Elana sighed, staring in disbelief at the sample before her. She had bombarded it with every known form of radiation, soaked it, burned it, and exposed it to a range of chemicals—yet it still survived, seemingly untouched.

The specimen defied the laws of biology as she understood them. Thankfully, it hadn’t yet shown signs of reproduction—but how did it reproduce? Normal bacteria were asexual, dividing through binary fission, but this thing… She shuddered at the thought. If it split, if it began replicating, there would be no stopping it. It could consume the entire lab, and then on to the entire ship.

She considered the idea of running the sample through molecular dematerialization, turning it into pure energy, eliminating the potential threat once and for all. But something stopped her. What if someone else encounters it, and does it trigger growth? What if this was the discovery of a lifetime?

Visions of a Nobel Prize danced in her head. She was no longer thinking objectively, and she knew it. That was one of the greatest enemies of a scientist. Sighing, she downloaded all her data to a PADD and headed for sickbay. The CMO needed to be informed.

Farl flexed his wrist again, wincing in pain. He regretted his whims now, and it was time to get it fixed. He tossed aside the PADD he’d been working on, and stood from his desk with a stretch. He straightened out his uniform, then set off down the hallway to sickbay.

“Excuse me commander, do you or a member of your staff have a moment? I have a minor injury, nothing urgent.” Farl addressed doctor Haigh. He recalled having been instructed to call her Lavender, but to be honest, he couldn’t quite tell if it was a command, or the opposite, a warning not to do so. She was on duty, so he figured rank was safe for now.

Lavender paused a second to look Farl up and down.

“I think the Chief Science Officer warrants my getting off my rear and doing some work, as long as he calls me Lavender like I asked”, Lavender observed. “I don’t like titles. Take a seat and I’ll check you out.”

Farl made his way to a bed and took a seat. “I uh, I made a foolish decision. Laugh if you must, I deserve it. I have been reviewing and approving a lot more departmental reports than I’m used to, so I decided to try and change things up. Instead of approving them with a thumbprint, I’ve been signing them. As in, literally signing them. With a stylus.” Farl winced slightly, preparing for a reaction. “I guess I’m so out of practice with actual handwriting that I strained something in my wrist.”

“Mmm… creating unnecessary work for the Medical Staff. Very irresponsible, Mister Ferrus,” Lavender mocked him very mildly as she positioned her medical tricorder probe over his wrist.

“There are inflammation markers in your blood. Humans and Caitians have a similar reaction to too much gripping and compression of the wrist nerves. I can give you something for the pain, but I do suggest you stop,” Lavender said to her Tricorder screen, before looking up at Farl, a somewhat unamused look on her face. But for all her lack of amusement, there was no annoyance in her manner.

Farl sighed. At least she hadn’t laughed. “I will resume thumb-printing everything, Lavender.” So much for his minor entertainment. Oh, who was he kidding; the novelty of signing his name had worn off after the third signature. Farl had signed up for this job, and he’d be damned before he’d let something as trivial as approving reports get in the way.

Farl met the doctor’s eye. “Ah, yes, please, to whatever will help with the pain.” Then he looked away as the sick bay door swooshed open to let in a familiar face.

“Nothing too crazy, but I can make things more comfortable. I’ll just grab a hypospray…” Lavender left the bedside to acquire one.

Elena entered sickbay with her face buried into her PADD. As the doors parted, she strode into the brightly lit medical facility, a hint of antiseptics and cleaning solutions hanging in the air. Looking up, her eyes fell into the CMO, and the juxtaposition of her Goth appearance contrasted with the clinical setting. She was treating someone. Tufts of fur sprouting from the Starfleet uniform ending in pointed cat-like ears. She hesitated and swallowed, and her palms started to sweat. Was this a mistake? Farl was the Chief Science officer. Of course, he would be following my progress, she thought. Heat flushed her cheeks; it was her discovery, not his.

