"Resigned"

[Guest Natalie Harris]

"Maybe I should have helped," Natalie said quietly, slowly making her way into the main quarters and letting the door slide shut behind her. "You know... kept someone there who wasn't... blinded."

 

He sighed, "I don't think it would have helped."

 

"I figured," she admitted, silent for a moment. "God."

 

Juno sat quietly for a long moment as well. "I just resigned."

 

You can't!" Her face slipped from numb to horrified. "You can't -- this just shows we need more people with any sense of right and wrong, not less!" She forced herself to breathe, calm. "You're just letting people like that... win."

 

The thought had crossed his mind and he'd not yet dealt with it, and didn't want too. "I just can't do it, Natalie."

 

"They can," she answered resolutely. "That requires me to. And you," she pointed out. She sighed. "And there are other things..."

 

Smiling, despite himself, Juno looked at the doctor in the doorway. "I appreciate your concern, Natalie I really do... it's just... just..."

 

She sighed, glancing out the porthole. "I specialized in battle medicine along with viral physiology... I don't know if I'd ever mentioned it. I did my residency on Aeneas. It was supposed to be a fairly basic tour... engineering burns, the usual bumps and scratches from away teams... that sort of thing. The usual starship things. Nutrition. A little research."

 

Crossing her arms, she leaned against the frame for the viewport, lost in the past. "Nobody expected that the Tholians had annexed the region we were charting. Nobody knew that particular Tholian sect was... territorial at the moment. No one expected the ship to be all but torn in half. Even with the... training I'd had... I wasn't prepared for that sort of gut-wrenching. But you know what? Even that... didn't ever compare to how sick I am right now. Because even when our men were coming in hacked in two by plasma burns, at least we knew we were doing the right thing. It's hard to accept that we've sunk this low, and it's hard to accept that there was nothing that could be done to stop it. But I swear to God, as long as I breathe air, the next time it happens will be over my dead body." She was nearly shaking with anger, rubbing at her temples in frustration before finally slamming a fist into the bulkhead. Another long silence passed as she examined the now-damaged knuckles. "Sorry," she mumbled, running a finger of her good hand along the little dent in the wall. "Didn't mean to do that."

 

Numbed, Juno only took a deep breath. "I've been a Doctor now for... lord... almost fifteen years. I did a tour on a starship and for the last several years, worked with patients dying of infectious diseases."

 

"At some point... at some point... you realize... you accept you can't save everyone." He paused long enough to make sure her hand was okay before starting up again. "But damnit. That was wrong. They can prattle on about moral relativism all they want. That's a nice luxury for people who are not bound... bound by an oath to do no harm. I am sorry, but doctors don't have the luxury of a many over one mentality."

 

"We're the ones that have to turn in the time-of-death reports for all of those 'ones'," she said softly. And see all of them. Not just the faceless martyrs, but see them suffering. We see the pain, not just -- well, the gain. We don't have that luxury."

 

"When I took..." he paused again, then turned and brought up his letter. "Here, read this... I sent it just before you came in."

 

She glanced it over, then shook her head slightly, rotating the terminal's screen back to him. "Send a follow-up recanting it."

 

"Why should I?"

 

"It'd be selfish for you -- or me -- to leave this ship, right now." She sighed, mulling what she was about to say. "Especially you, now."

 

He lifted a brow, "Oh?"

 

"Doctor Gidgiddoni... she's..." Natalie sighed. "She thinks she could do more good on Qo'NoS than here. On the planet, she told me she's planning to resign."

 

He blinked for a moment, wrapping his brain around that news, then finally nodded his understanding. "I don't think that really changes much for me..."

 

"You know it does," she answered quietly. "You'd be next in line to take her position. And think of what you could do then. Something like this... entirely avoided next time."

 

"I can't say that with absolute assurity. Men like... like Haskins..."

 

"Men like Haskins can go to hell. That part about over my dead body, remember?" She smiled a little in spite of herself.

 

There was a certain edge to his voice, and certain sense of loss. He was utterly beaten down by the last hours, mentally and physically. "If men like that can be allowed to operate for this organization, I want no part of it."

 

"You don't know how much he even is a part of Starfleet. Men like that... they get out on a frontier like this, and their real side comes through. Don't forget -- it was Gidgiddoni that finally passed the... sentence, not Haskins. She was just trying to do what she felt she had to -- and could justify." She said them with more conviction than she felt, sighing.

 

"It's the principle of the issue."

 

"Still -- it was medical's call. Damn the situation -- but that's over and done with. We need to make sure it doesn't happen again." She rubbed at her forehead wearily. "Perhaps it's selfish of me, but I don't want to be asked to be an accessory to murder by my chief the next time this happens," Harris muttered.

 

"Because that's what this was -- an agonizing, accelerated murder."

 

"On Earth... centuries ago...there was a philospher who stated that 'Though a King may move armies at a whim, he cannot move the conscience of the man who dares do what is right." Looking into the distance, his eyes seemed to be far off. "I wonder... I wonder what happened to that sentiment."

 

"It's not gone," she answered. "You're still quoting it, hmm?

 

"Perhaps... perhaps... "

 

Natalie sighed, tapping the monitor again. "Take this back, Doctor," she persuaded softly. "Starfleet's going to need you... Challenger will. And, dear God, the patients will. Please, Doctor -- Alexei."

 

"Perhaps... perhaps..."