Blame it on Bacteria

He sat at the table, fingers poised over the keyboard of his laptop awaiting further instructions from their master. Admitting to being sick had already stripped him of his energy, dignity, and a day's pay. He wouldn't let it take this from him too. As it was, he had skipped a day posting on his blog because he simply hadn't felt up to it. He refused to miss another.

As he picked up his mug to sip on the broth therein, he prayed that a muse would see how pathetic he looked and take pity on him.

No such luck.

So he closed his eyes.

A sharp pain in his upper abdomen jerked him awake. Phase one of the transformation was starting.

What poor timing.

He looked briefly at the clock on his desk across the room before begrudgingly crawling out of bed, putting on his uniform, and making his way toward the bridge. The lift seemed to be moving unusually slow, but, then again, the transformation always seemed to make everything move in slow motion. He adjusted the collar of his uniform as he stepped out of the lift and walked quickly to his station. When he tried to log into his console, however, he found his hands twitching too uncontrollably to type.

Apparently phase two was starting.

Seriously. Bad timing.

He finally managed to steady his hands long enough to get logged in and to pull up the communication control panel. "We're online and ready to connect, Captain," he said confidently.

The captain turned quickly around with a slightly stunned look on his face. "Hemming! I didn't hear you come in."

"Sorry, sir," he replied professionally.

The captain laughed. "It's alright, boy. Relax," he said jovially before snapping back to business. "Open a channel to the admiral's ship."

Hemming nodded and typed away at his console. Hopefully, if he worked quickly enough, he could get through this conference before phase three started. Hopefully.

A fuzzy blue orb of holographic energy materialized in the center of the room and quickly formed itself into the shape of the Grande Admiral of the Left Fleet. "Captain Hunter. Thank you for getting back to me so quickly."

"Of course, Admiral," said the captain in a formal, militaristic voice reserved only for his superiors. "Have we heard from the Black Jacob yet?"

The admiral shook his head solemnly. "After their initial survey, their captain led a team to the surface. We haven't heard from the team or the ship since they landed."

"Is there an extraction plan?"

The admiral didn't answer.

"I thought not," said the captain somewhat sorrowfully.

Hemming suddenly noticed an interference pattern on his console. He adjusted their broadcast signal in an attempt to compensate, but not before the admiral's form flickered briefly. If his maestro had seen that, he would have been running laps on the ship's helm for hours. Luckily, he was the only technician in the room, so no one else seemed to notice.

The two commanders continued to discuss things far above Hemming's clearance status in codes that he could have cracked very easily if he had been paying attention. He had learned very early on in his training, however, that when commanders started speaking in codes and riddles, the less you knew the better.

He suddenly noticed the same interference pattern spike up again, stronger than before. This time, he caught it quickly enough that the conference continued without a single glitch. However, this time, he also noticed something very familiar about that signal.

Poor timing. Very poor timing, indeed.

As realization dawned on him, he had just enough time to sever the connection to the admiral's ship before phase three started. Captain Hunter wheeled around on him as the holographic orb faded away.

"What happened? Did we . . ." His voice trailed off as realization began to dawn on his face. "Gods help us," he said in a half-mumble. Hemming looked down at his face reflected in the console and found glowing green eyes staring back at him.

A sudden tickle in his nose and sharp pain in his throat made him feel as if his head was going to explode.

And he opened his eyes.

The powerful sneeze had left his whole head aching. It felt as though it had gotten stuck somewhere along the way and blasted its way out of him with no regard for civilian casualties.

He looked at the snot covering his hands and decided to take it as a sign. He wasn't supposed to write anything tonight.

He got suddenly very excited at the prospect of going to bed and a grin crossed his face.  A grin which faded rather quickly as he looked at the clock and realized that it was only 4:30 in the afternoon.

What jerk invented illness anyway?