Belderone

The influx of calls had been seemingly endless. Ever since the Coalition's announcement of a new cure-all for any and all diseases, the Imperial Department of Health Sciences had been inundated with concerned citizens trying to get word about the project. The INS had been helpful in stemming the tide of calls, reporting on the dangers of the project.

Dangers that the Galactic Coalition was mad enough to try and pass of as Imperial propaganda.

Doctor Koffman shook his head. He was exhausted. Tired from the huge ammount of effort he had been putting into researching the Panacea project. Tired from the demand for attention from his team, the media, High Command, and everyone else who had heard of Panacea in the last month.

Adjusting his labratory coat, he stood up and entered the hallway again. It was well past midnight, but the facility was still abuzz with activity.

"Anything new?" Koffman asked, seeing one of the research leaders and calling to him.

"The latest round just reveals more of the same!" The other called back. "They're not holding up very well in the time-elapsed trials."

The time elapsed trials were one of the most crucial tests for a new treatment, and one that the Coalition had ignored entirely when they developed Panacea. Its purpose was to recreate in a simulated enviornment the passage of time, to see what effects the drug would have over a period of time. It was only if a drug attained a high enough score that it would even be tested on live subjects, and so far Panacea had failed all of its tests.

Which was bad news. It meant that no one, the Coalition included, had no idea what might happen in a year, or ten years, to anyone who had taken Panacea. For all they knew, with 95% of the population injected, the entire Galactic Coalition could be gone in another month.

Which, Doctor Koffman considered for a moment, may not be such a bad thing.

"All right. I want to see the results as soon as you've processed them."

The other Doctor nodded and returned to the testing room, looking as tired as Koffman did. It was clear the Empire wanted an answer to this question: the development of Panacea could well make the Empire's army twice as efficient as it was today.

But not without the proper testing.

"Doctor Koffman, Sir!" He heard a voice. Turning, he was surprised to see a young man with the ID card of a Doctor assigned to the hospital wing. He didn't know the man's name, but he was sure he was not where he was supposed to be.

"Yes?"

"I tried reaching you on the PA, but there was no response."

"I've had the main line shut down in this sector. Too much distraction."

"We have a situation."

The Coalition Panacea Center continued to review the data. Everything seemed good.

"We'll need to contact Doctor Proctor as soon as possible. The test data all seems positive so far." said Talo, the Center's chief physician. "Send the data to Rita, and have her ready to forward the data to Proctor at his earliest convenience."

The long term testing had been positive, just as they'd expected, but Talo was shaken. All the bad press they'd been getting internationally was beginning to worry him, although the effects had yet to make themselves apparent in the Coalition. There were no firebombs coming through the window yet, but he knew they were coming.

Still... the news was reassuring. Aging had no effect on the Panacea, as the baseline DNA did not change and thus Panacea would not alter it's search perameters. Energy was not a problem, the bio-energy collectors were passive and couldn't hope to cause damage to a living being by over-sucking energy; it'd be like attacking a star-destroyer with a box of pins.

Even destruction of the droids was no big deal, as they did not explode, but implode when damaged. Any rupture of the outer hull, any bending of the prongs, anything at all that would change the shape or pierce the hull of the Panacea would cause internal pressure to crush itself into an even tinier ball, one destined to make its' way eventually out of the body through excretion.

No chemicals were involved, a misfire would do negligible damage to the system since it takes concentrated fire to kill... and yet, he felt as if they were missing something.

It was then that he suddenly heard the doors being flung open rapidly. A half dozen emergency workers huddled in a few hunched figures of varying races.

Talos, with a puzzled but worried look on his face, dashed over to the doors. "What's the problem? What?"

The emergency worker, with a panicked look on his face, said "Internal damage, sir! We couldn't tell at first, but it's Panacea! For some reason, it's making limited attacks on the organs!"

"Wha... WHAT?" Said Talos, and for a shameful, self-centered minute his thoughts were consumed with the thought of his own Panacea vaccine. But he quickly restored himself to normal. "I need all your information, immeadietly!"

"Here it is sir." said the aide worker, passing the sheets over. "It looks like a clean bill of health, sir, no unusual activity prior to the incident, nothing."

"How long have they been affected?"

"Not long, sir, they were only recently innocculated. The reaction started not long after that."

