Star Trek: That Which Divides by Dayton Ward

Huang Zhong . “Where are we with the trauma team?”
    Chapel consulted her data slate. “Everything you requisitioned has been staged in Cargo Bay Two,” she replied.
    Nodding in approval, McCoy recalled the hour he had spent earlier in the day, reviewing the details of the manifest he had prepared for the trauma team. It was one more endeavor that had kept the doctor’s mind from envisioning ever more dire scenarios with respect to the Huang Zhong and its crew. By far, the worst thing that might happen upon the completion of the mission would be having to putevery item he had requested back into ship’s stores, unused because no one remained for him to help.
    Always the optimist, aren’t you?
    Still consulting her data slate, Chapel looked up and said, “Oh, and I forgot to tell you earlier, but Doctor M’Benga has volunteered to lead the team.”
    Shaking his head, McCoy said. “I appreciate that, but tell him I’ll be taking this one. I’ve got more field medical experience than he does, and this might end up being a tricky situation. According to her record, the first officer has a rare blood condition that might require an organic surrogate if she’s lost a lot of blood or was exposed to some infection.” Based on his review of the geological and climatological reports pertaining to the Gralafi planetoid, he did not expect to find anything like that when he finally had the chance to diagnose and treat the Huang Zhong ’s first officer, but he felt better preparing for such eventualities.
    On the other hand, any medical aid she might be receiving from Dolysian doctors, despite their best intentions and given their understandable lack of knowledge in the areas of space medicine and xenobiology, might end up worsening an already delicate situation. Broken bones could be set and lacerations could be sutured easily enough, McCoy knew, but from what he had read, physiology varied widely between the Dolysians and any one of the four distinctions of humanoid aboard the Huang Zhong . Ministrations of anesthetics or even simple pain relievers, let alone other medications deemed necessary by Dolysian physicians, would at best be pharmaceutical guesswork. Transfusions would be risky, assuming anyone else among the crew was a compatible donor, or if there were sufficient quantities of the right blood types in the ship’s stores, andsurgeries nearly impossible. Once there, he knew that he and his trauma team would act quickly and skillfully to aid those in need, but the thought that any one of Huang Zhong ’s crew might be enduring pain or even dying without appropriate care unsettled him.
    Of course, that’s assuming there are survivors in the first place .
    Irritated with himself over the errant thoughts intruding on his consciousness, McCoy eyed the empty cup sitting abandoned near the corner of his desk. Deciding that his mood might be improved in singular fashion with the introduction of fresh coffee into the mix, he retrieved the cup and moved from behind his desk. He was halfway to the food synthesizer on the other side of his office when the door leading to the corridor outside sickbay slid aside to reveal Ambassador Dana Sortino.
    “Doctor McCoy,” she said, smiling as she stepped into the room. “I hope I’m not interrupting.” Her attire, a light-gray skirt and modest top paired with a mellow purple jacket, was formal without making her appear stiff or unapproachable. McCoy suspected it was a conscious choice on her part, her wardrobe seemingly selected to put at ease those with whom she might interact even in the most decorous setting.
    Holding up the cup for her to see, McCoy replied, “You’re hardly an interruption, Ambassador. I was just getting myself a cup of coffee. Care for some?”
    Sortino shook her head. “No, thank you.”
    As he pressed the controls beneath the food slot and waited for the device to process his request, he said, “You’ve kept a pretty low profile since the poker