<USS Avalon> "Side Effects"

Side Effects
by T'Pex and Ensign Sussanna Jameson

T'Pex turned around, noticing the woman's activities. He didn't appreciate
it the slightest bit as the human had innoculated the engineer with
something only the Elements knew of. His anger burning inside, he whirled
around from his work and walked over to her, "Just what do you think you are
doing? If you haven't noticed, not letting me know what you are doing only
complicates my work."

"What does it look like I'm doing, Romulan?" she snapped at him. "I'm saving
lives, you stupid, useless piece of space garbage. Complicates your work, my
arse, you've done nothing but sit there and play with yourself since you got
here."

"You know your earth adage, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words
can never hurt me?" He asked dryly looking through her, "Yes well in this
instance, it works wonders. Exactly what have you done in order to save
him?"

"What I had to." She pointed vaguely at Eli, already beginning to feel the
dizziness set in. "That man seems to have a natural immunity to your wonder
virus. It's a mutation at the genetic level that I have used to develop a
kind of antidote. Here," she threw her tricorder at him, "take a look for
yourself, and while you're at it, manufacture some more. These people aren't
far behind Sport here, so we need to start moving fast."

"I manufacture more?" T'Pex glared at her and quickly copied the information
from the tricoder before throwing it back to her, "It's your antidote, you
know how to get it done. I was working on a way to shut the virus down. But
since you have so nicely cut short my work, by all means, innoculate them
all. Don't forget to leave me a dose, I wouldn't want to be your scourge of
the dead by carrying this disease."

T'Pex turned around, reading the information collected from the woman's
device. The virus was being stopped, and the antidote was effective. None of
this he cared to admit to the woman, even if he shared some sort of relief
that the virus was being stopped.

"Bollox to you mate," she said as she caught the precious scanner. She
flipped it open and started re-sequencing a new hypospray to give out a
similar dosage of the drug to the other patients. Each one's systems slowly
stabilised as the cure took affect and she finally turned to the Romulan.
"Only you, me and Vilya. I'm going to recommend that she's kept in isolation
for a few days, I'd rather not risk giving her a dose of this until we know
it's absolutely necessary. Do you want the same treatment?"

"Depends," he turned around, "do I have that choice, or were you just asking
for dramatic effect as you haul me into an isolated area anyway?" Before she
could respond, T'Pex waved his hands about, "Yes, isolation would be best."

"Then I don't need to innoculate you and all that's left is me." She lifted
the hypo to her neck, closed her eyes and sent the drug rushing through her
system with a hiss. It wasn't so bad, made her feel a bit light headed but
nothing serious. Leaning down and scanning Josh again, she noted with a
little satisfaction that the virus was dying away from his system. He was
getting through it. She scanned the others and they too were showing signs
of improvement. A little darkness crept into the edges of her vision and she
wavered a little. "You know, I'm not sure I feel that great."

Frowning, T'Pex flipped opened the tricoder and scanned her, "But the virus
is getting through your system, slowly. How do you feel... and please, try
something better than 'not sure I feel that great'."

"Dizzy..." she gulped. "Sick and really dizzy. It's cold in here, don't you
feel the cold?" She shivered and began to panic that the cure wasn't working
on her. "Oh God, what have I done?"

T'Pex cursed under his breath, "The antidote, it's starting to mutate."
Doing a full body scan, "It's eradicating the virus, but your system is also
rejecting the drug."

"Rejecting? I think I screwed up big time." Her mind couldn't quite focus on
what she wanted to say. "I bet you're just loving this, aren't you Rommie?"

"You don't even know me," T'Pex replied quietly. Taking her hand, "You need
to sit down."

The world span around her, made her want to throw up. "Need to talk to an
engineer about the stability of this ship." An engineer. "Oh fuck!" She
tried to push to her feet. "Sport! No, fuck this, no, I won't lose you
again. I couldn't save you last time, I won't let that happen again." She
turned desperate eyes on T'Pex. "Is he? Have I?" She shook away her
symptoms, trying to focus her mind on the problem at hand. "I can't let this
hurt them. I can't let my foolishness kill them."

"I don't know," T'Pex responded, "I honestly don't know. But we do need to
get to your medical facility. And being stuck here won't help."

"Scan us all for signs that we're still infectious. I think, I think we
should have passed beyond the stage of being a threat, simply by taking the
drug. I'm not sure. Please, check."

T'Pex nodded, "I already checked the virus. None of you are contagious, but
the antidote is having effects on you. We need to get all of you to
sickbay."

"Jameson to Medical, lock onto the signals of McEntire, Garrity, Chase,
Archer and myself and beam us straight to sick bay."

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