Cavan/Arvelion: "The Fever" Part 4

[chaze...@aol.com]

“The Fever”  Part Four

Lt. Cmdr. Elinor Cavan, M.D.

Chief Medical Officer

U.S.S. Galaxy

Col. For’kel Suum-Arvelion, SFMC

Commanding Officer

188TH Starfleet Marines Detachment- “The Furies”

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The mystery grows…

Reports came in negative of anything out of the useful.  Watch change went off without a hitch.  Nothing had gone into or left the consulate without the Marines’ knowledge.  Same at the transporter hub and at the shuttle pad.  Everything was ‘fine’.

But the body lying on Ellie’s surgical biobed, restraining field in place, begged to differ.  Under the bright lights and before the holographic images Ellie was engaged in theater, putting on a sterling display of Federation forensics.  Fork was less concerned with analytical techniques, his attention was focused on assuring the doors were locked and secured, that the restraining field and all redundant security measures were in place, and that his phaser was never off-sight of the undead rat eater.

As Ellie finished up her preliminary analysis, a chime came from the door.  Fork hit the intercom.  “Who is it?”

“Constable Stolnic, Colonel.”  A somewhat refreshed if still rocky voice called back.  With the press of a button the forcefield and locks were dropped for a mere five seconds, long enough for him to walk through and be scanned for possible contaminants.  “God…” the middle aged man was audibly and visually taken aback by what he saw.  “Christ Davy, what happened?”

“Davy?”

“David Estinov.”  The Constable confirmed.  “Davy and I met in the navy… I always thought he’d be there for life.”

Ellie and Fork exchanged looks. “It seems Constable that Mister Estinov has undergone some… severe life changes since then, psychologically speaking. We found him in a rather feral state,” she said scribbling notes. “Aggressive and delusional. Was talking extensively about the Master from below when he came to.”

Stolnic’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. “Davy worked the deep excavations. He was on the team that broke into that new cavern system last month. The one they sealed up after the... the seismic incident.”

Ellie closed her eyes for a brief second. This would have been helpful information three days ago, but she was not about to chew the man out for carelessly forgetting to mention a tragedy that was seemingly unconnected to the potential outbreak. 

As if he could sense the need to break up their tête-à-tête; David Estinov started making monstrously low groans from the biobed.

His eyes snapped open, still that cast iron black that reflected in shades of yellowed green ever so slightly; his sights set directly on Radu Stolnic. A slow smile spread across his face, cracking the dried blood around his mouth. 

“Raddy,” Estinov's voice was a dry rasp, like stones grinding together. His accent thick like it was written in cursive as he spoke. “You are here. He is so pleased. He remembers you from the dark. He has been waiting for you to come back down.”

Stolnic took a stumbling step backward, his hand going to his sidearm. “Davy, what are you talking about?”

Estinov’s head lolled, much like a child’s doll, toward Ellie and Fork. His smile settled into a rictus. “He says you bring him such strong, fresh blood. He is hungry. He will make a place for you both at his table... in the deep-down dark.” 

“Estinov, stand down!”

But Estinov just laughed, a sound that was utterly devoid of humanity, his gaze still locked on the Constable. “No need for weapons, Colonel. The Master is coming. He is already here.”

Ellie rolled her eyes.  With a firm hiss-ssst, she pressed the hypospray against Estinov's neck. The man slumped back into a deep sleep as she put her hands on her hips, staring daggers into Stolnic. She did not have to move to have the Constable flinch. 

“Doctor, I—”

“You are going to explain yourself,” she said sitting at her makeshift desk. “Start with the cavern. I can forgive that a tragedy that seemed unconnected to your outbreak was omitted from the record, however it is not even in your files Constable. That is a cover-up. Secondly, Davy,” she gestured with her chin toward the sedated form on the biobed.  “Start talking.” 

“It-it-it wasn’t a seismic incident,” Stolnic began looking at Ellie and then directly at Fork’s hand on his sidearm, audibly gulping before he continued. “It was… a breach. Davy’s team broke into a pocket no one knew was there. It was filled with a… a gas. Two of them died right there, convulsing. Davy and one other made it out, but they were coughing up blood, raving. We sealed the cavern. The company man from the freighter line, he said… he said it was a contained geological methane leak. Told us to log it as a seismic event. Said it would be better for the colony’s stability.” 

