Computer. Start dictation.

Chief Medical Officer's log. Day... what the hell day is it again? Right. Stardate 2259.28.7.

Daily report and log to be forwarded to Starfleet Medical with the usual data packets.

Note to self, find out the new routing number. There's bound to be a new one up once Scott gets that cobbled together long-range transmitter of his working. Doesn't help that every time we drop another buoy I've got to remember a whole [redacted] new series of [redacted].

Copies to the Denobulan records, Earth Central, New Vulcan Science Academy, American Association of Medical Universities, Earth-Vulcan Ambassador Sarek, et al yadda yadda look up the list later. Oh, and Doctor Valarie, she'll want to hear the good news too. I think she's over at the National Canadian Farm Veterinary school now.

[pause dictation]

[time duration, four minutes]

[resume dictation]

If you've skipped over the last few records to find out about the hatching, I'll recommend you go on back and reread the logs in order. I know you folks back home are getting them in chunks. Probably a week and a half at a time, right? Considering how far we are from known space. Know it's tempting, but don't.

So far we've got three out of the shell, healthy and eatin' like horses.

With Cyg up, we got the chance to grill him on what we should be feeding them. Sounds like his tribe did a bit of penguin treatment. Dad stays on the eggs, brothers go for a swim and get fish – or what we're guessing is fish – chewing, swallowing, digesting, and throwing it back up for the kids when they get home, and doing rotations as to who's getting the food. Well, back in the day, anyway. Apparently his dad paid for fresh to be delivered in.

His system isn't up to digesting solids yet – I've updated the intravenous nutrition data tables appendix for those interested, document G42 – so we can't have him pre-chewing for the kids yet. Even if he could eat enough for them, he doesn't have the bacteria in his gut to do the job – which is what the kids really need. Until we can get a sample of a healthy digestive tract to draw from, we're doing a synthetic mash that we've flavored with fish oil. Cyg took a little taste, says it's close enough.

And, no, I'm not offering to chew for him. There's a lot of things I'll do for a patient, but throwing up on cue isn't one of them.

Thanks to medical complications I'll explain later, we've decided to put the remainder of the clutch in stasis. I know the research just isn't there for this – especially on non-humans. Or non-adults. Or, hell, eggs.

But the way I see it, we had two choices. Stasis, get a little more time for the thinktanks back home, or up here for that matter, to come up with a solution. Or, we watch all the rest of them... fail.

[pause dictation]

[time duration, one hour, twelve minutes]

[resume dictation]

Cygnus is being his usual stoic self. Could give some Vulcans I know a run for their money. According to him, it's simply an honor – an unlikely statistical anomaly – that he'd ever see a daughter come from one of his eggs. His first-hatched gives him enough pride to buoy his spirits. Somewhat.

He's amused at the short-hand names us poor humans have been throwing about. Number One, Number Two, Number Three. Apparently they sound more poetic in his language, and they typically use "placeholder" names anyway, until the whole clutch is hatched and ready for their first meal together, which is when they're supposed to be given their "social names" or what their friends or classmates will call them. I guess "nicknames" would be a closer analogy back on Earth. He mentioned something about private names, but didn't clarify.

I'll get it out of him, but nice-like. I can already hear the keys clacking back home from the Xeno-Soc Department already. Give it a break, will ya?

Technically, we should have waited on One-through-Three until the whole lot is out of the shell, but since I put the rest in stasis... Ugh. Well, let's just say Cyg and I had a very quiet argument about how my medical crap supersedes his religious/cultural crap and then we didn't talk to each other until I brought over that faux-fish paste for him to try.

Uhura thinks he's going to save naming them "officially" for when they're all hatched – or not – and our placeholder names will have to do.

[pause dictation]

[time duration, two minutes]

[resume dictation]

So, in my last log I got up to when we woke Cyg up for Number Fo- ah... the one who would have been the forth, without Vulcan assistance.

