Into The Cauldron - 5 ABY

A clamor in SF-767's camp arose as Taz was typing the final sentences of his 'gram to Tess. It had been a little more than a year since she'd been promoted to the Olminar's Second Officer and chief pilot. Ten months since he'd seen her, and four months since her last communique. She'd seemed really busy, last time she wrote.

Taz couldn't bring himself to write of his own despair, or the sleepless nights and interminable days, or how her absence had left a desperate emptiness that had him feeling adrift and hollow. With each rotation of the desert world he felt her getting farther away, and he fell a little deeper into anger and depression. He tried to sound upbeat in his posts; hers had been full of good news about the ship's triumphant return to Filve after the decisive battle over Jakku that had finally forced the Empire's surrender.

Except no one seemed to notice that on the war-torn sandbox of a planet. The remnants of Imperial Counselor Rax's forces continued their bitter, useless fighting for months after their commander's demise. In response, the Alliance ground forces picked at the meat clinging to the bones of the Imperial war machine. The mop-up operation that was supposed to take a couple of weeks dragged on for month after wearying month. Imperial counterattacks gained nothing except to prolong the suffering and death on both sides.

The monotony and terror that constituted his life on Jakku wore on Taz. Hyper-vigilance for days on end gnawed at him, robbing him of sleep, and stifling peace of mind. It wasn't just him, either. Combat fatigue infected nearly everyone, fresh recruits and hardened vets alike. Some turned to drink or spice or stims, in spite of strict regulations and brig time, even courts-martial. For others, it all became too much. Every few days they'd find a trooper or tech who'd gone AWOL, their brainpans obliterated by a blaster bolt.

It was right after an autopsy on the latest suicide-by-blaster late yesterday evening when Taz noticed the tremor in his hand. He'd put it down to lack of sleep, but the shaking persisted. He clenched his fist into a tight ball and jabbed at the transmit button on the data terminal just as troopers' boots pounded through the corridor at double-time.

Sera Rendix poked her head into the infirmary, scarred and scuffed armorplst helmet in one hand, rifle in the other.

"Hey, Doc," she greeted him, skipping over his warrant officer rank. She'd been granted a field promotion nearly five months ago that gave her temporary command of the Ballista platoon after Lieutenant Kestalos was killed in action. The bureaucracy hadn't kept up with events on the ground, though; a replacement for Kestalos had been promised, but like so much on Jakku, had fallen through.

Sera steadfastly refused to update the Senior Trooper's stripes on her sand-scoured TC10 combat armor or her Javelin-One callsign despite the fact that she was—functionally, at least—second in command at Destiny Outpost. Taz saw the strain in her sharp green eyes, but with it, determination and a maturity that made her seem older than her twenty-six years. "What's going on?"

She flashed a casual grimace. "Imperial landing craft got shot down in the Cauldron. Gonna do a little bag and tag. Could use a medic."

Taz scratched at the hair on his scalp that had grown too long, rubbed his beard, and glanced at the datapad on the desk. He'd hoped to catch up on some of the travelogue holos he'd been saving for downtime. They were one of the few things that brought him some respite from Jakku's monotony and madness.

He made a frustrated sound through his nose. "Sure," he said without enthusiasm, kicking away from the desk and rolling over to the wall. He put on his combat vest and medic bag, then slung his blaster and grabbed his helmet by its mandible.

Sera tilted her head, smirking at the lightweight combat helmet in his hand. "That's not Razorclaw standard issue."

Taz answered with a shrug. "Got it from that Agronian special forces group we reinforced a few weeks back. Their sergeant said mine made me look like a reject from a Duros summer camp." He screwed his mouth up at the deprecation. "It's lighter than ours. Easier to work in."

"Not as much protection, though."

Taz shrugged. He'd stopped worrying about margins of survivability on the desert hellhole months ago. "Gonna write me up for being out of uniform?"

"Nah, there's too much paperwork in this job as it is. I swear I don't know how you officers get any real work done. Besides, you outrank me, so you can wear whatever the hell you want. Just don't let Fintergost think you lost your issue gear or she'll hang you from the shield gate."

"Right," he grunted.

"Watch your head too, Doc," She poked a divot into the soft blast armor of the helmet's skullcap. "A square-on shot from an E-11 can punch through this at fifty meters." Her smirk got wider. "Don't need those mudrutter Imps getting off a lucky shot at my team's—what do you Filvians say—Tychori?"

"Close enough but I object to being anyone's mascot," Taz frowned, not bothering to correct the Corellian woman's pronunciation.

"Not our mascot, Doc, our good luck charm." She wiped a hand through her spiky red hair before she donned her helmet. They followed the rest of the patrol outside into the blast furnace. Taz tugged his helmet on, then climbed onto one of the three open-topped speeder trucks. The rest of the patrol made the cargo deck shudder with the stamp of armored boots as Ballista commandos and Razorbat regulars packed onto the benches.

