“Kioshi says we should space him,” Captain Drake said as she looked warily at the monitor. Who was this mysterious man sitting motionless and emotionless in their brig?

“I don’t give much credence to those who see a threat in every shadow,” Rear Admiral Grayson replied. “But what do you think, Elsie?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Captain Drake sighed. “Did you see his dossier? It’s nothing but redactions. Even his discharge paperwork was stricken.” And that gave her pause. What the hell had this guy gotten into? She’d only ever heard whispers of people like this. “Did Command come back with anything?”

“Not a thing,” Rear Admiral Grayson frowned.

“Don’t they understand the gravity of this situation?” Captain Drake asked exasperatedly. They had a critical situation on their hands. What secret was more important than protecting the lives of thousands? The contagion was racing through their halls, and the body bags were beginning to pile up. “Don’t they care at all?”

“Those who care don’t know a thing,” Rear Admiral Grayson mused as he stroked his chin. “And those who do, they don’t care.” He took a hard look at the balding man on the screen. “We’re on our own here, but I’ll be damned if we pass up a chance to end this. I’m going in there.”

“Are you sure?” Captain Drake asked nervously. Captain Kioshi’s words about the man on the other side echoed through her head. And even if they were nothing but the fears of an aged spook, there was still a contagion spreading through the station, and there was a very real possibility that this man could be infected. Anyone could. And it wasn’t like this guy had been taking any precautions, walking about the promenade without a care in the world.

“Look around us, Elsie,” Rear Admiral Grayson offered darkly. “This station is dying, and we’re no closer to finding a cure today than we were a week ago. Where does this end? When there’s no one left to turn on the lights?” It was something he hadn’t admitted aloud until now, but he was worried. Very worried. He’d walked the grounds of Utopia Planitia in the aftermath of the First Contact Day. He’d seen death before. But the dead here, they would be on his watch. He couldn’t allow that to happen. “If there’s a chance he knows something, we have to try.”

And so, just a few short moments later, Rear Admiral Grayson stepped into the brig.

The place was nearly empty. The non-violent offenders had been released on their own recognizance at Captain Vale’s recommendation. It was just their prisoner, Mr. Frank Negrescu, and a petty officer in yellow keeping watch.

The admiral drew to a stop in front of the cell, and he stared at the man on the other side of the forcefield. Was this decrepit creature responsible for all the death and suffering spreading across the station?

Frank Negrescu was unimpressive by build and stature. He wasn’t tall, and he wasn’t buff. He looked a little wilted, truth be told, and his skin was leathery, showing its age. Still, as he returned the admiral’s stare, there was something chilling about him. There was a darkness in his eyes and a coldness on his face that spoke to what he’d seen and what he could do.

“I heard you asked for me by name?” Rear Admiral Grayson began.

“I did,” Negrescu nodded. “But what I have to say is for you, and you alone.” He looked up at the discreet camera that they’d been watching him through earlier. “Kill the feeds. All of them.”

Normally, Admiral Grayson would have refused. Who was a prisoner, especially one that was likely responsible for a bioweapon rampaging across the station, to make such demands? Still, was it worth an argument? Time was of the essence, and he wanted answers. He needed answers. Rear Admiral Grayson looked over at the brig officer. “Do it.”

The brig officer nodded when the camera feed was cut.

“And him too,” Negrescu nodded at the brig officer. “He needs to go.”

Rear Admiral Grayson sighed. Again, he didn’t want to cede to the prisoner’s demands, but there was no real harm in it. A forcefield separated them, and the old man was feeble and unarmed. The admiral looked back at the brig officer again. “Why don’t you take ten?”

“You sure, sir?” the petty officer asked, aware that to do so would be to violate policy in more ways than one, especially with the surveillance feeds cut.

“I’ll call if I need anything,” Rear Admiral Grayson assured him.

The petty officer nodded and stepped away.

Once the door closed behind him, Rear Admiral Grayson turned back to Negrescu. “Alright, we’re all alone now, so why don’t you…”

“Not quite yet,” Negrescu shook his head.

Rear Admiral Grayson didn’t understand.

Negrescu pointed at his chest. “Your combadge too.”

“Are you serious?” Rear Admiral Grayson asked. What was this guy getting on about?

“What was it Captain Kioshi said to you two days ago?” Negrescu asked before parroting back the words the intelligence chief had shared with the rear admiral within the privacy of his office. “If he doesn’t want to be found, we may never find him.”

Yes, that was what Captain Kioshi had said to him. But how did Negrescu know?

“Why do you think your bloodhounds couldn’t find me?” Negrescu winked. “I’m not so much a fool as to believe that I’m the only one with such capabilities, so if you want answers, do as I say. Take it off, and put it in the other room.”

Rear Admiral Grayson didn’t respond. The insinuation was terrifying. But he needed answers, and so, without another word, he plucked the badge from his chest and set it away from them. “We good now?”

“Good?” Negrescu chuckled. “No, we are not good.” Nothing was good here. Not one bit. If it was, he wouldn’t have had to come. “But yes, this will suffice. Wouldn’t it be nice though if you could just drop this forcefield between us though so we could talk more easily?” He flashed a toothy grin, one of sharp, yellowed teeth, in the direction of the admiral.

