Project Boussh: Tanks For The Memories
by Vickie Boyd

Vickie propped herself up to watch Elassar work on her leg. He pulled
out a knife to cut her
jeans. "You are NOT going to use that on my jeans."

He turned to her and smiled devilishly. "Yes I am."

She creased her face. "Don't look at me like that. It's scary."

He bowed deeply. "As you wish milady, but I have to cut your pants. I
cannot get to your wound
otherwise."

"I wish you didn't have to get to it at all," she said with a sigh as
she flopped back down on
the bench.

"I've been reading about your current medical procedures. Now, given the
degree of your injury,
you would have to be in a cast 10 to 12 weeks. A dip in bacta would heal
you in 5 to 6 hours.
Which would you rather do?" He affixed her with a rather typical
Tarragon gaze.

She gave him her best "well duh" look. "If I'm in a cast, I will be
useless to the entire
Boussh crew." She sighed. "Ok, cut it and get me in that bacta as soon
as possible."

The Devaronian smiled and slit her jeans up to her knee. "This will
probably hurt," he said as
he undid the splint.

Understatement, yet again. She screamed. The noise pierced every inch of
the shuttle. Elassar
shuddered and grabbed a hyper. "I'm not sure now if you need this more
than me, but you're
getting it." He pierced her arm. The sedative went to work immediately.

Once she was sedated, he went to work on realigning the bone correctly.
Pash had done a good
job for a field medtech, but he didn't want to have to rebreak it to fix
it the way it should
be. He then tended to her ankle, confirming that it indeed was a sprain.
He dressed her leg
before reawakening her.

She blinked against the harsh light. "Has five hours already gone by?"

"No, I just reset the bone." He dropped what looked to be a sport bra
and biker shorts on her
stomach. "Put these on and then we'll get you in the tank."

She picked up the clothes and looked at them. "You expect me to wear..."
she stopped and
sighed. Luke had worn what looked like a diaper, at least this resembled
real clothes. "Um,
mind if I have a little privacy to change?"

"I forgot how modest humans are." He moved out the door. "I'll be right
out here if you need
any help."

She quickly changed, only having a little trouble getting her pants off.
She stood and looked
at herself in the mirror. "I am one white girl," she said. The fact that
the top and shorts
were white didn't help her much. She sighed as she hobbled towards the
door. "I'm ready. Can we
get this over with? I'm freezing."

Elassar turned around and smiled. He grasped her around the waist to
support her right side and
led her towards the bacta tank. "You will have a mask on in the tank. I
have made the air
comparable with your atmosphere. There will be a slight sedative in it
to help you sleep. It
will make the time pass faster."

"No, no sedatives. I'll meditate."

Her idea surprised him. Perhaps she was taking this Force thing
seriously. "Your call." They
stopped beside the tank. He handed her the mask. "Just breathe
naturally."

She slipped it over her face and took a deep breath... and coughed. She
slipped it off and
coughed some more.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah," she finally said. "It's been a while since I've breathed pure
oxygen like that. It was
a shock to my system."

"Is the formula incorrect? I can change it."

She put a hand on his arm. "No, it's perfect. I probably need to breathe
some fresh air. It
will help me in the long run. I'm fine."

Elassar turned and yelled, "Wes, I need your help for a moment."

The tall Rogue entered. "What can I do for you?" His eyes stopped on
Vickie and looked her up
and down.

"Help her get to the top."

Wes moved over to assist Vickie in climbing up the ladder. "You look
very nice in that."

She blushed slightly. "Thanks, flyboy. I'm married."

He grinned. "Hobbie says you should sit on the edge for a moment to get
yourself used to the
temperature before going all the way in."

"Thanks for the advice." She looked over the lip of the tank into the
muck below. Her nose
wrinkled at the smell. "Do I really have to do this?"

"12 weeks or 5 hours," Elassar said.

She sighed and sat on the edge. It felt warm and inviting. Wes handed
her the oxygen mask. She
took it without looking. Elassar cleared his throat from below. Looking
at him, she saw him
point to his eyes. Her glasses. She pulled them off. "Great, now I can't
see anything," she
mumbled. Handing them to Wes, she pulled the mask on. This time she
breathed normally. It was
an odd sensation, cool fresh air circulating through her lungs. Next,
she allowed the Force to
flow through her in the same manner. She felt herself submerging into
the Force as she slipped
into the tank.

And then she was under.

**********************

Pash stood looking at Vickie in the bacta tank. This wasn't supposed to
be happening. She
should have stayed back in North Carolina. She would have been safer
there. Too many times he
had seen pilots in bacta. He sighed and leaned against the tank. "Ow."
He stood back up and
rubbed his shoulder.

"Problem, Captain," Elassar asked as he walked in to check on his
patient.

"Just sore," he replied. "How is she doing?"

The Devorian checked her vitals before replying. "She is healing rather
quickly. It's quite
amazing, actually." He turned and looked at the red-haired pilot. "You
act as if you have
pulled your shoulder. I really should take a look at that."

