The Joanna Protocol

Chapter 2

"He that hath...children hath given hostages to fortune..."

Francis Bacon

Jim's heart felt heavy with dread, as he made his way to the Sick Bay. He entered to find it peaceful, quiet, and dimly lit, no crew member was ill or injured this morning. The nurses and techs were all quietly busy at their stations and when they saw him, smiled, saluted or waved at him. He couldn't bring himself to smile back. He spied Christine Chapel, sitting at her station working on her padds. She looked up, smiled, then the smile slipped from her face when she looked at him.

"Where's Bones, Christine?"

"In the back, doing some drug inventory. Is there something wrong, Captain?" Her blue eyes were wide with concern.

"Yes, something is very wrong." Jim sighed heavily. He knew the news about Joanna would be all over the ship by the time he, Bones and Spock left in the morning. There was no way to avoid it. They would need a cover story, but he saw nothing wrong in telling as much of the truth as was possible. "I just got a personal comm from Earth. Joanna McCoy is very sick. Bones needs to get back to Earth as soon as possible."

Christine paled. "Is it very bad?" she whispered. "It will kill Dr. McCoy if something happens to Joanna."

"It's bad. She's in the hospital and her doctors have put her in a light coma until the drugs she's been given start working, but they want Bones to come because Jocelyn, her mom is also sick, and can't really take care of Joanna." Jim's hazel eyes looked with anguish at Christine's blue eyes. "I have to tell Bones about Baby Girl. I didn't want him to hear it from a comm call."

"This will be so hard for him," she whispered. "He dotes on that child."

"I know he does, but don't worry, Chris. I won't let him go alone. Spock and I are going with him. I spoke personally to Admiral Nogura and he gave us permission to travel with Bones."

Christine looked worried, relieved and impressed all at the same time. "Thank God, you'll be with him. He'll need you, but you must have pulled several rabbits out of your hat to get the Admiral to agree to both you and Mr. Spock leaving the ship."

Jim looked grim. "There was no way I was letting Bones go alone and the Admiral owes this crew after New York and Vulcan.1. I just reminded him gently of the success of those two missions, and he saw the wisdom of my request and our upcoming stellar cartography mission is pretty routine."

Christine nodded. The crew knew how much Jim hated trading on his success and fame for himself, but for his crew he'd do whatever he had to do.

"Go on, then, Captain. It won't get any easier for waiting." She looked somberly at McCoy's office. "Do you want me to go in with you, or at least be available?"

"Thanks, Christine, but you know Bones won't want you to see him if he breaks down. It's that Southern pride of his," Jim smiled bleakly.

"I know, but if you need me, I'll be out here."

Jim nodded. He walked back to Bones' store room and stood at the door looking down at his best friend as he bent down to count his medical supplies. Was it Jim's imagination, or did Bones' bent back look more vulnerable and fragile all of a sudden. According to Dr. M'Benga, he was fully recovered from his injuries on Sansora, but suddenly Jim felt that perhaps this was not the case. Jim made a small noise, not wanting to startle his CMO. McCoy straightened up and turned to face the door. His face broke out in a big grin. "Hey Jim boy, what brings you to the bowels of Sick Bay?" His grin dimmed when he saw Jim's pale and somber face. "What's the matter, Jimmy? Is somethin' wrong?"

"Yeah, Bones. Something is wrong."

"Not with your mother, or Peter is it?" Bones asked, looking suddenly alarmed.

"No, they're fine," Jim said, swallowing hard. "Sit down, please."

Bones frowned, but did as he asked. "Who?"

"It's Joanna. Baby Girl is very sick, Nogura commed me a few minutes ago to tell me."

McCoy paled to a deathly hue. He looked stunned. He clutched at the padd in his hands, his knuckles turning white. "Joanna? But how, Jim. It's impossible! She's always been as healthy as a little horse. Jocelyn is meticulous about her health, her vaccinations, her eating habits. She looked great a couple of days ago, when I talked to her, you were there, you saw. She looked healthy and happy."

"I know, Bones," said Jim, thinking with pain about the adorable little girl who was always so happy to talk to her Uncle Jim. "But according to Admiral Nogura, there's a lot more to her sudden illness." He pulled up a chair directly in front of Bones, reached out, put a warm hand around McCoy's neck, and leaned in to pull their foreheads together. He felt Bones shudder.

"Tell me," he said.

