Title: Doctor's Logs 35
Author: Istannor
Series: TOS
Part: 1/1
Rating: [PG 13]
Codes:
Summary: McCoy deals with his own powerlessness, when an
away team is missing, with his Captain.

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 35

We've been here 12 days.  I should've known it was too good
to be true.  I was enjoying the hell out of this place,
until our away team went missing.  Of course, it was the one
Jim was heading.  He could find trouble in the middle of a
vat of whipping cream and single women.  Damn.

I feel sick to my stomach.  Scotty is so upset, he lost his
accent. Uhura is underneath her console. She mumbled
something about tracking the subspace transceiver on the
shuttle, even when it is turned off. She read it in a
journal somewhere. Spock is even acting strangely.

He and I got into an argument.  He insisted I stay on board
the ship while he sends out a rescue squad.  I think I
should be with the search team in case there are injuries
among the missing.  He wants M'Benga to go with them.  Screw
that.  I'm the CMO and I should get to decide who goes and
who stays.  He's giving me some claptrap about M'Benga
having Vulcan training that could help them.

What damn difference will Vulcan mental discipline make if
you find yourself having to put somebody's gut back in their
abdominal cavity? Telepathy won't find Jim.  Telepathy won't
resuscitate shit. We broke off the discussion before it got
ugly.  I hate it when he goes all Vulcan on me.  I'm better
at trauma than M'Benga.  Evan's better with the nervous
system, infectious diseases and the eyes.  We know who can
do what and it should be my decision on who goes with the
team.  Jim always lets me decide.

Damn Vulcan.

Spock tries to act like nothing is out of the ordinary.  We
are following regulations involving a missing member of a
command team on an unexplored world. We're on rule 23.456b,
as if rules and regs find men. I know better.  There's no
way in hell that ship is supposed to disappear on a planet
with no damn predators.  The Cousteau is an exploratory
vessel equipped for Deep Ocean research.  Every Starship
carries one now.  It's not made for long trips in space, but
it is space-worthy, in a rudimentary sort of way.  That
means we could find that damn ship anywhere.

They last reported in over the Southern Hemisphere.  Scotty
tells me Jim was planning on investigating some unusual
readings the robot probes had brought back.  I saw those
readings because I look at anything with biological
implications.  The readings didn't look anything like the
stuff I've seen before.  They were strong, but the
biorhythms were the strangest thing I've ever seen in
aquatic, non-hibernating, and/or suspended life forms.  None
of us had a clue what it was, but a few of us thought it was
some huge form of living coral, or a massive school of fish.
Spock didn't have any better guess than the rest of us.  So,
Jim decided to go investigate. I can just hear him saying:
'It might be fun.'

I was busy with some samples of stuff that I thought might
have a value as a nutritional supplement, and Spock was
salivating over some anomalous structures on one of the
larger islands.  He suspected the structure were
artificially constructed.  Jim was bored.  You could see it
in the way his eyes wandered.  We were too safe, too calm,
and everything was too routine.  I think he feels
superfluous at times like that, so he was eager to lead a
team to investigate the mystery.

I'm told we lost contact with their team two hours ago. I
didn't find out there was a problem until 1hour and twenty-
three minutes after the fact. Spock has called up all the
crew and we're moving the ship to a stationary orbit over
the last reported position of Jim's ship.  Right now, Spock
and I are barely talking to each other.  I know I should do
better in situations like this, but he really pisses me off.
How dare he not let me know Jim was missing? He said, there
was no cause to alarm me, and there was nothing I could do,
so he saw no purpose in informing me. How about the fact
that Jim is my damn friend?

He has cut all interaction down to a bare minimum and barely
explains what he's doing.  I can't get used to this and I
don't plan on trying to get used to his style of command.  I
came on board to serve with Kirk, not the great green stone
face.

One thing I've noticed, when Spock thinks Jim is in mortal
danger, or hurt, he gets to be a minimalist.  He won't even
argue.  So, the fact that he still argues with me means he
thinks Jim must be alive and well.  It's not logical, but it
works.  Trust me.

