Plaything of the Gods:

Bacta Heals all Wounds

She had the feeling of being wet, like she was submerged in some sort of thick, goopy gel.  Though she was still able to breathe, it was far from a pleasant feeling.  She opened her eyes, but the thick… stuff… with it's slightly greenish tinge was difficult to see through.  She thought she could see people-shaped things walking somewhere in the distance, but it was hard to make them out.  Instinctively she moved her hands before her, noting that there were odd tubes and hoses connected to her, and came in contact with glass.  She pounded on it a few times and thought that one of the blurs looked towards her.  It must have done so, because it made some seemingly decisive movements, after which she heard a series of clunks coming from above her.  Looking up, she noted that light was now shining for a moment, just before something reached down through the goo and took hold of her by her shoulders.  It was hard and cold and felt oddly like metal, but it was gentle as it pulled her up.

The room was much cooler than the gel.  She shivered as the cold hit her, barely aware that someone removed the mouthpiece that had been allowing her to breathe while submerged.  The fact that it was gone was brought clearly to her when her teeth began to chatter.  She tried to look around, but the sudden flooding of light stung her eyes, making it hard to focus.  There were voices all around, blending together into a roar of sound as someone wrapped a thick blanket about her.  "Her vitals are strong.  There is evidence of an old fracture of both bones in the right forearm and metal implants have been used to repair a fracture of the left ankle.  It is well set and the implants can now be removed.  It was not done this time due to the existing physical trauma. 

The voice was strange and unreal, like something off an old eighties movie with a talking computer in it.  She squeezed her eyes shut again before trying to open them once more.  There, that was a little better.  She turned to look at the dark shape to her right, and froze.  It was a bot, but not like any bot she had ever seen.  It looked nothing like the bots in the AI lab.  There was a distinctive, humanoid shape about it, and it was moving about in a bipedal fashion.  Only, it couldn't be bipedal.  Honda Man was the only mostly functional bipedal robot, and he was a large, bulky thing that resembled an astronaut.  And what the hell was it doing with that needle?

Aria let out a yelp and tried to move away from the syringe wielding robot, only to be stopped by the cool metal of the wall behind her.  She felt the blanket about her start to slip but was more interested in keeping away from the non-human thing brandishing a hypodermic.  There were other voices, all jumbled together in her still fogged mind, but the touch of warm flesh made her quite aware that there were other people in the room as well.  She tried to jerk free of the hand that had just wrapped itself around her upper arm, but the stranger's grip was iron strong and unyielding.  A wordless, high pitched scream erupted from her mouth, and something inside her cringed at the 'girly' sound, while some other part of her brain was thankful that none of her family was there to hear it.

"What's wrong with her?"

"She's frightened!  Put yourself in her place!  How would you react, waking up in a room full of strangers?"

"It's all right!  Calm down!  No one is going to hurt you."

All the while, the menacing robot kept advancing towards her.  No one was going to hurt her indeed!  Since when did St. Mary's start using robots?  She threw herself downward, falling off of the bed she was on and landing onto a cold, hard floor.  This broke the grip of her captor for a moment, but too soon a warm, hard weight threw itself across her, pinning her to the floor.  "Calm!  Down!"

She stopped struggling, letting herself go limp.  Her breathing was now hard and fast, and everything was still oddly magnified to her senses.  What the hell had they submerged her in?  However, one didn't grow up as the youngest (and only girl) in a family with nine children without learning a few tricks.  Once her captor was convinced that she wasn't going to fight anymore, he started to release his hold on her.  Once he had shifted his weight from atop her, she used a trick that her brothers still fell for. 

She kicked him.  The man bit off an odd curse in a language she didn't know, but leapt away from her.  In a scramble of arms and legs she started moving away from the voices, trying to get to her feet at the same time.  Her progress was thwarted by what felt like at least two people falling atop her and pushing her to the floor.  One of her arms was wrenched out and held down in an outstretched position.  The robot was coming towards her again, only this time there was no escape.  She felt the long needle pierce her skin, her captors holding her down even as she screamed in protest.  Her screams didn't last much longer, however.  Whatever was in the needle was making her head feel light and her vision grey around the edges until she finally succumbed to darkness.

