Empty-Handed

[Barton Henning]

“What a waste of fuel.”

Barton slapped a data-pad down on the table in the Knightfall's common-room as he stalked by, moving with uncharacteristic agitation towards the freighters exit ramp. The short walk took him by the entrance to the ships garage, which should have been loaded with crates but was currently occupied by a handful of Alliance crewmen, looking around the space vacantly.

“Captain?” one of them called out after Barton, a puzzled look on her face. He hadn't realised how quickly the deck crew had gotten on board, ready to unload the Knightfall's cargo. Henning shook his head.

It was the third time in a matter of two weeks that he'd made the long run to meet up with the Alliance's most reputable bacta supplier, only to return empty handed. The first two trips had ended with their contact assuring Henning and his crew that a shipment was on its way and that the third time would indeed be the charm. At that thought, Baron could merely frown. He lifted his head to the sight of the deck crew still looking at him expectantly. Emotions moved fleetingly across his face like ripples on water, before he smoothed his lips into an apologetic, albeit tight, smile.

“I need to speak to the quartermaster.”

[Chaz de Coventina]

"You're back."

It was an awkward form of greeting, to be sure, but then Chaz de Coventina had never been one for nailing social etiquette. At any rate, the physician seemed genuinely pleased by the captain's arrival for her face, as it ducked through into the ship, was set in a benign expression of satisfaction.

She was decked out in standard-issue scrubs, her coppery hair tugged back severely and coiled in a bun atop her head. One hand held a condensation-soaked bottle of water and the other reached into the breast pocket of her shirt and withdrew a ration bar. She tossed the latter to Henning.

"Thought you might be hungry after your trip," Chaz supplied. "Stars, you weren't gone very long, were you?"

Almost as an afterthought, the doctor narrowed her eyes and surveyed her colleague. There was something off about the set of his shoulders, his usual solemn countenance coloured with shades of... agitation?

Chaz's brows knit together. "Did something happen?"

[Barton Henning]

Barton caught the ration bar as, behind him, the Alliance deck crew trooped down the Knightfall's boarding ramp. A shrug or two was shared as they consulted a data-pad, working out the next shipment they were due to unload and catalogue. Henning watched them go, then shifted his eyes back to Chaz.

“There was nothing for us to pick up,” he said. “For the third time, no bacta. Our middle-man says that all the usual black market channels on Thyferra have dried up.”

[Chaz de Coventina]

The pronouncement was met with silence as the medic absorbed it. Supplies were scant enough as it was and they'd all had to adjust to a make-do sort of attitude but this... this was another beast entirely.

"No bacta?" Chaz repeated. A chuff of air escaped through her teeth and she rubbed her face wearily, taking a mental inventory of medical provisions.

"What about secondary channels?" Before she'd left the Core, de Coventina had used her position at Coruscant General to smuggle supplies out to an Alliance source. Granted, it hadn't been much but she'd assumed she was only one of many involved on a planet-wide scale. "It wouldn't be much but at this point whatever we can get is invaluable."

[Barton Henning]

Barton shook his head. “I've had no word from the brass to go elsewhere.”

As far as he understood it, Intelligence fed the Support Services information on where to pick up shipments of everything from ration bars to repeating blasters. The near ubiquitous presence of the Empire meant that the Rebellion couldn't buy anything in bulk for fear of attracting unwanted attention, least of all supplies that were clearly meant to strengthen a burgeoning resistance. To compensate, they had resorted to relying upon an extensive network of smugglers and black market merchants, crooked businessmen and benevolent entrepeneurs who salute the Empress with one hand and slipped a discreet credit chit into the coffers of the Rebellion with the other.

“I had contacts when I was running the clinic out of Cloud City, but no one that could supply a convoy of this size, let alone the entire Rebel network.”

[Chaz de Coventina]

What were they supposed to do? Bacta had revolutionized medical practice and had rapidly secured itself as a safety net of sorts. It was practically risk-free, the most effective treatment for a list of ailments so long that it had become a wry punchline; just slap some bacta on it and call it a day. Nothing else had such broad-spectrum application.