Pause Log

That was Spock.  They found a signal from the Cousteau.
It's coming from about 1,500 m below the surface of the
water.  He says there are life signals for all the Crew ...
except one.  I know who my money is on for being the missing
one.  What the hell were they up to? The shuttle won't
respond, so Spock has three shuttles getting ready to launch
with full security and rescue squads on board.  M'Benga is
going with them.  I lost that battle.  Spock suspects they
may have run up on something biological and wants me ready
to treat, or create antidotes based on Evan's readings and
clinical evaluations. He says it may be something
biological, then he makes this damn cryptic comment about
strange sensations over the site where the signals are
coming from. I asked him what the hell, 'strange sensations'
mean. All he said was: "I have nothing concrete, Doctor. I
will inform you when I do."

I don't like this, dammit.  I should be down there.  I hate
waiting up here for news.

I've got to go.  Shit.

Pause Log

Resume Log

They have the crew, at least everybody except Jim. Damn,
damn, damn. I told you. Shit, I told you. He'd better find
Jim. I should have been down there. That pointy-eared,
green-blooded, cold-hearted, idiot should have let me go
down there.

Something's wrong with all the people they found. They're
all unconscious with identical readings to the ones we
couldn't explain earlier. At least they're alive, which
gives us a better chance for Jim to be alive.

Damn and double damn. I have to go, the samples are coming
up and I need to double-check everything before we bring the
crew back on board. We can't let anything infectious on this
ship. M'Benga already said It isn't any biological agent
involved, but I have to sign off, too. You never know if the
planet-bound person's judgement has already been affected.

I gotta go.

Pause Log


The crew we recovered seems to be medically stable.  Their
blood and tissue samples don't show any virus's, toxins,
bacterial agents, plasmids, parasites, alien fungi, chemical
agents, or spores.  We ran all of them through the
biofilters four times before we allowed them on board.  I
couldn't find a damn thing in any of them that didn't
register on their scans before they went down to the surface
for the first time.  So why the hell are all of them
unconscious?  Their brain waves correspond to REM sleep.
So, all I can say is that they're probably dreaming.  What
the hell am I supposed to do; kiss them to wake them up?

I have the computer working on some things. I tried regular
stimulants, nada. Then I tried a little direct cortical
stimulation, nothing. I went to the limbus, because it
controls waking states. I might as well have spit in a cup
and tried that.

Shit.

M'Benga is still on the surface. We haven't found Jim. I've
talked to Spock and run some things past him. He's no help
either. In fact, originality ain't Spock's forte. That's Jim
bailiwick and Jim is nowhere to be found. Spock keeps saying
Jim is alive. I have to hope he's right. I wonder what
statistics he's using to bank on that. I'm tired of waiting
to find out whose dead and who's alive. I'm really tired of
having to find Jim and piece him back together.  I. . .I
don't want to lose him. He's my best friend and the best . .
.no scratch that; he's not the best. You have to be peaceful
to be the best. He kills too easily to be called a peaceful
man, or a merciful man.  He's the most complex, heroic man
I've ever met and I won't stay out here without him. Shit,
shit, shit.

<beep> Damn, there's the computer. Soup's on. The samples
are ready.

Pause Log

Resume Dictation

Eu-fricking-reeka! I found the answer! Six talking, moving,
oriented, young folks are sitting in my sickbay. Damn, this
feels good. Believe it or not, a derivative of Ritalin
worked. It used to be for Autistics along with low dose
Saravi. The drug combination allowed Autistics to screen out
the psychic noise that used to keep them from being able to
live in the real world. It is also used to counteract some
of the affects of Suspended Animation. I gave them each a
dose and wham. They woke up. I got the idea from some
articles I'd been reading on Borellian sleeping sickness.
Who knew?

They're radiating. . .I'm not sure what to call it. Maybe
the best term is --peace.

They, every damn one of them,  said they remember a sound,
almost like a choir or a heartbeat, but they can't sing or
hum any sounds. The pieces of it are fading so fast, we can
barely record their words before the memories fade. Sigmund
says they're all emotionally healthy. I'll try to regress
them under Subconscious Sigmund and see if any pictures play
back. Memory is a funny thing, but they all remember Jim
being on the ship before they fell asleep.

Where the fuck did he go? Dammit, sometimes I think he does
this on purpose. He's going to drive me up the damn wall.
Why didn't they wait until he was older and a little more
cautious before they gave him a Starship? A few more years
from now, he'll realize he's not immortal and he's not the
center of the damn universe.

Just take a scalpel and slit my throat, why don't you. That
would be better than waiting with nothing to do.

Spock took an inventory of everything on the shuttle. One
EVA suit is missing. Our First Officer is still on the
surface. He won't come back up, even to talk to the crew in
Sickbay.





End Log