Star Wars - MedStar 01 - Battle Surgeons

by Michael Reaves

  That brought a smile to her face, as well. A joke. The first one she'd ever heard a clone make; not that she'd conversed with all that many.

  She exhaled, pushing as much air out of her lungs as she could, then relaxed, letting them fill again. She re­peated the action. Tidal breathing, her mentor had called it. It always worked; she felt herself relaxing, moving into a state of mind more receptive to the Force. A clear, calm place, unburdened with recollections and anticipations. A place where she was no longer Padawan Barriss Offee, no longer anyone at all; merely a conduit for the living Force.

  It was there for her, as it always was. She reached out with it and into the trooper's energy field, seeking the wrongness.

  Ah. There it was. A disturbance in his neural net, cen­tered in the hypothalamus. There did not seem to be any pathogenic cause—she sensed no forms of micro­scopic life except those that should be there. Yet some­how, the man's hindbrain had been injured. She could "see" a glowing red malignancy, and, using the Force, she soothed the injury, "stroked" it with etheric ripples until the glow faded.

  Then she withdrew. Returning was always slightly

  disorienting. She centered herself, then opened her eyes. CT-914 was watching her.

  She said, "Sit up, please."

  The patient did so. After a few seconds, he was still conscious.

  "Let's see if you can stand."

  He swung his legs over the edge of the hardfoam bed, put his feet on the floor, and stood.

  "Do you feel faint?" she asked.

  "No. I feel optimal." He bent, knees locked, put his hands flat on the floor, raised up on the balls of his bare feet, stretched his arms wide. "No dizziness or disorien­tation whatsoever," he reported.

  "Good. Please get back in the bed. Someone will check on you in a little while. If the affliction doesn't come back, you'll be released."

  He got back into the bed. "Thank you, Jedi Offee. It'll be good to get back to my unit and my mission."

  "You're welcome."

  As Barriss turned and started toward the next patient, she noticed the chrono on the wall. Its reading sur­prised her; a little more than an hour had passed since she had first spoken to CT-914. She had stood there for an hour, immersed in the Force, and yet it had felt as if only a few seconds had passed.

  Such things still amazed her.

  The Indigo Bed was next.. .

  The call had come much sooner than even Bleyd had anticipated. In fact, it had come in person.

  Seated across the desk from Bleyd, Black Sun's repre­sentative was more than simply self-confident—he was obnoxiously smug. And why shouldn't he be? He was a career criminal, a delegate of the biggest gangster syndi-

  cate in the galaxy. In addition to that, Mathal, as he called himself, was large and very muscular, with a blaster strapped low on his right leg and a vibroblade sheathed on his left hip. And he looks like he knows how to use them, Bleyd thought. Good.

  Mathal had just delivered Black Sun's offer. It was more like an ultimatum. They didn't want more bota.

  They wanted it all.

  "We can get top price for as much as you can deliver," he said.

  Bleyd would have raised an eyebrow, had he one. As it was, he smiled and nodded, all the while thinking that the human was a fool. Did he think that there were no safeguards on the planet at all? Even for the commander of the Republic med units here, there were steps too risky to take, and bleeding off any more of the precious crop than he and Filba were currently doing would surely be noticed.

  Mathal and his bosses didn't care. They were greedy, they wanted to make a killing, and if that left Bleyd a wisp of smoke drifting from a crater—well, too bad.

  "So, the deal is, you up your production and ship­ments. We set up a big transport outside sensor range— we got a Damorian Nine Thousand, carry half the planet, forget about that milking YT-Thirteen-hundred-f they've been using—you ferry the stuff up, fill the hold, we pay you and space. Everybody makes massive creds, everybody gets happy."

  Bleyd wanted to laugh. Right. And my face goes on every criminal-wanted holocast from here to Corus­cant, while you remain anonymous. There's a deal.

  Even if Black Sun let him live after the transaction— and he wasn't belting his yithrael on that—even if he

  came out of it with a fortune, it wouldn't be enough to make life on the run worth it. Always looking over your shoulder for Republic peace officers? Never able to re­lax, never able to watch moonrise on Saki again? No, thank you. Bleyd knew that the only way to be a suc­cessful criminal was to commit a crime that nobody knew about. It didn't have to be perfect—simply one that couldn't be traced to your door. Buy an unregis­tered blaster, zap someone with whom you had no dis­cernible connection on some starless night, run far and fast, and chances were excellent that they'd never attach you to the murder. But hijack a freighterload of high-profile contraband like bota? Might as well start get­ting used to prison food now.