Jim told him everything that the Admiral had shared with him. Bones' blue eyes looked shocked and horrified.

"Joanna is stable for now. The doctors have put her and Jocelyn in a medically induced coma and in stasis until they figure out what to do to help them. SFM wants you there to consult; you're the Federation expert on Choriocytosis. We're leaving in the morning for SFM; The Magellan is picking us up at 0800."

"Us?" McCoy asked, his blue eyes hopeful. "Are you goin' with me?"

"Us," Jim answered firmly. "Do you think I'd let you go alone, Bones?" He got up and paced up and down. "I sort of offered to help out, to find out who's behind this and why, so I could go with you. We have to do all we can to help Joanna. I also volunteered Spock to help out with the Science end of it Nogura approved his going with us."

McCoy drew in a deep, shuddering breath. "Jim...I'm glad you're goin' with me, Spock too. No one's better with the research." McCoy looked down at his shaking hands. He had to pull himself together; Joanna and Jocelyn were depending on him. "I better get started with my packing and..."

"Bridge to Captain Kirk," Uhura's voice interrupted what Bones was going to say. Jim moved to the wall comm to answer. "Kirk here."

"Captain, I have a priority one squirt for you. Arrangements have been made for housing for you, Dr. McCoy and Mr. Spock at a SFM guest house. Location is being piped to your personal comm now." Uhura's voice was strictly professional devoid of curiosity as to why her Captain, his First Officer, and his CMO were leaving the ship. "Shall I send a confirmation, Sir?"

"Yes, please, Uhura, and call a meeting of the command crew in my briefing room in ten minutes."

"Jim," McCoy said, "I'll have to tell the Sick Bay staff why I'm leaving. I'll put Geoffrey in charge. He'll do fine, he's a great doctor. Christine will help him out."

"Christine already knows. I told her on my way in. You go ahead and brief the medical staff, and I'll be at the meeting with the command crew. You don't need to come to the meeting. The ship will do fine without us for this mission, it's a routine star mapping mission and I'll put Scotty in charge."

"I'm sorry to take you away from your ship, Jim." McCoy said softly, looking regretfully at his Captain. He knew how much Jim hated to leave someone else in charge of his beloved ship.

"Bones." Jim's hazel eyes looked into the troubled, worried blue ones. "The only important thing to me right now is getting Joanna well, and the only other important thing is my being with you to help in any way I can. The ship and crew will be fine without me." He searched McCoy's face. "Will you be okay?"

"I will be once I see Jo and we get started on finding the cure."

"Good. I'll see you after the briefing."

Jim walked to the lift, reviewing what he had to do before leaving and who to include in the Need to Know list. Scotty, of course, as Acting Captain in charge of the ship. Uhura needed to be included. She would be able to troll the All Worlds communication net for scuttlebutt about possible bioterrorism; she had many friends on many worlds and maybe someone had heard something. All the Command crew Jim decided, in case he and Spock needed some sort of backup for any reason. His crew was the very best in the fleet, and he trusted them implicitly.

He also had to let his mother know about Joanna being ill and that they'd all be back on Earth tomorrow. She would never forgive him if he didn't. She was very fond of Joanna. She and Peter had gotten to know the child well when she had visited the farm at Christmas. Peter and Joanna had become friends and the little girl had had a lovely time at the farm. Jim swallowed the lump in his throat, thinking of the adorable, energetic and affectionate little girl, now unconscious and terribly sick. Besides that, Winona and Peter loved Bones and Jim knew his mother would want to speak with him and offer what comfort she could.

He walked into the briefing room to find his command crew already waiting for him. All eyes turned to him, faces somber and worried. It was only mid-morning, and Jim already felt like he'd run a marathon. "Good morning," he said. "I won't keep you waiting. Dr. McCoy will not be with us this morning. Admiral Nogura has given me some very tough news for him, and for me as well. Jocelyn and Joanna McCoy and ten other people were targets of a bio terrorism attack with a mutated form of Choriocytosis. "Looking at the shocked faces in front of him, he was struck that even Spock's usually impassive face, registered shock. Jim brought them up to date on the information Admiral Nogura had given him on the bio terrorism attack. "I haven't had time to tell Mr. Spock, but Dr. McCoy, Mr. Spock and I will be leaving the ship and boarding The Magellan tomorrow at 0800. My assignment is to find out who did this. Dr. McCoy's and Mr. Spock's assignments are with SFM; to find the cure for the bio engineered mutated virus. He looked at Scotty. "You'll have the con, Mr. Scott. Continue with the cartography mission, as we've planned. However, I need for the command crew to be on alert in case we need you."

