Summary:
An accident reveals an old deception, and Darth Vader must make a decision that will change not only his life.
My thanks to Vanessa Djuva for allowing me to use "Tomas" as Piett's first
name.
Also, I would like to thank Dr. Curtis Saxton for his essay on Darth Vader's
injuries; it is available on http://www.theforce.net and largely inspired
this story. I must note, however, that the conclusions I have drawn are
my own, as well as any mistakes.
Chapter 2
"He's not breathing!"
"Kreth! Can you get a pulse on him?" Garin asked.
Reluctantly, Kenny laid his hand on Vader's chest. "I... I think I feel a heartbeat, but it's weak and very slow." Kenny looked up at Garin for guidance.
"We've got to get his helmet off. Where is that medical team?" Garin practically shouted that last sentence. He took Vader's helmet off and threw it aside. The upper part of the mask came next, revealing Darth Vader's pale, scarred face. Kenny gasped at the sight. Garin fumbled with the lower part of the mask. It was attached to a kind of neck guard, but within seconds, he managed to pry it loose and put it aside. He bowed over the unconscious man and started to give Lord Vader mouth-to- mouth.
"His pulse is still slow", Kenny said in a small, scared voice. The boy could not take his eyes off Vader's face. Fresh out of training, Kenny had yet to see a battle and what it could do to a human body.
Having done all they could do with the fighter at the moment, the team gathered round Garin and watched in morbid fascination as he continued to breathe for Vader.
Admiral Piett arrived in the hangar at a dead run, cursing the size of the ship and the speed limitations of turbo lifts and tube cars. He skidded to a halt in front of the tableau before him; Lord Vader was lying on the floor, unconscious or worse, without his mask and helmet. An ugly purplish bruise was forming on his left temple. A staff sergeant was crouched over him, giving him mouth to mouth, while a young crewman, hardly more than a boy, knelt next to him with his hand on Vader's chest. Three other men stood watching them in a semi circle. The boy looked about ready to pass out; his face was almost whiter than that of the Sithlord.
The staff sergeant stopped his attempts to resuscitate Vader and slapped the Sithlord's face, hard.
"Breathe!" he yelled. "Breathe, dammit! I won't let you slip away like that!"
"He can't", Piett told him with a calm he did not feel. "You must continue to breathe for him. The doctor is on his way."
Garin looked up for a moment, nodded once, and continued.
Piett gently laid a hand on Kenny's shoulder. The boy looked up at him, his eyes wide with shock.
"He's alive, Sir", he whispered. "I can feel his heart beat."
"It's alright, crewman. You've done well. Let me take over now."
Kenny scurried back to allow the admiral to take his place. Piett knelt down at Vader's side, touching the side of his neck lightly, searching for a pulse. Vader's skin felt cold and clammy under his touch. The pulse was weak, thready, and much too slow. At least he was still alive. They only had to keep him that way until the medical team arrived.
Piett heaved a sigh of relief when the hangar doors opened again to admit Dr. Parker Hanley, followed by a 2-1B unit with a repulsor gurney heaped with equipment. Piett had met him only once, when Dr. Hanley reported to him as he started his tour of duty on the Executor. The new CMO's brusque manner earned him the admiral's instant dislike, but aside from being insubordinate, he was also a good physician and an excellent surgeon. Back then, Piett decided he would simply have to put up with the man. After he, he could not be worse than Darth Vader, could he?
"Alright, people, the show's over", Parker Hanley announced, glaring at the tech team that still gawked at their Lord lying unconscious on the floor. "Move out of the way and let me do my job." Shoving the onlookers out of his way, he gestured to the 2-1B to hand him a scanner.
"But Sir, this is Lord Vader", the droid complained. "He has his own 2-1B unit to take care of him."
Hanley's eyes narrowed. "Well, I don't see it here, and we don't have time for professional courtesy. The man needs help now."
"Yes, Sir." 2-1B handed him the medical scanner before lowering the gurney so that they could load the patient onto it.
Quickly, Hanley ran the scanner over Vader's limp body, avoiding to disturb Garin, who was still breathing for the Sithlord. Laying the scanner aside in favor of a small lamp, he lifted Vader's eyelids and shone light into the startlingly blue eyes to check pupil reaction. "Good", he muttered. "A mild concussion and a couple bruised ribs, complicated by his need for constant life support." He patted Garin's shoulder. "You can stop now, Sergeant. We'll put him on oxygen." Garin slumped back, red faced and sweating. Hanley signaled Garin's team to help him lift Vader onto the gurney. He did not have to explain much; every tech team was routinely trained in first aid. They hastily assumed position around Darth Vader.
