Star Wars_ MedStar 01_ Battle Surgeons - Michael Reaves [104]
There were a thousand ways to die in a war zone, but the results were all the same...
38
The evac point for Jos, Tolk, and several others was just ahead, and Jos saw there was a vessel waiting for them. He didn’t recognize the type, but it looked big enough, fast enough, and empty enough to suit him just fine. He felt a sense of relief. They were going to make it!
Through the smoke and the gathering gloom he could just make out Zan, Tolk, I-Five, and one or two other med techs hurrying along with him. "You people doing all right?" he called. "Anyone need help?"
"Yes-all of you," the droid replied. I-Five was strid-ing rapidly along, more sure-footed on the uneven ground than any of them. "For example," he said, look-ing at Jos and pointing ahead of him, "you’re about to walk into a large patch of purple stingwort."
Jos drew up short. The droid was right-a swath of the venomous plant, one of the nastier examples of Drongar’s indigenous flora, coated the ground directly ahead of him. I-Five’s warning had saved him from days of excruciating pain, if not possible anaphylactic shock and death.
Before he could change course, the droid’s right index finger, which was pointed at the stingwort, fired a nee-dle beam of bright red coherent light at it. Without slowing his pace, I-Five carefully moved his finger back and forth, incinerating a one-meter-wide path through the dangerous growth as he passed through it.
"Thanks," Jos said as he moved quickly along the trail the droid had cleared for him. "I didn’t know you packed a laser."
"I didn’t either, until about thirty minutes ago," I-Five replied. "Another link in my grid became accessi-ble. I also have some unique harmonic vocalization abilities, it seems."
"Really," Zan panted as he tried to keep pace-the Zabrak had never been big on physical fitness, and was paying the price for that now. "We’ll have to try some duets together-assuming we make it through this move in one piece."
"Don’t worry," Jos said. "This time tomorrow you’ll be serenading us all with that thing you’ve been work-ing on-you know, the one that sounds like someone strangling a Kowakian monkey-lizard?"
"If you’re referring to my latest tone poem," Zan replied somewhat stiffly, "All I can say is-"
Whatever he was about to say was lost as another par-ticle beam blast, perhaps a hundred meters away, show-ered them all with mud from the nearby bog. The organics cried out in disgust-I-Five just kept on walk-ing as the effluvium slid from his metallic skin.
"Nice trick," Tolk said as she tried to wipe her face with her sleeve, which merely moved the thick sludge from one place to another. Jos resisted an urge to try to help her-after all, he wasn’t any cleaner than she was.
"Isn’t it? I’m rather pleased with it," I-Five said smugly. "My integumentary sensors analyze the mud’s chemical composition and viscosity coefficient, then electrostatically repel it. Another little trick of which I am capable that I discovered only recently."
"I’ll remember to ask for that when I have my next upgrade," Tolk said.
"Of course, some of the same effect can be accom-plished by ultrasonic vibration. Please allow me."
"Wow!" Zan put both hands to his ears as he stum-bled slightly. "Easy, will you? That hurts!"
After a moment’s puzzlement, Jos realized that Zan, whose ears obviously accommodated notes his own could not hear, was reacting to an ultrasound that I-Five was producing. A moment later he realized why - the result was much the same as a sonic shower. A considerable amount of the muck and mire seemed to magically evaporate from their skin and clothes. They weren’t clean, but at least they no longer looked like Fondorian mud puppies.