Cabin Fever – Worst case scenario
by HoD Ro' Matlh & Sogh Germite Ephilom & Ne' Michelle "Mike" Young & Soghla' HIchop Matlh & Soghla' Terri (Tell) Hope & Soghla' Jared & Soghla' Marie St. Helene

Previous EntryNext Entry
Post Details

Title   Worst case scenario
Mission   Cabin Fever
Author(s)   HoD Ro' Matlh & Sogh Germite Ephilom & Ne' Michelle "Mike" Young & Soghla' HIchop Matlh & Soghla' Terri (Tell) Hope & Soghla' Jared & Soghla' Marie St. Helene
Posted   Fri Aug 14, 2015 @ 1:33am
Location   Briefing Room
Timeline   8 hours from the Masyo' station
By now, almost all of the Klingon crew had succumbed to the strange affliction. It started as mild confusion and disorientation, then progressed to violent outbursts until eventually the crewman fell unconscious with a high fever and convulsions. Most Klingons had been put in their quarters, as there was only one bed in the infirmary.

The only Klingons who still seemed functional were HIchop and Ro'.

Ro' wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and tried to focus on the remaining crew, all aliens, who now ran his ship. He pointed at the one in blue.

"You!" he barked, "Starfleet. You think you know what is doing this?"

"I know what might be," Mike corrected the Captain. "It appears to be viral in nature, airbourne, and quite virulent. There is no record of it in the Federation or Klingon Databases. However, I did manage to find a close match in the blood work of the Lyan corpse we examine on our last away team. It seems that individual at least was infected, and that would suggest the whole ship was."

"The virus affects the brain, stimulating the areas for aggression and paranoia, while depressing the areas of rational decision making. It is quite specific in its function; it does not kill the Lyan but drives them insane to the point where they would be killing each other. To brilliant, in fact. This is not a natural virus; it has been tailored to the Lyan physiology."

"It has a similar effect on Klingons, affecting their aggression and paranoia, but it also affects their regulatory system in some way, causing internal shut down of key organs. Klingons have redundant organs, which allows them to continue for some time, but eventually it will cause fatal system failure. Fortunately it seems to have little observable affect on Humans and Bajorans."

Ro' grimaced and looked around the team, "ToH! it seems the Lyann killed us and we didn't even know it. Ba'tlhbe'! But we are Klingons, and we will complete our mission or die trying!"

The others looked at each other. They weren't Klingons.

"You, flat head," Ro' pointed to HIchop, "are first officer. You will still be giving the Lecture on Klingon Medicine."

HIchop looked up and blinked. He was distracted. If all Klingon were being affected by this Virus, why wasn't he?

"You, fixey-one," he pointed to Tell, "You are third officer."

Fixey-one? thought Tell Did he just call me Fixey-one? I'll give him Fixey-one. Her fists were clenched as she turned to Marie standing next to her.

"I'm the engineer not a bloody.... Wait... what does a third officer do?"

"Don't ask me, what would I know. I haven't ever made the exalted heights of officerdom. I suppose you go around cleaning up the mess the Second Officer makes and hope you can duck he flack when you don't manage it quickly enough."

"Aren't you now our Chief Tactical officer?" Bruce asked Marie. "That's about as Officer as you get."

"You, Starfleet," Ro' said to Mike, "find a cure for this."

Mike thought, "If it is artificially created, we might be able to find who made it, but that doesn't guarantee a cure can be synthesized."

"And you," he stabbed his finger at Germite, "if she can't find a cure in 24 hours, you are to kill the afflicted. They deserve a quick and honourable death, not this dragging torture."

Germite nodded his head. The Klingon body was highly resilent, but Klingon's themselves did not have the patience to wait for a cure. If it wasn't immediately forthcoming, they'd rather die than be disabled. "Do you have a preferred method? A bat'leth to the throat? Maybe a disruptor shot to the head? Or just push the sick out the airlock?"

"Ideally," Ro' considered, "Hegh'bat, but you'll just have to make do. Just give them honour in death."

"You, the other one," this to Marie, "You are on diplomat duty. There will be someone to meet us, and you are to see you keep them happy."

Oh, just grand, Marie thought. Me with the sparkling personality and witty repartee. Now I know 'Ro is sick. Even he couldn't normally come up with a joke quite this rich.

'Ro got up from his chair and then glanced at Jared, "Who are you? What do you want?" Then before the startled Vetus could respond said, "Anyway, about those canoes!" and strode from the room.

Bruce looked around the remaining crew, "What do we do? If we arrive at the station and appear anything less than full strength they'll carve us up."

"Clean up for a start," replied Tell running her fingers along a panel edge. "This place has become a mess lately. Same with ourselves; we're not exactly looking our best."

"If we arrive and look anything less than fully competent they'll do more than carve us up, flyboy," Marie opined. "The Klingons we can get away with. Who'd notice the difference between a raving Klingon and...well...a raving Klingon. HIchop's lecture might take on new aspects if he uses his compatriots to illustrate his points, though," she mused. "As for the rest of us...damn killing the Klingon's in 24 hours: we need them functioning."

Bruce looked very worried, "This group is expecting full fledged Warriors with tales of glory. We've got... a half dozen puke ridden meat bags. Some Pirates will kill a crew and scuttle the ship if they find out there is sickness aboard. We need to keep this under wraps; not let anyone at this place know anything is amiss. How do we do that With Captain Flake and his crew of Flake-lettes?"

Bruce blinked twice, "Suddenly I feel in the mood for fish and chips."

“What’s the difference between a puke-ridden meatbag and a Klingon after a night on bloodwine?” Marie asked. “Oh, I’m sorry; there isn’t one.”

Tell smirked. "I like that one but it's not as good as some of the other ones I've heard."
She would have reeled off a few but now was not the time or the place. She wondered if there was some kind of manual to read about the duties of a third officer. If it meant telling people what to do... well she would definitely enjoy that.

TAG: