Dead Don't Die

Posted on Wed Apr 8th, 2026 @ 2:06am by Commodore Wilkan Targaryen & Commander Ash Randall & Commander Zhora zh'Roothi & Lieutenant Commander Sora Bernadotte & Lieutenant Commander Aidan Datari & Lieutenant Urvasi Elandorn & Lieutenant Rio Kholin MD & Lieutenant Amber Laurell

10,288 words; about a 51 minute read

Mission: 8. Epidemic
Location: Briefing Room, U.S.S. Enterprise
Timeline: 2439-08-27, 09:30

The Executive Conference Room was bathed in the cold glow of the Talu sun, currently a distant, accusing spark hanging in the panoramic viewports. The Enterprise held its position on the extreme outskirts of the system, a ghost ship haunting the edge of a world it had accidentally shattered. The room, designed for high-level diplomacy and the "visibility of strength," felt like a hollow shell; from this distance, the High Glaciers were invisible, yet their chill seemed to permeate the polished tabletop.

At the head of the table, Commodore Wilkan Targaryen sat in a posture of brittle, forced composure, his frame uncharacteristically slumped. The flu-like symptoms from the surface hadn't receded; his joints thrummed with a dull ache that mirrored the ship’s warp core, and a persistent fever-chill made the climate control feel like a draft from a tomb. His eyes, though no longer weeping silver fluid, remained bloodshot and sensitive to the overhead lighting, but were also no less comforted by the telemetry scrolling across the tabletop.

He wasn't listening to the Senior Staff's murmur of technical jargon and logistical fallout. While Zhora, Sora, and Ash discussed containment protocols and the "resonance catastrophe," Wilkan’s focus was pinned entirely to the small, jagged object clutched in his trembling hand: a crystal shard of a Talu snowflake. It had been a gesture of goodwill from Prime Minister Dervimnurk back when the world was still quiet; a piece of the "High Glaciers" meant to symbolize a permanent bond. Now, it felt like a shard of broken glass. Wilkan turned the crystal over in his fingers, the sharp edges digging into his skin as a physical grounding against the nausea rolling in his stomach. The shard remained impossibly solid, reflecting the shifting violet hues of the interface, a heavy relic of a murdered future. To him, it was a physical reminder of the Prime Minister’s strength and their own unintentional, crushing betrayal.

Having heard his name, Wilkan looked up from the haunting echo of the gift, "Huh?"

Aidan had been watching the captain in silence as he has entered the briefing room. For several seconds, in fact before finally calling out his name. The Trill still has a haunted look about him, even though he had changed into a fresh uniform. A uniform that currently, just didn't seem to sit right and he looked very ill at ease. "Are you feeling better?" He asked slowly.

Wilkan blinked, the transition from the memory of the High Glaciers to the sterile reality of the Briefing Room causing a sharp throb behind his eyes. He realized the room had gone quiet under the weight of Aidan’s concern. Slowly, Wilkan closed his fingers over the jagged Talu crystal until the sharp edges bit into his palm, the pain a necessary anchor.

"I’m fine, Commander," Wilkan rasped, masking a wave of nausea with a brittle, forced swallow. He adjusted his posture, his joints feeling leaden and cold. "The Doctor’s suppressors are adequate. Please, continue the briefing. I look forward to learning exactly how a commemorative braid became a planetary weapon." He leaned forward, waiting for the science to fill the hollow ache of their failure.

"I don't know how they got the uniform, but it appears our fabric contains some element that is disruptive to the harmony they have with the planet." Aidan called up the data from his research. "I connected the dots when I heard her breathing at the same pace as the winds, while the others had a different pattern. And she was the only one without bracelet, something she seemed keenly sad about."

He paused. "The only way I had to confirm it was our uniforms...was to test the theory." The Trill faltered, looking towards the chief medical officer with a look that bordered ok despair. "I didn't mean to hurt her," he added sadly.

At the table, in a spot near Sora, Ash, and Zhora, drinking her coffee while Urvasi seemed to be looking at the L'Tandrey Crystalline wrist computer on her left arm. Her left ear was focused on the device, her right ear shifting to follow conversations. To tell the truth, she was busy taking analysis from her life support belt as it had recorded the IMD that was trying to resonate with the officer inside, but was blocked by the fields of the belt. However, one key thing she was seeing.. no one had thought about the outside the underground city mountains as being the Vargis Array. Now that she had the full reading, she realized she really needed to get some sciences studies in. The Talu Resonance field that helped them live in the harsh climate was several layers of sub hertz tones as well. She brought up the full picture. And in seeing it, she could see where the crystalline materials in the braids and clothing had introduced a tone and tonal into the life giving Resonance field to create the discords as just the right shifts to affect the Talu. She glanced over at Zhora, Sora, and Ash, deciding she needed to share, but only when she wouldn't complicate the meeting. She went back to studying the display and creating a during then after picture for the team, her face and posture showing intent and study.

"Now what?" The Chief Engineering Officer of the Enterprise asked.

Sora was leaning back in her chair, exhaustion clear on her face. To make herself more comfortable, she had unzipped her uniform jacket, and she was clutching a large mug of coffee. As she listened to the others, she let out a long sigh. "Whoever did this must have known we were coming. This whole thing was perfectly orchestrated, and we fell right into it. Was nothing much we could have done differently, really." She shook her head. "It's DS47 all over again."

“Do we think the Dominion could have had anything to do with this?” Amber looked around those gathered. “As much as I hate to accuse those who aren’t present, they did know just how to help with that mist they created.”

"They had motive and means" Kholin shrugged. "And opportunity of course" she added, turning her hot herbal tea mug between her fingers.

"The suggestion of Dominion involvement is a logical convenience," Kuzos began, his voice a flat, functional resonance, "However, probability favors a localized architect. To orchestrate this requires an intimacy with Talu resonance that outsiders lack." He adjusted his display, the holographic light refracting off his unblinking eyes. "Borath’s 'heroism' is a symptom: He capitalized on the catastrophe; he did not necessarily compose the frequency. We brought the catalyst, but the Talu provided the fuel. We are now categorized as the pathogen, and the Dominion is the antibody."

“It would seem so” Amber sighed resting back in her seat to massage her temples, having used her telepathy with Elara she now had a headache, most likely thanks to the strain put on the small growth Rio had found in her scans.

