<USS Avalon> "Unwanted Gifts... Part 2"

Unwanted Gifts... Part 2
By Joshua Garrity, Li Vilya, Elijah Dareth, Patrick McEntire, 
Sussanna Jameson, Nikkole Archer, and Annabelle Chase
 

Vilya sat up and rubbed the back of her head. She bit back a few choice Bajoran 
curses she'd overheard Mullabok use and said, "I'm fine, though I know I'm 
going to have a nasty headache later."

She heard Josh's pronouncement then gave up trying to get up. She sat there, 
grim faced, until she sneezed.

Josh jumped at the sound of the sneeze, then immediately wished he hadn't, 
wincing against the sudden sharpness in his knee. He looked from Vilya to Mac, 
his eyes filled with worry. This was definitely not the time for the Bajoran 
woman to start sneezing. Not now. 

"Um, no you don't missy," Mac told her, agreeing with his friend. "That's not 
even funny."

Vilya's nose wrinkled slightly at Mac's pronouncement until she thought about 
what he was saying. It was possible... "Oh dear Prophets..."

Mac watched as Josh sat carefully upon the deck removing his belt, and flinched 
as he watched him silently pop his kneecap back into place. Good lord, that had 
to hurt. Knowing better than to even bother offering him a hand, he moved to 
Vilya's side and knelt next to her. Inspecting the large bump that was forming 
on the back of her head, he asked gently, "Don't worry about it right now. No 
point borrowing trouble. How's the head feel?" 

Straightening her earring, Vilya looked up at Mac as he gingerly felt her head. 
Her fair complexion was paler than usual. "It feels like I got hit with one of 
the Emissary baseball bats," she grumbled.

Mac nodded sympathetically. "I bet it does. You just sit still a bit." He 
helped her ease back to lean against the bulkhead,"but no going to sleep on us, 
right? Let's see if we can't get some ice or something for that beamed in, 
okay?" 

He looked over where Josh was splinting his leg with his belt and his tools. 
"You need ice too?" Josh just shrugged as he carefully stood and gingerly 
tested the leg. It would do. "You need ice, too," Mac answered pointedly for 
him. Josh looked at him questioningly, then shrugged again. Mac shook his head. 

Vilya gave Mac a half hearted smile. He was keeping his promise to Ming, even 
if Ming was aboard now. What a sweetheart, she thought. Her head still leaning 
back against the bulkhead, she opened her eyes, hoping they would focus better 
very soon, and looked at their assembled group. "How long do you suppose we 
have to--*achoo*--excuse me, wait here?"

Again Mac looked to Josh. Josh shook his head. They were here until medical 
could determine it was safe and clear the area. "Are you sure it got past the 
field?" Mac asked him. Josh nodded, holding out the results of the scan, 
showing the viral agent clearly in their environment. Whatever it was, they'd 
been exposed. All they could do now was wait and hope the reinforced 
containment fields they'd put up to seal off the corridor were enough to 
protect the rest of the ship. It wasn't until that moment, when the door behind 
Mac slid open and a young woman stepped into the corridor that Josh realized 
he'd neglected to seal the doors in that short corridor. He looked up at her 
apologetically. She was stuck there, now, with the rest of them. Quickly, he 
accessed the controls and sealed the other two doors in that corridor. Nobody 
else could be put at risk.

"Okay..." Nikkole said, scanning the deadpan faces in the room, "you called for 
Science and you're looking at me like I shouldn't be here. I know, I know, only 
an Ensign. I just happened to be closer than Lt. Snuffy, I guess." No one was 
still saying anything, just looking at her. The Bajoran woman sneezed. 
"Congratulations!" Nikki exclaimed. When still no one spoke, she asked, "What?"

"Quarantine," Dareth offered from his post midway down the corridor. No point 
in guarding anything anymore, he thought, as he stepped towards the group of 
engineers. "You just walked right into it."

"Oh." The disappointment in her voice was obvious. Then, as if a switch had 
been flipped, she smiled, "Guess we gotta make the most of it. Name's Nikkole 
Archer." She pronounced it 'Nee-kole'. "Or you can call me Nikki. I don't care. 
You guys are? And someone tell me what's going on?"

"Elijah Dareth," spoke up the guy with a southern accent. "And these guys will 
have to fill you in... I'm almost as clueless as you are."

"Hiya, Nikki. I'm Patrick McEntire," Mac introduced himself. "Beanpole over 
there's Joshua Garrity. Sneezy here's Li Vilya. Cutie to your left there is 
Annabelle Chase. Not too sure about them two." He nodded toward Hollander and 
Eckstein," They'll introduce themselves eventually, I guess. What's going on is 
a containment breach of an unidentified viral contaminant." He offered her a 
glimpse at Josh's scans. "May or may not be serious. No way to tell yet."

