CHAPTER FOUR

When they arrived in orbit around the colonized moon, two shuttlecrafts departed from the Enterprise. One carried the Captain, Science Officer and Chief Engineer planet-side to make sure the operation was in running order. The other shuttle departed empty save the pilot, but returned to the mother ship with five occupants more several times. It was left to Doctors Scott and McCoy to give complete check-up to all the workers from the colony.

Coming off a busy 12-hour shift of treating mostly minor injuries, Nathan had an hour to eat and decompress from the unpredictable repercussions of being a doctor. Being still, to moving rapidly, to being on his feet, to remaining hunched over for indeterminate amounts of time. He wasn't complaining, it was part of being a doctor—he was just glad that he had started callisthenics otherwise he might have been run into the ground. So he took half-an-hour catnap, and took twenty-minutes to eat, before heading back to the medical bay refreshed. It also didn't hurt that Leonard would be there as well, it was always a comfort to work alongside a friend.

There were four shuttle drop-offs. Five workers each trip, twenty in total; seventeen men, three women. Each doctor would get two patients from each batch, and whomever finished the complete body exam and workup, would take the last in the batch. The two doctors and few nurses were like a well oiled machine. Even though they had hand-scanners and full-body scanners, a physical exam by touch was also required—though the med equipment in this stardate was well advanced, sometimes you discover things better when you use your own hands. All twenty patients were in relatively good health, but few weren't getting enough vitamins and minerals, others work exhausted and had strained muscles.

All were released from the med bay and free to roam the Enterprise, with the exception of being barred from the bridge, engineering, cargo hold the transporter room, and shuttle bay (until it was time for them to go back moon-side). After updating his patients' files, he was on his way to check on his first patient he'd received on his last shift before he got swept away by incoming injuries—he hoped by now that the fever had gone down, otherwise he was in for an even longer shift—when an urgent voice cracked over the bay pickup.

"Dr. McCoy!"

Nathan stopped and glanced back towards McCoy, whose expression was marred with a grimace. Nathan had learned long away that nothing good came when a voice came over the med bay's pickup unit.

"This is McCoy." The MCO replied instantly, alert.

"There vas an explosion at the station and shuttle vill be arriving hot momentarily, injured vill be rushed your way." Lt. Chekov spoke quickly but clearly.

"Time?"

"ETA 12-min."

"How many?" he asked, trying to get as much information as he could before everyone was rushed in at once.

"Five—One critical." McCoy opened his mouth, but the young Russian on the pickup wasn't finished. "Three vorkers from ze station—the keptin and Commander Spock."

"What?!" Nathan and McCoy exclaimed at the same time, but for different reasons—of course Leonard's first concern was the Captain (who always seemed to be there when a explosion happened), and Nathan's first thought would always be for the young Vulcan.

McCoy quickly shook his concern off, and leapt back into doctor-mode, Nathan not far behind. "Whose critical?" he demanded, tense.

"One of ze vorkers." Chekov said.

He couldn't help but feel a sliver of relief that his friends and the Captain of the Enterprise was not currently in the process of dying. "Send the critical, Kirk, and Spock, here, to med bay one. And send the other two workers to Dr. Jhest at med bay two." McCoy ordered.

Chekov answered, "Ves, sir." And signed off the pickup.

McCoy instantly jumped into prep action for the in-coming traumas, and Nathan rushed to assist—the fevered officer was going to have to wait; a med tech was present at his side, watching his stats, and if anything went amiss, they'd inform Dr. Scott. McCoy sent Nurse Chapel off to prep the Operation Room they'd no doubt need with their critical patient—and four minutes later, their critical patient arrived through the portal on a hover-bed, Kirk and Spock—the former limping, the latter stalking—in behind.

"Okay, let's see what we got." Leonard muttered.