He looked to Ellie again, his wet eyes pleading to not rat the colony out to the Federation. “Davy seemed to recover! He was back to work a week later. A little quiet, but he was fine!”

“Clearly, we have different definitions of fine,” Ellie retorted. “He was incubating. You sealed the source, but you let the pathogen walk right out with him.” She leaned over him. “Who was the other survivor?” 

The silence in the lab was absolute, broken only by the hum of the biobed. Stolnic’s face, already pale, lost the last of its color. He looked like a man who had just been handed his own death sentence.

“The other survivor…” he began, his voice barely a whisper. He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He looked from Ellie’s unblinking stare to Fork’s imposing figure, then his eyes dropped to the floor in shame. 

“It was Iancu Molotov.”

*****

The door to the small adjunct quarters hissed open without a chime. Fork found Ellie sitting on the edge of the narrow bed, the glow of a PADD illuminating her face in the dark room. In her other hand, she held a nutrient bar, taking methodical, tasteless bites as if she were refueling a machine. 

“We had an understanding.”  Fork gently chided.  “You’re supposed to be resting.”  

“I am,” she said without looking up. “This is a dream about mineralogical surveys of the planet and the newly discovered cavern. Fascinating stuff.” 

Fork stepped inside, the door closing behind him. The various PADDs strewn across the bed had manifests, colony logs, she had clearly been comparing them against each other. Even Stolnic’s initial reports were pulled up on the small main viewscreen. It did not take a genius to tell she was itching to get back to her runner to have half way decent equipment to work with, but was too tired to make the trek over to the damned thing. 

“The charming boy pining for his Orion girlfriend was either the first victim or Patient Zero,” Ellie looked up at Fork, the lighting making her look more ghoulishly pale than usual. “The timeline fits. The 'seismic incident,' then the first murder—the Orion woman. It started there.”

She tossed the PADD, herself falling backward onto the bed with a soft thump of pillows. “And we cannot get down into the mines to goddamn confirm it either. The mines are a warren. We might as well be canaries.”

“Doctor…”

“I do not want to sleep, I want to get back to work,” she sat up. 

“What you need takes precedence over what you want.”  Fork replied flatly, almost daringly.  He enjoyed out-logicing Vulcans.

“An hour.”

“Try again.”

“Fine. Two hours,” she fluffed the pillow under her head. “But I do not treat you like this Colonel.”

“One, I outrank you.  Two, I get sleep whenever the situation permits… active warzones rarely have protected shelter.  Three, you’re an intellectual.  To do your job you need the clarity that can only come with sleep, Ellie.  Vulcans 'are tough, but they have their limits, yourself included.”  Just to make sure, he pulled out a PADD, quickly reviewing the change in watches among his platoon to see if anything abnormal was reported.  Nothing as of yet.  “I’ll be back in six hours.  We’ll get back to work then.”

Ellie grabbed his hand, stopping him in his tracks. “Fork…”  Her voice was low, stripped of its usual sarcasm or clinical detachment. It was just a raw, urgent whisper. “Do not go far… I do not trust these people… please.”

He let go of a deep breath in mild consternation, the kind that ran with wanting to be in multiple locations at once clashing with physical reality.  SOPs were to check in at the CP before and after each shift… but in reality he could do that through comms and messaging, and the pleading look in her eyes spoke far more loudly than her whisper.  

With a dutiful nod, he grabbed the ottoman and dragged it over to the bed adjacent to the upholstered chair.  “I’ll tell you what, if it lets you sleep peacefully, I’ll be right here.  We can always share your findings with Rhode Island, let some of their staff do the grunt work for you so your investigation isn’t standing still.”  

Instead of saying a word, Ellie allowed herself to yield to the exhaustion. Succumbing in a matter of mere seconds, not even bothering to tidy up the PADDs around her. They would still be here when she woke up.