Sara woke up and blinked in the bright light. She felt okay and wondered where she was. The last thing she remembered was praying for her family, and hunger a hunger that still affected her.
"Why am I so hungry?" she asked herself.
"You are eating for two." A medical droid stated.
"What!?" Sara exclaimed. "I have never had sex did... did someone..."
"I have misspoken you have another organism inside of you. That has increased your metabolism." the droid explained. "A symbiote, a very unique organism."
"A symbiote, so I am not pregnant?" Sara asked nervously.
"No you are not, scans report it is about two kilos in mass, and so far is resistant to the treatment of your people that Doctor Sul'Daro created." the droid explained. "I have ordered a full meal. It should arrive shortly."
"Where is Fain?" Sara asked. "I would think he would be here when I woke up."
"He is in the brig. The charge of mutiny has been applied to him." the droid replied. "I do not understand legal matters, but he may just spend some time there. A long time." Sara swung her legs over the edge.
"I want to clean up and where are my clothes?" Sara asked.
"It maybe prudent to remain in bed until Dr. Sul'Daro releases you." the droid suggested. Sara glared at the droid, but she waited. Five minutes later the food came and she devoured the meal having no idea what it was. The doctor came in. A Twilek female absolutely gorgeous. She blushed and this feeling shocked her. She just smiled like a teacher did when a student embarrassed themselves. A knowing smile.
"You are not the first human to blush at the sight of the first Twilek they have seen and not the last." Sul'Daro stated. "Many of your people have. Actually all of them. You are looking well, how do you feel."
"I feel fine and is it really that uncontrollable?" Sara asked.
"Yes, our beauty, pheromones, grace all add up to an instant reaction. You will adjust quickly back to normal." she replied. "I would like to talk to you about your people and how much you helped the one we could."
"My family is gone are they not?" Sara asked.
"Yes child they fought hard and you fought even harder. Had you not interfered as you did we wouldn't have had a viable antibiotic. You yourself and many others are permanently infected, so much so that it is now as much a part of you as your eyes or lungs or spleen." she explained. "Master Doosa would like to talk to you about your family, and she offers help in coming to terms with their deaths. One point I do want to mention is that without you or your family and others like you. We wouldn't have been able to help very many of you. The plague was really bad even with our help. Most of your world has gone to the force."
"How many, how many died?" Sara asked.
"Hard to tell, better to say how many have survived." she replied. "Nearly 25 million are estimated to be immune like you were and in a mad rush we have given out sixty million cures. We estimate that 75 million to 100 million have survived. I have never felt so powerless before in my life."
"Those aliens must be stopped before they find another world to destroy." Sara stated calmly, but with a hint of anger. "Are we going to take them down?"
"No we can no more go home or leave this system." Sul'Daro replied. "The fleet however is doing everything to get your people in one location and a stable beginning together so you won't fall into a dark age. It is better than nothing and I heard talk of a droid factory being built."
"What is stopping you from going home?" Sara asked avoiding the cold feeling she got hearing how seven billion people were now gone.
"Every ship has had major damage to their hyperdrives. There are a few smaller craft that can go, but every ship will require time in a shipyard to replace the damage. I am not an engineer, but I have heard it will take nearly five years in our current state to get them back up and running." she explained. "I am not sure when a mission to get help will go out. I believe one is in planning."
"That is something five years is not too long." Sara replied. "Um, where is my clothes?"
"I am not sure, but there is a change of clothes in that locker. It should fit perfectly. The sonic shower is at the end of the blue line." she explained. "You might want to visit it."
"I stink that bad?" Sara asked as she smiled knowing her response. They talked for another ten minutes as she was checked out, before she was given permission to leave medical. Once she had her shower she felt human again. She frown as she now had nothing to do. As she wandered around the ship she found an observation deck and marveled at the view. The pictures she had seen of Earth couldn't compare to the seeing it in person. She spent a long time staring out the window. Tears streamed down her face as she stood there. She was sad, but it was a detached sadness. The dreams of the last few months came vividly to her now that it was over. A hundred different ways she had seen her family die in those dreams and it had made her strong enough to face the pain. Wise enough to feel that they were at peace. Master Doosa looked on and felt what she felt and if she could cry as humans did she would have. Slowly Sara closed her mind off to the jedi master and Doosa felt she was ready to talk.
"You have a very beautiful world." she said as she came to her side.
"It is and more so now." Sara replied. "It was not so beautiful for many. Wars, famines, disease plagued many lands. Now they have a chance to rebuild and make a better world. I just hope they don't mess it up. That they remember the mistakes of the past."