When she woke up sometime later, she discovered that they weren't taking chances the second time around.  Someone had possessed enough intelligence to restrain her to the narrow bed, a fact she soon discovered when she tried to bring her arms up and couldn't move them more than an inch.  Damn. 

Off to her left and out of her line of vision came the cold, metallic voice. "She is awake."  There was the sound of footsteps approaching and soon a man in what looked like a uniform came to stand beside her.  She returned his frank gaze while trying to will herself not to act like a frightened child… or worse… like she was guilty of something. 

"Are you willing to behave yourself, now?"

"Depends.  Who wants me to?"  That was good.  Not even a squeak.  Steady and even.  She let her eyes flick down over the shoulders and chest of the uniform, but didn't find anything. Nothing indicating state police, city cop or even military.  "Who are you?"

The man arched a brow and she thought the corner of his lips twitched briefly.  "Shouldn't that be my question?  After all, you're the one who appeared out of nowhere."

Nowhere?  She was on I540 last she knew.  Her eyes left the stranger and looked around the room.  There were two bots and a few other men in uniform.  That the other men appeared to be armed fueled her growing unease.  She swallowed.  "Is this St. Mary's?"

"St. Mary's?"

"I was just south of the Rogers/Bentonville exit when… when that storm moved in.  That would make St. Mary's the closest hospital."

She seemed to have said something to peak the man's interest, because he motioned for a chair to be brought over so he could sit down by the narrow bed.  "What about the storm?"

This was weird.  Why was some guy who she was definitely starting to think of as military wanting her to talk about some freak lightening storm that forced her off the road?  At least, she thought it had forced her off the road.  She didn't remember much about it, just white streaks of lightening and the feeling like she was being turned inside out.  "I can't remember anything past the lightening.  I… I felt pain.  Did it hit the car?"

He was silent, watching her closely as though he didn't quite believe her.  "What is your name?"

"Aria Danyelle St. Claire.  Look, can I call my parents?  They know I was leaving Fayetteville this morning and they'll expect me home by tomorrow night.  They'll freak if I just don't show up."

"Where are your parents?"

"Sweet Bowl, Michigan.  My family owns St. Claire Farms."  She tested the restraints.  "Can I have these off?  I promise I won't go postal again."

"Why were you in Fayetteville?"

Aria paused.  He had said FayETTville rather than FAYetteville.  No one local would have made such an error in pronunciation.  "Who are you?"  She looked back at the guards.  "This isn't St. Mary's is it?"

He stared at her in silence, not answering her.  The feeling of unease started to grow stronger within her, bringing her very close to a fit of hysterics when the door to the room slid open. The guards snapped to attention and the man in the chair got to his feet and turned to face the newcomer.  Aria turned her head a few inches to see a stately woman in flowing, white garments.  Her face was kind, but strong all at once.  For lack of a more descriptive word, Aria labeled her as 'regal'.

"We have reviewed the recording of your interrogation, Commander, and have come to a decision.  We do not think the girl is a danger to us.  At the worst she is a victim of some Imperial experiment gone wrong, but we do not think her a tool of the Empire itself."

Empire?

"What does the council want done with her?"

The stately woman looked over at Aria with an appraising sort of look.  "It would be cruel to leave her on a planet with no knowledge of how the laws work or the local customs.  Also, as she is now, she may inadvertently lead our enemies to us.  We will have to keep her with us, for now."  She looked back to the military-man.  "You will share responsibility of her with the medical staff for now.  Once she has a chance to grow accustomed to us, some task can be found for her."

"Yes, ma'am."  The man didn't salute, but nodded respectfully.  With a soft rustle of robes the woman left.  Aria's mouth felt extremely dry and she wasn't sure she could adequately voice a question without squeaking like an over-excited ferret.

The man turned back around, and now that she could see his face, she could guess he wasn't happy with baby-sitting duty.  "Do you promise to behave yourself if we let you up?"

"Sure, cross my heart."  Okay, only one squeak.  That was acceptable. "But… uhm… could I have some clothes?  This room is freezing."

He gave her a curt nod.  "We had some of your clothing brought here for when you awakened."  He pressed something on what looked like a control panel and the smooth metal restraints opened with a soft click.  "They are over there.  We'll step out side to give you some privacy."

Privacy, however, was only the humans leaving the room.  The bot remained in the room with her, though it seemed uninterested in her at the time.  Sure enough, her largest suitcase was standing by the wall, her trusty and well-worn hikers sitting beside it.  She got off the narrow bed and padded over to it on bare feet.  The chill from the floor seemed to seep into her very bones and she was anxious to get at least a pair of socks on.  Since she had been going home for the summer, she had packed every scrap of clothing she owned.  Arkansas was hot and humid in the summers, oppressively so to a girl from Michigan where the summers were relatively mild.  The winters were nowhere near as cold as she had grown up with, but still cold enough to merit warm clothing even if she didn't feel the need for a coat most days.  Sweaters and flannel lined jeans were bulky, so she had used the largest pieces of luggage to accommodate them. 

Thick socks and flannel lined jeans gave her a feeling of blessed warmth.  Without thinking of what she was doing, she selected her oldest and most worn sweater, one of those her great-aunt Jeanie had knitted for her.  She had long since learned that anything Jeanie made was better constructed and more durable than anything she'd ever found in a store, probably because Jeanie, like everyone else in the St. Claire family, had nothing but sons.  The St. Claires knew well the value of durable clothing that could withstand a rough and tumble life.  Besides, she'd had this sweater since she was sixteen, and although it was far from being the prettiest thing in her wardrobe, it was the softest and most comfortable.

She wasn't going to dwell on how it made her feel a bit less frightened, like wrapping herself up in family love.

She laced her hikers up and then started searching for a mirror.  They hadn't brought in the little duffle with her toiletry items, so she had to settle for using her fingers to comb out her hair.  She would have liked to have her toothbrush and toothpaste to get the gummy feeling out of her mouth (she probably had the world's worst case of morning breath right now) and perhaps her facial cleanser.  Maybe later someone would let her have a shower or something, but she didn't feel very grubby.  She recalled the thick goop she had been in earlier and figured that they must have cleaned her up after they had sedated her.

The room she was in wasn't huge, but it wasn't small.  The walls were a light grey metal without any adornment and there were four narrow beds.  It was obviously a medical room, though she recognized few of what she thought were instruments.  Needles were one thing, but some of these objects that looked like scanners were foreign to her.  She approached one and bent over it, looking for a maker's mark.  She expected to find a little '3M' or 'Dow', even a 'Proctor & Gamble' would be nice, but everything was just a mishmash of metal and blinking lights.  Instead of letters and numbers she could recognized there were odd symbols that didn't look like any language she had ever seen. 

"You are ready?"

She jumped and whirled around.  The bot had addressed her and was now looking at her.  Well, she supposed it was looking at her since there were no identifiable eyes, but it's head was definitely turned in her direction.  "Uhm… yes… yes I think I'm dressed a bit more ready for company."

"Very well."  The bot's hand moved to push a button on the panel before him.  Aria examined the construction of that hand closely.  It was five fingered and looked as though it should be capable of fine manipulation, but the movements seemed a bit jerky and harsh.  She hoped it didn't do surgeries as well.  With that violent start and stop motion it seemed more likely to harm than to heal if allowed near internal organs.

The door opened with a hissing sound and Military Guy entered again, followed by the armed guards.  This continued to make her uneasy.  She was barely five foot five and weighed a whopping one hundred and twenty pounds.  What did they think she was going to do?  Bite their kneecaps off?  "Uhm… so… now what?"

"The galley is about to open for the mid-cycle meal. I thought you might be getting hungry."

"You mean I don't have to eat hospital food?"  From the blank look that he gave her, he obviously didn't get the joke.  "Never mind.  I think I could do with something to eat."

He nodded and turned back around.  Obviously she was meant to follow him with the two goons with the guns following her.  As she stepped out into the corridor she saw nothing that looked like what one would expect in an ordinary hospital.  Most of the people moving about were all in some sort of uniform and there were more bots.  As much as she would have loved to stop someone and grill them about how they managed to consistently produce bipedal robots capable of walking without falling over, she doubted she would be given the opportunity to do so.  And she was too busy trying to figure out just what was going on.