"Get them to the emergency ward immeadietly! I want everyone on hand this instant, and all data ready. Have there been any more cases?"

"None, sir. These are the first galaxy-wide, the health-offices have been working overtime to check with everyone." There was a fearful tone in his voice, however. These are the first.

"Move, we have to get started as soon as possible!" exclaimed Talos.

_________________________________________________________________

It was later. The gathered doctors looked at the charts.

"This is too much for us." said one "We simply haven't got the resources here, we'll need everyone."

"Call all our medical stations and research centers" said Talos "Oh, and someone get something to drink, we might have some long nights ahead."

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play…

All work and no play. It’s the Coalition way.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had closed his eyes. When last he had taken his break he had used the occasion to wash his face, and the reflection that greeted him was shocking. His tired, wrinkled face was contrasted sharply by his swollen and blood red eyes. He noticed that as he watched himself in the mirror, his face twitched, contorting as if to flinch but leaving beleaguered eyes wide open.

He looked so old… to think, when he came in as the noob of the team, he was mockingly refereed to as babyface…

His face now more closely resembled a spice sniffer.

The description was apt, and scarily close to the truth. For the past few… days, weeks? Had it been a month? He had lost track of time… since he had been called in to work on the Pancea Project he had been constantly reminded how important it was. He saw other scientists call it a day and go back to their lives, but for Decker, science was life. And with very real lives hanging in the balance… no reported fatalities yet, but some had conceded it was but a matter of time… sleep was not something he could afford to do. He had first simply tried to focus, and then had turned to energy drinks. They had become a constant companion… discarded cans cluttered around his workstation, and the fluids swam through his body, no doubt doing irreparable damage to his brain and body. At the present time, he didn’t really care…

The solution had to be here!

And so, he had crawled back to his desk, face wet and eyes dry, opening another drink with one hand as he turned another to a scientific microscope, hoping this time to see something new…





With a familiar sight in front of him his mind wandered, his first day…

”We need to find out where it’s hitting. Just knowing that it’s attacking the body is not enough.”

“Can’t we just look?”

“Unfortunately not. While we have microscopes that can see Pancea… to see if the probes are damaged or faulty… they emit radiation, harmless from the back, but damaging on the focusing side. We’d be poisoning anyone we looked at… the longer the look, the more severe the effect.”

“So we need a dead body. Someone not effected by that radiation.”

“Right.”

”I say we kill one of them. They’re on the way anyway… just get it over with so we can see what we’re dealing with.”

A silence filled the room. Decker had expected an outburst of morality, a complaint of compassion, but every doctor there knew it might be the best, or perhaps the only, option.

“No.”

That came from Maxson. Maxson was the head scientist… in this lab, anyway… and one of it’s senior members. While he was not in charge of Pancea research, all research here went through him, and so the answer had been given.

“So far no one has died yet, and I am hoping it will stay that way. If that situation changes I want that corpse under the microscope before the family can complain.”

That in and of itself was a violation of Coalition policy. The rights of the individual and their family were always respected but in the case of a possibly fatal epidemic, the needs of the many were going to have to outweigh the wants of the few, or the one. There was a murmur of general consensus, and the matter was resolved.

”Now, I want to know who is getting sick, and elements of commonality.”

“So far, we have seen human, Rodian, Frozian, Azguardian, Calamarian… we even had a Wookie come in ill. So far it seems anyone who had been injected can become sick…”

“If you see a change in that pattern I want to know immediately, and I want to know why yesterday. Okay, so far everyone is getting sick. What are the similarities?”

“Lord, sir… the Mon Calamri can live under water for days at a time, and the Frozians can live without water for several weeks. The Wookies love to live in cold forests and are not averse to freezing rain, while humans hate the cold and prefer to live in tropical areas under a warm sun. The Azguard…”

“They eat, they sleep, they breathe. Anyone in the Coalition is at risk with the possible exception of the droid.”

“Okay then. So it isn’t targeting only specific races, but all generally bipedal sentient creatures… and probably tripedal and quadripedal species as well, and maybe not even sentient ones… why…”

”Maybe we can backtrack where the problem is…”

“From the symptoms? Good luck.”

”Wait,” Maxson cut in, “I haven’t even been told yet what the symptoms are. What are we looking at, people?”

