The Doctor Will See You Now

[Prennis Keeoli]

Aes'ona took a moment, but then sighed in defeat. A party did sound like fun, but she could not just up and leave her station for who knew how long, even though she had more than enough leave time saved up for it. "I will be there even if I have to holoproject," she says honestly. She bit her bottom lip sheepishly, shrugging a little. "I know it's not ideal..."

As [member="Mariya Fleischer"]'s question about her necklace came, the doctor touched it again instinctively. "It's--yes," she agreed with her. "It's the Order's shield. My father gave it to me when he adopted me." She chuckled, clearly enjoying looking back on the memory. "It was more of a,"--she traced a deeper U-shape across her collarbone, somewhere between her choker and other, her sixty centimeter chain--"necklace back then."

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

"Holoproject? Nah, that won't be fun. We'll see how it goes."

She nodded her head, leaving the invite as it was. She had extended the invitation to her newfound friend and there was nothing else to say about the matter. Whether or not [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"] turned up on that day itself, it would have to depend on the timing and the doctor's mood. There would be other times to meet the doctor again if the ball did not work out, she was certain of it. The more interesting object at hand, was undoubtedly the necklace hanging around Aes'ona's neck.

From the way the doctor spoke about it, it seemed to be a memory filled with fondness about her adopted father. That was good, because people were usually more willing to share their happy moments than sad ones.

"An Order's shield from your dad? Awesome. I like to hear about your dad, if you don't mind."

Mariya did not really remembered much of her family. It was like a mental block with flashes of images, but was never able to see her parents' faces. She deemed it to be her young age when she left them. As such, she was always interested to know about family life from others' experiences. Even if it was just Aes'ona's step dad. Sometimes the step dad could provide more love than the biological one. To Aes'ona, that appeared to be the case.

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

Aes'ona had since let go of her necklace and now held her hands down in her lap in front of her, still standing. "His name's Taeir Terrani," she said. "He's a stormtrooper commandant at Zenith Base." She added his station simply because she knew, not because she expected [member="Mariya Fleischer"] to know where that was. It did not much matter anyway.

The doctor continued, "He wasn't home much, and obviously children can't be on-base, so his protocol droid and the nanny he hired basically raised me. Our apartment overlooked the Fortuna river in Prosperia." She smiled softly, enjoying the chance to reflect on these memories. She had few opportunists to, for lack of time. "Oh, I always begged Nileeta into letting me ride the Wheel of Joy." She laughed and shook her head. "I don't want to know how much of father's allowance I spent on tickets for that thing."

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

"Stormtrooper commandant? I see..."

There was a hint of surprise in her voice when she heard that. Step dad, stormtrooper and all the First Order business made her skin prick. There were rumours of the First Order forcing people to send their children for re-educational training. And by that, she suspected some form of brainwashing and memory loss. What if... what if the doctor was one of those poor kids? Perhaps [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani'] might never remember who her real parents were. Well, so what? Mariya could barely remember her own parents. The doctor clearly had nice memories of her adoptive father, so things might have been worse.

"The river sounds like quite a view. Wheel of Joy... now that's a name worth taking a few rounds. I am quite sure I would have done the same if such a thing existed in my childhood. Nileeta, I assume that's your nanny?"

She smiled at the thought. A little Aes'ona riding on the wheel and looked after by a nanny and a droid. A family could definitely come in different ways. She decided to hold her tongue and allowed the doctor to continue.

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

Nodding, the doctor confirmed [member="Mariya Fleischer"]'s suspicion, "Yes, but now Nileeta's my godmother." The doctor took a seat next to her new-found friend once again. "And her daughter's my godsister, though she's quite a bit younger than myself."

A single laugh suddenly burst out of Aes'ona. "As for the droid, he's a R-A7 protocol droid. R4-A7. Here, let me show ya..." She reached over the table for a datapad that some staff member had left out, took her stylus, and wrote down the designation series she had just said, but in a slightly disfigured way. She drew a dashed line as another leg for the four so it looked like an A. As for the seven, it got a similar addition to form it into a Z. "If you know the High Galactic alphabet, that says Raaz. It doesn't work in Aurebesh. Father showed me that. 'All you need is some imagination' he'd always say."

She swiped the note away, powered off the pad, and slid it back to where it had been. "He's a good man," she said, then chuckled a little awkwardly as she added, "Admittedly a little scary when he's on duty, but kind no matter what.

"Nileeta's a Nautolan. You familiar?" A pause to let Mariya think for a moment, but Aes'ona explained despite what her answer may have been. "Humanoid amphibians with the thin head tentacles, a little like dreadlocks?