"Okay, boys, on the count of three, lift him up. One, two, three!"
They did, and Hanley, who supported Vader's head and neck, nearly
dropped him when a strangled, gurgling sound came from the Dark Lord's
throat.
"Trying to breathe on your own, hmmm?" he muttered. "Good man. Do that again."
The team moved back as one when Vader's left hand twitched in a sudden cramp. The still unconscious man struggled to draw air into his lungs.
"I can see you need help here. Relax", Hanley murmured, pressing a respirator over Vader's face. Pure oxygen was pumped into his starved lungs, and Vader's body went limp again.
Hanley stepped around to Vader's left side, and, removing the glove first, cut open the sleeve of the Dark Lord's suit. Producing a ready prepared syringe from the gurney's integral drug and instrument compartment, he injected Vader with a medication to counteract the symptoms of shock the Sithlord was showing.
On Admiral Piett's curious stare, he explained: "His blood pressure is too low, only 80 over 40. He probably went into shock when his life support system failed. He's not showing all classical symptoms. His pulse is slow instead of fast, but I believe that is part of his condition." He gestured towards the smashed respirator on Vader's chest. "We need to stabilize him before we move him to sickbay."
Checking Vader's pulse and blood pressure again, Dr. Hanley grunted in satisfaction. "That did the trick. He's stable enough for transport."
"I will check with you later, Doctor", Piett said as Hanley prepared to leave with his charge. The physician nodded, obviously already in sickbay with his thoughts.
Piett then turned to Garin, who was just picking himself up from the
floor.
"Sergeant, I believe you and your team are in for a commendation. That
was excellent work, and you probably saved Lord Vader's life today."
"Does that mean he won't be court martialed, Sir?" a member of Garin's team piped in.
Piett looked at the man. "Whatever for?" he inquired.
The man blushed deeply, fumbling for words. "Well, he... he did hit Lord Vader. In the face."
"Oh, that." Piett's lips twitched in amusement. "Lord Vader is not a member of the military, so the paragraph about hitting a senior officer does not apply to him. However, he does not need to know about it." He turned his attention towards Garin. "Incidentally, what made you hit him?"
Garin straightened up, wiping the sweat from his brow with his sleeve.
"Sir, I've never lost a pilot without enemy fire. I wasn't going to this
time", he said, tightly.
Piett nodded, satisfied. "Report to me later, sergeant. You and your team get some rest now."
"With your permission, Sir, I would like to find out what caused this." Garin gestured towards the crippled Avenger.
"Later, Sergeant, after you've rested. I will make sure nobody touches the ship until then. Dismissed." Piett signaled two stormtroopers and ordered them to guard the wreck before leaving for sickbay himself.
General Veers caught up with Piett almost at the door to the Executor's sickbay.
"Tomas! I just heard. How is he?" he called.
"I was just going to find out, Max", Piett replied. The two highest ranking officers on board the Executor had been on a first name basis for several months now. "He was still unconscious when they moved him."
"What happened?"
Piett palmed open the door before answering. "He took a TIE Avenger out for a test flight. The engines overheated, and one of them exploded. He's lucky to still be alive."
"I heard one of his rescuers slapped him?" Veers grinned at his friend. "I don't know if I should believe it, though."
Piett raised an eyebrow. "Believe it." He sighed. "I had no idea the rumor mill was that fast", he added.
Veers chuckled. "It's not. It will be at least two weeks until everybody on board knows. And I don't want to be in that crewmember's shoes then."
They both laughed when they entered sickbay's reception and emergency room.
Hanley entered the room at the same time, coming from the Intensive Care Unit.
"He is still unconscious", he said in way of greeting, shooting the officers a disapproving glance.
"How long till he wakes up?" Piett inquired.
"Difficult to say." Hanley shrugged. "He could regain consciousness any moment and have nothing more than a headache. Or he could still slip into a coma. It all depends on how long he was without oxygen."
"You're talking brain damage, right?" Veers asked quietly. The idea of someone as indestructible and fiercely independent as Vader turned into human vegetable seemed vaguely obscene to him.
Hanley nodded. "It is still a possibility. A remote one, gentlemen. His reflexes are good, and that is an excellent sign. However, it's impossible to check his higher brain functions before he is fully conscious."
"Any gut feeling, Doctor?"
Hanley snorted. "My gut feeling, as you so aptly put it, tells me he's going to be fine. But I would prefer to back it up with a scan. Now, you will excuse me while I see to my patient. I'll keep you posted." He turned on his heel and marched back into the ICU.
