• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“If you’re gonna insist on titles, stick with ‘Doctor.’ Just ‘cause Starfleet promoted me out of lack of any better use to put me to doesn’t mean I have to like it. As for a drink, no thanks. I don’t think these old bones could handle your Klingon hooch—not to mention this old cardiovascular system.”

“Actually, I had something else in mind.” She turned to the replicator next to the QongDaq and said, “Bourbon.”

McCoy’s eyes went quite wide at that. Smugly, B’Oraq handed one of the mugs that materialized at her instruction to the human.

The old doctor took the mug and then gingerly sniffed its contents. He looked quizzically at B’Oraq. “Sour mash?”

She nodded. “One of the benefits of studying medicine at your Starfleet Academy. An old medical-school friend gave me the replicator pattern when I saw him last.”

“Good ol’ Southern boy, huh?” McCoy asked with a grin.

“Actually, he’s a Trill, but he acquired a taste for the stuff during one of our post-finals pub crawls third year.”

Another papery chuckle. “Yeah, I remember several pub crawls like that during my med school days, back in the mists of prehistory.” He gave the mug a look, then raised it toward B’Oraq. “Mud in your eye.”

B’Oraq watched as McCoy took a sip, rolled it around in his mouth, then swallowed. He closed his eyes tightly, opened them, shook his head from side to side twice, then let out a long breath. His voice cracking, he said, “Smooth.” He coughed once. “Not bad, as replicated mash goes. Course, back in my day, we made this stuff ourselves.”

“Unfortunately, the ingredients are hard to come by, and I didn’t have the time to acquire them and brew them before you arrived, otherwise I would, of course, have provided that.”

McCoy grinned. “Don’t worry about it, B’Oraq. This is as fine a gift as you can give me. ‘Sides, given what I’m about to face, I might be better off with a few of these in me.”

“Don’t be so sure. I had expected more resistance from the High Council when I first proposed this, but they were surprisingly receptive.” She tilted her head. “Then again, Chancellor Martok spent many years stationed at Deep Space 9 with access to Federation medicine. That may have colored his perceptions. Besides, the Empire has become more receptive to advanced medical treatment over the past few years, especially thanks to the war.”

“Really?” McCoy asked, then took another sip. B’Oraq noted that the second swallow was less of a struggle than the first.

“It’s much easier to insist that you can survive with an injury and that having it treated shows weakness when you are just fighting alongside other Klingons. But when your Federation and Romulan allies are fully recovered from more devastating injuries in less than a day, you start to learn the value of being able to return whole warriors to the field of battle.”

McCoy held up his mug again. “I’ll drink to that.”

“After the talk, I will take you back to the Gorkon—you’ll be able to see in person the new medical ward I designed. It’s not up to Starfleet standards, of course, but we’re getting there.”

“That mean I’ll get to meet your patient?”

B’Oraq tugged on her braid. “I’m not sure who you mean.”

“Klag. I read up on that transplant procedure on your captain after you invited me to hold this little kaffeeklatsch. I’m not sure whether to be impressed or appalled.”

Chuckling, B’Oraq said, “Either will do. It took me a month to convince him to even replace his arm at all. He’d lost it while winning a heroic battle at Marcan V, and you know how my people love their heroic battles.” That elicited a like chuckle from the human. She continued. “However, I did talk him into it—but he absolutely refused a prosthesis.” In a passable impersonation of Klag’s deep voice, B’Oraq said, “‘It must be the arm of a warrior or no arm at all!’” Back in her own voice: “I thought I would go mad. Finding a donor that met both the necessary biological qualifications and his parameters for what constituted ‘the arm of a warrior’ was nigh impossible.”

“So what happened?”

“An odd bit of luck—if you can