  But to Mathal, he said, "All right. It might take a lit­tle while to arrange it."

  The man smiled, showing his puny teeth. "We can have a transport here in, say, a local half month. Should be plenty of time, don't you think?"

  Bleyd smiled in return. Observe my fangs, human. "Why, yes, that should work fine."

  Of course, it doesn't matter what I say, since it isn't going to happen—and you aren't going to carry the tale back to your masters.

  "Then I guess our business is done," Mathal said. "Except for your, ah ... helper. Is the slug still in­volved in this?"

  "Filba is a loyal and trusted employee," Bleyd said, offering the lie up easily. The truth was that he trusted Filba as far as he could throw him one-handed in spit­ting distance of an event horizon.

  "Excellent. I'll get back to my vigo and we'll set up the operation."

  Wrong again, my friend, Bleyd thought. The "opera-

  tion"—in which I take out your viscera—begins right now.

  Aloud, he said, "Yes, yes. Oh, one other thing—I have a small, but particularly good batch of bota cast in car­bonite, extremely high-grade product. I would like to send it to your vigo as a gesture of goodwill."

  "High grade, eh? How much?"

  "Not much." Bleyd shrugged self-deprecatingly. "Five kilos or so."

  "Excellent," the human said. "My vigo will be pleased."

  "And I am pleased to hear it." Bleyd stood. "I've had to hide it, of course. Would you care to accompany me? It's on the quarantine deck."

  Mathal looked uncertain. "Quarantine? As in conta­gious disease?"

  "No, no, nothing like that. Anything that comes up from the planet has to be sterilized—irradiated—purely as a safety precaution. Drongar, as I'm sure you know, is a positive sump of exotic pathogens. The deck is clean now, and I'm keeping it off-limits to make sure nobody happens across some items I don't want noticed—such as the one I have for you."

  Mathal nodded. "Smart. You know, when this war is over, you might consider coming to work for Black Sun, Admiral. A being like you could do all right there."

  "You are too kind." Bleyd politely gestured for the other to precede him. "Shall we go and collect your vigo's gift?"

  "I'm game," Mathal said.

  This time Bleyd really had to fight to contain his smile.

  Den Dhur waved at the tender, got his attention, pointed at the nearly empty glasses on the table, and held up two fingers. The tender, a different one than the taciturn Ortolan, nodded.

  Den turned back to the being across from him, a stubby Ugnaught med-mechano specialist named Ro­rand Zuzz who was a head under his own height.

  "Fascinating," Den said. "Tell me more."

  Zuzz drank the rest of whatever foul-smelling concoc­tion he was using to alter his brain chemistry and set the empty glass down. The odor—some kind of carboxyl-based intoxicant—reminded Den of week-dead mell­crawler, and he did not consider himself fortunate to know that stink as a reference. The bottle, which the droid had left on the tabl
e, was labeled tyrusian red ale, and the slogan read: because yellow doesn't look good in space. What does that mean? Den wondered.

  "Well, yar, I kin tell ya t' job is one o' t' toughest in t' service, you bet, yar."

  His Basic was rough; Ugnaughts didn't generally bother to learn the common language of the galaxy un­less they had to, but Den had heard and understood a lot worse.

  "Dem docs alla time yellin' 'Fix dis! Fix dat!' like they 'spect me t'pull t' spare parts outta m'backside! Supply ain't deegle dung on dis world, you bet. Docs," he mut­tered, staring moodily into the dregs of his drink.

  The server droid rolled over and put the fresh drinks on the table. It cheeped something, and Den impatiently waved it off.

  "Yes, yes, on the tab."

  The droid beeped acknowledgment, then rolled away.

  "You work with Filba, is that right?"

  The tech picked up his new drink, gulped a third of it. "Ah. Dis good. What was I sayin'?"

  "You were telling me that you work with Filba."

