Dr. Krill sat in his office.

Soft classical music played in the background. He was trying to immunize himself against the affects of music, and found that he could withstand and could even enjoy it if the music was soft enough, and didn't retain a steady beat pattern, or baseline. Though classical music tended to retain some sort of structure and the notes were on a certain beat, he could manage. Music with no organized beat, like jazz was the easiest for him to deal with as his brain did not attempt to recognize any sort of pattern within the music. He liked Jazz well enough, but honestly enjoyed a classical piano piece. Most of them were well over two thousand years old, but they did have a timeless nature about them.

Classical composers that he enjoyed included Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and others. It was for this reason that Adam had labeled him a basic classical bitch, since most of those were all the popular and well known composers, declaring that he was reverting to type. His type being the stuck up smart guy who listened to classical music.

He didn't see what was wrong with that stereotype.

Apparently Adam was not a fan of classical music arguing that, while it took a lot of talent, he ust didn't enjoy it.

Adam didn't enjoy anything unreasonable it had an unreasonable amount of base, If he had a favorite classical piece it had to be Carl Orff's O fortuna which he said slapped so hard it could cook a chicken. But just like all of the songs Adam liked. O Fortuna could put him in a coma.

A soft knock came at his door.

"Yes?"

"Its me." Dr Katie said, "Can you come out here for a moment, I need a consult."

Krill left the music running while he floated down to the floor and scuttled out into the medical bay. He hadn't been doing anything particularly time sensitive anyway. He was planning a few of the surgeries they were going to attempt on the Forsaken, starting with carapace removal for one of them as it seemed to him to be the most urgent, and following a tendon reconstruction for another Drev. Both of the surgeries were soemthing he had not had the occasion to do, and was, in turn, very excited to try something new.

He stepped into the medical bay where Dr Katie was sitting next to Maverick.

She looked fine from a distance, but as he approached, he could see the human absently scratching at her side. She had a look of mild discomfort on her face, though she didn't seem particularly worried.

"Doctor." She greeted.

"Maverick." He said, pulling up a chair.

He liked maverick, generally speaking. While she was a marine, and so prone to doing stupid things, at least she came to him when she first noticed something was wrong, and not when the problem actually became a problem. With her they tended to catch things early.

He liked when he could do that.

"So what seems to be the issue?"

Dr Katie turned to Maverick, who held up the side of her shirt, "This, some sort of rash or maybe dermatitis or something. Itches like a bastard."

Krill leaned forward to examine the the pattern of bumps that had erupted on Maverick's skin. It was a small patch, about the size of a quarter.

"I wouldn't have come in for something so minor but." She grimaced, "It's killing me."

Krill frowned at her.

"Figuratively."

Katie shook her head, "At first I was thinking it might be ring worm, but the strange coloration, and the pattern doesn't seem to be right either."

Krill inched forward pulling out a magnifying glass so he could get a better look in more detail. He frowned, "No, I think you're right, it isn't ringworm, though it doesn't appear to be contact dermatitis either."

"I get these spots sometimes, really itchy. It's a stress thing I think. Maybe just send me off with some steroid cream or soemthing. I don't know. I get Discoid eczema sometimes."

"That could be it." Katie said though she didn't seem so certain about that."

Krill rubbed at his chin, "Maybe."

It seemed like a better bet than any other option. The spot was small light and simply itchy. That wasn't generally the hallmark of anything worse. And so they did, they sent her away with a cream for the thing which seemed good enough for her and he went back to hiss work figuring out how they were going to preform the carapace removal surgery.

They had done plenty of scans in the intervening time and he determined that the growths were not made of connective tissue and so did not involve heavy circulation. Drev carapace did have SOME circulation in the lower layers, but not very much, so bleeding would be minimal. The bigger issue was probably going to be nerve damage. They were going to have to restructure a few things, but over all he was sure they could manage something.

It was an hour or so later that the knock same at his door.

He stood and floated over opening the door to find maverick standing there a grimace on her face.

He glanced over at the clock.

It was around 11 at night.

"maverick, is everything alright."

"I... don't think so."

"What happened."

