The Immovable Two-Hour Deadline
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
HESTER circles the suspended containment unit, pronouncing the installation exactly what the mission requires while GEORDI stands by, accepting praise for following instructions; HESTER inspects every angle and confirms the system's monitoring and isolation capabilities.
RIKER checks progress over comms; HESTER replies that he needs more time and GEORDI specifies the work will take another couple of hours, inserting an explicit delay into the operation's timeline.
HESTER underscores that absolute zero growth is critical, raising the biological stakes and framing the inspection as mission-critical; GEORDI acknowledges and defers to HESTER's further scrutiny, accepting the burden of preventing contamination.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Quiet triumph disguised as procedural duty—satisfaction that containment is perfect and thus the galaxy may live.
Dealt, sealed in disposable gown and mask, circles the suspended plague vault like a priest circumambulating sacred danger, fingertips brushing panels whose readouts chromatically certify death on hold. His satisfaction is monk-like, voiced in clipped praises—each “very good” delivered with the certitude of absolute quarantine law.
- • Assure complete isolation of the lethal specimens beyond any shadow of doubt
- • Force Enterprise crew to accept the non-negotiable two-hour re-inspection window
- • One undetected thermal excursion cost millions of lives on Igo Prime
- • Starfleet’s humanitarian impulses must never override biomedical zero-tolerance
Respectful resignation threaded with regret—the cost of perfection transcends speed.
Geordi stands at Dealt’s shoulder, visor reflecting cold storage LEDs, each tap on a tricorder an echo of the seconds he can’t give back to Riker. He answers barely above a mutter, deferential yet inwardly bracing—as if the warp core were asking permission to grieve.
- • Validate Dealt’s overcritical requirements without defiance
- • Communicate the unavoidable delay up the chain without betraying exasperation
- • Engineering truth is defined by numbers and containment metrics
- • Obeying medical quarantine law is non-discretionary—even if it breaks a father’s heart
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Cargo Hold Five becomes an antechamber of cosmic triage: its vast industrial hush making every inspector footfall a metronome of interstellar stakes. The rectangle of plague cages hangs center-stage like a zero-kelvin sun whose rays, if unleashed, would vaporize worlds.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
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Part of Larger Arcs
Key Dialogue
"HESTER: You do understand, it's critical that we have zero growth."
"GEORDI: It will be another couple of hours, Commander."