Nathan and McCoy instantly saw to the critical officer, while a couple med techs flocked to the two most Senior Officers. The unconscious woman at first glance, looked as bad as her condition probably was. Nathan scanned her with the hand-held, and McCoy snapped on sterilized gloves and examined her wounds. Her skin was covered in dusted debris, blood, and burns.

Nathan read out the results on the screen. "Blood pressure is rapidly decreasing, heart rate barely detectable. Head wound—concussion present. Her body's going into shock!"

"First, second, and third degree burns. Lacerations and penetrating wounds present. Got some broken bones, too. Let's move her the bed!" McCoy called.

They transferred her over and the bed automatically register clearer vitals. As Nathan, wearing sterilized gloves as well, started to cut away her coverall's top, and a Nurse was clearing away the blood and dirt so they had a better view to see where all the blood was coming from, when the screen on the wall above the bed started flashing red and beeping, warning them that she was going to into cardiac arrest.

"Damnit!" McCoy cursed. "Start compressions!" He told Nathan, who instantly put his hands together and pumped her chest as McCoy quickly found and attached electrodes to the right side of her chest, and the lower left side of her torso. "I'm going to shock her, stand back." Nathan jumped back as McCoy yelled clear! The woman's body arched as electricity travelled between the small pads, there was a blip of the screen before she continued to flatline, Nathan continued compressions before clear! was called and he backed off, the woman arced on the table before going flat again, her heart mirroring the posture. They went seven more rounds, but her heart only beat when Nathan was pounding on her chest, or electricity passed through.

Nathan was out of breath, his arms trembling, his muscles feeling like jelly, but he wouldn't stop, he couldn't.

"Dr. Scott," McCoy called across to him, but Nathan didn't seem to hear.

She couldn't just die, she was young, probably only a few years older than himself.

"Nathan!" Leonard put no more volume but more command into his name as the MCO came to the other side of the table, and gave his subordinate and friend a firm shake. "She's gone, man, she's gone."

"But..." Nathan said helplessly as McCoy gently pulled him again from the deceased officer.

McCoy gradually led him away from the bed, and sat the young doctor down before his knees gave out on him. He kept a firm but soft hold on his shoulders, comforting but grounding him at the same time. "She lost, she must have had internal bleeding. If we had been at the station we might have been able to do more, it was the shuttle ride here that sealed her fate. There was nothing more we could have done,"

Nathan knew Leonard was right, but he couldn't stop the feeling that he could have done more, he could have!

McCoy recognized that look. He used to get that look all the time in his first years as a doctor, sometimes he still got it. It would never truly go away. It was the curse of the doctor. Feeling as if you could have done more, always done more, but knowing that there wasn't. It made you feel useless and worthless. And the shit truth of it all was that as a doctor you inevitably would lose people, and the more you lost, the more you realize that at the end of the day—you save more people than you lose. And it does get better, if only marginally. Leonard realized that Nathan wasn't as crass as he was...yet.

McCoy squeezed his shoulders one last time. "Stay here, and I'll check on Kirk and Spock."

He started to turn by Nathan shook his head, "No." He said. The MCO looked back at him as he stood, taking a deep breath as he discarded the soiled gloves, sanitized, and donned a clean pair. "Thank you for the concern—Leonard. But I'm alright. You make sure Captain Kirk isn't maimed and I'll do the same with Commander Spock."

McCoy eyed him for a long moment, before he nodded. Discarding, sterilizing, and donning new gloves. Both doctors headed towards their injured friends, in cubicles next to each other as Nurse Chapel returned and clean up the poorly deceased officer.

The med tech seeing to the Captain was getting nowhere with the stubborn man and was all too happy to leave when he saw the MCO heading his way. The doctor pulled the privacy curtain and eyed his friend. The young blond was covered in dusted debris, with minimal blood. He had a cut on his forehead, which doc quickly cleaned, nothing was broken, but he found at gash on the officer's calf, which he cleaned and wrapped.

"Can I go now?" Kirk pouted.

