Star War®: MedStar I: Battle Surgeons

by Michael Reaves

  And then, as Jos sealed the latest patient, a double-lung and liver implant who would probably die, too, Tolk touched his arm.

  “That’s it, Jos. That’s the last one.”

  He didn’t understand what she was saying at first. It made no sense—how could there be an end to something that was endless? He blinked, as if coming into the light from a great darkness. Slowly, her eyes above the mask came into focus. “Huh?”

  “We’re done. We can rest now.”

  Rest? What was that?

  He stumbled away from the table. Tolk moved to help him. “Careful,” he mumbled. “Someone turned up the gravity.” He peeled his gloves off, his hands fumbling, and tossed them at the waste hopper. They missed. He thought about going to pick them up, but the idea of bending over was too much to bear. He might never get up.

  He looked around. Others were finishing, or had just finished working on injuries, and they, too, had the look of stunned exhaustion—the same look that had been on the common face of all those who had come under his knife.

  “How—how bad was it?”

  “Bad.” He saw streaks of moisture along the top of her mask, where it had soaked up her tears.

  “Did we save any?”

  “A few.”

  He tried to walk, staggered. She grabbed his arm, steadied him. “I don’t want to know the percentages, do I?”

  “No. You don’t.”

  Jos felt himself slump even more. “I feel like I just went ten rounds in an arena on Geonosis.” He wanted—needed—a drink, but that was far too much effort to contemplate, too. All he could think of now was finding a flat spot where he could collapse. It didn’t even have to be flat. A pile of rocks would do…

  He looked across the tables at Zan. His friend managed to lift his hand in a half salute or wave. Jos returned it, then staggered toward the door.

  And once outside, he heard the sound of more incoming lifters.

  Jos started to laugh. And, for a long, frightening moment, he couldn’t stop.

  14

  Want to see something interesting?” Dhur asked.

  Jos, Zan, Tolk, and Barriss were in the cantina, all drinking some form of alcohol, except the Jedi. It had been four days since that hellish influx of wounded. These days interesting was a loaded term, as far as Jos was concerned. But, as long as it didn’t involve slicing into wounded troopers, he decided he was up to it.

  “Have a seat,” Jos said. He waved at the tender, who nodded and started mixing. He knew who Dhur was and what the Sullustan drank by now.

  Dhur sat and pulled a small device from his pocket, a stressed-plastoid and metal sphere, about the size of a human child’s fist. He held it up.

  Jos squinted at it. “Can’t say I’m overly enthralled,” he said. “Wait—” He took another drink, set the mug down, and squinted at the device again. “Nope,” he said. “Still not enthralled.”

  “Looks like a spiceball,” Zan said. “That would be interesting.”

  Jos raised his mug in silent agreement.

  Barriss said, “It’s from a cam droid. Military grade, looks like.”

  “Give the Jedi first prize,” Dhur said. “I got this from a harvester, who happened across it in the field after a recent sortie by the Separatists. Apparently it was pretty much destroyed in the battle except for passive functions—couldn’t move, no weapons online…even its comm was out.”

  “Still not exactly front-page news, now, is it?” Jos said. “There are pieces of blown-apart droids all over the place.”

  “Think I broke a tooth on one in my grainmush this morning,” Zan added.

  The server arrived with Dhur’s drink. “Put it on Vondar’s tab,” Dhur said. He looked at Jos. “Money back if you don’t think it’s worth it.”

  Jos nodded at the droid, which registered the transaction and moved off. It wasn’t as if he had anything else to spend his pay on here.

  “Just a wild guess,” Zan said, “but I’m thinking it’s not the sphere itself we’re interested in here.”

  “Can’t get anything past you, can I? Watch.” Dhur set it on the table and activated it.

  The holoproj rezzed up from the sphere, one-sixth life-sized. There were some broad-leaved trees, a lot of burned-out or blown-up droids, and a few clone troopers lying about. Everything was canted, at an odd, low angle, as if recorded from a few centimeters above the ground.

