4

Adriana Cunha held the device she’d stolen from the Gouran shipyard, which was attached via spliced together data conduits to a scientific tricorder their hosts had been gracious enough to provide for them. She and Kevia Turner had been aboard the hover vehicle, moving throughout the city skyscape for the better part of an hour and were finally nearing the edge of the urban sprawl. They’d still received no word from the Horizon, which was adding to Cunha’s anxiety.

“Any luck with that thing?” Turner asked from two rows of seats up.

“I’ve made some progress, but the computer languages are very different,” Cunha said with a sigh. “I ran it through the universal translator, which is getting us to within eighty-percent accuracy in establishing communication, but we’re still getting basic errors, and I’m having to sort them out, one by one. At this rate, the two devices might be able to do an electronic handshake within an hour or so.”

“So even at that point, you’re probably going to have to overcome decryption algorithms and other security measures before you get anything useful from that thing.”

“Yes, Commander. I didn’t expect this would be easy… I just hope we get some information out of it while it’s still relevant to the mission.”

“Keep at it,” Turner said with a reassuring smile. She had wanted Cunha for this mission specifically so that she could gain some actual experience on an away mission. She was a brilliant engineer, but that wasn’t especially helpful if the only place she was useful was in the ship’s engine room. This challenge was perfect because it represented several engineering challenges, and it was teaching her to improvise. Turner also had to admit that Cunha was far more technically savvy than she herself was. If it took the young engineer a couple hours to hack into that device, it would probably take her three or four times as long, and that was if she had the technical skills needed to overcome all of the security measures.

“We’re passing out of the city now,” Dorna said from the vehicle’s cockpit.

Turner glanced out the window to see the last city blocks falling away and a dense forest take over. “Aren’t we more likely to draw attention out here than in the city?”

“No, not really,” Dorna replied. “There are fifty thousand people who live outside the greater urban sprawl and out in the countryside and smaller communities. I know they’re not tracking us, so it would be a miracle if they happened to spot us, at least while we’re up here.”

“At least?”

“There’s always the off-chance they’ll locate one of our facilities. We’d be easier to apprehend at those locations.”

“I’m assuming that’s where we’re headed?” Turner asked.

“We have a location in mind, yes,” Dorna said.

Turner was about to reply, but was surprised to see the indicator light on the comm system flashing. She set it to only alert her if there was a reply from the Horizon. But if they were still up there, why had it taken them so long to answer her hail? She decided it was best not to give too much away in the initial greeting. “This is the Commander,” she said, opting not to identify herself by name.

“This is the U.S.S. Horizon, contacting you on the Special Ops frequency.” She could tell immediately that it was Captain Sheppard’s voice, and she immediately felt a surge of relief flow through her. She looked back to Cunha, who was moving her hands to her temples and releasing a heavy sigh.

“Captain, this is Turner,” she said. “What’s your status? They told us the Horizon had been destroyed.”

“Oh there was a fight, and we took it on the chin, but there were three of them and one of us, and we took one of them out,” Sheppard replied.

“Captain,” Turner said, “Why did it take so long for you to respond to me? I’ve been sending out a hail for the past hour.”

“They have a damping field up over the entire city,” Sheppard replied. “We didn’t pick you up until after you were outside of it. So tell me, Commander, what’s your status?”

“The Gourans were holding us in a cell in the Municipal Prison. We were broken out by the Resistance. Cunha’s with me. The rest of the away team is still in the prison.” Turner paused. “Captain, can you beam us back to the ship?”

“Not right now,” Sheppard said. “We’re out of transporter range and there are two Breen ships between us and the planet. If you could make it to a shuttle though, we can meet up at our coordinates.”

Turner nodded. “That sounds like a plan… once we can find a transport. Oh captain, there’s one more thing you should know.”

“What’s that?”

“It looks like the cure we brought here didn’t work. Something happened and it unleashed something new… something that’s one-hundred-percent contagious, and one-hundred-percent fatal. People have been told to get home and find a safe airtight place to shelter in place.”

There was a pause on the other end. “That’s unfortunate,” Sheppard said.

“One last thing. Cunha managed to get her hands on what looks like a Breen information storage device. We seem to think we might be able to hack into it and get some information out of it.”

“Very good. Have her continue with those efforts, and then get back here as soon as you can,” Sheppard said.

“Understood sir.”

“Horizon out.”

The communication ended, but Turner saw a digital message follow from the ship with a set of coordinates. They now had some idea where to find them once they made it off the planet.

Turner turned to look at Cunha and smiled. “I told you they didn’t blow up that ship.”

They continued on for some time longer. Turner lost track of time as she turned several facts over in her mind. The first thing was simple relief that the Horizon was still out there. This was not the first away mission she’d been on where the survival of the ship was in question, but it was the first one where an enemy of the Federation was operating openly on the planet while they were claiming the ship was destroyed.

