Star Trek: The Original Series: Seasons of Light and Darkness by Michael A. Martin Page A

Starfleet hierarchy.”
    Studying the drunken doctor sprawled out on his couch, Spock said, “Both of us constitute parts of that hierarchy.”
    â€œBut I’m a doctor , Spock. Granted, I was a hell of a lot less experienced then than I am now, but I was certainly no green kid. I was old enough to know I’d just used the Prime Directive and Starfleet protocol to justify the worst decision any doctor could have made.
    â€œAnd because of my choice, a patient I could have saved died .”
    Spock decided that the logic behind the Federation’s prohibition against Romulan ale was utterly unassailable. “That choice may have saved countless other lives. Surely you must know that.”
    â€œBut we’ll never know for certain, will we? If I had disobeyed orders and saved Naheer’s life, who’s to say the Capellans wouldn’t have chalked the kid’s survival up to one of their capricious gods? Who’s to say the topaline deal we cut with Regent Eleen thirteen years later wouldn’t have come about either way?”
    Spock had always found it illogical to pursue such counterfactual speculations. It was a notably human predilection.
    â€œShort of engaging in extensive chronohistorical research,” the Vulcan said at length, “I know of no reliable means of answering those questions.”
    â€œSo we’ll never know,” McCoy said. “Those kinds of questions make a man doubt himself all the way down to his core.”
    â€œI would not number excessive self-doubt among your flaws, Doctor.”
    â€œWhy, thank you, Spock. That’s the nicest thing anybody’s said to me all day. But you’re wrong. My decision to let Naheer die became an itch I couldn’t scratch. It made me angry and sullen. It drove everybody I cared about even farther away from me, starting with my ex-wife and daughter. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the divorce became irreversible the moment I handed that hypospray over to Doctor Wieland.
    â€œNow, Nancy was more patient. We reunited for a while after my time on Capella IV. She put up with me for a year, but eventually even she couldn’t take me anymore. And I just got more bitter and more angry, locking myself into a vicious cycle that damned near killed me I don’t know how many times. And my career as a Starfleet medical officer was on life support.”
    â€œClearly, something interceded,” Spock said.
    â€œNot something,” McCoy said, grinning. “Some one .”

Thirteen
    STARBASE 7
    Stardate 1013.9 (May 13, 2264)
    Leonard McCoy smiled across the table at the deceptively youthful-looking officer in the new gold uniform.
    â€œSo Starfleet Command has finally come to its senses and given you a command of your own. It’s about damned time. Congratulations, Jim.”
    â€œThanks, Bones.”
    The two men had become fast friends after the U.S.S. Farragut ’s encounter with half a dozen pirate vessels nine years earlier. A wounded Ensign James T. Kirk, barely alive, was carried into Starbase 7’s infirmary, where he said later on that he’d been impressed with McCoy’s no-whining approach.
    â€œTo Starfleet’s newest captain,” McCoy said, before pausing to take a swallow of his mint julep. “And the grand adventure that lies ahead of him.”
    Kirk took a long draw on his drink, an Andorian ale of some kind. “And ahead of his first chief medical officer.”
    In the midst of a second swallow, McCoy barely avoided spitting his drink across the table. “If I didn’t know better, Jim, I’d swear you just offered me a job.”
    â€œMark Piper turned in his resignation, effective immediately,” Kirk said. “The Enterprise is Starfleet’s flagship, Bones.” The young captain turned on the barstool and gestured toward one of the broad observation windows that ringed the periphery of the nearly empty lounge.
    An