The Doom Of Velis III

Posted on Mon Aug 10th, 2026 @ 5:06am by Lieutenant JG Diana Sereno & Commodore Lucian Marshall
Edited on on Mon Aug 10th, 2026 @ 5:07am

2,895 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: The Hand That Rocks The Babe

The shuttle ride up had been painful to Diana, not physically, but emotionally. With the pandemic at it's peak spread rate on the planet and clearly airborne when in closed conditions, sending shuttles back to Dreadnought required complete disinfection before it was cleared to handle any other passengers, so biohazard suits were required wear for any non-infected personnel. For a moment she was curious whether they would even bother to disinfect them in the end, or just destroy them rather than even recycle the material. She'd probably be asked her opinion on the subject.

Of course, with four patients aboard this trip as well, along with attendant orderlies and herself, it was pretty crowded and she stayed out of the way, but available if required. As it was, the patients were unconscious: A blessing, really, as the vitals on one of them told her that he was unlikely to survive another ten hours, not with the infection attacking his heart tissue this way.

Diana sat there for several minutes after the shuttle landed, composing her thoughts. The Commodore had apparently read her message and requested an in-person briefing, which gave her a chance to get away from the constant head-bashing repetition of failures for a change of scenery. Finally, as the disinfection crew in green biohazard suits came in, she exited so they could work and went through the process herself. A triple-decontamination procedure (her request), followed by a blood test as well as a respiratory test (her paranoia) proved that she was clear of any infection. She had changed into a new set of scrubs in any case, the only things not changing being the gold chain necklace and stud earrings that she wore.
Finally she downloaded the data she needed to a brand new PADD a nurse provided her and made her way to the 'visiting' room, which looked more like a prison's venue, just with both sides completely cut off from each other. No grates, no air circulation between the two sides, no air circulation on her side. Period. It would be a very 'distant' meeting in person, the physical glass with two biocontainment forcefields on either side. No chances were being taken, not with this.

The Commodore had already received the preliminary reports, but the situation on Velis III had deteriorated far too quickly for him to be satisfied with figures on a PADD. He wanted to hear the truth from the person who had been standing in the middle of it.

The final isolation door sealed behind him with a heavy hiss before the inner doors opened, revealing the observation room beyond. Marshall entered alone, his uniform immaculate despite the increasingly chaotic situation elsewhere aboard the Dreadnought. He paused for a moment as his eyes settled on the thick transparent barrier separating the two sides of the room.

There was something deeply unsettling about seeing one of his own medical officers on the other side of what amounted to a containment chamber.

His gaze briefly travelled over Diana, noting the fresh scrubs and the unmistakable signs of exhaustion that even a clean uniform couldn't conceal. The Commodore approached the observation side but stopped several feet from the forcefield, respecting the protocols that had been established for the outbreak.

"Lieutenant Sereno." His voice carried clearly through the isolated communication system. "I appreciate you coming aboard personally. I've read the reports. I've read the casualty figures. I've seen the projections." A pause. "But reports don't tell me what you're seeing down there."

"Hell, sir. What I'm seeing down there is my worst nightmare." Diana's voice came through clearly, though the exhaustion she felt was absent from it, "This is one of my specialties and this virus scares the living hell out of me, and that's saying something. In the last seventy-two hours, I've come to be as certain as I possibly can be that this was bio-engineered for the residents of Velis Three intentionally." She paused for a second to let that sink in.

"I'm not sure how much you know about viruses, sir, but one of the reasons that one of Earth's worst viruses, Ebola, never wiped out the world is that it mutates too quickly when it reproduces and tends to become less virulent, which when combined with medical response and treatment, allowed it to flare and then die out." She held up her PADD to as close to the forcefield as possible, "This isn't. Infection rates haven't gone down, the virus isn't responding to any treatment I've tried, even combinations of treatments are laughed off by it. Once infected, the mortality rate is one hundred percent so far. We're at least ten generations of the virus in, probably more like twenty, and while there are some subtle mutations, none of them are the typical ones I've seen in past studies and on other assignments. There should be survivors, sir, by this point, but there are none."

Marshall remained completely still as Diana spoke. He had expected bad news; that was why he had come down to isolation personally. But there was a difference between hearing that the situation was deteriorating and hearing a medical officer, one of his specialists, admit that the virus genuinely frightened her. His eyes dropped briefly to the PADD she held against the forcefield before returning to her face.

"One hundred percent." He repeated the words quietly, almost as though saying them aloud might somehow make them less horrifying. It didn't. The Commodore slowly exhaled through his nose, his expression tightening as the implications began to settle in. Twenty generations of viral reproduction without the expected attenuation. No meaningful response to treatment. No survivors. No indication that natural resistance was emerging.

