The familiar tingle of the transporter beam faded, and Captain Horatio McCallister found himself standing at the entrance of the Vidiian Kezdara Four Medical Research Institute. The main foyer was vast and cold, constructed from dark, weather-worn stone reinforced with sleek, newer alloy supports. High above, arched skylights let in the dull grey light of Kezdara’s polluted atmosphere, casting the cracked floor into a lattice of heavy shadows. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic, and something far older, far sicker, even through the respirator mask fitted snugly over his mouth and nose.

Around McCallister, the Starfleet delegation materialised. Doctors Slyvexs, Uknare, and Tomraf immediately checked over their medical equipment cases with practised hands. Encircling them in a protective formation were seven security officers from the Constitution, outfitted in reinforced hazard gear and carrying phaser rifles slung across their backs. Everyone was equipped with the latest Hazard Team systems, from integrated biofilters to enhanced tactical sensors. Though invited for peaceful purposes, their hosts fully understood the need for extreme security precautions.

At the head of the security contingent stood Lieutenant Natima Lonar. The Cardassian woman’s sharp, grey eyes methodically swept the foyer, assessing every entryway and every Vidiian within sight. Her gloved hand rested lightly near the holstered phaser at her hip. Even behind the impassive lines of her protective armour, Lonar radiated a calm, unflinching vigilance. Pulling out her tricorder, she ran a passive scan.

“Clear,” Lonar reported crisply, her voice slightly distorted through the comms system integrated into their breathing masks.

McCallister gave a curt nod of approval, then turned back to his group. He stepped closer to the trio of doctors, lowering his voice slightly across their private channel.

“Everyone ready?” he asked.

Doctor Slyvexs, the senior-most physician out of the group and on temporary assignment from the Odyssey, gave a short, confident nod. Her eyes, sharp and experienced, peered around the foyer like a hunter sizing up a new terrain. “As ready as we’ll ever be, Captain,” she said. “Let’s hope the Vidiians are as open-minded as their invitation suggests.” 

Doctor Kamra Uknare, the Haliian chief medical officer of the Constitution, smiled thinly behind her mask. “I’m curious to see how much progress they’ve made independently. It’s not every day you’re asked to help rewrite centuries of medical necessity.”

Doctor Tomraf, the youngest among them from the Orion, adjusted the strap of his case with a slightly nervous energy but managed a grin. “I’m just looking forward to getting a closer look at how the Phage has evolved and, hopefully, seeing how we can help these people.”

McCallister allowed a faint smile. Their morale was solid, and their purpose was clear. “Good. Stay sharp.”

Just then, the Vidiian welcoming party emerged from a side corridor.

Doctor Teren Mala led the Vidiian delegation. His tall, stooped frame was wrapped in a dark grey medical robe, and his flesh bore the unmistakable legacy of Phage survival. Patchwork skin grafts of slightly mismatched colour covered his arms and neck, and a thin scar ran from the corner of his mouth to the lobe of his left ear. Yet his eyes, a piercing green, burned with intelligence and something harder: determination.

“Captain McCallister,” Mala said, his voice gravelly but courteous. “Welcome to Kezdara Four. We are grateful for your visit.” His gaze lingered briefly on the formidable Starfleet security force before returning to McCallister. “Your precautions are understandable.”

“We appreciate your hospitality and understanding, Doctor Mala,” McCallister replied diplomatically, stepping forward. “We come in the spirit of partnership and hope this is the beginning of a new chapter for the Vidiian Sodality. Joining me is Doctor Slyvexs from the Odyssey, Doctor Tomraf from the Orion and my own chief medical officer, Doctor Kamra Uknare.”

Behind him, Doctors Slyvexs, Uknare, and Tomraf exchanged respectful nods with their Vidiian counterparts.

McCallister continued, his voice steady. “We understand the situation for the Sodality has become dire. We’ve seen the intelligence reports regarding the latest Vaadwaur raids, and we appreciate that your government is eager to further develop our dialogue. As such, we bring greetings on behalf of the coalition forces we are building and the hope that the Vidiian Sodality may find its place among us.”

“And we intend to prove,” Mala said, a flicker of fierce pride flashing across his pale features, “that the Vidiian people are ready to be more than a burden on this quadrant.”