"Did he just throw us out, or what?" Veers asked with a look at Piett. The admiral shrugged.
"I never said he was nice. He's good at his job, though," was his reply.
Some time later, Hanley was immersed in the scan report.
"That's impossible", he muttered under his breath. "There must be a reason for his breathing impairment and his cardiac problem. I just know there is." He was loath to turn to any of the other medical officers on board for their input, if only for the sake of his patient's peace of mind. A man who kept his own medidroid would not appreciate being turned into a study subject for a whole group of physicians. Thus, Hanley had restricted access to Vader to himself and the one 2-1B unit that assisted him.
Clearing the report from his computer screen, he rubbed tired eyes and leaned back in his chair. He had spent the last three hours turning Darth Vader inside out, trying to determine what exactly was wrong with the man. His lungs and heart were definitely not the problem; Vader's lung capacity matched that of an athlete, and his heart was one of the strongest Hanley had ever seen in his career. Both were adequate for a man of Vader's size and muscle development. Obviously, the Sith kept in excellent shape. Hanley silently wondered if there was a single man on board the Executor who could take Vader up when it came to sheer physical fitness. Oh, there were bound to be a few men stronger than Vader, but these were slower and less well coordinated. Others might be faster, more agile, but lacked Vader's height and strength.
No, Vader's health problems were not caused by his heart and lungs, at least not directly. It was obvious to Hanley that the respiratory muscles were paralyzed, and thus Vader simply could not draw enough air into his lungs to survive for long without external help. The muscles themselves, including the diaphragm, were as well developed as could be expected from someone who worked out on a regular basis. In addition, his heartbeat dropped to a mere thirty beats per minute without external stimulus. The life support unit Vader wore as an integral part of his suit acted more like a pacemaker for both heart and lungs, supplying them with the impulse necessary to work according to his body's need for oxygen.
No, it had to be his nervous system. But where? Hanley got nice, strong impulses from the medulla oblongata, the brain stem, on the scan, and the broken neck Vader had suffered some time in his youth had been expertly repaired. The crushed vertebrae had been replaced with implants, and his nerve roots with cybernetic ones. Without them, Lord Darth Vader would be a helpless quadraplegic, paralyzed from the neck down and dependent on others to feed him, turn him over in bed, even clean him up.
Or had they? Hanley sat up in his chair, ramrod straight. What, he mused, if only part of the nerve roots had been repaired? What if the ones responsible for respiratory and cardiac function had been left out, considered too damaged even for that kind of repair at the time? He called up the scan again, enhancing the picture until it became too fuzzy to actually see anything. "Damn", he muttered under his breath and got up to stalk into the ICU unit
"2-1B, I need another scan of Lord Vader's neck, highest resolution."
"Yes, Sir", the droid replied and swiftly reset the scanner. "On screen now, Sir."
Hanley leaned closer to the screen, until he nearly touched it with his nose. "Enhance area Delta 2", he ordered. The 2-1B complied, and the screen changed to a large picture of one cybernetic nerve root snaking its way from the artificial vertebrae down. Hanley studied it, imprinting the tiniest details into his memory when he saw it. The structure that did not belong there.
"Oh gods of my ancestors, have mercy," he breathed. "2-1B, I need a scan of the nerve impulses in the cybernetic nerve root directly above screen area Delta 2, section 1 and below Delta 2, section 3."
"Scanning, Doctor. The pattern appears to be different. How is that possible?"
"Because somebody put an interfering transmitter in there. Prepare the patient for surgery."
"But, Sir, is that wise? He appears to be waking up."
Hanley looked down at Vader; the Sithlord's eyelids fluttered, and a low groan escaped the man's throat.
"I don't care. Frankly, I don't want him to wake up now. Sedate him immediately."
"But, Sir..." the droid protested.
"I said now!" Hanley hissed, and stalked out of the room to change into scrubs.
2-1B injected Vader with a sedative, and the Dark Lord slipped into a drug induced sleep.
Two hours later, Hanley removed the last of the transmitters attached to Vader's cybernetic nerves and slowly retracted the instruments from the tiny cuts in Vader's neck. Vader was placed face down on the operating table. Hanley had opted for a minimum invasive technique that allowed him to see what he was doing on a large screen, while being less of a strain on the patient at the same time.
"Okay, 2-1B, take him off the pacemaker now. Let's see if his heart beats without help."
The droid, who had been assisting Hanley, complied immediately. Vader's heart faltered, raced, then settled into a healthy rhythm.
"Good", Hanley observed. "Very good. Give him a minute, then take him off the respirator."
