“Understood.  Harriman out.”  With that, he tapped his comm. badge and stepped closer to the door.  “All right, let’s go on in.”

Vendar nodded, then moved to the control panel.  She tapped in a few commands…and nothing happened.

She frowned and glared at it, as if it were some evil enemy.  “Hmm…”

Kara frowned herself, wondering what was going on.  She was even more surprised when Vendar stepped back and took aim.

“Commander?” Chris asked, moving to intercept.

Before he could say a thing, she fired.  The small panel exploded in sparks…causing the door to instantly move open.

She looked at Chris and shrugged.  “I needed to cause a power surge to get the door to open.  That was the best thing we have that would cause a sufficient one.”

Chris looked around, slightly dazed…then shrugged and moved in to the door.  Ada quickly followed, as did Vendar…but Kara and Lisa were not so anxious.  Kara slowly peaked in the door and looked around, getting her bearings.

It was a very unusual room compared to what they had previously seen.  It was surrounded on three sides by some sort of transparent material.  On either side, she could see through to flickering panels with data read outs she was unfamiliar with.  Directly ahead, the glass wall was interrupted by some sort of tunnel closed off on both ends by transparent doors.

“This looks like some sort of containment area,” she commented, observing everything as if it were all dangerous.

“I agree,” Chris said, moving around in a circle as he moved closer to the door on the opposite end.

“What’s that?!” Lisa shouted, her light pointing to the left.

Kara spun to her side, bringing her arm light around…to see something crash through the transparent material as if it weren’t there.  Pain shot through her body as she was forced into the other side.  She then found herself on the floor, her vision blurring.

Weapons fire and light caused by weapons fire filled her ears and blurring vision…and a moment later, darkness…

“Computer, activate the Emergency Medical Holographic program!” Chris stated the moment he appeared in sickbay.  On a lone bio bed, isolated by a force field, was Kara’s limp body, three huge gashes down the front of her torso.

The shape of a human female suddenly appeared, startling Chris.  “Please state the nature of the medical emergency,” she said.  I knew that they had made EMH’s up to mark six in this time line…but I didn’t know they implemented them into the ships.

“The ship’s doctor was attacked by an alien creature,” he stated, breaking out of his thoughts before they had a chance to start.  “I’m assuming she was isolated in a force field because the bio filters detected something wrong with her.”

The EMH nodded and moved through the force field, not even causing it to flicker to life for a moment.  She picked up a tricorder and began scanning Kara’s body while, at the same time, she activated the bio scanner on the bed.

“I’m detecting some sort of biomemetic fluid in her wounds,” the EMH said, curiosity seemingly programmed into its vocal subroutines.  “It’s saturated with some sort of life form…a pathogen if I’m not mistaken.”

Chris nodded his head.  “We detected the fluid on the walls.”

“But there was no trace of the pathogen, just the bio fluid itself,” Lisa added, edging around the force field, wanting to help.

Suddenly, the force field flickered to life for a moment.  Fear edged into Chris as he considered what that could mean.  Is it some sort of intelligent pathogen?  Did it just try to find a weakness in the force field?

Lisa was at the primary medical console in an instant…where her face turned to absolute horror.  “The pathogen just broke through the force field!  It’s already infected us and is multiplying and spreading rapidly through life support!”

“What?!”  He moved to her side and took a look at the readings himself.  “That’s a level ten force field, how the hell did it get through?”

“An informed question,” the EMH said, walking through the force field, which was later deactivated.  “From what I can see on Commander Trieal, you all now have less then a few hours to live before the pathogen decides to finish off one of your vital systems.”

He eyed the EMH, which didn’t seem particularly concerned with that fact.  She instead was concentrating on another console.

“Is there a cure?” he asked, moving to her side.

When she simply looked at him, he raised his eyebrows.  “Well?”

She looked up at the ceiling, as if considering the question, then looked back at him.  “I imagine that a genetically created pathogen would have a cure, but I won’t be able to create it.  You’ll have to find a sample somewhere for me to analyze and replicate.”

His eyes went wide with surprise.  “You mean to tell me that this thing isn’t a naturally occurring pathogen?”

The doors to sick bay opened and closed, but Chris paid no attention to who it was.  He wanted answers, and he wanted them now!

“I would suppose so,” she said, bringing up a bio scan of the pathogen.  “It has a highly developed micro-nervous system, including a brain that appears to be specially characterized to target certain species, humans among those species.”

He frowned in response to that statement.  “You can tell that from a simple bio scan?”