  “I’ve seen dead troopers, too,” Jos said. “Lots of them. Don’t even have to go into the jungle for that, we’ve got a service brings ’em right to your door.”

  “Shut up, Jos,” Tolk said, without any heat in her voice.

  After a moment, a trio of humans appeared, working their way through the downed machines and bodies. They wore black-and-purple thinskins and jump boots, with slugthrower carbines slung over their shoulders.

  “Those are Salissian mercenaries,” Barriss said. “I had heard that Dooku had some working for him here.”

  Dhur said, “Yep. Some are mechanics, some run the harvesters—not many battle droids are programmed to pick the local produce, which is why, ultimately, we are all here on this fetid dungheap of a world. A few are special troop, recon, like that, who can go places and do things droids don’t do too well—climb trees, covert recon, those kinds of things. Sometimes only a humanoid will do. And Salissians will do just about anything as long as there’s a few credits at the other end of it. Ugly bunch of folks, just as soon shoot you as look at you. Probably rather shoot than look at you,” he added to Jos.

  Jos smiled indulgently and glanced at Zan. “They’re so cute when they’re that size, aren’t they?”

  The three mercenaries were scavenging, picking up tools and weapons from the battle site and checking the clone bodies. There was no sound, and the image occasionally wavered a bit, breaking into digital blocks and then steadying again.

  “Droid was on its last power reserves,” Dhur said. “Cam went dead a few minutes after this was captured. Just sheer luck it happened to be pointing the right way.”

  Suddenly the three Salissians froze. They dropped their weapons and raised their hands, then backed away from their fallen blasters.

  “It seems somebody has caught our mercenaries off-guard,” Tolk said.

  A moment later, a man walked into the cam’s frame, a blaster rifle held on the trio.

  Jos looked at the human. The odd angle made recognition difficult, but still, he felt he knew this guy. He leaned to one side, studying the holo from a different perspective. Of course—it was—

  “Phow Ji,” Barriss said. Her voice was soft.

  As they watched, Ji smiled—then threw his gun to the ground. It struck in a silent splatter of mud.

  Tolk, Jos, and Zan reacted in surprise. Barriss did not. “What’s he think he’s doing?” Zan said.

  Tolk was watching the holo closely. “He knows what he’s doing,” she said. Jos said nothing. As far as he knew, neither Zan nor Tolk had seen the combat teacher in action, although Tolk’s cold-reading skills had obviously told her Ji was no one to trifle with. Jos looked at Barriss. She shook her head, but Jos was pretty sure she, like Tolk, knew what was about to happen, because he was pretty sure he knew as well.

  And Zan was about to find out…

  The holo flickered again as Ji moved in and the three Salissians went for him—

  A moment later, all three mercenaries were on the ground, and darned if Jos could tell what had happened.

  Maybe he’d had enough to drink for today, after all.

  Dhur said. “Let’s look at the replay on that.” He touched a control on the sphere. Everyone sat up and watched carefully as the scene began again at one-quarter speed.

  Even slowed down, it wasn’t easy to see exactly what Phow Ji did, but Jos knew enough anatomy to recognize what damage had been inflicted as the three mercenaries fell. One had a crushed larynx, one a broken neck, and the third had taken an elbow to the temple that had surely cracked the skull. All three injuries w
ere apt to be fatal if not treated, and he didn’t see any Separatist medics in the jungle clearing.

  Phow Ji went to each in turn, squatted next to the body, and appeared to take something. The image froze as he squatted next to the last one.

  “Not sure what he was doing at the end,” Dhur said, “but I’d guess he was taking some kind of trophies. Separatist troops use sub-Q implants for ID, so it’s probably pieces of clothing, or…something.”

  Looking around the table, Jos knew everyone was thinking the same thing—the “something” Ji had taken could have been a chevron or some other adornment—or it could have been a finger, or an ear.

  “The droid’s power kicked out about then, ’cause that’s all there is.” Dhur looked at Jos. “Worth the drink, Doc?”

  “Worth several,” Jos replied quietly. “However many it takes to forget it.”