Yes, it was a medical necessity, before the delegation from the VSA start complaining. As our First Officer will no doubt collaborate, the only logical course was to revive our patient on the slim chance he knew what… illness was causing the distress on the little one, and if there was any treatment he knew about. Unlikely, with the current evidence, I know, since he was an engineer, not a medical professional, and this is his first clutch. But, according to his earlier statements, he did assist his father with his siblings, so it was a better chance than none, which is where we stood without Cygnus' presence.

Also, not that it's a concern to … individuals who lack … who have … Look. For us poor emotional beings, we need to say good-bye. Through all the pain and torment, those kids were the only thing keeping our patient alive. The need to protect them. I'm not going to try to explain it further, 'cause it's just coming out like sh- like the ramblings of an emotional human, which I'm certain you're tired of reading about anyway at this point.

We have decided to keep Cygnus awake, for the time being. His stress levels would have gone through the roof if we tried to knock him out again. Not certain we'd be able to, that he'd let us.

To satisfy the curiosity of those interested, see attachment A12 of included graphs and and continued observations with data on continual use of induced coma and mind meld as the treatment plan for synaptic cascade failure.

All-in-all, he's doing better. I'd rather he was under meld, but without Spock around, there's only so much that can be expected.

For those uninformed on mind melds in general, see attachment C19; Spock's been keeping detailed records and he does a good job describing what's going on between their skulls.

Without Spock here, he's having occasional epileptic fits. As... distressing as they are, to patient and caretakers, the randomized neural firing pattern seems to be performing "resets" naturally and correcting his neurons back to a healthier firing pattern.

I'm in the dark at this point. I'm not immune to his distress. All I can do is hold his hand, wedge in a bite plate to keep him from cracking his teeth or biting his tongue, and sooth everyone's nerves when the episode burns itself out.

The violence, duration, and frequency have no discernible pattern, but I keep hoping things'll calm down in time.

At the very least, he's up and interacting with the kids. We've got to be careful, the hatchling's claws are sharper than his new skin can handle, and any little scratch might trigger an immune response. Which, as the medical folks reading this log will be able to tell the Brass reading this log, would mean that his body would start rejecting all of the transplants. Bones. Organs. Nerves. Skin. All the grafts might be derived from his DNA, but it's new coded and grown in vats designed for much different structures. Everything's just a little off, and we're tricking the original parts with drugs into thinking he's still in one piece. A careful balancing act. Given enough time, enough new cells will replace the old, his body won't know the difference and we'll be able to wean him off... but we're talking years here.

As you can guess, that would spell disaster.

Nyota – that is, Lieutenant Uhura – came up with the "burping blanket" suggestion. Basically, just enough cloth for them to cling to. Makes clean up a lot easier too. We just have to make sure that Cyg doesn't move too much and accidentally dislodge one of them.

Luckily, or not depending on how you look at it, he's in so much pain that every movement apparently feels like searing hot needles are getting shoved into his bones. Not good for morale, but it does restrict his movements considerably.

With in tarnation-

What's that noise out there?

Keep it down will-

Oh for crap's sake. JIM!

What the hell happened down there!?

I swear, one of these days I'm going to put a leash on you and [redacted].

[two hours of superfluous data and background noise removed]

[resume dictation]

Well, as you might've guessed, our illustrious Captain and First Officer have decided to grace the medbay with their presence.

Yet again.

It seems this planet wasn't Cygnus' home. Who woulda thunk it, what with the bombs.

I swear. There has got to be a better way to be going about this.

At least this time I wasn't planetside. Spock's got some... interesting marks on him, and neither he nor Jim seem all that interested in elaborating. In fact, I can't even get the security team to fess up.

Looks like I'll be bribing Mr. Scott down in engineering to crack into their logs and- Erm. Not that I ever do that. Because if it were a medical emergency I'd just use my override codes.

...can't fault a human for being curious. Our greatest trait, and the most likely thing to get us in trouble.

