“Archanis Station to all vessels. Please be advised that all flight operations are suspended until further notice. Further, Starfleet and civilian vessels currently berthed or having visited within the last seventy two hours are duly ordered to hold position and await further instruction. Finally, any vessel inbound for the station, you are advised to make other plans. That is all.”

Commander Ari Skye cut the link and exhaled deeply. In the six months she’d served as the Chief of Flight Operations for Archanis Station, never before had an hour passed without an arrival or a departure. Now, by order of Rear Admiral Alex Grayson, they were closed until further notice, until either the virus was stopped, or it ran its course. How long would it be? And how bad would it get? Truthfully, she had no idea, but she wondered if she’d even be standing here to reopen the station at the end of it all. Would any of them?

“Relax, Ari. You did good,” offered Commander Jazzir, the always positive Risian who served as the station’s Chief of Civilian Services. Seeing the look on her face, he wanted to walk over, to give her a reassuring hug, but he couldn’t. Five meters was the new protocol of minimum distance as defined by Captain Anna Vale, their Director of Health Services. “You’re on comms all day long, telling captains to do this and that. What makes this any different?”

“I guess it’s just the finality of the whole thing,” Commander Skye admitted, her face downfallen. “This isn’t about telling someone where to park their Flyut.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Commander Jazzir nodded. “We’re gonna have to cancel the holiday party, and no more dancing at Nebula Nights for a while.” The Risian was well-known for getting footloose any and every opportunity he got, and Nebula Nights, a jazz bar with live music seven nights a week, was one of his regular haunts.

“How is it you’re worried about that at a time like this?!” Commander Skye asked incredulously. It wasn’t just his outward demeanor that confused her either. It was what she could feel emanating from him, a calm and a warmth sharply contrasting with the dark, fearful emotions rippling off everyone else. Somehow, he genuinely seemed alright with it all. But how?

“A wise man, a musician of your homeworld, once said: ‘If you carry joy in your heart, you can heal any moment’,” Commander Jazzir offered with a smile.

“But only if your heart still beats,” Commander Skye countered depressingly. “If Captain Vale is right, there’s a chance none of ours are beating at the end of this.” The rundown they’d received from the medical director described a virological vector of incredible virulence, one that, once it took hold, all but guaranteed an autoimmune storm that only ended with your death. Basically, if you caught the thing that was creeping around the station, you were dead. That made her want to crawl into a hole and hide until it was all over, but alas, she had a job to do. They all did.

“We’re doing everything we can, Ari,” Commander Jazzir reminded her. “What comes will come, but I don’t intend to spend my last days, if these be them, drowning in depression and fear. It’s also possible the doctor could be wrong, or the wizbangs on the Polaris come through for us.”

That sounded like grasping for strings, Commander Skye thought to herself, but before she could respond, Captain Elsie Drake stepped onto the command deck. Her face was neither jovial like the Risian, nor fearful like the rest. Instead, the station’s commander just wore a look of cold professionalism. Was she scared? Absolutely. But she was holding it together by staying focused on the work they had to do. “How are we looking?”

“The suspension in flight operations has been announced,” Commander Skye reported.

“Hotels report ready to sequester un-homed individuals,” Commander Jazzir reported in reference to everyone from the homeless drifters who lived on the lower decks to the crewmen of the USS Polaris that’d come aboard but now couldn’t go back to their ship. “The closure notice is also ready to go out to all civilian establishments. I’ll send it as soon as your declaration goes out.” That notice would close every shop, every eatery, and every entertainment establishment until the end of the crisis.

Yes, that declaration. That announcement. A closure and quarantine. A pit of dread began to develop in her stomach. But first, there was one more update she needed. She glanced over at another officer, a commander in red sitting silently far from the others, his head down and his eyes focused. “Owens, how about you? Where are you with the duty assignments?”

“I’m working on it!” Commander Mike Owens snapped a bit more aggressively than he meant. “Just give me a bit more time! It’s a tall task!” He was busy carving the staff into little work pods meant to limit community spread, but if he messed up and two pods collided, an outbreak in one could become an outbreak in all. “I mean how the hell do you split up five thousand officers, all critical to the smooth functioning of our station, and ensure none cross paths?”

His response was highly uncharacteristic, the captain recognized. Commander Owens, their Chief of Station Operations, was known for telling them all to ‘keep it playful’, and if he was a ball of stress and nerves already, it didn’t bode well for the morale of the crew more generally, especially if things started to actually get bad. “Take your time, Mike. I’ll make the station-wide announcement, and then why don’t I help you sort out the duty rosters?”

“No, I’m quite alright,” Commander Owens shook his head. “I mean, don’t take this the wrong way captain, but who’s to say that you or I aren’t already infected? Didn’t the doctor say you’re contagious before the symptoms show? And is five meters really enough? Are you sure any of us should even be in the same room?” He glanced around the command center nervously. It was just the four of them in the voluminous space, the emptiest it’d ever been, but still it felt too crowded. And if one of them was already infected, half the command staff could be dead by week’s end.

“Captain Vale and Commander Henderson were in full agreement on the protocols,” Captain Drake assured him. Five meters was believed, with a fairly high degree of confidence, to be enough distance to avoid transmission of not-yet-symptomatic carriers due to the distance-decay effect of respiratory aerosols. “If we cannot trust the science, what can we trust?”

