“She’ll be fine Captain, now hold still and let me stitch up that nasty gash on your forehead.” The gentle and wiser lilt of a Denobulan accent greeted her ears as she woke from the fog of her mind.
“You have to help me, Phlox. You have to help me convince her that it’s the correct course of action. We need to have her die as soon as T’Pol gets here. T’Pol is en route as we speak to take over the negotiations. That bomb was too close. I could have lost her today!” Malcolm’s voice was raw with emotion and worry, pleading gruffly.
The argument made complete sense to her still clearing mind and she railed against the decision, but knew that she would follow Malcolm’s recommendation at this point. She would follow him anywhere.
She barely recognized her own voice as it croaked, “I’ll go anywhere and do anything, as long as it’s with you.”
Malcolm pulled away from the auto suture and jumped off the bed, grasping her hand. “You’ll see, love. Everything will be okay and we’ll be far away from everything very soon.”
Malcolm turned to Phlox and explained to him his plan, the Denobulan already knowing bits and pieces of it. In the event that the assassin was part of the Cathage or Brewnings, it was necessary to stage the death while Hoshi was linked with them. Once she was dead, and the link broken, Malcolm would revive her, and they would start their new life together.
Hoshi nodded her head and smiled weakly.
Phlox walked over to a monitor, and started to peruse the medical database. “Ah, here’s a possibility. Roalian is a fast acting paralyzing agent, which mimics myocardial infarctions in humans. It will paralyze her heart, and the rest of her body, putting it in a kind of suspended animation, so that no brain damage occurs. It has a very short shelf life of thirty minutes and requires administration of the antidote within that time frame otherwise the person will die.”
Malcolm hesitated. “Is there any other drug that will do the trick, perhaps one with a longer shelf life?”
“Roalian is the only drug that will effectively kill her, so that the Cathage and the Brewnings severe their link with her. I was under the impression that it was necessary for both delegates to believe she was dead,” Phlox stated, placing the auto suture against Malcolm’s forehead and finishing the job he had started.
Hoshi interrupted then. “As I see it, within five minutes of the injection I should be dead. But you mustn’t move me until you see the blood from my nose. That will signal the severance of the link and their belief in my death. That will probably take another five minutes. They won’t sever the link easily, if they think I might be resuscitated. So, make no attempts. That should take about ten minutes, leaving a fifteen-minute window to administer the antidote. Sound like a good plan to me.”
Malcolm shook his head, his mind unable to grasp her death for even the briefest of times, much less just fifteen minutes.
“We can resuscitate her en route to the hospital, or wherever it is you plan to hide her. I will be more than happy to do the post mortem,” Phlox smiled and patted the nervous Captain on the shoulder. “Relax, Malcolm, everything will go according to plan, and both of you can start your lives anew.”
Hoshi leaned into her lover and kissed his cheek gently. “The sooner it’s over with, the sooner we can be together.”
The tension partially left his shoulders, as the vision of Hoshi and him living ‘happily every after’ swam through his head. “T’Pol will be here in three days. We’ll have to give her a day so that she can square some business away with Admiral Archer, but she’s willing and able to assume the position as the good faith link for the delegates.”
Hoshi puzzled at his comment. “What business?”
“You’ll see soon enough, my love.”
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