"No, sir. I'll go and..."
"No, I have one in my office. I'll just be a moment."
When he returned less than a minute later it was to a scene of mystifying confusion, though for a moment he didn't realize, his tired brain struggling to register the unthinkable. The 4-OneBee stood exactly where he had left it, but it was now inactive, the lights in its eyes dark, motionless head still bent in regard of its patient...who was no longer there. Panicking, Hallin rushed up to the scanner bed whose white cloth was stained by several drops of blood surrounding the removed IV feeds. For long seconds Hallin just stared, eyes moving repeatedly between the deactivated droid and the empty bed...
Two blaster shots from the corridor beyond made his heart skip a beat and finally brought movement to immobile limbs. Dashing headlong into the brightly-lit corridor, he saw his patient leaning heavily against the wall to his left, barely upright, with a gaggle of stormtroopers about him in the corridor raising their blasters as they backed up.
"NO!" he shouted, running forward. "Don't shoot!"
By the time he reached him, the half-awake man had taken several faltering steps down the corridor whilst the troopers held to a wide semi-circle round him, blasters ready.
"Don't hurt him! He's coming round from surgery. He's just..."
"You have one minute to get him back in the bay, medic. Then we bring him down our way." The commanding stormtrooper's voice was clipped through his mask comm, but lost none of its threat.
"Fine... Fine, just stay back." Hallin stepped forward as another three medics appeared from the medi-bay, drawn by the commotion.
"Sir, three of the medical droids are..." one of them began, before finally realizing what was going on around him and trailing to silence.
"Fetch me a hypo, load it with a dose of Sinorin. Quickly!" Hallin hissed into the shocked medic's face.
Hallin hesitated at his next order...but the stormtroopers were a law unto themselves and this was turning very quickly into a situation he knew he couldn't control--and Lord Vader had made him directly responsible for the man. He turned to the second medic, his voice tinged with urgency.
"Contact Lord Vader directly. Use the comlink in my office. Tell him what's happening."
The white-faced man nodded, backing up to dash back into the medi-bay.
The patient had taken several more faltering steps down the hallway now, ignoring the troopers who kept a constant, set distance around him. His bare feet dragged as he paused, leaning his shoulder against the wall to leave a scarlet smear as he started forward again, his bruised and battered torso bare, a pair of white drawstring sleep-trousers his only clothing.
How was he doing this!
Uncertain, having never seen anyone recover this quickly from a full anesthetic, Hallin stepped toward him, his eyes drawn uneasily to the long, fresh scar running down the man's bare back just above his shoulder blades. This type of surgery was very delicate, not meant to have any stress put on it so soon.
How is the man standing...how is he awake at all?!
Level with him now, terrified that he would collapse at any moment causing further damage, Hallin placed his hand gently on the man's shoulder. "Please stop. You're injuring yourself--you have to stop."
The man slowed at this though he didn't turn, still resting his weight on his shoulder against the wall, his injured, bandaged arm clutched to his heaving chest, his shoulders dropping.
The troops about him all closed in slightly, and his head snapped up again, eyes focused dangerously on them. As one they brought their guns to bear, incredibly wary considering the state of the man they surrounded.
Glancing at them, open hand out to restrain them, Hallin realized for the first time that there were four troopers on the floor against the far wall, blasters scattered about them. Had this man done that? Surely not--how could he possibly...? Memory of the blaster-shots whirled back into Hallin's thoughts...
A medic came running from the bay behind him, holding out the hypo. Finally! Hallin grabbed it and turned quickly back to the man, thumb on the release...
And something inexplicable happened.
Somehow...somehow as he turned, he... His arm twisted back as if pushed, so that he ended up with the hypo pressed against his own body--and released the tranquilizer's full dose. He managed to turn to the other medic and whisper, "Antidote..." before his knees gave way.
When he came to, he was leaning awkwardly up with his back against the wall, the other two medics knelt about him, one repeating his name as the other gently tapped at his face.
"I'm...give me..." he managed, still struggling against the effects of the Sinorin, though the antidote was beginning to work through his system now.
He dragged his head around to see the stormtroopers still gathered at a wary distance about the injured man, who had pushed away from the wall, swaying, unable to go any further.
"Don't let them fire...keep them..." He managed to half-lift a hand to point, and one of the medics realized and set forward.
"Don't let him fall..." Hallin's voice was small and breathless and he tried again, struggling to stand. "Don't let him..."
Then the turbolift door at the edge of his vision slid open and a huge black form emerged to step into the bright white of the Star Destroyer's corridor. Lord Vader took everything in with a single glance, and in that moment was completely in control.
"STOP!" His voice was loud and low and gave no room for misunderstanding. Everyone in the corridor was immediately reduced to a frozen silence.
"MOVE BACK!" he barked--and the stormtroopers immediately withdrew, lowering their guns.
Hallin turned at the sound of a low sigh, half-exhaustion, half frustration, to see the injured man collapse to his knees in the still silence, slumping back to sit on his heels, head low, swaying unsteadily.
Lord Vader strode down the corridor, passing the downed troopers without a sideways glance, passing Hallin as he finally struggled to his feet, passing the silent and nervous medics and the armed stormtroopers who shied away from their imposing superior. When he reached the hunched man he crouched to one knee before him and studied him in silence for a long time, his huge, wide bulk dwarfing the smaller man. Chest and feet bare, battered and bruised and sutured, he seemed incredibly vulnerable beneath the black-armored austerity of his captor.
"Where are you going?" Vader finally asked, his quiet reproach tempered yet completely emotionless in the face of the willful, struggling man's obvious pain.
The man lifted his head with difficulty, the effort of staying even this upright clearly draining him, his frailty becoming more and more obvious, every reserve now spent.
Strangely, though Hallin didn't hear him speak, Lord Vader replied as if he had. "They are unharmed. You would do better to worry about yourself."
This time Hallin heard a word, little more than a sigh.
"...Han...?"
Again Lord Vader was silent for a long time, head slightly to one side. Then, the tone of his voice indicating some concession being made, he allowed, "I will retrieve him."
He reached forward to the slumped man whose breathing was becoming ever-more ragged. "And you will rest."
It wasn't so much the offer of a deal as a statement of the way things would be.
.
.
Luke's head was sagging, his whole body trembling with fatigue.
Still, he leaned back, trying without success to lift his arm against the overbearing ebony shadow which stretched out to him, though all consideration of resistance was gone now, all strength sapped. The lights split in his vision and everything began a slow, deliberate turn, as if gravity were momentarily disengaged. His head swam, the walls spun, everything twisted every direction at once.