"So just a 'perfect storm' of unfortunate events all colliding into the same sequence of events then," Kholin shrugged again, as the others, too exhausted to contest possibilities in retrospect.

Kuzos remained a pillar of unyielding iron, his hands resting in terrifying symmetry upon the tabletop. To him, "misfortune" was merely a human label for a failure to account for all variables. He adjusted the holographic display, the light catching the edge of his unblinking gaze. "To believe the Talu's cellular resonance, our uniform resins, and the Dominion’s presence converged by chance is to ignore the architecture of the crisis. We were not struck by lightning; we were led into a conductor." He looked at Wilkan, his expression as unreadable as the void outside. "We did not merely encounter a sequence of events: we fulfilled one. The investigation must now shift from what we did to who knew we would do it."

"The architecture of the crisis is irrelevant if the foundation was our own negligence, Kuzos," Wilkan said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. Wilkan’s fingers tightened around the crystal shard, the sharp edge finally drawing a thin, cold bead of blood that he didn't seem to feel. He didn't look at the tactical data; his bloodshot eyes remained fixed on the distant, accusing spark of the Talu sun hanging in the viewport. With a slow, pained effort, he pushed himself up from the table. Every joint protested with an audible creak, but he forced his leaden legs to move, walking toward the expansive panoramic windows.

He stood there, a solitary figure against the void, looking down at his trembling hand. The memory of the high glaciers flickered behind his eyes: the blinding white, the thin air, and the moment he had shed his uniform jacket to facilitate the climb, only to leave it behind when a priority conference call forced an emergency beam-out. "I left a piece of Starfleet on that ice," he whispered, his breath fogging the glass. "I abandoned a part of our 'identity' for the sake of a schedule, and the Talu turned it into a relic. We weren't just led into a conductor; I provided the wire. This wasn't a 'perfect storm,' it was a failure of stewardship. I allowed our technology to become their toxin."

He turned back to the room, his gaze sweeping across the gold models of the Enterprises that lined the walls - vessels of discovery that now felt like monuments to arrogance. "The Dominion didn't need to fire a shot to defeat the Federation here. They didn't even have to lie. They just waited for us to be careless, to stand in the wrong place, and to leave our shadows behind."

He leaned against the cool transparency of the viewport. As the admission left his lips, the ambient light in the room shifted. A series of massive, jagged shadows swept across the briefing table, momentarily eclipsing the glow of the Talu sun. Outside the glass, only meters away, a heavy formation of Dominion troop transports and supply haulers roared over the Enterprise’s saucer section. Their violet nacelles hummed with a low-frequency thrum that vibrated through the hull and into Wilkan’s chest. They weren't escorting the Enterprise out; they were moving in to secure their prize. Wilkan watched the dark silhouettes descend toward the planet, the snowflake shard still clutched in his palm.

The sheer number of vessels daring to provoke a response as they drew deliberately close as they passed by bought Zhora to her feet and joined Wilkan at the viewpoort. She was sympathetic to his admission of guilt but in her opinion it was moot. The real 'villain' was the faction behind manipulating the wave into a killing machine in the first place thus costing the Tula their planet core.

Ash looked to Kuzos, her expression unreadable, and turned her gaze to the Commodore for a few seconds before she nodded to herself. "Every ethical aspect of who and what we are has been exploited and taken advantage of." Ash observed, quietly. "Someone knew you would leave that uniform jacket. It is tough to outguess someone who may be parsing the possibilities and pulling strings for a desired outcome." She added, and looked to Sora. "its how you crush a rigged Dabo table at Quark's, for instance." She admitted, with a little shrug. "Do in under an hour what should take several or have your end game in place to take advantage of a, haphazard even or a careless moment." she finished.

The whole situation just didn't feel right. Aidan too, watched as the Dominion came swooping in like hawks onto a defenseless prey. "We should return," he whispered, "and do all we can to save them. The Dominion is going to suck them dry, they're like vampires... A hollow promise in exchange for their lives. We can't just do nothing..."

Urvasi looked up from her studying of the full waveform. She said to nobody in particular, "The waveform is still broken. It wasn't our equipment, that only accelerated the decay." She looked at those in the room, then over to Aiden, then Ash.

Urvasi projected the waveforms she had been studying from the full sensor sweeps from the previous journey beginning, middle, then leaving. Next, the waveforms during this visit for approach, next on planet, then the waveforms captured after all starfleet material had been cleaned up. She began speaking, "The first waveform, now that I knew what I was looking for, I asked sciences to comb through previous sensor readings for such specific tonal IMD waveforms. Here is what I found." The forward Screen of the Briefing room lit up. It showed a very correlative reading from milli-sub-hertz to just under 1Mhz. The IMD Pattern was different, less distortion harmonics, showing 0.018% distortion. "That is baseline. Anything under 0.03 is considered pristine. Next, here is during the visit..." The IMD Pattern was similar, the tonals produced by the away team were causing shifting, but still not producing an significance distortion at 0.021% "You see, there have been many visitors, many with various crystalline weaves in their tech, so I figured the waveforms would bend, not distort. That had to be. Here is the pattern upon leaving with the left behind Fed Tech." She overlaid the two patterns, showing off the difference. "There, the Fed tech was producing a couple of tones between 43 KHz to 220 KHz, nothing bothering the actual produced Varis Array healing energies the Talu are attuned to." The IMD pattern was still showing bending, not distortion. "When the Enterprise left, the IMD was only at 0.023%, under 0.03%, and, you see, under the beginning to unravel and build IMD of 1.1%."

Urvasi now showed the Waveform as shown by the approach for the current mission. It was easily identifiable as not the previous IMD pattern. There were a lot more tonals in the milli-sub-hertz spectrum, which then affected 0.1 to 20 Hertz spectrum, and then the above 30KHz to 1MHz spectrum. She overlaid the previous pattern to the current one. "There, in the pattern, in the sub ranges, there are lowered low tones with created fractional tonals that appear higher in the spectrum. As of the approach measurement, the IMD was at 11.2%. My guess, somebody either cracked or broke off a key vein of the Targiz Array crystalline arms within the mountains. It was somebody probably doing illegal digging for the crystals in areas off limits, probably for profit. Now, look at this," She put the last taken IMD pattern up on the view screen. The tones and tonals from the Fed Tech, which had been feeding the broken IMD due to their placement, were now missing. However, the IMD baseline was still showing 6.3%. Urvasi sighed, "While not previously affecting, the Fed Tech did affect to cause the above 10% cellular disruption, however, that was NOT the baseline cause. With all things Fed Removed, there will be a stop of cellular disruption to the immune system, however, at 6.3%, the Talu will not live as long as their systems are under constant stress, and slowly reproduction will fade away so that in three to four generations, the Talu will be no more."