  “He killed those three mercs,” Zan said, outrage in his voice. “With his bare hands. He could be court-martialed and sent to prison for that!”

  “Not likely,” Dhur said. “They were mercenaries, pretty much the scum of the galaxy, on a battlefield, and it was three against one. Except for this recording, there were no witnesses, and who would trust an enemy cam droid? Everybody knows how easy it is to fake such things. They could have left this here for just that purpose, for all we know.”

  “Cold-blooded murder,” Zan said. His voice was thick.

  “People die in wars, Captain,” Dhur said. “If Ji had shot them down, nobody would blink twice at it. Enemy troops, on a field of battle, looting the bodies of our dead? Even though he killed them with his bare hands, there are a lot of Republic officers who would say ‘More power to him!’ and put him up for a medal.”

  Zan finished off the last of his drink and set the glass down carefully. “I hate this war,” he said. “I hate everything about it. What kind of people are we that such things can go on and nobody is outraged? What does that say about us?”

  Nobody had an answer to that.

  Zan stood, carefully, for he had drunk enough to make him unsteady. You couldn’t tell unless you knew him, but Jos could see it. “I am going to bed,” the Zabrak said. “Don’t wake me until the war is over.”

  After he walked away, Dhur sipped at his own drink. “There’s a good story here, though I doubt the censors will let it by. The citizens back home might find it…disturbing.” He paused. “Your friend’s too sensitive to be here. He’s an artist. They never do very well in wars.”

  “Does anybody?” Jos asked.

  Dhur nodded at the frozen holoproj image. “Some do. Where else can you legally beat people to death and get paid for it?”

  On her way back to her quarters, Barriss thought about the recording she had seen. It was night, warm and muggy, and wingstingers and scavenger moths swarmed the glow lamps, casting giant, ghostly shadows. A late thunderstorm grumbled in the distance, heat lightning flashing in the darkness. The rain would be welcome if it got this far—it would cool the smothering, sticky air somewhat, and the sound of it on the foamcast roof of her cubicle would be comforting. She could certainly stand some comfort—there was little enough to be found on Drongar. Tropical worlds had their beauty, and humans were at their core tropical, or at least temperate, creatures, but she preferred cooler worlds. A walk in the snow was, for her, far more invigorating than one in broiling sunshine.

  The Jedi part of her had been impressed by Phow Ji’s efficiency as a fighter. His moves had been fluid and powerful; against an opponent unaided by the Force, he would be formidable indeed.

  But the part of her that lay deep beneath her Jedi training was repulsed by the violence. It had been murder, for it was obvious that the three mercenaries had not had much, if any, of a chance of defeating Ji. Even three against one and barehanded, the odds had still been in his favor—and, of course, he had known it.

  How many trophies did he have hanging on his wall? She did not really want to know, but again, a part of her was curious. Back in the Temple, she had once listened to Mace Windu tell a group of students that killing somebody was easy—you could do it with a single swipe of your lightsaber. But living with the knowledge that you had killed somebody would change you forever. The Jedi Master had been right—it had certainly changed her. Killing was not a thing you did lightly, not if you had any kind of compassion, or even minimally decent moral and ethical codes. Sometimes, to protect the innocent, or one’s own life, justice and survival demanded a Jedi strike with enough power to lay an attacker low. But the fact that it was necessary did not absolve you from seeing the faces in your dreams, or hearing the anguished cries of the fallen late in the silent night. How could a person with any humanity at all deliberately go out and stalk victims, kill them with his bare hands, and then take trophies to remind himself that he had done it?

  As if he could possibly forget?

  The Force allowed you to be a powerful fighter, but it also leavened your impulse to do violence. When you knew what you could do with your lightsaber, knew how deadly you were, it gave you pause. Because you could do a thing did not mean that you should…

  She shook her head. Phow Ji was a killer, a seeker and savorer of violence, and whether he did it as some personal challenge or because he enjoyed it really didn’t matter—it was a sickness. If she could touch his mind, bring the Force to bear upon his psyche, maybe she could cure him of this sickness.

