Star Wars_ MedStar 01_ Battle Surgeons - Michael Reaves [4]
What kept both sides struggling for control of this pestilential quagmire of a world was bota, a plant somewhere between a mold and a fungus, which, to date, had been found almost nowhere else in the galaxy. It grew thick on this backwater planet, but all attempts to transplant it offworld had failed. The plant was ex-tremely valuable to both sides, because, like the spores and other flora and fauna on Drongar, bota was highly adaptogenic in its effects. Many species could benefit from it-humans used it as a potent broad-based an-tibiotic, Neimoidians sought it as a narcotic painkiller, Hutts utilized it as a valuable stimulant almost as pow-erful as glitterstim spice, and many other species found it useful for still other functions. Moreover, the stuff had virtually no side effects, making it a true wonder drug.
Processed by freeze-drying, the resulting product was readily transportable. Its only drawback was that, once harvested, it had to be processed quickly or it degener-ated into a useless slime. And, to make things worse, the plant was quite delicate. Explosions going off too close to it could shock it to death, and it apparently burned like rocket fuel when ignited, despite the gen-eral dampness of the landscape. Since bota was the rea-son both sides were here, this was yet another reason for military engagements to be limited-fighting over a field of the stuff would be useless if it burned up, died, or went sour before it could be collected.
Bota was also one of the main reasons Barriss was here. It was true that her primary mandate was to aug-ment the doctors and surgeons who cared for Republic troops, using her skills as a healer, but she was also sup-posed to keep an eye on the harvesters, to make sure that the bota was being packed and shipped to offworld Republic ports as it was supposed to be. The harvesting operations had been folded in with the Rimsoo proce-dures to save money and expedite shipment. Neither she nor her superiors had any problems with that. Any advantage the Republic could gain over the Confeder-acy was valuable and desirable-the Jedi certainly had no love for the rogue Count Dooku, who had caused the deaths of so many of them two standard years ear-lier on Geonosis.
She strongly suspected that she was here for another reason as well: that this assignment was part, or all, of her trials. Her Jedi Master, Luminara Unduli, had not told her that such was the case, but not all Padawans were warned in advance that they were about to be tested. The nature of the trial, and whether or not the Padawan would know about it beforehand, were mat-ters left entirely to the discretion of the Jedi Master.
Once, about six months ago, she had asked Master Unduli when she could expect to begin her Jedi trials. Her mentor had smiled at the question, and said, "Any-time. All the time. No time."
Well. If her sojourn on this world was to be her trial by fire, the test that would determine whether or not she had what it took to be a Jedi Knight, she would proba-bly know before too-The transport slewed in a sudden yawing turn, inertia shoving Barriss hard into the seat. The ship’s internal gravity field had obviously been turned off.
"Sorry ’bout dat," the pilot said. "Dere’s a Sep’ratist battery in dis sector, an’ every now and den dey try t’track one’a us an’ knock us down. Standard procedure to t’row in a few ’vasive maneuvers on de way down. Kanushka!"
The exclamation of surprise in the Kubaz’s native tongue drew Barriss’s attention. "What?"
"Big battle goin’ on, off t’starboard. Coupla mech units an’ troops goin’ at it-dere, y’see? I’ll do a fly-over-we