“Greetings, Ensign.” Farl called out to Elena. Something looked off, but then again, that was usually the case when people report to sick bay. He decided not to mention it. “Have you had a chance to meet our doctor yet? Lieutenant Commander Haigh, though she prefers to avoid titles. I believe you expressed a similar sentiment to me the other day.”

“Call me Lavender,” the Doctor confirmed with about as much cordiality as she ever really mustered, and she approached Farl again brandishing a hypospray. “But only when I’m not annoyed with you. Then it’s ma’am, Doctor, or please, no, please stop, why are you hitting me with that PADD?” This was intoned with a wry smile. “Never call me sir,” she continued as she adjusted the setting on the hypospray, “unless you want to experience the last one of those.” She gave Farl an injection just above his wrist. “That should feel better momentarily,” she told him.

“That is an odd tradition, isn’t it?  Calling a female officer, ‘sir.’ And titles I don’t mind, it’s rank I find frivolous,” Elana said.

“That’s an interesting stance, Ensign,” Lavender observed dryly. “I’ve heard the occasional female officer referred to as ‘Mister’ whatever. That’s just weird. But anyway.” She turned to Farl. “If this gives you any more trouble pop back for a top-up. Take regular rest breaks, even from your normal duties, until you’ve had a chance to heal. ‘kay?”

Farl rubbed his wrist where Lavender had jabbed him with the hypospray. As promised, the pain was already starting to subside. “Will do, thank you for the healin’.” Farl looked to Elena. “I suppose within a science department if everyone is just sciencing away, rank doesn’t mean much. At least, it doesn’t necessarily need to. But on a starship, especially in battle… A clear chain of command is important. Rank helps delineate that chain. Anyway, not trying to make this a lecture, but it does have value in Starfleet.”

She shrugged, acknowledging the point, “Let’s hope I am not needed in the chain of command during a battle. I am far more comfortable with a microscope than acting a leader…” She smirked, “Especially in a tactical situation.”

Lavender turned from Farl to Elena at hearing this, her features rather less empathetic than they had been speaking to the Scientist’s department head a moment before. “We all have our specialities, but the Academy should have prepared you to lead, even if that’s just asking your specialists for options and making the correct decision with their input,” she told Elena in her typical no-room-for-disagreement sort of manner. “You don’t have to have all the answers but you do need judgement, which I’m going to guess you have, doing what you do. Imagine a C.M.O. trying to remove a Captain of a Nebula class vessel like this one from duty on medical grounds and they’re three or four ranks lower than them. It doesn’t fly, even if the rules are in the Doctor’s favour. Like it or not, rank matters, even if I don’t choose to be called by it. Now, I’m guessing you came here for something other than to debate the significance of rank in Starfleet with two Commanders, Ensign.”

“Uh… yeah… Yes, ma’am.” She handed the doctor a PADD, “I discovered a bacteria as part of routine post-away-mission screening. Somehow, it was missed by the biofilters when Ensign Mackenzie was beamed aboard.  Possibly because of the nature of the site-to-site from the older, less sophisticated transporter on Lt. Ming’s uh… auxiliary craft.”

“Lieutenant Ming’s what?” Lavender said rather severely. “That it?” She asked, gesturing to the PADD.

“It seems uninterested in us. It enters the body and just… well, for the lack of a better term, ‘chills’ there, but I have not figured out a way to kill it or filter it out through the biofilters of the transporters.  If it were to mutate as bacteria are apt to, especially in an environment that doesn’t allow it to replicate, we could be looking at a significant outbreak on this ship.”

Lavender scrunched up her lips into a thoughtful pucker, her brow furrowing with decision-making. There was no obvious threat to this, but random space bacteria had a habit of doing unpredictable things. It wasn’t something she could leave alone. She tapped her badge.

“I’m not taking any chances. Haigh to Talon.”

“Talon here.”

“I’m putting the ship on medical lockdown due to an unknown bacteria brought aboard that evades the bio-filters. It’s not a threat right now but I’m not waiting for something unpredictable to happen. Transporters taken offline and all returning crew via shuttles to be scanned by my teams.”