It sort of surprised Annabelle that Mac knew who she was. She knew that he was 
Josh?s friend and roommate, but she really hadn't had the chance to meet him. 
She wondered for a moment if he'd gotten as big a kick out of her turbo lift 
gifts as she was thinking he did. Then she turned to the others. "Damn, looks 
like we got ourselves a party, now all we need is a keg, chips, and some party 
favors." Smiling over at Mac, she winked at him before settling on the floor 
close to Josh, "Too bad we had to send all our party favors to that Brit in 
Forensics." 

Mac laughed as Josh blushed furiously at that, rerunning his scans yet again. 
It was clear the confinement was already starting to get to him.

"Hmm..." Nikki said, biting her lip and pushing her unruly bangs from her eyes, 
as she looked over the scans. "Kinda makes me wish I'd paid a little more 
attention to the medical aspect of things in the Academy. My expertise is... 
well, nothing. But I'm fascinated with planetary atmospheres. Boring. I know. 
I'm afraid that I'm pretty much no help whatsoever. Sorry guys. Guess I'm just 
here to party with Annabelle." She spoke quickly as if always saying what was 
on her mind, leaving no relay time between her brain and mouth.

Eli laughed slightly. "Can't possibly be any more useless than me and them." He 
nodded towards Hollander and Eckstein. "Ryan and Savannah are covert ops. I 
think they're trying to find out what's going on with the rest of the ship. I'm 
assuming," he smiled as the ship rocked and he reached out to steady himself 
against the bulkhead, "that since we're at red alert and the ship has been 
jolted and changing course repeatedly, that we're in a fight of some sort. 
Guess that's not enough info for them." Elijah grinned impossibly wide to let 
them know he was teasing. It was the only way for him to deal with the 
frustration of being locked in here with a group of practical strangers and not 
have any way to help the situation along.

Josh looked at Elijah curiously. Maybe the distraction would do them all good, 
he thought. He began keying on the PADD again, releasing access to internal 
scanners for the moment, and tapping into the ship?s external sensor array. 
Seeing the mess they appeared to be in there, however, wasn't exactly 
comforting. Silently, he released the external sensors and tapped into the 
shipwide diagnostics, wondering how much work he would have to do once they 
were released. The readings weren't encouraging. With a sigh, he reconnected to 
the internal scanners, deciding that they were perhaps better off dealing with 
one mess at a time. No point in giving them something else to worry about. 

***

Marching into Medical, Anna felt like she'd walked into a war zone. People were 
buzzing, running around, getting excited about something. When she grabbed a 
passing nurse, she was told that part of the ship had possibly been infected by 
a virus. Quickly checking on Marksbury's condition, Anna made the decision that 
her own expertise would be better used elsewhere.

She grabbed what she thought she would need and headed out the door. She knew 
that she would need to go to her quarters to pick up certain things before she 
went anywhere else. The doors flew open at her command and she dived into her 
room, digging through her trunk and pulling out a small box with a strap 
attached to it. This she slung across her shoulder and she left quickly.

"Computer, give location of quarantined area."

"Deck thirteen."

"Bollox, it bloody would be 13, wouldn't it?"

Doubling her pace, she was at the turbolift in seconds. It whizzed her to her 
destination and she flew out of the doors. Three steps down and she hit a 
forcefield. Hmm, they are over doing it a bit, aren't they? Turning back, she 
took a right, and again came into contact with the field.

Sighing, she hailed to computer again. "How far away from my present position 
are the foreign objects?"

"Two hundred feet to the left."

Of course she'd gone the wrong way. It was always the last place you looked. 
She set off at a fast jog and finally saw the people crammed into the corridor 
in front of her only to be stopped, yet again, by the field.

"Hey guys, you look like you're having fun..."

"Oh hell yeah," Mac answered with a wink as he carefully applied the ice that 
had finally been beamed in, to the bump on Vilya's head. "Just a laugh a 
minute." Frowning over at Josh, he insisted,"Get the ice on that knee, kid, 
before it swells any more, will you?" Neither of them looked very good, he 
thought. Turning back to Susanna, he asked, "So tell me, what's a nice girl 
like you doing in on a deck like this?" 

Anna grinned at the charming engineer, funny despite the situation. "Name's 
Anna Jameson and I will be your virus expert today. Any symptoms yet?" she said 
as she slipped a tricorder out of her med-kit. 