“Not a chance,” Rear Admiral Grayson shook his head. “There’s a contagion running loose across the station, and this is for your own safety as much as mine.”

“But I’m not sick,” Negrescu replied with a strange assuredness.

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m immune.”

That was it, Rear Admiral Grayson recognized. An admission that he was connected to this in some way. “Is this your doing?” 

“No, it’s not.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Mr. Negrescu, but why should I believe you?” Rear Admiral Grayson retorted sharply. If it wasn’t his doing, then how was he so sure he was immune to it? “What are you doing here?”

“Saving you all.”

“How?”

“The vaccine is in my body,” Negrescu revealed. “I came here to give you a chance to save yourselves.”

The admiral wasn’t following, and he was skeptical, but he knew to keep the questions flowing in hopes that more would reveal itself. “Why wait until now to come to us?”

“Because we need enough infections to map its variability,” Negrescu explained. “You see, I didn’t make it. It was simply given to me by those who did.”

Rear Admiral Grayson looked less than convinced.

“Call over to the Polaris,” Negrescu replied. “Doctor Henderson will confirm what I’m saying. The key is in my bloodstream, but because of the rapid mutation the virus undergoes once it infects a host, without enough of a population study, it’ll be useless to anyone but me.”

Still, Rear Admiral Grayson didn’t reply. If this guy had known, had he seriously sat silent as the body bags began piling up? There were now eight hundred in their infirmaries, and dozens in their morgues. And Captain Vale said it was only going to get worse and worse. “If you knew, you should have come to us earlier.”

“Did you not hear what I said?” Negrescu asked. The admiral was slow to catch on. “The key contained within my body is useless unless we have enough cases to get a good population sample. We had to get a good population sample first.”

“What about stopping the first infection from even happening?” Rear Admiral Grayson countered. “If you knew it was coming here, we could have apprehended the source.”

“No, that would have blown my cover,” Negrescu shook his head. “And that would not have been in the best interest of anyone.” The admiral wouldn’t understand, he knew, but that’s because he was petty and small. Just like so much of Starfleet. “No, it has to look like the crackpots on the Polaris found the vaccine themselves.”

“That wasn’t your choice to make,” Rear Admiral Grayson frowned. Even if this guy was for real, who was he to single handedly decide the fate of thousands?

“Actually, it was,” Negrescu smiled.

Rear Admiral Grayson just stared at him.

“Boy, I was skinning the scales off the scalps of Cardassians when you were still sucking on your momma’s tit,” Negrescu replied condescendingly. “Y’all have been sleeping on the job, and since I’m having to bail you out, we do it my way. This is only the tip of the iceberg.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Mr. Negrescu, but I don’t put much stock in those who see a threat behind every shadow.”

“Do or don’t, doesn’t really matter to me,” Negrescu shrugged coldly. “I’ll walk off this station alive either way, but you, all of you, if you don’t take my help here and now, none of you will live to see the new year.”

The admiral didn’t like it. Not one bit. But did he have a choice? As he’d said to Captain Drake right before, if there was a chance to save these people, he had to take it. “Alright, suppose I take you at your word,” Rear Admiral Grayson offered. “What, then, do you need from us?”

“First, I need to speak with the scientists aboard Polaris that are working on the cure,” Negrescu explained, appreciative that they were finally getting somewhere productive. “They’ll need blood samples from me, and directions on the line of research to pursue.”

Rear Admiral Grayson nodded. “That can be arranged.”

“Second, I’ll need blood samples from a random population across the station,” Negrescu continued. “A thousand or so should do, with a mix between civilian and staff, and from as wide a diversity of species as you can find.” Rather than shooting in the dark with contact tracing, he’d just waited until the probability was that, among every hundred they sampled, dozens would certainly be positive.

That would be a bit harder, Rear Admiral Grayson knew, given the rights that individuals had to their own bodies. But they could make it work. “We’ll see to it at once.” It would just take a bit of a PR campaign from Captain Vale and Commander Jazzir.

“And then, we just have to hope Allison’s team has got enough chutzpah to pull it off,” Negrescu chuckled. He was no biologist, but he knew he’d at least brought the ingredients that they should be successful if they were all they had been talked up to be.

For Rear Admiral Grayson’s sake, he had to believe they’d succeed. They just had to. Any other outcome, he wasn’t willing to accept. This is why so quickly he’d let his prior feelings about the shady man fade to the background, although he knew better than to lower his guard completely. “Is there anything else?”

“Yeah, just one thing,” Negrescu nodded. “This is all off book. In your final report, it shall reflect that ASTRA solved this all on their own. I was never a part of it.”

“Why so cloak and dagger?”

“Because my masters – the ones who think they are, at least – they believe I’m just here to watch you all burn. When this is over, I will return with the bad news that Reyes’ crackpots found a way to stop it.”

“So this isn’t over yet?”

“No, dear admiral. This is only the beginning.”