Medical Frigate NX-375 (Colton)

[Neive Undant]

Neive could underdtand the caution that went through the mandalorian. To be fair, Neive and the man's apprentice did clash, and it wasn't truly that long ago. But whether he trusted Neive or not, it didn't matter. As long as he didn't attack, Neive thought, then caution was a sensible act. Which is one he would hold when around the imperial he had fought and worked with before.

Neive nodded, as the others acknowledged the man's request.

"Lentan, get the spare parts from the ship. They may come in handy."

Lentan, the pilot, nodded and grabbed a small metal crate of electronics and weapon parts. He carried it and went with the mandalorian, awaiting orders for the box while Neive looked at the growth that the imperial examined.

"My ship's scanners didn't pick up any biological signs when coming aboard... Do you think it could be viral, rather than a fungus like it looks?" Neive didn't make a move towards it, only looked on as best he could.

[Colton Hunter]

"Preferably the red ones with the blue stripes-" he began, pausing as he felt a sudden surge around him. A warning. His eyes moved up from his work on the monitor, to take note of the Imperial with the card... and the black growth. The Force screamed at him in the presence of that thing. (Danger Sense)

"Don't touch th-" he began, but he had already begun scraping it off with his knife. He bit back a curse then tapped at the computer on his wrist. "Sevenate, may need you to cut life support, wait for my command," he added, "Scan for other life signs, see if it's a viable solution," he offered, there was a series of beeps and warbles before he sighed. "If there was no oxygen in here, would you boys be okay? You have a rebreather or oxygen rig of some sort? Whatever that is, I have a bad feeling about it," he added, glancing toward Nieve.

"What about you, former Sith," he said. They had dueled and clashed, before Colt had turned him over to the Alliance at his request, he had claimed he wanted to join them, he truly hoped he had. He wanted the Alliance and the Empire to work together against the Sith, with his turning coat, that could provide both sides with much needed intel, plus, this could be the bridge needed. Right now, though, they needed to deal with this new threat.

[Rhoden Carbine]

Rhoden immediately activated his airtight seal and felt it close snugly around his neck. "Dot," he said, his voice suddenly hoarse. "Take this sample, tell me what your sensors say." a light played over the growth and the droid beeped mournfully. "What do you mean it's mechanical?" the droid beeped a complex explanation "Nanobots combined with an undetectable viral agent... is the agent airborne?" a single beep [Yes.] Rhoden swallowed, "Test air sample taken upon arrival, now that we're looking for it... is it present?" he asked softly, another beep [Yes.]

Rhoden looked at the others, "I suggest," he said, "We find out quickly what this virus does and how to stop it." he sighed, this was not good. This wasn't good at all. He slowed his breathing and examined himself mentally. There was a dryness in his throat, and a tingling in his head which was more likely the beginning of a stress-induced headache than illness, other than that he was fine. "Quick, we need to scrape this stuff off the systems and get the system operational, I know a bit about the systems and a bit more in biology and chemistry." he marched up to a storage room and began looking over the equipment and chemicals inside.

"A most intriguing virus though... evading our sensors." he muttered.

[Neive Undant]

Neive looked back at Colt and nodded as he took out a rebreather and donned it, looking to his squad who were also taking precautions, donning oxygen pumps and such. Neive looked at the strange substance as he made sure the rebreather was secure, before looking at Rhoden as he spoke. Neive wanted the word from colt as well, however, since his sense, although a bit delayed, had been triggered as well from the sight of the black growth. He couldn't speak at the moment, but he looked at Colt, making sure to consider his word before he started running around, scraping things off and letting them flow through the air.