"Aye, Captain. Dae' not worry about us, Sir. You just take care of our good doctor and his wee bairn. The ship will be fine."

"Mr. Sulu, Mr. Chekov, all of you, this is classified information. We don't want to start a panic on Earth or anywhere else. FCDCs on all Federation worlds have been informed and they're on alert." He looked somberly at his crew. "We'll do all we can to get to the bottom of this. Our main priority, are of course the patients, finding an antidote or a cure. Then it's finding the bio terrorists. Lt. Uhura, I need for you to use all your contacts to see if there's any scuttlebutt about the bio terrorist attack and who may be behind them. Anything at all that you hear, pipe it to me immediately and use my encryption code."

"Aye, Sir." Uhura made notes in her comm. Her contacts were extensive across the quadrant and she'd get started right after the meeting.

"Captain," she said, voicing everyone's concern. "How is Dr. McCoy?"

"He's hanging in there, Nyota. He'll be better once we're dirt side and he can see Joanna and begin working with the other doctors on the cure." Jim sighed. "As far as who did this, right now we don't have much to go on. My plan is to begin with the shuttle company and find out all we can about the company, the employees, their flight plans, who had access to the shuttle, and also investigate all the passengers, and the pilot."

"Captain," Chekov spoke up. "Is there any chance this could have been a suicide mission, that one of the passengers boarded the shuttle to infect everyone and take their own life?"

"A very good question, Mr. Chekov. That's why I've asked Admiral Nogura to recruit Commander Bradford from SIS to help us. He has access to many classified data bases that the rest of us don't."

"Captain, if I may, I would like to reach out to the Vulcan healers to see if they have anything of value on the disease to share. As you know, Choriocytosis is quite dangerous for Vulcans and other copper based species. The Vulcan healers and The Vulcan Science Academy have been working on a vaccine for many years...to no avail thus far, I am afraid," he added, "but perhaps some of their research may be of assistance to Dr. McCoy."

Jim looked at Spock, and saw the worry in the soft brown eyes. He and McCoy might argue and complain about, and to each other, but there was a deep respect between them and although they would die rather than admit it, there was affection and friendship as well. That someone would harm Joanna, McCoy's only child was a deep personal affront to Spock and to all of them.

The briefing room door swished open, and Dr. McCoy walked in. Uhura jumped up and hugged him hard. "Leonard, we're all so sorry about Joanna." She stepped back and looked deep into the kind blue eyes, which were blurry and red from worry and unshed tears. "She's going to get better, Leonard. I know she is; and all of us are going to do all we can to find who did this to her and to the others."

McCoy patted her gently on her soft brown cheek. "I know you will, darlin'. Thank you, thank you to all of you." He slipped into his usual chair and sat back. "What did I miss, Jim?"

"Bones," Jim said gently. "You don't have to be here, Spock and I would have caught you up once we were on The Magellan. You need to get some rest. I doubt you'll get much once we get to SFM."

"Jim," McCoy said, swallowing hard. "I gotta' keep busy until we get back to Earth. I've already packed, and Chapel kicked me out of Sick Bay, so please just let me stay, okay?"

Jim shifted restlessly in his chair. The need to help Bones, to ease his worry and fear for Joanna filled him. He felt helpless and angry at the nameless monsters who would harm innocent beings and small children to achieve some vicious and misguided goal. "If that's what you want, it's fine. We're almost finished anyway."

"Does anyone have anything to add?" He looked around the table. Their worried and troubled eyes met his own. "Captain," Sulu spoke up. "If there's anything we can do to help the investigation, we'll do it. I'm only sorry we won't be on Earth to help you and Mr. Spock." He glanced at the doctor. "You do know, Dr. McCoy, that we'd all do anything for you and your family, right?

McCoy looked at his friends, and then down at his tightly clasped hands. "Yes, I do know that, Hikaru, and I thank all of you." He stood up, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. "I think I will go try to get some rest now, Jim."

Jim nodded, his throat tight. "You're dismissed, Bones. I'll see you later."

"See y'all later."

There was silence after the doctor walked out the door. Jim stood up! "Damn it!" He said, and walked out the door after his friend.

1 see Ring of Treason and The Gift of Celebration