Typhoid Mary
Contents
Captain's Log, 40562.8
Nothing Here But Us Romulans
The USS Niven was on patrol of a remote area for the past 20 days and unexpectedly, it had been an uneventful one. There were a few natural phenomena that we encountered, but that was the extent of any sort of action. It was at this time that Lieutenant Joran Maniersi picked up chronotron emissions on our sensors. Lieutenant Commander Hazor Dyan warned us, stating that chronotron emissions usually indicate a spacetime continuum disruption. Knowing that the emissions were likely to come from somewhere interesting, we set a course for the point of origin at warp 8.
Upon arrival, we slowed to impulse to scan the area. We picked up a ship that seemed to be heavily damaged. The chronotron emissions were certainly coming from this ship and the plasma contamination was extremely high. Various places in the ship were experiencing phase variance.
Just as we were finishing up our initial scans, a warp bubble expanded from the ship, but with quick hands, Maniersi maneuvered us out of the way so that we didn't experience a full-on hit. Inertial dampeners prevented a violent jostling, but it was a minor rattle. Hazor said that the bubble was a singularity expansion that dropped the plasma levels, but the energy dispersed was approximately 66% of a singularity drive. Knowing singularities were a method utilized by the Romulans for generating energy, I assembled an away team for surveying.
Intruder Alert!
Hazor reported that they had secured a small team of Romulan engineers who were trying to repair a core meltdown.
The second report from the away team came from Lieutenant Silon. He communicated into the bridge to say that four Centaurians were the source of the chronotron emissions. They were sedated and strapped down. He requested to lock on to them to beam them out in case of an emergency. I told him that Chief Warrant Officer Harald Lysander would be standing by. Commander Devin West looked back from his station with a puzzled expression. "Sir, who is Lysander?" I returned his look of confusion and responded that he was our chief transporter. He answered, "Our chief transporter is Thompson. Always has been." I was shocked, but smiled it off to play along and said that I must be tired. When I checked the crew manifest, it did indeed list a Chief James Thompson instead of Lysander.
Before I could formulate a theory on what was going on, I received a private message on my station stating to report to my ready room. I handed command of the bridge over to West and complied with the message. When I entered, I saw a man lounging at my desk with his feet up. I tried to raise security for an intruder alert, but he waved off my attempt casually saying that he had just disabled my communicator.
He introduced himself as Senior Specialist Shennong and handed over a PADD with a letter from Rear Admiral Sextus Slate. It stated, in no unclear terms and with the proper authorization codes, that this man was conducting an investigation for the Bureau of Temporal Investigations. We were to give him our full cooperation.
A Rift in the Spacetime Continuum
Our first order of business was that we should transport the four Centaurians aboard right away. Apparently the Romulans taking them have caused mass genocide and should be considered an act of war. Shennong told me to look at my crew manifest and I was surprised to see that in addition to Lysander, none of my Centaurian crew were listed. He stated that it was because the Garzoma Flu, a disease that had long been cured, had wiped out a majority of the Alpha Centuari populous. We assumed that the vaccine must have been developed with the aid of one of the four and must be returned to where they were taken from in order to restore the proper timeline.
In doing a bit of research, the vaccine was discovered by a Dr. Domentrobe and had won a Nobel Prize for it. However, when one of the Centaurians, Disa, awoke in sick bay and was able to speak to us, she said that Domentrobe was a monster who tortured, experimented on, and killed countless Centaurians. This was, of course, covered up by the Alpha Centaurian government. She tearfully begged for us to not take her back to where she came from.
Things Aren't Always What They Seem
I called a staff meeting where we discussed our options. After a lengthy deliberation, it was decided that I would take the four Centaurians and the vaccine for Garzoma Flu directly to Dr. Domentrobe. The government would cover up the conspiracy leading up to the discovery anyway, so we inferred that Domentrobe being handed the answer to all of his research would be covered up as well.
I did not relay this information to my crew, but in speaking to Domentrobe, I learned that though he performed inhumane, horrible, experiments, he was plagued by guilt. He was forced into the medical research field by a domineering father and both of them knew that he was the only person with the knowledge and expertise to cure this terrible disease. After his discovery, he turned to alcohol to numb the guilt and drank himself to an early grave. It was with a slightly heavy heart that I returned to my own timeline and handed a PADD displaying a 97% synchronization rate to Shennong. He seemed pleased.
Caught Red Handed
The damaged Romulan ship was discovered by the Romulan Star Empire and Commander Tomalak demanded that we leave the area and release his personnel. I told him that the ship is beyond repair and rapidly leaking radiation so the best course of action was to destroy it. After threatening him with the knowledge that the Romulans were planning on weaponizing the Garzoma Flu, we took the Romulan prisoners as unaffiliated terrorists for tampering with the Federation's timeline. Hazor set a self-destruct sequence on the ship and we returned to Starbase to hand over the prisoners to Slate.
