Star Wars_ MedStar 02_ Jedi Healer - Michael Reaves [98]
She nodded. “Yes. But the Force is not something that easily pinned to an experimenter’s board and dissected. I know that what I experienced was real.”
“But you’re the only one who does.”
“Master Unduli said that several Council members felt the ripples of it.”
“I hate to play Sith’s advocate, but if I’m correctly understanding what you’re telling me, there’s no way to prove that what they felt was an echo of your experience. It’s all just too subjective. Still, let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that it is all true—what are the risks of you having that much power? What might you do by accident?”
Barriss nodded. Yes. He’d put his finger squarely on the crux of the problem. Who was she to wield a weapon that was, perhaps, tantamount to a lightsaber that could shear through a planet? What might she do by accident? There was no telling. Even the wisest Jedi Master would have to approach such power with great caution and a lifetime of experience. And she was but a Padawan, lacking any great skill or wisdom.
So, the choice: take up the flaming torch offered her by the Force, use it to keep the pack of dire cats from her door—and, in doing so, run the risk of burning down her house.
One way or another, she would have to make a decision soon. Because one thing she was certain of: time was running out.
38
Jos was in the middle of shrapnel removal from a trooper. In this case, a bowel resection was necessary. The building’s refrigeration units were offline again, so the air was clammy and hot, and the necessity of being up to his elbows in the trooper’s pungent intestines wasn’t helping things any. It was, Jos thought, as he wrestled yet another chunk of durasteel from the recumbent abdomen before him, mimn’yet surgery at its best. Or worst.
And yet, even as Jos worked away at his grisly task, he was smiling. His heart seemed to have its own tiny anti-grav unit; it threatened to burst free of his chest and float away, up to the bands of rust and verdigris girdling the sky. He felt like he could handle any case, repair any injury, no matter how extensive. The reason for this sense of joy was quite simple:
He and Tolk were back together again.
Uncle Erel had been as good as his word. He had fixed that which had been broken—in this case, Jos’s heart.
He could feel her presence beside him, attentive and ready to hand him whatever surgical tool was needed. They hadn’t had a chance to speak all that much before the incoming medlifters had driven them into the OT. Just a whispered apology, a quick kiss, and then they had to scrub and gown up.
That was all. But it was more than enough.
He finished the resection. The trooper was stabilized and gurneyed off, making room for another, this one’s chest raddled with dried blood.
“Y’know what?” Jos said to the room in general. “I think this galaxy would be a whole lot nicer and more pleasant place to live if we could all just stop killing one another. Who’s with me on this?”
A few chuckles and a couple of faux cheers were the response.
“You’re a visionary,” I-Five told him.
“Float it past Palpatine, see what he thinks,” Uli suggested.
Yes, it was gallows humor, but at least it was humor. There had been other smiles in the OT, if only for a moment.
Jos and Tolk grinned at each other through their masks. Jos felt six meters tall and invulnerable. He was back with the woman he loved. That was all he needed— he knew he could handle anything thrown at him now.
Something smashed into the force-dome and exploded.
Outside, the rain had stopped, and Barriss waded through puddles from the OT to her practice spot. She had allowed herself to feel fear, worry, and she knew that only a calm mind could allow her to regain her mental balance.
With the