Backalley Medicine.
The heavy smell of blaster fire settled on the back of Friyr’s throat, making him cough. He was bleeding. He could smell the rusty smell under the sting of laser cauterized flesh.
He kicked the blaster he dropped away from the security officer’s prone body. He’d pistol whipped a good-sized concussion into her, but he didn’t want her to start blasting again when she came to.
Friyr’s fingers shook as he pulled a burner holo from inside his robes. The pads of his fingers fed him too many details about the way the cheap plas felt weird against his skin. The seams of where it had been melted togther bothered him at the best of times, but his mind was racing through sensory input at miles a minute, as though the fight was still happening. Unable to slow down.
“Sudas,” he mumbled as he punched in the frequency by muscle memory.
The buttons were stiff and slow, and the Jedi cursed again before he got the number right. It rang in a tinsly tone once before the holo flared to life. The light flare made Friyr’s head dance with pressure points.
“I need a doctor or something,” he said without wating for a greeting. “Some contact I was talkin’ to drank somethin’ spiked an’ attacked me. She needs to live.”
“Where are you?” the staticky figure asked.
“I need her to live-- uhhhh-- Sudas.” He pressed the inside of his wrist to his forehead. He knew it popped him out of frame, but the cool pressure relieved the tension building inside of his head. Kark sighted people.“--Where am I?” He exhaled. “Red-- Red Light. Red Light District. ‘M in the Howlin’ Gauntlet slums.”
“You’re in luck. There’s a clinic on Boonta and one-fifteenth.”
“That’s-- That’s cross the way. Thanks.”
“Force be with you, Knight Illust--”
Friyr punched the disconnect key.
____
Zentra’s body was heavy. She was slipping. His arms were insufficiently skinny and his chest was narrow. Illustratum was built for running from one moment to the next. He wizzed away before life’s teeth caught up at him. He wasn’t durable, and he was woefully aware of this as Zentra’s body weighed the Jedi to the empty street pavement. He stumbled forward blindly, darting into the street before his arms could fully fail and running across it with the recycled wind in his ears.
The metal-pave of the other side caught his sandal, a droid screamed behind him, and the world tipped. Friyr’s heart fell into his mouth as the moment slowed itself amidst the panic. His arm holding Zentra’s legs had stretched out as though to stop the ground rushing up. They both lurched to a stop mid motion as the Force’s arms caught them both midtumble and lowered them both down to the metal ground.
Cold. Scuffed. It did bad things to his skin that cold sweat didn’t allieviate, but Friyr didn’t linger. Had to move on. Had to move on. He was vaguely aware of being on his knees (haha) and unthinkingly was digging his hands into Zentra’s arm pits and dragging backward aimlessly. His need to keep moving quenched the terror of being blind and lost in a world so many used their eyes to navigate.
“More to the right, Jedi.”
Friyr’s shoulders relaxed as the grumbly layers of Zentra’s wan voice flushed into the air. He didn’t allow himself to stop, but he did pause as she stirred. Grunting to pick herself up witha few choice Huttese words.
“I hate to say it, but I’m glad they didn’t get you. Where-- where did they go?”
Instead of answering, Friyr lifted under her pits until the weight of her rose. She stumbled against him, grasping for purchase on his arms. His breath staggered for a second, but Friyr stayed steady.
“That might be a liddle bit better.”
She sagged against his shoulder groaning and cracking the pain in his chest open with a fresh mallet. But she was here, and something frantic inside of Friyr’s chest settled with a finality. The body he held, the Force murmured, was a corpse already. The Force lingered. Over her, like a buzzard and in other people who saw them.
People didn’t spare the two a second glance. And Friyr - who was used to wide berths normally - could feel the tension of their repulsion to death and violence pricking at him. They emptied several blocks. “We’re goin’ to the clinic on Boonta. Tell me where to go. You c’n pull my clothes in a certain direction if you can’t talk. It’ll be slow, but I’ll eventually figure you out.”
Her hair tickled his cheek as she nodded. “Okay, Jedi. You’re facing the right way.”
She walked, both of them clinging to each other the way they were clinging onto life. Zentra was slower than he was. For every two steps his heels scuffed into the metal, she took one and a half. They ambled, like a two headed akk. Their pulse was too slow. The lukewarm stale air around them was growing too cold. But Friyr was determined.
“Where are they?” she asked again.