Mac cast a worried glance between Josh and Vilya. "Nothing anyone's mentioned 
yet," He answered honestly, not that he believed Josh would say anything. "How 
you feeling, Kid?" Sure enough, Joshua remained studiously focused on the PADD 
in his hand, seemingly ignoring the rest of them, though Mac knew better. 
"Neither of them look too good. I don't know if it's the result of impact when 
they were thrown, or ... you know...something else." 

Vilya had a headache that she thought rivaled the size of DS9. No, she grumbled 
to herself, make that the Gamma Quadrant. She held the ice Mac had obtained to 
her head but she didn't know quite what to hold on to--her head or what could 
be her firstborn. She sneezed again. "With my luck, it will a be third 
something else," she said out loud.

Picking up the ice pack that Mac had placed near Josh, Annabelle held it out 
for him to see. "You tap on your padd, I'll hold the ice." She smiled warmly at 
him. "I'm kind of surprised you don't have the mini med kit still on you. You 
were always getting busted for having that thing," she teased as she placed the 
ice softly on his knee. 

Josh flinched at the unexpected touch. Already finding the deck uncomfortably 
cold, he looked at the offending ice, then reached out and attempted to remove 
it. 

"I know it's cold, but after this is all over you can go sit in the oven you 
call your room." A slow wicked smile crossed Annabelle's face. "Or we could all 
go have that party. I hear there's a hell of a hot tub program on the 
holodeck." 

He looked at her in complete bafflement as Mac laughed. 

"This is ridiculous. Computer one to beam into quarantined area." To the shock 
of the people in the corridor, Anna re-materialized inside the forcefield 
without a bio suit on. "Now, let's see what we can see, shall we?" She ran her 
tricorder over Josh, who stoically ignored her, and then over Vilya. "Now 
that's interesting." 

"What is?" Vilya asked immediately.

Eli looked at Anna in complete surprise. He hadn't even had time to over-ride 
her request to the computer. "Computer lock out any further site-to-site 
transports into quarantine area. Authorization Dareth kappa kappa two nine." 

"What's that?" Mac asked, trying to look over her shoulder. 

"?That? would be that this damn thing is harder to pin down than I had 
assumed." She frowned as she swept her scans over the whole area. "Well, it 
doesn't appear to be air bourne, which is always nice to know. Has anyone 
touched these two?" 

"Just me and her," Mac answered, indicating Annabelle. "And, well, actually I 
touched her," He gestured toward Vilya," and she's touching the ice pack, not 
him exactly. He doesn't like to be touched." 

"I see," Anna said as she fiddled with her tricorder. This was a truly 
perplexing problem. "Does anyone feel anything out of the ordinary? And some 
names would be nice, instead of me having to point and say 'you' a lot," 

"I'm Mac," he answered. Pointing to each of his fellow detainees one by one, he 
introduced each in turn.

Nikki began leaning from foot to foot after the introductions were made. "Not 
to, uh, take you away from your fun and all, but do you think we could extend 
the forcefield to include a bathroom?"

"Hey Mac, let's see what you've got on you." Anna scanned him briefly and saw 
the same discrepancies that had shown on Josh's readings. Looking into his eyes 
very briefly, she smiled. "Would you mind just sitting down here for a minute?" 
She pointed right next to Josh.

Mac nodded and complied without question. He knew better than anyone not to ask 
questions you didn't really want to know the answers to.

"Thanks mate." Anna took another look at Josh. His skin was white, but had 
definitely got a sheen of sweat since she'd last looked. "Hey sport," she bit 
back a wave of nausea at the inadvertent use of that name, "Josh, was it? Could 
you just tell me exactly how you feel?"

Josh looked at her blankly a moment, then glanced at Mac and shrugged. 
Realizing, though, that probably wasn't going to due as an answer - medical 
types almost never accepted that as an answer - he forced himself to reply, 
though nearly inaudibly,"I'm fine," before trying to rise in the hopes of 
escaping her attention.

"Well now, that's not very helpful. You wanna be more specific?" She knelt down 
next to him. "This is gonna be a whole lot easier if you work with me on this, 
sport." And there it was again, freezing her mind for just a moment.

Annabelle looked between Josh and Anna. Carefully watching the interaction. "Go 
on Josh, it's not so hard. She won't bite. Well, she might, but we'll have her 
bite Mac... He's like that." She winked at Mac before looking at Josh again. 
"Just do it like you use to do when you would talk to the Commodore about the 
shuttles."

