ON

As soon as the Ash'araan blood sample was beamed to the Republic's isolation lab
via the closed-circuit medical transporter, sickbay personnel were standing by
in protective suits to retrieve it. The primary concern was release of the
contagion to the rest of the ship, and this was the first time the sickbay's
level IV biohazard protocols were in effect. Starfleet Medical authored these
protocols for use throughout the fleet, and were first devised by Doctor
Katherine Pulaski of the Galaxy Class starship USS Enterprise on stardate 42501
after investigating an unknown contagion from the planet Gagarin IV. During
that mission, Pulaski required the use of a shuttlecraft to perform a close
examination of a suspected carrier of the contagion because a level IV isolation
room was not available aboard the ship. Since then, specialized isolation labs
were incorporated into capital vessels such as Republic, and soon formed the
crux of any medical investigations requiring strict biohazard precautions.

While the isolation lab was, by itself, sufficient to contain any chemical or
biological pathogen within the one-meter thick diburnium-osmium alloy walls,
extra protections were in place to prevent ship-wide contamination. These
included a bench-top mounted isolation chamber with a self-contained atmosphere
inside the lab proper, and into which the sample container was beamed. Outside
the lab, a pressurized personnel airlock ensured that nothing entered or left
the isolation lab without hold time for decontamination procedures and
observation. The hallway outside was a terminal side-corridor off the surgical
ward, and contained only two other ancillary compartments for sickbay: the
medical lab and the morgue, both of which were off limits until the biohazard
protocols were lifted. The terminal corridor itself possessed only one secure
egress door to the surgical ward, and the door was a sliding, single-panel,
negative-pressure hatch physically locked with a coded latching mechanism that
could only be opened from the outside. The final measures for the level IV
protocols included a series of force-fields throughout the surgical ward prior
to entering the main ward, evacuation of all non-essential sickbay personnel,
and finally, posted guards just outside the main doors to the medical complex.

By the time Doctor Cromwell and the away team returned to Republic, the
Ash'aaran blood sample had been processed, and every cellular and sub-cellular
anomaly identified and catalogued within the medical database. Now, with
millions of microscopic sub-samples of the blood isolated into grid-patterned,
micron-sized testing vesicles in the isolation lab, teams throughout sickbay
could get to work on identifying the pathology of the cybernetic plague.

The process was slow and arduous, as allocated grids of isolated sub-samples
were utilized for tests against Ash'araan protein markers and T-Cell selections
from the medical database. Doctor Cromwell had hoped that the pathology of the
disease would be simple to trace, but as hours of lab analysis turned into days,
it became clear that the plague would not give up it's secrets so easily. Leon
turned to every mind aboard ship who had a professional background in
biochemistry and immunology and put them to work in sickbay. Since the science
department was now primarily composed civilian specialists from the Office of
Research and Exploration, the result of the ship's transfer out of the main
Starfleet Operations command structure several months ago, there were now more
civilian scientists in the science department than Starfleet crew.
Unfortunately, when Leon requested their help in sickbay, their presence created
friction with the uniformed Starfleet staff, as the individualistic egos of
academia clashed with the rank-and-file dogma of disciplined officers.

Doctor Julian Bashir was not overlooked during Leon's search for additional
research expertise. In fact, the Deep Space Nine CMO was assigned as group
leader in the main medical laboratory with three civilian junior scientists as
his research staff. The weeklong exercise was not the least bit gregarious, as
Julian found his team members to be overly concerned about protecting their own
hypothetical interpretations of the research than serving the overall goals of
the project. More than once, he found them arguing about the best way to use a
simple, sub-cellular reference database, despite it being common knowledge that
there was no single, best way to use one. Each of them thought that they were
better than the other, and even after swapping team members with other civilian
science specialists involved in the project, the same individualistic egos
existed, and Julian felt he was spinning his proverbial tires. As their
research entered its second week, the team was relegated to work independently
at their own workstations, with Doctor Bashir forced to hand them tasks on an
individual basis to prevent infighting. This lead to apathy and indifference,
not to mention a slowdown in progress, especially since the civilian scientists
felt no time constraint to get their work done. It was all Julian could do to
keep them motivated and focused on the project, and as time went by with no
major breakthroughs on curing the plague, it brought his patience to the
breaking point.

