Star Trek: Voyager - 043 - Acts of Contrition

by Kirsten Beyer

  Now all of the four ships remaining to the fleet were scattered, and the distances between them made them too vulnerable, at least in Chakotay’s mind.

  His general level of anxiety increased the moment he entered sickbay and found the Doctor pacing. He looked ready to climb the walls.

  “You asked to see me?” Chakotay greeted him.

  “I did. Thank you for coming.”

  “I wasn’t sleeping anyway,” Chakotay admitted. “What’s the problem?”

  “A little less than two hours ago, I successfully re-created the catomic plague,” the Doctor said.

  “So soon?” Chakotay asked, shocked.

  The Doctor nodded. “I have now confirmed that catomic particles, when damaged, cease to recognize viral agents as hostile and merge with them, infusing these viruses with the ability to use their catomic properties to target any organ or tissue they find and destroy it with heretofore unseen efficiency.”

  “We need to get this information to Starfleet Medical right away,” Chakotay said.

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” the Doctor objected.

  “Why not?”

  “It only took me a few weeks to do this. There is no way that a year later, whoever is working on the plague at Starfleet Medical has not already reached the same conclusion I have.”

  “You believe they have also replicated it?” Chakotay asked.

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “I’m sorry, Doctor, I don’t see . . .”

  “There’s no way to cure this plague,” the Doctor cut him off, his voice rising. “Once the virus has been compromised by the catoms, there is no means to reverse it. The only option is to limit its ability to infect others. It will cease to exist only when it no longer has access to a host and all existing carriers have been vaporized.”

  “The fact that they are still working on it suggests otherwise, doesn’t it?” the captain asked. “What about Seven’s and Axum’s catoms? You said damaged catoms were susceptible to viral infection. Fully functioning ones might be able to reverse that.”

  The Doctor shook his head. “I already tried. When Seven’s catoms were introduced to the virus, they only enhanced the speed with which the virus destroyed living cells. For reasons I do not yet understand, the damaged catoms overran the healthy ones.”

  “Why did they need Seven?” Chakotay asked. “Are they attempting to modify healthy catoms to repair the damaged ones?”

  “We are, at best, years away from reprogramming a single catom,” the Doctor said.

  “Maybe they intend to use them as a template to create new ones that can be designed . . .”

  “Add a few years to that estimate for creating new catoms from scratch,” the Doctor assured him.

  Chakotay felt a chill creep up his spine. “What are you suggesting, Doctor?”

  “They told us they needed Axum and Seven to help cure the plague. But there is no cure. And they must know that. They’ve already lied to us.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  The Doctor paused, then said softly, “The Caeliar were responsible for ending the existence of the most hostile species the Federation has ever encountered. What does that make them?”

  “Our friends, to whom we shall be eternally grateful?” Chakotay suggested.

  “Or?” the Doctor asked.

  “Or a new threat, even more powerful than the Borg,” Chakotay said, horrified.

  The Doctor nodded slowly. “The losses Starfleet suffered at the hands of the Borg during the invasion were massive. Thousands of ships, officers, entire planets were lost. Still, within a matter of months, Starfleet had equipped a fleet of nine ships with slipstream technology to explore former Borg space and confirm that the Caeliar have left the galaxy. For someone up there, this is a priority above and beyond reconstruction. Someone has decided that the next time we meet the Caeliar, we must have the ability to meet them with deadly force, should circumstances demand it.”

  “Are you suggesting that someone intentionally created this plague as some sort of weapon and it got out of hand?” Chakotay asked.

  “I don’t know how it was first created. There are many possible scenarios that could account for it occurring randomly. But there is only one that could explain the actions of Starfleet Medical since then.”

  “Even if you’re right, Seven would never help them weaponize catoms.”

  “No,” the Doctor said. “And I’m guessing they know that too, or they learned it in short order. Seven believed they were torturing Axum. She knew they might do the same to her, and she was willing to risk it if she thought a cure would come of it. I let her go, believing their intentions were pure, even if their actions might be misguided or their ignorance the cause of suffering. If Seven learns the truth, they’ll never let her live to tell it.”

  “Seven is one of the most resourceful individuals I have ever known,” Chakotay insisted. “If you are right, and this is some vast conspiracy, she will figure it out and act appropriately.”

  “We have to get word to her,” the Doctor insisted. “Maybe we can use Pathfinder, but we must send a message only she can receive. We have to tell her what I know, and it can’t wait until we are back in range of our communication buoys.”

  “That might not be possible, Doctor.”

  “Make it possible, Chakotay,” the Doctor pleaded. “I don’t know anyone else who can.”

  “As soon as we return to the First World, I’ll contact Lieutenant Barclay and ask for his assistance.”

  “What am I supposed to do until then?” the Doctor asked.

  Chakotay shrugged, knowing he would not be taking the advice he was about to give. “Try not to worry.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  CORIDAN

  Doctor Mik had been placed in charge of the capital city’s quarantine facility one week after it had been constructed and one hour after the facility’s first director, Doctor Chrims, had died from exposure to the catomic plague. He had not expected the facility to still be open a year later. Every day that it was meant that Coridan was one day closer to a catastrophe from which it would never recover.