She held out her arms and he was shocked and stunned to see the small patches of skin had spread to her arms. There were at least ten to fifteen of them on her arms and hands.

"I took a nap and woke up to this.

She pulled up her shirt a bit so he could see.

The patch on her stomach was massive, less the size of a quarter and taking up a good quadrant of her trunk.

"Hold on, let me call Dr. Katie.:"

He hurried over to the phone and made a call.

"I'm sorry to wake you."

"No Sorry needed. What's going on?"

"Its maverick, I think you will want to come see this."

By the time Katie showed up Krill would have sworn that whatever it was was moving fast enough for him to see it. The patches on her arms had broken open and fused together to create even larger patches. The marine rocked back and forth in place in extreme discomfort from the pain of the itching.

Katie froze in the door, "Shit..... what.... What is that?"

Krill leaned in.

"Maverick, you're turning.... Purple."

Krill looked up at the marine, but didn't see anything. He didn't have as good color differentiation as most humans and mostly al Drev.

Maverick looked down at her hands, "Its probably just cold in here, as pale as I am I tend to turn into a corpse when I get cold."

"No,.... This doesn't look like that."

She walked over pulling on a pair of gloves before taking maverick by the hand. Krill pulled up a sterilization shroud over himself. He had never seen this before, and wasn't sure he wanted to experience it first hand.

Katie pressed her thumb into the back of Maverick's hand and when her thumb came back the skin was white and depressed . it stayed there for a moment before slowly going back up.

"Maverick..... do you feel."

"Like my skin is tight. Like I can't bend my fingers?" She nodded

"That's some pretty intense swelling." She reached up and felt at the marine's neck, "are you having any trouble breathing."

"No.... no I don't think so."

Krill leaned a bit closer. Yes, yes it seemed as if maverick was more bloated than usual. Her generally long thing fingers were sort of stretched and stiff. Her cheeks were puffy as if she had been crying. The skin on her forehead was shiny and pulled taught. It was like, as he was watching her she was expanding right before his eyes.

He could see the discoloration now, a light sort of sickly purple though the large patches of skin retained a sort of orange color.

"The fuck/" Katie whispered.

"Maverick why don't you lay down. Dr. Katie Call Yeb down here and see if we can't get a skin scraping. I'll take some blood."

"Hey doc?"

The two of them turned towards the open doorway where Ramirez was standing.

Krill sighed, of course it was going to be THIS group.

While the purple discoloration wasn't showing up on his darker shade of skin, Ramirez was just as covered in the strange patches of rash that Maverick had, and his cheeks were puffed up to almost twice their normal size. He worried that it was something that was going to spread to their airways but neither of them reported issues breathing.

He called up to the bridge.

"Lt. Simon." Came the reply

"This is medical bay, Quarantine protocol on Alpha team, captain Vir and Upper engineering."

"Yes sir."

Krill liked Simon, she did what she was told and didn't ask too many questions.

"Omen crew this is your bridge lieutenant speaking. Lockdown protocol is being engaged for the marine barracks, upper engineering and the admiral's quarters, please be advised all essential personnel are advised to stay in their rooms. All personnel within the quarantine areas are to remain where they are and report to the medical bay with any symptoms minor or otherwise.

The comm shut off.

"Good."

The wall line began to beep and he ordered it to answer.

It clicked on.

"Krill, what's going on?"

"We seem to be experiencing some sort of strange and unknown disease spreading through the crew."

"Disease?"

"Admiral, are you experiencing any cutaneous distress?"

"English please Doctor/"

Katie leaned in, "Do you have a rash, Admiral?"

There was a pause, "Uh.... Yes? Howd you know?"

"Is it small oval clusters in an orange color/"

"I mean.... I wouldn't call it orange. Maybe a light salmon."

Dr Krill and Katie looked towards each other.

"Very itchy, swelling hands maybe.'

"Now that you mention it."

"we will send a containment team down to get you immediately, dr Katie initiate hazmat protocol. It may be to late but it better late than never."

The wall line began to buzz again.

"Med bay."