D'tek Vrondondar settled beside him, planting his heavy Z-6 rotary blaster on the floorboards between his tree-trunk legs. "Oktos-aktuu. Does this not remind you of home?"

"Sure. Just like back on Filve," he muttered. The stocky Filvian's unrelenting sunny disposition usually made Taz feel better. Today it felt grating.

The truck's eight repulsors hummed loudly as it trundled forward, flanked by a pair of Meteor-J speeder bikes. In place of a sidecar, each bike mounted a repeating blaster and dual anti-armor rockets.

Captain G'den Fintargost stood at the front of the truck, swaying to keep her balance. She waved for everyone's attention, then tapped toward her ear with a thick digit. Taz switched on the comlink, isolating himself from the noise of vehicles and wind.

The Filvian captain's voice crackled in his earphones. "About an hour ago sensors monitored a Sentinel landing craft escorted by two TIEs, that entered the New Republic AO. Patrol fighters engaged the imperials, destroying one TIE and driving off the other. The Sentinel was knocked down by an AA battery. Our mission is to recon the crash site, recover survivors for interrogation, and secure the lander until the spooks from Republic Intel arrive." The Filvian tapped controls on her armored vambrace. "Mission data have been sent to your tac comps. Javelin and Arrow squads will be the security element. The Razorbat company will board the lander and secure it." She paused a few seconds to receive acknowledgments from the platoon and squad leaders. "We're about ten minutes out. Weapon and comm checks."

The troops went through the ritual of checking their blasters' power cells and gas supplies, reviewing their combat loadouts, and checking in with their team leaders.

Taz's comm pinged and Sera said, "You're with us, Medic-One."

"Copy that, Javelin-One."

As they approached the crash site the truck jounced over the uneven terrain, then slowed as it dropped within a meter of the ground. Jakku's ever-present rusty sand had been largely scoured away by winds that caromed off a high ridge on their left, leaving the dark gray anorthosite bedrock exposed in a deep bowl that stretched over seven kilometers. The area around them was strewn with boulders of the stuff, nearly the size of the truck. A plume of dark smoke marked the downed ship, though it was still hidden from view.

The truck rumbled to a halt before getting too far into the rock field, and the soldiers jumped from the flatbed, forming up by twos. Sera and the Ballistas led the way, moving fast but with deliberation, using the boulders as cover. Taz advanced with them, checking his helmet's motion sensors for signs of the enemy, but he wasn't surprised when he found none. Jamming of tactical sensors was pretty much a constant for the forces on both sides. The Razorbats sent up four surveillance droids to reconnoiter the area, but the optical feed into the soldiers' visors was a useless mess of digital snow and noise.

A few more minutes and they reached the wreckage. The Sentinel's folding wings had sheared off when it hit and tumbled, leaving huge gashes in the softer ground between the islands of exposed bedrock. Its tall vertical stabilizer was fractured and bent nearly in half. The cockpit appeared intact, though the windscreens were smashed. Acrid smoke belched from the drive pods. The troop compartment had been ripped open by the force of impact. Taz could make out faint flashes of electrical arcs inside the ship. A dozen or so bodies lay strewn within a rough arc.

"Looks like they were hurled from the lander when it tumbled," he postulated. A figure on the ground near the cockpit moved feebly. "The pilot?" He started toward the struggling Imperial.

"Could be," agreed Sera, blocking his way with an outstretched arm. "Let's clear the area first, Doc."

"Right."

"Javelins, listen up. Twenty-meter perimeter and watch yourselves. I'd bet there's more than twel—"

The distinctive screech of E-11 blasters erupted all around them as concealed stormtroopers opened fire from their ambush positions. Taz fell prone, breathless from a sudden adrenaline dump. He gripped his G9 and thumbed the safety without conscious thought. A dozen voices were shouting in his headphones, identifying targets and calling out orders. His helmet display was a chaotic mess of symbols—red squares painted over probable enemies, green triangles for friendlies, range marks, air temp, windspeed, barometrics. Taz tried to ignore it all; he'd always handled combat more by instinct than regulation.

Sera knelt beside him, calmly snapping off three-round bursts and launching grenades while she kept the other Ballistas and Fingergost up-to-date. A dozen meters away boulders exploded from the miniature concussion munitions. A trio of stormtroopers rag-dolled through the air. One hit the ground and didn't move but the other two scrambled to find cover, firing as they went. Taz's blaster shot nailed one in the shoulder, spinning the Imperial before he dropped to the ground. "We're sitting bixrs out here!"

Sera's only answer was a nod. "With me," she called in his headphones. She jumped up and they scrambled toward a rut in the bedrock. The familiar sound of Z-6 and M-45 heavy weapons filled the air, and Taz thought he heard the whining turbine of a Meteor-J combat speeder bike. He hoped that meant the Republic forces were counterattacking, but amid the chaos he couldn't tell.