“Fatigue, raised temperature, loss of energy and even consciousness. Vomiting and other forms of discharge, including nasal and oral mucus, and bleeding.”

“The problem is that with the exception of bleeding those are typical for common illnesses, and even a severe case of the Sulustrian influenza can account for the loss of consciousness and the bleeding. We have nothing.”

“The only way we even know Pancea is involved is that the bleeding contains dead cells, fried beyond even the point of recognition by the Pancea. For some reason it is treating cells of the host as invaders.”

“And the mucus from the body contains Pancea probes itself. Why, we’re not sure.”

“The two might not even be related.”

That possibility set off something in his head… he hadn’t been looking at the victims or the symptoms, only the discharged Pancea themselves to see if they were defective or infected. A thought entered his mind.

”Poison.”

“What?”

“Are you saying these people have been poisoned?”

“No… not exactly…”

He looked around and saw all eyes on him, and decided that, however insane, he better volunteer his theory and he better do it fast.

”Okay, when a humanoid contracts a virus, the bodies white blood cells will travel to the infection and attempt to develop a chemical or biological solution that will prove harmful to the invader that doesn’t hurt the host body.”

”Antibody chains.”

”Right. Sometimes though, when dealing with a chemical or metallic poison, such as carbon poisoning, the white blood cell will instead try and cover the substance completely, and latch onto it until it is expelled.”

It took a moment or two.

“The mucus.”

That was Maxson. And Decker nodded.

“I think we can write off the mucus and the temperature changes as the body not accepting Pancea, and trying to fight it.”

”Does that explain anything else?”

“No, there’s no reason whatsoever for Pancea to attack it’s host’s cells.”

There was another silence as everyone realized their work had now increased, and that they were no closer to solving the puzzle. Maxson, meanwhile, was apprehensive.

”How sure of this are you, Decker?”

“I’m not, sir. It’s just a theory.”

“Then we test it. Take samples of the mucus encapsulated Pancea and look for any evidence of white blood cell tampering. Anyone working on the mucus samples now should focus on that. Everyone else keep working on what you’re working on.”

”Should we continue under the assumption that his theory is true?”

“You’re scientists, you shouldn’t ever assume anything. Even when we find evidence it shouldn’t have any bearing on finding out why everything else is happening. Now, go, get back to work.”





So work had continued on. It had been confirmed that the host bodies had reacted to Pancea like a metallic poison… which was, in and of itself, not terribly surprising. The metals of Pancea caused a slight irritation to host bodies and might have, over time, caused some degradation. Nothing life threatening and not, as far as he could discern, responsible for the problem.

It had to be something else… something he wasn’t seeing…

But nevertheless, the metal issue was a problem, even if it was not a major problem or a life threatening one. Decker felt, then, a compassion for his superiors. They were under a tremendous pressure from the Coalition government to produce tangible, indisputable results with which they could validate funding both in the past and the future. On the other hand they were under a tremendous pressure to the Coalition people to deliver the best medical service possible regardless of extraneous concerns such as political or economic pressure.

Something went wrong this time.

Decker sighed, promising himself to turn down any promotions offered to avoid ever having to make that choice.

Pressures aside, Decker was beginning to fray. He had confirmed his suspicions that the Pancea probes in the blood discharge were affected similarly to the mucus discharge… the problem was that that told him nothing new. The body sent out white blood cells to the source of the infection but it could only send so much, and some Pancea slipped through the front lines and made their way through the body. That was not anything Pancea related, just basic physiology… the body could only commit so much of its immune system to stemming one infection, lest another slip by undetected and wreak havoc. So, Pancea had passed through after the normal dousing of antibodies.

But nothing the chains did had caused Pancea to malfunction. The effect was minute at best… none of the systems were affected, and the shell of the probes had survived the bath unbroken. It had to be something else…

Decker raised his head from the microscope in surprise. He had felt, albeit briefly, the almost forgotten feel of human contact. He had been tapped on the shoulder. He looked around and saw Maxson walked slowly away, and, as if answering the unasked question, gently nodding his head.

So Decker followed, uncertain as to what Maxson wanted, but eager for the break regardless. Maxson was near now to the water cooler, the area farthest from any scientist who would be working and that gave Decker the impression that he had some bad news. Nevertheless, he kept his head up as he fell in beside the man, and even managed to return the elder’s smile.