Urvasi looked at those around the table, "The removal of Fed Tech only slowed their destruction, we didn't fix it. The only good thing is that that burst brought us here to discover what is happening. Now, how does the Enterprise show of what it knows as well as how is the break found to be fixed in the sacred mountains near the City?"

Sora listened in silence while sipping her coffee, taking in the discussion between her colleagues. Still, something did not add up for her. She thought of the brutality shown at DS47, the technology in use at both the station and on Talu. The ruthlessness and complete disregard for life demonstrated. "If the Dominion was behind this, I don't understand the motive. If they want us out of the quadrant, there are much easier ways to do that, without massacres or sacrificing an entire planet's population. Without risking another war."

She shook her head. "No, I think someone else is behind this. Someone who wants both the Dominion and the Federation weakened. Their methods are calculated. First, they butcher a Federation outpost, trying their hardest to put the blame at the hands of the Dominion and ideally destroying two of our most important ships in the process. That failed, so now they're trying to sow discord between us. They knew we were coming to Talu, and that we would try everything in our power to help. And that the Dominion would try to protect the Talu from the damage we were inadvertently causing. I don't think it's a coincidence that whatever is affecting the Talu is very similar in its methodology to a Terran weapons experiment. Now, I'm not saying the Empire is involved, but setting this up requires a lot of technological potential, as did the Massacre at 47."

Urvasi had not considered this as her race was rather altruistic. She had to concede there might be those who had access to cascade harmonic structures with the medical knowledge to know how those would fit to a race that should not survive on a world. She waited to see what others thought.

Sora looked around the table and finally looked directly at Kuzos. "Which does fit the Dominion. As much as I would like to think they're not involved, there are some questions nonetheless. If we are able to find the array, we must not destroy it. We need to dismantle it and analyse it, piece by piece. Maybe that will give us some more clues as to what is actually going on here."

"I doubt the Prime Minster nor the Dominion presence would allow us any closer let alone into orbit," zh'Roothi turned away from the view with disgust. "We won't be able to collaborate on either of your theories without entering a possible hostile situation."

Aidan shook his head too. "There was nothing on the planet itself that shifted in frequency," he objected, "I have taken extensive readings when we were down there. There was nothing, beyond the bracelets, once we discovered why Elara was recovering and another child that was brought in was still sick. Elara had no bracelet while the other child did. The frequency of their breathing was attuned to the winds outside. Elara's marches while the other child's or even the afflicted adults didn't. All that didn't, wore the bracelets made from Starfleet fabric. There was nothing in the atmosphere that caused this, that we could correlate to their affliction."

Urvasi managed to just, just, keep her expression neutral as she listened to this. Hadn't she just shown the patterns..?? But, no, she was just flight control, Aidan was the Chief Science officer, and despite her using Sciences to help compile the data, maybe everything she had shown was wrong?

Sora raised an eyebrow at the chief science officer's explanation. "That is rather odd," she sald slowly, subtly adjusting her glasses in thought. "Has anything about those bracelets been altered?" She waved her hand at the signal patterns recorded from the surface. "I've never heard of simple, replicated fabrics and metals changing a resonance frequency like that. I can get behind there not being any observable frequency differences, but something must have caused this. And, I'm sorry, Aidan, but I don't believe the mere presence of a few objects can cause that change. How did you reach that conclusion?"

Again, the Trill shook his head. "No ma'am, nothing was altered. There's literally some chemical in our uniforms, that is apparently copied in a replicator pattern, that obstructs the natural resonance of the Talu people. From what I can tell, and Doctor Kholin can likely confirm this, the chemicals stopped their bodies from resonating in frequency with the planet, with their Pearl, so to speak, their planet's core. Which is why it's so important to them. And from a disruption in resonance, it went to systemic failure which in the end seemed like a haemorrhagic virus, but clearly wasn't."

"Okay, so objects from the Federation, replicated or otherwise, basically caused the Talu to have a sort of allergic reaction, to put it in the simplest terms?," Sora replied, slightly tilting her head. "If there really is no other cause, then we need to analyse the scans we took even further, to see what's behind those frequency spikes. But, looking at the data, the pattern seems to fit. And, obviously, you were on the ground. You saw more than we did." She nodded, and put her now empty coffee mug back on the table. "Right. So, what are the next steps?"

This time, Aidan nodded though he looked at the Trill chief medical officer for confirmation. "Pretty much," he agrees, "causing systemic failure. We have done our best to remove all those bracelets from the planet, we can only hope that they reject the Dominion cure, because it is no real cure."

“They don’t know that” Amber added. “They believe the Dominion has a cure that will make all the sick well again. As far as they’re concerned we’re poison, unless we can prove to them that we’re not. That’s if they’d even give us the chance.”

"The discrepancy between Commander Datari’s observations and Lieutenant Urvasi’s data is not a contradiction, but a matter of scale," Kuzos stated, his voice a flat, functional resonance as his eyes reflected Urvasi's waveform. "Aidan observed the trigger; Urvasi has identified the mechanism." He tapped a command, overlaying the molecular signature of Starfleet's uniform resin onto the Vargis Array’s harmonic map. "Our fabrics contain a poly-crystalline stabilizing agent. On most worlds, it is inert, but here, within a 6.3% baseline distortion, it acts as a localized dampener. It didn't 'poison' them; it silenced the planet's song in their very cells. For a species that breathes through resonance, that silence is a vacuum. Systemic failure was the only biological outcome."

Sitting quietly in her chair, Urvasi followed along with Kuzos. It could be reasoned and shown that is what occurred, yet, the break... the change in the sub hertz was not yet accounted for. She sat still, creating evasive trajectories in her head, while waiting for further analysis by this very creative team under the Commodore.

Intrigued with Kuzos explanation that seemed to filter through her now weary mind zh'Roothi retook her seat and stared at the model that glistened on the table top but it did little to numb the feeling of hopelessness she felt.

