Due to startling incentive from the dastardly KungFu Jedi and the excitement from my other reviews, I did a speed-of-light update! :-D If only I could do that with my other stories...
"I'm telling you, I've never seen anything like it in my entire medical career!"
Kobayashi listened intently to the conversation the doctors were having.
The Accuser had rejoined the fleet five hours ago and Kerrick had reported that besides finding Darth Vader's comlink, there had been no other signs of him being there. However, he had found a suspicious-looking man so he brought him along. Supposedly, they were going to bring the boy to the medical wing because he had been showing signs of illness.
The door to the medical wing opened as the doctors complained about the odd incidents with the crew of the Executor. Oddly enough, just after Kerrick's ship arrived, the symptoms spread to the rest of Death Squadron and worsened on the Executor; over half the crew had been in the med-wing at some point.
Stormtroopers walked in, flanking the door. Kerrick followed them, half carrying the man that the entire ship had heard about through the door. At first, the person seemed to be just as described: timid and quiet. Then, all of a sudden, as if he just realized that he was in the med-wing, the man panicked.
What happened next was astonishing to everybody in the room. Any glass shattered, immediately sending shards flying in all directions as people ducked under beds and desks. While all of that went on, the man flailed and tried to run out of the room as Kerrick and the two troopers wrestled with him. Kobayashi was hiding under his own bed watching the whole incident. A doctor rushed over with a sedative, but got kicked squarely in the chest by the guy. Kerrick backhanded him and sent him spinning to the ground, but he quickly recovered.
Kobayashi did notice one thing: the man just wanted to get out; he didn't seem to care particularly about hurting anyone. He was in such a state that he hit anybody or anything that got in his way, but he didn't go out of his way to hurt them.
The three Imperials finally managed to restrain him but they still couldn't knock him out.
Kobayashi peeked out from under his bed. "Is it safe?"
Another patient laughed shakily. "I'm not sure."
After what seemed an eternity, a doctor finally managed to coax the man into sitting on one of the beds and not trying to get out as fast as he could. Kerrick ordered the stormtroopers to watch him and stun him if he tried to get up. The man seemed to understand that he was cornered but in no way did it calm him down.
Kobayashi hesitantly walked toward the bed where the man sat, which was right beside his own. "Hello, there,"
The stormtroopers exchanged looks but let Kobayashi get near the guy. The person looked at him with eyes filled with trepidation. His body was visibly trembling.
"Hey, it's okay," Kobayashi said in a soothing tone, although he himself was feeling terrified… though he didn't know why. "I'm not going to hurt you."
The man watched him, saying nothing.
"My name is Kobayashi Beillane," Kobayashi introduced himself slowly. "What's yours?"
A blank stare was all he got in response.
"Uh… so, I guess you don't like the medical wing?" Kobayashi went on, waiting for any sort of reaction. "Quite frankly it always looked a little bland to me… you know, white walls and ceiling with a grey floor? It's an eye sore… um… but the way you redecorated it… it sure added some color!"
Kobayashi gave a shaky chuckle and looked around the room at the man's "redecorating" skills. Different colored medicines were spilled all over the place and dripping down the walls as maintenance droids cleaned up the mess.
Kobayashi felt his eyes stinging. Completely bewildered, he touched his face and felt tears leak out of his eyes. "What in the…"
Hearing movement beside him, Kobayashi turned and saw the man sitting on the bed with his legs now tucked under his chin, tears of terror leaking out of his eyes.
Kobayashi was getting irritated with the whole situation; he was terrified and he didn't know why, he was nervous and he could somewhat understand that, but it was still more than he liked, and on to top it off, he was now crying and he didn't have a clue why that was happening!
Kobayashi growled in exasperation before collapsing once again on his own bed as a doctor walked over to the man with a needle in her hand. The man immediately tensed.
"It's okay," she said in a soft tone. "Don't worry about a thing. This will only hurt a little bit. I'm just going to get a blood sample, okay? Don't worry about it… everything's going to be fine…"
The man had a look saying that everyone would not be fine, but for some reason—although it might have had to do with her friendly gesture of putting a reassuring arm around him—he didn't do anything. The needle went into his left arm, with him wincing, turning a sickly green, and looking away. The doctor noticed and worked as quickly as she could without hurting him. Within the minute, she was finished.
The doctor walked away to get the results. In the meantime, the man was to be taken down to the detention block. Kobayashi, although wary of the guy flailing around and hitting someone again, felt sorry for him.
After the man had been escorted out (without an issue, for the boy seemed more than happy to leave), Kobayashi looked over at Kerrick, who had remained.
"Who is that?" he said when his friend walked over to his bed.
Kerrick shook his head. "I don't know. I found him at the outpost, more silent than space itself. I don't know if he doesn't understand us or if he just won't talk… but the interrogation should decide that."
"You're going to interrogate him?" Kobayashi asked in surprise.
