Primum non nocere

[Cmdr JFarrington 0]

Primum non nocere

 

Physician’s Log, Stardate 5005061.9

Cmdr Jami Farrington, MD

Starfleet Board of Review, Starbase 9

 

In retrospect, Jami Farrington attributed her reaction to a plethora of pent-up emotions, including frustration, anger, disbelief, and the overwhelming grief surrounding Manticore’s demise at the hands of Commodore Lenscher and the USS Liberator.

 

What had begun as a routine protection patrol had turned into a mission filled with deception piled upon deception, misinformation, and intrigue such as only black operations could offer. It had ended in a nightmare battle between Nebula Class Manticore and the Sovereign Dreadnaught Liberator, loaded for bear. Manticore’s complement had been reduced by one-third through injury and death. The remaining two-thirds had been relegated to duty at Starbase 9, a prototype fully-automated Gatesian starbase that told them what was wrong and why it was wrong, then fixed itself. It seemed, in essence, the ultimate punishment, and the crew had taken it as such, adding to their already overwhelming emotional turmoil.

 

On top of all this, Dr. Farrington had been assigned to the Board of Review which had been convened to investigate Liberator’s attack against the Manticore, the Federation Council and Starbase One. She was to review Manticore’s surviving records and report her findings to the General Board of Review, the Consul General, the Federation Consul, Starfleet Headquarters, and every group remotely connected with oversight of Federation and Starfleet policy, including those with blatant political ambitions.

 

Jami had been making excellent progress until it came to reviewing the visual record from Manticore’s bridge. As she watched events unfold she found herself wrestling with conflicting emotions. The record showed irrevocable documentation that could destroy, in a heartbeat, a lifetime of service to medicine. If what she saw could be taken at face value, they clearly had a medical officer who could not operate under fire. But did the visual record tell the whole story? After playing it several times, Jami turned off the console and sat in silence as the events of that day came back with excruciating clarity.

 

Her helm console had become inoperable, so Jami had answered the call from sick bay for all available medical personnel. By the time she arrived, injured crew had already overwhelmed their staff. She remembered a sudden jolt that sent patients and doctors clawing the air for support as Liberator’s focused phaser beam cut through Manticore’s hull like a hot blade through butter, melting metal, foam, and flesh. She remembered the ship lurching like a retching victim and sick bay’s monitors blinking offline, shorting from intensive bombardment, then coming back only to be phased out again seconds later. Cries of pain. Shrieks of terror. Medical personnel slipping, losing traction as they raced through pools of body fluids that accumulated too quickly for automated cleanup to do its job. Most of all she remembered the acrid smell of fused circuitry, ozone from sparking consoles, repugnant burned flesh, and the surrealistic combination of fresh clean linens, spurting blood, and voided bowels. Over all this, as though orchestrating a bizarre symphony, the ship creaked and groaned like a creature in the throes of death. And still the doctors carried on, oblivious to events, disregarding what appeared to be their imminent demise, concerned only with their patients and the preservation of life at all costs.

 

The record showed that operations on the bridge had gone comparatively smoothly after Jami had left. Bridge officers, after all, were trained to remain calm in the midst of chaos, monitoring and reporting evenly so no order would be missed, no command mistaken. Then Liberator’s blade sliced through the bridge, destroying the already tenuous barrier between life support and the void of space.

 

The visual record continued with bridge personnel in a mad scramble to adjust to the abrupt change in pressure, grabbing anything that would keep them from being sucked into space. Colonel Eason strained to hold her console and activate forcefields. Counselor Roget slid across the floor, sucked towards the opening, then slammed into the forcefields as they engaged, her body contorted grotesquely in obvious injury. Slowly, deliberately, a dark stain soaked the carpet beneath her. Jami’s eyes continued to study the video feed as Lt Law was blown back, Colonel Eason steadied herself at OPS, Lt Avani pressed a hand to his forehead to stem the flow of blood, and Captain Sovak glanced up to a hole in the roof that had been a viewport only seconds before.

 

A few minutes after that Jami had run from sick bay to engineering and Dr. Krasner had answered the call from the bridge. What followed left Jami wondering what could make a seasoned medical officer react the way he did, to make calls that appeared to be in the patient’s worst interest. Then she recalled his actions in sick bay afterwards, and words that would condemn him were she called to testify. Trying to fit Margaux Roget’s twisted frame into a brace, administering interprovaline that caused a grande mal seizure, applying a cortical stimulator which resulted in cardiac arrest. By the time Jami had worked her way to them, she found Dr. Krasner standing over Margaux staring at her monitor in disbelief. Later on he had confided, “I can't believe I almost killed her.” And, “My father always told me that I didn't do well under pressure.” All there. All recorded. Condemning evidence. How could she defend him?

 

And so, when the young JAG officer entered her office to present formal charges against her fellow crewman, Jami’s demeanor was less than accommodating.

 

The officer was young, possibly just out of law school. He wore his black hair as close to regulation as possible without compromising the latest fashion statement: a few shocks askew, especially meant to emphasize his high forehead and give his face a certain dynamic. His clear hazel eyes flashed with purpose and determination. His hand rested on Jami’s desk as he spoke, and twitched with excitement, inches from the file he had just placed before her. He did shift his weight once or twice, showing at least some hesitancy at bringing such serious charges against a Starfleet medical officer.

 

“Doctor?”

 

She had been staring into space, she realized. Was it in reaction to his question? Was she reluctant to answer a seemingly impertinent question from this sharp, overenthusiastic JAG officer who had probably never seen someone die, much less die torn and bloodied at the hands of such a monster as combat? But could she disregard the message because of the youth and inexperience of the messenger?

 

Jami turned to face the JAG officer. “Leave your file, Lieutenant. I will review it and bring it to the attention of the proper authorities.”

 

But the young man would not be deterred. “He clearly violated the most sacred oath of medicine, Doctor. Primum non nocere. First, do no harm.”

 

What happened next surprised Jami as much as it did the JAG officer. She slammed her hands on the desk and stood, sending her chair skittering across the floor and into the opposite wall. The JAG officer backed away and plastered himself against the office door. Then Jami clenched her teeth and quietly, with measured cadence said, “Don’t quote Hippocrates to me, Mister. You have no idea. No idea what it’s like to be a physician, much less a physician in deep space under fire. And you better be damn glad there is a desk between us, Lieutenant, or I might give you first hand experience with the care of deep space physicians . . . right here . . . right now! Now get the hell out of my office while you still can.”

 

Jami’s pulse throbbed in her ears long after the young man had left. She paced the floor to calm herself, ordered an ice water from the replicator, and stared out the viewport for several minutes until she was calm enough to give her full attention to the situation at hand – the charges against Lt Elliot Bell-Krasner for preliminary hearing pending court martial.

 

Without bothering to sit, Jami flipped open the file and paged down to the list of charges, all beginning with “gross negligence,” “failure to follow accepted medical procedure,” and “malpractice.” The list seemed endless. Conviction on only one charge could result in loss of license to practice medicine. The fear she had voiced a few days ago to Captain Sovak had materialized. Apparently the Combat Review Board had passed information to Starfleet Board of Medical Review, and they saw fit to pursue the matter. Stunned beyond words, Jami retrieved her chair, pulled it to her desk and sat there mulling over the possibilities. Her first step, of course, was to inform Dr. Mele.