The Hiroshima’s defenses against nanites have been breached and the crew can’t work fast enough against the unusual effects of more than one variant of nanite taking over both the people and the technology that comprise the Hiroshima and her crew. In the medical bay, Doctor Darney fights for as long as she can to hold off the infections and find a solution, but is only partially successful: She’s able to get the more immediately destructive nanite infections to slow their progress and recovers one of her closest friends on the crew. But while she was busy neutralizing it’s cousin, the euphoric effects of a different variant of the nanites is having it’s way with everyone and Darney watches as she starts to lose her own grip and the music begins to take her too.
post by Dee as
Lieutenant Commander Adrianna Darney
Old:
With the transporter powered up and humming, she turned her attention to eradicating as many as the nanites from the patient’s body as possible. It was going to take hundreds of passes to get even a fraction of them… and this was just one patient. She tried not to imagine an empty ship with nothing but full stasis chambers in their future, but at this rate… she shoved the thought away, and refocused her attention. “How do you eat an elephant?” She muttered under her breath…. “one bite at a time.”
New:
<several hours later>
New technology brought fresh innovation and expanded the potential for new ideas. What heretofore she’d called a waste of energy, the ship’s holographic capabilities were now proving invaluable. Adrianna had directed the walls to morph into several dozen separate medical transporter units, all of which were simultaneously working on patients who had previously been being eaten alive by “the Goo.” It hastened the eradication process, but time would only tell whether it would catch up with the reproduction rate of the insidious little nanites. She was cautiously optimistic. The stasis chambers were empty and were being decontaminated for future use, but Adrianna hoped they’d staved off that little stopgap, at least for now.
There was another issue rearing its ugly head, however. The Sickbay, once a place of serene peace used only for the healing arts, was quickly devolving into a place that felt more like the underbelly side of a pleasure planet going through financial ruin. The lights had been dimmed considerably in sickbay proper, as she had thought it wise, considering the amount of resources her med transporters were using up in the back. However, it didn’t help the general atmosphere of things. She had personnel keeping an eye out, but the situation was deteriorating. At first, people seemed happy to sit back and lean against the wall, many were still doing so while humming to themselves with denobulan grins on their faces. But in the past couple hours a shift seemed to have taken place. Those who had been brought in first were growing increasingly agitated. The med team had been forced to sedate their way out of a couple of brawls. Thankfully, the crowds around them seemed not to notice, and the incidents up to now seemed relatively rare.
Then every now and again some prankster managed to somehow access the computer’s library files and the speakers would blare out some obscure music before they’d find the culprit and have them turn it off. System lockouts only worked to the user’s specific voice imprint. Seemed like the crew wasn’t the only ones being affected. Ship’s systems were getting increasingly wonky as well. Adrianna suddenly clapped her hands to her ears as the speakers blasted out something about limes and coconuts. She quickly retreated to the rear, preferring the whirr of the medical instruments making passes over the unconscious patients to the craziness out front.
She walked down the aisles checking bioreadouts and watching progress. She was mulling over the second problem in her mind. The two types of nanotechnology were so different that they had to have different creators. The fact that they were both insidious, yet in such differing ways was ironic… and they’d managed to somehow contract *both* versions. The second one was a harder puzzle to solve. The fact that it seemed to somehow act as a mechanical neuromodulator, affecting the patient’s mood, cognition and behavior was troubling. She could formulate a neuroleptic to counter the effects, but there was no guarantee that anything she could biologically synthesize would be effective long-term against a mechanical agent– She jerked and screamed in surprise as a hand grabbed her arm.Gavin involuntarily leaped off the biobed he’d been laying on, his own scream echoing back off the now-bare interior hull of the ship. His hand released his grip on her arm as he jolted to the floor with a thud. The med transporter filed a system error report and shut down.
Adrianna peered down at him, “Welcome back.”
Gingerly standing up, he rubbed his rear end unabashedly. “Got a new bruise to fix.” he muttered.
She helped him sit back on the bed. “Serves you right for scaring me like that.”
“Scaring *you*?” He tilted his head over to the now-powered down med transporter. “What’s that thing? It looks scary as hell. Why am I here?”
Adrianna pulled out a tricorder and ran a quick scan, the minute details agreeing with the last reading the biobed readout gave. “Well, you’re not healed yet, but the nanite infection seems to be in remission, at least for the moment…”
The system speakers in the back blared up, “Brother bought a coconut…”
Gavin perked up, his trademark grin spreading across his face. “…he bought it for a dime…” Adrianna’s forehead wrinkled. She tweaked the settings on the tricorder and took a new reading. She watched as his eyes grew glazed. “She put the lime in the coconut…”
“Oh no…”
A med tech next to her started nodding to the beat.
“No. Oh no you don’t!” Adrianna spun the medic around and shoved him back toward the exit to main sickbay.
It was too late. The infection had reached the back bay. It was like an insidious fog reaching to every corner. Adrianna could feel her mind and senses slowly dulling, tingling.
“No, nope. Uh-uh, No way.”
She watched as silly grins spread on faces around the room.
“Got to find a way to dispel the effects!” She looked down at the portable containment field she’d been wearing. Apparently only effective for the Goo-type nanotech and not the Neuro-type. Fascinating.
She shook her head. Fascinating but useless info at the moment, she reminded herself. She pinched her own arm trying to ground herself as she thought out loud, “Need to— further analyze— chemical makeup– of nanos… maybe…”
“Sounds good to me, Doc.” Gavin grinned. “Hey,” he reached out and grabbed her arm again. “Have I ever told you that I think you’re pretty?”
Adrianna’s thoughts suddenly stopped. Her cheeks filled with heat. “McWest. Stop it.” He pulled himself to his feet next to her. She looked up at him. Was he always this tall? “We need to focus on getting you better.”
“Aw, Doc, I’m okay. I’m always okay.” The music bumped up in volume. “Dance with me?”
Adrianna actually giggled.
Gavin started singing. Badly. Offkey. “Doctor, ain’t there nothing I can take, that can heal this heeeart-ache?”
“I don’t think that’s how it goes.”
He spun her around. “That’s okay.”
<OFF>
Lt. Commander Adrianna Darney, CMO, USS Hiroshima
Ensign Gavin McWest -NPC, Security, USS Hiroshima