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Chapter 29 Katrina awoke to blackness. Her chest felt heavy and her eyes could see nothing. For several minutes this continued. Then, the weight eased and fuzzy, half-transparent images flashed before her eyes. Green and red lightsabers crossed. Palpatine’s face, lit by his own blue lightning. An explosion the size of a moon. Three masked faces. A scarred man, unconscious on a small cot, breathing only with the help of many machines. The same man, only looking very differently, staggering outside to see two suns set on a horizon of sand. Katrina sat up suddenly with a gasp. She gasped again as pain shot through her gut and darkness reclaimed her vision. “You are awake,” a droid Katrina had mentally nicknamed Blinky because of its constantly blinking optical sensor said. Katrina laid back down and waited for the pain to ease, listening to the droid buzz beside her. After several long moments it began to subside and Katrina could look up at the smoke-grayed ceiling of the dingy room. On the other side of the room the other medical droid complained and whined about its job to rid the place of bugs. “Good, you’re awake,” Dr. Shenigo’s tall, thin figure said from a nearby doorway. “That means we can move you. Another patient is in need of that bed.” Both droids bustled forward and each took hold of one arm and pulled her out and up. Katrina stumbled to her feet, pain searing through her body and the room spinning. Her feet moved but not fast enough or sure enough to keep up with the droids. In the end she let herself go limp and be dragged out of the room, down a short hall, and plopped down into an unpadded metal chair. Again Katrina’s vision went black and she slumped to one side, floating in an endless sea of pain. Through the unbearable haze were voices. She didn’t know if they were distant or near but could tell that they spoke flatly, dully, as though even they were bored with the discussion. In truth, there were several conversations going on at once, on various sides of her. Each moved at a different rage and in a different language, but none speaking seemed to care about what they were saying. Katrina groaned and threw her weight back, letting her head fall against the wall and chair back. The voices went quiet suddenly and Katrina could feel many eyes on her, watching her, wondering about her, and weighing her. Katrina didn’t care. The heat and weight of her mask told her that it was still in place and the blinding pain obscured all other concerns. Katrina groaned again when she opened her eyes and was blinded by an overly bright overhead light. She blinked quickly and brought her head down and around, forcing her vision to adjust. She shared the room with the surly receptionist that had admitted her, two Wookiees, a Bith, three Bothans, and a Falleen. She sighed and let her head fall back again, closing her eyes. Katrina moved in and out of sleep throughout the remainder of the day. The others in the waiting room came and went and occasionally she recognized that at least one other recovering patient had also been dumped there. At the end of what appeared to be the clinic’s working day, the two droids and receptionist came to physically remove all still in the waiting room. Katrina blacked out once more on the pavement before the clinic’s front door. Sometime later she grudgingly pushed herself to her feet. The pain was greatly lessened from what it had been earlier in the day but it still made her vision swim and moving, walking, was difficult. As she staggered to the spaceport to wait for her ride off-planet to arrive, Katrina thought glumly that she had cheated herself out of a birthday present. |