"I've got no choice," Kerrick replied. "I really hate to do it to someone so obviously disoriented and lost, but he won't talk. If he could just say something, I would at least have an idea as to what to do with him… but that fiasco with him pretty much trying to take out the entire med-wing was enough to tell me that he's too dangerous to be left outside of a cell. What are you doing in here, anyway?"
"Supposedly I passed out," Kobayashi shrugged. "I don't remember a thing of it. They're going to confine me to my quarters for about a day tomorrow.
"Half the crew's been through here with some sort of problem; nervous breakdown, collapsing from exhaustion, migraines due to stress… nobody knows what's going on. Here's the weird part: when you showed back up with the Accuser, the entire Death Squadron started having the same problems!"
"The Accuser had the same problems as well," Kerrick informed him. "It was baffling the doctors on board; the moment we left the outpost, everyone started having issues of some sort; the entire crew went through that med-wing… every last one of them! Even I went in there for a migraine!"
Kobayashi leaned back against the pillows on his bed. "Maybe it was something on the outpost that spread?"
Kerrick sighed. "I haven't a clue, Koby. The doctors say they've found nothing. No bacteria, nothing. They don't know what's causing it."
Suddenly, the lights flickered, faded out, and then came back to life. Kerrick stood up immediately.
"What was that?" Kobayashi asked his friend.
"I'm not sure, but I'm going to find out," Kerrick responded, running out of the room.
Zhymmia Kenzee watched intently as two stormtroopers escorted a young Human man around her age down the hall of the detention block. As the officer in charge of that cell block, Zhymmia had to know who was going in and out.
After the stormtroopers had put the man in his cell and closed the door behind them they both sighed and took off their helmets, looking over at another officer in the room.
"Lt. Reukli, you're going to have trouble with this one." One of the troopers said.
Lt. Shiine Reukli, who had been guiding Zhymmia through her duties since she was a new recruit, put his datapad down and looked at them. "What do you mean? It seemed easy enough for you two to get him in his cell. He didn't even fight back."
The other trooper looked at him. "Well he may not have given us a fight now, sir, but he sure caused a raucous in the medical wing. The entire place is wrecked!"
Reukli crossed his arms. "How did he manage that?"
Both troopers shrugged. "We don't know. He started flailing around like crazy and everything in the room shattered."
Zhymmia joined Lt. Reukli. "Shattered?"
The troopers nodded. "Yes, ma'am,"
Lt. Reukli waved his hand dismissively. "Well, he may have caused problems there but he's in a cell now, and he's schedule to be interrogated within the hour by Cdr. Arkana. There's nothing to worry about; go back to your posts, troopers."
They saluted Lt. Reukli who returned the salute before walking by Zhymmia and repeating the act. Zhymmia returned their salute and they entered a turbolift, exiting the room.
Zhymmia looked over at her superior officer. "What is he, a Rebel?"
The lieutenant shrugged. "To tell you the truth, I don't know. Nobody does. But we'll find out soon enough; Cdr. Arkana's pretty ruthless with his interrogations."
Within the cell, the man looked around at his new surroundings. It was a very small room with the floor raised in the corner to substitute as a bed. The walls and ceiling were grey and the floor was black.
Bored out of his skull, the man leaned against the door. He wanted to get out. He didn't want to stay in the room! There had to be some sort of way out…
Almost as if answering his wish, the man could almost see a tangled bunch of wires through the wall. In his mind's eye it was like a cutaway from a blueprint. The man held his hands in the air and started twisting them around, imagining them clipping and tearing certain wires, which they started to do.
One wire, which was yellow, started to glow blue, and the man saw ray shields appear in his head. He nodded to himself; if the door opened, that wire would activate automatic ray shields. He twisted his hands to where he tore the wire without too many sparks flying and starting a fire.
Another wire, a green one, showed him that it opened the door. Oh, I get it, he thought to himself before cutting off the current going through the wire. Next, he reversed the current, tilting his head to the side. This game was fun!
The door to the room opened and the man stepped out stretching his arms. What was he going to do now?
"Hey! You there!"
The man turned and saw a woman with dark brown skin and black hair running towards him. Confused, the man looked around. What was that woman doing, anyway?
"Don't move!" she shouted, pointing something at him.
Bewildered, the man looked around again. What did "don't move" mean?
A man with red hair and green eyes ran up behind her, his hands also pointing something at him. "Hold your hands over your head!"
The man stared at them, not knowing what to do. Who were these strange people?
The two started to advance on him threateningly. Scared, he took off in the opposite direction as blaster fire was heard behind him.
He ran down the corridor and took a sharp left, running right into a turbolift just as the doors were closing. The turbolift sped upwards.
Terrified, the man sat in the corner and tucked his knees under his chin, waiting to see what would happen next. Fear muddled everything in his head, so he tried to release it. Then, suddenly, the turbolift stopped dead in its tracks.
The power had gone out.
Many, many light years away, Obi-Wan Kenobi sat on his bed, his mouth half open from shock. Was that a Force-sensitive he sensed? Someone was accessing the Force like crazy, that much was for sure. It was almost instinctive!
Obi-Wan couldn't tell who it was… it had a familiar tint to it, but the emotions muddled it up so much it was practically foreign.
