There were healers who could bring dying men back from the very verge of death amidst a hail of blaster fire. There were healers who could turn any virus in on itself, given time and equipment. There were healers who were capable of guiding the rehabilitation of nearly any injury. And then there was Aleidis Ijet.
Quite simply, none of the above.
Her expertise, contrary to what her ambitions might suggest, had always been on small, minute things. A mastery of an esoteric power combined with immense focus gave her something of a limited skillset, as a physician. A skillset she'd had to supplement with mundane medical knowledge. This approach had always given her mixed results, but that didn't matter right now. This was something she could do.
"Keep her down, for your own sake." The Ghostling barked, gesturing at some muscle press-ganged into helping her with an autopsy in a remote alleyway. An ion explosion seemed to have incapacitated the techno-beasts, but she'd find out all she could from the corpses. "If it gets back up, we're all done for. So keep your grip firm." Aleidis Ijet insisted.
The burly Sullustan swallowed hard, sweating, but nodded his understanding. The girl he held down couldn't be more than ten years old, her pale skin puckered around joints of organic metal, wrinkled where alloy and wire had replaced muscle and tendon. The poor thing's face was drawn to a hideous sneer, revealing metallic, pointed teeth stained with blood and gore. How much of it was her own eviscerated gums and cheeks was anyone's guess - but Aleidis put her money that not all of it was. Something had robbed her of her life, transformed her, and made a murderer of her corpse.
The Ghostling frowned as, through Art of the Small, her vision and senses were extended down to a scale that typically required the use of a microscope. Eyes closed, she noted dryly that the base nerve clusters that hadn't quite been converted yet were frayed and impaled by tiny shards of forming metal - meaning quite simply that the girl had been in an incredible amount of pain as she died. 'Incredible', however, was selling it short. By the Ghostling's estimations, she'd been in as much agony as her young body had been able to communicate to her mind, the very biological heights of pain.
Who knew how long it took the virus took to kill her? The frontal lobe had been destroyed, but that didn't mean that all of her higher brain functions had been cut - she might have been thinking, feeling, right up until the ion blast had fused and ruined the electronics that had replaced her organs. Human pain was processed in the thalamus, the midbrain; if the girl HAD been alive, it was quite possible she'd felt every agonizing moment of her body being co-opted by the virus. The very thought made Aleidis' blood run cold.
Cold?
Is that fear, or is that rage? Disgust?
"We're almost done here. I promise." Aleidis sat up and fished around in her satchel - pulling on a glove with one hand was a chore, but a necessary one. "Did you know her?" The question was asked in as neutral a tone as possible, as though they were just talking casually and she wasn't about to carve tissue samples out of a tortured little girl's carcass.
The Sullustan swallowed. "Her mother came into my store, from time to time. She had a taste for imported fish." He explained in the bubbly language of his people. Glancing from the black-eyed Doctor. "...what happened to them?"
"A Sith virus - I'm not sure how better to explain it." Aleidis sighed, producing a vial next. She glanced up at her helper, flat black eyes peering through messy bangs. "Did you know her name?" Alei asked, before sliding her surgical mask down. She removed the cap, then placed the vial between her teeth.
"J-Jurine." He confided quietly, looking pale. "Jurine Hagon."
Aleidis nodded her reply, carefully producing a scalpel from her satchel. She couldn't really reply, as of yet. The Sullustan watched as Aleidis neatly sliced off the tip of the girl's pinkie - it hadn't quite been converted to metal yet. With the sample carefully balanced on the flat of her scalpel, Aleidis slid Jurine's fingertip into her vial for careful study some other time. It was swiftly capped and put into her satchel - the knife was left with Jurine's body.
"You can let go of her, now." Aleidis promised, standing up slowly. At her feet, Jurine's cooled body lay gaping up at a smoke-filled sky, her half-organic eyes blank and accusing. Bile rose in the Ghostling's throat. "The Virus that did this goes inert quickly, and destroys itself - but it's likely as mechanical, so my hope is that the ion blast froze it before it could self-destruct. If it did, the proof will be down here... in the bone of her finger." The Ghostling explained.
Her Sullustan helper stood up as well, looking distinctly uncomfortable. "So, the Sith did this?" He asked nervously. "Aren't we at peace with the Sith?" He added a moment later, his hand hovering over the blaster on his hip as though a Sith might leap out at any second.
"I don't know." Aleidis admitted apologetically. "...but I'll find out." After fishing in her pocket for a moment, she produced a small credstick and offered it over. The Sullustan swallowed hard and glanced between it and her. "...go on. You helped me out. No need to be ashamed." Aleidis encouraged.
He tentatively reached out and plucked it delicately from her palm. "This isn't payment for her. But times are tough, and her mother'll need the help." He insisted grimly, sliding the credstick into his vest pocket.
"Then consider it hush money." Aleidis suggested with a dry smirk, shrugging the slightest bit.
The Sullustan huffed a rough approximation of a laugh - naturally muted by the tragedy of what'd just happened to his home town. "Am I that easy to read?" He complained with a bitter smirk. "Alright, Chancellor - well. Ex-Chancellor. Your secret is safe with me."
Aleidis nodded her satisfaction, adjusted the strap of her satchel, and offered a small wave before leaving the dark, bloodstained alleyway in favor of dark, bloodstained streets. A place like Zeltros without electricity was as dark as sin... even in the day.
Aleidis Ijet let her mind wander as she walked.
A densely populated area filled with people from every corner of the Galaxy. Diversity. Not only that, there were enough of them imbibing a wide enough variety of drugs and substances to establish a solid testing core of reactions when the virus was introduced to outside toxins. Somebody was testing a weapon - a horrible, terrible weapon. This hadn't been a random act of terror, after all - too calculated. Too much to learn from watching the chaos - which meant that the culprit might still be nearby, if they'd wanted to observe the effects firsthand.
Was this connected to her current quest? Aleidis' gut told her that it might be.
Sentient, acidic virus outbreak on Dagobah.
The Gunjack poisoning on Metalorn.
Techno-organic virus set loose on Zeltros
Somebody was playing God. Aleidis had killed suspect #1 herself, which left... whom? An attack this clumsy didn't feel like Circe's work - and her area had always been biological engineering, not biomechanical.
Was this technological plague connected to the mind-controlling nanobots that'd ravaged the Galaxy not long ago?
Or maybe...
Gulag.
Long before her time, but the thought alone was enough to make Aleidis' heart skip a beat. Setting her jaw, the Ghostling's slow stride became a jog. She needed a quiet place to work - to plan. To research.