Sawbones
"Unhand me, you goons!" the man complained loudly as he was escorted down one of the many gleaming corridors of the Star Destroyer Executor by two stormtroopers. The stormtroopers held him securely by the upper arms, their grip solid and firm. Surrounded by all the white, the man's bright red tunic and black pants stood out. "I don't need anyone to escort me to Sickbay! I've been a ship's surgeon long before you goons were out of diapers! What the heck is this, a dictatorship?"
"We're only doing our job, Sir." One of the stormtroopers replied. "We were ordered to escort you to Sickbay."
"I demand my rights to an attorney! I've been shanghaied!"
"Sickbay is right ahead, Sir. We'll be there in a few moments." The other stormtrooper added.
"Who's in charge of this sorry excuse for a starship?" The man tried to wiggle out of the stormtrooper's grasp but they held him firmly. They rounded a corner and passed through a doorway. The man stopped and shoved the troopers off, glancing around. "You call this a Sickbay? This is the sorriest medical facility I've ever seen, it's worst than a pigsty!"
"Lord Vader isn't currently on board, Sir." The first stormtrooper replied. His helmeted head glanced wistfully at the nearby exit.
"Well, where the heck is he?" The man complained, hands on his hips. He turned to glare at the two troopers with angry pale blue eyes, large bags under both eyes. His hair was still dark although it was going gray in places. When the troopers didn't move, he glared at them harder. "Well? Just don't stand there, man, go get him on the horn! If I'm going to be a doctor on this tub I'll need the proper medical equipment."
"Umm … one just doesn't bother Lord Vader, Sir." The second trooper tried to explain.
"Hmmph!" The man didn't seem impressed. "And why not?"
"Well, he has a bad temper. And he has the Force. And he can choke people with it."
"And I can make your whole body go numb by poking you with my finger!" The doctor pointed his index finger at the troopers and watched satisfied as they both quickly backed away from him. "Now I don't care if this Lord Vader fellow is God, I want him up here now. I already met two Gods and lived to tell the tale, so I'm not impressed."
"But…"
"As Chief Medical Officer, I outrank EVERYONE on this tub and you better not forget it." A droid rolled past the doctor and entered Sickbay. Turning, he followed it with his eyes. "What the heck is THAT?"
"A droid, Sir."
"Well, go grab it and get it out of here! What do I look like, an engineer? I won't have any robots in MY Sickbay! You can't trust those things. The moment you turn your back on them they'll start taking over the whole ship! You mark my word. I've seen it happen, too." The doctor complained loudly, waving his hands about in the air.
"Umm, Sir?" the first stormtrooper asked hesitantly. "What about the medical droids?"
"Medical droids?" he snorted. "Now wonder you people shanghaied me! Relying on droids to cure people. It's a nightmare! Get them ALL out of here and while you're at it, take that big swimming pool of green gunk, too."
"But Sir! That's the bacta tank!"
"I don't care if it's the warp drive! Get it out of here." The doctor shook his head sadly and ventured into his new office. He would soon have this place in tiptop shape. Placing his black bag onto the wooden desk, he turned to peer out into the main sickbay. The two troopers were still standing there, looking at each other. "Well? Now what's wrong?"
"Where are we supposed to move it to, Sir?"
The doctor rolled his eyes. These guys were worst than trainees! "Transfer it to a different ship in the fleet, on my authority. Now get busy! I need room for REAL medical equipment."
"Yes, Sir!" The stormtroopers went to a comlink on the wall and called their superior officer, reporting the need for more troopers to move the bacta tank out of Sickbay. Soon the room was filled with men dressed in white and black armor. They surrounded the tank and began moving it, the liquid bacta still inside.
The new doctor watched for a few moments, shaking his head sadly. They were all a bunch of idiots!
"Some fool better not bother me with a hangnail."
*.*.*.*
Down on Coruscant a new day was dawning, the sun rising up into the pale sky. The insistent ringing of his comlink awakened Darth Vader from a sound sleep. Sitting up in bed, he punched the button for audio only. Since he wasn't properly dressed yet, he couldn't let anyone see him without his mask. "Yes? What is it?"
"The new ship's doctor has arrived, Lord Vader. He is demanding to see you, Sir."
"Very well. I will be up shortly." As Vader showered and dressed, thoughts rolled around in his mind. So Palpatine had apparently found the new doctor he had mentioned. Perhaps that had been the real reason for his call yesterday and he had become ill from General Solo's cake before the Sith Lord had reached his palace. Thinking of his son lying sick in bed from Solo's foul cooking, the doctor's arrival couldn't be better. He would test this new doctor out and see if he could do anything for Luke. He was just about to put on his mask when a voice interrupted his thoughts.
