Lightsabers

10

Doctors were born meddlers, Tenel Ka decided with annoyance.

The fifth court physician in as many hours continued explaining in a calm, patronizing voice that, although Tenel Ka was perfectly correct in not desiring a crude droid arm, she could have no objection to a lifelike biomechanical prosthetic replacement. (Apparently they thought they knew her better than she knew herself.) Tenel Ka finally raised the stump of her arm in exasperated surrender and let the doctor have her way. The physician looked satisfied and not at all surprised that Tenel Ka had agreed. After all, it had been the only reasonable choice.

The doctor beckoned to one of her nurses, and the man came forward to begin taking measurements of the stump of Tenel Ka’s left arm. Next, an engineer placed electrodes against her scarred skin and sent intermittent jolts of electricity into the flesh—to measure the nerve conduction, she explained.

Meanwhile, the nurse placed Tenel Ka’s right arm in a holographic imaging chamber. Each time the engineer administered a jolt to Tenel Ka’s stump, the nurse patted her shoulder comfortingly and asked her to hold still. The man took great pride in telling her how the holographic image would be reversed to make a pattern that could be used as the mold for her new biosynthetic left arm.

Like children let loose at a sweets bazaar, physicians buzzed around the room snapping orders, conferring with each other, and making preparations. Allowing the poking and prodding and the chaos of voices to fade into the background, Tenel Ka sank into her own thoughts.

As the daughter of two strong ruling families, one from Hapes and one from Dathomir, Tenel Ka had long known who and what she was. Her philosophy of life had been as clear in her mind as her views on lineage, loyalty, friendships, and even her own physical abilities and limitations.

If one of those components changed, did everything else change as well?

From childhood, Tenel Ka’s parents had taught her to make her own decisions based in equal part on reason, fact, and personal belief. Therefore, she had never been one to sit passively while others made choices for her. Yet, since the loss of her arm, hadn’t she done just that?

She had hardly given it a thought when Ambassador Yfra appeared in the middle of the night to whisk her away from Yavin 4 in secret. In these last few days on Hapes, Tenel Ka had allowed her grandmother to control her movements and communications, tell her when to sleep, bring all her meals, and select appropriate clothing for her. And now Tenel Ka, who had always relied on her own mind and body, was allowing herself to be fitted for a biomechanical arm.

Had she truly changed so much?

The Force was a part of her, flowing through her just as the blood of her parents flowed through her veins. But this artificial arm was no part of her. If she accepted it, then she was allowing the loss of her limb to change her in ways that reached deeper than the eye could see. She didn’t object to changing—but this change was not for the better. If she allowed herself to be transformed, it should be in the direction of becoming stronger or wiser.

Tenel Ka’s reverie was cut short by the sound of whirring servomotors. The doctor and an engineer stood before her holding a grotesque metallic arm. A droid arm. It reminded Tenel Ka of the unwieldly contraption she had heard the former TIE pilot Qorl now wore since going back to serve the Second Imperium. Tenel Ka shook her head in wordless denial.

“Now this is only temporary, of course,” the doctor said with the same infuriating condescension she had used before. “Just accustom yourself to it while we’re synthesizing the biomechanical arm.”

Tenel Ka decided then and there that she had not, in fact, changed that much. If she needed to use the Force from now on to assist her in small ways, then so be it. But she refused to become dependent on a machine that masqueraded as part of herself.

“No,” she managed to croak when the doctor moved to attach the mechanical arm to her severed limb. The engineer backed away uneasily, but the doctor continued as if Tenel Ka had not spoken.

“This is all part of the process of making you whole again,” the doctor said in her maddening voice, “and that is exactly what you want.”

“No,” Tenel Ka repeated, setting her jaw stubbornly. Anger seethed inside her at the doctor’s confident presumption that she knew what was best.

The doctor shook her head and bent down, as if chiding a young child. “Now, you agreed to be fitted for this new arm and—”

“I’ve changed my mind,” Tenel Ka gritted, clamping down on her temper to hold it in check.

The doctor’s lips were still smiling, but grim determination shone in her eyes, indicating she would never take no for an answer—not from any patient of hers. The woman kept up a steady stream of talk and motioned for the engineer to help her position the droid prosthetic against the stump of Tenel Ka’s arm, as if the doctor thought that by forging ahead she could overwhelm her patient’s determination with her own.

“Now, there’s no disgrace in having a biomechanical arm, you know. Even your great Jedi Master Skywalker has a prosthetic hand.”

Tenel Ka acknowledged inwardly that there had been no weakness in Master Skywalker’s choice. It made him no more or less than what he was. He had wrestled with his own decisions and made his own choices, just as she must make hers. The Jedi Master would not ask her to do otherwise—as the people who surrounded her here on Hapes seemed intent on doing.

“Your new arm will look quite natural,” the doctor went on in her exasperating, soothing voice, “and your grandmother has spared no expense.”

When the cold metal of the mechanical limb touched Tenel Ka’s arm, she lost the last vestiges of control over her anger.

“No!” Tenel Ka cried, unconsciously using the Force to give the engineer and the doctor a backward shove. The droid arm was already clamped in place against her skin, however, like a protruding cancerous growth.

“I said NO!” Tenel Ka quite consciously used the Force to yank the contraption free and fling it with blinding speed against the nearest wall. It hit the stones with a clang and a crunch and fell in pieces to the cold tile floor.

Gasps went up from all around the room, and a dozen pairs of eyes regarded her with shock and apprehension.

Having vented her fury, Tenel Ka’s voice was now quite calm. “And I meant no.”