[L18 - Belsavis - FZ] Pharmacy Run (II) - Confronting the Mad Doctor

Deep in the Remnant base...

Shots rang out, the deafening reports bouncing off the walls of the tight corridors of the former Imperial prison. The trio of Flame operatives moved as quickly as they could, boots pounding against the durasteel floor. The lack of cover made reaching the end of the labyrinthine corridors all the more critical.

Alarms continued to blare throughout the base. They had met fierce resistance since setting foot through the blast doors far up on the surface, and the further they pushed into the facility, the more desperate the Remnant's defense had become. Carm figured whatever the Remnant was using this base for, it was extremely important to them.

Carm rested his hand on Bern's back, using his companion's heavier armored frame as a shield as he fired quick shots down the hallway at the Remnant troopers at the end. Sparks and showers of electric discharge erupted from the walls as blast bolts went wide. In the flurry of fire, a snowtrooper at the end of the hall suddenly staggered and slumped against the wall.

"Keep pressing forward- we're almost there!" Carm yelled over the commotion.

---

Meanwhile, through the door they had battled so fiercely to reach, the Imperials were frantically working to erase any record of their twisted experiments. A trooper fired several shots into the computer consoles, hoping to inflict enough damage to destroy the data logs they had so painstakingly created.

"What are you doing?!" yelled Doctor Kavor Rane, the drill in his hand whirring furiously. "Don't destroy the records! My work is more important than you could ever know!"

The trooper shot Kavor a harsh look. "Whoever is blasting their way through our base clearly has no love for the Empire. I'm not letting them see what we've been doing here."

Kavor glared at her before simply returning to his grisly work. The writhing remainder of a person on his operating table spasmed beneath the harsh surgical lights, wires and machinery disappearing beneath its ruined flesh.

"Step away from the table!"

The attackers had entered the room, and Kavor assumed their leader was the one leveling a blast pistol squarely at him.

---

Carm was horrified by what greeted him and his companions in the laboratory. Heads floated in bacta tanks to his right, their eyes following the confrontation from behind the murky liquid. A grim mess of flesh and circuitry lay on the operating table. It had no mouth, at least not in any conventional sense, but Carm could hear its mouthless screams all the same. His mechanical hand gripped his blast pistol so tightly he thought the weapon might break.

"What's going on here..." Carm seethed through gritted teeth.

Doctor Kavor Rane eyed him dismissively. "Progress is what's happening here. You and your simple-minded companions could never understand the gravity of our work. We're a tooth in the gear that will reforge the Empire- one of many taking on this noble work."

Carm looked again at the heads floating in the tanks, then back around the room, finally settling his gaze on the Doctor again. "This facility was supposed to be abandoned. The Bacta Cartel just wanted their product back..." Carm muttered to himself, apparently not quietly enough.

A mean, mirthless laugh answered him.

"The Bacta Cartel? The same organization that was the patron for our operation here?" Kavor's expression twisted into something resembling amusement. "If they did tell you to come here, you should ask yourself why they would send you walking into a heavily guarded Imperial base."

Carm couldn't deny that the doctor had a point, but he pushed the thought aside. That was something he'd need to sort out with the Cartel- if they made it out of here alive.

He pointed his blaster at Doctor Rane again. "Enough of all this. You're coming with us. We can go sort things out with the Cartel together."

"No, I don't think we'll be doing that," Kavor said, shifting away from the operating table. "This attack of yours is no more than a speed bump to our essential work."

Just then, a shot fired across the room, nearly striking the Flame trooper, and she ducked for cover. The doctor's assistant had produced his own blaster and was firing wildly into the room. In the commotion, Bern fired at the Remnant trooper, dropping her to the ground.

Using the momentary chaos, Kavor made a run for it, slipping out of the room before anyone noticed he was gone. The assistant dropped to Carm's own well-placed shot.

As everyone checked themselves for blast burns, Carm noticed the doctor was missing. He clenched his mechanical hand again, fuming.

"Want to go after him?" Bern asked, placing a hand on Carm's shoulder.

"He knows this base. I doubt we'll catch him in this mess of hallways."

They gathered around the operating table, looking down at the pitiful sight of the cybernetic being writhing there. Carm placed a hand on their chest.

"We should put them out of their misery..."

The medical droid approached. "I can prepare a heavy sedative. It would ease their pain and end the suffering."

Bern shifted uncomfortably. "I wouldn't trust an Imp droid."

Carm looked between the two of them. "Do it, droid. The rest of you- let's start loading up this bacta and complete the mission."

He then turned to the Flame trooper.

"Also see if you can slice any data from these consoles. I want to know what they were doing here, and where that doctor might go next."

As they moved to carry out his orders, Carm looked down once more at the cybernetic being, its labored movements growing weaker as the life slowly slipped from it. He felt a strange connection to the being- the Empire had butchered them, just as they'd taken his own arm.

Carm clenched his mechanical hand. He'd make sure they paid for their crimes in full.

---

Thanks for reading! This was a bit of a darker entry, but I wanted to expand the world of Carm's adventures a bit, setting up some mysteries to be solved, and even a potential enemy that might show up again. I wanted to really subtly imply that the base was taken over the Remnant to assist in the research for Project Necromancer. We also learn that Belsavis is a prison world during the time of the Empire in a quick line in Andor, and my idea for the prison was that it doubled as a medical facility/laboratory, doing experiments on the inmates and using the prison labor to produce medical supplies and bacta.

As always, I welcome any and all comments, suggestions and critiques!