Five-Minute "The Quickening"
by Derek Dean

Kira: QUARK!
Quark: What advertisements?
Kira: Don't play dumb. Look at what happens when I try to access emergency life support controls!
Screen: COME TO QUARK'S! (You will be redirected to emergency life support controls in 15... 14... 13... 12...)
Quark: I put in a Skip link!
Kira: GAH! Whoever gave Quark that book on annoying Earth advertisements will PAY!

Man: Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!
Woman: I'm one!
Bashir: You're not dead.
Woman: I'm not? Well, I will be soon. I've quickened, see?
Bashir: You may be able to get better.
Woman: No, I won't. I'll be stone dead in a moment. -- Waitaminute, who are you?
Man: Must be an alien.
Woman: Why?
Man: He hasn't got lesions all over him.

Bashir: We can treat your illness. We're from Starfleet and we're main characters; that makes us smart, charming, and invulnerable.
Trevean: We were once all those things. Then the Dominion came, and they showed us that if there is one constant in this universe, it's Death.
Bashir: By giving you this blight?
Trevean: Yes, a disease that is passed on to our descendants. We are born, quicken, and die.
Bashir: Pfft. Who doesn't?

Ekoria: Can you cure me?
Bashir: I'm a doctor, not a -- Oh, sure! Right this way.

Kira: Jem'Hadar are coming by the system, so we'd better leave.
Bashir: LEAVE? But I can cure this plague! In hours, if not minutes! And they'll hold many celebrations in my honor and name all their boys Julian and all their girls --
Dax: Jadzia?
Bashir: No, Julia! Because of me! Me! ME!

Ekoria: Thanks for helping me. Would you like to eat some food?
Bashir: Great idea! We only brought five loaves of bread and two fishes.
Ekoria: I was saving this food for my death, but you're such a miracle worker, I think I'd like you to eat my last supper.
Dax: Oh please don't add to his god complex.

Bashir: I've scanned one person, but I need to scan more to better work on a cure. Will you be my lab rat?
Crowd: No!
Bashir: Look, here is a boy with a broken arm. I just wave my magic technology over the boy's arm... and -- Voila!
Boy: OWWW!
Bashir: Sorry. ...I turn my magic technology the right way and wave it over the boy's arm....

Ekoria: Sorry about the crowd. This blight has made my people worship death. When I was young, I drank chocolate milk every night, hoping to find the next morning I had Quikened.
Bashir: But you stopped when you became pregnant?
Ekoria: Yes, do you think your magic technology could show me what the baby will look like grown up?
Bashir: Don't be silly. Besides, what if he had your forehead ridges?

Eprom: I cancelled my death for you.
Bashir: If you've cancelled your death; doesn't that mean you're going to... live?
Eprom: That's your job.

Ekoria: Dax wants me to tell you "Eprom's doing better." She said you'd know what that means.
Bashir: Yes, thank you. By the way, have I ever told you about Kukalaka?
Ekoria: What's Kukulkan?
Bashir: A giant winged snake, but that's not important right now. Kukalaka was my teddy bear who started me on my path to becoming a doctor after he had the stuffing beat out of him.

Dax: Julian, Eprom's doing worse! Didn't Ekoria deliver the message to you?
Ekoria: Oh, you said worse? My bad.
Julian: Oh no! The electrical fields are causing the virus to mutate and quicken faster! Of course "quicken faster" might be redundant....
Dax: Julian, this is shocking! How do we halt the virus?
Julian: Maybe if we switch to static electricity. Quick, rub this balloon on your head!

Bashir: They're all dead. Trevean came in and poisoned them all. Just giving the quickened a quick end, I guess.
Dax: How did he know to appear at just that time?
Bashir: Sigh. I had such hopes. The celebrations in my honor. My statue. The women. Sigh...
Dax: And was it right for our patients to have taken the poison?
Bashir: Meh. Who are we to judge the quickened dead?

Bashir: There is no cure. It's just so depressing.
Dax: Julian, you were arrogant to think you could find a cure. Now you're arrogant to think there isn't a cure. In short, you're just plain arrogant.
Bashir: Way to cheer me up.

Ekoria: Do you like the mural my husband painted? He sacrificed our clothing budget for years in order to buy the paint he needed.
Bashir: Ekoria! You've quickened!
Ekoria: Yes, this combined with my pregnancy makes me double-quick.

Bashir: I've sent Dax back to DS9, but I'm going to stay here with you for the necessary two weeks before you can give birth.
(2 Weeks Later)
Ekoria: AAAAAGH! Couldn't you have skipped until after the labor!
(After the labor)
Ekoria: Thank you!
Bashir: Inconceivable! The child doesn't have the blight!
Ekoria: That's nice. I'm going to die now.
Bashir: Geez, even my victory comes with a swift quicken the teeth!

Bashir: I can't cure the plague, but I do have a vaccine that will produce healthy babies.
Trevean: Hooray! You have done us a great service, Doctor! We will hold a few celebrations in your honor and name all our pets Julian or Julia depending on their gender!
Bashir: Meh. It's a start.

Sisko: Good work, Doctor. We're all very pleased.
Bashir: Thanks, but I'm still trying to cure the illness. And I'll never rest, never stop, until I have a cure!
Sisko: Or until the next episode.
Bashir: Yes, or that.
(Bashir continues work on the cure until the next episode at Ludicrous Speed)

THE END

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