​"Anyway, only like five or six percent or something ridiculous of Dosuun's population is Non-Human, and most cities have similar breakdowns." She scoffed slightly when she said that, as, in her opinion, there was no rhyme or reason for such xenophobia in a civilization that claimed to be the best chance for galactic unification.

Pausing again but this time taking a deep breath, Aes'ona collected her anger. Then, she tried again. "As you can imagine, uh, she had a hard time. One day Father brought her home, covered in mud from picking her up out of the street gutter, and gave her a job the next day." Another pause. "He didn't want to at first, but Raaz and I convi--well, Raaz convinced him, ten-year-old me threw a fit. I didn't understand why he'd save her just to kick her out, but now I do."

A heavy sigh, a head shake, and an apology. "I'm sorry. I'm rambling."

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

"Raaz? Heh, that's a pretty neat trick for High Galactic alphabet," she nodded her head, acknowledging the doctor's preference for intellectual simulation that was to be expected.

"And yea, I know about Nautolans. Not common from where I grew up, but there were some around."

For a moment, her memory drifted back briefly to Nar Shaddaa, where she met many different species since young. The most common were Hutts, Twi'leks, Rodians and Gamorreans. Not a surprise, considering the Hutts loved exotic coloured slaves, mercenaries and big muscular bodyguards. Her view of her step dad also improved somewhat as the conversation went on, from the way he rescued Nileeta to letting her become [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"]'s nanny eventually. She frowned at the part about Aes'ona's dad rescuing Nileeta and trying to kick her out, her mind pondering what it could meant.

"So he rescued your nanny and then wanted to ask her to go away. Was he... conflicted by ideology between his values and the First Order's beliefs?"

A question that was pretty golden in her opinion. If what she had assumed was true, then it meant there were people within the First Order who struggled to align themselves with the faction's beliefs. Aes'ona was an obvious candidate, her scoffing a rather obvious giveaway on her view regarding the human centric view of her organisation.

"And no, you ain't rambling. You are sharing something personal and I am glad you are open to sharing them. Wait till you meet my friend, Marina DeVoe. She rambles on and on... an engine that never stops."

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

The doctor's lips pressed into a straight, taught line. "Kind of. It wasn't like he wanted to do it--Father's not the type to go to trouble he doesn't have to. He was trying to protect her."

Aes'ona sighed. "I know it may seem convoluted, but he was less concerned with his reputation and more with her wellbeing. She was targeted a lot for, um, 'polluting',"--she air-quoted that word, as it felt wrong to say without doing so--"an Imperial family, but it was a little better when I was seen with her. Now, she's sort of established in the city. People know she's not gonna go away no matter what they do, so there's less incident."

The doctor smiled at [member="Mariya Fleischer"]. "When I was just starting my residency, Father told me that she'd adopted Rache, and he'd obviously taken them both in. We still get looks, but we're a happy family." And a bit strange-looking, but she left that out, because she did not care. Two humans, two Nautolans--the older blue and the younger green--and a bugged-eyed protocol droid. Living in the toughest corner of the galaxy they probably could be, but circumstances like the Terranis' and the Forr's were profoundly difficult, if not impossible, to change without becoming public enemies.

Overall, she did not think the First Order was bad, just a ways behind the times. After all, the worst critic is a faction's own citizens, right?

She doubted if she would ever be able to explain 'why' exactly to anyone else in the galaxy, but she found herself hoping that the woman before her would understand it enough to still accept her.

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

"Hmmm... I see. Erm, who's Rache?"

Mariya wondered aloud when the name was mentioned by [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"]. She had no idea the doctor was referring to another Nautolan, so she could not help but ask.

"Well, I think I can understand why your family would get the looks. Well, who cares right? Family ties and kinship are not measured by blood, but by the connections made with others," she said, empathising the last sentence to make her point across. The mercenary had no idea who her family was. All she could remember as a child was the life under a Hutt lord named Zuko, who sold drugs as his main business. Not exactly the most pleasant person, Zuko was known to lash out at anyone who offended him, including a young Mariya. The lash marks might be gone, but she would always remember them.

To Mariya, the first real family she had were her colleagues in the Republic. After she had been caught by Republican troops for smuggling and agreed to work with them to break up the drug gang, she ended up joining the military service. It was there she found respect among her peers. Later on, her second family were the bunch of outlaws in the Underworld. The "hive of scum of villainy" was ironically some of the best memories of her life. To the outsiders, it seemed strange to have a family of criminals, but she had always been an outlaw since young. From her experience, some outlaws were more honourable than the "good" guys with fancy titles.

In short, the mercenary could understand everything Aes'ona had shared.