Not St. Mary's.  It wasn't even Northwest Med or Washington Regional.  There was an unmistakable military feel about this place, but the nearest thing resembling a base was in Fort Smith, the complete opposite direction of where she was traveling.  And why was she brought here rather than the nearest medical facility?  She was a cracker, not a hacker.  She busted open shareware from time to time, but she didn't find back doors into banks or federal computer systems.  She was nothing like that moron who tried to hack into the NASA computers last semester.  Okay, so there were some CDs in her bags of questionable origins, maybe even a few that could be called out right piracy, but who could really expect college students to shell out fifty bucks a game!  She and about six other C-SCI and C-SEG students usually chipped in and bought one legitimate copy of a game and some blank CDs, then Frank (the only one who had a burner) would make them all copies.  It wasn't really stealing.  Frank got to keep the original game because he did most of the work, but they all paid for it.

And you didn't drag people into a secured military facility because of software piracy, especially not when it involved things like Hexen and Quake.  Maybe if they were hacking into Lockheed Martin and ripping off top secret design specs it would be a different story.

They turned into another corridor, this one lined with the occasional window, and continued.  Aria glanced over to her left in hope of seeing something familiar, a landmark of some sort, and froze. 

Stars.  Lots and lots of stars.  No grass, no trees, no wide expanses of asphalt with jeeps and Hummers and helicopters.  Just stars.

"Sir," called out one of the guards as Aria started to back away from the window until her back was flush with the wall behind her.  She wasn't blinking and looked as though she may begin to hyperventilate.  Military Guy noticed this as well and moved towards her.

"Aria?"

She lifted a hand to point a finger at the windows.  "There's no… no ground out there."  Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. 

Military Guy glanced at the window, then at the ashen face of their guest.  He attempted to give a softness to his own voice and reached for her shoulder.  "It's all right.  You're perfectly safe."

She jerked away from his hand and responded more forcefully.  "There is no ground out there!"  She looked on the verge of a collapse.  He shot a look at one of the guards and mouthed "medic" silently.  "Where is this place?  Where am I?"

"You are aboard a ship in the service of the Alliance."

"There's no water out there, either."

Military Guy fought a smile, and won.  "It's a space worthy vessel."

Aria gave him a disbelieving look.  "A space ship.  Right."  She started to edge away from him, but the remaining guard stopped her.  "Then why is there gravity?"

"AG generators."  This was said matter-of-factly, as though everyone was expected to know about artificial gravity generators. 

"Uh-huh.   Bullshit."  She looked about her as though searching for an escape route, her hands coming up to comb through her hair.  "Look, no offense, but I'm really starting to freak out here."

Military Guy nodded and looked down the corridor.  "In here."  He led her and the remaining guard to a door in the wall of the corridor which opened into a small, bare-walled room with a gun-metal grey table and twelve chairs.  It looked like a conference room put together by the world's most anal-retentive designer. He pulled out a chair for her along one of the long sides before taking the chair at the 'head' of the table.  "Is this better?"

"A bit.  At least I don't have that feeling like I'm going to be sucked out into space any time soon."

"That can happen at first, to people who have never been on a star ship." 

She placed her hands atop the metal table, her fingers intertwining tightly.  "I'm an American.  We're the world's only superpower, and even we can't build ships this large.  And we don't have an efficient way to create artificial gravity."  She was trying to keep her voice calm, but there was a noteworthy vibrato to it.

"Where would you like me to begin?"

"The beginning is always a good place."

"All right."  Military Guy folded his hands atop the table as well, his gaze steady.  "Four galactic standard days ago there was an electrical disturbance in the hangar.  As of yet we have no information as to how the disturbance began, but your… speeder… came through it and crashed into some of our freight.  We found you inside, unconscious and suffering from extensive internal damage that our medical crew determined was a result of the disturbance.  You were immediately submerged into a bacta tank and remained there until early this cycle.  I'm sure you recall what happened when you were brought out."

"I didn't take it too well."

"No, you didn't.  Lieutenant Kale says you have remarkably sharp heels, by the way.  Of course, you did connect with a rather tender area of his anatomy."

"Sorry about that."

