oh gosh. Now I'm trying to remember.
The rocks were actually some foreign substance that were sent out from an alien planet. When a person picked a rock up, a little needle would emerge and inject the person with some kind of virus or agent. If the person had some disease or something wrong with them, their body wouldn't be able to handle it and would die. Otherwise they would get sick for a couple of days and then develop the ability to communicate telepathically with everybody else who was infected.
The rebel team eventually found a lone scientist who was working in an underground lab and had developed an antidote.
The main girl in the story was captured and infected, but they managed to break her out and save her. They also destroyed the gateway that was being built for the alien race to travel through. The first guy to be infected died, but I think almost everybody else was saved.