”How you doing kid?”

“Aw, you know. It’s rough… frustrating, we’re all working so hard but we don’t seem to be making very much progress.”

“That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I want you to go home.”

“But… why? There’s no solution…”

“No, there isn’t a solution yet. But you look like hell kid. How long has it been since the last time you got any sleep?”

Decker didn’t… couldn’t… answer. Maxson nodded.

“We have plenty of people working on the problem so you taking a few days off isn’t going to be the end of the world. You’ve had some good ideas and done some good work, I think with a rested head you could be even more valuable.”

Decker shook his head.

“Sir, I appreciate your concern, but I’m really fine…”

“I’m not talking to you as a friend here, Decker. As the head of research and personnel at this laboratory I am relieving you of your duties, effective immediately, for a few days vacation.”

Decker frowned, but nodded.

“I’m going to need you back, Decker, so no cruises, okay? Just go home, get some sleep, eat something, have a hot shower, and come back here looking like a human being. Okay?”

Decker offered a nervous grin. Maxson smiled at him, patting him on the shoulder. As Decker was leaving, he saw Maxson walk over to his table and begin removing his empty drink cans.

”Yeah, what is it?” Decker asked, half-awake. He had been asleep when he noticed the buzzing had been his com line in the other room. Mildly annoyed and moderately intrigued, he had thrown on a robe and ran to get it, wondering who would call him and trying to remember if he had even given anyone the number.

“Decker, it’s Maxson. How you doing, buddy?”

That it was Maxson shouldn’t have surprised him… his job was the only place he ever went, and would be the only place that had his number on file. But he was surprised… hadn’t Maxson told him to get some rest? Why would he be calling him and waking him up, then?

”I’m fine… I think. I was in bed. What’s up?”

“We’ll get to that. What about you? What have you been up to?”

“Well, like you said, I went home, decided to get some sleep. I was considering whether I wanted to have a Kabdu steak or a Mawasi egg for breakfast, or maybe both… that reminds me, I thought you wanted me to get some rest? What’s up with calling me, then?”

“Decker, it’s been four days.”

“What? It couldn’t have been!” He looked at his chronometer. It had indeed been four days since he had come home from the lab. “You mean I’ve slept four days straight?”

“Guess you needed it. Look, I want you to shower and come down here. I need you.”

“Any progress?”

“Depends on what you mean by progress. The problem has progressed… I’ve had to begin relieving sick scientists.”

”Oh no. That’s not good at all.”

”No, it’s not. How are you doing? Any vomiting, bleeding?”

“No… I was never injected with Pancea.”

“Really? Why? Didn’t trust it?”

“No, it’s not that… it just kinda slipped between the cracks. I meant to, someday.”

“It’s a good product, Decker. It’s going to save a lot of lives.”

Decker wasn’t sure how to respond, so he didn’t. After a few moments of silence, he heard Maxson sigh.

“Anyway, I need you down here, kid. Have a shower, you can eat when you get here.”

Decker shook his head, discarding his robe. As the water ran over his face, he took a moment to reflect on his situation. Was Maxson serious? Pancea was killing people… slowly, but surely… and he defended it as a good product? Had that actually just happened?

Decker doubted what it was to be a scientist. The Pancea doctors had messed up, maybe badly, and yet apparently stood by their work? It was seemingly baffling… but it wasn’t Decker’s concern, nor did he realistically have time to ponder it. As he threw on his clothes and left his modest dwelling he knew that time was running out on the solution to the Pancea problem, and that if he was going to solve the problem, he would need to do it soon…





”When did you get sick?”

Maxson shook his head. Decker had joined the scientist… among others… at one of their, apparently daily, lab luncheons, where they ate and discussed both the daily happenings in research, and interpersonal relations. With everyone locked in on the project and scientists dropping every day, today was an all business discussion.

“What makes you think I’m sick?” Maxson inquired of the youngest at the table.

”You keep blowing your nose every few minutes, and I’m willing to wager it’s not just normal nasal blockage.”

The two stared at each other silently for a moment or two, and then Maxson sighed.

”Yesterday. I started dropping blood on a report, and I’ve tried to cover it up ever since. You’re sharp, Decker.”