[Colton Hunter]

Colt was silent for the moment as he listened to the readouts from the Imperial's droid. That didn't bode well, if it was nano-tech, then their suits might not help after all. He quickly rerouted power to the terminal he needed, there was a soft hiss as the chief medic's door slid open, and Colt couldn't have been happier for his helmet, recycling his air. For the stench that poured out would have been over powering. Inside was the Chief, his emaciated body locked away to try to save himself from the outbreak on the rest of the ship. His bones visible through the paper layers of his skin, sallow, sunken cheeks, and sightless, white eyes, stared into nothing. He was very much dead. And from the looks of it, had been for some time, probably was dead before he even knew it.

A black growth clung to pieces of him, some on his face and arms, more beneath his clothing that seemed to be too big, revealing how much weight the virus had caused him to lose before his body finally gave in to the ailments it caused. Data began streaming across the terminal, describing the virus in great detail. It was an experiment in nano tech, when a virus in the system's mainframe resulted in the tech that was meant to help people, instead began rewriting itself until it was a virus unto itself.

"Well that's not good, whatever you do, don't touch anything fuzzy, according to this, it's resistant to most medicines, symptoms include pneumonia-type symptoms, rapid weight loss, and associated loss of appetite, as well as severe dehydration, unpleasant," he mused. "Sevenate, any life signs?" he asked. The beep came back with three. That would be them... "Shut down life support, and undock, I don't want it spreading to the Aggressor," he mused. The lights dimmed a bit, as the air recyclers shut down, oxygen levels would soon begin to decline throughout the ship. Here was hoping it could be suffocated.

"That's just the diagnosed symptoms, there may be more that they weren't able to ascertain, does your ship have a medical suite, Imperial?" he asked, his tone wasn't haughty, but he didn't know this guy, and he didn't trust Neive, he was on edge... and being surrounded by a microscopic killer didn't help those nerves.

[Rhoden Carbine]

Rhoden snorted, "I've got a medical droid and enough stuff to keep an injured man alive--not stop a plague. This," he gestured around them, "Is what we've got to work with." he looked at the dead man and pursed his lips, he had no intention of joining the crew of the ship in death.

"Now assuming this virus acts relatively swiftly we really should get to work, unless you want to die of course..." Rhoden said pulling out a crate containing vials, another containing some choice chemicals, and a third with scanners and other sensitive equipment. He paused, "And while we're getting systems online, the primary conduits should be cleaned, we're probably going to need them."

Ruling out incineration and blasting themselves with ion cannons Rhoden couldn't think of anything off-hand which had a possibility of ridding them of the virus, this was going to be an interesting process.

[Neive Undant]

Neive felt a bit out of place within the group. Both of them saw how dangerous this... virus, is, but for Neive, it was like many others he had faced back on Dathomir. Plague was something that his people dealt with plenty of times, the strong survived, the weak were thrown to the decomposers. But this was no plague, Neive thought.

He looked over the strange substance, now on the floor. He knelt down, keeping back away from it as he examined it.

"hm... a mechanical fungus..."

Neive walked to his ship, activating the computer and typing in a few things.
...
...
...
..Found something.

"Black winged fungus. Some sort of virus-like droid. It travels by air, but is not lethal unless grouped in large numbers. Contact with direct skin leads to the decaying of the body, but the virus is strangely useless against cloth and non-organic materials." Neive thought.

"But what about destroying them? Perhaps some sort of small EMP burst?" He looked up at the two men, suggesting as they had nothing else to go on at the moment.

[Colton Hunter]

Colt considered that for a long, long moment. His armor would stave off the effects then, even as he pushed deep into the Force to keep his body pure for the moment. He skimmed the data in front of him, considering, then sighed softly.

"An EMP would work, but there's two other problems, our personal life support, our ships, would be caught in the pulse, even a small one, those sort of things spreads until it dissipates, and we're all in that bubble, secondly, their shielded to have allowed for magnetic testing, MRIs, that sort of thing," he pointed out. "Try to keep yourself bundled up, we sho-" he began, there was a soft tremor that shook the ship, alerts started blaring across Colt's HUD, his eyes flicked toward the readout from the Aggressor that he had brought in.