"I grew up having no parents... so I had to define what it meant to be family in an unconventional way. You already knew part of my story... Saede Taggart and the gang of outlaws from the Underworld. I... I am really glad that you have a happy family, Aes'ona. That's the most important."

She took a look at the clock on the wall, wondering if it was time for dinner.

"Perhaps we should grab something to eat? I know we only have combat rations though."

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

Aes'ona shook her head at herself. She often referred to her family by name when talking about them, a bad tendency when her companions only knew of their relation to her. "Sorry," she hastily apologized. "Rache is my godsister, Nileeta's adopted daughter. A Nautolan as well."

Then, she looked behind her, following [member="Mariya Fleischer"]'s eyes back up to the hanging clock. It indicated 4:30 in the evening, or 1630 hours as Aes'ona read it, being used to using military time both as a naval officer and a healthcare provider. "Oh, it is that time already," she noticed, slightly embarrassed again. She often did not feel herself get peckish, nor did she really pay attention to the time for the hours it was normal to eat at. Rather, she would either eat once she found herself starved, or would opt to graze throughout her shifts.

It would be nice to eat as if she was a normal person once. She stood up decidedly.

And with good company no less.

Leading Mariya down to the cafeteria floor, and noting on their way out of SPD that no sudden influx of patients had come, Ae'sona could not help but wonder, daydream, about how exactly she had befriended her patient of just an hour or so ago. It had happened quickly, almost all at once, the reveal of identity, the sharing of backgrounds. But she was not regretful.

The doctor, however, had little time to mull it over before their turbo lift let them out at the white dining hall. Tables for two to four scattered the floor, some pulled together to seat larger groups of friendly doctors and nurses. A glass half-wall separated the bullpen from the food line. Few were here beside the serving staff, but some groups carried on muted conversations about confusing cases, family, and or the war effort, to name a few.

Aes'ona motioned Mariya over to a stack of clean trays. She picked up one and moved on to the food--or rather the rations--planning to put both hers and Mariya's one the same tray to spare the blonde a balancing act. "What looks good?" she asked. "Relatively good?"

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

The blonde followed Aes'ona behind, letting her lead the way to the cafeteria. She had just ate something a little over an hour again, but somehow the hunger did not seem to go away. Perhaps her body was craving for more nutrients than expected. She trotted to the tray, wondering for a moment if she could manage to hold one properly with her good hand when [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"] held up hers and seemingly indicated that she would collect the rations graciously for the two of them.

"Thank you for helping your patient..." she grinned and put another tray on top of Aes'ona's, allowing the doctor to bring both trays back to the table later. That would avoid the trouble of squeezing two people's meals into one small miserable tray. The food rations were all in packets and she could put her portions onto her own tray later.

"What's good... hmmm..."

She used her right to examine for the same packets that she had seen just now, but with different labels. The nerf stew that she tried just now was among the crowd, but she decided to try something else. Her palate could be spared the torture of eating the same meal twice in a row. She picked up one labelled as Tauntaun chowder and made a face, putting it back down. There were also ration cubes, a reminder of her past and she avoided immediately. In the end, she settled with something called spiced leathermeat with rice, a distinct Mandalorian influenced course. She also took a ration bar, a sweet treat for dessert and fiber needs.

"I have never imagined myself eating rations twice in a row when I'm injured. But I guess you have it worse, to be eating this for quite a while."

She waited for the doctor to make her choice before they would take their dinner together. Probably more talking and sharing of ideas till the shuttle arrived. The bonding between them was building up rapidly, despite their character differences. She enjoyed the connection though, so it was all worth it.

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

“I like you,” began the doctor, “but I do not want to fix your arm twice in the same day.” It was a little joke, of course: she would prefer that [member="Mariya Fleischer"] not hurt herself again, but she would do whatever was necessary in the case that she did.

Aes’ona grabbed herself some stormtrooper rations on display--an airtight package of some sort of veg-meat, numian cream, and mealbread--a pudding bar for an only-slightly-tastier dessert, and a glass of vitamin-infused water. She paid for all the food with her station credit chit before picking a table, sitting with her back towards the wide window looking out into space. Part of her hoped that Mariya would not ask, but the rest of her prepared for an inquiry.

While she was waiting, she busied herself in separating her food choices from her friend’s on the two trays. "You get used to this here," she commented on the rations. "It happens all the time." Intergalactic war tended to be felt by mostly everyone in some form or another, and Aes'ona felt it on Mountbatten whenever their food or medical supplies ran low as their restock was sent to the lines. Normally, though, such pressure did not make it so far into First Order space, but it was still part of her duty to shoulder it. She was grateful, at least, for her humanitarian and non-combative stationing.

