"We sealed the hold, disabled the ventilation system, no air can get in or out of that room," one of the technicians told Vader. "We've been observing the rest of the eggs on a monitor."
"And?"
"They're definitely viable, there are life forms in them...they're not hatching though, I think they're waiting for someone," the tech answered.
"Someone?"
"I think they need a live, human host, that's why one hatched and latched onto your son."
"What for?" Vader wanted answers. Realistically he knew the odds his crew could supply them were nil, but he didn't care, he needed to know something. Luke had survived the carbon freeze and now the medics were biding their time not to thaw him or the thing too quickly. Vader felt phantom sensations surging through his durasteel limbs, every mechanized breath from his respirator felt like it was pulsating behind his eyes. He remembered when he was a fully flesh and blood man and used to feel this way, he had been advised to sit down and put his head between his knees to control his breathing. The first time he'd tried it he passed out and got a concussion from hitting his head against the floor, he'd never do that again, and in some ways he was thankful his life support suit eliminated the need to even try.
"I don't know," the man answered. "Ordinarily I'd suggest we need to study them, but I'm all for destroying every last one of them and not risk them running loose on the ship. If there was a way we could move them to the incinerator without them hatching, that'd probably take care of it, but since we can't take that chance, I think if we used the ship's flamethrowers on them, that should do the trick."
"Who would be willing to go in?" Vader inquired.
"I'd be happy to volunteer, milord," the technician answered.
"You?"
"That thing leapt at me, Luke pushed me out of the way. I want to see every last one of them burn."
Vader considered it for a moment and concluded, "Very well put."
"Ideally I think the best approach would be to access the hold through the air ducts, I don't know how high these things can jump but it should be out of their reach, death from above."
"Get to it, then," Vader said.
He wished he could hurry along the procedure in the med bay as quickly. He was going to lose his mind waiting for an update. Somebody had to know something, why wasn't anyone telling him anything?
"Lord Vader."
Behind his mask, his eyes widened to their full extent and felt his heart drop to his stomach. He turned and saw one of the medics coming towards him.
"We set the controls for defrost. The procedure was quick."
"What happened?" Vader was dreading the answer.
One of the medics held up a shatterproof transparisteel case that now housed the creature, all five feet and ten pounds of it. The tail had been wrapped in a coil to conserve space in the cubed container.
"It's dead?" Vader asked.
"Appears to be anyway, but we're still monitoring it," the medic answered. "If I'm right, it didn't survive the carbon freeze."
"And Luke?"
"He thawed perfectly, we're keeping him sedated for the time being while we monitor him. There should be no affects from the freeze but all the same we're making sure his senses aren't overstimulated."
"What did that thing do to him?" Vader asked.
"Well there's obvious trauma to the neck exterior where he was strangled and the throat where the tube was shoved down, small cuts where it dug its claws into his flesh. We assumed the paralytic agent he was given must've been forced down his throat but upon a closer examination we discovered it was transferred through the skin."
The older medic stood by the table Luke was being examined on, watching a series of scans on the monitors. He let out a sudden and exclaimed curse and got both men's attention.
Vader saw a dark spot on one of the monitors doing a chest scan.
"What is that?"
Instead of answering, the white-haired man turned to the dark lord and told him, "We need to do emergency surgery on your son immediately, you need to leave, we need to clear the surgical theatre."
In a fit of irony, Darth Vader, one of the most dangerous people in the galaxy, felt himself being forced towards the door and out of the med bay. He demanded to know what was going on, what was wrong with Luke, but he was given no answers, the doors closed and overhead lights came on indicating the pre-op sterilization procedure had already started. He looked at his son lying helpless on the table, unconscious and unaware. What was going on? What was wrong with his child?
The older medic held up a transparisteel tube and Vader looked at the unusual flesh colored contents inside of it.
"It survived the carbon freeze," the medic told him. "We got it before it was fully developed."
"What is it?" Vader asked.
"Some kind of embryo," the medic said. "It's not developed enough to know for sure, but I don't think it's the same species as the creature that implanted it."
"Implanted?"
"Apparently that thing in the case reproduces by paralyzing a human host and implanting an embryo for the body to house until it's fully developed."
Vader gazed at the unidentifiable object in the tube, feeling completely lost. For only partially developed it looked like an overgrown parasite.
"How long does it take for an embryo to come full term?"
"Well it varies from species," the medic said. "But this one developed at an alarming rate. A few more hours...and I believe it would've been full term."
It was obvious the medic was just as clueless about what all this meant as the dark lord was.
"Lord Vader...this thing was implanted in your son's chest, it was growing in your son's chest...it didn't travel to his abdomen, nor do I believe it would've...the only way it could've gotten out of him was...would be...through his chest wall."