McCoy smirked as he deadpanned, "Let me think about it."

Spock was more accommodating to the med tech assigned to him, but not by much. Nathan dismissed the man as he looked over the Vulcan.

"How're you feeling, Commander?" Nathan asked, scanning him first, before he started to assess his injuries with a physical examination, after the Science Officer removed his shirt.

"In the current situation, I am feeling acceptable." Spock replied, bare-chested.

Nathan felt the back of his head, down his neck, across his shoulders and along his ribs to his hips and there he paused.

"Is something the matter, doctor?" the Vulcan inquired.

"Are you feeling any discomfort in your left hip?" Nathan asked, still bent at the waist as he examined said area, where he noted a dark mark on the pastel skin.

After a moment of consideration, he spoke, "Not particularly. May I asked why?"

"Tell me if this hurts," Nathan instructed instead, and gently pressed on the mark that was 4mm in width/3cm in length. He looked up at the man.

"Slightly," he replied.

Nathan scanned the area more thoroughly this time, and looked at the results with interest, and maybe slight concern. There wasn't any blood, so he hadn't thought that it was a laceration. It was dark in colour so he thought it was just an oddly shaped bruise, but it turned out, there was something there, under the first few layers of skin. He stood back up.

"Okay. It looks like you have a foreign object under your skin, I'm going to see if I can take it out. Could you lie on your side for me?" Nathan asked, preparing a tray and sterilized field in the cubicle.

After Spock complied, Nathan set up in front of him and disinfected the area, before he sprayed it with a numbing agent. After making sure the nerves were thoroughly numbed, he made a small incision next to the object. Wiping away the greenish blood that welled from the opening, he held the lips of the cut open and with a pair of forceps removed the foreign object. He didn't study it too closely at the moment. He left it on the tray and irrigated the wound to both cleanse and wash out any other debris, before he sealed the 5cm cut with a solution and bandaged it.

"Finished," Nathan informed the Vulcan, but Spock already knew because he'd been watching the doctor closely through the whole procedure—or rather the parts when he wasn't enraptured by another of Nathan's continuing memories. He helped the man sit up without pulling the wound, and Nathan finished his examination (which resulted in finding no further injuries), before he cleaned the object and doctor and officer examined it further.

"It appears to be a piece of piping that was at the blast site at the moon station." Spock concluded after a moment of examining the sliver of metal that had the colouring of pewter.

Nathan seemed to agree—he also had a theory as to how it ended up in the Vulcan's body without blood. "When the explosion happened, the shard must have pierced you at just the right speed and angle to draw no blood—just like a splinter. If it just goes under a few layers of skin and was heated, it could have sealed itself right in! Adrenaline pumping through your body, you don't much notice a small injury like this." He finally put the sliver away and looked back at the Vulcan, he didn't try to fight the relief he felt. "If you'd put off an examination, it could have gotten infected, or worse still, the metal could have started to poison your blood."

"It was your keen eyes, doctor." Spock affirmed. "A less experienced doctor may have look it over as a bruise due to the colouring."

Nathan found himself smiling at the Science Officer. After losing the woman not half-an-hour ago, he felt respite from that feeling that he could have done more—because he realized he just did do more. He'd saved Spock from the possibility of a worse injury.

"I'll give you something for the pain, and then you can go back on duty with the Captain, after Dr. McCoy gives him the go-ahead. But no strenuous activity—no lifting heavy things, no working out, I'd rather you didn't run either, and no reaching for high places as well—at least for the next 48-hours. Alright?" Nathan raised a brow.

"Yes, Dr. Scott." Spock nodded, his expression sober as he climbed to his feet. He slipped his uniform shirt back on before he left Nathan in the cubicle and went to find Kirk.

As Nathan cleaned the area, he found himself wrapping the metallic shard and stowing it in his pant pocket instead of discarding it along with other soiled materials that had been used during Spock's procedure.

ST09-OTH - JYaM -ce

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