

…Doyle still refused to die out here. He refused. He would not go down like some animal, howling and half mad in his final hours, attacking his friends. And besides, if he died, his brother would get his collection of mint hardcopy comic books and the bastard would probably hock them for credits.

 

Not gonna happen. Nope.

 

Communications as well as several other station wide systems had been reduced to minimal operating efficiency due to that tech glitch that had gotten into the systems. The security ensign had no proof that the virus and the tech problems were inter-related, but he was willing to guess a yes. Security Chief Connelly had also said as much at a harried departmental meeting a few hours ago, confirming some of the rumors that had been flying among the non-Infected staff and crew.

 

Romero and his partner, Ensign Barbra Johns, had been assigned to do a patrol sweep up several decks to the control tower and ascertain if anyone was still alive in the main operations area. He hadn’t been happy about the assignment -- in his opinion, the surviving red shirts should’ve just bunkered down in a secure area with plenty of food and ammo. But, orders were orders, and here he was skulking through the corridors and praying one of the crazy Infected didn’t jump the two of them. Johns looked about as freaked out as Doyle felt, but both of the security officers were too well trained to just abandon their posts and orders -- as much as they both wanted to and entertained the thought mentally.

 

Systematically, with each of them alternating on the forward point guard, the ensigns had moved steadily through the decks, corridors, Jeffries tube access nodes, and crawlspaces until they reached the main control deck. They hadn’t encountered a single soul, either living or whatever the other ones were. The corridors were all set to that weird emergency half lighting, really low and casting long shadows. Both Johns and Boyle wore tactical flashlights strapped to their phasers to cut through the semi-darkness and light their way.

 

He had no idea what had happened to the people who had gotten sick, but Romeo refused to call them zombies, ‘cause that was just stupid and there was no such thing. Some of the other guys in the department had taken to describing the Infected officers and civilian medical technicians as the undead or zombies, but other officers such as Boyle maintained that their former friends and colleagues weren’t the undead set loose to walk the station -- they were just really tripped out with some sort of viral agent.

 

Doctor Nishan and the other medical guys would figure something out. They had to….Nishan and the other medical techs and crew would find something to stop the virus….they just had to. Boyle kept telling himself that over and over.

 

Because of the lockdown, entire sections of the station were currently inaccessible. It was possible to move from deck to deck as long as you carried a portable tricorder and used the wireless device to hack into the security bulkhead doors, rendering them operable long enough in order to access the next section.

 

The entire patrol had been slow going, but the two guards had made a steady progress and now found themselves hunkered down in an access corridor set just off the main control room area for the station.

 

Romeo stood rear guard making sure no one came up on their six while Johns was working on the access way door. He held his silver chromed phaser out and at the ready, the flashlight affixed to the weapon cutting through the murk surrounding them. Johns was one of the best field hackers on the team, way better then he was, so he was pretty sure that she’d handle this entry way door the same way she had handled the other access entries -- quickly, efficiently, and like a pro.

 

Despite the circumstances -- which completely sucked for lack of a better term -- Romero spoke in a whisper to his partner, teasing her. It was a spot of normalcy in an unreal situation. He never took his eyes off the long and semi-darkened corridor that he was guarding, maintaining his vigilance. One wrong move and one or two or ten of the Infected might be on them before they knew it.

 

“Hey Barbs. You’re taking your sweet time over there; I think I hear a gray hair growing in.”

 

Like him, she easily fell into the banter, but kept her voice low all the same so as to avoid attracting any unwanted attention. “Screw you and your one hair Romeo…”

 

After another few minutes of uber-geek hacking and muttered cuss words, Johns had hit on the right entry coding for the access node, and the two security guards cautiously entered the main control floor area. Like the rest of the station areas that they had passed through, the outer offices and control room looked as if a small tropical storm had passed through.