That wasn't a pandemic behaving naturally. That was something else. "Then we're not dealing with an organism that's trying to survive its host." Marshall's voice was low and deliberate. "We're dealing with something designed to kill it." He stepped closer to the barrier, studying Diana carefully.

"And if you're correct about the engineering..." His gaze hardened. "...then someone made that decision deliberately."

For several seconds he said nothing. The Commodore's mind was already moving through the implications: Velis III's population, the field hospital, the medical teams, the Marines securing the operation, the shuttles travelling between the surface and the Dreadnought. Every person aboard his ship suddenly represented another potential vector.

"Yes, sir, that's the only way I can see it." Diana confirmed, "None of the antibiotics that we have in store or that we can replicate are effective in any sort of reasonable dose. Commander Aries is responding to an overwhelmingly massive dose of a cocktail of three different ones, but those are so high that I'm wondering if the treatment won't be just as fatal as the virus itself." She'd ordered the treatment, overridden and relieved one doctor that had refused to do it on those exact grounds. It was an experiment, yes, but it was necessary.

"Right now, Starfleet casualties due to the virus are now at fifty-one, with thirty-six dead. I stood in on six of the autopsies of our personnel as well as several of the locals and even there it's varied. This virus attacks the weak spots of the individual, as if it has a priority list. The heart is the most common, followed by kidneys, liver, intestinal and it always finds one of them and the end result is essentially liquification of one or more organs within a few days with serious complications to the others." She looked hard at the floor for a few seconds, "We tried putting two of our people on a full life-support bypass, but they exhibited psychoses as the virus went and 'ate' their brain as it also degraded their venous system. They were the worst, sir, because they went insane before they died when we couldn't keep them sedated."

"The good news is that with the quarantine protocols we have in place, we haven't had the massive potential spread among our own personnel that could have happened." Diana breathed a sigh of relief at that one, "Most of our infected were from mistakes they made with needles or violent encounters with locals where they were exposed to infected air or fluids. We've cycled over a hundred-twenty thousand of the residents through our hospital, with long shifts and desperate people and instant individual quarantine of exposed personnel? We've been lucky so far, sir."

Marshall listened without interruption, though the expression on his face became progressively harder to read as Diana continued. Fifty-one Starfleet casualties. Thirty-six dead. Over a hundred and twenty thousand civilians processed through the field hospital. The numbers were staggering, but it was the description of the virus itself that truly concerned him.

Marshall turned away from the barrier for several seconds, clasping his hands behind his back as he stared through the observation room's window toward the sterile corridor beyond. The Dreadnought was still operating around Velis III. Shuttles were still moving personnel and supplies. Marines were still on the surface. Medical personnel were still treating thousands of desperate people.

"In your medical opinion, what is the likely chance of a favourable outcome, to the populace, my crew on the ground, and those already infected?"

"There is always a chance, Commodore, but from my experiences in the past, my research and everything I've seen from ground zero? If we find a vaccine or a cure, it's going to be too late for anyone currently infected." It was a death sentence that Diana had just pronounced on the residents of Velis III. "And if any infected person escapes off planet, sir, the entire galaxy is at risk. This has crossed species without reducing it's lethality."

She took a deep breathe, "Commodore Marshall, I would recommend an interdiction of Velis III on medical grounds. This is an existential crisis not just for the planet, but to the Federation and beyond until we can develop a proper treatment and cure."

For several long seconds, Marshall said nothing.

The word interdiction carried considerably more weight than Diana might have intended. It wasn't simply a medical recommendation. It meant sealing Velis III away from the rest of the Federation, potentially abandoning millions of people to their fate while the Dreadnought stood between the planet and the wider galaxy.

The Commodore's gaze remained fixed on her through the containment barrier. Just acknowledging the enormity of what she had said.

Marshall turned away from the glass and walked slowly toward the observation room's rear wall. His hands clasped behind his back as he considered the implications.

Millions of lives. A virus capable of crossing species. No effective treatment. No survivors.

"I will need to speak to the Federation Council. Even as a flag officer I can not just summarily cordon a planet." Even if that also meant leaving the population to die off and potentially the virus along with it. "Thank you for having the courage to make the recommendation."

The weight sat heavily on Diana’s shoulders almost as if it were physical. Ever since Chase had died, she’d thrown herself towards making sure that others wouldn’t have to watch their own loved ones die a slow and painful death and now she’d recommended that an entire planet do so. Not just that, but that it wasn’t being outright dismissed. She desperately wanted to be alone, to wallow in torment about what she’d witnessed, what she had just possibly put into action. To go back down to the surface and share the fate of these people.