They reached the fracture in the rock and sank down as much as they could. Taz kept his head moving, scanning for enemies as Sera barked orders to the Ballistas. The rapid crack of fire from a Z-6 grew louder in his headphones and he looked over to see the stout Filvian D'tek approaching them on all fours in his powered assault armor, laying down a withering storm of plasma bolts from the rotary blaster cannon mounted over his shoulder.

The first calls for a medic came over Taz's comm and he started to get up when he felt the urgent, familiar prickling behind his eyes. An instant later a white canister rolled into the ditch beside them. His eyes went wide as Sera clipped him around his midsection and slammed him to the ground, shouting "GRENADE!"

The blast punted them both out of the gully, limbs flailing.

Taz landed hard, jarring his shoulder and knocking the breath from his chest. His ears rang despite the helmet's sound attenuator circuits and the worst headache of his life stabbed at the back of his head. His vision went black for a moment then returned, the world spinning from the shock to his vestibular system.

As he worked to drag air back into his lungs he rolled slowly onto his side. Rendix lay some meters away, not moving. Half of her helmet was sheared away and her arm was angulated unnaturally. Worse, her right leg was missing just above the knee, the wound bleeding profusely.

In spite of his swimming vision and muddled head, he touched off a string of curses as he shuffled to his hands and knees, dread gnawing his gut. A little way off to his right D'tek was picking himself up. His powered armor's miniature deflector shield had protected him from the worst of the blast and he was already back in the fight, triggering the big six-barreled blaster on his back. The tough Filvian commando nodded at him and Taz crawled over to where Sera was sprawled. He'd lost his carbine in the blast, but his medbag was still over his shoulder.

He took out a medscanner as he keyed his comm. "Javelin-One down," he broadcast on the priority channel, his voice shaking more than he wanted it to. Then he turned all his attention to her.

Taz connected the scanner to the data port on her breastplate and tapped the power button, but the display was blank. He tapped at it again, but there was no change. Swearing viciously, he tossed the malfunctioning scanner aside, pushed the helmet off his head and flung off his gauntlets, then unlocked the catches holding her carapace in place. It came apart in four neat sections. He fished under the flap of his medbag for a pair of thin bioguard gloves and slipped them on.

Taz couldn't see any impaling injuries and sliding his hands beneath her didn't reveal any hidden wounds to her trunk. With cautious haste he removed what remained of Sera's helmet. Her scalp was bleeding, her eyes open but unresponsive, the pupils dilated. He placed his ear close to her mouth while he looked down her body. He couldn't hear anything over the din of the shooting and explosions going off everywhere but he felt a faint hint of breath and saw her chest move just a little.

"C'mon, Sera!" Taz shouted, "Don't you dare die on me!" He grabbed a tourniquet from his bag and lashed it around her thigh, then tightened it until the bleeding slowed. He thought she might have uttered a pained groan, but with all the noise he couldn't be sure. He fit a cautery patch over the ripped, bloody stump of her leg, spared a quick glance around, and saw other Ballistas and Razorbats converging on them. At the same time, it seemed like the firing was getting farther away. Good news, probably, but he had more important things to think about.

Taz probed at her neck with his fingers and found a weak, slow pulse. He pressed at the vertebrae starting at the base of her skull and working down her neck, careful not to disturb her spine. He found no obvious deformities or instabilities but to be safe he fixed her head between his knees while he applied an immobilizing collar. Then he sprayed quick hardening gel foam around her shoulders, neck, and head to keep everything in place. Her respirations were still too shallow and slow to keep her alive for long. He slipped an oxymask over her nose and mouth, adjusting the cyclic flow rate to deliver positive pressure oxygen into her lungs.

The broken arm was next. Removing her gauntlet and vambrace, he opened the seam on the ballistic undergarment up to her bicep, glad to find her broken radius and ulna hadn't penetrated the skin. He probed her wrist for a pulse and found a very faint one after a few seconds. He was sure she was in shock and already hypovolemic, so he couldn't risk injecting any pain meds. "Sorry, Sera, this'll hurt," he warned the unconscious woman and forcefully realigned her forelimb, then held it between his knees while he applied more gel to splint it in place.

The pulse in her wrist had faded to nothing. He tried the carotid artery but had no better luck. Swearing again, he shouted to her but received no response. Even a sharp sternal rub failed to elicit a pain response. Her face was ashen, her lips starting to turn blue. Taz looked up at a trooper who hovered nearby. "Medevac, now. Go!" he shouted. The commando turned on his heel and sprinted away.

"You're not dying on me, Sera!" He'd done about everything he could with the supplies in his bag, though. If he was going to save her, he'd need something more. Taz put his hand on her chest, drew a breath to calm his jangling, adrenalized nerves, then leaned close to her and called forth the Force as he'd done in his self-training sessions. At first nothing happened, but he continued mumbling the Dahannist meditation his mother had taught him when he was a boy, focusing and centering himself. He'd been practicing the healing trance on and off for years, since his fateful first use of it on his twentieth birthday, with results that could only be described as... variable. But he'd never tried it under combat conditions.