"Good morning, Anakin." Obi-Wan's bluish-white spirit said cheerfully.
"What are you doing here?" Vader shook an angry fist at the image. "Go away. I have matters to attend to now."
"I'll just tag along then." The ghost replied.
Vader scowled under the mask as he attached his long black cape. "That's all I need! On top of all the other problems I have, you have to be following me around! I liked it better when I couldn't see you."
The dead Jedi didn't reply, just followed Vader out of the bedroom. Out in the corridor, they ran into Han, Leia and Chewie. The three Rebels were standing outside of Luke's room, worried expressions on their faces.
"Luke is sick." Leia told her father. "He keeps vomiting and his skin is cold and clammy. I think we better take him to see a doctor."
"There is a new doctor on my ship. We'll go see him." Vader entered his son's bedroom and saw that Luke was awake, one hand gripping his forehead. "How do you feel, Son?"
"Like a herd of banthas ran me over and that they're still inside my head, jumping on my brain." Luke said weakly. "I never felt so terrible!"
"You have a hangover." Obi-Wan told Luke. "It will pass."
"Ben?" Luke stared at the spot where Obi-Wan stood and weakly lifted a finger in the air in the ghost's direction. "One… two… three. There are three of you!"
"Firmly drunk." The spirit stated dryly, arms crossed over his chest.
Vader turned to his former master, anger in his voice. He stabbed a black-gloved finger at the ghost's chest. "You stay out of this!"
Han watched Vader talking to the empty air and moved a few steps closer to Leia, whispering. "I think your old man just went around the bend, if you know what I mean. He's a stack short of a full load."
"There's … someone there, Han. A … glowing man!" Leia whispered, her eyes wide in surprise. "I… I think it's General Kenobi."
"What kind of family am I marrying into?" Han muttered to himself, staring suspiciously at the empty air. "Seeing things that's not there…First Luke, then Vader and now Leia. Whatever it is, it's catching!"
Han bolted towards the door.
"Han, where are you going?" Leia cried as she hurried after him.
"This place is haunted! I'm getting out of here before the spooks get me!"
"Don't be ridiculous!" Leia said as she caught up with Han in the hallway and gripped his wrist. Holding on to him, she patted his hand. "Don't worry, Han. I promise you General Kenobi won't do you anything. And he's not a spook, just a dear old friend of the family."
"How can you be sure?" Han glanced nervously around at the walls and ceiling, as if expecting invisible hands to grab him. "I heard stories, Leia. Things you probably didn't hear, but I've been in some real rough places in my day and spacers talk. I didn't believe them, but with all three you seeing dead people…"
"Han! Those are just stories!" Leia rolled her eyes. Then she hugged him close, one arm over his shoulders. "You met General Kenobi, remember?"
"I did? When?"
"When you first met Luke and rescued me from the Death Star."
"You mean that old man with the hokey religion?" Han asked, recognition dawning in his brown eyes. He shoved Leia on the side and ran back into Luke's room. "That old guy owes me money!"
Inside the bedroom, Vader was helping his son out of bed. He gripped Luke under the arms while Chewie took his legs. Together, the two would carry the sick young man to Vader's shuttle.
Han looked around the room wildly, not seeing anything. So he started jumping up and down, waving his arms in the air. "Hey! Hey, over here! Come on, where are you?"
"GROWL?" Chewie asked Han.
"No, I'm not crazy! I'm trying to collect some money!"
"GRRRROWWLLL?" The Wookie grunted, worried.
"Hey, I know what I'm doing!" Han assured his friend. "The guy's around here somewhere and I'm going to find him!"
"ROOORRR?"
"No, you can't smell him! He's dead!" Han waved an arm at his co-pilot. "Just carry Luke to the shuttle. I'll handle this deadbeat."
Chewie shook his head, but did as he was told.
The smuggler stood in the now empty bedroom, scratching his chin. He was sure they're had to be a way to collect from the guy, but how? "Darn it! Everyone else can see him but me! I bet he arranged it that way. Probably hiding on lots of other bill collectors, too."
Han started down the hallway after his friends, a new idea forming in his warped brain. "If only I could make myself invisible!"
Outside, they all boarded Vader's Imperial Shuttle. Luke's friends were determined to go with him to see the doctor. There was no way they were going to hide in Vader's house while their friend was so sick, even if that meant going onto the Executor. They strapped the sick man into his seat and soon after that the shuttle took off. It flew up through the atmosphere of Coruscant and reached the blackness of space. Shortly after that, it landed safely in the Star Destroyer's shuttle bay. They disembarked and headed for Sickbay.