For a heartbeat, a heavy silence hung between the groups. Hope and suspicion warred quietly in the space between them. Would the Vidiians hold up their end of the bargain, or would this become a military operation instead of a humanitarian one? Will the away team need to use their emergency transport units to beam back to the Constitution and then, between the Constitution and Orion, fight their way out of orbit and back to safe territories?  

Then, with a sweeping gesture, Mala turned toward a pair of reinforced doors. “Please. Let me show you the heart of our efforts.”

As the away team fell into step behind the Vidiian delegation, Lonar signalled her security officers forward, quietly establishing a layered protective pattern around the Starfleet medical team.

The clinic’s harsh white lights flickered slightly as the heavy doors sealed shut behind the away team.

Inside, the atmosphere shifted.

The corridors were narrower than expected, but clean, lined with consoles and medical stations. Transparent partitions sectioned off the treatment bays, where patients lay silently on biobeds, attended by Vidiian staff in muted grey uniforms.

Despite the respirator, McCallister could still smell the heavy, sterile taste of antiseptic layered over something older and more desperate.

Doctor Mala walked beside the away team, hands clasped behind his waist.

“As you can see,” Mala said, voice quieter now, “this facility houses some of our most serious cases. Survivors who have endured the Phage longer than most.”

Doctor Slyvexs moved slightly ahead of McCallister, sharp-eyed as she studied the layout.

“You’ve managed to stabilise a lot of them,” she observed, stopping at a nearby diagnostic console. The Denobulan doctor was intrigued by what she was trying to understand from the readouts. “How are you treating the cellular decay?”

“A mixture of new tissue growth and containment therapies,” Mala answered. “It’s imperfect. We hold the disease at bay, but only for so long.”

Slyvexs gave a short, acknowledging nod, while Doctors Uknare and Tomraf listened closely.

They paused beside one patient, a young Vidiian woman whose face was a patchwork of natural and synthetic skin. Her breathing was shallow but steady.

“She was born infected,” Mala explained. “Our new treatments allowed her to reach adulthood. But the strain is constant.”

Slyvexs tapped a few readings into her tricorder. “It’s remarkable she’s survived this long.”

Uknare agreed with the assessment as she stood by Slyvexs. “Your treatments are holding, but they won’t last forever without a more permanent solution.”

Mala’s expression was grim. “Which is why your presence here matters. The cure we received twenty years ago helped some, but not all.”

McCallister let the exchange play out, choosing to watch the Vidiian staff moving nearby, catching glimpses of their cautious, uncertain expressions.

“You mentioned growing replacement tissues,” Doctor Tomraf said, stepping forward. “How far have you been able to go?”

“We can regenerate some isolated organs,” Mala replied, “but full-body restoration remains beyond us.”

Slyvexs considered this for a moment. “With the right resources, research and enough time, you might change that.”

Mala’s mouth twitched into a thin smile. “That’s our hope.”

McCallister finally spoke, stepping in just enough to guide the conversation back to the larger goal. “And we hope that partnership between the Sodality and the wider coalition can help make it happen, for everyone.”

Mala inclined his head respectfully. “Of course.” He gestured down a side corridor. “Come. Let me show you where our real work begins.”

They moved deeper into the facility. The away team walked cautiously, the security detail under Lonar’s careful watch adjusting their positions subtly with every turn. 

Soon, they reached a vast chamber behind transparent walls. Inside, banks of sterile workstations were surrounded by glowing chambers filled with samples suspended in thick, nutrient-rich gels.

“This is our main research lab,” Mala said. “Here, we work on adapting Vidiian biology to survive the Phage, instead of being destroyed by it.”

Slyvexs stepped forward, studying the displays with a critical eye. “You’re trying to build immunity from the ground up,” she said. “Fascinating.”

Mala nodded. “It’s working, but the process is slow. We need help if we’re ever going to move beyond small-scale trials.”

“You have the beginnings of something here,” Slyvexs said thoughtfully. “With access to better equipment and broader genetic data, we might be able to help you stabilise treatments across entire populations.”

Mala’s gaze sharpened. “Exactly what we are hoping for.”

McCallister let the doctors continue, his instincts alert. He caught fleeting looks from some of the Vidiian staff. Wariness. Hope. And for a few, it was something harder to define. They took the next uneasy steps on their road to peace.

The adjoining conference chamber was dimmer, quieter, and lined with softly pulsing medical displays. A central holo-emitter dominated the table, already waiting for them.

At a nod from McCallister, Doctor Slyvexs took the lead.

