Title: Doctor's Logs Author: Istannor Series: TOS Part: 1/1 Rating: [PG 13] Codes: Summary: McCoy talks about an incident on Ekos. Readers will remember that this particular incident caused the Federation to strengthen its rules and regulations regarding the use of Planetary observers. 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 29 Sweet Jesus on the rock, why can't we catch a break sometimes? I am really tired of screwing up and this time I did it with too tight boots on. Professor John Gill is dead. Some guy named Melakon killed him; shot him through a glass window that should have been bulletproof. It means we don't have to carry him back to stand trial in the Federation. He couldn't resist the temptation to try out his ideas on an entire world. He said the Nazis had the most disciplined civilization modern man had ever developed and he was going to use it as a model, but make it work for good; that's ridiculous. Nothing that panders to the lowest common denominator in the soul of man can be used to work for good. Nazis. I hate those guys. What's so good about a discipline that spreads hate, death, and destruction across two continents and resurfaced periodically until the Eugenics War, to plague the world again. The Eugenics tyrants wiped out the last Nazi holdouts. The Supermen didn't cotton to anybody else claiming to be the super race. Best thing the Eugenics idiots ever did. When Jim and Spock went down there, they found the civilization wholly converted by Gill's misplaced idealism. That's why the Prime Directive was written, dammit, to keep fools and idealistic demagogues from running roughshod over whole worlds. Gill would have faced the same penalty that Kleinschmidt faced: death. It's a moot point, but there is no Gill to argue it. He's dead. Jim and Spock are back aboard and the Nazi government has already been redirected towards more peaceful directions by the Zeons. The Federation is sending a team out to defuse the situation and help get the government back on line. It's the least we could do since we messed it up in the first place. Talk about messing up. I did it again. Jim ordered me to give Gill a second dose of stimulants to wake him up. The man had more drugs onboard than the law allows. I couldn't. I just couldn't. I didn't know if my meds would kill him or not. I hesitated, and by the time I got ready to think about deciding, some folks busted in on us and I lost my opportunity. It's my fault. I can't make an instant decision to do something that will kill a man. I know Jim can, and I sense Spock can, but I can't, dammit, and I won't. If Jim wants me off the ship because of that, I'll fight him. I'm not going. He needs me. I know what happened with the rest of my hypo. I agree with his decision. I just couldn't make it as fast as he wanted me to. It didn't matter whether Gill got injected, shot, or taken home. He was going to die either way. Jim knew that and he decided to do what he had to do. There's only one problem. Now, he's killed another person he cared for. This time it was Gill, next time it may be me. I know he'll do it, too. I'm afraid, but I'm not going to run out on him. I'm not. I sent him back to his cabin after I fixed the whip marks on his back. I don't think he would've told me he had them if I hadn't seen the blood leaching through his shirt. Even then, he said he was okay. Spock spilled the beans. I think he did it for Jim's sake, because Spock hates being in my sick-bay. Telling on Jim meant Spock was telling on himself. The Nazi's stripped both of them to the waist and beat them. A man lashed them with a whip. Jim said the strangest thing after I asked him if he wanted to talk about being whipped. I thought he might have needed to vent, since a whipping is a very demeaning experience. He just shrugged and said, "I've been whipped before, Bones. It's a lot easier than getting tortured, burned, knifed, or shot." There is nothing in his records about him ever being tortured, or knifed. He has been shot before and I was the one who got him burned. I think he was talking about Charon, but maybe, on second thought, he wasn't. Brrr, I just felt a cold wind run down my spine. I wonder why? Shake it off, McCoy. Okay, it's gone. On some level, I think Jim believes he had it coming. Maybe he was hoping the beating would atone for the killing of his mentor. I don't know, but I bet my guess isn't far off the mark. Spock and I are both a little worried about Jim. Good thing the next mission is mapping in deep space. Maybe will give us all a chance to decompress. Damn, I wish we could have luck be on our side for a change. Maybe with a little luck, Jim will stop asking me to break my Hippocratic Oath, and I'll stop disappointing him.