"Small planetoid, we just entered into a decaying orbit," he mused, "Signs of life on the surface, whatever we do, we need to do it quick, we don't want it spreading," he mused, if clothing and non-organic materials were safe against it... he moved to crack open another monitor, revealing more of the black growth, he gathered it onto his armored fingers, and began to reach into it. His mind moving along the fibers of it... it lifted from his hand and floated before him as he examined it with his cybernetic eye, taking pictures and scanning it.

"The parts it sticks to inside the monitors, they're warm, probably from the short circuits that fried them, they're drawn to warmth," he mused. "As oxygen levels drop in here, we're going to wind up being the only thing warm," he mused, "But we're going to need to save power for the rest of the ship," he added.

[Rhoden Carbine]

While the other two were discussing possible courses of action and looking up diseases in their databases Rhoden was busy working. From what he had read those who wielded the Force could slow the work of such viruses--though how effective it would be against this, not quite biological virus, was questionable at best. He, however, was not willing to stake his life on a report from their databases, and didn't have the time to indulge them since he was not a Force user.

Rhoden got the terminal inside the office online, there was only one file on their research--it appeared they had devoted everything to this one endeavor. He played it. A scientist--most likely the unfortunate husk that was the former inhabitant of Rhoden's current seat--began speaking. "The nanodroids are based off of an old bioweapon known as black winged fungus, in itself based off of a rogue medical experiment. Our droids, which are capable of reproducing, have been integrated with biological components to make them more potent. The biological components were taken from various low-profile but extremely deadly diseases. The nanodroids have shown a remarkably penchant for swarming mechanical components and freexing them up, or stopping power flow. We've began working on a cure for the disease which also disables the droids--because if only one component fails the other causes immediate death in the host--but have had no success thus far." Rhoden skimmed through files, more holographic reports, finally the last one popped up.

"The nanodroids have breached containment, they've begun to spread into all systems, power is failing, the rest of the crew are locked out--the nanodroids have begun overriding motor functions and integrating their own systems with the bodies. I've locked out all controls so the ship can't go anywhere under its own power--we're just drifting. I--I know I'm infected too, but I can't do anything if I'm locked in here." the image faded.

He walked back out and listened to Neive and Colt, who were discussing the issue. Neive suggested an EMP device, "No." Rhoden said, moderately alarmed at the pain it caused him to speak. "This isn't the same thing--they were working on some sort of weapon." he resisted the urge to cough. He looked at Dot, who already was beginning to show signs of growth, a few lights on his body flickering. "There are two components to the virus, one is the nanodroid, the other are various highly lethal diseases. We have to find a cure which eliminates both simultaneously, or-- well..." he drew a finger across his neck. There was a shudder and Colt said they'd entered the outer ranges of a planet.

"I suggest we get to work quickly." Rhoden said, "Unless any of you have the kind of experience I do in the lab I'll stay here and make sure we don't die." he said, "Now. Do either of you know how to fix this scrap heap?" he asked.

[Neive Undant]

Neive thought for a moment as he exited his ship, pondering the current situation.

"I'm no skilled engineer, but I will see what I can do. I'll head to the bridge and take a look at the controls."

Neive hesitated.

"If you can, try to find the lockdown systems on the navigation systems and unlock them. We don't need any more setbacks than what we already have here."

Neive stepped away from his ship, walking towards the bridge. He looked at the slight growths around the walls and floors as he walked, stopping as he saw a fairly large grouping on the wall. He pondered a minute before taking out his lightsaber, igniting the red blade.

"Definitely no way to destroy them all, but for the larger growths..."

Neive slowly moved the fiery blade to the growth, letting the blade burn into the droids, and watching as the liquid that spewed out of them burned on the saber and evaporated, nothing left. The vapors weren't toxic, which gave Neive a slight sigh of relief as he put the blade away.

"Well, it's not a solution, but it's a step forward."

Neive reached the bridge in another moment, looking over the main thruster controls...