Chapter 5: Stimpack (The Tale of TK-267 aka "Meds")
Writer / Co-Creator: Elly Hazel
Art / Co-Creator: Marietta Ivanova
The story of Meds is part of the stormtrooper stories "The Shadow that hides us from Death" and a prequel to the illustrated story "Bishop’s Hand".
Another series of explosions shook the walls of the medbay.
Meds wanted to believe breaking the medbay door’s control panel would keep the rebels out. Or at the very least buy him some time.
But he was sitting on a treasure trove of medical supplies in one of the largest Imperial bases on Onderon; these particular rebels weren’t going to let a broken door panel stop them.
Meds looked over at the two dozen stasis pods locked in with him. Each one was filled with comatose officers and troopers alike, all infected with a virus Meds had never seen before.
As a field medic, he was equipped to handle most emergencies: broken bones, missing limbs, hangovers, but a viral epidemic? It was beyond anything he'd been trained for.
The few officers and handful of troopers who were immune to the virus were barely enough to keep the base fully operational. Eventually, the lack of Imperial activity caught the notice of the local rebels. Onderon rebels were the most ruthless in the galaxy, most of them trained by Saw Gerrera himself. It didn’t take them long to overwhelm the skeleton crew at the base.
Now, they were storming the med bay.
Meds’ patients wouldn’t survive this.
“Well, they still gotta get through me first,” Meds said, pulling out a pair of Se-14r light repeating blasters. He gripped his weapons tightly, refusing to let his hands shake.
A soft thump sounded on the other side of the door.
His hands shook anyway.
Meds trained both blasters at the door and held his breath.
More dull thuds shook the door.
That doesn’t sound like a battering ram, Meds thought. What are they-
The explosion knocked Meds off his feet. He slammed hard into one of the stasis pods, his helmet cracking against the metal frame. Both blasters flew out of his hands, clattering somewhere nearby. His audio sensors whined, his vision blurred. Thick chunks of debris rained mercilessly onto his armor. Hot molten pieces ate away at the thick material between his plates and seared his skin.
Meds collapsed to the ground, smoke billowing all around him as he felt blindly for his blasters.
“There’s an Imp in here!” A silhouette shouted through the thick brown haze. Four more silhouettes joined him.
Meds blinked back tears and caught a glimpse of dark metal. He grabbed for it and swung the blaster around.
“Stay back!” He warned, pointing frantically from one dark shape to another, struggling to clear his head. He tasted metal and realized he had bitten into his lip.
For a moment the rebels stopped advancing.
Everything went quiet. The dull ringing in his head subsided and was replaced with another noise: Laughter.
Meds’ heart sank as he realized why.
The deadly weapon he aimed at the rebels was actually a broken stimpack.
Although the applicator had a short barrel and elongated grip like his blaster, the muzzle was little more than a long needle affixed to a rounded cylinder. The needle was bent uselessly to the side.
The smoke began to clear and the five intruders stepped forward to reveal themselves.
Looking more like marauders than actual rebels, they were covered in a hodgepodge of stolen trooper armor welded with spikes and layered with ragged clothes. Meds recognized the weequay leader as one of Saw’s lieutenants. His wanted poster was strewn all over Onderan.
The weequay looked down at him with cold, beady eyes.
“Time’s up, trooper,” he said, lifting a blaster rifle.
Meds recognized the rifle immediately. It was an E-11, a stormtrooper’s weapon, a weapon rebel scum like him doesn’t deserve to carry.
Despite the throbbing pain of his bruised body, despite fractured ribs and most likely a concussion, Meds found himself rising to his feet, stimpack still pointed at the rebels.
“What are ya gonna do, Imp?” The weequay snickered. “Stab us to death with yer little needle?”
“Dunno,” Meds said, a tired, bloody grin growing beneath his helmet. “Let’s find out.”
Meds knew he wasn’t going to survive that first step. He knew once he took that step they were going to blast him away, then most likely kill his brothers and sisters asleep in their stasis pods.
It didn’t matter.
