Chapter 2A: The Future of the Force

Muskrat · Post by **Muskrat** » Fri Nov 13, 2020 8:07 pm

Shoshannah suspects she knows what the girl means by "like me" but this does not seem like the time to test her for Force sensitivity. She can do that later, when there aren't observers around. Shoshannah puts a hand on the girl's shoulder. "No, I wasn't looking for you, but now that you've found me, I'll do my best to look after you." She is suddenly struck by what the girl said about her parents. Had they been Force sensitive too? Or were they merely expecting Jedi to come take their daughter to one of the Jedi schools?

She stands up and says, "For now, let me see what I can do for these sick people until we have to leave. Manh, can you look after ..." She turns back to the girl and asks, "What's your name? I'm Shoshannah." She turns back to Manh. "Can you look after her, while I try to treat these people and come up with some prescription they can take after I leave?"

Post by **Shurijo** » Fri Nov 13, 2020 8:39 pm

The young girl responds to Shoshannah's question saying, "I'm Hedala. Nice to meet you."

Manh nods and tells Shoshannah, "We'll stay close. If I hear trouble, I'll come."

He takes a knee to look at the young girl at eye level. "Hello, Hedala. You can call me Manh. If we hear trouble, you run and hide, okay?"

As Shoshannah looks around for any signs of a pharmacy or medical center, Manh and the young girl stays a few paces behind her. Walking ahead, she hears the young girl asking Manh about his tattoos, but she's unable to make out his responses.

Shoshannah easily finds a building which appears to be the closest thing to a medical facility on this lightly populated moon. As she draws near, she can see the shelves are empty along with the front rooms which can be seen from the street. She notices a backroom with a light and some shadows of people moving about.

Muskrat · Post by **Muskrat** » Mon Nov 16, 2020 8:33 pm

Shoshanna starts to call out, then finds herself biting her tongue. She's worried that this medical clinic might have troops from this new Empire and she doesn't want them deciding to pressgang her. She kneels down by the door and cautiously peeks in while listening to try to get a better sense of what is going on. She may be being overly cautious, but with all that's going on, it seems wise to expect the unexpected.

Post by **Shurijo** » Mon Nov 16, 2020 9:31 pm

Shoshannah creeps closer to the door to listen. As she moves, her footsteps aren't as quiet as she would like and whoever is inside hears her. The shadowy figure moves quickly to hide in the room, but Shoshannah can still make out some sounds.

Within the room, she hears a mechanical whirling noise. Looking through the door, she spots a spinning medical centrifuge with samples of some kind within the various vials. Then she hears what sounds to be a door opening and closing. She also spots a mess of various well-used, and very old, medical equipment. In these parts of the Outer Rim, this is probably be best medical equipment that could be found in a remote mining and fishing village such as this.

Meanwhile, Manh and the young girl stand with their backs against the walls of a nearby building keeping watch on Shoshannah's activities.

Muskrat · Post by **Muskrat** » Tue Nov 17, 2020 8:43 pm

Shoshannah shrugs and mentally sighs. She has trouble believing that agents of the new Empire would be bothered with a place like this. She stands and calls out, "Hello? I have some training in herbalism and medical skills. I was passing by and wanted to offer my help."

Post by **Shurijo** » Tue Nov 17, 2020 9:17 pm

"Hello?..." comes a timid reply from the room.

When Shoshannah enters the room, she finds a messy office with outdated technology and partially working medical equipment. It appears to be the office used by the "doctor" of the medical facility. Vials of various colored liquids are grouped together. Peeking around a back door leading outside, she spots a young human male (approximately teenage).

Finally, he steps back inside the room and closes the door. "I thought you might be some of those Troopers that just arrived. I'd be sent to the mines if they knew I was here. My parents taught me basic first aid and how to apply stimpacks, but not much else. Are you sick, too?" As if mentioning the sickness, the young boy turns his head and coughs away from Shoshannah.