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

"Heh, thanks doctor. I am glad I am getting into your good books."

She followed behind the doctor, a little surprised by the payment of the station credit chit. She had assumed that the food would be free in a hospital, but was reminded that this was a military medstation under the control of the First Order. Of course military control would be present. Perhaps the company of [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"] was better than she had thought, making her almost forgot that she was technically still a wanted criminal in an unfriendly space. Her mind crept back to paranoid mode for a moment, wondering if this was part of the an elaborate plot to lower her defenses and dig for information.

No, she reminded herself. She had just joined the Collective but had little information about them at all. The First Order was not known for such subtle soft approaches if they had really wanted to interrogate her. The doctor was risking her medical career for not reporting her, one which she would find some way to repay eventually.

Speaking of the doctor, she had picked the less desirable seat which prevented her from looking at the window into space. Mariya had no idea why but assumed the doctor had kindly given her the seat with a better view.

"Nice view.... thanks. It sure beats the white walls of this place. You mean the medstation gets food rations from time to time? That's... a little unexpected. I would have thought it would still be possible to fix something fresh here for the patients."

It seemed the First Order cared more about efficiency than patients' comfort, which made sense from a galactic point of view. She disagreed with the policy but knew better to be too vocal about it.

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

Aes'ona offered [member="Mariya Fleischer"] a sad smile followed by a nod. "The serving staff tries to," she replied. And they did. "But sometimes they have to make due. Sometimes the war effort is more astounding at some times than others. It just matters, different from battle to battle.

"The food is often quite good, and fresh, mainly to help the patients' immune systems out, but also to make it a little more livable here for those of us who do." She took a moment to sigh. "That is, provided they're not too 'alien-looking'." There were those air quotes again. "You already know what I think about that."

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

"Yea, you mentioned about your view already," Mariya nodded her head and opened the packet containing her food, letting it drop onto her plate. The rice sat there in a sad lump, decorated with strips of leathermeat that looked like dried leather. She suddenly had second thoughts about her choice of food, but decided to just make do with it. In went her spoon, scooping up the rice and sending it into her mouth.

"This is... definitely not fresh," she made a face. The leathermeat tasted horrible. She swore that she would never attempt to try it again unless it was cooked by a Mandalorian chef, if a Mandalorian chef ever existed. The war loving people probably cared more about weapons than food. Somehow she still managed to clean up her meal, with the ration bar the best thing she could have hoped for. Sweet and soft, it served as a good dessert to end the meal.

"Mmm..."

Munching on the bar, she stole a look around her. The people in the canteen were mostly humans, as expected. A group of them seemed to have gathered in a corner playing some cards.

"Not many aliens around huh. Do alien patients get to receive treatment here too?" she whispered softly to [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"].

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

After Aes'ona had squeezed her food choices out of its container in a neat, sorted layout on her plate, and as she began to eat, her facial expressions gave away her slight distaste. She must have been used to eating meals like this, and it made sense with both the information about rationing she had just shared and the little bits of evidence in her reaction. Every two to five bites of whatever meat had been packaged or bread with numian cream, she washed down with a mouthful of vitamin-water.

The doctor lowered her voice's volume to match [member="Mariya Fleischer"]'s. She was not one to shy away from sharing some of her opinions at a normal volume, but that was her. After all, Aes'ona was both a First Order officer and an effective doctor, and that position coupled with her reputation afforded her room to speak her mind relatively freely. Mariya was a different story--a strange spacer unknown to the Order, or rather unknown as Mary Rehcsel, as she would stay. Aes'ona was a little more resistant to arrest for critical speech; her new friend was not.

So, she answered, hushed, "It matters. Some hospitals see them, some don't. And those that do? Most charge more." Mountbatten, as a huge medical station, housed many hospitals arranged in a cooperative network, in order to subdivide the amount of patients that typically arrived daily. Most of them operated like wards in a planetside hospital, specialized in one treatment, but Doctor Terrani's SPD hospital specialized in a wide range of treatments as she employed doctors with a mix of medical concentrations. "I don't. Some of my staff doesn't like that but,"--a smirk, "--they're not director."

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

"Ohhh... Director and Doctor. That's quite impressive, Aes'ona," she joked softly, still maintaining a hush tone.

"But seriously, you should be proud of yourself. A good doctor with the ability to make certain decisions concerning a medical station in the First Order? That's quite something... Like it or not, they need you to patch their wounded."

