Star Trek: The Accident
Hello Readers,
This is a stand alone story from my novel-length Star Trek story AGEE 1-17 (If you haven't read it, give it a go. It received pretty good reviews and nearly 7,000 views). As promised at the end of that story, here is another story that I wrote back in 2017. I apologize for the delay but I lost someone last year who I loved dearly. The story was quite difficult to edit so…please forgive me if I missed a typo here and there. Will update every few days or so but more often with more reviews. ;)
Chapter One
McCoy stood in front of the transparasteel window in the critical care ward of Sick Bay. One arm was crossed over his midriff, supporting the other arm whose hand was resting against his chin. His posture was rigid, always the last defense against exhaustion, as he gazed out at the stars. His reflection revealed dark circles underneath puffy eyes and deep set lines around the mouth.
The lights had been dimmed some hours earlier at the beginning of the Beta shift, and the only sound in the ward was the soft, consistent beeping from the life function monitor above the only occupied biobed. It should have been reassuring, that consistency, but it was not.
The patient should have woken weeks ago.
There had been five crewmembers aboard the Galileo when it crashed on the windy planet of Murn, four of them fresh out of the Academy. The First Officer had calculated the probability of survival (grim but still above zero), and the Captain had ordered a rescue and recovery team to the crash site. It had been a difficult task—the high winds battered the search party with sand and bits of debris—but in the end, their determination paid off. They found a survivor beneath a torn manifold which had provided shelter from the harsh environmental conditions.
Although the tricorder readings indicated a heartbeat, the injuries had been too severe, too horrific, to identify the crewmember. Back on the Enterprise, Nurse Chapel had quickly run a dna scan. The name that popped up on the screen twisted McCoy's innards. For a brief moment, he'd felt relief, but it had been quickly overshadowed by grief and fear as the surgical scanner began listing off the injuries. His eyes fixated on the screen; his fingers twitched for a laser scalpel. He could fix this. . . he could. . . he had to.
But no.
M'Benga had already pushed by him, was already prepped for surgery. A gentle tug at his arm made McCoy glance to his side. Chapel was there, her pale face pinched and drawn. She was speaking to him, but he couldn't hear her; he was trapped in some sort of silent bubble. He shook his head, trying to clear his head, but clearly Chapel thought he was answering her.
"Please, Leonard. . . " He read her lips, felt her tug on his arm, and understood. She wanted him to leave the Surgery. He ripped his arm away as though her touch had burned him. He would never leave, not while—he glanced at the table, caught a glimpse of crushed skull and bone—and shuddered.
Chapel seized on his distraction and quickly maneuvered him out of Surgery and into a waiting room. Her soft hands brushed against his neck and then he flinched as a hypospray discharged a sedative into his bloodstream. He hadn't realized his entire body had been rigid until the muscles went limp.
He hit the chair, doubled over, and let out a moan that sounded more wounded animal than man. His hearing had come back, and the sounds that continued to come from his own throat terrified him. Then hands were touching him again, squeezing his shoulders, offering strength, support, friendship. They were thicker and stronger than Christine's—the grip nearly bruising his flesh.
The hands of the captain, of his friend James T. Kirk, had kept him clinging to sanity for nearly seventeen hours when the patient was finally released into the Critical Care Ward.
Kirk excused himself only when Dr. M'Benga, his dark skin gray with exhaustion, had shuffled into the room to update McCoy on the patient's status. M'Benga spoke to his colleague in the language they both understood, that of medical diagnosis and treatment. It was precise, accurate to a fault, and left little room for comfort or hope.
The injury to the lower half of the patient's face (the entire mandible had been crushed), was disturbing to look at but would easily be fixed once the replacement had finished growing. For now, M'Benga had meticulously removed the fragmented bone and packed the area with salve-pads. The facial injuries were clearly the least of the beta doctor's concerns, but he obviously needed to ease into his summary. The skull fractures, he continued, ended up being a mixed blessing of sorts, giving the brain room to swell but also embedding skull fragments deep into the left hemisphere. M'Benga didn't elaborate on the possible outcomes of such an injury, but then McCoy didn't need him to. His physician's mind heartlessly provided him with every possible outcome, and he knew the chances of a full recovery were slim.
But still possible, he told himself, only half listening as M'Benga continued to describe the two spinal fractures, the punctured lung, the torn and leaking aorta, the impact injuries and crushed bones along one side of the body, until the other man came to an abrupt halt. The sudden silence startled McCoy, and he refocused his eyes on the dark skinned doctor. Emotion was etched into his friend's face.
"Leonard, I'm—" M'Benga's deep voice hesitated briefly before the rest of his words came out in a rush. "I'm damned sorry this happened. Just damned sorry."
McCoy swallowed despite the tightness in his throat and glanced down at his hands. They looked like useless lumps of flesh instead of a surgeon's instruments. McCoy cleared his throat. "I'm grateful for what you did," he said slowly. He felt a sickly strand of resentment toward the other man but pushed it down quickly. It wasn't M'Benga's fault that he'd been stripped of his God-given right to care for this patient. He reminded himself that it was Starfleet and all their damned rules. His hands shook slightly and he balled them into fists. Then again. . . then again. McCoy shook his head to clear it, licked his lips, then looked up at the beta doctor.
"I wouldn't have trusted anyone else, Geoffrey," he said, voice firmer. "You're a fine surgeon."
M'Benga acknowledged the praise with a small tilt of his head before his face grew troubled once more. His eyes flicked at a passing Nurse. "Leonard, I sent all my medical entries to your personal computer," he said in a hushed voice. "It's probably best you don't access the surgeon files from your office. The rules . . . "
McCoy's lips flattened into a bitter line. Yes, he knew all about the rules. Damn Starfleet.
When M'Benga left, McCoy had stood, grabbed the back of the chair, and dragged it into the Critical Care Ward. No one tried to stop him. Their gazes fell on him only to dart away. McCoy entered the Ward and took perhaps a little longer than needed to position the chair next to the biobed. When he was satisfied, he pulled in a deep breath and turned to gaze down at the prone figure. The air escaped his lungs in a noisy rush. He thought he'd prepared himself. . . but who was he kidding? There was no preparing for this. There was nothing familiar in the shape that lay beneath the red sheet. Even the head, with the anti-infection wraps and external support brackets, looked more like the creature from the Earth-classic, Frankenstein.
McCoy squeezed his eyes shut. When he finally reopened them, he spotted pale fingers peeking out from beneath the edge of the sheet. Carefully, he nudged the material back. The hand was covered in scratches and bruises, one of the nails had been partially torn away, but it was otherwise blessedly, surprisingly, and somehow whole.
Hot liquid made trails down his face as he gently cradled the hand inside of his own. Memories momentarily blinded him—tiny fingers, trusting and confident, entwining with his own—and McCoy shook his head as a fierce, protective feeling welled up inside him.
"You're gonna get better, little peach," he told the sleeping woman. "Daddy ain't goin' nowhere."