Purging the systems

Posted on Sunday May 12th, 2019 @ 21:45 hours by Mayterial Droz & Ares Onasis & Taleria Lin MD

Mission: Pixie Dust
Timeline: MD02 - 1500 hours
1334 words - 2.7 OF Standard Post Measure

Kira stood in the middle of the medbay with two vials of the very fine powdery dust. She had been fairly nervous when she had made it back into the cargo bay where her visions of the dark matter creatures had started. The rest of the day had gone by as in a blur and now she stood here with the stuff in her hands, hoping that the Doctor could help them fix it and also that the Quartermaster and Engineer could find a way to set the computer to purge it from the ship itself, "There you go, doc." She offered one of the vials to the physician and the other to the Quartermaster, "and one for you."

Taleria took the vial with a nod. "Alright, let's be fast about this." She placed the vial into one of the side machines and tapped in a few commands. Then she loaded up the varied blood samples she'd taken from everyone she could find and initiated the matching process. With many varied races aboard the Fawkes, it would take too much time and be too difficult to synthesize a vaccine tailored to each individual race - so Lin set the program to look for commonalities to make a broad spectrum vaccine that could work on all of them. She'd be able to purge them individually later, once she had a basis to work with.

Ares looked over the vial as she headed over to the panel and opened up the system. “Thank the fuckin’ Gods we can finally get this shit outta here,” she stated with an exhausted breath. Everything felt surreal to her with the combination of whatever toxin was in the air, the inhibitor, and the drug detox her body was going through at the same time. Her skin was clammy, and her eyes were sunken in. Fortunately, May gave her the opportunity to shower before meeting up at the Infirmary for the final purge. Everything was coming together, and it all was going to be over soon. The computer beeped as she placed the vial in the slot, and she began chewing on her lip. It felt like the computer was taking its sweet time loading the information though the analysis was complete in less than a few seconds. “Systems are a go, Droz. Environmentals should switch over in a minute or so.”

Mayterial softly chewed her lower lip as she looked at both the Trill doctor and the human Quartermaster doing their thing with the sample that was retreived by their deck hand. Kira really reasserted herself after the breakdown in the showers, "How much longer until we can go around the ship without fear of being assaulted by feral beasts, real or imagined?"

Lin stepped over to the environmental systems display and tapped a few commands, making sure her math was correct. "We need to give it at least fifteen minutes or so for the environmentals. It will take time for every nook and cranny filled with air to be purged. Sadly this is not a Fleet ship where things are more or less instant." She said finally. "As for the vaccine - hard to tell, either way the computer is going to do it faster than I could manually."

"And how do we innoculate the crew? Do we have to run around with hypos?" Mayterial wasn't too keen on having to get some of the more affected crewmembers the vaccine needed to make everything return to normal, "Because I'm not going to be poking M'erah with a hypo." She looked over at Ares with a concerned grimace.

Ares gave May a nod. She got her covered. "I did it once. I can do it again. I should have some more tranquillizers. I'll give him a lower dose this time since it shouldn't take much longer for it to go through his system. He's a big cat but he has a faster heartbeat. I've got my phaser too or my rifle if you want me to be extra cautious."

"You better be, we both know what happened to Volok." May looked over at the biobed where the Vulcan was unconsciously struggling for his life. She looked back over to the doctor, "but first we'll need to get something to inject him with."

"Did you ever transport any sort of animal? If so you should have tranq delivery system." Taleria offered.

"We did, but it was confiscated when the fleeters clamped down on us last year." Mayterial rubbed her eyebrow, "what I meant was not the method of injection but the stuff we're injecting him with." She gave a tired smile, this day had barely begun and she was already clamoring for it to be over.

Lin looked over her shoulder at the little whirring device, "what about a localized forcefield and flooding it with the compound? Like an aerosolized variant of it?"

"Wouldn't that make it more difficult to calculate the necessary dose?" Mayterial wasn't a doctor by a long shot, she had some first aid experience but that was years ago. "How long still for the computer to find a cure, anyway?"

"That's not that difficult to calculate if you know your anatomy, the aesorolized dose, I mean." Taleria countered, "as for the timer..."

The trill turned away from the two women and stepped over to the machine that was conducting the scans. "It's half way done, from what I can tell with its analysis. Once that's finished, I'll know..."

She'd looked at a reflective surface too long, empty eyes and a charred face staring back at her.

Lin blinked, "sorry. I'll know then, once I have the results. It's hard to predict like this, considering the state of your equipment and the lack of information on what this thing even is. I know you're anxious to get everyone cured, I get it. But medicine is hardly an immediate science, Captain. One thing wrong and we could kill people."

May looked over to Ares, "How long for the cat to wake up?"

Ares gave her a shrug. She’d hit him hard with three doses of someone her size. She honestly had no idea except a guess. “To be safe another hour or two if I hadn’t overdosed him already.” Her lips tilted up slightly on one side from her poorly placed joke. That was surely strike two for her but she couldn’t help it. Humor was her stress relief.

"So we need a cure in less than an hour, and a bit of luck you didn't just kill our most capable Able Deck Hand." Mayterial nodded slowly and gave a weary smirk as well, "Let's hope we ran out of bad luck in these past twelve hours."

"Keep him in that forcefield and I'll do the rest," Lin said as the machine beeped. "Alright, the analysis is finished, now get out of here and let me work. I'll contact you before the hour is out."

Mayterial her gaze lingered for a moment on Volok in the bio bed. She then looked over to the doctor and silently retreated out of the medical bay before turning to Ares, "let's get to the cargo bay and keep M'erah in place until we can get the cure to him."

Ares jutted her chin towards May. She had to admire the woman for keeping her cool under the extreme pressure of the situation. She could only wish for May’s ability to not snap in anger or bite if she felt cornered. “I’ll grab my rifle. Better safe than sorry.”

It seemed odd for someone as fiery as Ares to share that sentiment, "Words to live by" Mayterial decided not to remark further on it and led the way in the direction of the turbo lift, they'd pass the Quartermaster's quarters on the way there. She couldn't wait for all of this to be over.

[OFF]

Mayterial Droz
Captain

Ares Onasis
Quartermaster

&

Taleria Lin
Ship's Physician

S.S. Fawkes