The world is small and unprepossessing, a satellite of a much larger gas giant itself orbiting a dull red star. "Barely class M," I comment, inspecting the grey and brown sphere with its faint marbling of clouds.
"Within humanoid habitable range," Toriash rumbles. The big Gorn science officer sounds no more enthused about the moon than I am. "Temperature is... inclement. It is no wonder the Voth and the Turei have ignored its potentialities." He turns to me. "If you order me on the away team, General, let me have warning enough, so that I can obtain heated clothing."
"Rrueo will spare you that, if she can." I look at the temperature readings again. "Rrueo will spare herself that, for preference." I stalk away from the science console, back to the command chair. The Brathana's bridge is larger than my old ship's. It is no doubt more impressive, but I grow weary of shouting to make myself heard.
"Steer three seven five mark three eight four," I order. "Assume standard orbit at range five hundred kellicams."
I can picture, in my mind's eye, the Brathana sliding through space, the lean, flat, angular form of the intel battlecruiser slicing across the disc of the moon. My whiskers twitch as I study the viewscreen. "No signs of life...."
"We should not expect them, at this distance," Toriash calls out. "The Kobali settlement numbers barely four thousand - it is little more than a village." He pauses, then adds, "I do have operational power sources on sensors."
"Type?"
"Low-grade civilian fusion reactor, most likely."
So, the Kobali have power... and in this age of replicators and transporters and holo-emitters, to have power is to have everything. So, why the distress call, that brought the Brathana hurrying to this little-regarded star in the Vyntadi Sector?
I stand up. My tail switches nervously through the air. I pace over to the communications console, where the human renegade Oschmann is scanning through the frequencies. Her blonde hair is carefully groomed, her face a composed mask. Behind it, her mind is like a high ruined tower, with one light of unconquerable pride burning in a single window. "I may have a carrier wave," she says. "Subspace frequency consistent with Kobali operations, but very low level."
"Hail them on that frequency. And triangulate as we approach. Rrueo wishes to know where everyone is."
Scenarios are playing through my mind. Some disaster may have overtaken the settlement, forced survivors to flee with only portable equipment. But, then, what of the functioning power source? A possibility, then, is invasion - hostiles have taken the settlement, driving the Kobali out. But what hostiles? Not that there is any lack of hostiles in the Delta Quadrant -
"I have a response, I think, sir," says Oschmann. "At least, a spike in the carrier wave."
"Let Rrrueo speak to them." Oschmann touches the controls on the comms console. "Kobali settlement. This is General Rrueo aboard the IKS Brathana. We have received your distress call and stand ready to assist. Inform us of your requirements."
At first, there is nothing but a hiss in response. Oschmann works the console, her fingers making neat, precise adjustments. The hiss is broken by vague sounds, thumping and scuffling as of objects shifting... and then a voice.
"Brathana. We need... we need medical support. Urgent... the whole colony is... urgent, urgent... help us... we are dying down here!"
The voice cuts out. "Transmission ceased," says Oschmann. "The carrier wave is down, even. I have surface coordinates, though. They approximately match Commander Toriash's readings on the power source."
"So. Medical emergency. Well, bio-technics and medicine are among Rrueo's talents. Still, Rrueo would prefer to have more information." I come to a decision. "And we will not gather it from orbit. We will assemble an away team - with stringent precautions against biological contamination. The Kobali said they were dying. Rrueo does not desire to join them."
"Yes, sir," says Oschmann. She half-smiles. "Dying. Shouldn't the Kobali be used to that?"
---
The Kobali settlement is... as many Kobali settlements. There is a central citadel, small as befits a small community, a tapering square tower holding the main administrative functions, and - according to Toriash - the settlement's fusion reactor. Around it are scattered private dwellings, simple but pleasing structures, each with its own walled garden.
There are no plants, though. Thin drifts of snow lie round about, covering and softening the outlines of the buildings, concealing whatever might grow in those gardens... what might have grown. For it is clear that the gardens will never be tended again.
Our footprints stand out black against the snow, and they are the only footprints to be seen. I call up a data display on the HUD of my EV suit. I am taking no chances with... whatever is here.
The transmission came from a building near the central citadel. It looks like a family home. I motion with one hand to Oschmann. "Scan it."
She raises her tricorder. I do likewise. Behind us, Toriash and the big Lissepian medic, Siowxayer, are hulking figures in their EV suits. They dwarf the two Klingon security guards we have brought with us.
The security guards are a precaution; there was no sign of enemies on the planet. There is none now, the buildings are intact, without scars of weapons fire. "Positive read," Oschmann reports. "There is a subspace transmitter in that building. Relatively small scale, low power output - a hobbyist's rig, most likely."
