Mission Five: With Gleaming Eyes

Created by Commodore Jacob Kane on Fri Apr 8th, 2022 @ 10:32pm

Athena is summoned to the planet Icatha III in Cardassian space by Admiral Jonathan White, the Starfleet Liaison to Cardassia. Ithaca's native Metis population have been suffering the effects of a widespread virus that has also started to infect their Cardassian overlords.

While medical teams scramble to develop a cure for the virus, tensions are rising between the locals and the Cardassians - the Metis believing that the virus was created by the Cardassians to cull their numbers. At one point this spills over into a riot, during which some of the Starfleet crew are injured.

Captain Kane meets with Gul Dara, apparently a bit of an outcast in the Cardassian military, and they spend a night together as a ruse for him to obtain secret information for P'rel to dig deeper into the Project Midnight mystery.

Meanwhile, the Engineering team deals with a mining disaster near the colony - and discovers a strange egg among the ruins. Returning to the ship they discover evidence to link this to the Pilgrim creatures encountered previously. This adds to their suspicion that the smuggling operation they discovered may be far more widespread.

A relief crew arrives from the USS Colossal, carrying fresh supplies and support teams, which enables Dr Ki and Lt Bailey to determine the virus' origins: Discovering that the virus is in fact natural, and mutates very rapidly in hybrid species - the crossbred Metis/Cardassians were the first to become ill and transmit to those around them. Dr Ki develops a vaccine that can be spread among the population.

With the virus cured, Athena begins to depart - however Captain Kane has suspicions that all of the data they have gathered points to one place: Rondac. Breaking with protocol, he orders a course change for them to investigate...