After some time the chaos and noise of the battlefield fell away. He felt a warm tingling in his scalp that flowed down his neck and shoulder, into his arm and hand. After a few seconds he found Sera's weak life force. Narrowing his mental focus, he felt her injuries; the lacerated spleen, perforated lung, flail segment in her chest wall, concussion, broken left forearm, and the traumatic amputation of her right leg.

"Sera," he muttered softly, over and over, pouring his energy into each wound, solely by instinct. He knelt over her for some time, feeling the Force working crudely, yet stabilizing her vital functions, knitting together the damage to her battered body, restoring her vitality. After an untold number of minutes he heard the whine of an approaching speeder bike and opened his eyes.

Rendix stared up at him, her green eyes brimming with tears. "How did you—" she started to whisper.

Taz shook his head. His scalp and face were bathed in sweat. "Rest, Javelin-One," he said in a kind voice that wasn't much more than a rough whisper. He inserted an intravenous fluid line, injected some pain meds, then helped secure her on the bike's stretcher. He dictated orders and his latest observation of her vital signs for the driver, who sped away with her.

Taz wiped his face with his sleeve and took a minute to collect his gear. The concentrated effort of using the healing trance on Sera and the after-effects of the adrenaline spike left him feeling battered but she was hardly the only injured soldier on the field. He called for a casualty report and listened to the response while he repacked his med supplies.

D'tek came up beside him, limping a little. "Your blaster, Oktos-aktuu."

"Thanks, D'tek-aktuu," replied the medtech, slinging the offered carbine gingerly. He winced at the pain in his injured shoulder. His vision swirled and he felt nauseated, both likely signs of a concussion. No time to worry about that now. "Sitrep?"

"We have repulsed the Imperial ambush."

"Taz nodded and they headed back toward the speeder trucks at a quick pace. "Want me to take a look at that leg?"

The stocky ixbish shook his helmeted head. "No need, Officer Oktos-aktuu, I must return to the security perimeter, but I thank you for your concern."

"Alright, but come see me as soon as you're relieved."

The Filvian Ballista commando gave a purposeful nod and bounded toward the perimeter on all fours. The artificial musculature in his powered assault armor helped him to leap fifteen meters at a time, and he disappeared rapidly.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Taz found the injured laid out on the bed of one of the trucks. He clambered up and set to work. Two hours later he'd treated the last of the eight wounded soldiers and seen them evacuated. He'd used his Force abilities on most of them, treating internal bleeding, blast and penetrating injuries, even a skull fracture. His ability to visualize the injuries increased with each patient he treated so that by the fourth one he didn't even bother double-checking against the medscanner. More than that, Taz found that he had sufficient control of his ability to suppress pain almost completely and to stabilize the conditions of those who'd suffered the most grievous injuries. He cursed his lack of formal training, though. He could feel how much more lay just beyond his grasp. With real training and his medical skills, he was sure he'd be able to fully heal every injury and disease short of death, if only he could get practical instruction.

There were stories of an Alliance pilot named Skywalker who was supposed to be the last of the Jedi. Some rumors said he'd been present for the decisive battle above Jakku, but disappeared when it was over. Taz wondered if the man even existed, and if so, whether there was some way he could make contact with him.

Another truck laden with fresh soldiers arrived, and right behind it one of the Razorbats' GR-44 command speeders. A woman wearing a scarf over her head and brown fatigues without rank markings stepped out of the command car. A pair of technicians followed. She spoke briefly to Captain Fintargost, out of earshot. A trio of speeder bikes drove up, and the three each boarded one of the sidecars before the nimble craft sped away toward the wrecked Sentinel. Soldiers transferred the stabilized casualties while Taz dictated more instructions. The big vehicle rumbled away with the wounded, leaving a swirl of choking dust in its wake.

Taz eased himself over to the edge of the truck bed and let his legs dangle. His throat was parched and raw. His body ached everywhere, as much from the aftereffects of the explosion as having spent the past couple of hours bent over his patients. He ripped open a foil pack and tossed two analgesic tabs into his mouth, then washed them down with a bottle of water that burned his tongue from having laid in the sun too long. Despite what he told Sera, he rued not changing into full combat gear. It would have kept him cool, at least. He wiped his arm across his face, too late to keep the sweat from stinging his dry eyes.

Captain Fintargost ambled over, her carbine slung across her chest. She looked up at him and Taz imagined her squinting against Jakku's powerful sun behind her elongated visor. "Officer Oktos, you look like a pile of w'lorta crap," she stated without preamble. There was probably a toothy Filvian grimace behind her visor too.

"Yes ma'am, I suppose I do."

"Been sleeping well?"

Taz let out a tired breath between his lips. "Not particularly, ma'am."

She tilted her head to the side. "Anything bothering you?"

He wished she'd just leave him alone. Filvians' gregarious natures and inclination toward curiosity had led them to become some of the galaxy's greatest technicians and scientists, but it could also just be damned annoying. "Not particularly, ma'am."

