Posted by Ensign Kastarak (Doctor) in Sickbay – Is it Hot in Here? [TAG: Captain; CMO]

Posted by Lieutenant Commander T’Aria (XO / Navigation Officer) in Sickbay – Is it Hot in Here? [TAG: Captain; CMO]

Posted by Lieutenant Commander T’Aria (XO / Navigation Officer) in Sickbay – Is it Hot in Here? [TAG: Captain; CMO]
Posted by… suppressed (7) by the Post Ghost! 👻
(Snip! Travis, Kieron - you can find the comms here: https://www.star-fleet.com/core/stf5/chernov/posts/168445/)
Kastarak nodded as he read the data that T’Aria showed him. The lack of haemagglutinin was curious, though not entirely unexpected in this strange new type of influenza. Very little was known to Kastarak with regard to Romulan native life. Romulans, a subspecies of Vulcans, had evolved on Vulcan, like Vulcans, and had only in the last two millennia migrated to Romulus and colonized it. The planet already had native life – but as far as Kastarak could ascertain none such sentient (though another planet in the system, Remus, did). It was difficult to assess the biology of a planet of which there was so little biological data.

“Do you think the endocytosis might be clathrin-mediated?” he asked-.

“Clathrin-mediated endocytosis is a common pathway for influenza viruses,” T’Aria observed. “We are disadvantaged by our ignorance surrounding Romulus’ biology. Andorian and Levodian influenza, however, are well documented. As are flus of Kamaraazite and human origin. We may substitute their common pathology for the virus, adjusting for the dissimilarities we uncovered in our analyses. I suggest we test this against Vulcan epithelial cells to confirm its classification, then examine interactions with other species’ cells.”

“Agreed. Proceed,” said Kastarak.

“Computer, send the following message to Lt Symar, in his private capacity: Sir – it appears you, in some way, might have been exposed to this virus due to your team’s encounter with Romulans. I strongly urge you to avoid other people, and test yourself privately, if you have that option, for the novel Romulus-originating virus. The notes in the previous message should give you enough information to make a diagnosis.“

After finishing all this messages, Kastarak’s voice became hoarse, and he experienced some tension in his forehead.

He scanned himself with the medical tricorder. It showed an alleviated temperature of 0.8 degrees. Had he already been infected? Or was this stress?

“I believe I have taken ill, myself”, he said flatly. “The incubation period appears short. The time is now 09:45.”

T’Aria blinked the grogginess from her eyes and glanced at Kastarak, a pensive frown forming on her lips. Thirty-eight minutes. Earth influenza viruses had a median 1.28 R-value, with symptoms appearing between 12 and 96 hours. Their proximity negated speculations about its virulence but Kastarak’s symptoms implied incubation was short, and that was concerning.

Kastarak then stuck a swab up his nose, then in his throat, and analysed the swab in the computer.

“Yes, commander.”, he sighed, taking the opportunity of masking his slight irritation at this turn of events with a respiratory response aligned with symptoms of flu. “I have been infected by the same virus as you.”

Kastarak sat down.

– Ensign/Dr Kastarak

“What symptoms are you experiencing?” T’Aria traversed the space between them, pausing briefly to synthesize a cocktail identical to the one he prescribed her, and sat beside him. “I noticed you also took a scan. What did the tricorder reveal?”

“I feel cold,” Kastarak replied plainly, “and a little tired. Other than that, and a slight soreness in the throat, no other symptoms right now.”

T’Aria noted his symptoms, weighing them against hers from that morning. They were too alike to dismiss. Mild hypothermia, fatigue, soreness of the throat - those marked the onset of the syndrome. “This contains a mild analgesic,” she offered the hypospray, “should you require immediate relief.”

“Thank you. I believe I should take it now. Even if it might make me slightly drowsy, it should be better than experiencing cognitive and executive dysfunction from the effects of this influenza.”

T’Aria received his decision with a lethargic bow and resolved to monitor changes in his outward behaviour and appearance, just in case.

He took the hypospray from T’Aria and applied it on himself. It made a small hiss. He noticed an immediate effect but did not deem it necessary to articulate it. He was not human after all, and he was not in human company.

“I might be getting the chills soon. I have a fever of 0.8 degrees, but I am colder than before. Let’s monitor how fast the temperature rises. What’s your temperature now? Has it changed?”

