Chapter 16

Medicine was difficult science, Luminara Unduli thought as she looked down at the almost corpse-like body before her. Only the tiny movements of her patient's chest told her that he was alive, and he should not have been able to. How he continued to cycle the oxygen through his battered and bruised form remained a mystery. She spun the scalpel between her fingers as she considered the figure, then moved the impossibly sharp blade to make an incision. She paused. Looking up, she stared into the 2-B1 Medical droid's eyes. Ripper, she hadn't bothered to ask why the droid was referred by that name, nodded at her, and she took a breath before gently plunging the blade beneath the skin. The cut was clean, and blood pooled up immediately. Luminara glanced over at the scanning monitors and watched for the small shard of stone that was lodged into the muscle she had just sliced into.

Honestly, Luminara despised surgery. She had been trained in medical procedures, but that was years ago, under the constant guide of Rig Nema and Halais Monroe. Of course she still had the knowledge, as that was a requirement for a Consular of her stature. The Mirian liked to think that she could handle anything, but surgery was... unusual. It required a steady hand and a precise touch. While she had both of those in almost every circumstance she faced, this idea of holding someone's life in her hands was rather unsettling. A single cut could be the difference between saving her patient, and permanently crippling him. It made her nervous. It made her hands shake when she focussed on it for too long. Shaking hands and nerves were things she could not allow. She was the only Jedi in the Devaronian Temple available for surgery. She and Barris, her padawan of three years, had landed two days ago. For the past day and a half, she had been in the surgical suite with Ripper and Zatos, a local human doctor who was trusted by the Jedi.

For the past day and a half, they had been struggling to save Caloc Tiac's life.

Barris watched through the glass, staring in the surgical suite and watching her Master hard at work. The older Mirian used her tools to reach into her current patient's chest and removed what appeared to be a diamond-shaped shard of grey, granite-like stone. She placed it on the tray beside her, grabbed a clean rag to wipe away even more blood, and then went back in to try and find another shard, or to patch up the kid's arteries. Or a thousand other tasks that needed to be done so that Caloc could live.

A trio of footfalls echoed around the corridor behind her, and she turned to see Stass Allie walking towards her, followed by the Temple's scribes woman, Ta. The Tholothian, who looked a lot better after the shower and medical scan she had been forced to have, was talking with the young scribe, both enwrapped in the conversation. The third set of footfalls tailed them, a little behind. They belonged to the last person Barris would have expected to see here. Then she amended the thought. They belonged to the last person she would've expected to see here, at least until recently, when she had seen Lozzan Karen pushing the hover-gurney into the surgical suite, Caloc's crumpled body on top of it.

Somehow, Barris found herself able to be mad at all three. Ta had sent the Jedi in. Stass had led the team. Lozzan had apparently been present when they had found the huge cavern. She turned away from the window and stalked over to the Tholothian. Up close, Stass looked absolutely exhausted. Her eyes were sunken. Her tendrils were limp. Her headdress had a long, thin crack in it, and she held a half-empty cup of kaff in a weak grip. But Barris didn't care. It was impolite for a padawan to berate a Master, but she grit her teeth, folded her arms and sternly asked, "What happened?"

"I honestly don't know how the boy is alive.", Stass stared through the glass at her charge. "But I can tell you what I know. The last thing I saw was when Caloc fell off the sarcophagus…"

Stass scrambled down the vertically slanted stone, her boots struggling to find purchase on the gravelly surface. She was being followed by Tia, who had told Lozzan to look after their capture still back on the ledge. The fall was a lot shorter than it had been about three minutes earlier. Two minutes ago, it had been a writhing mess of Trakulis Oralis, the slimy skin and clicking mandibles making a strange collage of slaughter, dirt and death. A sudden tap had came from above, at the roof of the cavern. The huge cave's ceiling had caved in immediately afterwards, sections of stone the size of a speeder crashing into the pile of worms. The chains holding up the sarcophagus had snapped as one, the massive golden crypt slamming into the ground. But that hadn't been what had killed them. Sunlight followed the stone, fresh oxygen flooding the cavern. Being somewhat oxygen resistant, each of the massive grubs had immediately shrivelled up and died quickly. Alpha predator's underground, the Trakulis Oralis would die above the surface, poisoned by the very thing that kept human's and many aliens alive.

She grabbed her lightsaber and began slashing at the stones, trying her hardest to carve through the thick rock. She could still sense her padawan in her mind. He was down there. A hand landed on her shoulder and pulled her back.