"I don't think he took it personally."  She was still twisting her fingers, but not as nervously as before.  "As you may recall, you were sedated.  The particular serum used is a form of truth drug.  While you were under its influence we took the liberty of questioning you."

"You WHAT!"  She stood up in a flash.  The guard immediately drew his weapon in case she attacked.  Military Guy, however, just held up a single hand.

"We have our reasons for our actions."

"You question me under the influence of a drug, and you say you have reasons for it?  Who the hell do you people thank you are?!"

"We are soldiers, Aria, and we are at war.  If you will sit back down I will explain."

She was about to protest, but the guard now pointing his weapon in her direction was very persuasive.  She took a few deep breaths and sat down, clasping her hands tightly before her once more. 

"I apologize for the invasion of your privacy, but as I said, we are war.  This place you have come to is currently under tyranny, the government is led by one man, Emperor Palpatine.  He strong armed his way into power a little less than two decades ago and has allowed his followers to oppress the free peoples of this galaxy ever since.  Slavery, genocide, atrocities that you cannot begin to imagine.  The Alliance was formed to fight against him, and although we're greatly outnumbered and have nowhere near the financial resources the Empire does, we have been making progress.  Enough so that it would not have been unexpected to have some new and unexpected attack against us.

"That's why we questioned you while you were drugged, when you could not put up a resistance.  When you appeared out of nowhere as you did, we had to operate under the assumption that you could be a possible Imperial agent.  You might have been a spy or an assassin.  It is our responsibility to keep this ship, this fleet and its crews safe."

Aria made a sound that was like a snort and shook her head.  "All right, let's assume that you're telling me the truth and I've somehow been transported into the middle of some badly written space opera; how do I get back to where I came from?"

"We don't have an answer for that.  I wish we did.  The best theory so far is that it was an Imperial attack with some sort of new weapon they were testing, and somehow you were caught in the crossfire.  Or it may have been a kind of spatial anomaly.  There's nothing I can tell you that will give you perfect understanding."

She ran her hands through her hair again.  "That woman who spoke with you earlier…"

"Mon Mothma.  She's one of our leaders and a very well respected woman."

"She said it would be cruel to put me out."

"And it would be.  You obviously come from a world that hasn't mastered space travel yet, and the Empire is not friendly place for even those born and raised within it.  You'll be safer if you stay with us."

"Like a child."

"No, like someone who has found herself in an awkward position and needs our help."

"But there'd be no leaving.  She was right, I could endanger you all if I ever left and someone realized I had been with you."  He didn't respond except to give a slight shrug.  "Look, I can only think that this comes down to three possibilities:  The first is that I've suffered some sort of head trauma and I'm currently lying in a hospital bed in a coma and this is all an elaborate dream.  In that case, you, this ship and everything else is just a figment of my imagination.  The second is that I'm completely insane, and again everything around me is just a figment of my imagination.  The last is that I really am… somewhere… far from my home and with no foreseeable way back."  She paused to take a breath.  "None of those options is very comforting."

"No, I wouldn't think that they would be."  He leaned back in his chair and seemed to be considering the choices.  "I could assure you that you are not suffering from head trauma, at least not any longer though you did have a bad cut on your head when you arrived.  However, if I am a figment of your imagination in the form of a dream, then you can't trust me in that.  I could point out that if you can seriously question your sanity then you are not likely to be insane.  However, again, if I am something your mind concocted, you can't trust me in that, either.  For my part, I believe the third option, that you've somehow been thrown here from what is doubtless a great distance away and we have no idea of how to send you home again.  That isn't comforting in the least, because it means that you will never see your family or friends again.  The only words of comfort I can give you are that there are a lot of men and women on this ship who share your pain.  Those of us who came from Alderaan will never see our home again, either."

"Why not?  What happened to Alderaan?"

"The Empire blew it up."

Aria blinked.  "Excuse me?  Do you mean just pummeled it until it can no longer support life?"

"No, I mean they blew it up.  It's now an asteroid field."

"You're fighting an enemy that has enough firepower to blow up an entire planet?"

"Not any longer.  That's why we're moving.  We blew up their super weapon, but they learned the location of our base in the process.  We're re-locating the Alliance."

"They only had the one weapon?  What was it?"

