Upon Defiant: Chapter One

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Meetup place for all sorts of families! Also a good therapist is here.

"Flying automobiles..." Luka looked up at them in awe. "Impractical of course, but still SO COOL"

"Agreed" Dawn said and grinned then shook her head "Very cool"

James hurried down the hill into the city, making some vague attempt at looking dignified and like a captain, but failing because he had never really mastered the art of being dignified. "Keep your eyes open for trouble."

Once they entered the city, they would see that the people here were all silvery like fish with deer antlers and colorful robes.

"Bets there's a toxic cult here we need to talk moral philosophy to?" James asked.

"My Father once had an old junker, it was never gonna fly again but he said he couldn't just leave it to scrap. Cars in the Imperium are SO rare.  He was always bringing junk home with the plan to fix it one day. My brothers and I used to sit in it and pretend it was flying. Such adventures we had." She sighed happily. "I'm so stealing one and taking it for a test drive." She grinned.

"Eugh philosophy, can't we just shoot them?"

"Starfleet order 2, There is a regulation against taking intelligent life." Dawn said then shrugged "That's why our weapons are stun guns"

"Sorry Luka, but we can take a less diplomatic approach if you want." James grinned. "Grand Theft Auto in space! Break all the Starfleet regulations!"

"Man Starfleet sound like killjoys. " She examined her phaser "Still, you can do a lot of damage with a stun gun, just gotta know where to hit... and hope they have a heart condition." She shrugged. "Diplomacy works great with a little... light tasing... for motivation "

"Well, if you want to get technical, the captain and first officer are not supposed to be on away teams together either, but..." Dawn shrugged then laughed "It is only a simulation after all."

"Since we don't know for sure which of us is captain, we can argue to Starfleet that we were just confused when they court-martial us," James joked. He casually walked into a building that looked official, yelped, and hurried back out.

Dawn frowned and looked at James when he yelped then at the building "Um, what was in there to get that reaction?"

"Holodeck within a holodeck. It looks like empty space everywhere, with stars in the distance." James shuddered. "Gotta give a guy some warning before seeing something like that."

"Holodeck within a holodeck?" Luka couldn't resist, she was curious as she peered in. "Ooooh, stars."

James peered in again, stepping onto the floor which didn't even seem to exist. "How can you not be freaked out by this?"

Luka shrugged. "It's a bit eerie having no floor but it's just space." She looked at him curiously. "Not so different to the view from the cockpit of a fighter. All that expanse of space around you, inky velvet blackness dotted with pins of light." She sounded wistful. "I love space. So many possibilities, so many opportunities. Each of those stars, a whole system and look at them all, it's endless and it's beautiful."

Dawn stepped in to look at that also, that was just too weird and so cool to her way of thinking

"I prefer space to be safely outside a window, and to have a nice, visible floor under my feet." James made an attempt to not looked too freaked out. "It's not so bad though."

One of the silvery locals wandered over across the emptiness. "Starfleet, you answered our call. We hate to ask you for anything, but we need your expertise."

Oo plot! Luka stared at the silvery person warily, still not totally comfortable around true aliens even if this was just a holographic projection of one.

"Hello" Dawn said as she looked at the silvery creature. "What can you tell us about the situation?"

It bowed politely and said, "Our planet is being afflicted by a terrible plague. All our species population is afflicted except for this city, which we have kept locked down under tight quarantine. Our ships are tainted by the disease, or we'd use them to evacuate."

"Disease? What's the disease?" Luka asked, suddenly interested and slightly worried. Hologram diseases couldn't hurt them right?

"It's a rot that gets into the respiration organs and slowly ceases their function," the creature said. "It spreads between carriers, before its symptoms start to show, so it's hard to track. We're safe in this city though, for now."

"ew." Luka remarked. She looked to the medics. "Well you guys are the doctors. How do you fix it?"

"We could just evac these guys and hope there are survivors," James said.

"A rot?" Dawn asked and frowned, thinking on that "Do you have any records of it, or more information? Every disease has a cure, we just have to find it. And we would need a more long term solution than just taking them to the ship."

"Yes, we have some documentation on the disease, but not a whole lot. It came into existence with no apparent cause, about six weeks ago, so we haven't had much chance to study it."

"Hmm," said James. "We may need to look into what's causing this disease, then."

Dawn nodded thoughtfully "Yes, certainly. It's odd that it is this virulent so quickly and only just showed up. That sounds more like a created thing than a natural one. Where was the first case, the first patient when this started?"

"An engineered disease maybe?" Luka shuddered. "How is it spread?"