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The ceiling has become political.
Thorn knows this because it has spent the last nine minutes leaning to the left.
Not falling.
Leaning.
There is a difference, and Thorn feels uniquely qualified to identify it because he is currently the only Marshal Commander in the medbay who can hear colors.
The ceiling is pale blue.
It sounds smug.
“You,” Thorn tells it, pointing one bandaged hand upward, “have no operational authority.”
The ceiling continues leaning.
Typical Senate behavior.
From somewhere beside him, Boba asks, “Who’re you talking to?”
“The ceiling.”
Boba looks up.
“It’s not doing anything.”
“It knows what it did.”
Thorn lowers his arm because the motion causes every light in the room to stretch into long golden ribbons. The ribbons twist around his fingers, slide through the monitoring wires attached to his chest, and disappear beneath the blanket.
He smiles.
Medical is beautiful.
Nobody ever tells him that because Medical usually contains blood, screaming, and Scalper holding surgical instruments with the calm focus of someone about to improve a person against their will.
Today, however, Medical contains clouds.
Thorn is lying on one.
It has an adjustable backrest and smells like disinfectant, but a cloud remains a cloud regardless of government designation.
His chest doesn’t hurt.
His shoulder doesn’t hurt.
His jaw doesn’t hurt.
Nothing hurts.
Thorn touches the edge of the thick dressing stretching from the side of his face, across his shoulder, and beneath his medical gown.
A medic immediately appears in his vision.
“Don’t touch that.”
She has three heads.
Thorn blinks.
Two disappear.
“Where did your sisters go?”
The medic stares at him.
“They were just there.”
“You’re hallucinating.”
“No,” Thorn says patiently. “You’re understaffed.”
Boba snorts from the chair beside his cot.
The medic checks Thorn’s pupils with a light. The light becomes a tiny moon.
Thorn follows it with his eyes.
“Pretty.”
“You’re still running a slight fever.”
“I’m running nowhere. I’ve been told I’m not cleared for duty.”
“You tried to leave twice.”
“I was searching for my armor.”
“You were wearing a sheet.”
“It had tactical potential.”
The medic takes his wrist to check his pulse.
Thorn watches her fingers move.
“You have too many bones.”
“That’s the medication.”
“Does the medication have bones?”
She releases him.
“I’m getting Scalper.”
Thorn gasps.
“That’s escalation.”
The medic walks away.
Her boots leave small pink sparks across the floor.
Thorn watches until she disappears behind the privacy curtain. Then he turns his head toward Boba.
The room takes several seconds to catch up.
Boba sits with one boot tucked beneath him, a datapad balanced on his knee. He is wearing a medic’s apron over his clothes because Scalper has made him her "little helper," though Thorn suspects the title carries fewer medical privileges than Boba believes.
The boy looks worried.
Thorn recognizes this because Boba’s eyebrows have been attempting to merge since Thorn woke up.
“You’re doing the face,” Thorn says.
“What face?”
“The one where you look like a tooka considering tax fraud.”
“I don’t look like that.”
“You do.”
Boba glances toward the cot on Thorn’s other side.
Fox lies beneath several blankets with a tube running through his nose and enough medical equipment around him to occupy a small frigate.
Riyo sits beside him.
Thorn understands, intellectually, that Fox has been poisoned and that everyone was terrified.
Emotionally, Fox resembles a very angry caterpillar.
Thorn turns back to Boba.
“Do you think he’ll become a moth?”
Boba’s worried expression fractures.
“What?”
“Fox.”
“No.”
“Then why is he wrapped like that?”
Fox opens one eye.
“Thorn.”
His voice is weak, rough, and deeply offended.
Thorn beams at him.
“The caterpillar speaks.”
Riyo covers her mouth.
She is not laughing.
She's failing not to laugh, which is different and much more honorable.
Fox closes his eye again.
“Sedate him.”
“They did,” Boba says.
“Do it more.”
Thorn considers this.
“That could make me powerful.”
“You’re already too powerful,” Riyo says.
Thorn looks at her.
She has lilac hair, blue skin, and six eyes.
No.
Four eyes.
No.
Two eyes.
He points.
“You keep changing quantities.”
Riyo lowers her hand from her mouth.
“I’ll try to stop.”
“Thank you. It’s difficult to establish a perimeter.”
Boba taps the datapad.
“We were working on your burn story.”
Thorn brightens.
“Yes.”
He remembers that.
His burn is magnificent.
He hasn’t seen all of it yet because the medics keep hiding mirrors, but Boba has provided a detailed description. It spans Thorn’s jaw, crosses his shoulder, and reaches over one side of his chest.
It is apparently gnarly.
That is a medical term Boba taught him.
The Guard cannot decommission Thorn because he remains cognitively functional, valuable, and, according to the medic, irritatingly determined to survive.
This means the scar belongs to him.
He intends to use it responsibly.
By lying to shinies.
Boba opens their list.
“Story one. You fought a rancor.”
“Too ordinary.”
“You fought two rancors.”
“Better.”
“One was on fire.”
Thorn considers the ceiling.
The ceiling has stopped leaning and is now breathing.
“Why was it on fire?”
“You set it on fire.”
“Why?”
“It insulted Fox.”
Fox makes a tired sound from the neighboring cot.
Thorn points toward him without looking.
“Don’t interrupt military history.”
Boba adds a note.
Riyo shifts her chair so she can see them better.