Realizing she wasn't going to just move on, Josh tried hard to think of how to 
answer her question. He was cold, but then he was always cold. A little dizzy, 
but then the lighter gravity often made him a little dizzy. A tiny bit shaky - 
but then he hadn't exactly remembered to eat today...or yesterday...and he 
really, REALLY needed a cup of coffee. A little shaky was expected. He looked 
to Mac again for help. This time, it was Mac who shrugged. 

"Look sunbeam, you're gonna have to work with me here. Tell me everything. You 
too Mac. How do you both feel? And Vilya, anything feel weird, out of the 
ordinary?"

Vilya rubbed the ridges on her nose, fending off another sneeze. "The Gamma 
Quadrant on the back of my head isn't normal," she grumbled good-naturedly. 
And...oh but did she wish her mother was there. Or Ming's. "I don't know what 
else is normal or not..."

Josh lowered his gaze, studiously examining the floor. He hated this. Hated 
everything about it. He needed to be moving. He needed to be doing something. 
He needed space. And he really needed her to stop looking at him. Fidgeting 
with the PADD in his hands, he answered quietly, "Cold...just...just cold." He 
looked at Mac almost desperately for help. 

"That's nothing too unusual," Mac told her honestly. "Kid's pretty much always 
cold. His homeworld's hot as hell. Turning to Josh, he asked,"That all kid?" 

Josh looked at his friend and confided very quietly,"Kind of dizzy. Shaky. Need 
coffee." 

Mac nodded. He'd noticed the PADD shaking in Josh's hand."The hell you do," he 
laughed. "More likely need food and a straight eight of sleep." Frowning, he 
looked at Anna. "I'm actually a bit light headed myself." Shaking it off, he 
asked hopefully,"Power of suggestion?"

"Don't we all wish." Anna crossed her legs under her and sat on the floor in 
front of the two engineers. She tapped away at the tricorder and then placed it 
on the floor in front of her. She slipped the box off of her shoulder and 
opened it up. Inside was a series of hyposprays which she laid out in front of 
her.

Nikki danced about just a bit more, "Really, guys, not to be a bother, but... 
bathroom? Please?"

Dareth chuckled and asked the computer to locate the nearest facility. "In that 
corridor you came out of and it's already contained in the field."

"I could kiss you!" she exclaimed, as she took off in the direction he pointed.

Eli blushed a bit and then felt bad. He missed Mel and really hated missing 
their dinner planned for that evening. Trying not to sulk too much, after all, 
there was actually a crisis afoot, he moved over and sank down against the 
wall, feeling utterly useless.

Mac looked over at Elijah, hoping to lighten the mood. "Yo, Eli, don't suppose 
you brought a deck of cards, did you? Something to pass the time? Hell, I'll 
even kiss you in trade, if you want."

"Nah, man, I wish. Hey, I wonder if Marksbury could pull some strings and get 
us a replicator in here. She?s good about stuff like that."

Anna looked up at Eli. "Marksbury is in no position to pull anything." The 
growl in her voice slipped out before she could stop it. Glaring back at her 
work, Anna said, "She's in intensive care."

"What?" Eli was on his feet again and near Anna. "What the hell happened?"

Slowly, Anna climbed to her feet, weary beyond reason. "The mission went to 
fuck. We lost..." She gulped back the grief one last time. "We lost one man and 
had to irradiate Marksbury just to get her out. You want a report then talk to 
Harak, he was there once I left."

Eli felt as if someone had punched him in the stomach. He sensed Anna?s grief 
and just let her be. They could talk about it later. He moved away once again 
and sat against the wall. Mel... he thought and would give just about anything 
to be with her, having dinner, than where he was.

Josh was on his feet, despite his injured knee, and clear across the corridor 
before Anna could finish laying the hypos out, though he quickly discovered he 
was more than just a little dizzy, and considerably more than a tiny bit shaky. 
Shaking in earnest, he shifted his weight onto his good leg and tried to focus. 
There was something he should be doing, he was sure. Some work he should be 
doing. Why was he here? 

Vilya looked up at Josh, thanking the Prophets that she didn't fall over from 
the dizziness. She knew he had to be as agitated as she was, but he was going 
to work himself into a fit. She sought to distract him. "Josh, why don't you 
sit back down with me? I hear you speak perfect Bajoran."

Crystal blue eyes, oddly hollow and sunken, turned toward her with no sign of 
understanding. Mac looked at the lost expression in his friend's eyes, half 
hidden behind his curls, and frowned. Okay, not good, he thought. Definitely 
not good.


                
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
 Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.

Other related posts: