Star Wars: Death Troopers

Chapter 14 Bubble

The alarm was going off in the negative airspace of the quarantine bubble just before she slipped inside. Looking in, she saw Sartoris standing over Vesek's bed while Vesek gaped up at him. The younger guard's face had gone so white that Zahara could see the fine blue veins tracing beneath his jaw and chin, rising up his cheeks. She ran the rest of the way, letting the flap seal shut behind her with a barely audible thwap.

"What happened?"

"You're the doctor," Sartoris snapped. "You tell me."

"He was stable just a few minutes ago." She checked the monitors. Vesek's pulse was gone, his oxygen saturation plunging and blood pressure crashing hard. "Did you do something to him?"

Sartoris glared at her. "Me?"

"Hand me that foil blister pack-the other one." She tore it open, withdrew the breathing tube, and smeared it with lubricant. "Tilt his head back."

Sartoris moved stiffly, watching as she eased the tube down Vesek's throat, going in blind. It hit an obstruction somewhere and when she tried to advance it, his chest heaved, and he made a gagging sound in the pit of his chest. It was a sound she'd come to know well over the last few hours.

"Watch yourself," she said, as dense red fluid started to spout up the tube, pouring out of his mouth. She reached for suction but couldn't see far enough to run the tube where it needed to go. All the while she could feel Sartoris hovering over her shoulder, literally breathing down her neck, and had to make a deliberate effort to ignore him. Working almost entirely by feel, she repositioned the tube and heard the first rasping noises of Vesek hungrily slurping up oxygen, then swabbed his face and taped the tube into place to keep it from slipping. She took a step back and made herself take a series of deep breaths, holding each one for a five-count until she began to feel steady again.

"Is he going to make it?" Sartoris asked.

"Not for much longer. Not like this." She turned to face him. "I need to speak to you."

"I was just leaving."

Zahara gave him an incredulous look. "Excuse me?"

"I came to talk with Vesek." Sartoris shot a glance at the tube taped into place around the guard's mouth. "Not much chance of that now."

"You can't leave."

"Who's going to stop me?" His eyebrow hiked up. "You?"

"You're in quarantine because you're one of the primary carriers of this infection," Zahara said. "You need to stay here."

Sartoris eyed her levelly, taking her measure. The cold indifference in his face was unlike anything she'd ever encountered before, as if it were permanently etched beneath the features, across the very bones of his face.

"I'm going to make this very clear," he said. "You have no authority over me. And there's nothing you can do for me or my men or any of these inmates. You're useless, Dr. Cody, and you know it. If you were one of my guards, you'd be gone by now. if you were lucky. Otherwise you'd be dead."

"Look…" she started.

"Save it for your precious inmates," he said, standing up and starting to walk toward the sealed hatch. "I've already heard enough."

"Jareth, wait."

At the sound of his first name, he stopped in his tracks, and when he turned around and saw her expression, a grin twisted like barbed wire across his face. "You're scared stiff, aren't you?"

"That's got nothing to do with this."

"You ought to be. They're going to remember you for this."

"What?"

"You might think you're through with the Empire, but they're not through with you." He glanced outside the bubble, where the 2-1B was hurrying from bed to bed as the alarms switched on, each one signaling cardiac and respiratory arrest. "Every exposed inmate and guard on this barge is going to die in the next few hours, while you stand there in your isolation suit with your tools and your droids. I hope you enjoy answering questions, because there's going to be plenty of them waiting for you." He reached out with one finger and very gently placed it against her sternum. "You'll spend the rest of your life living this down."

"What did you and your men see up in that Star Destroyer?" she asked.

"What did I see?" Sartoris shook his head. "Nothing-not a thing."

Sighing, she glanced at the monitor screens alongside the bubble's inner membrane. "Your blood work is coming back clean. The infection doesn't seem to be affecting you whatsoever."

"Benefits of clean living," he said, and shoved past her. "If you think you can detain me, you're welcome to try. Otherwise I'll be up in the warden's office. I'm sure he'll be interested in hearing about how you and your staff are bearing up in this crisis."

Before she could move to stop him, he'd already walked out of the bubble and through the medbay. Something about his motives bothered her. There was no way he was going waste time talking to Kloth just to report on her inefficacy here. How much more trouble could she really get in now anyway?

Zahara started to follow him and paused, reeling momentarily lightheaded. She stopped short, scrutinizing herself for any of the symptoms she'd seen in her patients. Her breathing was fine, she felt no pain or lethargy-was she just feeling the accumulated tension of the whole situation?

"Waste?"

"Yes, Dr. Cody." The droid didn't look up from the inmate whose bunk it was squatting over, administering some sort of IV injection.

"I need you to run some blood and cultures."

"On what patient?"

"Me," she said, and held out her arm.

The 2-1B looked at her. "But that would require me to violate the isolation barrier of your suit."

"The suits don't work anyway," she said. "You said so yourself."

"I was speculating…"

"Enough." She peeled off the mask and tossed it aside, yanking off the gloves and pulling her sleeve up to expose her bare arm. From the nearby beds, the inmates gazed at her blankly.

"Dr. Cody, please…" Waste's synthesized voice was edging perilously close to panic."…my theories regarding the efficacy of the barge's isolation gear are hardly conclusive, and in any case, the prime directive of my programming plainly states that I am to protect life and promote wellness whenever possible."

"Just do it," she said, and locked her eyes on the droid's visual sensors, wailing for the needle.