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“So, Lieutenant Watley,” he said as he moved the regenerator over her wound, “anything else you feel the need to report?”

The young woman regarded him with a quizzical expression. “What do you mean, sir?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, even though he did, “anything out of the ordinary. Are you hearing voices, for instance? Imagining things? Memories suddenly come to life, that sort of thing?”

Her expression grew confused. “Uh, no, sir. Should I? I mean, it’s only a minor head wound.”

“Are you a doctor, Lieutenant?” he said, though the accompanying smile took the edge off his words. In fact, McCoy was asking her these questions not because he believed her injury could cause her to hallucinate, but because he was unsettled by what was happening to him.

“No, sir,” she said, suitably chastised. “I haven’t heard or seen anything unusual. Sorry, sir,” she added when she saw his face.

“Don’t worry about it. Routine questions in head wound cases. Everything can be a symptom of something, and I’d hate to miss it because I failed to ask a stupid question.”

Maybe he was losing his mind, then. For now, the only thing he could do was keep on working.

Sixteen minutes after the Enterprise hit the distortion, Ryan Leslie returned bearing an injured comrade. His guards were bringing injured personnel here. It was Abrams who suggested going with them to either treat people on the spot or get them to sickbay. McCoy couldn’t spare many of his staff, but he also couldn’t afford for injured personnel to be lying out there, helpless, so he sent Abrams and Thomas out with the security people, telling them to cover the ship from top to bottom, checking names against the crew roster and making sure nobody was lying alone and helpless in their quarters, in need of immediate medical attention.

Only those who really needed the help were coming into sickbay, and many of them had been given first aid by their comrades.

Twenty-two minutes after the Enterprise hit the distortion, Uhura and Harper came hurrying into sickbay, the body of Lieutenant Sulu slumped between them.

“Uhura! What happened?”

Sulu’s face was covered in first- and second-degree burns, his uniform shirt partially blackened. A massive bandage on the back of his head was evidence that he’d apparently been thrown backward onto the deck. McCoy handed the dermal regenerator he was using on a crewman to Messier and went to give the two of them a hand. Together, they lifted Sulu onto a biobed that had been vacated only a few minutes before.

Uhura was covered in soot but seemed physically unharmed. “The distortion we hit was the biggest so far.” She was breathing heavily. “Normal space. Most of the bridge consoles… exploded from some kind of energy surge.”

McCoy was listening, but his mind was focused on the readings on the monitor above Sulu’s head. If he worked quickly, Sulu would be fine. But the doctor couldn’t afford to waste any time at all.

Uhura was now telling Harper to go back up to the bridge and get Rodriguez to help with Rahda and Farrell.

“What about Lawton?” asked McCoy, as he began loading up a set of hyposprays.

“She’s fine,” said Uhura. “Completely shaken, but physically okay. I told her to help out in the physics lab.”

“Good,” was what McCoy meant to say, but it sounded more like a grunt. Uhura’s breathing had slowed back down, and she seemed fine. But poor Sulu. So much for bringing the ship back to Mu Arigulon under his own command.

A realization hit him. “Wait a blasted minute! Who’s in command, now?”

Uhura thought for a moment that struck McCoy as uncharacteristically long. “Lieutenant DeSalle—he’s in auxiliary. I’m going to relieve him.”

“He’ll have his hands full in engineering,” said McCoy.

Uhura began to walk away, toward the exit.

“Wait!” McCoy grabbed a hypospray from his tray. “You should have thought of this yourself.” He jabbed the hypo into her arm. “You’ll need a stimulant. It’s been a long day, and it’s only going to get longer.”

Her eyes