Decker brushed the compliment aside. “Attentive, is all. Well rested, thanks to you.” Maxson tilted the tip of his cup in a small salute before Decker asked, “how long until…”

“I have to relieve myself? That’s something I have been debating with myself all day. I’m hoping that one of you will make it a non-issue.”

“Maxson, there is something I am worried about…”

“Yeah kid, go ahead.”

“Scientists were some of the first to receive Pancea, correct? And if they’re becoming sick in consistent and considerable number…”

“…then it’s only a matter of hours, or at most, a few days before we have a galactic epidemic on our hands.”

“That was my fear.”

“Then we’ll have to make that a non-issue as well. What that means is we need to step up, today, and find a solution to this thing. Any new ideas?”

Silence.

”Decker?”

”I’m sorry sir. Maybe when I get back in the lab…”

Maxson shook his head. “It’s okay. All of us are doing what we can to fix this… I didn’t expect you to dream up a cure for us.” The group chuckled, nervously. Maxson pulled a tissue from his pocket and lowered his head to it, blowing his nose. Decker sighed, rubbing his hair nervously.

”If you guys don’t mind, I’d like to get back to work.”

Everyone wished his well, but as he stood up he lingered around for a few moments. “I was wondering if I could get a drink. What are you drinking, Maxson?”

“Imperial Instant. It’s pretty lousy, but it will buzz you and it keeps the cost down.

“Do you mind?”

Maxson shook his head. “Community java, everyone is welcome to take a cup.” With that assurance, Decker walked over to the counter of the break room and grabbed the pot. Maxson let out a tired sigh.

”Okay, let’s go over what we know. Pancea is attacking the body. We don’t know where and we don’t know why. What we do know is that the body is rejecting it and treating it as a metallic poison. So the Pancea that attacks cells is first cordoned off and attacked itself by the immune system. After being sprayed with a biological and chemical antibody bath, it makes it way, partially digested, through the body to search for disease. We don’t know…”

Maxson stopped. He, and the other scientists alike, had all heard the loud crash of the shattering glass, and turned their heads in unison to Decker, who stood unmoving. At his feet lay the remnants of the broken pot, its’ scalding black contents forming a puddle around his shoes. Maxson eyed him curiously.

“Decker, is something wrong?”

Decker turned, mouth agape. It took him a few moments to compose himself.

“I know where Pancea is attacking the body, and I know why.”

Belderone

The body jumped as a second pulse went through it, the ion energy exciting nerves enough to make them react in unpredictable ways. Fortunately, two jolts were all that was needed.

"They're all offline, Sir." One of the Doctors said, checking the diagnostic screens. "But they're still there."

Koffman nodded, satisfied. According to the documents the Coalition had furnished them with, Panacea droids were designed to automatically implode if their hull was compromised. But the ion energy they had used had shorted the little machines out before they could self destruct. Giving the Imperial scientist enough time to take a look at what was going on.

"Are there any more reports of incidents?" Koffman asked, stepping out of the room as the medical droids went to work on catalouging the damage and repairing the body.

"Not yet. But the Coalition has been very hush-hush about Panacea since he came in... possible they've found the same thing we have."

A month. Panacea had been in existance for a month, and already it was going wrong. It was unheard of in the Empire for a treatment to be deployed to quickly after its design... testing was the most important phase of something like this. Who cared what it did right, if it killed its host within a month...

"Anything new from the tests?"

"Some. Some of the patients are showing trace poisoning from the metal components... nothing enough to do any real damage, but it could be something."

Koffman stopped, nodding.

"Yes... it could. Get those patients, anyone showing the metal poisoning, under intense supervision. We might have something there.

"And keep me appraised of the situation. I must pay a visit to the Coalition."

Maxson tried to keep himself in fairly good shape. He ran, he swam, he took the occasional hike when his work allowed for a trip to the hills. But, like all men over forty, he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the rapid decline of his physique, and the way age tended to wrinkle his skin and widen his waist.

Normally, the last thing he would want to do would be to take his shirt off in front of a group of his fellow researchers. But, in the name of science and the greater good it would provide, he had relented, although at the present time it was a decision he did not altogether enjoy.

“Decker…”

“Hold on a minute, sir. Fascinating…”

“Decker… can I put my shirt back on?”

“Huh?” Decker turned around. “Oh, yeah, sure.” He turned back to his microscope immediately. “Yes. Perfect, it’s exactly as I thought.”

