Star Wars - MedStar 01 - Battle Surgeons

by Michael Reaves

  Instead, she made it come back to her.

  She had not known she was capable of that. She sim­ply reached for it, and the ball stopped, hesitated, and then rolled obediently back to her.

  As she bent to pick it up, she sensed someone behind her. She turned and beheld Master Yoda, standing in the far entrance to the antechamber. He smiled and nod­ded, quite evidently impressed with what he had just seen.

  That was all. She remembered nothing after that, whether Master Yoda had gone on his way and she had continued playing, or if he had spoken to her, or if something else entirely had happened. One would think such an encounter with one of the most leg­endary Jedi of all would be impressed in one's brain far more thoroughly than the part about playing with a ball. But that was how it was. She even remembered the ball's color: blue.

  That memory came to her now, as it did, sometimes fleetingly, sometimes in great detail, nearly every time she prepared to call on the Force.

  Barriss felt the palms of her hands growing warm against the trooper's belly. She didn't have to visualize

  the process—she knew that healing energy was pouring from her into him. No—not from her; through her. She was only the vessel, the conduit through which the Force did its work.

  An unknown time later—it could have been a minute or an hour, as far as she knew—she opened her eyes and lifted her hands.

  "Wow," Zan murmured behind her. He was looking at the readout panel. She saw that the trooper was stabi­lizing. Also, the discoloration had vanished; his skin was a healthy color.

  "You must've been top in your class. How'd you do that?" Zan asked, without taking his gaze from the panel.

  "I did nothing," Barriss replied. "The Force can heal wounds on many occasions."

  "Well, it sure worked on him." Zan gestured at the panel. "His brain wave pattern's within normal limits, and most of the secondary trauma seems gone. Pretty impressive, Padawan."

  The FX-7 guided the gurney out. By the time Zan had finished changing gloves there was another body before him. "Stick around," he said to Barriss. "There's plenty more where he came from."

  Seated on a bar stool, his left foot propped on a rung higher than the right foot, Zan adjusted the tuning mechanisms on his quetarra, bringing the strings into tune. The instrument had eight of these, bucky-fibers of varying diameters and texture, and eight was three more than Zan had fingers on either hand. The first time he had seen his friend play the thing, Jos had been impressed. The Zabrak's fingers had danced nimbly up and down the instrument's fret board, and he had now

  and then leaned way over and pressed his chin against the instrument, using it to fret the strings. The quetarra was a hollow, ornate, and beautifully grained pleek­wood box, polished to a dull sheen, with several holes in it, shaped something like a figure eight. A flat board protruded from the box, and eight geared turnkeys on a carved headpiece attached to the ends of the strings.

  The cavalcade of war-torn bodies had finally stopped coming nearly five hours after the last lifters had ar­rived. During the final hour another lightning storm had passed through—a bad one, with bolts stabbing down quite close to the camp. The entire area was electrostat­ically shielded, of course, but it was hard to remember that when the thunder was loud enough to shake the building, the sudden flares of white light through the win­dows left purple afterimages in his eyes, and the pungent scent of ozone filled the air, expunging even the stench of battle-charred flesh.

  But the storm had passed as quickly as it came, and by unspoken agreement everyone had wound up in the cantina. Jos had come in a few minutes late, and had been surprised at the relative silence within, until he saw Zan.

  The anticipation in the air was almost as piquant as the ozone smell had been. People sipped drinks or inhaled vapors or chewed spicetack, and watched Zan adjust the quetarra. No one was even so much as glancing at the silent quadro box that usually provided canned music. The globe lights had been toned down to a soft, effulgent level. Various harmonic sounds rang out as Zan turned the keys, modifying the various tensions until the atonal notes came to blend together just right. At last, satisfied, he sat up a bit straighter on the stool, settled the instru­ment on his left leg, and nodded at the audience.

  "I'm going to try two short works. The first is Borra Chambo's prelude to his masterwork, Dissolution by Self-Intention. The second is the fugue from Tikkal Remb Man's Insensate."