Kuzo looked toward Wilkan’s solitary silhouette at the window, then back to the staff, his expression sharpening, "However, you misinterpret the Dominion's 'mercy.' Those transports are not carrying medical supplies. They are heavy-lift haulers equipped with seismic anchors. Borath’s mist isn't a cure; it’s a sedative. He is numbing the Talu so they do not feel the planet scream when he extracts the Crystalline Core as payment for his 'salvation.' By the time the mist dissipates, the Talu will have no song left to return to. They aren't being healed; they are being liquidated." Kuzos paused, his unblinking gaze shifting to Zhora. "We cannot 'prove' we are not poison while we are still wearing the toxin, but if we allow those haulers to breach the mantle, the Talu will be singing an epitaph."

This revelation stilled Urvasi to her core. The main vains of the mountains, off limits, were a tempting target for those needing the crystals. However, didn't they realize that without the core harmonic dynamics, no new crystal lattices would be grown? By taking the core, new growth and continued crystal harvesting became null and void.. for what, just a few years of sustainability? Then, collapse. Urvasi just could not comprehend the level of greed needed to take the source despite loosing the output of tributaries.

"We could dress in their fabrics," Aidan suggested, "abide by their demands if we have to, but we can't sit back and do nothing. We might as well be guilty of murder ourselves." He drew in a shuddering breath. "Can we replicate attire suitable for their world without this stabiliser? And equipment suitable for their world?" His eyes flashed angrily. "We need proof that so-called cure is a sedative, something to placate them. But how?"

Sora sat in silence, listening to Kuzos and Aidan, when a sudden idea struck her. "Excuse me," she said as she stood and stood, slipping off her uniform jacket. "Um, and, I don't know, turn around? Not that I really care." Without waiting for a reaction, she pulled her undershirt over her head and threw it on the table, before putting her jacket back on and zipping it up. "Aidan, scan it. Ignore the whole quantum signature stuff being wrong, focus on whether the fabric is compatible with the Talu."

Ash watched the back and forth, without comment, taking the opportunity to visit the replicator in that time to get herself some coffee and a raspberry-cream cheese pastry she had come to like over the years. The Engineer paused, for a moment, in her efforts to, unabashedly, watch LtCmdr Bernadotte, partially, disrobe, before Ash then returned to her seat.

Wilkan didn't turn away from the window. He remained a silhouette against the cold, distant spark of the Talu sun, his hand still closed tightly over the jagged crystal shard. The ambient thrum of the Dominion haulers passing overhead had settled into his bones, a low-frequency vibration that felt like a countdown to a theft he was powerless to stop.

"Commander Datari, your sentiment is noted, but your tactical geography is flawed," Wilkan rasped, his voice sounding like dry earth shifting. He finally turned, his bloodshot eyes catching the light of the briefing room as he looked at the undershirt Sora had tossed onto the table. "Keep your shirt on, Commander. We haven't just been asked to leave, we've been formally denied access to the planetary surface by a sovereign government under the threat of lethal force. If we beam down in 'local attire' to interfere with a Dominion-sanctioned medical relief effort, we aren't explorers. We’re an invading force." He stepped away from the glass, his joints creaking as he leaned on his white-knuckled hands at the head of the table. "And it goes deeper than Talu. If the Enterprise fires a 'repair beam' or intercepts those haulers, we give Borath the perfect pretext to shred the Treaty. If I break it here, I’m not just risking this ship: I’m giving the Dominion a legal mandate to send us all back to the Alpha Quadrant."

Wilkan’s fingers tightened around the crystal shard, the sharp edges a cold, grounding pain. "There is a practical wall here, before we even reach the political one too. Even if we had a perfect legal pretext to intervene, we are currently the 'poison.' As long as they are gasping for air and feeling like their chests are filled with broken glass, they will cling to Borath’s emerald mist like a lifeline. They aren't in a state to listen to reason or examine seismic sensor data while they live in primal fear." He looked at Dr. Kholin and then back to Aidan. "If we could find a way to 'cure' them - even temporarily - we’d have the breathing room we need. Not just for them, but for us to help them. Until they they don't care about the seismic anchors being driven into their mantle and the fact it'll kill them in the end."

Kuzos allowed a precisely measured silence to follow the Commodore’s warning, his hands resting with terrifying symmetry atop the console.

"The Commodore’s assessment of the legal and biological framework is, as always, clinically accurate," Kuzos explained. "The Dominion has crafted a 'moral checkmate' in they are providing a sedative that the Talu have explicitly requested because the alternative is a localized agony we accidentally triggered. To 'wake them up' without a biological alternative is a violation of the Prime Directive; to physically stop the extraction is an act of interstellar war." He adjusted the holographic map, highlighting the Talu interceptors now flying wingman for the Dominion haulers. "The Talu are currently shielding the very thieves who are stealing their planet's heart," Kuzos observed, his voice a flat, functional resonance. "If we move to 'save' the mountain, we will have to fire through Talu pilots to reach the Dominion targets. We would be killing the victims to protect the crime scene. Unless we can provide that 'breathing room' through a non-toxic medical intervention, something that counters the resonance without the resin, we are merely witnesses to an elegant, legalized slaughter."

Sora grimaced. "Even if we had that medical intervention, we have no way to get it there." She shook her head. "Unless we can somehow get a neutral party here to deliver it. And I can't think of anyone that wouldn't be a provocation to the Dominion in their own right. Seems like we're stuck between a supernova and a black hole, here."

Rio seemed to become agitated at this moment, a thought having struck her that was making her angry with herself.

The Terran glanced at the shirt she had flung onto the table. "Kuzos. Right now, I need your full and complete honesty here. Have there ever been Terrans in this quadrant? From my universe?"

"Commander, I'm sorry to interrupt your train of thought but.... you mentioned that 'even if we had a medical intervention we couldn't get it there' so what if we just told the Talu doctors what to do, sent a message?" Kholin said, in a hurry. "Commodore, I've been such an idiot. I went straight into emergency mode, crisis thinking, mystery solving first and foremost and it didn't occur to me that I should have started at the very basics. It seemed too urgent to waste time with the common and mundane solutions as a huge investigation was apparently needed when just a little bit of 101 medical might have been - " she realised she was talking at an impossible speed, as fast as her thoughts were spinning, and stopped for a breath suddenly aware that some of the gathered group were looking at her as if she were making no sense at all. And probably she wasn't.

