Rows of bacta chambers lined the center of the room, permitting a 360 degree view of the patients for the medical staff. They were pale, bluish beacons that glowed, illuminating the human remains they stabilized and slowly healed within. Like artificial wombs that birthed second chances. Sadira had never been so unfortunate, but she'd always wondered what it felt like to be suspended indefinitely in one.
One of the medical droids recognized her the moment she walked in. They tried to limit traffic in the area there, for a few reasons. Visitors were certainly allowed, but the frequency in which Sadira loomed around had drawn attention. It was time to gently intervene. Or so the droid thought...
"Miss Valen, if I may..." The metallic, though very much human, voice found here as the droid began waddling in her direction. Sparing it a brief, indifferent glance, the Padawan was barely prepared to acknowledge its existence, when suddenly it's softly glowing eyes flickered at her. The hand it had raised to wave her down jerked and twitched, and then froze in place. There was enough time to glimpse the medical staff around her stagger and contort in pain before the wave hit her as well.
A wall of pressure so invasive and complete seized her senses. Pushing her eardrums into silence, and making her eyes itch and sparkle with stars. A sharp pain exploded like hundred of ice picks in her brain. She pushed back through the Force reflexively after only one misstep, and caught her balance. Not to any great extent like Finley; like jerking one's hand away from a flame as it begins to burn. Just enough to retain her ability to process and endure the sensations while she tried to figure out what was happening.
There was a pattern. The closer something was to one specific tank, the more severely affected. It was also the only tank whose conscious inhabitants weren't also squirming and fighting against some invisible attacker, to some degree. Finley's tank.
Sadira squinted at his distant, floating form through strained and blurry vision. She would have looked utterly shocked if she wasn't concentrating on staying coherent.
A nurse that had been standing right outside his tank was writhing on the floor, clutching her head as a trickle of blood seeped from her nose and sideways into her hairline.
Sadira moved forward. Each step akin to trudging through mud that only thickened more and more as she had to fight harder against the building pressure. By the time she reached him, there was no doubt it was coming from him. Even the bacta was being propelled away from him. Such raw strength in such a weakened state was as disconcerting as it was impressive.
But why? Was he in pain? Had he been driven insane, and was lashing out? Was he even doing this purposefully? He was
pushing... It must be related to his environment. Something was either hurting or scaring him.
If only she could communicate with him, but she hadn't been able to since her arrival. All she could do was grasp at straws.
Her palm pressed over the glass of the tank, and she focused. Closing her eyes, she pinpointed him in her mind, and mustered all of the healing and soothing energy she could will through the Force into him. Imagining a white light rushing around and through him, sealing him in a protective and peaceful cocoon. A feat she was ill equipped to handle even without simultaneously battling to keep her own brain from crushing down into a black hole.
She was far from a master in anything, let alone this. She was the explorer, the doer. Better at adventuring and defending, than navigating the delicate and tedious art of mending physical and mental wounds.
But she had to do something, and so she would for as long as she could.
Finley Dawson
Sadira Valen