"Hmm," she responded. "Well, get some rest when you can, Officer Oktos. We can't have our medics performing at less than their best."

Taz made a noncommittal nod. "Yes ma'am. I'll be sure to do that."

She started to say something else but turned instead and started toward the command speeder, barking orders into her comm as she went. Taz drained what remained of the unrefreshing water and tossed the bottle toward a bin near the cab. The plastic bounced off the lip of the bin and clattered onto the truck bed.

He groaned and started to go after it when a Meteor-J screamed to a halt. Strapped to the stretcher atop its sidecar was someone wearing an Imperial Navy uniform. Taz hopped down from the truck bed, his curiosity aroused.

It was a woman, somewhere around his age, barely conscious and groaning. Bloody bandages had been hastily wrapped around her arm to hold a combat-expedient splint. Her head was bound as well. Beneath the bandages she had creamy brown skin and a shock of platinum hair.

Taz looked at the driver. "What's the story here, trooper?"

"Sir, we think she's the lander's pilot."

"The one on the ground near the cockpit?"

The Razorbat soldier nodded. "Her right arm's in bad shape sir, and she's got a nasty head wound."

"Help me get her up on the truck."

"Yessir," obeyed the trooper as they disconnected the stretcher and activated its repulsors.

Taz grabbed his shears and cut open her uniform, put an oxymask over her nose and mouth, and performed a rapid physical exam. The woman moaned painfully and tried to push him away.

"Stop it," Taz ordered. "I'm a medtech. I'm trying to help you."

"Don't... want... filthy... Rebel..."

Taz scowled. "Well this filthy rebel's job is to treat the injured, even you murdering Imperials." He had a dark temptation to leave her to her suffering. What was one more dead Imp on Jakku's blood-stained ledger? One more dead Imp to balance the orgy of desecration they'd visited on Vrast. But the next instant he realized that no amount of death could pay for what they'd done to Vrast, or Sera, or the thousands of Alliance soldiers who'd been killed and maimed. And whatever else the pilot was, she was a patient. Working on her would be good practice. An infinitesimal good to stack against the Empire's infinite depravity.

He let out a sound that was half grunt, half sigh, placed a hand on her forehead, and began the meditation. He moved his other hand a few centimeters above her body, letting the Force guide him toward her injuries.

"Warm..." the woman muttered.

Taz opened his eyes. He continued intoning the meditation, his lips barely moving, he unwrapped the bandages and removed the splint on her arm. She gasped from the pain and he increased his droning until she relaxed. The limb was mangled and nearly amputated below the elbow, with only a scrap of skin and sinew holding it together. He doused it with some of the base's dwindling bacta stock and gingerly placed his hands on either side of the grotesque injury.

As exhausted as he felt, Taz nonetheless let his consciousness delve more deeply into the gray haze of the Force, inviting it to flow through him, out from his palms and fingers. In his mind he could visualize intense blue light enveloping her arm. Within that bright glow, it seemed as though her bones, muscles, nerves, and vasculature were all in motion, rebuilding their shattered structures, the tissue revitalizing itself. His breathing became ragged with the effort he was exerting, but Taz kept at it, feeling like he'd found a new level of comprehension and closeness to the Force that had eluded him until now.

When he was about to collapse on top of his patient he let his link with the Force slip back into the recesses of perception. Taz opened his eyes and let out a ragged sigh. Panting and awash with sweat, he regarded the unconscious Imperial pilot. Her severed arm was whole, the injury site covered in pale, new skin.

"Wow," he blurted, hardly believing his eyes.

The sun had advanced further toward the horizon. A half-dozen troops from Razor Battalion gathered at the side of the truck, looking wonderstruck. He was suddenly conscious of the sharp cramping in his legs and he nearly fell over before steadying himself with the help of the speeder driver. He looked at the younger soldier. "How long was I... working, trooper Mintakis?" he inquired, reading the name plaque on the man's pauldron.

"Uh, half an hour, sir?" he answered. "What was that, sir?"

Taz screwed up his mouth. "You know that saying everybody uses, 'May the Force be with you'?"

"Sure, sir."

"Well, that was the Force."

There were whistles and incredulous exclamations, shouted questions about whether he was a Jedi, how long he'd been able to heal people without a bacta tank, and a cacophony of others. After a few seconds he waved them all to silence. "I'm exhausted, people, and this patient needs to be in the infirmary."

He detailed some troops to reconnect the stretcher to the bike, then climbed on behind Mintakis and rode back to Destiny Outpost. They transferred the pilot to an infirmary bed. Taz removed the oxymask and replaced it with a nasal cannula. He felt leaden and slow; the injuries he'd suffered and the mental effort he'd expended made every move feel like broken glass, grinding between his bones. He ignored the miniature agonies, pulled the medscanner down from the ceiling, and moved it from head to toe just to be sure he hadn't missed anything.