"So is someone gonna tell me why I can't bend my fingers." It was Narobi, she sounded annoyed but that tended to be her default setting."

"Shit." Krill muttered under his breath.

They got a few more calls, all f them human, and all of them from the exact people he expected. Adam and his inner circle, because it always had to be the council of morons. He called them that lovingly of course, but if soemthing was going to go wrong, than it was definitely going to be them. Looking over to where maverick lay squirming, he couldn't help but grimace in near disgust. Her already pale skin had now moved to a blotchy sort of violet. The spots of rash had faded to a kind of brownish yellow orange and her limbs had swelled to remarkably grotesque levels.

If he were to have seen her at any other time, he might have assumed she was almost twice as heavy, as that is how she appeared at that moment.

He called down a quarantine team who showed up and put on all of their gear.

The room was quickly shrouded in plastic and both he and Dr. katie were decontaminated. Yeb was not slow in appearing, taking the slides from Dr Katie and running them over to the lab next door where she was gone for a couple of long minutes.

Before she returned they had moved most of the affected crew into the medical bay and were beginning decom procedures in their quarters.

Krill called down to Sunny.

She picked up.

"Do you happen to be experiencing any unusual symptoms, skin rashes or bloating?'

"No, why/'

"that's good, just stay where you are and make sure to call me if anything happens."

Admiral Vir was the last to be brought in, and boy did whatever this was look the worst on people with pale skin. The discoloration and purpling was not so noticeable on Ramirez, and almost nonexistent on Narobi and a few others due to the dark tone of their skin, but on maverick and the Admiral, it turned them a whole pallet on the color wheel. It was purple but not the pretty flower kind, but more the color of a bruise or a hickey.

Don't ask how krill knew what hickey was, he didn't like to think about it.

With all the humans laid out he gave another announcement to the ship. He didn't want to say anything to specific, worried that it might cause a case of mass hysteria, but he did ask them to contact him with any unusual symptoms. He would make another announcement later if he felt it was needed proving more information.

A few people called in worried that their cough or stomach ache might be unusual, but he assured them that they were fine and gave a few instructions if he thought they were needed.

He watched the humans closely. Their skin was irritated and itchy, the bumps erupting into those large discolored patches that appeared as orange spots against purple skin. All of them were retaining water like no one's business and had bloated to unusual and uncomfortable size, but despite the itch and the uncomfortable stretching of their skin, none of the humans reported breathing difficulties or other discomforts beyond the itching.

Blood tests came back negative.

And other panels showed no affect on internal organs.

Eyes remained fine as well., to his relief.

The door to the lab opened and yeb trundled in swishing in her hazmat suit as she did.

She held up one of the slides, "I found soemthing. I have never seen it before, but I found soemthing."

Dr katie and doctor krill turned to cluster around the microscope at the far end of the room Katie looking through first and then Krill. Katie didn't recognize it, but as soon as Krill saw it he pulled back in shock.

"It can't be!"

The two crowded closer to him."

"What, what is it!"

"Get this entire ship on lockdown right now, and call down to the Tesraki quarters."

"Yeb ran to do as told."

"What is going on?'

Krill motioned to the microscope, "It's a Tesraki disease called the drowning Virus."

"The drowning Virus."

Krill nodded once, "They call it that because in Tesraki the retaining of water causes the lungs to fill up with fluid and they end up drowning on dry land. Untreated it is 90% fatal."

"But this is.... In humans."

"Exactly, this is in humans which means that the virus managed to mutate over."

Katie glanced over at the humans who lay uncomfortable and squirming on the beds and cots which had been provided. But they aren't drowning in their own fluids?"

"No, but that doesn't mean they wont. To be sure their respiratory systems are just a little different from that of the Tesraki, so the Virus might not have been able to mutate those symptoms over."

Katie grimaced, "It does look ugly on humans."

"Yes, that it does. Lets just hope it doesn't' cause hair loss in humans like it does in Tesraki."

"Doctor, you might want to come hear this."

He hurried over to the comm where Yeb was waiting.

On the other end of the line he heard a small voice.

This was the Tesraki quarters.

"Doctor..... we.... Don't feel so good."