Drawing in a breath she slowed. "You mentioned allergies." Rio said, in a better, clearer and slower tone. "We have mentioned them before but in that context, simply, separately, the immediate medical reaction should be 'let's give the patients corticosteroids' - just a muscle memory conclusion that every medical student would be offering for that base diagnosis. I went around it BECAUSE it's so simple that I skipped it. I went straight to the next level but it makes sense.

The thing is, an allergy causes the immune system to overreact, creating inflammation. We've observed that for the Talu, this "overreaction" is manifesting as cellular disharmony—their cells are vibrating against each other instead of with the planet. That could mean that a high-dose corticosteroid would work by forcing the cells to decrease their reactivity by chemically inhibiting the Talus' cells from generating the "screaming" secondary frequencies." Rio took another long breath, looking around to see if she'd lost them all again or if she making more sense now.

"By reducing the localized swelling and fluid leakage (the silver weeping fluid), and thus sealing the geometric cracks, the steroid would temporarily hold the skin together, making the patient look much better almost instantly. Corticosteroids are common enough, we could message the Talu to tell them what to use from their own supplies. There are two problems - well three.... the first is persuading them to believe us. No small task, in the current circumstances. Two that Cortisone is a masking agent in itself, and if we got them to give Elara a systemic steroid, she could feel healed and might stop whistling and her skin could even clear up, however, as Lieutenant Urvasi pointed out, the Vargis Array is still broken so this solution doesn't fix the planet’s frequency; it just makes the Talu "deaf" to the pain of the discord."

"The other and much worse danger is that Corticosteroids don't last forever and once the medication wears off, the immune system often returns with a rebound effect. Added to the environmental toxic resonance discord - which is still there - then the patient's body would likely resume its self-harm with even more aggression which makes the medical cure only half of what is needed, mirroring exactly what Commander Kuzos said about the Dominion’s 'cure' being likely just a massive, planetary-scale version of this, numbing the Talu so they can't feel the Core extraction."

Rio had run out of breath again and became aware that she had been gradually speeding up as she got more into what she was describing so she stopped and waited for questions, replies or hopefully solutions and thoughts.

Urvasi listened to Rio, then thought of something similar, antihistamines. Twenty four hour ones were used with those suffering from inflammation effects, with good results. If those didn't work, the Corticosteroids were used as those were a heavy hammer. However, she was just flight control, so she continued to listen and wait to see if she had any input that could be used by the others.

Kuzos did not immediately answer Sora’s question about the Terrans. The information he shared was not from the open archives, but from the selective, redacted footnotes of the Vorta. "The historical record regarding extra-dimensional incursions is... restricted," Kuzos began, his voice a cold, functional resonance, "though, there are archived reports of a 'ghost-ship' with a fractured quantum signature. It was captured and dismantled. So, yes, Commander a Terran scout was sighted in this quadrant."

He turned his gaze to the Chief Medical Officer, "Doctor, your '101 medical' is the missing variable: Borath is banking on the Talu being too incapacitated. If we provide them the chemical key to suppress their own immune overreaction, we aren't just giving them 'breathing room.' We are arming them with the clarity to see the anchors."

Wilkan stepped away from the panoramic window, "The Talu aren't being deceived; they’re being extorted." He looked down at the jagged Talu crystal in his hand, then slowly, deliberately, he set it on the briefing table. The sharp edge had drawn blood, but as he wiped his palm on his tunic, the vacant, haunted look in his eyes began to recede, replaced by the hard, predatory focus of a commander finding a seam in the enemy’s hull.

"They’re trading their heart because they’re suffocating and we've given the Dominion the means to accomplish it. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not a fan of bullies and I really don't like ones that use me to beat their target into the corner." Wilkan’s gaze swept the room, a ghost of a smile - sharp and dangerous - touching his lips, "The Dominion is banking on our guilt keeping us paralyzed; they think we’re so busy apologizing for our uniforms that we won’t notice they’re stealing the room. I say we stop apologizing and start acting like the 'pathogen' they're so afraid of. If we’re the toxin, then let’s be the one that kills the Dominion’s deal."

He leaned over the table, his posture no longer brittle, but coiled, "We have two objectives here to help the Talu: we need to get them the cure and we need to repair the array. The question I pose to each of you is: how can we do it without breaching the Talu's trust any further, while maintaining the peace with the Dominion?" Wilkan turned his gaze specifically to Sora, the blue light of the tactical display sharpening the lines of his face. "And how does the Terran Empire play in?"

Aidan leaned back into his seat and closed his eyes for a moment. "We could start by sending a message, giving them all the readings we have taken. And I mean everything, up to our scans as soon as the Dominion starts drilling. What we need most is a detailed analysis of that mist Borath used. We need to be up front and leave nothing out, so that's including biometric profiles of ourselves as well as detailed programming of how we made a mistake with our clothing and can filter out the discord. Assuming we can reprogram the replicator. It'll be massive but the more we give them which also includes our mistake and our means to set it right, the more chance we have."

He leaned forward and picked up the bloodied shaft, turning it over in his hand. "I'm willing to record it, I've studied their language. I'm also volunteering to bring it to them."

Urvasi shivered as she wrapped herself with her arms. She thought a moment about why, when, how, who... but this was saving a species from destruction. She held up her hand, then stated, "I can call in my one time rescue favor... the L'Tandrey are neutral, trusted, and their ships are crystech, with the sensors and tech to repair the naturally formed Vargis Array of the mountain structure. I.. I can call them if you would like. Then, they could rendezvous with the Enterprise, teleport Commanders zh'Roothi, Kuzos, Bernadotte, Datari, and Lieutenant Kholin on board as an L'Tandrey Investigative team to be able to interact with the Talu Council and show the data the Enterprise crew has acquired, with a plan of suppression with healing and then recovery with their sacred mountain range staying intact and not hauled off to Dominion space. It would be up to whoever Commandeers the rescue scout vessel, but.. I think, worth it." She shrank a little, "If another way is viable, that is good. But this is, very doable for the mission." She wondered if she should reveal about the ships... then decided yes. "Commodore Targaryen already knows this, but each L'Tandrey Ship is a sentient crystalline life form, and is considered a comrade for the Talu Sacred Mountains, hence why L'Tandrey are considered Neutral to them, and even in dire circumstances, friends." Her voice became a whisper, "Just... fyi."