K'nol Mongronak drew the curtain aside and walked in. She looked at Taz, bruised and dirty, and tsk'ed in the throaty way that only Filvians could. "You should be on one of these beds yourself, Tazbarada-onshuu."

"No time to be laying down, K'nol-uugresh," Taz replied to the junior medtech. "Help me change these bandages."

The imbish tsk'ed again, but stretched bioguard gloves over her thick digits. She knitted her furry brows and probed gently at the pilot's scalp. Other than a lot of dried blood and some discoloration there was no sign of an injury. "Has this patient had a bacta treatment already, sir?"

"Um, yes she has," Taz yawned. It wasn't a lie, exactly; he'd used some bacta on her arm and he was too tired to recite the real story. He filled a basin with warm water, then cleaned the blood and grime, careful not to wake her. Her dark, thick hair was almost black, but dyed platinum with a lock at her temple colored a brilliant scarlet. Taz flickered a grin. Even Imperials had a sense of fashion, it seemed. He washed her arm, amazed anew at the miraculous work the Force had done to repair the terrible damage she'd suffered. They covered her with a sheet and a blanket.

K'nol made notes on the datapad and waved Taz away. "Really sir, you should get some rest before you collapse."

"I will, I promise. Just need to check on Trooper Rendix. Will you see to the others?"

"Of course, sir."

Taz thanked her and ducked out. He shuffled to the end of the hall and pulled aside the curtain at Sera's bay. Reiko sat beside her, anxious and afraid. Dried tracks of tears marred her pretty round face. He smiled and nodded in what he hoped was a reassuring way, then checked the datapad at the foot of her bed. The initial surgery on her leg had already been done. She was drowsy thanks to the drugs she was receiving but gave his hand a squeeze when he took it to check her pulse.

"Doc, you look like—" she began in a whisper.

"W'lorta crap, I know," he finished for her. He was about to say more, but instead he laid her hand across her stomach. "I'll see you in the morning, Sera."

"Sure, Doc," she uttered in a dreamy voice.

Taz barely managed a grin through his exhaustion. His eyelids were starting to close on their own, and the ache from the beating he'd taken was worse than ever. He dragged himself into his office next door and slumped onto the cot by his desk. Despite his utter fatigue, he entered the healing trance again. Turning inward with the Force, he concentrated on the concussion he'd suffered. Drained of strength from the day's exertions, he held the trance for a bare minute. Hoping that was enough, he drew his legs onto the cot without bothering to take off his boots and laid down. For the first time in weeks he fell asleep almost immediately.

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Jakku's morning sun blazed through the window onto Taz's face, forcing him awake. He opened his eyes a fraction, then lifted his hand to ward against the glare and sat up with a grunt. Through the wall he could hear the FX droids and the medics checking the patients.

The smell of khaff wafted on the air circulator's currents and his stomach grumbled with hunger, but he headed to the office's small 'fresher first. He stripped out of his clothes, activated the mirror on the wall, and looked at his bruised face. "Ugh," he groaned at his reflection, "you do look like a pile of w'lorta crap." He ran the shaver over his face and trimmed his beard until he resembled a bare facsimile of an officer. Then he stepped into the sonic, set it to refresh mode, and let it massage his knotted back, neck and shoulders for a good five minutes before switching to shower mode and ablating the sweat, sand, and dust from his body.

Feeling cleaner and somewhat more relaxed, he threw on fresh clothes and bundled the dirty ones for the service droids to collect. Taz ducked over to the cantina, grabbed a cup of overbrewed khaff and a chalky, dry square of something trying desperately to pass itself off as a cheese pastry, then headed back to his office. He checked the data terminal to see if Tess had replied to his message but his inbound queue was empty, just as it had been for months. He let out a frustrated sigh, swallowed the last of the pastry and chased it with the khaff left in his cup. Then he washed his hands and went next door into the medbay.

He headed to Sera's bed first, unsurprised to see Reiko Hudson where she'd been last night. Both women smiled when he opened the curtain.

Reiko jumped from the chair, tears springing to her eyes. She threw her arms around him and squeezed harder than he thought her slender limbs could manage. "Thank you, sir! Thank you for saving Sera!"

Taz gently untangled himself from her. "It was my pleasure, Miss Hudson."

Reiko wiped her tears then returned to Sera's side and took the soldier's hand in both of hers. Taz checked the pad and glanced at the vital signs on the monitor, then passed the medscanner over her and ran through a physical exam. "Not bad, not bad, all things considered." He checked for movement and circulation in her injured arm, wrapped in a bacta cast. "How does this feel?"

"Fine, I guess. Never had a broken arm before so I can't really say."

Taz smiled. "I owe you my life, Trooper Rendix. If you hadn't grabbed me that detonator would've torn me in half."

She looked back at him, mirroring the intense expression he wore. "Same, Doc. Guess I was right about you being good luck. Listen, I—" she stopped, a confused scowl on her face. "Maybe it was just my imagination, but I felt you healing me."

