Title: Doctor's Logs 27
Author: Istannor
Series: TOS
Part: 1/1
Rating: [PG 13]
Codes:
Summary: McCoy has difficulty accepting the loss of a
patient.

Disclaimer: These are the characters of Paramount and
Viacom, they own them I only check 'em out from the library.
I
promise to bring 'em back.



Doctor's Logs 27


Shit. Shit. Damn.

Stop. Try it again, McCoy. No, dammit, that's what I wanted
to say. Damn it all. There is no reason that girl had to
die. Damn. I tried, really tried until my chest hurt and she
died anyway. I know I'm not God, but I should've saved her.

This is too hard.

I can't do this anymore.

I can't.

She was just a baby, only 25 years old. Beautiful golden
skin, with long jet black hair and a smile that made
everyone want to laugh. Her name was Li Chu. Her friends
called her Bambi, because her eyes were so big and dark. She
died today at 0400 hours of a chest wound that took out half
of her left ventricle and most of her left lower lobe.

Jim sat with her until the end. He says it was his fault.
He's wrong. It was my fault. I should've saved her. Poor
Baby.

Oh, damn, where's that bottle? There it is. I'm going to
need more than this. Later, I'll get another one later.

I sent Jim away. I couldn't stand his guilt and mine being
in the same room. Spock  is with Jim, I guess. At least he
left with him. Maybe I should check.

Pause

Resume

Yeah, Spock's with him. I called. He says Jim's just sitting
staring out of the viewport on the forward observation deck.
I don't know what to do with him; Jim, I mean. He won't
drink, fight, scream, cry, or screw, when he's like this. He
just sits and we all feel helpless, because there's nothing
we can do to help him. If he breaks, we break. At least I
know that after a fifth of Bourbon, I'll feel so bad from my
hangover, my emotional pain will look small in comparison.
Being drunk is not the best defense, but it works for me.
I'm planning on getting thoroughly drunk today. I'm off-duty
and what I do on my own time is my business.

She should still be alive.

If I had gotten there just a minute faster. Or, if the
bypass machine was included on the emergency kit for away
teams, I could've bypassed her whole damaged myocardium,
both damn lungs, and preserved renal and brain function.
Then with a little heart bud, I could've grown her a new
damn heart while she was on total bypass. Instead, I was too
frigging slow, and there's no second chance.

Why the hell did I ever choose medicine? People die when I
mess up. I hate messing up. I hate losing a patient, any
patient. I hate losing period. Shit. When I walk down the
hall, I feel like everyone is staring at me and saying to
themselves: "McCoy screwed up and somebody died."

Why the hell were we on that Godforsaken rock? Stupid
tourists. If they had followed their damn flight plan, they
would've been nowhere near that place. They wouldn't have
gotten hit by the ion storm and crash-landed. They wouldn't
have been captured. We wouldn't have had to rescue them, and
Li Chu would still be smiling.

That's right, McCoy, why don't you blame the victims?

Jim was holding her chest and trying to force her to live,
when I got there. Spock was standing over Jim, firing away
into the rocks on either side. Kids were screaming in the
rocks where Jim had hidden them. Adults were praying out
loud as shots hit the rocks and forced them to hold their
children, or themselves. They all thought they were going to
die.

Spock and the rest of our team made the bad guys keep their
heads down until we could get there and get them off that
damn rock. It wasn't supposed to be inhabited. Who the hell
knew that some renegade Tholians and Orions had decided to
set up shop on a rock so they could raid Klingon space?

Li Chu was down there to help move the tourists and scavenge
the ship. The Captain of the vessel-- The Nautilus-- died
bringing that ship down into the rocks. 56 passengers from
Cestus 3 out for a lark. The idiot tour guide insisted on
taking a swing towards the great Nebulae, to get a closer
look. Space is not an amusement park. The rides kill out
here. The brilliant one who had that idea died with the
Captain. That left 51 pure tourists and seven crew on their
own on a rock in the middle of nowhere.