“Understood, I’ll inform the crew.”

Farl stood up from the biobed he’d been sitting on and tapped his badge. “Farl to science department personnel. Follow the lockdown as ordered, but anyone currently in the labs, standby for instructions from sickbay. Redirect your research to assist in any way possible.” Farl then turned back to the doctor.

“I am not a medical doctor, but research is my specialty. I can sit quietly out of the way, or you can put me to work. I defer to you.”

Lavender looked pleased and slightly amused by this.

“I’m a Surgeon, not a researcher,” she explained. “Sure I can handle some epidemiology, microbiology, I know the basic strokes of course but if you want to let your teams loose on this please, I’ll take any help I can get. I’m happy with a workaround, even if we can just get a configuration of the transporters that’ll weed the sucker out I’m good. I’ve done my part as C.M.O. and minimised damage to the ship and crew, but if we’re gonna nail this sucker it’s going to be a team effort. So I think I’ll defer to you, Chief Science Officer.”

Lavender smiled, offering Farl the challenge.

“What you got, Ferrus?” She asked.

Farl nodded and tapped his badge again. “Farl to science team. Ensign Thompson is about to transfer copies of her research to you.” Farl gestured to Elana to do so, then continued speaking. “Personnel in lab 1, re-examine what she’s done so far. Personnel in lab 2, I want fresh ideas only. Coordinate through me. Direct questions about the bacteria can go to Ensign Thompson. She discovered it, she’s been working on it. It’s her project.”

Farl then turned to Elana. “Tell me what you haven’t tried yet. I assume you’ve already investigated the basics, the standards… Give me something wild.”

“I haven’t tried nanites,” Elana realized, inspiration sparking. “I know nanites get a bad rap because… you know, the Borg. But we’ve had much less sophisticated versions in the Federation for a long time. If we can sequence the pathogen’s DNA and identify unique markers on its fimbrial adhesins, we can program the nanites to bind specifically to those proteins. That would stop the bacteria from attaching to host cells and allow us to disable or destroy it.”

She hesitated, her brow furrowing. “The downside is, without precise sequencing, the nanites might not distinguish this pathogen from beneficial bacteria. That could disrupt the patient’s microbiome entirely. To mitigate the effects, we’d need to prepare cultures of beneficial bacteria to reintroduce afterward.”

Lavender didn’t look too excited by this prospect.

“Seems like torpedoing a shuttle just to kill a Mosquito that’s on board,” she commented, dryly.

Farl chuckled. “Hey, if you only ever use phasers, you get phaser-resistant strains flying around.” Farl then approached a console and began reviewing Elana’s notes. “I can begin work on the nanite programming. I think I can narrowly define their targeting scanners.”

“Try to limit the collateral damage?” Elana muttered, half to herself, half to Farl. “It’s an alien bacteria, maybe there’s something unique about it we can target without needing to sequence its DNA.” She tapped her fingers against her chin, mind racing through possibilities.

Farl’s fingers slowed a moment, as he started trying to solve both problems at once. Then he rolled his eyes at himself.

“Lavender, this sounds like your wheelhouse, or close enough. Can you take a look at our little invader and identify something specific to target that wouldn’t be shared by any of the DNA of the crew?” As he spoke, Farl gained access to the nanites’ sensor subroutines and began manipulating their targeting algorithm.

Lavender nodded and turned her back to them, her fingers moving swiftly over the terminal as she entered commands. Elana lingered for a moment, still puzzled by the doctor’s aloofness. Lavender always seemed strange and anti-social, but who was she to judge? Everyone had their quirks. Rumor had it that one of the first things Lavender had said to the captain was, “You’ll get complaints about me.” Elana could easily believe it.

Shaking her head, Elana turned her attention to Farl. “Come on, Boss. We’ll get more done in the science labs.” Without waiting for a response, she headed for the exit, already planning the next steps.

Farl nodded to nobody as the sick bay door whooshed shut behind Elena. He saved his progress and saved it for easy access from the lab, then dashed out the door behind her.