In the corridor to Sickbay, they passed a large group of stormtroopers, their white armor coated with green slime. Large shards of glass littered the floor as well as a virtual river of the green stuff.
"That smells like bacta." Han commented as he carefully trod on the slippery liquid.
"What has happened here?" Lord Vader demanded to know. The green gunk was getting all over his boots and the hem of his cape was dragging in the stuff. Also, with each step more of the bacta splashed up onto his black pants, leaving little green freckles. It was very undignified!
"Lord Vader! The bacta tank broke as we were moving it to the shuttle bay." A stormtrooper explained.
"On who's order were you moving it from Sickbay?"
"The new doctor, Sir! He refused to have it in the Sickbay, said he needed the room for real medical equipment! Sir!"
"Clean up this mess. I will deal with the new doctor." Vader replied as he continued towards Sickbay. Soon the party reached Sickbay and entered carrying Luke.
"Quick! Bring him over here!" The doctor told them as he led them over to the biobed. As soon as they placed the sick Jedi onto the strange bed, the monitor at the bed's head started to beep and little colored lights flashed. The doctor glanced at the readout and seemed to understand it. "Hmmm, drunk and overdosed on caffeine. What the heck has this man been eating? And I thought getting Jim to stay on a diet was bad. It's a good thing you brought this poor fellow in because all that caffeine is putting a strain on his heart. I'll fix him up in a jiffy."
Pulling a hypo out, he chose a setting on it and held it up to the light to check for air bubbles. Then he pressed it to Luke's arm and it hissed, injecting something into the Jedi's blood system. The warning indicators above the bed quieted and the flashing lights slowed. The doctor turned to face them. "He'll be fine now, just needs some sleep."
"You are the new doctor, I presume? I am Lord Vader." The Sith Lord glanced around the Sickbay, noticing not only was the bacta tank gone but all the medical droids as well. Turning back to the doctor, he realized he was being scanned by some hand-held medical device.
"By God, man! What happened to you? Sealing a man up in a tin can like corned beef isn't the answer! The original problem must be repaired! I knew this place was bad, but this is the Dark Ages!" The doctor started to run around the room wildly, pulling stuff out of cabinets.
"What are you doing?" Vader asked, nervous all of a sudden. This doctor wasn't like any of the others he had had working on his ship. Like General Solo, the man showed no fear of him whatsoever. The doctor's sudden slew of activity almost seemed to suggest that he thought there was a cure for his condition, which of course, there wasn't.
"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm getting ready to operate!" The doctor replied in a huff.
"On who?" Vader asked, afraid of the answer.
"On who? On you, of course! I can't allow a sick man to be walking around the ship!"
With that answer, Vader bolted into the hallway and fled. In the past, he suffered the poking and prodding of too many doctors. There was no way he was going to allow this strange new one operate on him, especially one who didn't even use bacta tanks!
"Come back here! You're in no condition to go galloping around the galaxy or anywhere else!" The doctor gave chase down the hallway, waving his hypo in the air. He soon caught up with the Sith Lord in the lift. "I assure you, I'm a real doctor unlike those loonies that served on this ship in the past. I spent some time going over the medical logs and the atrocities they got away with is horrifying."
"There is no cure for my condition." Vader told him, angry with himself for his temporary moment of weakness.
"With the medical advances these days, there's no reason a person shouldn't live to one hundred fifty-years-old!" The chief surgeon told him. "Says so right in the medical journals I read. Maybe even two hundred if you take good care of yourself."
"That is impossible." Vader scoffed.
"No it's not. I'd need to examine you more thoroughly, but I assure you I can cure almost anything. I've been the Chief Surgeon and Medical Officer aboard a starship more years than I can count. And these days the only thing that's still hard to fix are brain injuries. Since there's nothing wrong with your brain, I'm confident I can cure you."
Vader crossed his arms over the blinking lights on his chest panel. How many doctors had promised they could cure him, only to discover they couldn't? But perhaps he could devise a test for the annoying doctor to keep him off his back for a while. "There is something else you may help me with first."
"What?" the doctor asked, staring up at Vader's black mask.
"I wish you to find a solution to the poltergeist that's following me around."
"A poltergeist? What do you think I am, a ghostbuster?" Flinging his arms up into the air, the doctor headed back towards Sickbay. "Come along and I'll see what I can do. Poltergeist, indeed!"
Vader followed him.
As the doctor passed through the doorway to Sickbay, he stared up at the ceiling. "Dear Lord, why do I always have to get the crazy ones?"
To be continued….
Hope that was funny! I know it's not as funny as some chapters, but I guess they all can't be hilarious. Can anyone guess who the doctor is? Yep, I borrowed him from somewhere else. The next chapter might be with Luke! But Mara will be coming up soon!