The evacuation order is received in the dark hours of the morning, but Barriss doesn't hear of it until a trooper finds her several hours past dawn.
"What?!" She doesn't mean to snap at the soldier delivering the message, but she's running on four hours of sleep and right in the middle of using the Force to meticulously rearrange the intestines of a clone that had been caught in a bomb blast during the raid less than an hour ago.
Her lapse in concentration nearly costs her her patient, but just as quickly as the distress flooded through her she clamps down on it, smooths it out, letting her eyes slip closed as she re-centers herself.
Deep breaths, in, and out. Peace. Calm. Tranquility. Your mind is a river, the Force is the current; let your worries wash away like silt from a riverbed.
When she opens her eyes again to see the flickering, dingy lights of her understaffed, overly crowded medbay, the mud-splattered, blood-speckled, utterly shredded remains of various pieces of her men's armor scattered across the floor, and the gory, crimson organs slowly knitting back together beneath her subtly glowing hands, she is not an overworked medic running on fumes; she is an unflappable Jedi Padawan once again.
Barriss spares her messenger only a quick glance before returning to her work.
"Would you mind repeating that, please?" Master Unduli might have been proud of how steady her voice was, if she wasn't utterly disappointed by her inexcusable slip earlier.
The messenger, awkwardly wedged between the hoverbed she was forced to work beside and a bacta tank they technically didn't have the room for, sounded just as ragged as Barriss wasn't supposed to feel.
The Force is my ally in all things; it will give me strength when I have none.
"High Command wants you to evacuate aboard the Valiant, sir," he repeated tonelessly. "We have gunships standing by to take you to the command ship."
A brief rush of furious irritation, released along with her next exhale.
The Force provides stability to a troubled mind; one only need be willing to listen.
"They sent us more gunships when I specifically requested medical supplies and fresh doctors be sent instead." It isn't a question, but the trooper gives an affirmative 'Yes, sir,' anyway.
Barriss doesn't know his name.
She doesn't know the name of the clone whose life she is literally stitching back together, either.
It's strange. Master Unduli and all her Temple instructors had always praised her for her excellent memory; why can't she recall any of her men's names? (She never asked.)
It shouldn't bother her. (It does.)
An ache pulsing in time with her heartbeat slowly envelops her skull like an iron band, and the pain of the migraine gives her just enough focus to finish the procedure and start closing the gaping wound.
We are luminous beings in the Force; the pains of the flesh we inhabit are of no consequence, so long as we do not revel in them, for that is the path of the Dark Side.
"I did not ask for gunships, I asked for medical transports," Barriss repeats, more to herself than her impromptu audience.
Her hands, drenched red with the blood of more than one clone trooper, start trembling as she finishes sealing the large gash in her patient's side; the loss of something to focus most of her attention on leaves her lightheaded.
Barriss blinks hard several times to maintain both her calm and collected demeanor and consciousness, and by the time she feels like herself again she's missed whatever it is her messenger said in response.
Shaking her head slowly as her former patient is quickly moved away on a hoverbed toward the recovery area, Barriss meets the messenger's eyes levelly.
A Jedi must follow the will of the Force, but must also keep in mind the will of the Council, for it is through the will of the Council that the Force becomes clear.
"No," she says.
"Sir?" the messenger asks, shifting uncomfortably as another body is laid in front of her, missing an arm and a good portion of the flesh on his right leg.
Barriss breathes deeply, in and out, before she dunks her shaking fingers into a basin of clean water normally used to put bloody surgical instruments in, scrubbing as best as she can. They needed to be as clean as possible; they'd run out of surgical gloves three days ago.
Barriss took her time cleaning her hands thoroughly before glancing back up at her shadow. "I will remain here."
"Sir, forgive me, but it was a direct order from High Command that you be brought to the Valiant immediately." Even as he said it, the trooper didn't look thrilled about it, and something reckless and dizzy in Barriss made her want to laugh, or cry.
She did neither.
She dried her hands off, clenched her fingers together and forced them to stop trembling despite the spiking pain behind her eyes, and met the messenger's gaze coolly.
"You may tell them that I will leave as soon as they send the medical transports I requested."
She focused her attention onto her new patient without waiting for a reply.
High Command gave their orders and made their plans from the safety of Coruscant; here, on the frontlines, surrounded by the dead and dying, there had to be someone willing to get their hands dirty in this war.
I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.
A/N: So a few months ago I discovered that Barriss is actually my favorite side character of any franchise ever, and so of course when I saw today's prompt this had to be written for Whumptober. Hope you enjoyed!
~Persephone