Trekipedia

Double Helix, Book One: Infection

Deanna’s life is threatened by a mysterious plague!

• Stardate 41211
• Released June 1999

Like the twisted strands of mutant chromosomes, an insidious alien conspiracy winds its way through the entire Alpha Quadrant, just as it stretches across several years of Starfleet history—beginning near the very start of Captain Picard‘s command of the Starship Enterprise!

It is only the first year of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D’s ongoing mission when a virulent epidemic strikes the populace of Archaria III, endangering the lives of thousands and provoking acts of mob violence against those believed responsible for the spread of the disease. While Data and Natasha Yar team up to uncover the true origins of the virus, Dr. Crusher finds that the implacable sickness resists all her efforts to find a cure. The desperate quest for a cure becomes even more urgent when Deanna Troi succumbs to the dreaded plague . . . again and again.

Written by John Gregory Betancourt

Cast:

• Captain Jean-Luc Picard
• Commander William T. Riker
• Dr. Beverly Crusher
• Counselor Deanna Troi
• Lieutenant Commander Data
• Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge
• Lieutenant Worf
• Wesley Crusher

Guest Cast:

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Excerpt

“We’re not just losing the battle, we’re losing the war.”

Dr. Tang gave a frustrated wave. “I have more than six thousand dead in my own hospital. Men, women, children, babies. All die within a week . . . two weeks, with massive doses of Tricillin PDF. We haven’t had one survivor. Not one. Do you know what that means?”

“I am well aware of the mortality rate.” On the viewscreen, behind Tang, Dr. Crusher watched a dozen men dressed in white containment suits burst into the lobby from a side corridor. They began picking up the comatose patients and tossing them aboard a low, motorized cart – stacking the one on top of another like so much deadwood.

Bodies, Dr. Crusher thought with growing horror. They haven’t run out of beds, they’ve run out of slabs in the morgue. A few limbs jutted out grotesquely from the growing pile on the cart. The toe on every left foot held an identification tag, she saw now. They’re all dead. Not just dozens, but hundreds of them.