The second issue on Turner’s mind was the nature of the virus itself. Gour II hadn’t been considering secession until this virus broke out. This wasn’t the first issue the Federation had had with the planet, but it was the catalyst that caused tensions to escalate. It made sense too. Once the virus emerged, the world had gone into quarantine while keeping only essential operations running. While the Federation liked to pride itself in being a money-less society, the truth wasn’t nearly so clean, and a whole-population quarantine still meant that the flow of goods and services would come to a halt and cause major disruptions. It made sense to her that the Breen had used the virus to drive a wedge between Gouran IV and the Federation, and they would then swoop in and bring the world into an alliance with them. But, if the Breen had engineered the virus, it didn’t make any sense that they would somehow transform the virus into one that’s much, much more lethal. That left only two possibilities—that the Breen weren’t responsible and this occurred naturally, or that the Breen were behind this and weren’t trying to simply take the planet, but to sterilize it of sentient life. The latter possibility caused a chill to run down her spine. There had to be something she was missing though…

“Commander,” Cunha said from the seats behind her and Turner leaned back to look at her.

“I’ve got it!” Cunha said excitedly.

“Got what?”

“I’m in,” Cunha said.

“I thought you said it was going to take another hour.”

“Well, I created an algorithm to solve the translation issues. That cut the number of conflicts way down, so then I was able to build some bridging dialog between the tricorder and the device. Once I did that, I thought it was going to take a long time to overcome their data security, but it turns out that they’re very utilitarian in their coding. I could have cut through this as a first year cadet.”

“Great news,” Turner said, feeling that Cunha’s description of what she’d just done was entirely more detailed than it needed to be. “So what’s in that thing?”

“It’s exactly what we thought it would be. It’s a communication device. It has the plans for the single pilot military craft Bashir and I saw at the plant, but it also has a comm system built in that can communicate with any Breen facilities within range.”

“So…” Turner tried to think of something that would provide them with useful information. “You think you might have access to a few answers about what’s going on here?”

Cunha nodded. “I’ll do a search for Gour II and see what comes up. If we’re lucky, I’ll find some communications talking about what their plans are here…” She hit some controls on her tricorder. “Wait a minute… I think I have something here. There’s a reference here to the Sterilization War. It looks like this was fought about a hundred years ago…”

“Which was the same time The Oppressors were driven off Gour II.”

“Right!” said Cunha excitedly. “The Oppressors were bent on establishing a mighty star empire, and they were using this planet to cheaply build weapons to fight the Breen. Well, the Gourans got tired of working for them, so they sabotaged their weapon plants. Without a steady supply of weapons for the front line, the Breen gained the upper hand in the conflict and obliterated The Oppressors.”

“Alright,” Turner said. “That’s an interesting history lesson, but what does that have to do with what’s going on right now?”

“Nobody but the Breen knows…” Cunha said. “The Gourans are exactly the same people as The Oppressors.”

“What?” Turner asked.

“Thousands of years ago, the Gourans and The Oppressors were one people, but they split into two groups. One group wanted to develop technology, have an advanced economy, and explore space. The other group led a very pastoral existence, and they didn’t want that existence to change. Eventually they went their separate ways and the splinter group came to settle a world called Nendia III. A thousand years later, the group that left to become more technologically advanced went to war with the Breen, and it looks like a good part of the space they control had shrunk because of this war.”

“Why did they call it the Sterilization War?” Turner mused. “Unless both sides hated each other so much that it wasn’t going to end until one side had completely destroyed the other.”

“Exactly,” said Cunha. “I’m seeing a number of Breen communications referring to the Gourans as the last of the great enemy.”

“So they create the ultimate weapon,” Turner said. “A virus, that’s first used to weaken the bond between Gour II and the Federation. Once they’ve brought that to a crisis point, they have another virus designed to commit genocide on the whole population.”

“If everything you just said is true,” said Dorna, “They’re never going to believe it.”

“No, of course they wouldn’t want to believe that their new allies are trying to wipe them out. What we need is some kind of evidence they can’t refute,” said Turner. “Can you get us to a shuttlecraft?”

Dorna nodded. “We keep a few hidden away, and we usually wouldn’t just loan them out to people, but given what’s at stake, I think getting you back to your ship is more important.”

Bashir sat down on a chair next to his medical equipment and took a sip of the raktajino he has synthesized an hour ago. It was starting to get cold. He drank it anyway, because his eyes were growing red and tired.

