Star Trek_ A Choice of Catastrophes - Michael Schuster [86]
McCoy would have welcomed some new data to distract him. The damned computer was still humming merrily away, but it had yet to figure out anything usable. He pinched his nose in frustration.
“Since when were you dependent on computers to solve your problems?” Joanna wanted to know, in a tone that allowed no opposition. “You always told me that a physician’s best tools were compassion and insight.”
McCoy fought back the instinct to reply. It was hardest with Joanna, because she was right. He had left her behind. Immediately after the divorce, he’d been so focused on getting away from it all that he’d spent barely any time with her.
“Don’t desert these people like you deserted me.”
It wasn’t fair. He wanted to rail at her, to tell her that he was working his damnedest to save his patients. She was a distraction, a reminder of his failures.
“Like always.”
This he couldn’t let stand unchallenged, but when he opened his mouth to say something, the deck began to vibrate beneath his feet. His tricorder skittered across his desk, and the objects on the display shelf behind him rattled in place. Uhura had been right; the distortions weren’t too bad.
“Don’t let them down like you did me.”
McCoy didn’t recognize the voice. It was a man’s, but it wasn’t his father’s. Too young and too strong. He looked behind him to see a man in a blue uniform. His torso was twisted at an unnatural angle, and blood was oozing down the side of his shirt. The face was familiar…
“I don’t even know who you are,” he said. “I’ve never talked to you before in my life.”
“And certainly not in mine,” said the man, and he laughed. It was a deep, rasping sound that made McCoy’s spine shiver with guilt and cold.
Spine! It was Hendrick, the one who had died last night.
“Thanks so much for remembering me,” said the man. “Senior Chief Petty Officer Luke Hendrick. Twenty-three years in the service, all over. And you can’t even remember my name.”
McCoy was about to argue back, but he snapped to his senses in time. That man shouldn’t be here. None of them should be here! There must be something wrong with him, something he could detect and treat. Uncertain what else to do, he grabbed the psycho-tricorder from his desk.
His face fell when he studied the readings. Still nothing. How was that possible? McCoy was losing his mind, and he had no idea why.
TWELVE
Twelve Years Ago
After less than a year on the Feynman, Leonard lands an assignment on the Koop. His residency, jumping from place to place, can’t look good on his record, but he’s getting deep-space experience. The fact is, he couldn’t stand it on the Feynman, but the Koop isn’t much better. When he stays in one place too long, he begins to think too much. When he learns that Joanna and Jocelyn have moved to Cerberus, he requests a starbase posting in the same sector. He ends up on Starbase 7 in Sector 006, close enough to visit.
Joanna is almost three. He realizes that she thinks of him as a visitor, and not as her father. Pretty soon, she will have grown up without him. She throws awful tantrums, and he has a hard time dealing with them. Jocelyn has to step in to calm her down, which makes him feel even worse. It hurts him that he can’t be an integral part of Joanna’s life. Even if he wanted to give it another go, Jocelyn wouldn’t take him back.
Frustrated, he transfers off Starbase 7 to the Constitution, where he finally finishes his residency. Despite his record, he lands a plum assignment as a junior medical officer on the Newton. After two years, he hears from his father. He’s dying of pyrrhoneuritis, a rare offworld disease that’s made its way to Earth. Leonard asks for a transfer back to Earth, where he becomes an instructor at Starfleet Medical. Weekends he spends in Forsyth, taking care of his father.
After two years of constant pain, his father dies. Jocelyn sends him her condolences. He doesn’t answer