The Mysterious Case of Neelix's Lungs

The Mysterious Case of Neelix's Lungs is the third chapter of The Mysterious Case of Neelix's Lungs (series), written by worffan101 and StarSword. It is an adaptation of the canon episode "Phage".

Episode summary
Lieutenant Harry Kim, Kepa Ayala, and other Voyager crew members, including Ensign Samantha Wildman and Seska, are eating breakfast in Neelix's new mess hall. Ayala finds the macaroni to be unexpectedly spicy, although Harry reassures the apologetic Neelix that it's otherwise fine.

On the Bridge, Celes Tal detects a number of dilithium deposits on a nearby planetoid, several hours away at warp. As Vetar urgently needs spare drive crystals, and Voyager's supplies are themselves relatively low, Captain Stadi and Gul Evek decide to send a mining team down to retrieve enough ore to make the needed spares. Neelix, who has experience with laser drills that the Starfleet, Cardassian, and Maquis crew members lack, offers to show them how to operate basic one-man drills.

Ensign Wildman, who left breakfast due to acute nausea, is told by the EMH, with his customary bluntness, that she is pregnant. The EMH is performing a basic scan when Lieutenant Lyndsay Ballard drags an injured Ensign Tom Paris into Sickbay. Paris had approached and attempted to chat up Lieutenant junior grade B'Elanna Torres, and the half-Klingon woman had broken his nose and one of his ribs. Paris is love-struck despite his injuries.

Stadi and Lieutenant Commander T'pai finish their second training session in telepathic therapy with Vetar's counselor, Glinn Nirymer. Stadi is called away to the Bridge, and Commander Tuvok orders the mining team to beam down to the planetoid.

Gil Ocett and Ayala split up the mining team in order to cover more ground, and the miners spread out through the planetoid's subsurface tunnels. While investigating a small cavern for possible dilithium deposits, Neelix is attacked and has his lungs removed by an unidentified alien. While Doctor T'pai and Lieutenant EMH perform emergency surgery to implant a pair of cybernetic lungs into Neelix's body, Vetar pursues the alien ship. After a chase at warp, the aliens take cover inside an asteroid in another system. Evek orders Vetar in after the aliens, and uses Vetar's disruptors as a laser detection grid to reveal the ship when its sensor masking proves to a match for the Cardassian warship's sensors. The aliens attempt to flee, but are disabled by Voyager as it catches up with Vetar. Stadi, Tuvok, and Ayala, accompanied by a security team, interrogate the aliens in the Brig. Introducing themselves as Dereth and Motura, citizens of the Vidiian Sodality, the two men explain the horrifying disease, known as the Phage, that has ravaged the Vidiian people and all but obliterated their society. T'pai and Tuvok broker a deal with the Vidiians; maps, Vidiian immunosuppressant technology, and guaranteed safe passage through Vidiian territory in exchange for Federation organ-cloning and cybernetic organ replacement technology as a more palatable and effective method of slowing the progress of the Phage.

As the episode ends, Stadi and Evek discuss an advanced nearby species called the Sikarians that should have supplies that they can trade for.

Memorable quotes
''"Honestly, pilots...they never care about their health!  Worse than Captains, even!" ''

''"I think I'm in love." ''

-- Lieutenant EMH and Ensign Tom Paris.



''“Evek to Ocett! What happened?”''

''“Something stole his lungs, my Gul! I’m in Voyager’s infirmary right now, he can’t breathe!”''

''“Sorry, Ocett, I think your transmission came through garbled. I heard ‘something stole Neelix’s lungs’.”''

“Confirm, sir! Something transported his lungs right out of his body!”

-- Gul Aman Evek, Gil Kerani Ocett, and Dalin Hogue Marritza.

''“Ayala, we’re interrogating prisoners, not occupying a planet. Isn’t that overkill?”''

“Captain, there’s no such thing as ‘overkill’.”

“Yeah, there’s only ‘open fire’ and ‘I need to reload’,”

-- Captain Veronica Stadi, Peter Durst, and Kepa Ayala.

''"You hate us for taking organs from live subjects? You think we have no justification? I do it because I’ve seen people killed, families torn apart, states broken, hell, half the Sodality practically collapsed by the Phage. It adapts to every damn thing we throw at it, it kills half the people it hits slowly and painfully and leaves the rest rotting alive—I will do anything to stop it. Anything at all. And maybe that makes me a monster. Hells, it does, I won’t lie to you. I kill people on a weekly, even daily basis. This disease… it’s not just a plague, to us, it’s like a living thing, a monster… we hate the Phage. Hate it. We’ve hated the Phage for so long, it’s festered in our souls." ''

-- Dereth