Discovery Gaming Community

7 hours before quarantine

Final mooring procedures were completed and two liners floated side by side on Hiran's orbit. Ramps securely connected both vessels and first inbound passengers already walked from Crying Lightning to their respective accommodations on Hawaii. Most of them were still strolled along Lightning's promenade deck or stayed in their cabins waiting for outbound tourists to vacate their premises on Hawaii.

Captain John Frial made his way through the ramp and went to the bridge of Hawaii. Captain of stationary liner Jennet Simmons was already awaiting him.

"Good day, captain," John greeted his colleague, noticing that she looked rather tired, "So, what is the issue you wanted to discuss with me? You sounded quite anxious over the comms"

"Ah, yes, good day to you, too, Frial" Jennet waved a greeting absentmindedly, "It's not overly important, not at all, just... irritating and slightly confusing, to say."

"So, to cut to the point, about six hours ago one of our guests were taken into medical bay with difficulties to breathe, high temperature and occasional fits of cough. Our medic, an intern he is actually, was not able to diagnose the matter, but could limit the symptoms and stabilize the patient." Jennet continued

"Later intern reported several other guests complaining about dry cough and slightly sore throat. Since all guests had their cabins in the same deck, my chief technician is almost sure that a leak in conditioning system and following allergic reaction to evaporating coolant is the cause of this; symptoms are said to be like ones we have. Deck is cleared and my crew is working on locating the cause of leak, they should have some results in about an hour.

So, as we didn't know how widespread the leak is and it is likely that other guests turn up with the same complaints, we decided to wait for your arrival and transport all of them in one go, without the need of risky long-range shuttle deployment. What I ask is, that you and Lightning stay here just a few hours longer so we can locate all the affected people and prepare them for transport"

4 hours before quarantine

"It seems more seriously than we thought" Jennet said, "A few guests' symptoms became more acute, leading to difficulties in breathing and even fainting."

Chief technician walked in, shrugging as he caught Jennet's stare. "What, you still haven't found that leak?", she snapped.

"There is no leak, captain. We double and triple checked all systems in that and surrounding decks. There is no trace of any technical anomalies whatsoever."

"Keep..." Jennet started and coughed, "Keep searching, there must be some cause, goddammit!"

1 hour before quarantine

"Captain Simmons, are you feeling well?" John asked.

"It's nothing, just dry throat because of all these orders I have to shout" Jennet tried to smile, regaining her breath after a coughing spell.

Communication system indicated a new message; Jennet walked up and started reading it. John couldn't help but notice that she bit her lip anxiously while reading.

"I have some bad news, we have another guest with symptoms" Jennet tried to sound calm.

"So, that makes a total of about 35, about 10 of them acute" John estimated, "I thought you expected more people turning up with allergic symptoms? What's different with this one?"

Jennet hesitated, then said: "He was not on that deck. He was not even on this liner. This one came here as a passenger aboard Crying Lightning just few hours ago, he couldn't possibly get exposed to any leak"

15 minutes before quarantine

"95 hospitalized 30 of them acute. Jennet, what we have here is an epidemic" John was walking back and forth on Hawaii's bridge "The intern reported that he is feeling unwell, too, this is slowly getting out of our control"

"How, in the name of Sirius!? All passengers are checked for all known contagious diseases upon arrival. We..." Jennet bent double by a strong coughing spell, then slowly regained her breath.

"Jennet, you need some medical attention, now"

"No, no time for that, I'm fine" Jennet straightened and turned around shakily.

John barely caught her when she collapsed.

The Firefly-class transport Centre of Healing arrived quickly in Sigma-19. Dr. Raimon Whitesun walked to the bridge and sat down.

He nodded at the communications officer and said:
"Request permission to dock already, we will be there in few and we can't afford losing time."
"Roger"
Raimon then turned to another bridge-officer
"Make sure all equipment that needs to be transferred to the Liners is ready to be unloaded, also get someone else to prepare all equipment that remains on board"
"I will ask Jake to do that, Doc, I'll be off then"

Jennet was lying on a mattress just outside the overfilled medical bay. She could breathe almost normally now, but talking was still difficult to her.

"I gave you all my personal access codes. There simply isn't any higher clearance level in this ship. Whatever data you request, you will get it" She told silently.