  Zan began plucking the strings, and the music that came from that rapport between fingers and fibers filled the cantina with a haunting melody and a counterpoint bass line that, despite Jos's gripes about how much he hated classical works, immediately swept the human into its embrace.

  Zan was a master musician, there was no question of that. He should have been on a concert stage on some quiet, civilized world, where sentient beings appreci­ated such artistry, his talented hands occupied creating art with Kloo horn and omni box instead of wielding vibroscalpels and flexclamps.

  War, Jos thought. What is it good for? Certainly not for the arts. He wondered how many other talents like Zan were being squandered in battles across the galaxy. Then he forced such depressing thoughts from his head and just listened to the music. There was little enough beauty on this world, he reminded himself—might as well enjoy it while it lasted.

  Around him, others stood or sat quietly, caught in the musical web Zan was weaving. Nobody spoke. No­body rattled dishware or clinked glasses. It was silent, save for the distant rumble of thunder and the sounds of Zan's quetarra.

  Jos glanced around and saw Klo Merit. The Equani was easy to spot; he towered nearly a head taller than any other biped in the crowd. The pale gray fur and whiskers helped, too. Jos was glad to see the Rimsoo's minder there. The Equani—what few were left, after a solar flare had scorched their homeworld—were in-

  tensely empathetic beings, capable of understanding and psychoanalyzing nearly every other known intelli­gent species. Jos knew that Merit, in many ways, car­ried the emotional weight of the entire camp on his sleek, broad shoulders. Now, however, he seemed caught up in the spell Zan was weaving, just like every­one else. Good, Jos thought. He remembered a quote from Bahm Gilyad, who had formalized the rules and responsibilities of his profession five thousand years be­fore, during the Stark Hyperspace Conflict: "The sick and the injured will always have a healer to salve their wounds, but to whom does the healer go?"

  As Zan played on, Jos found it easier not to think about the war, or how tired he was, or how many shards of metal he had removed or perforated organs he had replaced in the last few hours. The music carried him to its depths, raised him to its heights, and re­freshed him like a week's worth of rest. He realized that, in a great many ways, his friend was doing for the doctors and nurses of Rimsoo Seven what the Jedi had done for the wounded clone troops—he was healing them.

  Time seemed to stand still.

  Eventually, Zan reached the end of the last composi­tion. The last clear note shivered away, and the silence was nearly absolute. Then the cantina patrons began whistling and clapping, or pounding their empty drink mugs on tabletops. Zan smiled, stood, and bowed.

  Den Dhur was standing next to Jos, who hadn't no­ticed when the reporter had come in. "Your partner's good," Dhur said. "He could be working the classical circuit, making serious credits at it."

  Jos nodded. "Probably would be," he said, "except for this little problem called interstellar war."

  "Well, yes, that." Dhur paused. "Let me buy you a drink, Doc."

  "Let me let you."

  They stepped over to the bar. Dhur waved at the ten­der, who lumbered toward them. "Two Coruscant Coolers." As they waited for the drinks, Dhur said, "What do you know about Filba?"

  Jos shrugged. "He's the supply sergeant. Processes requisitions, changes in orders from upstairs, that kind of thing. Smells like he uses the swamp for cologne. Outside of that—nothing, really. Who knows anything about Hutts? And why do you care?"

  "Reporter's instinc
t. Hutts make news, more often than not. Also, Filba and I go back a ways. I don't want to be speciesist or anything, but you know the old say­ing: 'How do you know when a Hutt is lying? His—"

  "—lips move,'" Jos finished. "Yeah, I heard that one. They say the same thing about Neimoidians."

  "And Ryn, and Bothans, and Toydarians. It's a tough galaxy, or so I've heard." The reporter grinned at Jos, who grinned back. Though he came across as sarcastic and irascible, still there was something likable about the scrappy little fellow.

  The bartender brought their drinks. Dhur dropped a credit on the bar. "Hate to break it to you, but I've heard it applied to humans, too."

  Jos drained his mug. "I'm deeply shocked and of­fended. On behalf of humans across the galaxy, I'll have another drink." He signaled the tender, then added, "Filba can be a pain in the glutes, but he seems to do his job pretty well. Or maybe I should say 'jobs.' He's got his pudgy little fingers into everything, seems like. He's even in charge of the bota shipments."