Sora shook her head and stood. Time to take the Terran approach to this briefing. "Stop talking over each other. Aidan, good idea in principle, but it relies on them actually listening. Which, given the experience with the Talu so far, they will not. The Talu have banned us from their planet. Who's to say what would happen if you returned there. You may well find yourself being shot on sight, and that won't achieve anything."

The Terran turned to Urvasi. "Your people may be trusted in their part of the Galaxy. But they are a complete unknown here. Their arrival may well be seen as a hostile act. Which is not what we want to achieve here. In short, bad idea."

Urvasi tried to keep the relief off of not using her one and only lifetime request for an L'Tandrey interaction for this scenario. She listened politely, hoping she had not used up the good will in the room with her constant not quite right trying to find solutions.

Next, Sora faced Kuzos. "Commander Kuzos. You are absolutely correct regarding the tactical assessment. The Dominion have pulled this off perfectly. I now realize where the similarity to the Terran weapons test comes from - it's not the natural resonance on the planet, but their dampening device. And, frankly, what they are doing down there is extremely Terran in its methodology."

"Which is why I believe that our best chance of beating this here is by turning Terrans ourselves. Literally. The Federation is banned from this system at the moment, and we must not risk an escalation with the Dominion. But what if the Empire takes offense to the Dominion using their technology? A small team. All of them human or at least passing for human. We arrive, we take out Borath's little toy and restore the Talu. And then either that team distributes the medical solution, or Enterprise swoops in to save the day. All we need is a shuttlecraft repainted in Imperial colours, and some uniforms."

“Now that sounds interesting” Amber added as she looked across at Sora. “It could work if it’s planned to precision.”

"The logic is aggressive, Commander," Kuzos stated, his hands resting in terrifying symmetry upon the table, "however, your assessment of Dominion methodology carries a critical oversight: the 'terminal response' I mentioned is not a theoretical deterrent. It is a standing order. The Founders do not recognize the Terran Empire as a diplomatic entity; they classify it as a systemic infection. An overt Imperial arrival would not result in a stand-off. The Jem'Hadar would prioritize the destruction of that shuttle over the core extraction itself."

He turned his gaze toward Wilkan, his head tilting with mechanical precision. "If we appear as Terrans, we do not bypass the blockade. We invite an immediate fleet mobilization. The Enterprise would be forced to defend a 'hostile' vessel, effectively starting the war the Commodore is attempting to prevent."

Wilkan didn't flinch. He leaned over the table, the blue light of the tactical display sharpening the new, predatory focus in his eyes. The haunted vacantness was gone, replaced by the hard edge of a commander ready to strike.

"Kuzos is right about the 'Sword and Globe.' It’s a bullseye, not a disguise," Wilkan said, his voice regaining its command-deck resonance, "but Sora is right about the methodology. We don't need a flag; we need a glitch." He looked at the crystal shard on the table, then around at his staff. "Borath expects a Starfleet retreat and a formal protest. He doesn't expect a 'ghost' that he can't quite identify." Wilkan paused, a glint of old-school starship captaincy sparking in his eyes as he looked toward the engineering and science stations. "And since we're already throwing out the rulebook... what about the main deflector? Isn't that the traditional Starfleet solution for every impossible problem? Can we 'reconfigure' it into something that screams Imperial interference without painting a target on our hull or use it to carry out this dramatic repair and healing? The Talu have already shown they are susceptible to resonance pulses and the Deflector is one big beautiful pulse emitter..."

The Terran smirked. "I believe it can be done, yes. And Kuzos, you are not wrong. So maybe using a small craft is not the right idea." She tapped a few commands into the briefing room's projector console, and a hologram of a Cheyenne-class ship appeared. "I present to you ISS Asha, NCC-28302. The ship I served on before crossing over. Now, that particular ship has been destroyed, but who's to say there hasn't been a reuse of the name. We could disguise Enterprise as Asha-A. All it takes is a bit of a paint job, that should be doable in about an hour, two hours at most. Or faster, if we are able to do it holographically. Masking Enterprise's identification signature should also be fairly simple. We leave the system, apply the disguise, warp back in and disrupt the dampener, fix the damage to the core, and warp back out."

She looked at Kuzos directly. "Of course, we will have to engage the Dominion ships in combat a little bit, to sell the trick. Without destroying them, of course. After we're done, we turn back into Enterprise and come back to talk to the Talu, pretending we have no idea what just happened. And if someone questions us, well. Should 'Asha' be hailed, and we find ourselves unable to just ignore the call, I will wear my Terran uniform and pose as the CO."

Urvasi's thoughtfulness look came back. Now was the time she could tell them about her life support belts and her wrist computer. "Commander Randall, Bernadotte, and Datari, I have detailed scans of the resonance waveform with the IMD overlay on my wrist computer. My life support belt captured those readings when it was on planet with Commander Datari. Next, my wrist computer, being a standard L'Tandrey wrist pc, still has Vargis Array Heuristic programs as Civvy Engineers use them all the time in the Protectorate." Her wrist computer came off of her wrist as she slid it forward to the trio. "There, fully unlocked. I do believe those programs can help find the correct pulse frequencies with duration and timing to repair the Talu mountain range. Unfortunately, I have very little training with them, but they should be within your 'wheel house', as it is called. All yours."

Wilkan looked down at the L’Tandrey wrist computer sliding toward the center of the table, then back to Sora. A dry, mirthless chuckle escaped him, the first sound of genuine amusement the crew had heard from him since the crisis began.

"So," Wilkan said, his voice regaining its full command timber. "To save a civilization, we’re going to gaslight the most paranoid empire in the Gamma Quadrant by pretending to be the most aggressive empire in the Multiverse. All while using the main deflector like a cosmic tuning fork." He glanced at the holographic Asha. "There’s a certain poetic irony to it, isn’t there? We’re effectively making the Terran Empire into the 'heroes' who chased off a Dominion exploitation effort, while we, as the Federation, swoop in to offer 'unbiased' disaster relief for the damage the 'Terrans' caused. It’s a complete inversion of reality..."

The sharp smile broadened on his lips, "I love this plan!"

"We have two objectives: get them the cure and repair the array. But we have to do it without breaching the Talu's trust or shattering the peace with the Dominion. So, we play the ghost," he looked around the room before settling between Ash and Urvasi, "We need to be strategic and come up with a plan that makes the Picard Maneuver look like child's play. Figure out a way to leave a sensor ghost here so, to Borath’s scans, we’ll look like we’re sitting here in 'silent protest' while we're really passing by him."