The EMH shrugged and nodded.  “I’m better than any other doctor you could imagine.  I can process more data than any human or previous EMH could dream of.  I’m quick at analyzing the whole situation and making an assessment.”

He raised an eye brown, then shrugged and nodded.  “If you say so.”

It nodded.  “I do.”

“What’s going on Commander?” K’Taul’s gruff voice asked from behind.

Chris spun around, letting his jaw hang open as he took in a big breath.  He looked down at the deck, then looked back up.  “Well, sir…we kind of brought a pathogen on board, and it somehow got through containment.  It had infected Kara on the surface when an alien creature attacked and injured her.”

K’Taul looked over to Kara, then at Chris, his face somewhat expressionless…meaning he had the same frown on it that he usually had.  “And do we have any way of stopping this pathogen?”

“Apparently, the pathogen is genetically engineered…and my guess is that it was created in the complex below,” Chris said, giving off a small sigh.  “We need to go back to the complex and find the cure…which there hopefully is one.”

His face was skeptical now as he motioned his head towards Kara.  “Are there other creatures down there like the one that hit her?”

He nodded his head with his eyebrows raised.  “Probably…but we either risk it or simply die in a few hours.”

“I’ve narrowed it to four hours or so,” the EMH commented.

K’Taul looked at Kara again, then at Chris.  Obviously hesitant, he nodded his head.  “Very well…take an away team down and find it.”

He nodded in compliance.  “Aye, sir.”

His eyes refocused, and within moments, he recognized where he was.  His rifle went up, the flashlight already active, and began scanning the area.

Chris looked behind him to see the team where it was supposed to be.  He nodded to them and moved down the dark corridor, only to find Ada and her team around another corner.

“Everyone OK?” he asked.  When he received nods in response, he moved to the door leading to the stair well.  It was open, but it was empty.

Vendar moved in front of him and scanned the stair well.  “There aren’t any aliens outside of the containment area,” she reported.  “We’re safe to go down.”

He nodded and nudged her out of the way.  “Let’s move out then.”

Followed closely by Ada, he entered the stairwell and moved his light around.  Nothing could be seen but the familiar dark gray and the odd slime on the panels.  Satisfied, he slowly moved down the stairs, keeping an eye out for anything that might try to attack him.

A few moments later, they were all just outside of the containment field.

He tapped his comm. Badge.  “Harriman to Dragon.”

“Go ahead,” K’Taul came back.

“We’ve reached the containment area again and are about to enter.  I believe our goal should be to find the field generator and find its frequency, that way you can just scan from up there and beam us to where ever you think the cure might be.”

“Understood.  Be advised, you have less than three and a half hours before its too late.”

He nodded solemnly, knowing their time limit all too well.  “Understood.  Harriman out.”

Chris looked around for a moment, then looked back at Vendar.  She looked at him as she stored her tricorder, then shrugged, indicating that which he already knew: they were somewhat blind from here on out.

He nodded his understanding to her, then looked back to the door.  After another pause, he stepped through, followed closely by Ada and Vendar.  After that, the rest of the team was through.

They set up a perimeter in the containment room, a person in each corner, a person in between each corner, with Chris, Vendar, Ada, and a couple other security personnel in the center.  She looked around at everyone, as did Chris, each getting an affirmative nod from the perimeter officers.

Finally, Chris and Ada looked at each other…and nodded.  “All right!” she commanded, her tone of voice all too familiar to Chris.  “Let’s do it by the numbers.  Perimeter, one by one enter, followed closely by a second person.  Cover each other.”

With that, they nodded again and carried out her orders.  One officer, closest to the shattered containment glass on the opposite end of the room, quickly passed through, followed closely by another officer.

When a third entered, Chris figured it was probably safe.  No screams means no creatures.

Even as she began to object, he moved forward and stepped over the frame of the containment glass.  The room he entered was as poorly lit as it looked from the outside, receiving light only from the containment room and the few active consoles.

So far so good, no creatures.  On either side of the only entrance, two security officers stood, rifles held tightly in their hands.  When everyone was in the room, Ada gave the go ahead.  They both moved through, one after the other…then waved that it was safe.

When Chris followed…he realized just how long this would take…and just how close this might turn out to be…

Captain’s Log, Supplemental

            So far, there has been nothing to indicate any of us has been infected…but the EMH and the nurses all agree that we are all infected.  They say that symptoms should start manifesting themselves fairly soon.

It’s been three hours since Commander Harriman transported down to the surface, but we’ve received no contact from them thus far.  I only hope we hear positive news from them soon…