Crap, where was I?

Burping blanket. Right.

All this is second hand, 'cause the [redacted] and I aren't the greatest of pals right now, but he told Uhura that the kids are supposed to be little burs in our sides. On our sides. Whatever. Basically, for the first couple months, or closest equivalent we can figure out, there really isn't much personality or anything of that sort. They just cling on, watch the world around them, and absorb. Kinda like human babies, except if they're crying or making a fuss they're more likely to be eaten by some extinct predator creature or drop off their parents feathers.

I wonder if that's part of the low birth rate? Not that these little mites are heavy (See attachment R7 for updated growth charts) but enough of them clinging on ya and it'd get cumbersome.

Hmm. Might explain why Cyg has such developed hands, even with wing-like appendages. Like the uh… [redacted] oxotle bird? Horizon? Some bird from the Former Republic of the United Amazon. Reminder to self, once we're in range, look up that damn bird's name and tag it for research. Extinct, of course, but I remember from Bio 101 it was considered a throw-back. Chicks had wing-digits that weren't set for flying, but climbing, so they could get out of trouble, and once the feathers grew enough to get in the air… did they atrophy, or just get concealed?

[redacted.] Doesn't matter. If Cyg's people gave up flying for climbing, a few million years ago, hands'd be the primary necessity, wings a secondary form of gliding for escape or somesuch, and the chicks wouldn't overburden them for take off.

'Til I get more data to back up that hypothesis I'll just keep it as a running theory.

[pause dictation]

[time duration, forty-seven minutes]

[resume dictation]

Yeah, Cygnus doesn't know. Figured. Was worth it to ask. Not like human evolutionary biology is completely opaque to us developed creatures either.

Cyg looks better for the prospect of the hog- [redacted] Spock's return. Along with the more superficial injuries, Spock has a mild concussion to go with the Captain's broken wrist, so I've had to delay any further treatments for him on hold until Spock's brain swelling goes down. M'Benga is treating that now, and the numbers I read in passing looked good, but I won't put pressure on him yet.

For all of my complaints, having the Commander on board has been an asset. Not that every Starfleet ship needs to have a Vulcan on board. But we could do worse for the sake of diversity.

[pause dictation]

[time duration, five hours, two minutes]

[resume dictation]

It's amazing to think it, but it's about time we start working out a therapy plan for our patient. Now that we have a complete layer of skin, it's time to start on physical therapy. Along with the usual exercises designed to reverse the muscle atrophy, I think it will do his mind some good to start working on manipulating small objects again.

He's scared of hurting his children. He hasn't said as much, not to me, but I know the look. I've handed enough alien babies over to new parents on this trip, and even more back in my internships days. He's got that 'I've got no clue what to do,' look in his eyes, and then those muscle spasms hit. If those don't' subside completely, we're going to have to work out some solutions for dealing with them.

If they were more minor tremors, I'd think turning that burping blanket into an apron with pockets to hold them might work; keep them secure enough for the duration. But… well. We'll figure something out.

Mr. Scott is still working on his relay system. From the electric burns I treated last night, it's turning out to be more complicated than we originally thought. Of course, sleep deprived and pissed off at the whole command team, I flippantly said something along the lines of 'I bet Cyg could do a better job at that.'

Well Mr. Scott, of course, thought that this sounded like a grand idea and next thing I know I'm sterilizing circuit boards and micro soldering tools.

Cygnus has dived into this distraction head first, and now I've got engineers and communications officers hanging around the office talking with him.

It's loud.

And boisterous.

And I'm hopeful.

It's clear to all of us that he's frustrated at his loss of dexterity, but every so often there's some bark of excitement and a new flurry of activity. I think the mental stimulation, doing things with his hands again, something more than just going through our archives and playing Chekov's games on the PADD, will help him recover mentally, even if physically it might not ever be quite the same.

I'm hopeful.