”Decker, are you going to tell us…”

Decker wasn’t, at least not yet. Hands shaking with excitement, he stepped back from the table and pulled his shirt over his head.

“Uh…” Maxson wasn’t sure what to say. “Decker, do you…”

“Do you remember where I jabbed you with that needle sir?”

“Yes, Decker, it’s still bleeding.”

“Okay, I want you to jab me in the exact same spot and jab it as deep as it will go, and then draw a sample.”

With pleasure, Maxson found himself thinking, but in reality he found himself taking great care and good time to not accidentally murder the man who had supposedly found the problem with Pancea. “Okay, sample taken.”

Decker spun, grabbed the syringe, and spun back again. The shirtless scientist emptied the contents into a sterilized plastic dish. He slid the dish under the microscope, nodding. “Okay, someone bring me Pancea.”

As one of the scientists rushed to grab a fresh syringe of Pancea, Maxson regarded Decker with an inquisitive eye while Decker, unoccupied momentarily, took the opportunity to put his shirt back on. As the scientist returned with a clean batch of Pancea, Decker fussed with his hair. He was nervous… perspiring, even, knowing full well the consequences at stake. Maxson continued to stare at him, looking for signs of confidence and finding one… though the man was sweating, reddening, frowning, and occasionally shifting, he kept a straight spine. His head was high, his shoulders kept above a slump. So many allowed a hunch out of laziness or timidity, but though the pressure basked down upon him like an oven, Decker stood tall.

With a steady hand, Decker depressed the syringe, injecting the test sample of his own tissue with Pancea. He lowered his eyes to the microscope, and began to observe. Silent tension rose in the room… no one spoke, no one looked away. All eyes were locked on the young scientist, looking for any sign of hesitation, adulation, aggravation… anything that would indicate whether he was right, or wrong. No sign came, and Decker turned with a serious look on his face.

“Maxson, how long have you worked on Pancea?”

Maxson’s eyebrow instinctively raised. “Since the inception of the project, in some form or another.”

“Testing?”

”Of course.”

“Do you remember the food problem?”

“Naturally. The way Pancea was set up originally was to catalogue and remember the host DNA, from a blood sample. Then, when injected, those Pancea would recognize those as safe, and attack other strands of DNA and RNA as invaders.”

“The problem,” another scientist cut in, “was that Pancea worked too well. It went after food the victim ate, seeing it as a foreign invader and destroying it before it got to the stomach.”

“It also would have rejected and destroyed any blood or organ transplants, for similar reason,” added a third scientist. Maxson, silently, nodded his head.

“Pancea was then re-designed to mark down biological material, or technological or chemical material as well, as soon as it made aggressive action, such as infecting or damaging a single cell. Once it saw it as hostile or dangerous it jotted it down and attacked all like material before it could do any more damage.”

Decker silently nodded. Maxson, meanwhile, appraised him apprehensively. Decker already knew that… he was trying to get at something, but was doing it in a roundabout way… something none of them had time for.

”What exactly are you getting at, Decker?” Maxson asked him. Decker looked at him and slowly nodded.

“Still bleeding?”

“Yes.”

”It must,” one of the scientists blurted out, “affect coagulation, it must affect the blood…”

“No, if it affected the blood, or the circulatory system at all, the patients would be long dead…”

”It doesn’t affect the blood,” Decker stated, “and you’re right, if it affected the respiratory or circulatory system, the patients would likely not still be alive. But there is another key system in the body, and it’s one that Pancea has, and would continue to, attack.” Decker stopped, looking at Maxson who returned his cold gaze. “It was something you said. About how the Pancea made it’s way through the body after being…”

“Partially digested,” Maxson added, remembering the conversation.

”…right, partially digested by the white blood cells’ chemical bath. It made me think… an important system we can’t live without, and yet, not one that would immediately kill us if it were compromised…”

“The digestive system.”

“Right. If the digestive system was damaged, the patient would show signs of being ill, become malnourished and fatigued, but would survive for weeks… maybe even months, depending on where, how, and why. Once I recognized that, however, I was still unable to explain anything. The cells in the digestive system are similar to the cells in other systems… what was the difference?

Fortunately, you helped me there too.”

Maxson blinked. “I did?”