  “We transmit our reports to Starfleet Medical and the Federation Institute of Health daily, Doctor Sharak,” Mik said impatiently. “They have all of our numbers. I don’t understand why they’ve sent you to confirm data they’ve already received.”

  “I am not here to confirm,” Sharak said. “I am here to reevaluate.”

  “Reevaluate what? These are basic statistics,” Mik said.

  “The infection rates from the first three weeks of exposure were incredibly high,” Sharak said.

  “I know. We lost almost eight thousand in the first month,” Mik said.

  “Since then, the rates have dropped precipitously.”

  “Because the quarantine worked,” Mik said. “Whatever causes this infection killed its victims too quickly to spread further.”

  “I agree,” Sharak said. “What I don’t understand is why it has continued to spread for the last six months.”

  “Six months?” Mik asked.

  “Yes,” Sharak said. “Every statistical analysis run of the cases you have reported indicates that six months after the quarantine was established, the infection should have been completely contained.”

  “But obviously it hasn’t been,” Mik said. “Analysis is one thing. This is real life. It’s still out there. We get new patients almost every day. We have no idea how they are coming in contact with it, but their symptoms are consistent.”

  “It is crucial that we determine how the infection is continuing to spread. Were it still airborne, your rates should be more than a thousand times what they are at this point. If it has mutated to another state, which evolutionary biology tells us is highly unlikely, the rates should still be a hundred times higher, and we should have been able to discover several likely contaminated sources based upon the individual histories of the new victims,” Sharak said.

  “N
othing we have discovered thus far points to a single contaminated area,” Mik said. “We usually can’t question the patients by the time they get here. But we do complete histories with their next of kin and pay particular attention to their last known activities and locations before they were diagnosed.”

  “And there is no obvious pattern?” Sharak asked.

  Mik shook his head. “Not yet.”

  Sharak nodded. “Are the histories you have compiled stored here?”

  Mik shrugged. “Some. Most are still at the hospitals where the patients were admitted before they were placed in quarantine.”

  “Can you request copies from the hospitals?”

  “I could,” Mik replied.

  “I would be most grateful if you would do so.”

  “I don’t know what you think you’re going to find, Doctor. But it’s your time to waste,” Mik said.

  “Indeed,” Sharak said.

  GOLDENBIRD

  It was well after midnight, local time, when Doctor Sharak returned to the ship. Lieutenant Samantha Wildman had spent most of the day getting caught up on her own reports and composing a lengthy letter to Naomi. She’d also received an urgent call from Gres, which had lasted over two hours. After replicating a Ktarian stew and salad for dinner, she’d settled into her bunk and had just dozed off when Sharak signaled he was ready for transport.

  One look at his face told her he had not had a good day.

  “Can I get you anything?” she asked as soon as he’d dropped his bag on the deck and sat down to remove his boots. “You must be hungry.”

  “No, thank you, Lieutenant,” Sharak said. “I had a light meal several hours ago.”

  “Will we be returning to Earth now?”

  Sharak shook his head. “I have only begun to evaluate the data I requested. This task will take several more days.”

  Wildman shook her head. “I was only given four days’ leave for this trip. We don’t have several days. Can you continue to study it back on Earth?”

  Sharak shook his head. “When I return, this data will be ignored and I will be assigned other duties that will not bring me any closer to my goal.”

  “What goal is that?”

  Sharak shook his head again.

  “I’m sorry,” Wildman said. “I know, you can’t tell me what you’re doing here. I just wish I could help.”

  Sharak thought for a moment. “Perhaps you could,” he said.

  “Temba. His arms wide,” Wildman said, smiling.

  A few hours later, Wildman was beginning to regret her offer. Sharak had told her that he was studying patient histories for a number of individuals who had been hospitalized on Coridan over the last year. As those records contained classified data, she could not review them for him. There was another data set, however, that the hospital had provided: visual records of hundreds of individual patients who had been treated at the hospital. These were actually footage from scanners installed in the hospital, and many covered several days in the lives of these patients as they had undergone treatment.

  The audio from the scans had been muted. Even had it not been, there wasn’t much to hear from patients who spent most of their time sleeping or watching whatever entertainment the hospital provided on their room monitors. After a while Wildman wished the audio was present, if only to catch the sound of news feeds playing in the background to break up the monotony.

  The routine that played out before her eyes was mind-numbingly consistent. Patients slept, or ate, or watched monitors as a variety of doctors, nurses, and visitors entered and exited at regular intervals. Actually, after the first day, there were usually no visitors. Usually by the end of the second or third day, patients experienced some traumatic event, a radical decline in their condition that resulted in their transfer from the ward where they had been admitted to elsewhere.

  She had accepted Sharak’s need to be vague about what he was looking for. He had simply asked that she review the records and flag any that contained unusual events. Even speeding through the scans when patients slept did little to ease the tedium of the task.