Seeing Shoshannah enter the room, Manh and the young girl moves a bit closer to the room, but stays outside of it unless called for.

Muskrat · Post by **Muskrat** » Wed Nov 18, 2020 10:26 pm

Shoshannah smiles at the boy. "No, I'm not sick. I probably won't be able to stay long, but I wanted to do what I could to help while I'm here. And maybe I can teach you some skills to use after I leave. My name is Shoshannah. What's yours?"

Post by **Shurijo** » Thu Nov 19, 2020 6:05 pm

The young man states, "I'm Parek Mesoth. Antibiotics and batca don't work on whatever on this disease."

Moving closer to Shoshannah, but keeping his distance, he states, "About three or four months ago, the fishermen and fishmonger got sick. That meant the village starting losing money, because Saleucami wouldn't buy our fish. Then the Republic's siege of the planet further ensured we couldn't get aid from Saleucami. Things just got worse from there."

Grasping a pendent tied to his necklace, he takes a moment looking down then releases it and looks back to Jedi Shoshannah. "When the Troopers arrived, they brought mining equipment and took everyone. Since my grandmother was the village's doctor, I'm now the doctor. But this is way above my education. I don't even know if I'm using this equipment correctly."

Hearing the conversation from outside, Manh and Hedala walk through the door.

"Hedala? What are you doing out this late?" Parek asks.

"I'm helping." The young girl, Hedala, replies.

"There's patrols in the streets. Looks like every twenty minutes or so they'll pass by here." Manh states as he begins to cover the windows to prevent the patrols from noticing they are inside the building.

Around the room, you see various medical equipment. While outdated, the centrifuge and microscope looks well used. Hidden under several layers of older equipment, Shoshannah identifies a Blood Scanner used for medical diagnostics. Blood scanners are sensitive devices capable of scanning blood samples from nearly any species. In addition to providing an analysis of a being's general well-being, blood scanners excel at isolating diseases, chemicals, and poisons present in a subject's bloodstream. Once such an agent has been identified, the device provides detailed medical advice and treatment options including suggested antidotes and effective remedies.

Muskrat · Post by **Muskrat** » Thu Nov 19, 2020 10:53 pm

Shoshannah puts a hand on Parek's shoulder. "I think it's admirable that you've stayed here trying to help people as best you can. A lot of others would have fled." Pointing to the equipment, she says, "The good news is you have some good diagnostic equipment here--these blood scanners should tell you what the problem is and how we can treat it. Come on." She starts digging the blood scanners out. "I'll use these on your patients and I'll walk you through how to use it. Once we know what the illness is, we can figure out how to treat it." She worries they won't have the equipment for that, but they can cross that bridge when they get to it.

She tests the first few patients herself with Parek watching, then has Parek do the others under her supervision, so he can actually use and become familiar with the equipment himself.

Post by **Shurijo** » Fri Nov 20, 2020 7:09 pm

Shoshannah uses the blood scanner on the blood samples found in the room. After a few minutes, the scanner reveals a poison in the blood. The blood scanner finds the readings as a unrecognizable poison. So she turns to the HoloNet to do some research on her findings.

After analyzing the poison's molecular construction and comparing it to all active diseases, she finds no match. Looking deeper, she runs her query against eradicated diseases and finds a match with the "Blue Shadow virus."

Code: Select all

The Blue Shadow Virus, in its natural form, was a waterborne virus. 
A victim infected with the plague only had 48 hours to live before 
the virus became fatal. It was notorious for being supposedly 
incurable, with a 96% success rate in killing carbon-based life-forms. 
An antidote was able to be synthesized with reeksa root, a rare 
plant only found on the planet Iego.

Comparing the findings in the blood sample against the research notes, she discovers that the parts per billion is much, much lower (1 in 500 billion) in the villager's blood than suggested by the article (1 in 10 million). This could represent a heavy dilution causing the virus to act more as a slow killing poison than at full strength were subjects usually die within forty-eight hours.

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