Deathbed2003 short story by Jonathan Hicks Fifteen years after Episode IV – A New Hope The head snapped back and the eyes flew open, the shortness of breath and the fleeting thought that she didn’t know where she was… Luschia Arkensaw looked around and saw the blinking lights and toned-down light of the medical suite about him, then she realised that the seat she had teetered on the edge of sleep on didn’t have a headrest and her neck was aching with every movement she made. She rubbed it with a grimace and her eyes scanned the room, the white walls, white plastic drapes surrounding different types of equipment, the wide oval window looking out onto the wet surface of Abrogard, the wires and tubes and optical beams falling from the ceiling. The room appeared to be a wild mess of cables snaking across the floor and in and out of the bulky outdated medical systems, and they all seemed to wind towards a single figure lying on the rooms only bed. Luschia stood up and stretched, her arms twisting and bending like the wires as she tried to get some feeling back into them, and she walked slowly and quietly to the bed. The figure lay still, the reptilian features and long beak-like mouth covered in a thin layer of Bacta spray, the wires inserted into the mouth, small vascular inputs in the skin, giving the impression that the figure was the nexus of every piece of equipment that lined the wall, floor and ceiling. The figure shifted slightly and a monitoring drone hovering above the bed bleeped twice and instructed the medicinal unit at the bedside to feed more drugs into an intravenous tube. Luschia watched as the clear liquid in the tube slowly turned blue and flowed into the inside thigh of the reptile. She shook her head sadly and ran her fingers through her blue hair. Blue, because this colour was the fashion on Abrogard at the moment. Blue, because the law were looking for a blonde-haired female human. “Broo…?” the figure murmured and the head shifted to one side. The coloured liquid in the tube deepened in colour at the behest of the drone. “Broo!” the lizard gasped, and the drone bleeped twice. Another unit began to pump a red liquid into its tube and the scarlet colour headed for the mouth. As the fluid entered the mouth the lizard gasped and choked, gurgling on the fluid and coughing harshly. Luschia reached over and pulled the tube from his mouth. The drone honked. “Please replace the medicine insertion tube,” it said with a firm if tinny voice. “He was choking,” Luschia said calmly. “The medicine will calm his condition.” “And keep him under until he dies. I don’t think he wants that.” “Unless you have medical training, you are in no position to make that kind of judgement.” “And unless you’ve had combat training, you’re in no position to
freck me off.” A pause from the medical drone. “Point conceded.” Luschia nodded and patted the dome of the unit. “Good boy.” The reptilian figure slowly opened his eyes, one intact and the other
covered with a Bacta-based gel, covered as they were by self-polarising
glasses that hovered a three centimetres from his brow. The lizard turned his
head, let his eyes drift about the room as he tried to ascertain where he
was, and when he saw the hovering drone and the whiteness of the room, he
smiled ever so slightly. Then the slitted iris of his good eye fell on
Luschia and the smile disappeared like frost in morning sun. “Get lost,” he said with a
croak. “That’s no way to speak to
your one and only visitor,” Luschia said with a smile, her red lips covered
in the latest Luronsa IV glitter-smear lip stain fashion. “I’m dying,” the reptile
said. “I know.” “And the last thing I want
to see in this life is someone I hate.” “Aahh…” Luschia feigned a
hurtful look. “You don’t hate me. I kept you fit.” “That’s only because I’ve
been chasing you for so long, I had no choice. Now get lost.” “Oh, don’t… I only came
here to pay my respects to a worthy adversary…” “Get the freck out of here, you came to make sure I died and wouldn’t give you any
more grief.” The reptile lifted his head, an obvious strain as his eye bulged
and the heavily blistered surface scales about his neck ruptured. “Don’t kid
yourself, Luschia, or me. Once I’m dead your life will be that much easier…”
and the head fell back, the strain too much. Miniature attendance ‘bots
scuttled across the pillow to mop up the fluid escaping the wounds, but the
reptile shooed them away with a limp hand. Luschia stared long and hard into the eye of the reptile and smiled
slightly. “Okay, so maybe I am here
for selfish reasons.” She sat on the bed, making sure there were no stains
first. “But even I’m not going to smile and dance over the body of a being,
even an S.J.D lawman.” She reached out and lightly touched the Setnin Justice
Department badge that lay on the low table next to the bed with a nail
covered in holopaint in the latest Wennicas craze, not wanting to pick it up.
