Treating a killer

[Gretchen Hanson 0]

Gretchen spent the three day travel time locked in her office, deep in study on the crisis happening on Hydra IV. From the reports, a picture emerged of the disease ravaging the planet and she came to a working diagnosis: Bubonic Plague. The symptoms exhibited by those infected were eerily similar: 1) rapid onset after exposure to an infected carrier, usually from 1 to 6 days, indicating a short incubation period; 2) Symptoms that included fever, enlarged – often to the point of bursting - lymph nodes, abdominal pain, chills, diarrhea and vomiting, leading to eventual coma and death.

 

As certain as Gretchen was about the disease, she was also certain that she couldn’t be the only one who made the connection. She frowned. Bubonic Plague was easily treatable with the proper antibiotics. Perhaps Hydra’s civil war had depleted the home supply. (And it was probably the civil war that created the conditions for the disease to appear and spread in the first place.) That would explain why Star Fleet was sending the Nightingale, undoubtedly stocked to the gills with Gentamycin or its sibling Streptomycin. She’d heard that the Challenger was going along to provide protection for the hospital ship due to pirates operating in the area. She fumed. Black markets always thrived during times of adversity.

 

The main course of action, as she saw it, was to contain the spread, isolate the probable carriers, treat those who were in the early stages – and thus capable of being treated, provide more advanced care to the mid-term sufferers as their bodies essentially shut down, and deal with wholly unpleasant task of disposing the dead without becoming cold hearted about the process. Actions toward the first goal had already been taken. The planet’s government had cut off air travel between the continents, trying to contain the disease to one geographical area. Gretchen hoped they also took the same precautions for ground transportation. Overseas shipping was still the prime method the bacteria was spread. Even in the 22^nd century, rodents with fleas – the number one carriers - remained the bane of cargo haulers. And she was certain that the civil war had produced conditions that made for flea and rat heaven.

 

The fact that quarantine seemed to be the only course of action being taken was unconscienceable to her. The Hydra government seemed to be willing to let the disease take its course and burn out, a great technique for a prairie fire, but heartless for a human population. She suspected the eastern continent was on the losing side of the civil war. She balled her fists in anger, hating how politics always gets in the way of civilized health care.

 

Gretchen pushed back from the monitor on her desk and got herself under control. The Challenger would be arriving soon and there was work to be done, work that would require a level head. She was ready.