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Chapter 10 - Bands of Purple
It had been two days since their party had left Tatooine; two days of nothing but empty space and an endless field of stars. Standing still at his post, Qui-Gon closed his eyes to dots of bright light, his breath coming in deep, heavy sighs. What he wouldn’t give for a band of purple or red across the horizon.
Something kept pulling him here, night after night, while everyone else was asleep and his Padawan meditated. Turning around, Qui-Gon walked quietly to the lone occupied stasis pod at the far end of the room. His skin pebbling from the coldness in the medical bay, he came to a stop in front of the pod, its harsh white light bathing him as he stared into Alia's eyes.
/ From the beginning she has intrigued me, / Qui-Gon realized uncomfortably as he stood before her. / I have the strangest feelings when I am around her. We are complete strangers, and yet I feel as if I have known Alia for many, many years. I feel…comfortable with her, at home, even. It amused me when she turned that sharp tongue of hers on us, yet was instantly gentle and calm with Jar Jar. / A slight smile came to Qui-Gon's lips as he recalled vividly how she had all but forced him to carry water-pouches for her friend, flatly ordering him to make sure the amphibious creature was kept hydrated.
Qui-Gon hadn’t been able to resist raising an eyebrow at her threatening scowl, nor suppress the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Nodding in silence and turning away, he had slipped the pouches beneath his farmer’s cloak, grinning as he headed across the sand with Jar Jar and R2D2. That grin had quickly left his face when he realized the handmaiden would accompany them, but the journey to Mos Espa had been uneventful, and he had found himself thinking more and more about Alia.
Something in her had…it had Called to him, Qui-Gon realized with a sudden start, looking up into her eyes with fascination and disquiet. Some part of him had recognized her, the vivid, unnatural shade of her blue eyes evoking a familiarity he couldn’t place.
/ Looking into her eyes is like remembering a dream, / His eyes gentle, Qui-Gon began to feel a well of compassion begin in him as he gazed at the young woman before him. / And each time I feel as if the dream is just out of reach. / Qui-Gon’s thoughts turned wistful as he moved his hand until his palm rested atop hers. Alia’s strange eyes fascinated him, drawing him to her like a moth to a flame. Despite the pain, Alia’s fire, her depth, even her strange sense of wisdom, was frozen in them.
All at once, Qui-Gon wished he had been here with her when the drakar had begun to move. He wished he had been able to ease some of her pain. Suddenly, the door behind him gave a loud hiss before opening. The Jedi was able to identify the golden yellow aura as that of Jorda Navras, Alia's caretaker. A rush of gratitude caught him unawares, and for a moment, Qui-Gon could only stand still, before he was able to brush off his momentary confusion, and acknowledge the ship's medic.
“Good evening, doctor,” said Qui-Gon, clasping his hands behind him.
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Jorda sighed at the sight of the Jedi before moving toward the pod.
“Did Kenobi tell you what infected her?” he asked as he picked up Alia’s medipad from one of the examination tables.
“I believe he said you called it a drakar," replied the Jedi Master, inclining his head in Jorda's direction, "I am not familiar with such a life-form, however.”
Jorda snorted derisively, running a hand through his blond hair as he pulled a stylus from his uniform and began tapping the pad’s arrow keys, scrolling through Alia's readings. After a moment, the doctor sighed again before looking apologetically at the taller man.
“I myself am not entirely familiar with its workings," he admitted, "But I can assure you that a drakar is not a life-form. Not a sentient one, anyway. I can only tell you what I have in my medical files.”
Moving briskly toward a console, with a stroke of a key he brought up a hologram of a repulsive, leech-like organism with sharp suckers.
“This is a drakar,” he explained dispassionately, though his eyes betrayed his revulsion, “It has no brain, no heart, only an ever-expanding stomach. I would call it a droid, because it only follows its programming, but I fear it would be an insult to other droids.”
Jorda brought up another visual, this one obviously taken from a medical student’s holotext. Master Jinn visibly winced as he saw the entrance wound: a grazing of the torso, most likely made by a blaster. The injury itself had been visibly penetrated, a hole measuring five Standard centimeters in diameter apparent.
“This is an image from my school text, explaining the usual entry point used by a drakar. And this,” said Jorda, rolling a different key to bring up another image, “Was Alia’s point of entry.”
Qui-Gon looked at the image closely.
“It appears as if her wound was cut deeply,” he said, his stomach sinking when he saw the two images were identical, save for that one discrepancy.
“Yes,” Navras nodded, adding in a perplexed voice, “A blaster wound such as this, harmless when treated, would at most partially heal within seven to nine days. It should not have completely healed in the one day it had.”
Beneath the doctor's wonder, Qui-Gon sensed a note of despair, tinged with regret, at his statement. Suddenly, the ramifications of his words broke over the Jedi Master like a wave of ice-cold water.
“You had to re-open the wound.”
Jorda sighed at the Jedi Master’s flat tone.
“Right again. I knew something was wrong as soon as I opened it and examined the damaged tissues. This,” he waved at the monitor, “Was simply a cover for the damage beneath her skin. As awful as it sounds, the drakar had burrowed its way into her body, and not painlessly, either.
"The path of the hole is this,” Jorda said, bringing a computer model onto one of the larger viewscreens.
Qui-Gon watched the doctor trace the drakar’s path from its point of entry through the muscles of her torso, moving to the right in a steady line. He could see, as the model shifted, that the drakar had skimmed the outer top edge of her lungs, burning through the protective lining, snaking its way down along the right side of Alia’s trachea, touching just enough of the organ to have affected its protective lining as well. The path stopped, however, just before reaching the pericardium encasing her heart.