 

There were a couple of blood spatter patterns sprayed across the bulkheads; the two security offices made a mental note of the blemishes but didn’t dwell on them as they had seen blood spattered at various areas all across the station from the infection. Insensitivity was just another way of surviving the constant mental onslaught.

 

Johns and Boyle moved systematically from office to office and room to room, giving the control deck a thorough once over. They didn’t speak, and their footfalls were soft against the decking.

 

The control room was empty save for one lone figure at the far end, standing upright at the main sensor dish console. In the half darkness of the area, Romeo guessed from the body outline and gold shirt that it was Chief Petty Officer Georges. The senior non commissioned officer kept flipping switches and entering commands into the computer console as if she were still on duty and the console and small viewers of the work station weren’t either at half power or on complete system shutdown. The main observation port shutters were open, offering a serene view of the surrounding stars and the blackness of space through the reinforced plasti-steel wraparound window at odds with the internal carnage that had been visited on the personnel of Cold Station 13.

 

Well…it would appear that the patrol deployed to the command tower deck had found someone. The security red shirts held their phasers in the downward tactical position, at the ready for any gunplay if they needed to defend themselves. Romeo’s partner glanced over and nodded once in his direction, indicating that he should take the lead. He answered her with a quick jerk of his chin downward, and then spoke out loud in a clear and precise diction.

 

“Chief Georges. It’s Ensign Boyle. I need you to show me your hands Chief. Step away from the console Chief. Can you hear me?”

 

Nothing. No sign of acknowledgment.

 

Johns tried next to get some sort of response from the non commissioned officer. “Petty Officer Georges. Please acknowledge. That’s a direct order.”

 

Maybe it was the tone of voice that the female ensign used, or the inference of a direct order that somehow registered with the petty officer’s consciousness. The incessant tapping on the inset keyboard ceased, but Georges still didn’t offer any sort of vocal acknowledgment. She remained sitting at the darkened console with her back towards the ensigns.

 

Boyle swore under his breath and then spoke in a hissed whisper to Johns. “If we don’t get some kind of vocal response, we’re authorized to take her down. We’re taking more of a risk every moment that we can’t ascertain--“

 

“We are not shooting her in the back Romeo. It’s Georges. We played cards with her last week. We can’t just--”

 

The slightly older dark skinned woman suddenly stood with an awkward gait, lurching up from her sitting position as if she had a delay between her brain and her limbs as the appendages carried out the instructions. She turned and looked straight at the two guards, and Romeo saw that her eyes were bloodshot and her gold uniform tunic was covered with some blood.

 

Johns spoke quietly so only Romero could hear; the two officers maintained the same rank, but she was the ranking squad officer and came to a decision. “Okay…standard procedure, current patrol assignment. We need to ascertain if she’s herself or still Infected. She might’ve gotten passed the initial infection like the ones Nishan has in recovery…”

 

Chief Georges suddenly shrieked and bolted at Johns and Boyle with a burst of speed, leaping over a low console and covering the distance across the large control room in less then two seconds; both guards backpedaled as they brought their phasers up into a firing position. Romero fired first and Barbra fired her phaser round a fraction of a second later. The senior NCO officer crumpled to the decking, dead from two kill rounds at close range -- one to the chest, one to the head.

 

Neither one of the ensigns said anything out loud to one another about what had just happened. Internally though, in their own minds, each reflected on the horror that they had just witnessed and contributed to. The two junior officers continued to go about their assigned duties, double checking the remaining control tower rooms and offices as they had been instructed to by Connelly. No other survivors, Infected or otherwise, were present in this upper level. With their primary instructions taken care of, the two ensigns left the immediate area and began the long and slow journey back to the cargo levels of the station where a handful of survivors had holed up in an attempt to wait out the nightmare.

 

There was a very distinct possibility that one or both of the young officers would not make it back.

 

…Romeo still hoped that the two of them would make it back to the makeshift command post that Connelly and the others had set up. He refused to die out here in the middle of nowhere because of some sort of medical screw up or whatever.

 

…it just wasn’t dignified…