She accepted the position of audience with remarkable dignity. Fox hasn't accepted anything, but Fox has an NG tube and cannot escape.
Thorn feels this is democratic.
“Story two,” Boba says. “You shielded an entire Senate pod from a thermal detonator.”
“That sounds heroic.”
“It is.”
“I don’t trust it.”
“You can say the senators screamed the entire time.”
“More accurate.”
“Then you threw the detonator through a ventilation shaft.”
Thorn nods.
“It exploded in Senator Burtoni’s office.”
Riyo laughs.
A real laugh this time.
Fox opens his eye again.
“Don’t encourage them.”
“She’s a senator,” Thorn tells him. “She’s legally required to encourage false narratives.”
Riyo’s shoulders shake.
Boba scrolls farther.
“Story three. You got the scar fighting General Grievous.”
“With what?”
“A chair.”
Thorn sits very still.
The room floats around him with great ceremonial importance.
“That,” he whispers, “is the one.”
Boba grins.
“You lost your weapons.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I rejected them.”
“Why?”
“Too easy.”
Boba begins typing.
Thorn lifts one hand, conducting the story as it forms above them in invisible letters.
“Grievous had four lightsabers.”
“You had one chair.”
“A folding chair.”
“Plastic?”
“Metal. I’m not suicidal.”
Fox mutters something into his blanket.
Thorn hears only the word unbelievable.
“It will be believable,” Thorn assures him. “Boba is documenting it.”
Boba nods solemnly.
“I’m adding witnesses.”
“Good.”
“Who?”
“Kenobi.”
Fox’s visible eye opens.
“No.”
“Skywalker?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Commander Tano?”
Thorn thinks.
“Tano would tell Rex.”
“Rex would know it was fake.”
“Not if we make him part of it.”
Boba’s grin widens.
“Rex held your coat.”
“I wasn’t wearing a coat.”
“You were wearing two.”
“Excellent.”
Riyo has lowered her forehead into one hand.
Thorn cannot tell whether she's laughing or praying.
Possibly both.
Fox shifts beneath the blankets and immediately looks ill.
Riyo’s attention snaps back to him, hand moving to his wrist.
For one flicker of a second, Thorn remembers why Fox is here.
The thought tries to become sharp.
The medication catches it, wraps it in warm wool, and places it gently on a shelf where Thorn does not have to touch it.
Good medication.
Very patriotic.
Boba is watching Fox too.
His fingers have stopped moving over the datapad.
Thorn reaches sideways and pats Boba’s head.
He intends to do it once.
His hand lands three times because Boba has become slightly duplicated.
“He’s too mean to die,” Thorn says.
Fox’s eye opens again.
“Comforting.”
“You’re welcome.”
Boba’s mouth twitches.
Riyo looks over at Thorn, and something soft passes through her expression.
Thorn distrusts softness.
He points at Boba’s datapad.
“Continue the chair.”
Boba obeys.
“You hit Grievous with it.”
“Six times.”
“He only has four arms.”
“I wasn’t aiming for his arms.”
“Where were you aiming?”
“His dignity.”
Boba types faster.
Thorn’s monitoring line produces a soft chime.
He looks down.
The glowing number beside his cot reads 97.
“Excellent,” he says.
“What?” Boba asks.
“I have achieved 97.”
“97 what?”
Thorn studies the monitor.
“Command.”
“That’s your oxygen saturation.”
“I command oxygen.”
Fox groans.
Riyo pats his hand.
“Let him have this.”
“Everyone lets him have everything.”
“That’s because I’m charming,” Thorn says.
“You threw a tray at a medic this morning.”
“It startled me.”
“You asked her whether she was a Separatist cloud.”
“She never answered.”
The curtain opens.
The sister medic returns with Scalper.
Scalper stands behind her, blonde hair pulled back. Her expression alone can authorize surgery.
Thorn smiles broadly.
“Mother has arrived.”
Boba makes a strangled noise.
Fox begins coughing.
Riyo laughs hard enough to fold forward in her chair.
Scalper stops beside Thorn’s cot.
Her eyes narrow.
Thorn pats the cloud next to him.
“You can sit. We’re discussing how I defeated Grievous with furniture.”
Scalper looks at Boba.
Boba holds up the datapad.
“It’s coming together.”
Scalper looks at the medic.
The medic checks Thorn’s infusion pump.
“He’s due for another dose in twenty minutes.”
Fox raises one trembling hand from the blankets.
“No.”
Scalper turns toward him.
“Do not,” Fox rasps, “give him anything else.”
Thorn gasps.
“Betrayal from the chrysalis.”
Riyo presses both hands over her face.
Scalper checks Thorn’s vitals, then points two fingers at his eyes and lowers them.
Sleep.
Thorn understands.
He does not agree.
“I have duties.”
She points toward the bed.
“I’m Marshal Commander.”
Another point.
“Fox needs supervision.”
Fox says, “I need silence.”
Thorn looks at him with deep concern.
“The poison made you boring.”
“The poison didn’t do that,” Boba says.
Riyo loses the last of her composure.
Her laughter fills the medbay while Boba saves the Grievous story, Fox glares from inside his cocoon, and Scalper begins dimming the lights.
The ceiling resumes breathing.
Thorn settles deeper into his cloud.
Before his eyes close, he reaches toward Boba.
“Add one more thing.”
“What?”
“The chair survived.”
Boba nods.
“Completely legit?”
“Completely legit,” Thorn confirms.