But she couldn’t, not yet at least, there were still several that were counting on her to perform a miracle before it was too late. Maybe then, when she did or didn’t succeed, she could let herself… go.

“I already had all of my raw data, research and conclusions uploaded to Dreadnought’s systems, sir.” She said, any life leeched out of her voice, “I’ll make sure I’m available if you need me present when you talk to the Council, but…” She stopped herself, unable to tell him not to thank her for saying they should kill millions, if it were to save trillions. “I’ll coordinate with Ops and Flight Control to set up an evacuation of our people on the surface if it becomes necessary or allowable.” She knew there was also a chance that they would leave their own personnel behind, it was a worst case scenario, but always a possibility.

Marshall stopped at the door. He had already begun to leave, already begun mentally assembling the reports, the communications to Starfleet Command and the arguments he would inevitably have to make before the Federation Council. Yet Diana's final words made him turn back toward the observation glass.

He watched her for several seconds. The Commodore had seen that look before. Not in reports. Not in officers who were merely exhausted. It was the look of someone who had been carrying something for too long and had finally reached the point where the weight was becoming unbearable. "You'll coordinate the evacuation or the personnel on the surface. ," he repeated quietly.

There was something different in his voice now. Less command. More concern. "But you're not going back down there." Marshall stepped closer to the barrier. "Not tonight."

He could see the exhaustion in her posture now that the briefing was over, the life seemingly drained from her voice. He didn't know the whole story behind it, and he wasn't about to pretend that he did. But he knew enough to recognise an officer who was dangerously close to running herself into the ground.

"Lieutenant. You've been forced to make decisions about who can be treated, who can be transported, and who may already be beyond saving." He paused. "And then I asked you to tell me whether we should quarantine an entire world." His expression softened. "I don't expect you to walk away from that feeling fine."

Marshall glanced briefly toward the PADD in her hands. "You've given us your data. Your research is aboard this ship. Your conclusions are documented."

A beat. "You've done your job."

"Then why doesn't it feel like enough, sir?" Diana asked, looking towards him.

Marshall stopped with one hand resting against the door control. For a moment, he didn't answer.

The question wasn't one he could solve with rank, regulations, or another order. It wasn't even really directed at the Commodore standing before her. It was directed at the person underneath the uniform—the man who had just been asked to accept that thousands, perhaps millions, of people might die despite everything Starfleet could throw at the problem.

He turned back toward her. "Because it isn't enough." There was no attempt to soften the answer. "You've spent your career believing that if you work hard enough, learn enough, prepare enough, you can prevent people from dying." Marshall's expression was quiet, almost solemn.

"That's what we're taught. It's what we expect from ourselves." He stepped closer to the barrier. "And then something comes along that doesn't care how hard you work." His gaze dropped briefly before returning to Diana. "You've treated them. You've studied them. You've watched them die. You've tried things that worked before and watched this virus simply ignore them."

A pause. "And now you've had to tell me that the only way to protect everyone else may be to stop people from leaving their own world." His voice lowered. "Of course it doesn't feel like enough." Marshall's eyes remained fixed on hers.

"But, Lieutenant, there's something you need to understand." He paused. "You are not responsible for this virus. You didn't create it, you didn't bring it to Velis III, you didn't decide that those people should die." He allowed the words to settle. "You are the person standing between that virus and everyone else. That matters."

The conviction in his voice, the certainty that despite how she felt that what she was doing was the right thing, that she had done everything she could do, was a relief. He had been around for a lot longer in Starfleet than she had, had the institutional knowledge and the practical experience to know that the knowledge wasn't enough. That was conveyed not just in his words, but in his mannerisms, the look in his eyes that he was taking this just as seriously as she was. The knowledge that he wasn't just taking her words to a higher authority, but that he understood the whys, the whats and most especially the whos. He wasn't absolving her of her burdens, he wasn't abandoning her to them, he was sharing them with her.

And deep down inside, she knew that he understood exactly what she was feeling and experiencing.

"Thank you, sir..." She said quietly. "If you need me, you know where I'll be."

Marshall held her gaze for a moment longer, the severity in his expression easing slightly at her quiet thanks. There was no triumph in his face, no sense that he believed the matter settled simply because a decision had been made. He understood better than most that some burdens did not disappear when the order was given. They merely changed hands, and tonight Diana had carried more than her share.

"I know where to find you," he replied quietly.

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