She rose and approached the synthesizer, plugging in a request for tea and honey. Analgesics and antipyretics worked wonders under emergent conditions, but T’Aria found there were few things more healing than tea. The synthetic replicas of naturally occurring compounds in the leaves and honey worked to soothe biting symptoms, while the water introduced warmth to a cold body. Relief was temporary but enough to allow them scientific liberty without risking health.

“This should help with the chills,” she offered a cup and moved to snag a tricorder, consulting the time. “34.2 C at 0907 hrs,” she turned the wand inward and scanned her vitals, “34.6 C at 0953 hrs. Our temperatures are increasing at an average rate of 0.015 C per minute.”

Kastarak took a sip, gesturing with a nod that he appreciated her offer.

“It is very sweet,” he commented, “I sense the tea – Earth tea? But where is the sweetness from? It’s sweet but carries a unique flavour to it.” The tea was an experience like no other. He was curious, he wanted to know. He had never really eaten or drunk anything sweet throughout his life, except for an odd thing here and there, it had simply not been logical to do so. It was curious, he thought, that T’Aria would offer him something sweet now. She was a Vulcan, so surely it is not the sweetness that is curative. As doctors, they both know the ills of ingesting glucose (and was it also fructose, and maybe even maltose, he sensed?). His thoughts wandered, something from Earth, with two or more monosaccharides, with a hint of maltose… Some kind of grass maybe? Or perhaps it’s a unique tea, that is sweet in its origin?

“Ginger tea,” T’Aria said, “and Earth honey. We do not have access to Vulcan herbs, but I understand ginger and honey have comparable properties. Ginger has an antimicrobial effect and honey coats the throat against irritation. The steam from the tea eases clogged sinuses.”

She once understood their properties peripherally, encountering honey first as an antimicrobial for wounds and ginger as a nausea deterrent, until run-ins with hayfever and a trusty roommate at SFMA enlightened her to their other benefits. Now, she thought of them like aloe vera on first-degree radiations burns - soothing but not a cure - and frequently turned to them for relief.

Suddenly he could not calculate how many minutes they could work before fever would get the better of them. 0.015 times 60.... no… if the temperature can rise maximum of 2.5 degrees, then I have.... that’s 0.015 divided by 2.5… no.... .

Did he not just get a hypospray with an analgesic?

He could not remember the last time he was sick.

Suddenly he thought of his childhood sicknesses.... Not now, brain.

If I divide 2.5 degrees with 0.015, then I get 1.6666~ He had no idea what he had calculated. And he realized that T’Aria already had a fever, and that the temperature has already risen too much.

“Commander, I am struggling with basic mathematics. I cannot seem to understand how much time you and I, respectively, have before our fevers consume too much of our congitive skills. Perhaps I am already more sensitive than you are to the effects of fever. I cannot calculate.”

T’Aria hadn’t realised she closed her eyes until Kastarak startled her back into ‘caretaker’ mode. They didn’t need math to appreciate how quickly they were declining. Kastarak, especially. “Sit…” T’Aria nodded to a chair, “and rest as much as your mind will allow.”

Kastarak agreed, and he found a sense of comfort in T’Aria’s use of imperatives. Comfort, he thought, is that an emotion? Perhaps the illness coming over him has caused him to lower his emotional control threshold. At the same time, he was experiencing neuropsychological dysfunction with regard to working memory, speed of processes, and the planning of tasks ahead. His diagnosis was that he was not fit for duty – but ethically, he had to continue. T’Aria had been suffering from the flu longer than he had, and while she was observably ill, she seemed to have a near-intact neuropsychological function, executive function, and emotional control. Unless, he thought, she was masking. He cast away that thought – surely that thought was irrelevant at this point?

Kastarak sat down. That too was comfortable. He found relief in the comfort of a chair, as that comfort was physiological (surely?) and not emotional.

But then, relief was an emotion.

Kastarak sighed, masking his emotional exasperation will the exasperation of the lungs.

“The initial analysis revealed a homotrimeric glycoprotein in the virion’s outer membrane,” she after their conversation faded. “We see a similar protein in influenza viruses across multiple vertebrate species, generally as a subtype of haemagglutinin. We know HA proteins bond with sialic acid on the surface of hosts cells. Until we run the simulation,” she nodded to the computer terminal, “we will not know whether this virus targets similar receptors.”

“Once we input the data from our analysis,” she inputted a few commands, “then we begin running simulations of host-parasite interactions. Are you prepared to begin?”

— T’Aria

Kastarak felt excited – perhaps the emotion was a symptom of the flu, a worsened ability to cast it aside – but he did cast it away just seconds later.