"Stass, you need to take a deep breath. He will be fine. If there is one thing that Caloc is good at, apparently it is going to be surviving.", Tia said. He sounded resigned to the fact, as though complimenting Caloc on simply surviving was physically painful for him.

They set to work, lifting the rocks one by one. Some of them hid worms, most dead, but some still squirming their way towards death. There were also maggots; large, tubular slugs that had red raw skin and large mandibles. Some even hid a few openings to lower tunnels. Each of these were checked profusely. But there was no sign of her padawan.

Until a rather large worm was found. It had been half buried by the sarcophagus. The other half was at least thrice the size around as Stass was high. It could have well been the alpha worm, if she hadn't managed to walk through an Alpha battle not an hour beforehand. Surprisingly, it dipped in the center, an indicator of a space below the large creature. Grunting it with the effort, they used the Force and lifted it aside, and found a space that had been cut off from the oxygen. There, nestled into a ball against the stone, her padawan lay, a rebreather clenched hard in his mouth. His breaths were shallow, and they hurried down to him. There were electrical sparks coming from his left arm, and his skin was a light shade of blue. She carefully cradled him, placing her hand on his chest and with each deep breath she transferred a little of her life essence, hoping to help the kid at least breathe a little stronger.

All the time, she didn't hear herself whispering, almost praying to the Force to help her. To let him survive. But to do that, he still needed help. Needed medicine. They needed to get back to the Temple of Eedit.

Barris frowned as Stass finished her tale. Almost nothing made sense. There were holes in the tale, and she knew that the Tholothian could sense them also. But right now, it could wait. Caloc was the person she needed to focus on, or at least the one she needed to support the most. She left to brew a fresh pot of kaff. Luminara would be needing it. The doors to the commissary swung open, and Zule Xist walked over. Her face was full of exhaustion and confusion, the look of someone unable to sleep.

"What is wrong, Xist?", she asked her fellow padawan, "Trouble sleeping?"

Zule let out a loud yawn, her hand fluttering over her mouth to somewhat stifle it. "Why is it that every single mission Caloc goes on, he ends up in so much danger that he seems to keep the Order up at night."

That did seem to be true, Barris was forced to admit. But he certainly seemed to come back with amazing stories. Her commlink beeped, and she quickly snatched it up. "What is it?"

"I have done all I can.", Luminara answered. She sounded exhausted, and emotion didn't normally taint her vocal cadence. She had clearly been putting everything into Caloc's recovery. "The patient is going on the next flight to the Temple of Nuut. Hopefully, they can help him better than I can."

"Understood, Master.", Barris answered, "I'll be there as soon as I can to help you move him."

Zule watched her go, then grabbed the cup of kaff she had left behind. She took a tentative sip, then nodded in appreciation. Barris may have been a bit of a stiff, but man could she make a good cup of kaff. Just the right amount of blue milk and spices to really bring out the taste. Her thoughts turned to her friend.

Caloc had been to see her once before in the Jedi Temple. That had been before she had left for the deserts of Tagra Huui to learn where her own Master, Junila, did. She recalled one thing he had said that day, when he had been studying with her in the library. She couldn't remember what the topic had been. But it had sparked a conversation about tranquillity. Or more accurately, it had sparked an argument about the true meaning of a Jedi's tranquillity. They had gone back and forth for about twenty minutes, and then he had stopped the conversation with something that she kept with her from then on.

Hopefully, she would not need to mourn Caloc this day. With any luck, the doctors of Nuut would be able to help him. Being crushed in a cavern with no way out, then nearly suffocating to death would definitely get him the award for the most foolhardy person in the galaxy. Now there was just one more person she had to talk to.

Happy October

Who is this mysterious person? Why does Zule need to talk to them?

Enough questions, right? This is a bit of a mysterious chapter. Luckily, the answers will all be revealed in the next chapter, coming soon. Hopefully in a fortnight, but we will see how life goes.

I wanted to take this chapter in a completely different direction from the last few. Seeing the situation through Barris' eyes, through Luminara's eyes, then even briefly through Zule's eyes, was my way of exploring these characters a bit more. Both Luminara and Barris are the epitome of Jedi peacekeepers. I have always thought that this might come from Luminara's background as a medical consular in the Order.

Don't worry though. Although they sound bad, Caloc's injuries are actually far better than his Klipton blood replacement surgery. He will be back to good health in time to debut the next book, which will have a release date some time around the holiday season.

For now, that is all.

From, Phillip.