Kobayashi groaned as he tried to open the door to the medical wing. He was just exiting to go to his quarters when the power, which had been flickering, finally died out. People were trapped in the medical wing and without life support functioning properly; they were starting to run out of oxygen. He had to open that door!
Other people were running around trying to help everyone else or trying to assess what had gone wrong.
"Goodness… this… day… just keeps… getting… better and… better!" Kobayashi said between pushing and pulling to get the door open.
It had been about three days since they had left Outpost 37752. Everything had seemed normal then! One thing was for sure: If Kobayashi got out of this situation alive he was going to blow that outpost up!
"Warning: Oxygen level below twenty percent. Please activate life support at once."
The emergency computer voice had been repeating that oxygen levels were decreasing for the past twenty minutes.
Kobayashi finally got some leeway with the door. He managed to open it far enough to where he could stick his hands in to pull harder.
After doing so, he opened it halfway, far enough for people to squeeze through one at a time.
Kobayashi collapsed against the wall and sighed, wiping the sweat from his brow. This was insane. There was no logical explanation to what had been going on for the past three days!
Before the whole situation with the power going out had started, one of the doctors had called Kerrick, Lt Cdr. Carh'la Tade-who was Kobayashi's direct superior-, Commanders Jaku Wynnopin and Rowan Chupa-Pau, and Capt. Mentzer to the med-wing. Off in the distance, Kobayashi saw Kerrick, Cdr. Chupa-Pau, Carh'la, and Capt. Mentzer running towards them.
"Is everyone alright?" Carh'la asked between her gasps of air.
They all nodded, one doctor looking grim and pale. Kerrick and his fellow lieutenant commander walked over to help the patients while Capt. Mentzer and Cdr. Chupa-Pau went over to the doctor in question.
"What did you call us for?" the commander asked.
Kobayashi muttered under his breath, "The power is out, life support's not running, we're all going to die, and they're talking calmly about something that a doctor was going to tell them before this incident started?"
"I know the identity of that boy that Lt Cdr. Chelcu brought in," the doctor answered.
"We don't have time for this!" Capt. Mentzer bellowed, being the voice of reason.
"Sir, it's very important that I tell you this," the doctor interrupted, sounding urgent. "I ran the blood test again and again on different computers, using different systems, but I got the same result every time."
"Well?" Capt. Mentzer pressed impatiently.
"Sir… it's… it's Lord Vader," the doctor managed to get out.
For what seemed an eternity, it was so silent that one could hear a pin drop. Kobayashi stood flabbergasted with the rest who heard the doctor.
That man was Darth Vader? How could that even be possible? It wasn't even fathomable!
Suddenly, the power came back on, just as abruptly as it had turned off. Everyone looked around and they saw the man standing off in the distance, watching them curiously.
"U-uh…" Kobayashi stammered uncertainly.
The young man stared at them before turning to walk away.
"Wait!" Kobayashi called, getting a dirty look from everyone in the corridor.
The man turned around halfway, not understanding Kobayashi's meaning.
Kobayashi ran over with Kerrick chasing after him. Startled, the man took a step back and the power began to flicker once again.
Kobayashi and Kerrick both stopped dead in their tracks as the realization hit them.
It was him. It had been him the whole time!
Ever since Vader had gone missing, there had been problems on the ship…
Kobayashi blinked, so stunned he wasn't able to do anything else.
The power going out, the objects in the med-wing breaking, everyone feeling scared or nervous or stressed…
It was all him!
The power stopped flickering and Vader paused, looking uncertain. He obviously couldn't understand any of them through speech, but he seemed to understand body language pretty well.
Mentzer was gaping at him, making him feel uneasy. Kobayashi quickly stepped forward, holding his hands up, palms out.
"It's okay," he said calmly. "We're not going to hurt you."
"Lt. Beillane, how can you address Lord Vader in such a way?!" Capt. Mentzer bellowed.
That was a costly mistake. Terrified at the noise, Vader jumped back and the power died out once more. They heard Vader take off, running in the opposite direction. Kobayashi yelled out, running after him.
"Wait!" he shouted.
Vader turned the corner, Kobayashi hot on his trail, with poor Kerrick doing his best to keep up with the two.
Although Vader was shaky on his feet, he still knew how to run quickly. Kobayashi started falling behind.
Fortunately for Kobayashi and Kerrick, Vader turned a corner that led to a dead end, since all the doors in the area were sealed shut and couldn't open automatically with the power down. Kobayashi and Kerrick walked slowly towards Vader, holding their hands out reassuringly.
"I'm going to kill you for this; you do know that, right?" Kerrick whispered to his friend.
Kobayashi didn't move his gaze from the frightened Darth Vader. "If he doesn't kill us first,"
Behind them, Carh'la and Cdr. Chupa-Pau ran up, panting.
"Warning: Oxygen levels below ten percent. Please activate life support at once."
Oh, crap, I just realized I left you with another cliffie. *facepalm* SORRY! Don't worry, I'll update again soon (not tonight, though!). Please review!