“Where’re who?” Friyr asked as calmly as he could between clipped breaths.
“There were monsters, and I couldn’t see you anymore, and one of them-- lunged at me.”
Friyr winced as Zentra’s body shuddered. He wanted to tell her the monsters were dead. Sheilding her from the processing of her own horror the way one might shield a child. But Zentra was no child, and he needed her sharp.
“You had a bad trip,” Friyr said with a heavy heart. “The water bottles’re spiked with whatever made the other two shooters go crazy.”
Zentra let loose a string of profanities. “Aren’t you a Jedi? Can’t you feel that stuff?”
“I-- The Force didn’ tell me until you’d already-- I think this is how the Force meant to show me.”
“You’re so bad at your job, the Force needed me to-- Kark. You remember what happened to those other people? The drug bleeds them, Illustratum. It bleeds them.”
Friyr remembered. He nodded silently.
“And you’re just okay with that?”
Friyr responded shakily. “Me personal? I don’ know what ‘m okay with. I trust in the Force and--if she’s takin’ you back,” he sighed a hot dry breath. “then its your time, Zentra. Not a thing I c’n do to stop it. But I need to know what you know, we can stop other people from..."
There was only the scuff of their boots for a few precious seconds on the metal.
“We’re almost there,” Zentra said softly.
Her voice below his ear was meek and he could smell the traces of stim coating the air. Hospitals smelled clean, but there was nothing more pungent than the shacks that took in bodies on Nar Shaddaa. Friyr had to fight down bile to stop his stomach from rolling.
“Jedi?” she asked, turning Friyr’s thoughts from morbidity.
“Mmn.”
“If you end up in a story, make my part a good one. I took down two gangsters and a Hutt ‘fore I went down. Real blaze of glory stuff.”
Friyr laughed shakily. The sound escaping his lips dislodged something in his throat, making his face flush hot and his brain shut off in a doorway that smelled recklessly chemical. He scrubbed at his cheek with a sleeve to wipe away any tears, but his face was dry.
“Hey! We need help!” he shouted into the darkness. The rest of Nar Shaddaa soundlessly shouted the same words back through the Force
___
“Kark, you wanna scare everyone else in here more or what? Think you’re the only one who’s having a bad night?” the doctor had said, then had shoved his body into a bed and something up his arm.
And Zentra-- Zentra was somewhere to his right. This had been both a relief and a torment once the Force around her started to sound like death.
“You must be pretty jumped up, guy. The amount of pain killers you’re on should’ve put you under an hour ago,” she sounded like she was talking through a wall. The world was-- a radio out of tune.
“No, I feel ‘em,” Friyr responded delayed. “I just-- when did she die?”
“She’s stable,” the doctor who had told him to shut up when he came in, sounded tired now. “Remember? Your girlfriend’s stable, and you were shot in the chest four times. You need to save your strength worrying.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.” She had been investigating the murders with him and would’ve hated any insinuation she and Friyr had known each other tangibly. “You’re a bad doctor,” Friyr mumbled.
The Force ate at the edge of his soundscape, pressing his broken cheek against the pillow.
“I’m a bad Jedi,” Friyr mumbled even more quietly.
“Why is everyone in the slums half-crazy before they get here?” the doctor muttered. “Even the Jedi’re loony.”
Somewhere in Friyr’s tired brain, he new she would’ve dismissed him had he not the robes and lightsabers to proove it... He was.... fading... to the hum of...... narcotics......... slugging through his veins. He could almost.................................... see them if he tried. But he...... could still hear...................................................................... Zentra’s song............................................................................................................ fading. Faster than he ..........................................................................................................did.
...........................................................................................................................
“What the fuck is going on?” The doctor sounded urgent.
............................................................. “Hemorraging? .......Impossible......she.. stable! She was just stable. I need twenty mils of..............”
Zentra sounded wet, and the air was rusty, like the inside of a body without the body smell. ....... Friyr’s brain at delay supplied that a ‘hemorrage’ was a lot of blood. ............... He bet Sahley could’ve told him.......................
“We can use her parts for someone else....”
...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Why were hospitals always cold when you woke up? Not that he was complaining. Air against his bare skin had always steadied him. Friyr couldn’t feel his fingers, but he could flex them. The short nails scraped into his palm jaggedly. Ah, well. There went his acrylics. They had cost a lot. Friyr idly wondered how much Zentra must’ve cost on the black market without stopping to think where he’d learned the knowledge that she was to be recycled.