"Here," Julian muttered in his British accent, handing to one of his team
members a Petri dish of synthesized T-Cell cultures imbued with activated
Ash'araan RNA heterlogues. "Check this assay for resistance." He spun around
and headed back to his own workstation when the man grumbled, "looks negative to
me." With detached indifference, the researcher placed it on the counter next
to him in the 'completed' stack. As the crotchety bald biochemist returned to
his computerized database search, Bashir stopped dead in his tracks. It was the
fifth time that he had handed the man a culture dish, and it was the fifth time
the researcher had responded as if it were a photoluminescent assay. Never mind
that Starfleet laboratories hadn't used photoluminescent testing for over 150
years (and Julian was especially surprised to hear that the ancient procedure
was still being done at some of the Federation's backwater colony worlds, or so
commented the researcher when he joined the team). What made it worse was that
the man carried the attitude of expectation in which Julian had already done the
work for him, staining the dishes with luminescent dye as if he were an
undergraduate lab tech.

It was the last straw.

With a clenched jaw, Doctor Bashir spun around and marched back to the man,
snatching the Petri dish from the discard pile. Immediately, he turned to place
it onto the scanning plate of the bench-mounted micrographic analyzer, followed
by flipping the 'on' switch, thus lighting up the display.

"Use the SCOPE! You, wanker!"

While he was sure that a formal protest of indignation would make it to Doctor
Cromwell or the captain, Julian no longer cared. Working with these
insufferable academicians was tantamount to torture, and even Doctor Cromwell
admitted during staff meetings that some of the civilian scientists were
difficult to get along with. Not waiting for a response from his team member,
Julian marched out of the lab to take a work break and regain his composure.

Before long, he found himself wandering out into the main ward. It was evening,
and beta shift was on duty. The lack of patients resulted in empty biobeds, but
the activity wasn't surrounding any of the diagnostic equipment, it was around
two separate countertops at the opposite end of the room. Tending each were a
pair of medical technicians reviewing micrograph samples of synthetic T-Cell
assays, and all were far too busy to regard Julian as he quietly strolled up
behind one of them.

"Where's doctor Cromwell?" he asked humbly, not wishing to disturb the
researchers.

"In his office," a young female blond petty officer replied without turning away
from her console.

"Thank you."

***

Another vital project, another sleepless evening. Leon was used to nights like
this. Whether it was the bridge officer's test, a cramped survival shelter on a
Demon-Class planet, or a pregnant and psychologically unstable first officer,
Doctor Cromwell was always on top of his game with less sleep. Usually, he
blamed the increase in productivity on extended work hours and large doses of
caffeine, but in truth, he worked best under pressure, even if his bedside
manner gained a rough edge. On this evening, he sat at his work desk, reviewing
the latest results of the T-Cell assays, and cross-referenced them within the
Starfleet database in hopes to find some sort of biological anomaly that could
be used as an advantage against the Ash'aaran plague. So far, the answer was
elusive.

"Doctor?" a smooth British voice echoed from the direction of the door.

"Bashir," Leon greeted curmudgeonly. Like the petty officer in the main ward,
he didn't take his eyes off his screen, and the very fact that he even
acknowledged the Deep Space Nine CMO was a social breakthrough in and of itself.

"I hope I'm not bothering you."

Leon still had not turned to look at the doctor, opting instead to stay focused
on his task. "Something I can do for you?" he mumbled, adding a touch of
irritancy to his voice.

Julian slid into Leon's office, attempting to be as unobtrusive as possible.
With hands folded, and eyes edgy, he slowly approached the desk. "Look, I know
you and I aren't on the best of terms, and I can accept that. I also appreciate
you giving me a role to play in this research project."

"I needed all hands on deck for this project," he replied, still focused on the
screen. "I may not like you, but that doesn't mean we can't work together on a
professional level."