  Dhur was about to take a sip of his second drink; he

  stopped and lifted an eyebrow instead of his mug. "Ex­cuse me?"

  "That's what I hear. Bleyd's given him full control over processing, harvesting, and shipments."

  "Imagine that." Dhur seemed suddenly nervous. "Hey, did you hear about Epoh Trebor and his HoloNet Entertainment tour? Looks like Drongar's on their list."

  "I'll make a note to get excited about that later." Jos had never been overly fond of the popular HoloNet star, although he seemed to be in a minority, judging from Epoh's ratings. He was still curious about Dhur's inter­est in Filba, but before he could say anything more, the Sullustan drained his cup and said, "Align with you later, Doc. Thanks for the drink."

  "You paid for it," Jos reminded him.

  "Right, so I did," Dhur said. "Well—you'll get the next round," and then he headed for the door as fast as his stubby legs could carry him.

  Jos looked around, wondering if Filba had come in while they were talking. He didn't see him, and the Hutt was pretty easy to pick out in a crowd.

  He frowned. Obviously something had gotten Dhur's dewflaps in an uproar, and it seemed to have to do with Filba. The base was expecting a few hours of relative peace and quiet before the next wave of wounded ar­rived, unless there was an emergency evac from the front lines, which was always a possibility. Jos had in­tended to spend the time getting some sleep. Sleep was even more precious than bota on this world. Maybe, though, he would stop by the supply hut, see how Filba was doing.

  First, however, he would finish his drink.

  7

  The spy had been on this miserable soggy mudball of a planet for more than two standard months now, and was intensely, seriously sick of it already. Two months since the agents in the higher echelons of the Republic military had arranged for the transfer to this Rimsoo. Two months in the heat and the sun, besieged con­stantly by all manner of flying pests . .. and the spores! Those irritating spores, constantly clogging up every­thing. There were days when a filter mask was a neces­sity, or he would strangle before he could walk the length of the base.

  The spy missed home with an unnerving desperation. The mild weather, the ocean breezes, the subtle scents of the fern trees ... the nostalgic ache was dismissed with a growl and a headshake. No point in dwelling on the past. There was a job to do, and finally, the seeds that had been planted more than a year before were starting to come to fruition.

  Although the exact nature of the machinations by which Count Dooku had accomplished this grand scheme were still unclear, ultimately they did not mat­ter. In fact, it was better to be ignorant so that, if caught, not even drugs or hypnoscans could extract the truth.

  Not that exposure was very likely. This new identity had been impressively documented, and the position in the chain of command was high enough that almost every piece of important data coming through could be evaluated. The confederacy had laid the groundwork well. The spy glanced at a wall chrono, then sat down behind the large, impressive desk. Built into the desktop was a flatscreen that displayed various views of the Rimsoo buildings, the transport ship hangar, and the bota-processing docks. There really wasn't too much more to the place. Everything combined wouldn't be worth the waste of a single proton torpedo, except for one thing: the bota.

  The different flatscreen scenes showed everything looking normal. That would change soon enough—in just a few minutes, in fact.

  A push of a button stopped the screen on the "space-dock"—much too grandiose a term for a slab of ferro­crete ten meters square—where the shuttle, bearing a load of processed bota, was about to lift off. The spy watched as the transport rose silently on invisible repul­sor waves. It climbed quickly, building up speed for a quick dash through the main spore strata to minimize damage. It reached the height of a thousand meters in mere moments, dwindling to an all-but-impossible-to-see dot. Then the dot abruptly bloomed, blindingly white, becoming for a second brighter than Drongar Prime.

  A few seconds later, the rumble of the explosion rolled over the base, like tumbling, crashing breakers of sound.

  The spy couldn't feel any joy over this act. People had died in the doing of it, but it was necessary. One had to cling to that. It was part of a distant, but important, goal. One had to keep that in mind.