Exclusive use had once been a convenience. Being on the other side of the coin was a disaster

"Even if we further restrict use, limit it to emergencies," Chaz said carefully. "The fact remains that we've no satisfactory alternative stocked. If anything happens..."

She trailed off, not willing to entertain that particular notion at the present time.

"But of course, you know that. Sorry, this isn't helping and probably delaying your debriefing to boot."

[Barton Henning]

There were other alternatives to bacta, Barton knew. It was just right for the Rebellion, however. The convenience, the ease of use, the fact that there were very few beings in the Galaxy whose psyhiology didn't respond to it. The Alliance just didn't have the time or resources to give its people long periods of rest and recuperation, not without hampering their efforts as a whole.

“If you aren't busy, I think it'd do some good to have you along with me. You spend more time in the med-bays than me, after all.”

[Chaz de Coventina]

If you're not busy was a relative expression in the fleet, one they all knew really meant something more like: if you can shift your priorities to fit x in...

In this case it was a no-brainer. Bacta - or the lack thereof - was the ultimate trump card.

"Of course," Chaz nodded. "I'll comm Magda and let her know she'll have to take point in the meantime."

A look of relief overtook the doctor's face, underlined by guilty crinkles at the corners of her eyes. "Trust it to take an administrative crisis to make for a change of pace; bit of the devil we don't know, but you can't deny it's never dull for long around here."

[Barton Henning]

Walking as they talked, Barton lead the way through crowded corridors to their destination. The hallways aboard the Challenger – the fleet's flagship and de facto distributor of supplies – were not quite so crowded as those aboard the Whaladon. Alliance crewmen in uniform moved to and from their posts with brisk, efficient strides whose momentum carried Barton and Chaz along with them. The quartermaster's office was not far from the main cargo bays, though the quartermaster was nowhere to be found. Instead, they found a Jedi Knight sitting at his desk.

[Daria Nytherciria]

Daria looked up at the sound of the automatic doors swishing open. The yeoman sitting opposite at her paused, looking up with an arched eyebrow from the stack of data-cards she had been sifting through. Allaying the young woman's confusion and concern with a faint nod, she then acknowledged Barton with another tilt of her head.

“Captain Henning,” she said, her eyes shifting for a moment to his companion whose aura was unfamiliar, though she sensed the unease that surrounded both of them. “Major Rawstal is off-duty. Yeoman Chambers and I are currently reviewing the days shipping orders. Is there something we can help you and your companion with?”

[Barton Henning]

“I hope so,” Henning muttered, taking a few steps further into the quartermaster's office. He nodded sideways at Chaz then gestured to the two seated women. “Master Nytherciria, Yeoman Chambers, this is Doctor de Coventina. The two of us work within the supply fleet of the Support Services.”

It was a very loose approximation of the roles, in that Chaz had become almost permanently seconded from the Knightfall to the Wheel itself whilst Barton found himself, like so many others, merely filling whatever role was necessary and within his skillset. Yeomen Chambers acknowledged the pair with an overly bright smile whilst Daria Nytherciria – her hands folded on the table in front of her – simply turned her head towards Chaz then back to Barton.

“I don't know if you're hearing the same line from the other supply freighters,” he went on. “But in the last fortnight I've made three run's to pick up bacta and each time come up empty-handed. Word is, there's nothing coming out of Thyferra's black market.”

[Chaz de Coventina]

"It goes without saying that the shortage is becoming cause for concern," Chaz picked up where Barton had left off, a tightness around her eyes that came from uncertainty.

There was a different lie to the administrative setup on the convoy than that which supported the medical community on the Core, the only real experience she had on which to base assumption. There, the structural hierarchy was based on carefully honed resumes, a vicious thirst to rise to the top, and the ability to casually throw out a PR spin that silenced unwanted malpractice-driven attentions. An unspoken code existed within the walls of hospitals which pit physicians against the rest of the communities they served and within that exclusive world it was a cutthroat competition to secure a safe territory.

But out here, everything was different. There was a sense of coming together in dogged determination, a collective act of preservation. The selflessness was mind-boggling.

Chaz frowned. "The medbays are operating under conservation perimeters already, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to maintain even those."