Author's note: This is an extremely short story I felt needed to be written. The time where Lise sat in MedBay waiting for the transfer to be completed just seemed almost as if it didn't really happen. I started to wonder what she could've been thinking about during that time - to possibly give the few brief seconds shown within the episode more of a sense that time really passed and to sort of 'flesh it out', so to speak (no offense meant to the MG writers, they're wonderful - that's been my only complaint, actually...). I'm sure they never intended for anything like this to be written (maybe they did, but I wouldn't know, I'm no mind reader) but it's just my interpretation of what Lise might've been thinking. This story contains spoilers for the episode Plague, so if you either haven't seen it, or don't like surprises, you might want to see it first or one of 2 things might happen - 1) you might not understand it or 2) you may be disappointed...sorry... Don't say I didn't warn you...
Disclaimer [off the disclaimer page]: Reb Anderson, Gret, Cdr. Bren Stewart, Gen, Lise and Yuna are copyrighted by, um, whoever owns the rights to "Deepwater Black: Mission Genesis". I think it's a combination of Empire Entertainment & SFC/YTV, but I don't know.
I'm sitting here in cryo, waiting for the sedative to wear off. I'm not sure if my antibodies will really work. Yuna's already in stage three and in the midst of violent dementia. A few minutes ago she'd been ready to kill me. I don't know how she broke free of the restraint, but I'm glad the sedative worked as quickly as it did.
The antibodies have to work. It's the only explanation. How else could the rest of the crew have been infected and not me? I breathed the same air, with the same airborne Pandora virus, as the rest of them. I came into contact with all of them, at least once since the virus was exposed.
There's no other answer. There was no known cure for Pandora before the Deepwater II was launched. There's no other way to do this. I can't launch the gene bank on my own. Reb told me to launch it, despite the background radiation on that planet, but I can't do it. There has to be a cure somewhere on Deepwater.
There's so many new lives aboard the Deepwater, so many we may never know unless I can find a cure. Unless this treatment works.
But if Pandora is airborne, what's to say it hasn't reached the gene bank? It could have reached there and infected them.
I have to remain optimistic, though. Even as I sit by Yuna's side, waiting to see if this works, I'm hoping that the virus hasn't spread there. The gene bank has to be safe.
Yuna looks weak -- weaker than I've ever seen her. I can only hope that this works. The lesions look like they're fading. I'd better check the scanner and see if Pandora is really being eradicated.
The scan is checking out! The virus is dying! I don't believe it, the antibodies worked. So I am immune. Maybe I can cure everyone else the same way I cured Yuna.
It worked! Everyone else is resting comfortably in cryo. I just wish I'd known this sooner. Reb, of course, is refusing to relax. For some reason, he won't leave Yuna's side.
I know what I'll be working on for the rest of the mission, though. I have to find a way to get rid of this heinous disease. I have to do what was earlier thought to be impossible. The fate of the existing human race depends on my ability, as a physician, to rid the universe of Pandora. The life of the human race rests in my ability to shed some light on the darkness
known as the Pandora virus.
