"Thank the gods you're okay!" Kassia told Tarik over the communications screen in his office. "I don't know what's happening, but everything is going nuts out here...people are losing control!"
"I'm not sure what's happening either. A third of my command is AWOL right now, and we've already had four major fights with injuries. I've locked down all the armories on the station just to keep things from getting too far out of hand."
"Just be careful...have you heard from Cherrin or Deveraux about what might be happening?"
"Dr. Cherrin seems to think there may be a bio-agent involved. I haven't heard a word from Paul."
"Okay, keep me posted." Tarik cut the link.
Tarik immediately cut orders that all Marine personnel off-base should remain off-base until further notice. On second thought, he amended the order to include all Starfleet personnel and quarantined the base. Then he informed Starfleet Command.
A clerk appeared on screen. [Starfleet Command, how may I direct your inquiry?]
"This is Colonel Tarik at Starbase 901. I need to speak to Admiral Zultok and the Surgeon General immediately. We have a possible biological outbreak on the station."
Moments later, Zultok and Surgeon General Sanak appeared on screen. [What's the situation, Colonel?]
"We appear to have a biological agent acting on the station, and possibly on some of the ships attached here. The agent appears to be a broad-spectrum, very strong aphrodisiac. Station operations have been severely disrupted and we are experiencing civil unrest as a result."
[Understood. I will implement a sector-wide quarantine for the Briar Patch. No Federation ships will enter or leave the area, and we'll set up a picket from Vulcan to keep everyone else out. The Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians will be informed. If you have any non-affected personnel, get them to work immediately to restore order and critical functions. How are you holding up?]
"So far, I'm doing all right. The agent doesn't appear to affect Romulans, which might give us a clue as to who developed it. But I'm not counting on that—the Vulcans on the station seem to be having an especially bad time. The agent appears to trigger pon farr. I'd use anesthetine gas in the environmental system to subdue everyone but I'm not sure how it might react with the agent." Not to mention the fact that the environmental techs have all gone out of their minds.
[Smart thinking, Colonel,] Surgeon General Sanak replied. [If you get any data on the agent, forward it immediately to my office and to the Vulcan Science Academy. We'll get you help. In the meantime, the Mark BC-96 biocontainment kit should keep you safe and sane. If this agent is chemical, it'll stop the exposure. If it's viral, you may only have hours at best.]
"Understood. As soon as we have it, you'll have it."
[Stay on top of the situation, Colonel. Keep the civilian population on New Canada away from the station at all costs!]
"Understood." Fortunately New Canada's civilian medical and security facilities, along with those of Camp Anderson, had evolved to the point that assistance from the station was rarely or ever needed.
The transmission broke, and Tarik got to work. He opened another line to the Yukon Synthetics Company. [Tarik, it's always a pleasure to speak with you,] his grandfather Sikal told him. Sikal represented his interest in the company. [How are you?]
"Not good at the moment." He outlined the situation. "I need you to quarantine Yukon. All arrivals and departures from SB901 are cancelled. New Canada and the rest of the sector are still open, but we can't risk this spreading!"
[I'll get on it at once. I'll have our Research and Development Division work on the problem as well. The Nausicaans brought a rather well-equipped sickbay with them in their retreat.]
"Anything you can get us will be of help. Tarik out."
He made further transmissions: to Captain Degataryev at Thermopylae, seconding him for the duration, and to the G'kar homeworld. The G'kar medical establishment was put to work on the problem as well.
Then Tarik left his office, and stepped into chaos.
Sickbay would have BC-96 containment kits—essentially an enhanced biofilter mask and nanofiber-composite suit guaranteed to block etiologic agents at the sub-molecular level. The only place in Marine Country to have them would be the supply depot. That was Tarik's first stop, after walking through corridors that were eerily abandonned. Even his clerk had left the office.
The quartermaster, however, was at her post. "Colonel, how can I help you?" she asked cheerily—almost too cheerily.
"I need a BC-96 containment kit immediately."
The quartermaster left, returning with the suit and mask. "Thank you. You should get one for yourself as well. That is an order. How are you holding up?"
"Oh, I'm doing just fine Colonel—now that you're here!" The quartermaster began to advance on Tarik, slowly opening her tunic.
Oh, no... "Sergeant, you will remember your bearing!" he snapped.
"Let's just put that aside for now...it's just us, Tarik...you know you want this!"
Tarik let her come closer, then started to caress her hair...he felt her grind against him as his hand found a junction between her neck and shoulder. Immediately she dropped to the ground.
