The Complication

The Romulan Incident

Author's Note: Thank you so much for your continued support on this series! 

In this chapter I wanted to explore the Romulan situation mentioned in Angel One and provide a little more depth to canon.

Please anticipate a two to three week break before the next update. The next few chapters will focus on an original black hole adventure and introduce a love interest for Geordi.

The next arc is fairly technical and I try to root my writing in some sense of scientific accuracy. I also need to get updates out for several of my other DaTasha stories (And Then There Was Fun and Yesterday's Enterprise: Borrowed Time).

As always, if you like my works or want to stay up to date with my art, comics, or just like chatting about the fandom you can join me @TheTartanTart on Twitter.

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"That's it, now reinsert the cooling relay emergency chip," Data instructed.

Tasha looked down at the stack of isolinear chips in her hands.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she tried to relax.

"The big blue one with the green and red spiral on the left," Data clarified. "Three down and two from the left."

Tasha fumbled through the chips until she found the correct one. Carefully she counted three spaced down and then two in from the left.

Data watched her bite her lip and then count again before reinserting the chip back into place.

The team was less than two hours out from the Neutral Zone.

Less than twenty percent of the crew was still functioning, and they were losing crewmen left and right to the virus.

Whatever it was, it caused individuals to grow increasingly weak – collapsing on the job or on their way to Sickbay.

In addition, it caused fever, chills, sweating, sore throat, respiratory problems, dizziness, and fatigue.

Doctor Crusher and her team were overwhelmed with ill patients as they raced to find an inoculant for the virus.

The Doctor cautioned that even if she were to develop an inoculant, it could take time for recovery and likely wouldn't be instantaneous.

Because of the lack of crew left, Data and Tasha were in Engineering as they attempted to keep the engines running at such a high speed.

They were racing at Warp 9.4 toward the Neutral Zone Outpost with nothing more than a skeleton crew.

Most of the unaffected crewmen were specialty science officers that had been in sealed labs when the virus had initially spread – anthropologists, astrogeologists, historians, and xenolinguists.

Many had only ever been exposed to limited Operations courses at the Academy – the mandatory basics for any Academy graduate.

Their skillsets weren't intended for loading torpedo bays, maintaining Warp speed, or Bridge Operations.

One of his first actions as acting Captain was to radio ahead to advise of the emergency on the Enterprise.

The USS Berlin was aware of the situation and a small relief team was standing ready to beam aboard. It would only be a small group of officers – as anyone beaming aboard would also be at risk for contracting the virus.

Yet, even a small team would provide much needed relief to the exhausted crew.

Tasha wiped the sweat off her brow.