The readings from my tricorder are grimmer. "No life signs. Not of higher organisms, at any rate - plants, insects, occasional mammalian vermin - no Kobali."
"They were speaking to us not a few minutes ago," Toriash rumbles.
"They said they were dying. Rrueo fears they were correct." There are no life signs. There are, though, bodies. Organic matter, consistent with humanoid mass and dimensions.... "Open that door," I order.
It is not locked. A small community of Kobali, on an isolated world, they would see no need to lock their doors. I step forward gingerly. The interior lights are still glowing brightly. The scene is not a happy one; beneath the EV suit, I feel my fur rising in atavistic response.
The house is crowded with corpses. Some lie in beds, or on couches; others are on the floor, either laid out peacefully, or sprawled as if they have been left where they fell. There are no marks of weapons. I crouch down, peer at the grey, mottled, hairless face of one of the Kobali. The expression frozen on the lifeless features is... not good. They did not die well.
"Scan for known NBC hazards." I was right to insist on EV suits. Radiation, toxin or disease, whatever it was that killed these people... our suits should protect us. "Maximum decontamination on return to the ship," I order. "We will not trust to biofilters alone. We will apply sterilizing radiation and cleansing to the limits of our suits' tolerances." Whatever death came here, I will not bring it aboard the Brathana.
"No significant radioactivity," says Toriash. "Scanning for exotics... nothing."
"Toxin scans so far negative," Siowxayer says. "I am cross-referencing with the files provided by General Shalo... even there, nothing is registering." Shalo, among other things, is an expert on exotic poisons. Her data libraries on the subject are... illuminating. At least, that is one word for them.
"Sir." Oschmann indicates a small alcove off the main room of the dwelling's ground floor. A Kobali figure is slumped over a console... the subspace transmitter. A portable microphone is still clenched in his hand. He must have succumbed even as he was speaking to us....
Succumbed to what?
The whine and whirr of tricorders is audible even through the helmets of our EV suits. The Kobali's body is still warm, but vital functions have definitively ceased. I study the readouts on my suit's HUD. My whiskers twitch. The readings make very little sense.
"Massive distributed cytolysis," I mutter. "Multiple organ failure... evidence of neurotransmitter abnormalities...." Seizures, chemical imbalances, the wreckage of normal bodily functions as organs turned to mush inside their bodies. "But... Rrueo needs detailed biomolecular scans. We will take samples. And we will subject the sample vials to the same intensive precautions as ourselves. But there must be an analysis...."
"Is there a disease?" one of the security guards asks, his mind-tone bristling with nervousness. "A bacterium, a virus....?"
"Of course there is a virus," I say. "These are Kobali. But that is not what concerns Rrueo...." I turn. "Toriash. Take a guard, go to the main colony building. Scan their computer systems, download all available records. Rrueo wishes to know the full story of what happened here. Why is this one -" I indicate the corpse "- crouching over a personal transmitter, when there must be a full-scale subspace communicator at the colony's centre? Why are so many gathered in this one building? Be thorough. Download everything."
The Kobali are a unique species. They reproduce by infecting the bodies of the dead with a virus - almost certainly an artificially created virus - which revitalizes and transforms the dead cells, converting a corpse into a living member of their species. It is a life cycle which most other species find profoundly disturbing. I do, myself. I have felt Kobali minds, sensed the remains of the previous lives' neural patterns, underlying the Kobali awareness like an archaeological stratum....
Oschmann comes towards me. Even through the faceplates of our suits, I can see the wariness in her eyes. "What's worrying you, sir?" she asks.
"Rrueo will need to do further tests, many more tests... but what concerns her is what she is not seeing."
"Sir?"
"Organic degeneration, the destruction of cells from within... it is all characteristic of a virus. But so far, Rrueo is not seeing that virus. There is a modicum of ordinary internal flora, the minor endoparasites we all live with... nothing that could cause death. The only significant virus Rrueo can detect... is the Kobali one."
"You suspect it has mutated? Into something fatal to the host?"
"Mutated, or been mutated." I twitch, irritably, feeling the urge to groom my whiskers with my claws... not possible, now. "If something or someone has subverted the Kobali virus, then the consequences could be... significant. The Vaadwaur tried something along those lines, but without success." I straighten up. "Beam down more teams in full EV suits. House to house searches. Garner every scrap of information we can. Every computer system, every written record, is to be copied to the Brathana's databanks."
"We could call in further science teams for support, sir," says Oschmann.
"No. Rrueo has decided. We will take our samples, we will take exhaustive copies of the colony's records... and, before we leave, the Brathana will sterilize this place with a thorough orbital bombardment." I sigh. "If we turn this place into a lake of molten glass a kellicam deep, it may just set Rrueo's mind at rest."
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