“I am prepared. You lead the way, doctor. You seem to have more experience in analysing novel viruses. I will assist.”

– Ensign Kastarak (physician)

“Of… ach-” T’Aria yanked her shoulder back to sneeze into her elbow, “…course.”

“Computer,” she gestured Kastarak to the terminal as it beeped in acknowledgement, “prepare URV simulation against a Vulcan respiratory epithelial cell.” The computer constructed a tiny (about 130nm) virion of elliptical shape studded with neuraminidase and unknown glycoproteins. “Please stain enzyme proteins red and glycoproteins blue. Highlight Vulcan receptors. Magnify 250%.”

T’Aria turned to Kastarak, whose excitement she detected only peripherally, “would you like to do the honours?”

— Dr. T’Aria

Kastarak tried to look, but he felt dizzy looking into it. He could not tell what he was seeing.

He needed to sit down. He felt dizzier and dizzier.

“I need to sit down....” he said, as if short of breath. “Can you tell me what the image is showing? I seem unable to interpret it.”

– Ensign/Dr Kastarak

T’Aria wavered, concern breaching her trained expression before she moved to lend a supportive hand.

“Yes…” she struggled to regain her composure, “…the computer-rendered virion resemble the Earth H3N2 strain with distinct mutations in its glycoproteins.” Human hemagglutinins worked to agglutinate iron-based cells and, therefore, made it illogical to assume a Romulan-based virus would develop an exact protein, but that didn’t suggest the tactic was different. “Neuraminidase on its surface suggests those proteins may be a type of hemagglutinin that targets hemocyanin. If so, I expect the mechanism will be comparable.”

“Running the simumulation,” T’Aria snapped her gaze to the terminal and inputted a basic command, “now.”

She studied the simulation with monotonous and cough-interrupted narration. As the virion approached the epithelial cell, it adjusted its course and attached to a monosaccharide on its surface. NA damaged complementary inhibitors and the cell engulfed the virion. Encased in a clathrin-coated vessel, it soon detached from the surface and ventured into the cell. Naturally, the cell acidified to begin digesting the vessel and stripped the vessel of its coating. The mechanism was similar save for a few suspected differences. (OOC: feel free to add!)

As the pH dropped, the hemagglutinin-like molecule unfolded and released a spiny fusion peptide that snatched and invited itself closer to the endosomal membrane. Eventually, they fused and thereby confirmed this was a kind of influenza or something very similar.

“It is a type of flu,” T’Aria observed, “so we can begin running background simulations against other species’ cells.”

The next step lingered just out of reach, mocking her from the tip of her tongue. Inhibit the virus… she pinched her eyebrows in a pensive frown, receptors… glycoproteins. Stop the cell from engulfing the virion? Deter it? how? Frustration built in her chest until she lost the sensitivity to distinguish between emotion and illness. Was this how Kastarak felt? If they were both confused, perhaps they could piece the fragments of their thoughts into a plan. “I admit that I am conflicted,” T’Aria glanced at her colleague, “how do you suggest we proceed with our cases?”

— Dr. T’Aria

bump for the boards :)

Kastarak listened carefully to every word coming from T’Aria. Had he functioned neuropsychologically and executively better at this point, he might have noticed the conflict of frustration and logic in T’Aria, though now Kastarak only noticed some neuropsychological dysfunction. It appeared to him thus that there were similar experiences between them as how the viral infection behaved.

“As you said, co–” (he was about to say “commander”), “–lleague, we have determined that the virus behaves like an influenza-like virus. We have determined how it binds itself to Vulcan cells and infects them. While we could easily use this information and device an antiviral treatment for you and me, or a vaccination for the other Vulcans on board, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

Kastarak paused.

“We must consider the safety of our non-Vulcan crewmembers. They outnumber us by far. Let us begin simulating the virus’s behaviour on cells from other species, beginnign with the largest one onboard, Humans, and then in order of magnitude. It should not take too long, provided we are able to function properly.”

Kastarak coughed. It was painful, and his mucus had a deep green hue to it. Could it be blood? Had he coughed that hard?

“I have not received any reply from either the Chief Medical Officer or from the Captain. Surely the imposition of quarantine on this office cannot block out communications?”

– Dr/Ens Kastarak

Chris was on the bridge watching a solar nebula when he got the call. “Absolutely stunning!” Pressingthe com [O] Chris here. I’m fine Doctor Do you need me down there to assist? [O]

Captain Chris Taggart CO