"I think the force will guide them now." Doosa replied. "I feel this world is more alive than before. In time they will rebuild and have new families. Captain Tarwin is doing everything he can to help. Even now half our fleet and all of our troops are directing the clean up of a sector of land in the country called the United States."
"How long will they help out until the ships can fly out of this system?" Sara asked. "Will they protect us from those aliens that tried to destroy us? Will they hunt them down and stop them from doing this to anyone else?"
"Possibly and I do believe Captain Tarwin will." Doosa replied. "It is part of the mission we were on. To patrol the galaxy and help where we can and show that we can protect systems. We will not leave you defenseless. Your medical personal, military, and civil workers have survived. There will be problems, but we will leave this planet with droids, ships and weapons. A satellite grid will be set up and you will know of threats from outside your farthest orbital object. You will have help, hope, and time to rebuild."
"Excluding deaths it will take fifty years to even com close to one billion people again and only if they reproduce like crazy into big families." Sara estimated. "I think it will take five hundred years to get back to the same population level. I don't think they will survive or want to have so many children. Maybe just enough to replace those that pass."
"That is a possibility, but another is that we now know of your system and that will bring many to your world." Doosa stated. "Many will come just because there is a place just waiting for them to move in. This will cause much trouble in itself."
"This is Earth you are talking about. We are too young to let aliens move here. Whatever happens it will be a long time before non humans can settle here." Sara replied. "But you didn't come here to talk of the future, you came to talk to me. To see if I need any help with my grieve."
"Yes I did and to ask you what you did to keep your family alive so long." Master Doosa answered. "I am a good listener."
"Sensei, I can feel that you are." Sara stated. "Right now I want to go home, bury my dead and see this galaxy of yours. There is nothing left for me here."
"Is there? Or are you forgetting that this is your planet, your home?" Doosa questioned. "You have lost so much are you willing to lose the rest? Once you leave here you may never return. It is after all a very large place."
"I have no attachments as you jedi say. I would only be leaving behind the past. Since I was ten I have traveled all over the world with or without my parents. I had a home to come back to, but now I do not. I know many languages and I have learned of many cultures. I would only be expanding my knowledge by seeing the galaxy." Sara explained. "Who knows I may gain control of this force or my Qi."
"Ah so you think you can become a jedi?" Master Doosa asked. "You are far too old to do so."
"Then a force adept then. I feel so much now like a door opened like a dam broke and is flooding me with this feeling." Sara explained. "I have trained in martial arts. Studied many religions. Learned much wisdom and knowledge. All this since I was the age of three. I thirst for knowledge like a child cries for milk. I feel I have just scratched the surface. If I have to learn on my own I will, but know this if I see it I know I can copy it."
"Then you should meet the council and they can tell if you are capable of becoming a jedi, but from past knowledge it have been nearly a millennium since they have excepted anyone over the age of three into the order." Doosa replied. "I can feel your power, but I wonder how you can use it or feel the force with no midi-chlorians to speak of."
"So that is true as well. Interesting that you say that. I have read enough of what authors have written about the universe and some think that long ago during the time of Revan and the Mandelorian war that jedi were chosen for their extreme intelligence. How much brain they used, and not based on some organism that was in every cell." Sara stated. "Or has these midi-chlorians been always present?"
"Yes they have ever since the Infinite Empire some twenty five thousand years ago." Master Doosa replied. "Though the technology to test for it has been only in use since right after the Jedi Civil War. I most study these books you talk about. How can a world cut off so long from the rest of the galaxy that they believe they have evolved on this world, know so much about the Republic?"
"Imagination or the force guiding imagination. That or George Lucas is not an Earthling. He is the writer and creator of the Star Wars movies." Sara answered. "It maybe we don't have anything right, but the few that are on the council."
"Knight Green has talked of these movies as you call them and I have watched them." Doosa informed her. "I can not believe that a Sith could work so closely with the Jedi and they never noticed until it was too late. Just the slightest use of the force or the dark side would have been felt."
"Blinded by tradition and complacency. Shrouded in a veil of the light side pierced by the dark side." Sara replied. "Clouded, concealed, dampened. Many things that maybe you or the jedi can not see or that it is nothing but the entertainment it was created to be."
"I believe I have much meditating to do and reading. If there is any truth to this it means dark times will come." Doosa stated. "I believe Fain could use a visit from you. Just to tell him that you are okay."
"I will think about that Master Jedi, but first I must take care of my family one more time." Sara replied. "Can you request for me transport back to my home to do just that?"
"I shall and this item here will beep when I have done so." she hands Sara a comlink. Sara watches the Jedi walk away wondering why her family never really came up? She wondered what now?