"It's nothing, really."

Elassar raised an eye(brow) at the human. "You do realize that if it is
injured, it could very
well impede your ability to fly your A-Wing to the best of your ability.
You wouldn't want
that, would you?"

Pash sighed and began to pull off his jacket. He pulled his shirt up to
expose his muscular
left shoulder. It was beginning to turn a lovely
shade of purple. "She
punched me when I was finishing up the splint."

Elassar touched the skin lightly. "Slight sprain. You'll live. I think,
however, you should put
a bacta patch on it to help it heal quicker."

He nodded. "Ok. I know she didn't mean to hit me." He looked back up at
the female floating
almost lifelessly in the bacta.

A devilish grin crossed Elassar's face. "Yes, but she did. And with
adrenaline. I'm surprised
it's only a sprain." He slapped a patch on Pash's shoulder, gaining a
sneer from the pilot.
"You'll be good as new in no time."

"Thanks."

*************************

A song went through her mind. "Driven" by Rush. "Driven to the edge of a
deep dark hole." That
is exactly how she felt. Except she had fallen into the hole. She passed
many things as she
fell. She saw herself in a movie theater, cringing as the tall, handsome
hero sliced open a
creature with a blade made of light and its guts spilled out. This hero
was well and good, but
not the hero she found in this movie. Her Hero was the pilot who took
down a walker. He had
given the rebels time to evacuate.

Memories passed again. This time seeing the movie before the one on
Hoth. It was almost over
before she saw her Hero. He once again showed how good he was by flying
directly towards the
other hero and taking out the bogey on his tail. That was true heroism.

Memories passed again. This movie was light and dark at the same time.
Two-thirds of the movie
passed before she saw her Hero. He was a Commander now, leading an
entire group of fighters
against the Empire. The TRUE Hero of the Rebellion.

Her obsession was complete when she made a character to role play that
was her Hero's sister.
This was even before the books and comics. She was a pilot, almost as
good as her brother. She
helped the Rebellion in any way she could.

Then came the books. Finally, someone had realized her Hero's greatness.
He deserved to have
his own stories.

Then she found her family. AFW. She was home.

Then everything happened at once. Quiara was missing. Her Hero was
coming here, to Terra. She
was going to meet her Hero (eventually) and his pilots. They were real.
The stories were all
histories. Her mind overloaded with the idea.

An orange tabby appeared on the horizon. It looked at her then moved
forward before stopping to
look again. She had only once ignored a cat, never again. She followed
it through caverns until
she came to a dead end. The cat looked up expectantly. She searched the
wall for a trigger or
switch. There wasn't one.

The cat looked through the wall. She followed its gaze. The wall
shimmered. It looked like deep
space. Two ships, an A-Wing and a B-Wing, faced each other. Something
fired from each ship. The
B shuddered while the A stopped... and fell. Her heart lurched into her
throat. She watched the
B-Wing follow the falling ship and get the pilot out. Both ships
continued to fall, the B much
slower. She saw them hit the ground. A transport approached. Men dressed
in white uniforms
exited the transport and collected the passengers of the B-Wing. They
drove off into the
sunset.

She wanted to stop them, but her voice failed her. Looking down, she saw
the cat had
disappeared. The walls reappeared. They were closing in on her. She
could not get out.


Vickie awoke with a start. She blinked, wondering where she was. The
room was rather large, as
was the bed in which she was laying. She squinted when she saw a figure
seated in what she
could only imagine was a chair. The only thing she could distinguish was
that it had red hair.
"Pash?"

"Wha? I'm awake." The man sat up in the chair and rubbed his eyes. He
looked over to see Vickie
sitting up slightly in the bed. "Hey, you're finally awake."

"Where are my glasses?" He came over to the bed and handed her glasses
to her. She put them on
and looked around the room. She was in the master bedroom of the cabin.

"Let me get Elassar. He wanted to know when you woke up." Pash opened
the door only to have the
Devorian walk into him.

Elassar sidestepped the flailing pilot and moved to the bedside. "So,
how is my patient
feeling?"

"Cold." She looked down to see herself dressed in a nightgown. The price
tag was still on it.
She looked at it. Victoria's Secret, Mall of America. She grinned.

"I'll make sure someone brings you some clothes. Now, if I may take a
look at your leg." He
pulled back the covers.

She marveled at her legs. They still had her normal scars, plus one
small one on her lower
right calf. Her bone was no longer protruding through the skin. It felt
so good.

"Try standing."

She pushed her legs over the edge of the bed and felt the cold floor
underfoot. She shivered
slightly before slowly rising. "Unbelievable," she whispered.

"Better than 12 weeks, isn't it?"

She smiled broadly at the Devorian. "Much better. Thanks." She took a
tentative step forward.
Her mind swirled and she saw the female A-Wing pilot being thrown into a
transport.

Elassar grabbed her arm. "Not so fast, missy. You've been out for about
eight hours."

She turned to look at him. "I have to talk to Brad."