Ash took a sip of her coffee. "The sensor ghost is easy as long as Borath doesn't feel the need to send something out to shoo us away." The Engineer commented. "The holographic skin shouldn't prove too difficult. I'm certain Commander Bernadotte can provide us with a, ready to go, holographic matrix to give us a head start." She added. "And, I have a way to make Enterprise scan as being from the Terran Universe. So far, so good." She concluded.

Urvasi smiled equally, saying, "A runabout with full stealth modules and a Primary Dish Modulation grid would cover more ground and touch points than mathematics energy sensor overlays. I would suggest a senior flight control to fly the shuttle, or have me fly it and a senior flight control Officers replace me."

He tapped the holographic display, highlighting the Asha. "We skin the ship in a holographic hull - I don't care if we're the Enterprise, the Asha, or the good ship Lollipop - it doesn't matter, as long as it bleeds Imperial radiation. We fold in, drop out of the jump right on top of the Vargis Array, and hit the main deflector. We’ll use it as a cosmic tuning fork to broadcast Rio's corticosteroid frequency and sync it with those L'Tandrey heuristics from Urvasi’s wrist computer. We perform planetary surgery in the seconds before they can lock weapons."

While the plan began to unfold and each of the Senior Staff chipped in zh'Roothi shifted uncomfortably in her seat. The risks and variables were excessive, however, like her peers Zhora couldn't stand upon the fringes to watch the Dominion execute their well orchestrated plan while the Enterprise remained locked in a power vacuum, bound tightly in red tape.

"I'll get on the deflector frequency," Aidan offered, "but I'll need help with that, I'm capable of plenty but I'm not an engineer." It sounded almost apologetic but the fire in his eyes still remained. "As for sensor ghost, we could use a probe or even a shuttle and mask it as the enterprise."

Sora grinned. "I do happen to have a collection of images of Terran ships," she confirmed, and began swiping through some files on the briefing room console once she had accessed her personal library. "Should be similar size and firepower," she muttered to herself, until she finally pulled a new image onto the holoprojector. "How convenient. ISS Millennium, NCC-2792-D, lead ship of the class of the same name. Which happens to be the Terran version of the Century-class." She turned to Ash. "Luckily, Temporal Investigations also keeps an eye on the Terrans. I'll send over all the intelligence files I have on that ship for you to put together a holo-disguise."

"Good enough." Ash replied, popped the last bite of the pastry into her mouth and then washed it down with another sip of coffee.

"I'll get straight on to setting up the frequency and pick out a good candidate Medication to do the generic job. Steroids are relatively easy to configure so it won't take long" Rio said, beginning to feel a little better about this whole mission. She was still worried about the Commodore but was treating him at every opportunity between meetings. However she was deeply relieved that he was recovering well and she was determined to make sure that aside from all of the other important tasks in this mission she was going to see that stayed the case.

Wilkan straightened up, his bloodshot eyes bright with a fierce, dark optimism. "And the beauty of it? The moment the Talu wake up and see those seismic anchors for what they are, we use the Coaxial Drive to fold back out. We leave the Dominion 'defending' the planet against a Terran phantom that simply vanished, probably assuming back to its own universe. By the time our sensor ghost fades and we 'arrive' as ourselves, we’re the ones coming in to offer 'unbiased' mediation for the 'Imperial' mess. We make the Terrans the villains, the Talu the survivors, and the Dominion... well, we make them the 'heroes' who chased the ghosts away. They can’t claim we broke the treaty if we weren’t even 'there.'"

He looked around the table at the gathered staff, challenging them to find the flaw. "It’s high-risk, and the Coaxial Drive is a temperamental beast for a double-fold. There's a million moving parts to this - including how does the Terran Empire play into this and can the holographic skin hold a stable lattice during a Coaxial jump - that we have 90 minutes to figure out, but we all have to be onboard with this."

"I've had occasion to do back to back jumps before and I have a process for doing so, Commodore, without risking loss of the ship and folding this entire system into an origami crane. We will, however, be without Coaxial drive capability while the drive is completely realigned."

"We could shut down all non-essential and unused parts of the ship and divert power to the drive," Aidan suggested.

Urvasi smiled as she added, "Commodore, we only need the Coaxial drive pulse to show transversing dimensions. We can do a normal warp hop to outer system, 0.03 seconds at warp 6, as well as 'activating' Coaxial drive', the touching of the Coaxial drive will create the elements of dimensional transfer without the actual activation of the coaxial drive. Thus, such a short distance of 'outer system', to 'Enterprise is here' is covered by normal warp while the sensed 'Coaxial' keeps the trans-dimensional options fully open."

"We can't warp out on normal engines," Aidan countered, "not unless we can change the warp signature to a Terran one otherwise we're just a bright beacon out there, betraying what we're doing."

Wilkan’s fingers traced a sharp, jagged path across the tactical display, his eyes narrowing as the disparate pieces of ship tech and historical gambits began to click into a lethal choreography. The heavy, stagnant air of the briefing room seemed to stir with the sheer kinetic energy of his shift in tone.

"Aidan is right. If we use standard warp, we might as well be broadcasting the Federation Anthem on all hailing frequencies. The signature is too distinct," Wilkan said, his voice dropping into a low, focused hum, "but Urvasi’s point about the 'trans-dimensional' optics is the key. We don't need a full-system jump. We need a flicker." He turned his gaze toward the holographic display, visualizing the maneuvers. "Ash, can we slave the Coaxial Drive’s discharge to the holographic skin? If we execute a micro-warp jump using the Coaxial Induction Drive, we can leave a persistent sensor image of the Enterprise exactly where we’re sitting right now. To Borath’s long-range scans, we’ll look like we’re still floating here in 'silent protest' while the real ship has already folded space into the planetary shadow."

The Chief Engineer closed her eyes for a few seconds while she considered what the Commodore had proposed and nodded, slowly, to herself a few times before opening her eyes and looking to the Captain of the Enterprise. "The sensor afterimage won't last more than 12 seconds." She said, quietly.

