Outbreak

Posted on Wed Apr 16th, 2025 @ 5:57pm by Lieutenant Patrick Ryan M.D.
Edited on on Wed Apr 16th, 2025 @ 5:59pm

542 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: A Silence of Friends

The hum of the transporter faded as Dr. Patrick Ryan and Commander D’Sai materialized in Isolation Ward Two. The medical team was already waiting—gowned, masked, prepped for containment. D’Sai was unresponsive, her breathing shallow, vitals unstable. They moved fast, transferring her to the biobed as Patrick called out instructions.

“Push 20ccs inaprovaline—keep her neural activity steady. Begin full cellular scan, isolate for spore replication.”

But even as he barked orders, his eyes flicked to the opposite side of the ward. The rest of the archaeological team—the scientists who had returned from Guran III—were all deteriorating. Their symptoms were accelerating: seizures, muscle rigidity, erratic brainwaves, blackening of the sclera. And one of them, Dr. Rush, hadn’t responded to treatment in hours.

Patrick moved to his bedside, tricorder in one hand, the other checking for a pulse he already knew was gone. Dr. Rush was still. Brain activity flatlined. Neural damage irreversible.

Patrick lowered his head for a moment, just a second. Then he turned to Nurse Velan. “Call it. Time of death: 1427.” His voice was low, restrained. They didn’t have time to mourn. Not yet.

The others weren’t far behind.

Dr. Vashti was convulsing in fits, her eyes flickering open but unseeing. Two other team members were sedated but still slipping. Patrick moved between biobeds, adjusting medication, reconfiguring the scanner for microspore tracking, trying to identify why Rush succumbed so quickly while the others still clung to life.

“The spores are active in Rush’s central nervous system,” Velan reported, her tone tight. “They didn’t just damage the tissue—they replaced it. Like... they were trying to build something.”

Patrick’s stomach turned, but he forced his mind to stay focused. “Compare spore behavior in Rush’s scans to D’Sai’s—now.”

D’Sai lay unconscious, and as the comparison scans came through, Patrick felt the pit drop out of his stomach. Her patterns weren’t different at all—they were nearly identical to Rush’s. The same rapid neural deterioration, the same clustered spore activity along the spinal cord and brain stem. If anything, she was only a few hours behind him.

Patrick exhaled sharply, the sound more reflex than relief. He leaned closer to the monitor, eyes narrowing on the overlapping data streams. Every marker confirmed it—D’Sai was on the same trajectory as Rush. And Rush was gone.

“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath, then straightened. “We don’t have time to study this—we treat it. Start the antiviral regimen we tried on Rush, but double the neural stabilizers. Add synaptic reinforcement. I don’t care if it only bought him ten minutes—we’ll buy her twenty.”

He pivoted to the med team. “I want eyes on her vitals every second. If her brainwave coherence drops by even a percent, we go full neural isolation. She doesn’t get to follow him. Not today.”

Turning back to the biobed, he lowered the cortical stimulator and paused—just a beat—as he looked down at D’Sai’s pale face.

“You’re not done yet, Commander. You don’t get to be.”

And with that, he pressed the stimulator against her temple and activated the sequence.

 

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