"Access to history about private small craft traffic is still denied" John replied, "Don't worry about that, I'll get someone to crack it one way or another. Rest now, I have to return to bridge to prepare for arrival of Medics"

As he walked in the bridge, a communications officer of Hawaii stood up and reported: "We have a Firefly-class ship on our scanners. They are requesting a permission to dock."

"Grant them permission and prepare the main cargo mooring point," John looked towards the nebulae and for moment he thought he saw a glimpse of ship's lights in distance, "Stand by and be ready to give all assistance they might need during the unloading."

The Centre of Healing slowly and carefully moors onto Hawaii. As soon as a stable connection is established the doors open. First two guards with small sidearms enter. The surprised people on awaiting them are quickly calmed down when one of them starts to speak
"Don't worry, we aren't here to shoot you, we are merely here to prevent panic and chaos from making things worse out here. Now you all get some of this and help unloading."
He points at a box full of medical gloves, surgical masks etc. which was just unloaded by two nurses.


Behind them Dr. Raimon Whitesun appears he looks around
"Who here is the leader? I need a suitable room which we can change into a small makeshift hospital. A rather large room and without any change of the epidemic having been there already. The actual medbay is no longer safe enough for now."

At the sign of armed men John's hand involuntary moved closer to his hip where long time ago his sidearm used to rest, a long-obsolete reflex. Then he calmed down, waved forth Hawaii's crew to help with unloading and and went forward to greet the doctor.

"Good day, Dr. Whitesun, I'm glad to see you arrived here in such a swift manner. I suppose I'm the one in charge of these ships for now.

I think the consumer goods storage room would suit your needs the best. It is rather large and is visited relatively rarely, last time... let me check... 18 hours ago.

Luckily, Hawaii is in the end of replenishment cycle, so the room is almost empty, only a few dozen boxes and crates should be left there.

I can order the crew to free the room completely for you, but, since I can give no guarantees of crew members not being infected, I suppose you may not want them to enter it."

Raimon nods.
"Are there any people available which are not required elsewhere and of which can be guaranteed that they are sterile? If so tell them that they should come and help us. Now let's get everything to the storage room."
He turns around to a woman who apparently deals with the logistics.
"Laura, I want everything moved to the Consumer Goods Storage Room."


Soon things started to get moving and the equipment and supplies were heading for the room.

"The only sterile persons I can think of are my officer staff on Lightning's bridge. Though if they walked through two liners to get here, they won't be very sterile anymore.

The crates in room will should not cause much trouble, it is filled only at 4% of maximum capacity. Our crew will help you get equipment and supplies to door and give automated cargo carts at your disposal so you can positon your supplies within the room with ease"

John gave respective orders to Hawaii's crew.

Thus the Medics started removing what is left in the room, while the Liner's crew brought a part of the supplies and equipment to the entrance. The two guards patrolled along the way from the mooring point to the room, but so far everything went well.

Raimon turned towards the captain
"Captain, can you show me an infected person perhaps? I wanna see how bad it is"

"Of course, let's go to medical bay, it's not far from here" John lead the way through corridors, explaining as they went, "Whatever it is, it affects breathing quite seriously in later stages. Hawaii's intern made a few notes which he handed over to me before he was struck by disease himself.

So... let me check... he mentions swollen and partially blocked airways and... damn his handwriting... some problems with diaphragm. That's something in lungs, right? It's only thanks to him we don't have any lethal outcomes yet, he found that one common resolvent can temporary soften the symptoms, allowing the patients to keep breathing. That only bought us some time, though. Still, our intern did a very good job for a second-year medical student."

By this time they had reached the end of corridor that lead to medical bay. Other end was occupied by hospitalized patients who didn't fit in the bay. One could hear occasional coughing of various people.

"Here we are. I would say 'proceed at your own risk', but I'm sure you know what you are doing."

Raimon nods and he entered the medbay. He looked around and he spoke loudly from behind his surgical mask.
"Everyone, listen up. My name is Raimon Whitesun, I am from The Medics, everything is gonna be alright, we are here to help. We need you all to stay calm until we have found a permanent solution. I need someone who has only this disease and no others so we can investigate this further. Any volunteers?"

Raimon nods and he entered the medbay. He looked around and he spoke loudly from behind his surgical mask.
"Everyone, listen up. My name is Raimon Whitesun, I am from The Medics, everything is gonna be alright, we are here to help. We need you all to stay calm until we have found a permanent solution. I need someone who has only this disease and no others so we can investigate this further. Any volunteers?"