It was as if the badge had some kind of holy spell cast into it, and her
touching it would result in a burn or, at the very worst, banishment to a
hell she didn’t even know existed. She withdrew her hand. “I’m surprised that
there’s no others here. Family, that kind of stuff.” “No family. No friends.” “Get out of here. No one?
No one at all? You’re a scaly – you’ve probably got about a hundred brothers
and sisters, or something.” “Parents killed in a gang
shootout on A-Desando. Siblings died during a starship jacking just off the
Soluman Delta Gulf. Ever wondered why I became an S.J.D lawman?” “No,” Luschia shrugged.
“But I guess that’s as good a reason as any.” The reptile’s eyes narrowed and his gaze burned into Luschia's. She
sighed theatrically. “What about friends?” “No time for friends. Doing
the job.” “So what does that tell
you? The only person to come and see you is your hated enemy. Spit on a post,
friend, you’ve had a dumb luck life.” Luschia straightened her jacket, pink
and red in the latest Trefnare fashion. “What that tells me is that
my life had a purpose. An aim. I had a job and an identity. I was an S.J.D
lawman and proud of it. I didn’t live my life day to day, wondering where the
next meal or credit was coming from…” “No time to have fun…” “Not having to worry about
so-called friends shooting me in the back…” “Pay for nothing, no money
for danger…” “An honest living, knowing
that my actions didn’t harm or destroy lives…” “No friends, no freedom,
having to work within rules…” “No conflicts of morals or
conscience…” “No fun…” “For frecks sake, Luschia, I’m on my death bed! Let me make a point, willya?” “I’m making a point too,
moron!” Luschia said with more venom than she intended. “You lying there
acting all high and mighty, looking for something from me to make your life
worthwhile just because you’re about to die! What makes this any different
from me shooting back at you, or trying to ditch your ship? What if you had
totalled your ship when you were chasing me through the Cawbate Planetoid
Field, eh? Why should I feel any different between you dying slowly and dying
quickly? There is nothing I can say, pal, that’s going to make any
difference. You chose your life, I chose mine. And, yes…”she sighed, “I’m
here to make sure you die, you annoying bastard.” The reptile stared at her, and then laughed with a strange gurgling
sound. Another sore on his neck split open. “At least I could always
rely on honesty from you,” he said. Luschia allowed her face to fall into a sombre expression. “It’s not what you want to
hear, at a time like this, though, eh?” “It doesn’t matter,” the
reptile said with an almost imperceptible shake of his head. “I’ve had my
fair share. I’ve had every major gang lord in the sector after me. I’ve had
assassins wanting my hide – not your two-cred gun for hire types; I’m talking
about the professional guys…” he bit back a wave of pain. “But the thing I
never could stomach – I never caught you. I never bought you in, had you
tried, put you away. Dammit, I couldn’t even just shoot you.” “You were a lousy shot,”
Luschia said. “I was...” he thought about
it for a second. “I really was, wasn’t I?” Luschia smiled and shook out her pleated trousers, dark green cloth
in the latest Afagard design. “Why me, officer?” “What?” “Out of all the criminals
in the sector, why did you only ever come after me?” The reptile thought about if for a few moments and then sighed. He
bit back another wave of pain and tried to relax. Luschia noticed his voice
becoming weaker and harsher, as if it was taking a lot of his energy just to
talk. “Because I hate what you
are. I hate what you stand for. You fly about the sector, the galaxy, feeding
on the unfortunate and making good from other people’s misfortune, or getting
rich on causing other people’s misery. You don’t care what kind of trail of
destruction and pain you leave behind as long as you get what you want when
you want it. You ignore the results of the your efforts and console your
conscience by telling yourself that whatever happens to the things you
smuggle or ship or destroy is none of your business, even though those things
directly kill people, or ruin their lives, or destroy the lives of those
about them. You’re all the same, killing and conniving under a banner of an
ideology that no normal person would even admit to, yet you do it with pride.