"It’s a high-stakes gamble," Wilkan continued, moving his hands as if physically shifting ships across the map. "We fold in, masked as the Millennium, weapons hot but on stand-by. We want them scrambling, not dying. We hit the main deflector, using it as a cosmic tuning fork to broadcast Rio's corticosteroid frequency and sync it with those L'Tandrey heuristics from Urvasi’s wrist computer. Planetary surgery at the speed of light." He paused, a glint of dark amusement in his eyes. "Then, the 'Escape Fold.' We use the drive one more time to vanish. As Urvasi suggested, even a touch of the Coaxial signature during that jump will sell the 'dimensional retreat.' We leave the Dominion holding the bag for a planet they can no longer suppress, facing a population that just woke up from a nightmare."

"The risk is that we're effectively blinding ourselves during the realignment after the double-fold. If we get pinned before we can reset the drive, we're just a very pretty holographic target sitting in the middle of a Dominion fleet," he looked at the group, his expression a challenge. "I'm willing to bet the ship on this 'origami crane,' but I need to know: can we sync the deflector's medical pulse to the exact micro-second we drop out of the Coaxial fold? If we're off by even a heartbeat, the Dominion targets and fires on us."

He left the floor open, waiting to see how the science and medical teams would mesh the L'Tandrey heuristics with the ship's most temperamental engine.

Sora chuckled. "Commodore, if anyone could pull this off, it's this crew. I know that, you know that, everyone in this room knows that. Frequency modulations, if I remember right, are one of the core fields Ensign Nakai specialises in, I am sure she'd be more than happy to be of assistance once you get some caffeine into her. Once this meeting concludes, I'll go to my quarters and get changed, in the unlikely case we do need someone to appear on-screen. Or, I suppose, we could broadcast a message to the Talu, while disguised as Terrans, flat out telling them what the Dominion is doing?"

Zhora tried not to smirk: Bernadotte clearly hadn't taken onboard the advice on avoiding being the centre of attention. The Andorian glanced around the table as the crew and Wilkan were set on this high risk, high gamble plan. "I can sync the deflector," she volunteered. "Though for the record: I think this plan is utterly crazy, but for the lack of other options we need to make it work."

Wilkan's sharp, predatory focus didn't waver as he turned his gaze to the Andorian. A ghost of a smile - this one genuine - touched his lips at her "utterly crazy" assessment. "Crazy is the only currency Borath isn't trading in, Commander," Wilkan commented, his voice dropping out of that authoritative command-deck resonance for a nanosecond. "He’s built a perfect logical box. If we stay logical, we stay trapped. We need to be the glitch in his reality."

"Kuzos," Wilkan said, his tone sharpening as the Security Chief reviewed the data of the Millennium. "The 'terminal response' is our biggest hurdle. If we're going to play the ghost, we have to make sure the Jem'Hadar are too busy chasing shadows to pull the trigger on a 'systemic infection.' I need your department to coordinate the electronic warfare suite. We aren't just broadcasting a signature; we’re burying their tactical sensors in a haystack of Imperial noise. Can you calibrate the shield harmonics to bleed just enough 'Terran' energy to keep them curious, but not enough to let a polaron beam through?"

Kuzos’s head tilted with mechanical precision. "By modulating the secondary shield emitters to oscillate at a 4.2-terahertz variance, we can simulate the 'leaky' subspace signature of an Imperial drive core. It will provide the necessary sensor 'grit' to validate the holographic skin; however," he added, his voice a flat, functional resonance, "if they engage, the variance must be collapsed instantly or our own protection will be compromised."

"Doctor Kholin," Wilkan said, his expression softening just enough to acknowledge the weight of the medical gamble. "Zhora is syncing the deflector, but the payload is yours. Can you and Aidan ensure that the corticosteroid frequency is 'tuned' to the Talu's biology well enough that it doesn't cause a secondary resonance shock when we hit them? We need them awake and clear-headed, not in a different kind of seizure. Counselor, I want you to try to use your empathic senses to monitor the Talu while we're doing this."

Amber nodded. “That I can do Sir.”

The Trill looked flushed, perhaps from excitement, perhaps from worry as he spared his fellow Trill a barely minute glance. "We will be ready," he said firmly. He had to believe, for the slightest sliver of doubt could turn this into a catastrophe.

"We're on it Commodore and we will deliver." Rio gave off the confidence and positivity that was the only way forward. Of course it was an enormous risk but so was flying around space, if you thought about it too much. If this crew weren't the best of the best (in her humble opinion, her mind smiled) there could be worry but as it was, she had every faith in the Team and she most definitely wasn't going to be a squeaky wheel so she agreed with the plans and set herself to her part of the task, alongside Aiden and Amber, the Medical side of this plan was going to be sewn up. She smiled at Wilkan, warmly and with every confidence in her team and their part.

He stood up straight, his joints creaking as he released his grip on the table. The blood stained crystal shard remained in the center, a reminder of the stakes.

"We have eighty-two minutes left," Wilkan announced, his focus briefly going to the blood stained crystal shard in the center of the table. "Ash, start the pre-flight on the Coaxial Drive; I want those 'back-to-back' protocols ready to scream. Urvasi, get to the Bridge and start plotting the micro-warp 'flicker' vectors. If we’re going to fold this system into an origami crane, I want it to be the most beautiful piece of paper-folding Starfleet has ever seen. Zhora and Sora, prepare the Deflector."

"It will be pure art, you'll see," Sora replied with a chuckle, before she turned to the XO. "Centre of attention yet again, I know. You don't need to give me the speech again. I'll see you on the bridge once I've changed."

The Andorian resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the Terran and instead turned to Wilkan: "It will be done," she assued.

The Chief Engineer peered into her, near empty, coffee cup for a couple seconds, a little frown on her face, before looking to the Commodore. "Consider it done, sir." She replied, quietly, then finished off the dregs of her coffee in silent punctuation of her statement.

Urvasi stood up from the table, "One perfect Paper Crane Maneuver coming up, Sir." She finished off her coffee and whisked the cup to the replicator with her TK, already thinking about the required calculations for the maneuver.

He looked at each of them one last time. "Let’s go give the Dominion a nightmare they can't report to the Founders. Dismissed."

Sora stood from her chair, and, in best Terran manner, stood at attention and saluted. "Let's get to it, people. Terra Firma!" For a second, she stood still and at attention, before bursting into laughter. "Sorry, had to. We'll put your piece of art together, Commodore. Don't you worry about it."

Wilkan nodded to the Operations Officer, silently wondering what nightmare they were preparing to release today.

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