“Yes. I remembered the digestive system is really three separate processes to turn the food we eat into energy. The mouth is largely a physical portion, physically breaking down the large pieces and using salivary enzymes where it can. The stomach is a mixed bag, physically compressing and crushing the food while it is soaked, and further broken down, by the digestive acids. Once it passes the stomach, it enters the lower digestive track, where the physical digestion is minimal; here, the energy is extracted and the waste product created, shaped, and discharged when no useable material exists. And that was the key.”

Maxson said nothing, unsure. Another scientist chimed in, “I don’t follow.” So Decker continued.

“The third process is where the trouble lies. The samples I took from my body were from my, previously undamaged, intestinal track. When exposed to Pancea, however, those cells almost immediately came under attack.” Maxson was looking at him with an unwavering focus. The intensity of his stare told Decker he didn’t know yet, so Decker continued. “That in and alone wouldn’t have told me anything… the cells in the intestines are no different then cells anywhere else in the body, in general. And they are very similar to cells in the stomach and the mouth, but those areas hadn’t been damaged. But I kept going back to what Maxson said… partially digested… and I remember that there are some things that the body, in all its’ complexity and all of its’ ability, doesn’t have the power to digest. The problem is not with the intestines, but within the intestines.”

Maxson’s eyes lit up immediately, met Decker’s, and then sunk to the ground. He slowly shook his head. Some of the scientists were not so quick, but after a few moments, one figured it out. “You’re talking about the digestive bacteria?”

Decker nodded. “The digestive bacteria. A harmless component that actually serves in a symbiotic relationship with the body in most cases. The digestive bacteria can break up compounds that the body can’t, and when it does, the body either absorbs the product materials, the energy released, or the bacteria itself, in order to milk every last kilojoule from what you’ve eaten. Of course, therein lies the problem.”

“Pancea isn’t malfunctioning,” Maxson added, somberly realizing the error. “It’s doing exactly what we programmed it to do.”

Decker nodded, gravely. “Pancea was reprogrammed to identify bacteria insider the body, unlike genetic code, that attacks cells. Unfortunately, it went after the harmless bacteria in the digestive track and the cells that played host to them.”

“Collateral damage,” another scientist added. They were beginning to all figure it out, and Decker allowed a smile to cross his face.

“Believe it or not, but this is actually very, very good news.” Maxson quirked an eyebrow, in disbelief that this could in any way, shape, or form represent good news. “First, heretofore, we assumed that if unchecked, Pancea would eventually kill the subject. But there is point critical where the bacteria will all be destroyed… some have probably reached that now. For them, the only danger is malnutrition. We ca…”

Maxson cut him off. “Feed them, now! I want all off-duty techs and nurses, all the dismissed sick doctors down here now. Intravenous supplements, enough for three days worth for every patient. Now! I don’t care if you have to order it from Belgardi Enterprises, get those tubes in now!”

Decker stayed motionless. A few other scientists didn’t move, but generally all did as the lab suddenly became a mad scramble of activity. Maxson didn’t get angry when some scientists meandered behind; rather the contrary, if they knew the problem, it would need to be fixed, and he and Decker could not do it alone. Maxson eyed the younger scientist anxiously, and Decker continued.

“I was saying… we can procure bacteria from uninjected members of the same species… those coming back from tours, perhaps, or serving undercover. It shouldn’t take long to stimulate the growth to the point where we have enough to repopulate the organs of the injured. The organ damage was collateral in nature… it won’t be immediately life threatening, and if the damage is serious, then some minor surgery can fix it. Coalition expense?”

Maxson nodded. “Let’s make a plan. What needs to happen now?”

Decker said nothing, hoping one of the other scientists would pick up the slack. “We need to track down a person, or persons, from every species in the Coalition who hasn’t received a Pancea Injection, and procure from them samples of the bacteria that has been depleted in their species. Get it to begin multiplying as fast as we, and it, can.”

Decker nodded. “Feeding the sick is obviously a high priority as well.”

“The organs,” another scientist chipped in, “are going to need to be repaired. Schedule those with the most damage for immediate surgery, those without for booster shots of bacta and the like.”

Decker was looking directly at Maxson, and Maxson directly at Decker. They were both thinking the same thing; a dangerous thought that, apparently, none of the other scientists shared. Both waited for the other to say it, and finally, Decker sighed, and resigned himself to say it.

”We have to fix Pancea."