“From looking at the residue lining the pathway after she was in stasis,” explained Navras, enhancing a portion of the drakar’s track, “I was able to determine that the agent was using nyaline-coated razors, somewhat like being layered in acid, designed to burn away the most resistant tissues and allow easier access to the burrowing teeth.”
“How is it that you know of this drakar, Doctor Navras?”
Jorda couldn’t see any suspicion in the Jedi’s question, simply curiosity.
“If I had been taught at the Palace University in Theed, I might not have known,” he replied with a grim smile, “I chose to be trained at the Maris Academy in Deeja Peak instead. Part of the curriculum was researching less well-known devices employed during wartime, how to identify them, how to treat them and so on.
“I must admit, my education was conducted on a peaceful planet during peaceful times. I never expected to use my knowledge to help someone I knew. And I had never seen a drakar before the monitor brought its visual onscreen, unless you count the hologram,” he added, waving at the image.
The Jedi Master’s brow furrowed into a thoughtful frown, and during the silence that followed, Jorda took the time to run another diagnostic on his patient. As the scans came back to the computer, he shook his head at the results. He had been lucky to find the droid’s path. Damn lucky. Even now her body seemed to be repairing itself….or at least trying to.
“This shouldn’t be happening,” he muttered to himself, checking the results again.
“What should not be happening, Doctor?”
Startled, Jorda looked around, having forgotten the Jedi’s presence.
“Her body is supposed to be in complete stasis,” he explained quickly, bringing up a schematic of the pod, “Kolto beams are designed to paralyze individual body cells as well as those of any foreign agent, rendering the patient’s cells incapable of mobility, thus paralyzing the contamination.
“But here,” Jorda continued, bringing up a model of Alia’s wound, pointing and enhancing the image, “It appears that her body is actually trying to actively heal itself at the molecular level, instead of cellular. The components of the drakar function at cellular level, as does the paralysis of the kolto beams and most tissue repair. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
The Jedi Master was silent for a moment, then said quietly, “Alia is not a normal girl.”
Jorda nodded absently, his eyes once again scanning his patient’s medichart. Thinking hard, the doctor replied, “With the irregularities I found in her blood, I’d wager she’s at least half-human; it would certainly explain the abnormal readings I’m getting. It might also be the reason for whatever this…healing...factor…thing…is.”
The two men stood in silence for a long time, one preoccupied with digesting everything he’d heard, and the other busy trying to prepare for the coming day.
“What will become of her once we reach Coruscant?”
Keeping his eyes trained on the numbers in front of him, Jorda restrained the urge to roll his eyes. What was with all the questions? Jedi were supposed to know all, see all, and be all. Where was their famed omniscience now?
“I can’t keep her in stasis forever. Eventually her body will knit itself right over the damn thing, and once the beams wore off…which they will…the drakar would still retain enough of its original programming to finish its mission. I need to get her to a medical facility as soon as possible, and surgically remove it.
“If I don’t time it just right, her body will heal too much, the paralysis will wear off too quickly, and any chance I have of saving her becomes nil. As soon as we land I’ll get her off using the service platform.”
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As the medical officer turned around to shut down the hologrid console, both men watched as the revolving form of the drakar vanished before walking in the direction of the doors. On impulse, Qui-Gon called for the other man to stop, and asked, “What is your opinion, Doctor, on the person responsible for this?”
The medic’s reply was sudden and vicious.
“A drakar is an assassin-droid, one of the worst and most difficult to detect until too late. It’s designed to move quickly and painfully, feeding as it goes upon organ tissues and whatever else is in its way. Most commonly its objective is its victim’s heart. Once the drakar recognizes cardiac tissue, it is triggered to explode. Anyone who would inflict such a thing on another deserves to die a slow, painful death themselves. Preferably by their own creation.”
Qui-Gon nodded, and the doctor resumed his exit, leaving the Jedi once again alone with his thoughts.
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Jar Jar was feeling anxious as he walked off the cruiser with the other Naboo and the Jedi; he didn’t want to be here, watching that Senator greet the Queen. He grew even more nervous when he saw Qui-Gon leave for the Jedi temple with Obi-wan. His eyes began to dart around frantically. He wanted Alia to be with him; she would know how he felt. He missed his friend and wished she wasn’t so sick.
The doctor had taken Alia with him off the service platform as soon as the ship had landed. Qui-Gon had told him that Alia was very ill, that she hadn’t wanted him to see her when she was so sick. Jar Jar owed the Jedi a life-debt, and had believed the human, despite his doubts. Whenever Alia had been sick before in Otoh Gunga, she hadn’t cared who saw her. / Mebbe shesa sicka in a nodda diff’rent way. /
Jar Jar thought some more as he walked behind the handmaidens to the air taxi, then nodded his head decisively. Qui-Gon had said he couldn’t see Alia on the ship, but the Jedi didn’t say he couldn’t see her at the doctor’s house. He looked around, searching for Padmé; she knew a lot...she would know where to find the doctor’s house.
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From the Author - -
"I’ve made up the Maris Academy, Deeja Peak is an actual city on Naboo, I don’t know if there’s a Palace University, and I made up nyaline. Anyone have something concrete to replace it with? Oh, and kolto beams I got from the KOTOR games, not sure if they’re canon. Are they?"