  Or maybe he could infect you with it.

  She shook her head again, this time against her own thoughts. The constant pressure here, the intensity of the work, the lack of real rest…all these things took their toll. A Jedi who was worried that the Force couldn’t protect her against a trained thug was definitely overfatigued. She should get to bed and sleep—she needed it.

  In the distance, the thunder grew louder. Good. Maybe the rain would wash away some of these dark thoughts along with the spores and rot in the air…

  15

  Getting rid of the body on board the MedStar would have been easy. A little messy work with an industrial vibroblade, then a trip down to the waste station with a bulky, liquid-proof bag, and hatoo! Mathal, the dead human, would be no more than garbage by now, indistinguishable from the rest of the all-purpose trash that was sieved from waste disposers and eventually spaced. But Bleyd knew that to have an agent of Black Sun mysteriously disappear, especially when he could be traced as far as Bleyd’s ship, would be bad. They would automatically suspect him—rightly so in this case—and having Black Sun turn a quizzical frown in his direction was not even remotely appealing.

  The problem was, there was no flunky Bleyd could trust to help him. The troops owed their fealty to the Republic, not to him personally. Droids’ cognitive modules could be probed, and even after extensive reprogramming their data banks might retain residual quantum imprints. Some of the ship’s personnel might be amenable to bribes, but there was no way to know if their loyalty would stay bought.

  Which meant he had to do all that needed to be done himself.

  Fortunately, he had considered his actions for some time and in detail; this left only the actual execution of his plan. It entailed some risks, but Bleyd felt it could be managed, with sufficient attention to each element.

  The admiral first treated his own wounds—Mathal had been skilled enough with a blade to mark him. Bleyd had known that would be the case going in. It was the way of knife fighting—only a fool believed that facing an opponent with a knife would end without bloodshed. In his case, the injury was not serious—two long, shallow cuts on his right forearm. The pressure of his thumb for a few minutes on the proper nerve ganglion had stopped the bleeding temporarily, and an application of synthflesh would finish the job.

  His injuries attended to, Bleyd then put Mathal’s corpse into one of the carbon-freezing chambers in the quarantine section and sealed the body into a rectangular carbonite block big enough to show no sign of what was contained within. This he then holostamped with markings indicating that the block co
ntained a set of defective harvesting enzyme converters. Sealing such volatile and active catalytical components for transport was normal enough. Then, with the help of a small antigrav generator, he moved it via the service lift tube to the aft cargo hold’s trash lock.

  In theory, he could have shipped the dead agent to a chemical storage warehouse and had him shelved. As long as he paid the pittance of a fee, the block of densely interlaced carbon and tibanna atoms containing Mathal’s remains would sit stacked there forever, unmolested and uninspected.

  But the body itself was of no consequence. The trick was to convince a skeptical Black Sun that their human agent had left Bleyd’s ship in his own vessel, and that the ship had subsequently been destroyed by forces unconnected to Bleyd.

  That next part would be a bit trickier, because on this vessel, everyone knew who Admiral Bleyd was—by sight, or, if not blessed with that sense, then by smell, taste, touch, or hearing. In order to continue his plan, Bleyd had to be disguised.

  He had pondered this aspect at some length, and had decided that a simple disguise was better than an elaborate one.

  He returned to his quarters. There he packed into a small case a long, white robe, hooded with an osmotic veil that would completely conceal his features. The robe was identical to the ones worn by a meditative caste of siblings-in-service called The Silent. There were usually a few of The Silent to be found on any large medical ship, since the order’s universal mission was to aid the sick and injured. They did not speak aloud, even to each other. They took their meals in private and wore their hoods up in public, effectively hiding their identities at all times. A few days ago Bleyd had surreptitiously caused microtransmitters to be placed in their food—tiny devices no larger than grains of sand, which enabled him to track those few of The Silent who were on board, at least for a while. He would not run into one of them by accident, and no one else would be able to sense who was under the ersatz robe.