  Zuzz shook his head. "Dem 'utts 'r worse'n humans. Fussy no-creche-fecal-retents, y'know?"

  Den nodded. "Oh, I hear you, brother. Know one, know dem all."

  The Ugnaught cocked a bleary eye at him. Easy, Den. He's not drunk enough for you to start talking like you're clade-breds quite yet.

  Zuzz belched. "I mean, I'm tryin' to zero-reset t' whole biosensor array for Recov'ry, every single milkin' machine, and I can't get t' 'utt t'spring for a de­cen' calibrator!"

  "I can't believe it," Den said. "What scum."

  "Got dat right, bloodline." He glanced around, then leaned forward. " 'Tween you 'n' me?" he said in a low, slurred voice. "D' 'utt's got somet'in goin' on t' side. I t'ink dem creds went into Filba's pouch, y'know what I'm sayin'?"

  "Really?"

  "Oh, yar. I bin keepin' an eye on 'im. 'E's collectin' sweetsap from somewhere, y'know what I mean?"

  "Oh, yar, bloodline," Den said. He smiled. Filba was going to be milking sorry he had gotten in Den Dhur's way. You could scan that and zap it to the bank.

  10

  It was a little thing that did it—it often was a little thing. In this case, it was a female human lab tech laughing at something the guy sitting at the next table with her had said. It wasn't loud, but it was a happy sound, the sound of someone forgetting, for a blessed moment, the grim realities of the Rimsoo. All of a mo­ment, Jos remembered a girl from primary school, the first one he had made laugh. True, he had accomplished this by hopping about, pretending to be a Selonian with a hotfoot, but they'd both been seven years old at the time.

  He stared at the food partitioned into the various compartments of the meal tray that sat before him. Though he knew he should eat to keep his strength up, he was finding it hard to work up an appetite. Oh, the food was okay—the powdered hawk-bat eggs did have a slightly gritty texture, but the shroom steaks weren't bad, since they were local. Still, overall, it wasn't one of the more memorable meals of his life.

  Jos sighed. If not for this war, he would probably be at home, starting a practice with his father or perhaps one of his aunts or uncles—there were a lot of doctors in his family, and several surgeons—and maybe, after a hard day in the operating theater, going home to his

  impressive conapt in the swank Golden Beach area of Coronet. His spouse would meet him at the door; a bright, funny, sexy female companion with whom he could share his life and love. Maybe even children ...

  Abruptly, the food on his table held no appeal. What he wanted to do with his few precious minutes of free time was to go back to his cubicle and crawl into his cot, pull the thin syncloth sheet over his head, and sleep for a week. A month. However long it took for this blasted war to be over and done with so he could go home.

  Yeah, he was a surgeon, and yeah, you couldn't slice without seeing blood, but being up to your ankles in it? Every day? That was hard.

  It didn't matter that the vast majority of the troops were clones, all stamped from the same press, and all programmed not to fear war. Even though they weren't quite individuals, they still suffered and died, and the ones who didn't die he and his colleagues had to put back together any way they could, desperately jury-rigging and cobbling procedures, swapping out organs and patching up wounds, and then send them back out to suffer again. And maybe, this time, die.

  There were days when he hated the talent in his hands and nerves that made it possible for him to slice and plastistrip and heal. Perhaps, if he'd been trained in something else—genomics, maybe, or bio-robotics—he wouldn't be on this stinking planet, mired in this stink­ing war. Of course, he'd rather be behind the lines in a Rimsoo than in the thick of things. His genetic pro­gramming didn't include immunity to fear, after all. But he didn't really want to be here in any capacity.

  Jos thought of Barriss Offee, of the attraction he had initially felt for her. It was just as well that it hadn't continued, he told himself, since she was not permes.

  The fact that she was off-limits, however, did nothing to assuage his loneliness. He wanted someone for a life mate, someone to be close to, to cherish. But he would have to wait until he was back in his home system for that to happen.

  He stared moodily into the depths of his tanque tea, as if some answer might be divined from the root frag­ments bobbing in the murky liquid.

  "Stare any harder and it'll evaporate."

  He glanced up and saw Tolk standing there, in her off-duty whites. The light from the chow hall door was behind her, putting her in partial silhouette, but not so much that he couldn't still see her features. Everything went out of his head except for one thought:

  Son-of-an-ibbot! She's gorgeous!