We went down to get everyone and everything off of said
rock. Leave no trace, Starfleet regs. We sent 32 people down
there. Only one died. The rest are okay. Six wounded; all
doing well. I thought Jim was one of the wounded, but it was
all Li's blood.

No, when I think about it,  Jim is one of the wounded. I
don't have any medicine for a commander's
responsibility...or guilt.

There were 34 pirates dug into the interior of the world.
They had two ships sunk into a natural cavern they had
hidden behind a camouflaged door. They hid all traces of
their existence behind shields that were pretty
sophisticated; stolen Tholian technology, I guess. Jim said
it wasn't Klingon or Federation.

I guess their shields worked both ways, because we were as
much of a surprise to them as they were to us. One of them
got startled when they came up from the cavern and found
Starfleet security scrambling around in the rocks. He fired
at our people and hit three. Maybe the weapon's discharge
brought the rest of them out to attack us, I don't know. I
haven't had the time to ask Jim. I know they turned on a
force- field so we couldn't beam out anyone who was close to
their hide-out's entrance. Luckily for us, their hand
weapons were not Starfleet issue, or even phasers. They were
what we call dirty Guns. They are cheap side arms that give
off short bursts of laser fire that leave nasty holes in
people. The things are really cheap and easy to pick up on
the open market. They are also illegal as hell.

Jim, Spock, Li Chu, Jones, Marlbousk, Dilas, and Sanchez
were stranded on the wrong side of the field, along with
most of the remaining tourists.

We had to wait for Scotty to break through the forcefield.
Scotty put a hole so deep into the side of the planet,
there's mist at the bottom of it. It knocked out the force-
field though. He attacked the rear of the mountain and went
through rock to the shield's power source. Stupid idiots
didn't think of that particular approach, so it was
undefended. Or maybe they did, and didn't expect to have to
fight a Starship.

I was on the other side of the field from Jim and Spock.
They were in the middle of a fire-fight with eight of the
pirates, when one of the bastards snuck up on a little girl.

Li got shot jumping in front of an 8 year old girl named
Chinyere. Some Orion bastard was going to kill the girl to
prove he meant business and Li Chu leapt at his gun. Jim
says she probably was afraid to use her phaser because, if
she missed, she'd hit the girl. She jumped on the man and
wrestled him to the ground. They rolled around a little, but
he outweighed her by 30 kilo's and was able to get up first
and get the phaser. Jim saw it and raced towards them, so he
could get a shot at the guy, but the bad guys kept shooting
at Jim to slow him down.

The asshole shot her at point blank range.

I'm not sure who killed that man. He got hit by several
Starfleet issue phasers, but I know who one of them belonged
to, Jim. There were only little pieces left of the guy.

I had more to work with and the result was exactly the same.
They both are dead. The pirate and the heroine, Li Chu.
Where's the justice in that?

All of the Pirates are dead now. Jim killed them. They
decided to continue to fight, even after we got back to the
ship. Jim stood on the bridge in the shirt and pants still
wet with Li Chu's blood and smashed their cavern into little
itty bitty bits with the Enterprise's phasers. The strange
thing was, he would've let them live if they had
surrendered, but once they fought, he had no mercy in his
soul. I watched the bridge tapes from yesterday. He is one
cold son-of-a-gun when he makes a decision to kill. He
finished them off, then he left the bridge and came and sat
by Li Chu until she died. I let all of  her friends in to be
with her at the end. It was the least...and the most I could
do.

She never regained consciousness.

I'd like to think she heard him when he told her that all
the children were safe, and all the bad guys were dead. I
really pray she heard him. If she didn't, her friends did
and that counts for alot, too. At least they think there's
justice in the universe, even if I know better.

This isn't working. I don't want to get drunk. At least not
alone. I'm going to go find Jim. I think we might both need
to talk. I don't even mind if Spock is till there.

Who am I fooling? Spock will be there. Lately, he's always
there. I wonder what will happen to him if Jim ever dies?

I don't want to see it.

Spock can watch us get drunk and make sure we get back to
our cabins. It will be a study in human mourning for him. At
least something good can come out of this.

I better get another bottle; it's going to be really hard to
get Jim drunk.

End log