  Den Dhur was thinking hard. It would soon be time for him to go back to his cubicle and dig out the small but powerful comm unit he had bought on the black market for his war assignments. It had cost him a pile of credits, but it was worth it. Disguised as a portable en­tertainment module, it was actually capable of sending a holocoded message packet through hyperspace on a bandwidth that was all but undetectable by both Re­public and Confed monitor stations.

  The problem was, there didn't seem to be a whole lot to report. While it wasn't general knowledge that the Drongar engagement was primarily about claiming the bota fields, it wasn't a big surprise, either. Den's prob­lem right now was that he didn't have a good story to follow.

  That problem didn't last long.

  Den was crossing the compound when he saw his shadow turn pitch black for a fraction of a second. He turned and looked up carefully, squinting so as to max­imize the polarization factor in his droptacs. Even with ambient light damped down, the bright spot overhead was intensely white, outshining the planet's sun. For a horrified second he thought some other, nearby star had gone nova. That would be a milking hot story, except that he wouldn't be around to report it.

  He heard shouting, cries of shock and alarm, from be­hind him. Someone was standing beside him, looking up—Tolk, the Lorrdian nurse. "What happened?" she asked.

  "Looks like the bota transport blew up."

  As if to confirm this, the sound of the explosion crashed down, vibrating the bones of those who had

  skeletons. Den felt his teeth chatter in response to the low-frequency waves.

  A nearby clone trooper—a lieutenant, according to his blue chevrons—whistled in awe. "Yow. Their field must've gone critical. Probably slipped a superconduc­tor coupling."

  "No way," an Ishi Tib tech engineer—Den recog­nized him as the one dancing in the cantina during the rain on his first day planetside—said. "My crew went over the housing this morning," he continued. "Checked the seals three times—those vacuum bubbles were tight. A greased neutrino couldn't have squeezed between the plates."

  The trooper shrugged. "Whatever. How many aboard?"

  "Two loaders," a human, whom Den didn't recog­nize, said. "And the pilot."

  The trooper shook his head and turned away. "Freak­ing shame."

  You could call it that. Den glanced around. The open compound was full of onlookers now, all squinting up­ward even though there was nothing more to see. "What about debris?" a Caamasi nurse asked nervously.

  "Debris?" the tech engineer snorted. "Only 'debris' from this gonna be gamma rays." He waved one arm overhead, indicating the sky just above the base. "Don't worry—energy shield over the whole p
lace, remember?"

  Others began to weigh in with their opinions on what had caused the transport's destruction. Den walked away, thinking.

  One thing was for sure—Filba was going to have his own meltdown over this, if he hadn't already. Den pursed his lips thoughtfully, then changed his direction.

  Den approached the Ops building, which housed the supplies and the comm station, with a little trepida­tion. Though he'd only been on Drongar for a few days, he knew Filba of old; they'd first crossed each other's paths on the rainy world of Jabiim, during one of the Republic army's last stands. Den had been re­porting on the battle, and Filba had been a requisitions officer who was dabbling in the weapons black mar­ket. The Hutt was, like so many others of his kind, willing to use anybody's back as a vibroblade sheath, and had nearly gotten Den killed trying to curry favor with the rebel Alto Stratus.

  Den's dewflaps tightened at the memory of it. Filba was a craven opportunist, with dreams of being a crim­inal overlord, just like his hero, Jabba. Perhaps ulti­mately even a Black Sun vigo, from the few slurred hints he'd dropped now and then when in his cups. Den's opinion was that the Hutt didn't have much chance of being a big noise in the underworld. All Hutts were in­vertebrates, but in Filba's case a backbone was sorely needed. Despite all his bluster, Filba was the first one under the table when "Incoming!" was heard—And, given his size, usually the only one who fits, Den thought.

  Filba's primary assignment was as quartermaster. As such, he was responsible for ordering and keeping track of any and all medical equipment, drugs, munitions and materiel, wetware, cybernetics, droids, sensors and communications gear, transport parts, food, and what­ever latest spore-fighting chemicals the Republic think-tanks had come up with—and these were just the tasks Den knew about. The Hutt also monitored the holo­comm station, sending and receiving orders and mes­sages, usually between Admiral Bleyd and Colonel