  It wasn't as if he hadn't been aware that his chief nurse was human, and quite attractive; that was obvious to anybody with one working eye. But the same prob­lem that existed with the Padawan also applied to Tolk: she was not permes. The Vondars and the Kersos—his father's and mother's clans—were very solidly enster; disciples of a long and traditional sociopolitical affilia­tion in which Jos had also been raised. A big part of an enster's core belief system was that no marriage could be made, much less consummated, outside the inhabi­tants of one's own planetary system. The more extreme zealots restricted it even further, refusing to allow any affiliations offplanet. No exceptions were made.

  Yes, a young man or woman could go offworld, and yes, even the staunchest Ensterites might turn a blind eye if a son or daughter somehow managed a temporary al­liance with one of the eksters—the "outsiders"—but when you came home, you left your wild urges behind. You did not bring an ekster home to meet your parents.

  It was simply not done—not unless you were willing to give up your clan and be renounced and ostracized for the rest of your life. Not to mention bringing shame and contempt on your immediate family.

  All this flickered through his thoughts at lightspeed. He hoped none of it showed, given a Lorrdian's un­canny ability to read expressions and body language. Tolk wasn't an empath, like Klo Merit was, but she could pick up and decode the smallest physical clues to just about any species's mood.

  "Tolk," he said casually. "Sit. Have some tea. In fact, have mine."

  Tolk sat, took his cup and sipped from it, looked at him closely, and said, "Who died?"

  "About half the troops in the Republic military forces, seems like lately."

  "We're keeping eighty-seven percent of those who ro­tate through our surgery alive."

  He shrugged. She took another sip of his drink. "Okay, thirteen percent of a big number is still a lot. But it could be worse."

  She had a nice scent about her; something slightly musky, yet fresh. He'd never noticed that before. Of course, the glare of the operating theater's UVs and the overlapping sterile fields tended to wipe out odors, which was generally a good thing, given what gases sometimes escaped when a vibroscalpel pierced body cavities.

  "What's really wrong, Jos?"

  For a moment, he was tempted to tell her. Wha
t's wrong? I'm lonely, a long way from home, and sick of death. I'm sitting next to a beautiful woman I'd like to get to know better—a lot better—but there's no future in it, and I'm not the kind of man who wants a quick

  connect-disconnect, even though that seems like a ter­rific idea at just this moment.

  It took no imagination at all to picture her on his cot, with her hair spread out on the pillow . . . and that was a bad lane to be spacing down, he quickly realized. So instead of speaking the truth, he said, "Just tired. Bio-rhythms are off. I need a vacation."

  "Don't we all." But she gave him a look, and for just a second he was certain she knew exactly what he was thinking.

  Exactly.

  Jos and Zan watched as the supply drop ship lowered on invisible repulsor waves. "They'd better have those biomarkers," Zan said. "I only ordered them half a standard year ago. A Tatooine Sarlacc moves things through its system quicker."

  Jos mopped his brow and nodded, waiting for the ramp to lower. There were a number of things he'd ordered that the base needed desperately: bacta tanks and fluid, bioscan modules, coagulin, neuropreno­line, provotin cystate, and other first-line pharmaceuti­cals ... the list was practically endless. One of the most important things on the inventory, however, was more droids. The order had been mostly for FX-7s and 2-lBs, but he had also requested a couple of new office work­ers; two of the four CZ-3s originally supplied had suc­cumbed to rust and overwork months ago, and the others were becoming eccentric. He suspected spore-rot.

  The ramp lowered. Filba, of course, was there to in­spect the manifest, meticulously checking to see that every last synthflesh strip and chromostring reel was accounted for. The two surgeons, along with several

  nurses and scrubs, watched the duraplast containers as they passed, trying to read the photostenciled content lists.

  "Yes! Got the biomarkers at last," Zan said with a hiss of satisfaction. Then his tattooed jaw dropped. "What, only one case? They'll be gone in a month! Typical..."

  Jos was also disappointed as the last canister au­torolled past them. "So where are the droids I or­dered?" He looked at Zan. "Did you see any droids come off? Anything that even resembles a droid?"