Doctor Bashir, while perhaps not privy to Cromwell's inner circle of friends,
was still a smart man, and knew that Leon was trying to get rid of him.
However, he needed to talk to the Republic CMO, and decided to walk that fine
line between being polite and being annoying. Brushing aside Leon's non-verbal
warning, he took the bold move of sitting down in the chair directly across the
desk.

Leon, with his back still turned to Julian, turned his head slightly in his
direction.

"Again… Something I can do for you, doctor?"

"Possibly," he remarked cryptically. "But I'm not sure how to approach the
subject."

Resigned, Leon pressed the 'pause' button on his console before swiveling around
to face his medical rival. The two had not started out on the best of terms
since Julian had come aboard, despite his valued assistance with recent medical
situations. Basically, Doctor Cromwell still didn't know why the Deep Space
Nine CMO was still on the ship.

"You could start by just saying what's on your mind," he offered while holding
back a sneer.

"Alright," Julian started. "It's Doctor Finlay."

"What about him?"

"This is the third stack of culture plates that I've had to re-analyze because
he refuses to accept me as the team leader."

Leon shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sure this isn't the first time you've had to
deal with erratic personalities," he stated with disinterest. "Besides, we've
already had to reorganize six other research teams on this project, and I'm not
about shuffle everyone around again just because you're having difficulty with
Doctor Finlay."

"But it's not just him!" Bashir blurted out in frustration. The minor outburst
caused Leon to raise his eyebrows. "Most of my team is composed of armchair
scientists! There's no research paper in this to put their names on, so they
have no motivation to make any of this go faster!"

"I don't want speed!" Leon countered with rising frustration of his own. "I
want accuracy and precision! If Finlay is messing up his culture evaluations,
then it's your job to review his work! I can't coddle everybody working on this
project, it's too big!"

"I'm not asking you to coddle anyone, doctor! I'm only pointing out that we've
been at this for over a week, and the people you've assigned to me aren't
trained to work at this level! They're civilians, not Starfleet!"

"I'm sorry, but I don't have time to administer the bridge test to everyone
here." Leon's remark was both sarcastic and sober. "This isn't Deep Space
Nine… We don't have the luxury of calling for backup from Starfleet Medical…
We're thousands of light years from any Federation facility, so we have to make
due with what we've got."

"What we've got is a boat-load of self-serving, egotistical, and undisciplined
grant-beggars!"

A moment of tense silence filled the room as Julian and Leon stared at one
another. For his part, Doctor Cromwell was, at first, taken aback by the
indirect insult. He too was just a "grant beggar" only a year and half ago
aboard the Bremerton, and the thought of an arrogant Starfleet surgeon calling
him such was repugnant. But then, the notion floated through his mind that not
only was he a former Starfleet enlisted recruit, but he had just recently passed
the bridge officer's course himself. Leon had already been walking the line
between Starfleet and the civilian world like a tightrope, and the realization
that the famous Doctor Bashir from Deep Space Nine didn't have the personal
tools to do the same brought about a sense of amusement. In one simple
emotional sentence, the medical prodigy of the Bajor sector was reduced to a
run-of-the-mill elitist MD, and the elation forced a chuckle from Doctor
Cromwell.

"What's so funny?" Julian asked with confusion mixed with irritation.

Leon continued to chuckle as he opened up his desk drawer to produce a flask of
shimmering orange and crimson elixir. Before Julian knew it, a glassful of the
concoction was in his hand, and Doctor Cromwell was kicked back in his chair
with his feet on his desk, coveting a brimming glassful himself. Doctor Bashir,
not wanting to turn away from the first friendly gesture that the republic CMO
had ever shown him, remained in his chair, sipping politely.

From Leon's point of view, sharing a drink was his way of dropping formalities
and getting to the heart of the matter. It opened up the atmosphere to whomever
he was drinking with, and let them know that he was listening to them, and
willing to entertain opinions.

"Bashir," Leon started. "All I can say is… welcome to my world."