When [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"] mentioned her director position, a lot of things began to make more sense. Mariya knew the doctor probably occupied a rather high ranking position within the medical station, but she had no idea it was the position of a director. She had once spoken to an insurance agent who sold health care plans. He told her the power of a director in a hospital included the ability to assign patients to doctors and determine the rental fees of each clinic opened by the doctors themselves. With a director of a medical station, that meant Aes'ona had the power over the financial health of a whole bunch of hospitals, instead of merely the doctors.

Little wonder the director was able to voice her opinion in the medical station. Was it luck that had somehow arrived her meeting with such a person from the First Order? Mariya had no idea, but she was secretly thanking her lucky stars in her heart.

"Pssst... while we are on the topic of aliens, do you happen to know Nautolan? Okay, probably not. I heard that they speak their language underwater..."

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

Aes'ona nodded. "I'm just SPD's director," she explained, "but it's a respected position nonetheless." She took the last bite of her meat.

Indeed, she had the power to assign cases to her doctors and could request raises for them. Her position also won her a chair on the leading board for Mountbatten, so she did have some say in the funding of all the hospitals on board, not just her's. Part of voting on such things was to have an opinion on a wide range of problems that the medical board addressed, so it was almost expected for Aes'ona to voice her views even if they were unorthodox or taboo.

She pushed her plate away slightly, making room before her on the table to prop up her elbows as she opened her pudding bar. Like [member="Mariya Fleischer"]'s 'dessert', it was a nice end to her meal--while obviously not a proper pudding, it was better than the rest of her dinner had been. With a mouth half-full, she laughed, covering the sight with her hand. "I mean, yes," she agreed, "but Nileeta taught me a few words...though my pronunciation is horrendous because of the atmosphere." The doctor waved one hand through the invisible gas around her to accentuate her point. After all, just like Mariya had said, Nautolan was a language designed almost exclusively for underwater communication on Glee Anselm, their watery homeworld.

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

"Hey.... look... how... slow... I... talk... under...water... wow... bubbles... hahaha."

The blonde pronounced each word slowly, mimicking the effects of a human trying to speak in the water to join in the fun. She had to give up halfway through, laughing at her own silliness. The laughter stopped almost as soon as it started with the chest pain stirring up. She had almost forgotten about her injuries, the fractures on her poor ribs given by the kindly lash of a rathtar. Her expression was a mix of happiness and pain, a distorted grin with frowning tossed in.

"Almost forgotten about my injuries..."

Laughter was rarely heard during her time in prison. Sadistic laughs, mostly from the prison guards. Genuine laughter was almost non existent. The prisoners were too oppressed to speak up. Those who did usually regretted their decisions. At least Mariya did. Getting tasered was not something she would particularly want to go through again.

"Okay, no loud laughs with broken ribs. I am learning my lesson."

A few deep breaths to control her breathing. The conversation kept going on with [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"] without any signs of stopping, a rare occurrence but a sure sign of compatibility between the two friends.

 

[Prennis Keeoli]

A bright smile had grown on the doctor's face at [member="Mariya Fleischer"]'s mimic of a human speaking underwater, but it quickly melted away as soon as her friends began to laugh and look in pain. Aes'ona took on her own grimace, sympathetic.

​"I know you refused painkillers," she began, "but...uh, want some to take with you?" She shrugged. "Just in case."

She continued on, "We've talked a lot about me. I realize you may not want to talk about your past. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can just ask about, say," --she waved her hand, trying to come up with something -- "food."

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

"I... well... I guess I could take some painkillers with me before I go. That would be nice," she smiled, remembering that she did initially refuse the nullicaine. The doctor did have a sharp memory, since Mariya had forgotten about it. [member="Dr. Aes'ona Terrani"] triggered another smile with the clumsy attempt to find a new topic to talk about. Food. Ironically, Mariya did have something to talk about.

"Food? Actually, these food rations reminds me of my military days..." she lowered her voice again. "... grand army of the Republic. Just a few years, but I had my share of..." she pointed to the food crumbs left on their trays, "... such stuff. That ration cube in the food rack just now? Nasty stuff... we still call them 'dry rats'."

She stuck her tongue out to empathise her point. "When I was out in the field, having some form of food was better than nothing. But it's really not something I would have imagined eating again in a single day. Twice in fact."

She shrugged her shoulders and laughed softly, mindful of her ribs. "Anyhow, you might have seen my tattoo already ." She pulled down her right sleeve with her teeth, revealing a gang membership tattoo on her inner forearm.

"This... was my childhood. Can't remember much, except working for a Hutt called Zuko. Sold drugs to earn some credits. Failing to make enough sales means lashings. Getting into bigger trouble means... getting your mouth stuffed with stale spice that were left unsold. Made me an addict for a long time..."

A good time to pause. The mercenary realised that the topic about herself was a little heavy.