Etain found she’d walked in a circle and now was back at the main entrance. Pulling her cloak up over her head and mouth to keep out the cold, she stepped outside to check if Aay’han was still there-with Nulls, she could never predict anything-and saw Ordo and Mereel. They were sitting on the coaming of the open port-side hatch, chatting in the faint yellow light of the cargo bay, their breath emerging as mist. They really are crazy-it s freezing out here. She caught a word or two of the conversation before they noticed her.
Whatever they were talking about, Ordo was saying he almost wished he hadn’t started it, because it broke his heart to see Buir’ika like this. Mereel assured him Kal’buir would understand.
Buir’ika. She could work out even from her smattering of Mandalorian language that it was an affectionate word for “father.” Everyone seemed to be wallowing in guilt tonight. “I don’t care how genetically superior you are,” she said loudly. “Go to bed like good boys.”
Mereel laughed. Ordo just looked uncomfortable. “Yes, Buir” Mereel said. It was the same word for “mother” or “father.” Mando ‘a didn’t bother with gender. “We’ll brush our teeth, too.”
Etain waited for them to close the hatch before she shut the doors and made her way back to the heart of the complex. Skirata was asleep, or at least in that doze from which he seemed to wake so quickly. She found a blanket, shook off the dust, and laid it over him, as she’d once seen Niner do.
Maybe it wasn’t such a terrible thing to hand Venku over to him after all.
Medbay, Republic assault ship Leveler, 482 days after Geonosis
“I’m not accustomed to working with an audience,” said the droid. “Please let me get on with my task.”
Atin had taken on the role of enforcer today. The med droid didn’t seem to care which clone it was arguing with. Darman and Niner stood on either side of Atin, making it clear that it would be easier to give in than have to argue with them four times a day.
“I spent serious time in bacta,” Atin said. “Twice. I don’t have happy memories of it, so when Fi wakes up I want him to see his brothers as soon as he opens his eyes. Reassurance. It’s a scary experience for us. Reminds us of the gestation tanks.”
The droid was only partially moved. “How very primal. Move behind the observation screen, then.”
“Okay.”
“And after brain damage like this, he might be very disoriented. Do you understand? He might have problems even recognizing you at first.”
Darman didn’t care if Fi swung a punch and thought they were Neimoidian accountants as long as he was conscious. They could sort out the rest later.
“We get it,” Atin said.
The three commandos stepped out into the passage, helmets held one-handed, and peered through the transparisteel like med students watching a master surgeon.
“Pity that Bard’ika isn’t here,” Niner said. “He’d have sorted this lot out.”
Darman felt a little wounded by the omission. “Or Etain: But Jedi can’t influence droids.”
“I meant a spot of creative slicing. Sometimes I think he’s better than me.”
The technician droids moved the bacta tank out of position on repulsors and onto a recessed platform in the treatment area. Fi, breather mask still in place, hung more heavily on the suspension straps as the pale blue liquid was pumped away and the cylindrical tank descended below deck level. The droids moved a repulsor gurney into place and maneuvered Fi onto it, placed a temperature sensor somewhere that would have raised a loud objection had he been conscious, then covered him in a padded blue wrapping. The mask was still breathing for him.
“He looks awful,” Darman said. He placed his forearm on the transparisteel and rested his forehead against it. Bacta didn’t leave you wrinkled and white like plain water did, but Fi looked dead; the contrast between his pallor and his black hair was stark. “Is he still chilled?”
Niner shrugged. “Well, that blue thing could be a heating pad.”
They waited. A droid kept hovering back to check the sensor readout, and eventually Fi didn’t look such a waxy yellow color.
“Here we go.” Darman wasn’t keen on seeing a needle go into flesh-his own or anyone else’s-but he made himself watch as the senior med droid moved in with a cannula and slipped it into the vein on the back of Fi’s hand. What Dar-man might have been able to do if he’d seen anything go wrong, he had no idea, but he had to keep watch for Fi’s sake. The droid took a syringe and began injecting a pale yellow liquid into the cannula. “So this stuff reverses the sedation?” Atin nodded. “I was all bright and breezy pretty fast. He might not be, remember.”