"Come again?"

"Since this ship was launched from Sol Four, I've had to learn to act like
Starfleet again. The difference back then was that I didn't have the luxury of
having a few civilian doctors onboard to empathize with when things got tough.
I was on my own, and before I knew it, I had an overflowing sickbay of
critically injured crew."

"I'm sorry, but what's your point?"

"No point, just irony," Leon commented. "Here I am, once a proud civilian
scientist thrown into situation where everyone around me was in uniform. An
now, here you are, a Starfleet MD thrown into the mix with a bunch of civilian
researchers."

"I'm not unfamiliar with working with civilians," Julian retorted. "They're
everywhere on DS Nine."

"But what you're NOT used to is working with equals in your profession that are
used to working under a different set of rules than you. Rules that, from your
point of view, throw up barriers to getting the job done."

"Not to insult how you do things here, doctor," Julian started, causing Leon to
roll his eyes with a 'it-wouldn't-be-the-first-time' expression. "But if we
were doing this on DS Nine, we likely would have found some sort of treatment by
now."

Leon's eyebrows raised with an 'oh-really?' appearance, and looked uncomfortably
at Doctor Bashir. "And what makes you say that? We've got some of the best
Starfleet equipment here, and good people who know how to operate it all."

"Well," Julian began, a little embarrassed to have brought up an argumentative
point. But, he had opened Pandora's Box, so he felt that he'd better follow
through. "First, I'm not sure I would have began right away on T-Cell assays.
You're trying to find a cure without fully characterizing the disease."

Leon shrugged. "It's a common practice in virology when you're trying to be
expedient. All it takes is one positive result to send you quickly in the
direction of a cure."

"Yes, but do we even know exactly how the plague operates?"

"Not completely, but we know how it doesn't operate," the Republic CMO admitted.
"We know that it follows no known pathology; it possesses no DNA, no RNA,
undergoes no reverse transcription, doesn't replicate through retroactive RNA,
nor does it utilize bacteriophage, viroids, satellites, or prions. It's not a
programmable Borg nanite, nor does it utilize any process that leaves behind a
biochemical signature."

"How does it interact with cell membranes?" Julian asked.

"We've been over this in the morning team meetings," Leon sighed. "It doesn't
enter a cell. It's molecular structure is dynamic, and expands to a size bigger
than the cell it infects, absorbing it membrane and all. It hijacks all
cellular functions and utilizes the lysosomic enzymes for energy to reproduce by
a means that we can't decipher."

"Right," he agreed. "So it doesn't matter how many different T-Cells we throw
at them, it's just going to swallow them up and reproduce."

"Bashir," Leon huffed. "We've been over this. You brought this up three days
ago, and we agreed that if we find the right T-Cell complex, we can stimulate
the immune response to completely overwhelm each molecule of the plague.
They'll over-eat and eventually overstuff themselves, unable to reproduce."

"I'm not debating that that's what we agreed upon," Julian countered. "But that
was three days ago, and we should have seen some sort of response that started
us down the right path by now."

"We need to give it more time," Leon stated, unmoved.

"What if we tried a different approach?" offered Julian. "What if *we* started
thinking like a virus? What if we introduced a virus that it couldn't eat?"

Leon closed his eyes in frustration. "We tried that," he added. "FIVE days
ago. Remember? It ate the viruses we introduced. Membranes… nuclei…
everything. It was candy to them."

"So what if it wasn't so much the cell it eats, but something we imbued the cell
with?"

"It doesn't matter what chemical we use," Leon added. "It identifies it,
neutralizes it, and turns it into energy. You know that."

"Fine," Julian followed the through with the thought. "Suppose we introduced
something that it identifies as harmless? Something that it doesn't realize
it's ingesting before it's too late?"

"Like what?" Leon exclaimed.

The two sat in thought for a few seconds before a light of realization sparkled
in Julian's eyes.

"How about hemoglobin?"


(To be continued)

OFF

LTCR Leon Cromwell, MD
Chief Medical Officer
USS Republic