The ‘Setnin Way’. The way of murderers, cowards and thieves.” Luschia held his gaze as he spoke. “So why me?” she asked
again. “Because you’re good at
what you do. And I wanted to be better than you.” The reptile grimaced in pain and his back arched. His breath came
short and sharp, and the monitors bleeped for attention. “You’re holding on to a
dream,” Luschia said. “A dream that at sometime the galaxy will be a place of
peace and quiet where everyone holds each other in respect. Do me a favour,
friend, and get down off your high Tauntaun. Your dream is sound but you need
to wake up. Do you honestly think that all the sectors galaxy-wide will
suddenly see that what you’re doing is the right way to go, and we’ll
suddenly put flowers in our hair and hold hands and chant peace songs? Dream
on, bozo. This is the reality we live in, and we all have to make do. Make
the most of the gangsters and the criminals and put them to use, that’s what
I say. I feel sorry for the man who thinks it can be otherwise.” The reptile smiled. “And I pity the being who
can only regard their criminals as their heroes.” Luschia leaned forward as the voice of the S.J.D Officer became
fainter. Slowly, the hand of the reptile lifted and he held it out to her.
Luschia looked at it, then at the reptile, then back at the hand. “At least… at least we have
our honesty…” the reptile hissed. Luschia grasped the hand and was surprised at the strength in the
grip for such a weak-looking creature. The monitors glared warning
information. The drone tried to pump more coloured fluids into the body but
all the arteries were flooded with drugs already. “Goodbye, Luschia,” the
reptile whispered. Luschia gripped the hand with both of hers. “Goodbye,” she whispered
back. The reptile closed his eyes. The monitors bleeped once, then stopped. “Time of death logged and
filed,” the drone reported. “Are you friend or family?” “I knew him.” “Will you be responsible
for funeral rites funding?” “Gods, no,” Luschia laid
the limp hand gently on the bed. “I don’t want to offend his ghost as well as
his faith.” Arach Raynor turned from view from the long window that
circumnavigated the upper floors of the cone-shaped medical facility as
Luschia exited the medical suite. Droplets of rain hurried down the window to
the ground, and she felt as though she wanted to join them. “So who was he?” Arach
asked, twirling his long hair around one finger. “Hm?” “Who was he? The scaly with
the ferdali infection?” Luschia thought about it for a moment and then smiled. “You know… I haven’t the
slightest idea.” Arach shrugged. “Well, can we go, please?
I’m getting the jitters, and I want to be off this wet-ball before the storm
really kicks in. Do you think I should get my hair cut?” “What?” “I might not have enough
time. No, I’ll go and get a haircut and buy a new coat, before we leave, I
mean. Are you listening?” “Am I what?” “Are you okay?” “Yes… look, why don’t you
go and do what you need to do and I’ll meet you by the ship later.” Arach appeared a little confused but he shrugged and let it go. “Well, hurry, we don’t want
to be undercut for the Leogard run. What are you going to do?” Luschia sighed. “Just watched a man die,
Arach. Like to be alone for a bit.” “Oh… oh, okay, I’ll meet
you later.” He turned and headed for the anti-grav lift down, glancing back
over his shoulder with a worried expression. Luschia stared out of the huge window, the falling rain and dark
skies mirroring her heart. She could see a faint reflection of herself in the
glass and she stared at it intently. I pity the being who can only regard their criminals as their heroes. She watched as the rain beat against the window with futility. Deathbed2003 short story by Jonathan Hicks Fifteen years after Episode IV – A New Hope Histories – A tale of Luschia Arkensaw, finally catching up with a Setnin Justice Department officer who had chased her around the
sector for years. Not even knowing
his name, she is there as he breathes his last. An insight into the minds of law and order and crime and
disorder, Deathbed shows that the two aren’t so very far apart after
all. Cast of Characters Luschia Arkensaw Arach Raynor Xxizz Xxozz |