As soon as the Isaribi landed at the spaceport, Ahsoka sprang into action. Gravitational lifts carrying her Master were brought to the gangway; two meddroids hovered nearby, monitoring the patient's condition; four RC clones accompanied the procession. The senators muttered something about being the first to leave the ship, but the Togruta paid no attention to them. The Master was more important.
As soon as the ramp descended, Ahsoka commanded sharply:
"Forward!"
Practically running out of the ship, she found that they were already being met. An LAAT stood frozen near the landing site, with two medics standing next to it, and a little further away... Asoka unmistakably recognized Plo Koon in the standing figures.
"Master Plo!" The Togruta rushed to the Kel Dor.
"Ahsoka! I'm glad to see you, but the circumstances..."
"Master! My Master needs to go to the hospitalimmediately...!"
"Calm down, let them load him onto the gunboat—the operating room is ready. Master Unduli's Padawan will take care of him."
"Oh, hello!" She nodded to Luminare, turning back to Plo Koon. "I'll fly with him."
"I think we'll all fit in there easily."
Plo Koon noticed a group of senators leaving the ship and hurrying toward the nearby Corellian shuttle. One of them, a young Pantoran woman, paused for a moment, as if she wanted to say something, but then turned away embarrassedly and hurried after the other senators...
A few minutes later, the gunboat was gliding smoothly toward the hospital. Ahsoka stood next to the stretcher, holding her teacher's hand.
Suddenly, through the quiet hum of the engines, a muffled moan reached the minds of the intelligent ones:
"Sn-snip-ps..."
"Snips?" asked a surprised Plo Koon.
Ahsoka was embarrassed.
"Oh, that... well, my Master gave me that nickname.
"I wonder why?" The Mirialan gave her a cheerful look.
"It's just... I tease him sometimes... sometimes he teases me... So he gave me that nickname... But he's the one who starts it... started it..." The Togruta's voice, which had been cheerful, became sadder and sadder. Plo Koon put his hand on her shoulder.
"Don't worry. He's strong, if he didn't die right away, he'll survive. Jedi are tough," the Kel Dor encouraged her.
***
Barris Offee froze in one position, concentratingon her meditation. The operation she was about to perform was one that such a young Mirialan had never encountered before.
The words of Vokara Che, Chief Healer and head of the Medical Corps, echoed in her head. "You must relax... turn to your mind... comprehendyourself within... through pain... touch the Force! Connect the bones... restore the flesh... renew!"
The initial levels of Force Healing require meditation, but as your ability grows, you can regenerate faster. With a high level of mastery of Healing, you can heal serious injuries, even complete damage to flesh and blood or destruction of internal organs. Jedi healers used this Force for diagnosis and treatment.
Master Vokara was an outstanding Healer—it was she who created the mechanical arm for Anakin Skywalker, who was injured in a battle with the renegade Count Dooku. But now Barris had to do the impossible. She had a lot of work to do: remove damaged tissue and bones, replace them with transplants, prepare nerve endings for connection to the adapter, and then install a prosthetic joint and a cybernetic arm.
Yes, she had performed hundreds of operations since the beginning of the war, but her patients were clones. It was... easy. Clones are identical, which means that, apart from the absence of rejection syndrome, surgeons don't have to think about what to look for and where to look inside. Even among intelligent beings of the same race, there are many noticeable differences in physiology and function; all human hearts, for example, work the same way, but the valves can vary in size, the connection to the aorta in one may be higher than in another... individual anatomy has a million and one ways to differ from others. That is why even the best surgeon can never be 100% sure.
And she suspected there was another reason for her being here: the assignment was part — or all — of her trial. Her Jedi Master, Luminara Unduli, did not say so, but not all Padawans were warned in advance about the trial. The nature of the trial and whether or not the Padawan would be warned in advance was entirely at the discretion of the Jedi Master.
Once, probably six months ago, Barris asked Master Unduli when she should expect her Jedi Trial to begin. Her mentor smiled at the question: "Whenever. Always. Never."
Two surgeons, one organic and one droid, stood frozen nearby. All the necessary materials had been prepared. In the next room, a prosthesis and the necessary... transplants were being assembled.
But finally, the wounded Jedi was brought into the operating room. In addition to Master Plo Koon and her Master, a very young Togruta had also arrived with him. That's right, it's his Padawan. It must be hard for her right now — judging by everything, she became a student not so long ago. Why didn't he take her with him into battle? Or... was that also a Test?
"Shall we begin?" asked the surgeon.
Barris nodded, turned to the stretcher, and sobbed. The sight was horrific: the Jedi's body was covered with numerous lightsaber burns, and there was a terrible wound in his chest—thank the Force, it was at a slight angle and hadn't touched the spine, but the lungs had been grazed. And nothing but scarlet, oozing lymph tissue remained where his left shoulder had been. On Coruscant or Corellia, on any of the hundreds of civilized worlds, the level of technology would have allowed a cybernetic arm to be attached and the joint reconstructed—he would have become a hybrid of machine and man, but at least he would have been alive and functional. No, she had encountered limb amputations before, more than once, but they were usually amputations to the wrist, less often to the elbow. Here, even part of the collarbone was missing, not to mention the shoulder joint. And here, on Lantilles, there was no equipment necessary for such an operation. The Padawan bit her lip and turned to the droid.
"Begin treating the damaged tissue. And prepare a prosthesis."
The Padawan silently stepped toward the wounded man, hoping her excitement wasn't too noticeable, reached through the field, and placed both palms on the Jedi's chest. Then she closed her eyes and opened herself to the Force.
...It seemed to her that the Force had always been with her, appearing in her earliest memories. It was as natural as breathing. And she was going to use it for healing. Barris's job was to use the Force to prepare the person for implantation and fusion of the chains, to weaken the systemic shock reaction. The task was quite easy — all she had to do was calm the autonomous nerve centers and stimulate biological healing reactions. She had done this many times before without the slightest hesitation.
However, now... Everything was much more complicated, because the wounds were inflicted not just with a lightsaber, but with a Sith sword. Barris felt the dark energy emanating from the wounds, which interfered with the healing process. Jedi used their swords to incapacitate their opponents, leaving them alive. Sith sought to kill. A shiver of disgust ran down the Mirialan's spine.
The wound to the chest was not as bad as Barris had imagined. At the site of the "puncture," she found an old wound inflicted about a month ago. The tissue had not yet healed, and the plasma blade had done almost no damage. But the arm...
Suddenly, the droid reported:
"The patient has regained consciousness."