"Yeah, well... You weren't imagining things." He looked at both of them, feeling reticent for a minute. "You've heard of the Force, right? Turns out I can use it to heal injuries."

"That's crazy, sir," Rei countered, sounding incredulous. "The Force is a story for children and fanatics."

Sera squeezed her lover's hand but her eyes were locked on Taz's, and she looked as serious as he'd ever seen her. "I believe you, Doc; I know what I felt. You going to tell me how you did that?"

"Sure, when I figure it out myself." Taz cleared his throat. "Anyway, it looks like you're on the mend, mostly." He looked at the stump of her leg. "May I?"

"Go ahead, Doc."

He drew back the sheet and unwrapped the bandages. The flesh had been sutured neatly closed. "Decent work. Just need to wait for the cybernetics. I think the implant team is supposed to swing back this way in a few weeks but I'll confirm that. In the meantime we can get you measured for a prosthetic."

"Oh, no need for that, sir," Reiko interrupted. "I'm already working on one that'll be way better than the standard military replacements."

"Of course you are, Miss Hudson," Taz grinned at the earnest engineering tech.

"I'd be lying if I said I was looking forward to sitting on my ass until the implant team comes back around," Sera interjected, "but considering the alternative, I'll live with it."

"Sorry Sera. I haven't learned how to regrow limbs yet. Truth be told, I don't know if that's possible, even with the Force. I'm sort of figuring it out as I go."

"There's nowhere you can go to learn about it?"

Taz shrugged. "The Jedi are all but dead as far as I know. Their temples used to be all over the galaxy but..." He waved his hand after a moment. "What matters is that you're alive and healing. That's good enough for me." He tapped the bed rail with his fingers. "Let me know if you need anything. Gonna go check on the other patients."

"Thanks, Doc. I mean it."

Taz smiled at her and let himself out, then headed down the corridor, working his way between the curtained beds, reviewing each of the patients. An hour later he approached the end of the hallway. A grim-faced man who might have been twice Taz's age stood outside the bay where the Imperial pilot was recovering. He wore the same brown fatigues devoid of markings as the woman Taz had seen in the speeder yesterday. He suspected they were both from an intel unit. A DL-44 blaster rested in a drop-leg holster on his thigh.

The man held up his hand as Taz approached. "No visitors."

Taz tapped his ident badge. "Medical staff. She's my patient."

"Sorry Doc," said the other man without a trace of actually being sorry. "Orders. Nobody sees the prisoner until she's been questioned."

"Look," Taz responded, striking a friendly tone, "Everybody's got a job to do, I get it. But I saved the life of that pilot in there. Without me you wouldn't have anyone to interrogate."

"Question," corrected the other.

"Whatever," Taz shrugged. "Anyway, she's my patient and it's my job to monitor her condition. So I'm going to do my job, and if you want to stop me you can shoot me with that hand cannon strapped to your leg there."

The other man blinked. Taz took a step toward the curtain and the man put his hand against Taz's chest. "Hold on, Doc." He glanced down, then back up. "Your pistol. Can't go in with it."

Taz looked deliberately at the man's hand against his chest. "Sure, no problem." He unclipped the holster from his belt and handed it over.

The man took the gun and tilted his head toward the curtain. "Go on, Doc."

Taz stepped inside and drew the curtain behind him. The woman was awake and sitting up. Binders on each wrist shackled her to the bed with steel cables. She watched him with wary copper-colored eyes, partly hidden behind her dark, platinum-streaked hair. It fell to the nape of her neck in a style that perfectly suited a pilot.

"How are you feeling today?"

She didn't answer, so Taz went to the foot of the bed, picked up the datapad, and checked the latest readings on the display. Without looking up he said, "Any pain? Dizziness? Nausea?"

Nothing.

He looked over the top of the display. She wore a fierce, defiant expression. "Double vision? You had a nasty head wound and a concussion."

Still nothing.

"How about numbness or tingling? I think I got all those nerve fibers connected the right way, but since it was my first time regrowing part of an arm..."

The woman's eyes grew wide. She touched her arm where it had been nearly severed. "It was you."

Taz pursed his lips and made a slow nod. "Pain, dizziness or nausea?" he repeated.

She gave him an uncertain look and shook her head.

He put down the datapad and pointed to her arm. "May I?"

Hesitantly, she held out the limb. No less than the day before, Taz was amazed by what he saw. The wedge of flesh, bone, and muscle that had been ripped out of her arm in the crash was completely restored. Other than some paleness that contrasted with her brown skin, no one would have guessed that she'd almost lost it to traumatic amputation. He'd told Sera he didn't know if a limb could be regrown through the Force. Seeing the Imperial pilot's arm, he started to think it might just be possible.

"I know what my arm looked like," she started in a quiet voice. Her accent had a distinct cadence, with rolling R's and L's, and elongated vowels. "That much damage would take days to heal in a bacta tank. You did it in no time, with nothing." She challenged him with her stare. "How?"

"What do you know about bacta treatments?"