She activated her PADD, and a complex diagram of the Vidiian cellular structure appeared, side by side with another display—Borg drone schematics.

“Our first offering,” Slyvexs said, her voice carrying calm authority, “is regenerative therapy derived from our encounters with Borg nanotech. After years of studying liberated drones, we learned how nanoprobes could repair cellular damage, restore tissue, and stabilise decay when properly reprogrammed.”

The projection shifted, showing a cell mending itself, the invasive Borg patterns stripped away, leaving only healing protocols behind.

“We adapted their self-repair systems,” Slyvexs continued. “Stripped of their assimilation control functions, these procedures now focus purely on cellular regeneration. With proper calibration for Vidiian biology, they could significantly slow Phage progression, buying years, even decades of healthier life.”

Around the table, the Vidiian physicians murmured, their scepticism battling visible hope.

Doctor Uknare stepped forward next. She altered the holographic displays that Slyvexs had just demonstrated to show their next piece.

“These are modified Borg nanoprobes,” she said. “They can isolate infected tissue at the molecular level and promote healing immediately, without needing an assimilation tubule. Based on knowledge of dealing with an infection from complex DNA from Species Eight-Four-Seven-Two, in the last two decades, Starfleet Medical has experimented with modified Borg nanoprobes to fight other terminal diseases. With the right changes to their coding, we believe these nanoprobes can be used to enhance the immune system against the Phage. Again, slowing down the process.”

Doctor Tomraf was last. He called up a more abstract image, a flexible, shimmering mass of bronze liquid slowly forming the shape of a liver, then a heart. It shimmered against light. It moved with life. 

“Our final offering stems from lessons we learnt from the Dominion War,” he said, glancing briefly at McCallister. “Our understanding of Changeling biology, in particular their morphogenic matrix, inspired research into fully compatible, synthetic organs that are capable of adapting dynamically to a host’s immune system.” He paused, letting the enormity of it settle. “With this, we believe some organs could be replaced for Phage-damaged tissues. It would remove the need for organ-harvesting.”

Silence lingered for a beat. Then two more. Proposing a radical change to the Vidiian’s way of life would be a lot of work. Although research into using synthetic organs could take some time, it was indeed a way forward. 

Mala leaned back, exchanging looks with his colleagues.

Their expressions were fractured. Some appeared openly hopeful while others were wary.

At that moment, McCallister stepped in.

He stood slowly, voice firm but not unkind.

“Before you deliberate,” he said, “there’s something you should know. Our recent expeditions of an abandoned underground Vaadwaur base have uncovered historical data from them. It relates to records from the period when the Phage first spread among your people.”

A sharp ripple of tension moved through the Vidiians.

McCallister continued carefully. “The Vaadwaur didn’t just observe your suffering. They manipulated it. They helped engineer the Phage’s spread and interfered with early treatments. And when the cure was found, its effectiveness was damaged by their sleeper agents.” He let the weight of that sink in. “You were made victims long before your people became desperate. Let’s change that, today.”

A stunned, quiet blanketed the room. Some anger boiled. 

Even Mala’s hands trembled slightly where they rested on the table.

Slowly, the Vidiians began whispering to one another. This news would either help them bring the Vidiians in or force them to want to walk away from everything and return to some form of isolation. 

Seizing the moment, Mala approached McCallister and Slyvexs, speaking low enough that only they heard.

“Captain,” he said tightly, “Doctor.” He exhaled slowly. “My people have lived as monsters in the eyes of others for generations. But as you know, we were wise once. We were known for being great artists, healers, philosophers and educators.” He looked briefly toward the clustered Vidiians, who were arguing quietly by the displays. “These gifts you offer may not save us entirely, but they could give us the chance to be more than scavengers. It could let us live longer with dignity and begin to atone for what we’ve become.”

McCallister met his gaze steadily. “Redemption isn’t given,” he said. “It’s earned.”

“And we will earn it,” Mala promised fiercely. “You have my full support for the Sodality to join the coalition. We need it more than most, more than ever. My colleagues and I will do whatever it takes to convince the rest of our government to agree to your terms, sign the non-aggression pacts with the others in the coalition and join the fight against the Vaadwaur.”

Slyvexs offered a small, solemn nod. “Help us help you,” she said simply.

Mala smiled faintly. It was the first genuine smile McCallister had seen since stepping into the Vidiian research centre.

“It would be good to have the Vidiians with us,” McCallister added, hoping they were truly seeing the start of something new here.