Star Wars_ MedStar 01_ Battle Surgeons - Michael Reaves [6]
A couple of Bothan techs ran up to the shuttle and sprayed the exterior with spore disinfectant. This par-ticular batch of chemicals, Jos knew, would probably be good for another standard month; it took about that long for the spores that attacked the craft’s seals to de-velop immunities to the spray. Then various chemical precursors would have to be altered, and molecular configurations shifted just enough to produce a new type of treatment that would once again be effective - for a time. It was a constant dance that went on be-tween the guided mechanisms of science and the blind opportunism of nature. Jos wondered, not for the first time, what the odds were of the spores mutating into a more virulent pathogen that could strip-mine a pair of lungs in seconds instead of hours.
Then the shuttle’s hatch opened, and so did Jos’s mouth-in surprise.
The new doctor was a woman-and a Jedi.
There was no mistaking the simple dark garb and ac-coutrements of the Order, and certainly no mistaking the shape beneath them as anything other than femi-nine. He’d heard that the latest addition to the team was a Mirialan-which meant human, basically-a member of the same species as himself, whose ancestors had spread in several ancient diasporas across the galaxy, colonizing such worlds as Corellia, Alderaan, Kalarba, and hundreds more.
Humans were ubiquitous from one spiral arm to the other, so to see another one-male or female-arrive here was no great surprise.
But to see a Jedi, here on Drongar-that was surpris-ing.
Jos, like most other beings intelligent enough to ac-cess the HoloNet, had seen the recorded images of the Jedi’s final stand in the arena on Geonosis. Even before that, the Order had been spread mighty thin across the galaxy. And yet one of them had been assigned here, to Rimsoo Seven, a ragtag military medical unit on a world so far off the known space lanes that most galactic car-tographers couldn’t come within a parsec of locating it on a bet.
He wondered why she was here.
Colonel D’Arc Vaetes, the human commander of the unit, received the Jedi warmly as the latter disembarked from the transport. "Welcome to Rimsoo Seven, Jedi Barriss Offee," he said. "Speaking for everyone here, I hope you will be-"
But before he could finish his sentence, Vaetes stopped, for a sound was rising in the thick, humid air-a sound every one of them at Rimsoo Seven knew very well.
"Incoming lifters!" shouted Tanisuldees, a Dressel-lian enlistee. He was the aide-de-camp to Filba, the Hutt supply officer. He pointed to the north.
Jos looked. Yes, they were coming, sure enough-five of them, black dots against the sky, which at this time of day was a faint verdigris in color, like the algae that coated the surface of the Kondrus Sea. Each medlifter could carry up to six wounded men-clones and possi-bly other combatants. That meant at least thirty in-jured, possibly one or two more.
After the first moment of realization, everyone began moving purposefully, each doing his, her, or its duty to prepare. Zan and Tolk headed for the OT at a run. Jos was about to follow, but instead he turned and moved quickly to where the Jedi, looking slightly confused, was standing.
Vaetes took her hand and gestured toward Jos. "Jedi Offee, this is Captain Jos Vondar, my chief surgeon. He’ll get you briefed and prepped for what’s coming." The colonel sighed.
"It’s something we’re all quite used to, sadly. What’s even more sad is that you’ll get used to it as well, very quickly."
Jos wasn’t quite sure what the proper protocol for greeting a Jedi was, but he didn’t see much point in worrying about it at the moment. "Let’s hope the Force is with you,