It was very clear that the second virus was delivered by the destruction of the first. Viruses weren’t truly alive. They were composed of RNA sequences that would go into the cell of a living host and hijack it to reproduce the virus. The virus they had gone to Gour II to handle was a carefully designed trap. One did not truly kill a virus since it wasn’t alive in the first place. Rather, when the retroviral made the host cell incompatible with the virus, the RNA was broken up into smaller pieces by the host’s immune system. From there, the cells would simply dispose of the pieces, like a janitor sweeping up so much dirt.

This particular virus had been designed so that when it was attacked, it would break into several pieces, with one particular section that was reinforced so it would remain together. That piece just happened to be a piece that had been brought back from the Gamma Quadrant and re-engineered so it was compatible with the Gouran physiology. This virus had wiped out an entire planet before, and Bashir was less than confident that he could do anything about it here.

He tapped his comm badge. “Yellite, I think I have some answers.”

“Good to hear, “I’ll be right over.”

A few moments later Bashir heard the locks to his lab open and the female Gouran stepped in. Her demeanor was cool, and even condescending, which amused Bashir. He assumed they weren’t familiar with his entire medical history if they thought they held any sort of advantage over him.

“You say you have some answers?”

Bashir walked her through the structure of the virus they originally acquired, the fact that it hid a smaller virus within it, and that it was a modification of one that he had encountered on the other side of the Bajoran wormhole. He finished up by giving her the bad news. “The problem is that this was genetically engineered by the Dominion, and because they really knew what they were doing, there was no cure.”

“Doctor Bashir,” said Yellite. “I’m not sure I can buy into your version of the events. The Dominion War has been over for years. This virus is newer than that, and if they had tried to do any of what you’re accusing them of, it would have been such a violation of the treaty with the Federation that the war would have come roaring back to life.”

“I don’t think the Dominion did this,” Bashir said. He honestly wasn’t sure how much information he should give her at this juncture. If he told her something that disagreed with her ideologically she wouldn’t believe it. In fact, she’d likely outright dismiss it as a lie. On the other hand, if he dressed it up with some other explanation, his deception could be uncovered, and that could also play against him.

“Then who did this to our world? The Federation? You said yourself that you’ve seen this virus before.”

Bashir decided that politics be damned, he was telling her the truth. “Doctor, has it occurred to you that one of the Dominion’s allies is in very close proximity to your world? In fact, has it occurred to you that they might have had access to the virus, and have had three years to put this together?”

Yellite’s reaction disappointed him, and it was exactly what he expected. “My dear Doctor, I appreciate the tale you are telling, but the Breen are our allies. Why in the world would our allies have brought a plague here that could destroy us? There’s another simple explanation. Starfleet has encountered this before, so how do I know you didn’t bring it back from the Gamma Quadrant and unleash it on our world to destroy us?”

“Because that wouldn’t make sense,” Bashir protested. “First of all, the Federation has no desire to harm Gour II. You’ve been a good and trusted ally up until this point. Second, biological warfare is a crime in the Federation, punishable by life in prison. What you’re suggesting is against everything we believe in, and you should know that as a part of the Federation!”

Yellite was silent for a moment. Her eyes studied Bashir closely, who was staring her in the eye as he spoke. He hoped she could see that he wasn’t faking his sincerity. “Very well, we’ll put that up as a possible scientific explanation for what is going on. That leaves one more matter. How in the hell are we going to save the people of this planet from it?”

Bashir sighed and took a long drink of his lukewarm raktajino. “That’s where we have a serious problem. As I said earlier, this virus has over an eighty percent similarity to one that wiped out an entire planet in the Gamma Quadrant. It is one of the most efficient killing machines I have ever encountered in my medical career, and when I saw it before, I couldn’t come up with any strategies for dealing with it.”

“So you’re telling me that my world is doomed?”

Bashir was silent for a moment, knowing that his next words could spell his doom. If the answer he gave her sounded completely hopeless then they had no reason to keep him and the rest of the away team alive. If he gave them too much hope then disappointment along the way could meet with the same result.

“What I’m saying is that this is not going to be an easy problem to solve. I want to help save your people. I’d do anything in my power to make this go away for you, and not just because you’ve imprisoned me and my crewmates here.”

“Doctor Bashir, I’m going to ask you for the most straightforward answer you can give me. If you’re lying, I’ll know, and the consequences will not be pleasant. Do you understand?”

Bashir swallowed and felt his mouth go a bit dry. “I do.”

“Good, because it’s a very simple question. Do you think you can devise a way to deal with this virus before it wipes out my entire planet?”

Bashir looked her in the eye and gave her the most honest answer he could. “I will work on it and I will choose to stay on this world until we’ve found a way to beat it. I took an oath as a doctor to treat the sick, heal the wounded, and comfort the dying, above any other considerations. Yes, I will beat this thing, one way or another.”

Yellite nodded, and for a moment she allowed her pretenses to slip. “I hope you can deliver on that promise, Doctor.”