Star Wars: Death Troopers

Chapter 17 Tisa

The last of Zahara's patients died that night. In the end it happened very quickly. About half of them had been human, the others different alien species, but it didn't make a difference. In the last moments some of the nonhumans had reverted to their native languages, some had clutched her hand and talked to her passionately-if brokenly, through uncontrollable coughing-as if she were some family member or loved one, and she'd listened and nodded even if she didn't understand a word of it.

At Rhinnal they taught her death was something you got used to. Zahara had met plenty of physicians who claimed to have adjusted to it and they always seemed eerie to her somehow, more detached and mechanical than the droids that served alongside them. She tended to avoid such doctors and their cold, clinical eyes.

Waste brought the news of the final deaths with a neutral tone that she'd never heard before, a lack of affect so peculiar that she wondered if it had been programmed for the worst eventualities. Perhaps it was what passed for sympathy in the droid world.

Then, in an almost apologetic voice, the 2-1B added: "I've finished the analysis of your own blood as well."

"And?"

"You're obviously immune to the pathogen. What I meant was that I believe I've had some success in analyzing the immunity gene within your own chemical makeup and synthesizing it."

She stared at him.

"You found a cure?"

"Not a cure, necessarily, but a kind of anti-virus, if what we're dealing with is indeed viral in nature, something that can be administered intravenously." The droid held up a syringe filled with clear fluid and looked around at the infirmary, the bodies in their beds. "If there are any survivors aboard the barge, they ought to get this as soon as possible."

Zahara looked at the needle, belated salvation dripping from its spike. She should have felt some kind of relief. And later, perhaps, she might. But her first reaction to the news-if there are any survivors aboard the barge-was a profound sense of personal failure, manifesting itself as a sandbagged heaviness in the legs and belly. The health of the barge and its inmates and staff had been her responsibility. What had happened here over the last few hours was unthinkable, a collapse of such glaring magnitude that she couldn't look at it except through the filter of her own personal culpability. Sartoris might have been taunting her, but he was right. She would never live this down.

There's no time for self-pity, a voice inside her head said. You need to find out who's left, sooner rather than later.

As usual the voice was right. She did herself the favor of recognizing that fact, and pushed down on the black feeling inside her belly. To her mild surprise, it collapsed, or rather burst like a bubble.

"I'll be back."

"Dr. Cody?" Waste sounded alarmed. "Where are you going?"

"Up to the pilot station. I need to run a bioscan on the barge and locate any survivors."

"I'll go with you."

"No," she said. "You need to stay here in case anyone else comes for treatment." And then, sensing the droid's reluctance, "That's an order, Waste, get me?"

"Yes, of course, but given the circumstances I would feel much more comfortable if you would simply allow me…"

"I'll be fine."

"Yes, Doctor."

"Watch for survivors," she said, and walked out the door.

She didn't have to go far before the notion of survivors struck her as an increasingly unlikely prospect.

She stepped over and around the bodies, breathing through her mouth when the odor became too much. Almost immediately she wished she'd allowed Waste to come with her. The droid's prattling would've made everything else easier to take.

She arrived at the pilot station and slipped through the doors, braced for what she found there. The Purge's flight crew had not abandoned their posts, even in death. The corpses of the pilot and copilot, a couple of rough-hewn Imperial lifers she'd never really gotten to know, slouched backward in their seats, mouths gaping, algae-gray flesh already beginning to sag from their bones. As Zahara approached them, the barge's instrumentation suite recognized her immediately, panels blinking, and a computerized voice cut in from some hidden speaker.

"Identification, please." The voice had been synthesized to sound female, business-like but pleasant, and Zahara tried to remember what the pilots called her and then remembered-Tisa. Word was that on the longer flights, various guards had been caught up here after hours, chatting her up.

"This is Chief Medical Officer Zahara Cody."

"Thank you," Tisa said. "Confirming retinal match." There was a pause, perhaps five seconds, and a single satisfied beep. "Identification confirmed, Dr. Cody. Awaiting orders."

"Run a bioscan of the barge," she said.

"Acknowledge. Running bioscan." Lights pulsed. "Bioscan complete. Imperial Prison Barge Purge, previous inmate and administrative census five hundred twenty-two according to the…"

"Just tell me who's left."

"Currently active life-form census is six."

"Six?"

"Correct."

"That's impossible."

"Would you like me to recalibrate the bioscan variables?"

Zahara stopped and considered the options. "What are the variables?"

"Positive life-form reading is based on algorithmic interpretation of brainwaves, body temperature, motion, and heart rate."

"What about alien species whose normal body temp or pulse don't fit within those parameters?" Zahara asked. "They wouldn't show up on the scan, would they?"

"Negative. Scan parameters are continuously recalibrated to incorporate the physiological traits of every member of the inmate population. In fact, current calibration standards reflect accurate life-form census with a point-zero-zero-one percent margin of…"

"Where are they?" Zahara asked. "The six?"

Tisa's holoscreen brightened to extend a transparent, three-dimensional diagram of the barge. It looked much cleaner in miniature, etched out with fine, straight lines, a drafter's dream of perfect geometry. The pilot station occupied the uppermost level. On one end of it, rising like a periscope, stood the retractable docking shaft that still connected them to the Destroyer. On the other end of the pilot station, a wide descending gangway lead downward to the conjoining administration level, flanked on port and starboard sides by the barge's escape pods. The mess hall, infirmary, and guards' quarters occupied the far end of that same level, and below that, the six individual strata that constituted Gen Pop. Any farther down, Zahara knew, and you'd find yourself amid a series of beveled hatches giving way to numberless sublevels, including the bottommost holding cells.

In all she counted the six tiny blips of red light distributed throughout it.

"Current life-form census," Tisa was saying, "indicates one active reading in the pilot station, one on the administration level, two in General Population, Detention Level One, and two in solitary confinement."

Solitary. She hadn't even thought about that until now. Reserved for the worst and most dangerous inmates on the barge, a haven for maniacs and extreme flight risks, it was the one place where the sickness might not have had an opportunity to spread. The question was whether she should risk going down there alone. Of course there were plenty of weapons lying around, but she didn't relish the idea of letting two of Warden Kloth's worst inmates free only to blast them into oblivion when they attacked her.

Still, what choice did she have?

"Can you patch me through to the infirmary?"

"Acknowledged," Tisa said and the monitor above the hologram brightened to show the medbay. At one corner of the screen Zahara saw Waste walking from bed to bed, removing monitors from the last of the dead, gathering up old IV lines and ventilator tubing. He was talking to himself in a voice too low to hear, perhaps only reviewing the diagnostic data, but seeing him like this made her feel suddenly, inexplicably sad.

"Waste."

The 2-1B stopped and looked up from the screen. "Oh, hello, Dr. Cody. Was the bioscan a success?"

She wasn't sure how to answer that one. "I'm going down to solitary. Can you meet me down there?"

"Yes, of course." He paused. "Dr. Cody?"

"Yes?"

"How many remaining life-forms are there?"

"Six."

"Six," the droid repeated tonelessly. "Oh. I see."

For a moment he glanced back at the infirmary full of bodies, all the patients who had died on their watch, despite all their efforts, and then up to the screen again. "Well. I suppose I'll meet you down there then."

"See you there," she said, and signed off.