2-1B did exactly as ordered. For a moment, Vader's heartbeat picked up again before he drew his first independent breath. But soon he was breathing regularly, without help. His heart beat at a steady 68 beats per minute, perfectly normal.
"Yes!" Hanley crowed. "We did it! Close him up, and move him back to the ICU. But continue to monitor him. I don't want anything to go wrong with him."
On the bridge, Admiral Piett had been pacing for hours now, much to the silent amusement of his closest friend on board, General Maximilian Veers.
"You worry too much, Tomas", he observed. "You're going to wear down the floor if you keep it up, and how are you going to explain that to him?"
Piett stopped, gave Veers a strange look, and threw up his hands in disgust.
"I give up! I'm going down to sickbay and check for myself now", he announced. "Captain Durreen, you have the bridge." He stalked out at a quick pace, not even waiting for Veers.
The general shook his head and followed, although he had to run in order to catch up with Piett before he reached the turbo lift.
Hanley came back into the reception and emergency treatment area just as Veers and Piett entered.
"Gentlemen, I was about to call you", he began. "Surgery went well, and Lord Vader should wake up soon now."
"Surgery?" Piett echoed. "I was not aware of any injuries that made an operation necessary."
"He didn't have any. But he did have this." Hanley threw a small, clear plastic container to Piett; the admiral caught it effortlessly and looked at the tiny specks inside.
"What are these?" he asked.
"You could call them interference transmitters. Lord Vader had his neck broken, years ago, and these little buggers were implanted either along with or shortly after the cybernetic nerves that repaired the damage to his nervous system. They filtered out all but the strongest nerve impulses through the cybernetic system to his heart and lungs, making him dependant on a respirator and pacemaker."
"What?" Piett turned red with anger. "Who would do something like that to a sentient being?"
Veers, standing next to him, simply balled his fists. This was unbelievable, and yet Piett held the proof in his hands. "Do you really want to know?" he asked quietly. "I know only one person powerful enough to do that to Darth Vader."
Piett gulped. "There's no proof. But if you're right, we're all in deep..."
"... Bantha Poodoo", Veers finished the sentence for him. "He'll be stark raving mad when he finds out."
Hanley looked from Piett to Veers and back again. "Care to enlighten me, gentlemen? And what in the galaxy is Bantha Poodoo?"
"Oh", Veers said lightly, "it's usually translated as Bantha fodder, but it actually means excrement. Now, can we see Lord Vader?"
"Of course. He should be awake by now." Hanley ushered them into the ICU. Vader had been placed back in the diagnostic bed, surrounded by medical monitors. He seemed to be resting comfortably.
Piett stepped closer to the bed, eager to see that the Sithlord was indeed going to be alright, but at the same time reluctant to interrupt his rest.
"Lord Vader?" he asked quietly.
Vader's eyelids fluttered open, he slowly turned his head towards Piett, and the admiral noticed that the blue eyes did not quite focus.
"Admiral?" he asked in a slightly raspy voice. "What happened?"
"We were hoping you could tell us. How are you feeling?"
"My head hurts", was the simple reply. Vader frowned, trying again to focus his eyes on Piett. His head felt as if an AT-AT was tap-dancing on it, and he was so damned tired. Somebody touched his shoulder; he turned his head, and saw something blurry close to his eyes. A hand?
"How many fingers am I holding up?" an unknown voice asked.
Oh, the old check for concussion... Vader groaned, decided he did not even want to try before the AT-AT danced somewhere else than on his head, and allowed his eyelids to drop close. They were too heavy anyway.
"Okay, what day is it?" the voice asked again.
"Depends", Vader mumbled. "How long was I out?"
The voice chuckled. "Good answer. Don't worry, you're going to be alright. Just rest know."
Who's worrying? Vader wanted to say, but found that he was too tired to do so. All he wanted right now was rest his eyes, and get that damned AT- AT off his skull. A moment later, he was sound asleep.
Hanley straightened up. "He's going to be right as rain in a few days", he said, still chuckling. "His sense of humor definitely has not been impaired."
"I disagree, Doctor. Lord Vader never displayed a sense of humor before", Veers commented dryly.
"Except when he was going to kill someone", Piett added. "This is not normal for him."
Dr. Hanley raised his eyebrows. "Chalk it up to his weakened and sedated state, then. He was quite coherent for someone just waking up from anesthesia. Now, gentlemen, let him get some rest. You can see him again tomorrow, if you wish." He ushered the two officers out again.
"Is it just me", Veers asked Piett in the corridor, "or have we just been thrown out again?"
To be continued