  To amuse herself, Wildman had begun to make up names for the many doctors, nurses, and medical technicians who attended the patients. Most were familiar after the first thirty records had been viewed.

  “Good morning, Doctor Horse,” Wildman said softly as an alien doctor with a long face and ears placed high on his head entered a patient’s room. “Where’s Pinky today?” “Pinky” was a short female with black hair and skin of a unique shade of pink who usually wore something like a nurse’s uniform and often entered as Horse was completing his consult to adjust equipment and occasionally administer injections. She had caught Wildman’s eye the first time she’d appeared, as the xenobiologist had been unable to identify Pinky’s species. Many humans classified as Caucasian were called “pink skins,” a mildly derogatory term, by other alien races. But Pinky was almost Thulian pink, a distinct shade of vivid rose that was unique to whatever her species was.

  As if on cue, Pinky entered and checked the patient’s vital signs on the monitor above the bed. She then removed a hypospray and injected it, checked vitals again, and left.

  “Don’t worry, breakfast is on the way,” Wildman said to the patient, as she rubbed her eyes with one hand and increased the speed with the other. She was forced to pause and reverse the image when Pinky surprised her by entering again, this time with another nurse. “Ethel,” Wildman called this one, given her unfortunate resemblance to one of the lieutenant’s great-aunts. Ethel was clearly upset with Pinky. There was broad gesticulation as she spoke, several sharp points at the vitals monitor followed by Ethel actually taking Pinky by the upper arm and Pinky forcefully shaking her off. Ethel then ushered Pinky out of the room before her. A few moments later, a team of doctors, led by Horse, entered and circled the patient’s biobed.

  Wildman had to replay the scene several times to make sure she was seeing what she thought she was seeing.

  After the third time, she froze the display and increased the magnification of Pinky’s face. Her features were almost human, apart from the color of her skin. Her eyes were large and the irises were so pale as to be almost indistinguishable around the purple pupils. Her nose was a little flat and her lips wide but thin. Her chin protruded ever so slightly. At this magnification, Wildman also noted that her black hair was longer than she’d thought, pulled into a roll at the base of her neck and hidden by the collar of her uniform.

  What transfixed Wildman was the color of Pinky’s skin. It was no longer pink. As Ethel chastised Pinky for whatever she had done, her skin grew visibly darker, moving through lavender to a deeper purple before Ethel had finished with her. In addition, a dark black line—a centimeter wide that could have been mistaken for the shadow of a cheekbone but upon closer examination was actually appearing and growing darker the longer Ethel spoke—was visible on Pinky’s right cheek.

  Before waking Sharak, who was snoring softly in the back of the runabout, Wildman ran several cross-checks to confirm her hypothesis. It was no trouble to interface with the hospital’s staff records, and to Wildman’s surprise, Pinky was not among them. She then initiated a scan of volunteer personnel, common during times of crisis. Coridan had been one of several worlds that saw heavy fighting during the Borg Invasion, and many civilians had volunteered to assist with the large number of injuries.

  She found Pinky among them. Her volunteer credentials had been issued within days of the invasion and were still valid. Her species was listed as Kyppr.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” Wildman said to herself as she moved to Sharak’s bunk.

  “Doctor,” she said softly.

  He jerked from sleep so abruptly, Wildman bumped her head on the low overhead as she moved to avoid a collision.

  “Ow,” she said, as he righted himself on the bunk.

  “Is something wrong, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes.” Wildman nodded, still holding the back of her head.
/>   Sharak rose. “You have injured yourself.”

  “I just need an ice pack,” Wildman said. “You need to see something.”

  SAN FRANCISCO

  Tom Paris had felt reasonably good after leaving Starfleet Medical. He was concerned about Seven, but he no longer felt he was being intentionally left in the dark. If her condition did not improve, Paris would send word to Admiral Janeway, and, if necessary, she’d send the Doctor back via Pathfinder to make sure Seven recovered.

  That feeling evaporated as he entered the mediation chamber the next day. His mother sat stone faced, as usual, Clancy by her side. Shaw rose to greet him and shook his hand firmly.

  Once they were settled, Ozimat entered.

  “We seem to be no closer to resolving the differences between the parties. I am also ever mindful of Commander Paris’s responsibilities to the Starship Voyager, and his need to return to his duties there as soon as possible. I have therefore asked both counselors to present testimony from character references for both Mrs. Paris and the commander. Mister Clancy?”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Clancy said.

  The first witness to speak on his mother’s behalf was Paris’s older sister, Kathleen. He hadn’t seen her in a few years, but, like their mother, she was trim, fit, and very forceful in her insistence that Julia was both more than capable of raising Paris’s children and should be granted the right to do so.

  The appearance of Paris’s younger sister, Moira, was more of a surprise. She was almost eight years his junior, and they’d never been particularly close. He’d missed too many of her formative years. He remembered only a boisterous child. The moment Moira caught sight of anyone, she called, “Come play with me!” Now grown, she refused to meet his eyes as she echoed the sentiments of her older sister. At least Moira did him the courtesy of mouthing an apology to Paris before she left the room.