"No, an answer the organs have, another matter it is whether we understand." Yoda answered. "Come with us you will to the Jedi Temple's Halls of Healing and there we'll find the identity of our friend. Return to Coruscant quickly you should." Yoda told the Jedi participating through holograms. "We're done here as far as anyone's concerned." Obi-Wan replied. "The Defender will be setting a course for Coruscant the moment the last of the scouts dock."
"And the Dauntless will return the moment the salvage teams' return from the surface of Hoth." Luke stated.
"Have you found any survivors from the settlement?" Bail asked. "So far we haven't found the settlement; only a battlefield." leia answered. "A battlefield?" Mon echoed. "You mean that there's no sign of the settlement?" "None that we can find after combing different parts of Hoth for nearly six standard days. We found the battlefield yesterday." Luke explained. "There's doubt that there even was a settlement here. We only headed here because we felt a disturbance if the Force." Leia furthered explained.
"Rebellion." Anakin and Yoda said that the same time.
"Pirates that rebelled against a commander and they were wiped out because of it?" Padme asked. Anakin shrugged. "I asked the Force and the feeling that I got was rebellion." "Hm." Yoda added.
"Our scouts have returned Masters so we'll continue this conversation face to face." Obi-Wan reported. "May the Force be with you." Anakin and Obi-Wan said before their holos fizzed out of existence.
Luke and Leia bowed and their holos vanished as well.
On the sixth planet of the Hoth system . . .
Captain Maximillian Veers stood in the middle of a snow field dressed head to toe in cold weather gear. He was looking at the remains of what appeared to be the defensives of a settlement but something wasn't right, he could feel it.
Slowly he trudged through the snow looking at the shrapnel of what must have been a bloody battle. His teams orders were to see if the could find anything that would give an idea of who had attacked the settlement and why the settlement hadn't called for help.
"Sir, I found part of a very old scout craft and I mean old. Pre-Clone War." a lieutenant said as he approached a group of searchers.
"Get it ready for transportation to the Dauntless. They want us back on Coruscant ASAP." He ordered.
"Captain," a voice called over his commlink. "Veers," he responded. "We found something sir." "What is it?" "We don't know sir. It appears to be an armored transport and attack vehicle of some type." This is it! Veers thought. "What''s your position?" he asked. "A quarter of a mile from your current position, sir."
Veers quickly climbed aboard a speeder bike a rocketed towards the direction of the mysterious transport.
When he arrived he whistled.
"Where in the stars is that?" he asked.
"Wish we could tell you sir, it's heavily armored and it appears as if it was heavily armed as well. The feet alone could crush ground troops." A technician reported. "And the legs long enough that they could easily step over defenses!" "Or crush them and the defenders flat." Another technician put in.
Who would build such a thing? Where would they be able to build this and keep it a secret? Wouldn't even the Black Market have headr of these things? And if so why haven't our contacts said anything?
"I've never seen anything like it." another technician muttered softly.
"Over the comm you said that it was a transport. The size of its body does suggest that it could have been used for the transportation of troops and maybe equipment." Veers asked. The techs hesitated. "We found bodies sir, or more truthfully parts of bodies."
"Bodies?" Veers asked after a pause. "Yes, someone cut a hole in the bottom and threw in a charge." The first technician informed him. "Load the remains into boxes so that they can be transported to the Dauntless and prepare this monster for transportation as well."
Veers sighed as he watched the techs pick up the pieces of transport.
Something's not right. This is a battlefield alright but what were they defending here? It's basically a mountain and a glacier. The only reason to fight here is that it's reasonably defensible.
The whine of the engines of the transport broke Veers out of his thoughts. "Alright people the transport's here. Are we ready?" Veers called to the techs. Are we ready?" "Yes sir," a tech called, "we're ready."
I can't wait to return to Coruscant to exaim it with Master Skywalker and others.
Coruscant five days later . . .
Jedi Masters Mace Windu, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Shaya Thak and Yoda stood around a examining table with Bail Organa, Mon Mothma, Padme Amidala Skywalker and Jedi Knights Luke and Leia Skywalker.
A medical droid slowly removed three human bones from the medical box on the table. "These two are the collar bones and this is the sternum of a human male about 1.85 meters tall and in his early twenties. There is little damage to them and at this moment there is no apparent reason why they would have been removed."
The droid reached again into the box and removed a tube like object. "An esophagus. As you can see there is damage to it. The man that this belonged to was exposed to fire, smoke and fumes." The droid set the esophagus on the table and comest in retrieving another organ. "The stomach shows the same signs of horrific damage the esophagus shows. It is empty except for some sort of liquid." The droid took a sample.
Padme swallowed bile back.
"Was the patient alive for this?" she asked. "Of course, why remove damaged organs from a dead patient?" the droid asked as it put the sample into a computer for analysis.
"The kidneys show extensive damage. The patient was laying on his stomach when he was burned. Although at this point I don't understand why they were trying to save his life at this point." The droid commented. "Why?" Mace asked. "If he was as badly burned as I believe he was it would have been kinder to let him die. Pump him full you pain killers, make him comfortable and as his family to come say 'good-bye'."
"Maybe he knew something that needed to be known." Leia suggested. "Again pain killers and no surgery. As I stated earlier he was a dead man. Even with surgery it most likely wouldn't prolong his life anyway a human would want to live."
The droid left the table to take organ samples to be tested.
"The droid is right young one." Shaya Thak said gently. "The damage of the organs shown to us so far indicates that this young man was burned from his feet up. Most likely from the damage to his kidneys his feet must have been completely burned away and a good part of his lower legs as well. If a Jedi came in like that we'd put them into a healing trance at first and see if the damage would heal and if not than we'd administer pain killers and leave their fate to the will of the Force. If he had information for us than we'd ask but we wouldn't prolong his suffering."
"There are no pain killers of any kind in the organs here." The medical droid reported. "What?!?" Everyone cried as one. "The patient wasn't given anything for the pain. The droids preforming the operation just cut him open and started to remove the damaged organs." The droid reported again. "What about the liquid in the stomach?" Mace asked. "A drug of some type of unknown origins. It allows the consumer take more pain than they normally could, it also is highly addictive."
They watched in numb horror as the medical droid pulled out a few more organs and pointed out the damage.
"He was most likely tortured. Burned than torn apart by droids, he was given the drug to prolong his suffering.
A computer chimed.
Shaya walked away from the horrible scene to see the results of the DNA test. The Force users felt her shock and horror. "Masters, I think you should see this." The Jedi Masters walked over to the screen. Padme could tell from their body language that the results shook them.
"What is it?" Luke asked.
"This is impossible!" Shaya exclaimed. "A man is dead but he's alive at the same time." Obi-Wan said. "Disturbing this is," Yoda muttered. "This answers one question but has spawned more." Mace said. "A slow and pain filled death." Anakin whispered. "Why though?" Obi-Wan asked.
"Who is it?" Mon asked.
Padme felt her chest freeze.
Anakin turned to face them.
"Our mystery patient is none other than Anakin Skywalker."
A/N
I have no idea which of Anakin/Vader's organs were removed or why. So I removed a few that I felt would have been badly damaged by the fire and/or breathing in smoke and fumes.