Vader felt like he stood there in total shock for several long minutes.
"This thing is dead?" Vader had to be sure.
"Yes, without its host, it stopped developing and died from lack of oxygen."
The older man paused for a moment before asking, "The rest of the eggs were destroyed?"
"Yes. They were set on fire," Vader answered.
"And we're positive none survived?"
"No. Anything that didn't immediately burn to charred remains was put in the ship's incinerator."
"Small favors...all the same, with your permission sir, I'd like to do a postmortem on the creature we have, try to get some answers as to what we found."
"If you're sure it's dead, and it can't cause any harm."
"Won't know until I start, but I'll take all available precautions," the medic answered.
"I want a technician standing by with a flame thrower just incase," Vader told him.
"Yes, milord."
"What about Luke?"
"We're going to make sure nothing's left," the medic explained. "We're running every test, every scan, every probe, every scope, we drew some blood work, found the paralytic agent, also the chemical that made him comatose. As fast as the embryo was growing in him, we should be able to test for any antibodies he may have contracted within a few hours. Lord Vader, I give you my word we will not stop running every test in our protocol until we know for fact he is out of danger."
"You will inform me of any change in Luke's condition."
"Yes, Lord Vader."
The dark lord left the med bay without another word, stormed through the corridors until he reached his private chamber and let the door slide shut behind him. Only there, only now, alone and in the dark, did he give in to his emotions, and the towering, menacing figure in leather and armor shook and trembled.
"Luke..." the sound crackled through his vocoder as on the other side of the mechanics, his voice threatened to break as he finally gave in to the fear and terror that had plagued him since Luke's attack. Just how close he had come to losing his son, and how easy it would have been since nobody had any idea what they were dealing with. He'd already lost Padme 18 years ago when Luke was born, if anything had happened to Luke, he would be truly alone. The visual image from the medic's words of how the creature had developed and what it would've done to Luke if it reached full term shook the dark lord to his core. Seeing him lay on the exam table completely helpless took him back, Luke had been born distressed and for several hours following Padme's own death the boy, so tiny, so helpless, had been touch and go, hooked up to so many machines, before the medics assured the former Jedi that the baby would live, and recover, and grow up. Now he had almost lost his son again. "Luke!"
Luke Skywalker felt the steady movement in his chest as it rose and fell with every breath he took. That was the first sensation he was aware of, but gradually there were others. One was an uncomfortable feeling of breathing tubes up his nose. Why had somebody done that? He couldn't get his eyes open yet but he raised his hand to remove them, but then another sensation hit him. Another was the feeling of a sheet under him that brushed his skin when he moved, so he was in a bed somewhere. Another was a familiar mechanized sound he knew he'd heard before but couldn't place at that exact moment, and another was a cold breeze touching his skin.
That forced Luke's eyes open and he was immediately met with the overhead lights of the med bay on his father's ship. He closed his eyes just as quickly and slowly opened them again, allowing them to adapt to the sudden brightness. Then he saw the figure in black standing beside him, and saw other people in the room, medics, he knew from their uniforms.
"Father?"
His voice was weak, he hardly recognized it. His throat hurt, his neck hurt, his chest hurt. He was cold. Luke looked down and his eyes widened when he saw his sheet had been pulled down. Frantically he grabbed the sheet and in one fluid movement whipped it over his body clear up to his shoulders, he looked up at his father and asked, "What's going on? What happened?"
The unseeing, unblinking lenses stared down at him intently. "Luke, do you remember what happened?"
Luke tried to think. He also wrestled one free hand out from under the sheet and pulled the tubes out of his nose. He hated that feeling. He tried to think.
"We were examining the wreck in the hold...there were these eggs, green eggs, they were moving."
"I know," Vader said.
"One of them lunged at me."
"I know."
"Father!" Luke's voice was full of terror, as were his eyes, "there were dozens of those eggs."
"I know," Vader pressed a gloved hand against his shoulder, "You don't need to worry, they were destroyed."
"Are you sure?" Luke asked.
"I'm positive. What else do you remember?"
He wracked his brain.
"I don't know...I think for a while I had nightmares about something smothering me."
Then his eyes widened.
"It wasn't a dream, was it?"
Vader shook his head. "No, my son. But you have nothing to fear, the creature is dead, and you are safe."
"A...are you sure?" Luke asked.
"It's a very long story, Luke," Vader patted his arm reassuringly, "it's not something you want to hear, nor for that matter, is it something I want to tell...but I will, and you will, when the time is right. But you are fine. The medics are going to keep you here for a while just to run some tests, but you don't need to worry."
Luke leaned back against the bed, and felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. Somehow he wasn't sure about that.
