Chapter Forty Two

She had to work fast.

The blast had completely severed both legs below the knees.

'That's a good start,' she thought.

Automatically she scrubbed and programmed the old med droid with the relevant history. It immediately headed into the correct procedural track and debrided the wounds.

It wouldn't be pleasant, but the soldier would have to recover somewhat from this initial trauma before he could receive the correct prosthetic cybernetic replacements.

After what seemed like an eternity, she stood back, her gown covered in his blood and watched as the young man was suspended in the only Bacta tank on the facility. She collapsed into a chair and allowed her mind to go blank for the first time that extraordinary day.

#

Dr Marlo Lane.

The brightest of the bright.

Then.

Now, she was nothing more than a patch 'em or scratch 'em doctor.

The years spent on Coruscant in the Senate Medical Hospital performing miraculous surgery on Diplomats from all over the Universe now a distant memory, but one, every now and then she indulged herself in revisiting.

It was all her own fault, her demise, her fall from Grace.

He was a Corellian.

Rich, handsome and powerful.

He had chosen his target well.

The sequalae of events played out like a perfected orchestrated opera.

The clever doctor, the ruthless politician and the innocent victim.

It cost her everything she held dear.

Her family; merely inconsequential. Past causalities on her road to medical fame.

Friends; she had none. Marlo simply didn't have the time or inclination to make any that didn't serve a purpose other than to push her forward in her career.

Her career.

She took in a quick breath.

Her career left in shatters.

Cardiothoracic surgery. Mending broken hearts her speciality.

No amount of surgery or medication could repair the damage she had caused.

This was more than she deserved. Penance on a Penile Colony in the far outer rim, putting her hands, that were once likened to a magicians when a scalpel was slapped into them to saving any poor soul as unfortunate as her.

It had started so well.

Marlo had cruised through medical training, being fast tracked into the surgical programme and her dreams became reality when she was accepted into the coveted cardio thoracic registrar's position.

She was unstoppable.

Shunning the social life of any other young female doctor, she continued to read, and study every type of species she was likely to operate on. Sitting in and watching other surgeons perform meticulous operations on creatures from all over the galaxy, eager to learn and ultimately become the best.

Seven years later, she did.

Dr Marlo Lane became the first female attending cardio thoracic surgeon to be appointed to the Senate Medical Hospital on Coruscant just before the War began.

She had done it, when so many others before her had failed.

A corner office and suite overlooking an enormous artificial plant filled atrium her domain.

Then one day, he entered.

Tall, elegantly dressed and devilishly good looking, she forgot her years of training. Her regimented life became a whirl a cocktail parties, official functions and trips to exotic worlds thought only possible in holovids of the rich and famous.

They would make love before her beeper would sound, directing her attention momentarily back to reality, when she would leave him alone in her bed as she quickly dressed and caught a speeder taxi back to the hospital.

It was exhilarating.

Saving lives, living her own.

Then came the political intrigue. The lover manipulated the truth unbeknownst to her.

Now.

"Marlo," he implored, "you know what you have to do? Surgery has it's known risks. A small slip of the knife and it's all over. No one will be any the wiser. It's the right thing to do."

Why did she do as he asked? She couldn't even to this day, answer that question.

An inconspicuous Gran with congenital mitral valve disease.

Replace the valves and all would be fine, like the hundreds she had done previously.

But this time, she let her hormones do the operating.

He said he was a Senate spy. She had read all the information he fed her and had come to the conclusion that it was correct and that this unconscious male alien pushed into the operating room was in fact the very same person he had described.

Never mind the fact that he had been brought to Coruscant for her to operate on as she was 'the best.'

Never mind that he had a family back on Kinyen waiting anxiously for him to survive the surgery and come back home to recouperate.

Never mind that his mate had waited outside the theatre for hours for her to finish this almost 'routine' surgery.

This doctor was supposedly the best at her job, so she simply smiled when Marlo walked through the doors, pulling the theatre cap off her head as she walked up to the young female.

What Marlo didn't realise was that she had unwittingly signed the death warrant of the young humanoid in front of her. The bonds formed by the Grans so strong, so lasting it often followed that the mate would die within days of it's partner.

"I'm sorry. Your husband didn't survive the surgery." The words were simple and to the point. She never had been known for her bedside manner. She felt the pain for the first time though, as if she was losing someone close to her. She watched as the female fell to her knees, holding her head sobbing and just stepped aside and continued down the length of the corridor.

She had done it.

"Well done my love," he whispered into her ear after they had made love for a second time that night, "well done."

Then he disappeared.

There was an inquest, and the identity of the dead alien was revealed.

He wasn't the picture of evil he was portrayed to be.

He wasn't double crossing the Senate and feeding information back to the growing money laundering cartels in the outer rim. He was trying to infiltrate one particularly ruthless organisation that was dealing with the illegal procurement and shipment of arms.

This one, run by a Corellian.

Yes, he had chosen his target well.

#

Marlo rubbed her eyes with her hands and shook her head.

That deliberate slip of the scalpel had severed more than a main artery, it had severed her career with any chance of redemption along with it.

She slowly pulled herself out of the hard chair and checked the clones vitals.

Perfect heart rate, temperature and blood pressure.

Good.

He would make a full recovery.

She knew the stumps where his legs once had been would not be permanent. Bilateral above knee amputations would follow once she could obtain the artificial replacements.

She smiled to herself, remembering during her intern-ship the dottery, cyberneticist that seemed to always have his head in a book but had such compassion for his patients.

Marlo hadn't forgotten his name.

He was Oriian and she knew, he was the man that could fix this broken one floating in front of her.

'Yes,' she smiled again, 'I can fix this,' and headed out of the Infirmary, locking the door behind her.

She went to the holonet and logged on and quickly typed in the name of the man she remembered, the cursor blinking methodically in front of her on the screen.

Dr Tomas Gem.

'Yes,' she thought again, as she plugged the information into the communiqué and waited for a response, 'I can definitely fix this.'

#