The air smelled like every cheap cleaner in the world and like security agent insides. He should know, he used that brand and Zentra had died on his watch.
He bent his arm. Much like getting stiff doll limbs to marrionette, Friyr’s body responded jerkily. The needle in his arm was tight. Frankly, the mental numbness just meant the traumatic parts had passed; he could work again for a little before it caught back up to him.
He paused. Realizing for a second that he hadn’t been bare when he came in. His fingers came up to touch his chest. Instad of skin, gauze snagged at his finger pads in that skin-crawlingly rough texture. It took all of Friyr’s willpower not to yank them off. As if on response, his chest ached deeply. Sudas, he felt pulverized.
“At least the guys’ll find the scars hot when you get back out there.”
Friyr’s head snapped to the sound of a familiar Core Wolder voice to his left, and his chest ow.
"What’re you doin’ here?” the Jedi whimpered despite himself.
“Why’d you think HQ sent you here? I’m apparently an organ harvester lookin’ to make a clean run, Investigator Illustratum.”
Friyr frowned at the allusion to their mutual disingenuity and shushed.
“It’s fine, everyone’s gone. You and your contact were the last of the night. The doctor went to clear her head.... Who did that to you?”
Friyr tilted his head grimly to the right where--- Zentra had been and the smell of her citrus cleaner blood remained.
The undercover Republic plant whistled. “No kidding? Your contact ambushed you? We really need to vet these psychos properly. I thought she was just Cartel.”
“She... was.” Friyr puased, loathe to try and unpack how wrong the past-tense sounded. His tongue dragged agaisnt his dry lips instead. “She drank something that drove her up the wall--” Friyr tried to gesture with an arm, but they wouldn’t lift without a fresh nauseating roll of pain.
Ah. Reality. Welcome back.
A warm hand rested on his forearm. “Take it easy.”
Friyr shook his head without thinking. “I have work to do.” A fearful sweat popped into existence along the craig of his skinny shoulder bones. “I hate hospital beds. You know that. And--?” Friyr wore at the sheets beneath him with his broken nails. They were the kind of soft that only threadbare brought.
“And--?”
“There’s a guy who died from Howlin’ Gauntlet a little while back. Outside of territory. He was stabbed, but a sniper got him or somethin’.”
“Ah-- heard about that one. There was no holovid feed of it happening or something? All the cameras had been taken offline. It was probably just some gang killing, honestly. Everyone’s got a slicer these days. Probably some guys looking to digitally flex a little on the Gauntlet.”
Friyr shook his head at the expense of another nauseated roll. “I think-- I think it’s connected. Too much is goin’ on with that sector. I gotta rule it out myself.”
The other agent exhaled, and there was a few beats of silence before his clothing rustled. Friyr listened to the other man tap tap tap. A digital chime of confirmation. “I can get the body here for you to do your uhh-- thing. One of our guys’ll move it. Pretend it’s a part scrap or something.” Friyr winged at the phrasing. “Do you need help with it?”
“I don’ think I can stand by myself.”
“I’ll help you piss, then we can do your space magic. But first--” The agent began fiddling with something that pulled at the line in Friyr’s arm. The tugging sensation made him curl a lip. There was a pressurized hiss and the fiddling stopped.
“Goody!” Friyr rasped in a highly disaffected manner. Perhaps the first time in a while he hadn’t been enthused about another man talking about his dick. “Also uh-- start puttin’ recalls or warnings out about the bottled water or something.”
“Bottled water? Why?”
“It’s what she drank.”
“Force. Okay. I can tell field agents, but we can’t go public with this.”
“But--”
“None of that Jedi talk about morals,” the agent cut Friyr off. “If you expose the lead, the guy’ll know he’s been fingered. You should lay low for a while.”
The fight left Friyr’s body. His neck rolled back onto the pillow. His veins were warm and tingly. “I hate that,” was all he managed to say beneath the outrage stuck in his throat. Partially for the dead people he’d met this morning, for Zentra, and for every person on Nar Shaddaa looking for a way off of it. ... Partly because he realized that pressurized hiss had been the SIS agent dosing him with more pain meds.Then sleep collapsed onto his small abused body like a ton of bricks in that ramshackle slum clinic.