He was going to defend them with everything he had.
Even if it was just a broken stimpack.
So Meds took that step forward.
A shot rang out….
...and somehow glanced harmlessly off the side of his helmet.
For several heartbeats, no one moved. Then one-by-one, the rebels’ eyes grew wide, their hands reached for their own throats. They trembled violently, gurgling and gasping, as if trying to break free from some unseen energy that seized them.
Meds took a step back, his mind scrambling to understand what was happening.
And then he heard it: a sound he had only known through stories from other troopers. Some described it as calm waves before a massive storm, others said it was the sound of a living, breathing nightmare.
It was rhythmic, cold and inhuman.
It was also the most awe-inspiring sound Meds had ever heard.
When Darth Vader emerged from the corridor, his dark form filled the entire doorway. His gloved hand formed a claw directed at the rebels. The Sith lord’s dark, bulbous lenses scanned the room until they found Meds.
For a moment he did nothing, standing deathly still as a thick silence hung in the air.
Then Vader closed his fist.
Meds will never forget the sound of five necks snapping in unison, like the tiny pops and cracks of firesnappers on Empire Day.
The rebels’ lifeless bodies hung limp where they stood, held up only by Vader’s will. Vader’s gaze never left Meds as he waved his hand and sent the rebels flying to the side of the room in a heap.
Meds could do nothing but stare. His voice had left him, his head still throbbed, his knees knocked together from sheer adrenaline.
“I am in no need for a vaccination, medic.”
Meds blinked. “What?”
It took Meds a moment to realize he was still holding the broken stimpack like a weapon.
It took another moment to realize it was aimed directly at Darth Vader’s chest.
He lowered the stimpack.
Several stormtroopers filed in behind Vader, who turned to address the sergeant. “Take all the medical supplies you can and destroy the rest. We will not leave anything for the rebels to scavenge later.”
The sergeant nodded and signaled his troopers who began dumping bottles, stimpacks, and heavy equipment into crates for transport.
“What about the patients,” Meds asked.
“Leave them,” Vader replied, turning to leave.
“No!” Meds shouted, momentarily forgetting he was shouting at someone who just snapped the necks of five rebels with just the clench of his fist.
Think, Meds think! Give Vader a reason to save them! Give him a reason to care!
He looked down at the broken stimpack in his hand.
“Vaccines!” He blurted. “My lord, these patients...they are sick with something we don’t have a vaccine for! If we can get them back to a med bay with trained medical staff we could make a vaccine that’ll help us prevent future epidemics!”
Vader had not moved.
“Very well.” Vader turned to his Sergeant again. “Take one pod. Leave the rest.”
“My lord!” Meds protested as Vader left the medbay. “We can save them all! Lord Vader, please! We need...I mean...there’s more...what about testing? What about more samples?!”
It can’t end like this! It can’t!
Meds burst out of the hallway, shouting after Vader. “They are Stormtroopers! They don’t deserve this!”
Darth Vader never broke his stride. He turned the corner and his footsteps faded in the distance.
A pair of troopers brushed by Meds with a single pod. Meds couldn’t see who was inside. He returned to the medbay and looked over the remaining twenty-three pods.
He wasn’t going to leave them. That was it. Period. Vader could leave him behind for all he cared, Meds wasn’t going to let twenty-three brothers and sisters die alone. He’d be there for all of them for as long as he could.
“Excuse us.”
Meds turned to see another pair of troopers standing behind him. “What?”
The sergeant came in behind the troopers. “Move it, trooper. We gotta load these pods up, double-time.”
“What?” He repeated, taking a step back.
Four more pairs of troopers filed in. Each pair grabbed a pod and rolled them out of the medbay.
The sergeant clapped a hand on Meds’ armored shoulder. “Lord Vader expects twenty-four healthy troopers and a vaccine out of this. Gather whatever medical info you got for these troopers and head for the shuttle. We leave in twenty.”
Meds looked down at the broken stimpack still in his hand. He moved to throw it aside, but...he shoved it in his empty holster instead. “I’m on it, sir!”