"It was a mobile space station, about the size of a small moon, called a Death Star.  Our information says it was a prototype, to see if it could be done.  More were to follow, but they take years and an extensive amount of resources to build.  It also takes a lot of manpower to run.  We estimate that several hundred thousand, if not close to one million Imperial troops were on the Death Star when it exploded."

"Whoa."  Aria stared down at her hands.  "This has just gone back to the 'elaborate dream' theory.  That someone would even contemplate building something like that is terrifying.  Hitler didn't even have anything like that, and he was a madman bent on world domination and the extermination of the entire Jewish race."

"Palpatine is evil personified.  His right hand man is Darth Vader, and he's chiseled from the same stone.  We had hoped Vader died on the Death Star, but apparently we weren't so lucky.  Towards the end of the battle he joined the fighter to fighter combat and survived."

"Bummer."  Aria sighed and leaned back in her own chair. "Okay, let's say I'm not dreaming and I'm not crazy.  What do I do now?  What am I now?  A prisoner?  I'm a little old to be considered a ward of some sort."

"A guest, for the time being.  Mon Mothma had a good point about finding something for you to do.  I think now that having your first meal in the galley may not be the right thing to do at this time.  We've set aside quarters for you next to the medical bay, just in case there are some side effects from the electrical disturbance that haven't yet manifested themselves. I'll have your meals sent to you there for the rest of this cycle and until my shift is up tomorrow.  I think the first thing to be done is to turn you over to the engineers so that you can go through your personal belongings with them.  They've been examining it on their own, but I know they want to speak to you about nearly everything that was in your speeder.  After that, what would you wish to do?"

She thought a moment.  "Well, I was studying computers with plans to focus on artificial intelligence and robotics, but nothing we've got comes close to what I've seen here so far.  Also, I have yet to see anything that looks like a written language I can recognize.  That's another argument for the dream or insanity theories.  If I've been transported millions or billions of light years from home, how come we can speak the same language verbally?  Shouldn't everything I say be gibberish?"

"You would think so, but apparently not.  Maybe your world is actually a lost colony of the Old Republic."

"But not even we all speak the same language."

"Really?  Different governments and different languages on the same world?  Interesting.  Still, let's just continue to work with the 'lost traveler' idea.  At the very least your ability to speak Basic should make learning the written language easier than it would if there was a complete language barrier.  One of our pilots is currently on a scouting mission for a new base and he had to leave his protocol droid behind with us.  It's about to drive everyone crazy from lack of anything to do, but apparently it is programmed in about six million different forms of communication.  You can start helping us by keeping it entertained.  C3PO can start teaching you how to read the language and basic customs, and you can take an up close and personal look at our robotics.  It's a relatively old model, so I don't think we'll be risking much by letting you have unlimited access to it.  Just don't break it, or you'll upset Luke."

The door slid open and the other guard came in along with a medic, thankfully a human medic. "It's all right.  She's calmed down."  Aria looked at the newcomers, then back to Military Guy.  "From your reaction earlier I was afraid we were going to have to sedate you again."

She nodded and signed.  "Stranger in a strange land.  I think I'd prefer one of the first two scenarios."

"That you're either in a coma you may never wake up from or insane?  Why?"

"Because if I'm in a coma, I might wake up, and if I'm insane I could get better.  The third option means that I'm all alone."

"You're not alone, at least not if you don't want to be.  If we find an answer to this and a way to send you home, then we'll do our best to do so."

"But as a single individual when you're at war, that's pretty far down on the list of priorities."

"I won't deny that.  But if we work with the possibility that you may never go home again, then you have the option of trying to build a new life for yourself, with new friends and family."

"No man is an island.  Neither is any woman."  She looked back at Military Guy and gave a lopsided, resigned smile before extending a single hand.  "Aria Danyelle St. Claire.  Pleased to meet you."

He smiled back and took her hand.  "Commander Wedge Antilles.  You're a civilian, so you can call me Wedge.  Welcome aboard."  He released her hand.  "It's not going to be easy for you, but never think that you're alone.  For now, we'll get you settled in your quarters and get you something to eat.  After that, I'll surrender you to the engineers.  Be prepared to be bombarded by questions for the remainder of the cycle."