"I didn't want to have to do that, but it's for both our good," he told his unconscious subordinate as he put on the suit and headed to Sickbay.
The station was in utter chaos. Some couples (or occasionally more than couples) were utterly shameless in their amorous activities, openly cavorting and having sex in public areas. Tarik chose to simply ignore them. There was little he could do about them or for them at this point.
Unfortunately his own impulses were starting to get the better of him...the quartermaster sergeant's antics seemed to have triggered something in him. Maybe all that was needed was stimulus, he thought. Though he'd never seen any of his subordinates in that light, he was just as flesh and blood as anyone else. Better get to Sickbay fast!
Two men and a woman lay dead in the Commerce Section, a love triangle gone very tragically bad as the rivals discovered one another. Just because Tarik had locked down the phasers and grenades didn't mean that there weren't scores of kitchen knives, brass knuckles, saps, and heavy blunt objects around with which to settle scores. A score or more of adolescent boys were quarreling over a small group of adolescent girls. Two of them had knives and weren't making any secret of it. Time to put an end to this before anyone else gets killed, he thought. Hopefully their parents will understand.
Tarik had deliberately deprived himself of even a hand phaser, not trusting himself at this point. Fortunately he didn't need any weapons to do what he had to do. He knew better than to tell them to disperse. They weren't listening. Tarik simply waded into the crowd and subdued the boys with a combination of karate, Vulcan combat techniques, superior Romulan strength, and years of barroom brawling. After about five minutes, Tarik alone remained standing, the boys all rendered unconscious or combat-ineffective. Using a tricorder, he ensured that none of their injuries were permanent or life-threatening (although some broken bones would have to be mended later). Treatment would have to wait: Tarik did not have a medkit with him and he assumed (given his inability to contact Captain Alcon or anyone else in the medical staff) that anyone who had one was most likely out of commission as well.
Two teenage girls stood in front of him. "Thank you, sir, for stopping those creeps!" one of them said. She looked rather the worse for wear, with most of her clothing ripped off, but that didn't stop her from rushing toward him to embrace him.
"No, you can't have him! He's mine! He came for me!" the other one said, stopping her. Immediately the two began tearing at what was left of each other's clothing and slapping at each other.
Tarik felt the agent acting on him even more...that neither of the girls were above the age of consent made little difference to him now. Fortunately he retained enough presence of mind to subdue them with the Vulcan nerve pinch as he continued to Sickbay.
Sickbay was filled with children—many more than usual. All of them had classic symptoms of what used to be known as the 'common cold': fever, coughing, stuffy nose. Kassia, along with Lieutenant Piccolo and Sergeant Corran, was doing her best to at least make them comfortable. Tiyanna lay on one biobed, suffering just as much as the rest of thepre-teen children on the station.
"What's going on here?" Tarik asked.
"Whatever it is, it's affecting the children too, but not in the same way. We've got hundreds of cases of influenza-like symptoms."
"Where's the Emergency Medical Hologram?"
"The EMH is working on a way to eliminate this agent, whatever it is. He seems to think it's a virus. We're working temporarily as nurses under his supevision."
Tarik nodded. He went to the EMH. "The suit was an excellent precaution, Colonel, but probably too late," the hologram said as he scanned Tarik with a medical tricorder. "You're quite infected. It's a miracle you've made it this far."
"Tell me about it!" he said in reply. "We've got at least two dozen trauma cases in the Commerce Section, and nobody qualified to treat them. I've informed Starfleet Command of the situation." He told the EMH what had happened.
"Marines!" the hologram snorted in contempt. "Always solving problems with your fists!"
"That's what they pay me for, Doctor. Do you think you can break away from your research to attend to them?"
"Now that we have additional resources working the problem, I think I can do that. I'll be back shortly. In the meantime, stay here. If there are unaffected areas of the station, we'd do best to keep this contained as much as possible. The biocontainment kit should be effective against the virus. If you can recall personnel off-station personnel we may be able to at least restore order and get major systems back online."
"Thank you for your recommendation, Doctor. I'll do that at once." Tarik immediately reached past the EMH toward an open drug cabinet.
"Colonel! What are you doing?"
Tarik grabbed a hypospray of neomorphine. "I'm sedating myself. Not enough to put me out, but enough to keep me from going out of my mind!" He exposed his arm for the injection, and immediately felt his nerves calm down.
"No more than two of those every twenty-four hours. One for non-Vulcanoids. For the duration you're running whatever you need to run from here."