“I guess you’re right,” Commander Owens sighed. “It’s just… it’s just this is a different sort of enemy. Raiders, no biggie. Criminal underground, we got ’em. Even an angry Klingon warlord, we know how that ends. But this? We can neither blow it up, nor talk it down.” It was just a faceless, invisible, creeping killer, stalking through the station, hunting them all.

“We will manage, as we always do,” Captain Drake reassured him, but if she was honest with herself, she wasn’t so certain they’d actually be okay. If its spread continued to accelerate, the staff would eventually start to drop like flies. And what would the civilians do? At first, they might listen, but when Commander Eriksson had no security officers to maintain order, and Captain Vale had no doctors to care for them, what then? How far would they go? “Commander Skye, in order to ensure the lockdown holds,” she added for good measure. “Why don’t we also go ahead and start rendering inert the propulsion systems of all docked small craft?”

The Betazoid flight controller furled her brow. “You afraid someone’s gonna take one for a spin?” But as she said it, it became real. If things got bad and the bodies started to pile up, the lockdown wouldn’t hold. Eventually, people would get desperate, looking for an escape, anything to get away from the haunted halls of an infected crypt. That meant they’d go for the shuttles, the runabouts, anything that could get them out of here, and if they succeeded, rather than fleeing the virus, they’d just be seeding it across the sector – or beyond.

“Just thinking ahead,” Captain Drake replied, trying to downplay the implications, although no one was naive enough to miss her intimation. “And Jazzir, why don’t you put some thought into how, as fear begins to mount, we can manage public relations and keep the peace?” They’d have to do something besides deploy security forces, both because security actions would just put more people together, accelerating the spread, and also because eventually Commander Eriksson might not have the men to even staff the line.

“How about we just play the deep baritones of some sixteenth century Klingon opera for all to hear?” the Risian suggested lightly, prompting a grin even from Commander Owens. “That should soothe them, right?”

“If I gotta hear the howls of Barak-Kadan on repeat,” Commander Owens laughed. “I’ll be first in line for the airlock. Dying of vacuum beats dying alone in my room with that rancor as the soundtrack of my demise.”

Everyone chuckled, and that made Captain Drake breathe a little easier. 

They were going to be alright. 

Jazzir, Skye, Owens and the others, they’d manage, and aboard the Polaris and across the galaxy, some of the greatest science minds of their generation were already working on how to beat this thing. But now it was time to address the station. 

“Computer,” she said as she tapped her combadge. “Prepare for shipwide address.”

As the computer chirped in acknowledgement, all around the command center, everyone grew silent. What would the captain say? How would she share with the station the grimmest of news, while ensuring calm and compliance?

“Attention, all hands. This is the captain,” Captain Drake began, her voice steady, although inwardly she felt much the opposite. “I come to you with an important announcement. Earlier today, station health services reported several cases of a highly infectious contagion present on the station. In response to the threat this contagion poses to public health, the command staff has made the difficult decision to issue an immediate shelter-in-place order for all residents, staff and visitors currently aboard Archanis Station, and to stand down inbound and outbound flight operations. You are ordered to return to your quarters at once, and to remain there until further notice except under emergency circumstances.”

She paused, letting the words sink in for the twenty thousand who heard them as they echoed across the station. This was a big ask, but she needed them to abide by it. The consequences, if they did not, would be enormous, and she hoped it would not come to enforcement in order to ensure the lockdown orders stood.

“This would not be the first time that we have issued a shelter-in-place order,” Captain Drake then continued, choosing transparency in her tact so as to prepare them for what lay ahead. “But this time, it will be different. This time, it will not be for a brief period while we resolve a tactical situation.” There’d been that scuffle with raiders, and that time with the rogue Klingon warlord, but both of those had lasted mere hours. “No, I won’t sugarcoat it for you. This time, it’s going to be days, if not weeks, before we can be together again. I understand the burden this places on you and your families, from get-togethers you will miss to trips you planned on taking, but please understand that this is for your own safety. This contagion spreads through the aerosols in your respiration and the fluids in your body, and social distancing is the number one way to slow its spread and buy time for our health services to care for those already sick.”

She left out the bit about the disease being one hundred percent fatal. Those statistics would be disseminated by Captain Vale in her first medical update to the public, but for now, they might be too much. They might create panic when, right now, she just needed to get everyone back to the safety of their quarters.

“Even as we work to contain the virus, know that we have measures in place to ensure that the station continues to operate at full efficiency,” Captain Drake assured them. “Further, in the event you should need anything, our standard hotlines for our operations and services teams remain fully staffed, and we are ready and able to assist.”

For now, at least. There might come a time, some time in the near future, when they wouldn’t be. But hopefully it didn’t come to that.

“Finally, be aware that I have authorized the Director of Station Security to enforce this order, but please, don’t make that necessary,” Captain Drake begged as she drew the address to a close. “Please, for your safety, and for the safety of your neighbors and every individual on this station, heed this order and return to your quarters. More details will be shared in the coming hours from the health services division. Archanis Command out.”

She tapped her combadge, ending the address.

“It’s done,” Captain Drake exhaled. “Now we’ll just have to see if people listen.”

“They will, Elsie. They will,” Commander Jazzir assured her. “Our people, they are strong. All we need to do is remind them that they can be part of the solution, and they will rally together – apart, of course – to make it so.”

Captain Drake wasn’t so sure, but she hoped they would. She hoped too that this would buy enough time, that it hadn’t already spread too far, and that the USS Polaris would come through for them. Otherwise, they might not come out the other side.