"I helped my sister study for entrance exams at med college." Then she repeated, "How?"

The corner of Taz' mouth twitched. "Long story," he deflected, flexing her arm slowly to test its range of motion. He held out both hands with his first two fingers extended. "Squeeze." She looked askance at him for a moment, then wrapped her fingers around his and squeezed. "Isometric grip strength bilaterally. That's... really something," he mumbled to himself, only half-believing the evidence he saw before him.

She let his hands go and fell back against the raised head of the bed. "I suppose you patched me up so you'd have one more arm to break, right?"

Taz raised an eyebrow. "We don't break arms."

"Sure," she scoffed. "Rebels don't torture, right? Or massacre civilians."

"New Republic," he corrected. "And no, we don't go in for that kind of thing."

She made a derisive sound in the back of her throat. "Saw Gerrera. Ring a bell?"

Taz had heard of the rebel and his followers, fanatical partisans who usually didn't care who was caught in their crossfire. "They were an aberration. Got themselves kicked out of the Alliance."

"Aberration. Right," she scoffed.

Taz was pretty sure he didn't like her tone. At all. "The Empire subjugated my planet, bombed seventeen million of us to ash, and shipped millions more to their reeducation camps. Multiply that by tens of thousands of systems they've infected." The memory of the devastation he'd witnessed at Vrast, the rage at learning his family had been among the millions of dead, all came boiling up. And with it the horrid certainty that Razorclaw's rebellion—his rebellion—had driven the Imperial Protectorate to slag the city. He poked a finger toward her and restrained his fury behind clenched teeth. "Save your precious indignation for someone who actually believes the drekh COMPNOR serves up about Palpatine's peaceful New Order."

The woman crossed strident arms but said nothing.

Taz took long breaths, getting his temper under control. "I don't know why you were fighting. Maybe you believed what they were telling you, or maybe you were carrying on the family tradition by joining the Navy. We're fighting to free ourselves from tyranny."

"Customs," she snapped, then clamped her mouth shut.

"What?"

She glared at him. "Customs Office. Not the Navy. There's a difference."

"You were flying a Sentinel," he retorted in a gritty voice. "I don't think Customs needs stormtroopers to fight for a lost cause on a hell like Jakku."

The injured pilot opened her mouth to rebuke him, then halted. "I shouldn't be talking to you."

"No, you probably shouldn't," he shot back, "though maybe better me than Mr. Serious out there." He poked his thumb toward where the imposing man waited on the other side of the curtain, undoubtedly listening to every word. Taz picked up the datapad. "Could you give me your name?" He tapped the screen. "For your medical records."

She stared at him, uncertain but defiant.

"I can notify your family. Let them know you're okay."

The woman's face grew livid. "My family was at the sakoola blossom festival on Inusagi when Gerrera's terrorists decided to 'free them from tyranny' by murdering them." She sneered at him, eyes blazing with fury. "Is that how you Rebels fight for freedom? With flechette canisters that shred bodies so brutally you can't—" The pilot's voice seethed with outrage— "You can't even tell what your mother and father and sister look like when they make you come to the morgue to identify them!?" Her whole body shook, hard enough to rattle the restraint cables.

Taz stared back, mute and grim. He knew the look on her face; the bitter hate, the crippling sadness, the aching guilt at having survived. Her fate, he realized, might not be so different from his.

Except she hadn't caused her family's death like he had.

Taz took a deep breath. "Maybe we can't all get along," he began slowly, feeling chastened. "Maybe there's too much that's different among all the millions of cultures across the galaxy for that to happen. Maybe there's been too much blood spilled. But I think we can learn to live together... if we're willing to forgive each other for the wrongs we've done."

He put the pad in its slot at the foot of the bed and fixed the Imperial pilot with a steady, sober stare. "My name's Taz. Taz Oktos. I'm from Filve. I can't speak for the Alliance or the New Republic, but I want you to know that I'm sorry for what happened... what we did to your family in the name of freedom." His mouth twitched into what he hoped was a sympathetic look. Then he took a step toward the curtain.

"Nimor," she uttered, swiping irate tears from her ruddy cheeks.

Taz looked back at her. "Excuse me?"

"Ensign Lyra Parvati Nimor. From Inusagi. Operating number XLU dash six—"

"I just need your name," Taz interrupted with a raised hand. Picking up the pad, he typed in her name, then put it back. "You're my patient, Ensign Nimor, and it's my duty to see that you aren't harmed while you're under my care. Press the call button if you need anything, or if you begin to feel any of the symptoms I asked you about earlier. Is there anything I can do for you right now?"

"Get these binders off and let me go," she suggested, her expression a shade less severe than it was before.

Despite the heavy mood Taz grimaced. "Anything that doesn't get me court-martialed and shot for aiding the enemy?" he amended. "How about food. Are you hungry?"

After a hesitant moment she gave him a stiff nod.

"I'll have some sent in and I'll check back in a couple of hours," he assured before disappearing through the curtain.