Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (2 page)

Finely balanced forces jockeyed for position on the ground and in orbit as she waited for the data to trickle in. From a distance, the Imperial installation looked perfectly normal. It possessed a spaceport, shield generators, security compound, and so on-all the same as on any occupied world. But it was better defended than most, and the spaceport was crowded. Why land so many ships on commercial territory when there was plenty of space over by the slaving compound? More important, why were Imperial records on Cato Neimoidia so wildly different from what was actually here?

There was little to tell from the data, so she turned her attention to the starscape around them. No sign of Imperial reinforcements.

“Why hasn’t the Baron called for help yet?” she asked Nitram.

“I don’t know, sir. We’ve been monitoring signals closely. “

She cupped her chin and thought hard. It was only a matter of time before the Imperial fleet showed up, whether Baron Tarko called for it or not. All it took was just one fleeing freighter to sound the alarm and the Emperor’s boot would descend to crush the Rebels. Really, with forces evenly matched and Kota dragging his heels, she should already have sounded the retreat rather than risk the Salvation.

“Give me the comm, ” she said. “Don’t listen. “

Nitram’s ears went up and then flattened down against his skull. “Whatever you say, sir. “

She selected a little-used channel. “Blackout to Blackguard. Respond, please. “

The line crackled for a moment, and then Kota’s gruff voice came on. “I don’t have time to talk. “

“Bad luck. This is taking too long. You need to pull out. “

“Negative, Blackout. Leave if you want to. I’m staying to finish the job. “

She ignored the implied reproach in his words. “How? You’re never going to get close enough to the barracks to get Baron Tarko. It’s too well defended. “

“That’s no barracks, ” he said.

“Then what is it?”

“I don’t know, but it won’t be anything by the time I…”

Kota’s signal disappeared into static in time with a bright flash of light from below. Two of the probe droids winked out. The Rogue Shadow’s hear signature disappeared into an expanding ball of fire. Someone had dropped something big on Cato Neimoidia, taking out several Rebel and Imperial starfighters at once. Fire licked at the walls of the Imperial compound, making them glow bright red.

The crackle over the comm intensified.

“Respond, Blackguard. This is Blackout. Do you need help down there. Blackguard?”

Nothing.

Juno tried again, forcing herself to speak calmly. Nitram was watching.

“Blackguard to Blackout. Respond immediately!”

Nothing. The bridge was silent.

She stood, frozen, with one question echoing in her mind: What would the man she had loved have done now?

She knew the answer. He would do everything in his power to rescue his friend and Jedi Master. He would fight with every drop of energy in his body. He would let nothing stand in his way.

But she wasn’t him. She didn’t have his powers and she did have responsibilities he never had to consider. Besides, be was dead, and now there was no sign of Kota, either. What was she supposed to do-rescue a ghost? If she knew how to do that, she would have done it a year ago.

An alarm sounded. The bridge came to life around her.

“We’ve got company, ” said Nitram, gaze dancing across the rapidly filling display screen. “Two frigates, a cruiser, and-yes, a Star Destroyer, Imperial-class. Could be the Adjudicator. It’s launching fighters. Captain?”

Everyone on the bridge was looking at her.

“Recall our pilots, ” she said in a clear and level voice, knowing that her hand was being forced. There was only one responsible decision open to her now. “Bring everyone aboard, then get us out of here, fast. “

“At once, sir. “

Juno stepped back from the display screen in order to let her officers go about their work. Tiny dots converged on the Salvation as its starfighters broke off their engagements with their enemy and raced for safe harbor. She counted eighteen, which meant six pilots wouldn’t be going home. In exchange for what?

Again, the answer lay before her. Her crew was functioning perfectly well, and they knew through hard experience that Cato Neimoidia was better defended than they had expected. The Salvation had pricked the Empire and forced it to respond. Someone, somewhere, would be grateful for the Adjudicators unexpected absence from their skies.

But where did that leave her?

“Take us the long way to the rendezvous, ” she told Nitram. “We don’t want anyone on our rail. “

“Yes, sir. “

Nitram didn’t question her order, even though the reason she had given him was meaningless. The truth was that she needed time to think.

Kota was gone. How was she going to explain that to the alliance leadership?

Farewell, old friend, she thought. What kind of mess have you landed me in this time?

“Calculations complete, ” said Nitram.

“Ready the hyperdrive, ” she responded automatically. The shields were taking a heavy pounding, making the floor sway beneath her. Just two starfighters remained outside. When they were aboard, she gave the order.

“Jump. “

The Salvation rushed into hyperspace, leaving the ill-fated world, its mysteries and its ghosts, far behind.

Present day…

From the depths of meditation came a man’s voice.

“You’re running out of executioners. Baron!”

Starkiller opened his eyes. He knew that voice. It rugged at parts of him that had lain dormant for a long time-or never genuinely existed at all, depending on one’s viewpoint.

He shied away from both memory and contemplation. There was no point wasting energy on either when his very survival was at stake. How many days he had been down the pit he no longer knew, but in that time he had neither eaten nor slept. His enemy wasn’t physical in the sense of a foe he could strike down or manipulate. It was himself-his fallible body, his weak mind, his faltering spirit. He would endure and emerge whole, or never emerge at all.

Such was the life of Darth Vader’s secret apprentice.

“He is dead. “

“Then he is now more powerful than ever. “

More voices. He closed his eyes and shook his head. Kneeling, he placed his manacled hands on the slick metal surface below him and concentrated on hearing the world outside.

Long stretches of isolation had attuned him to the cloning facility’s many moods. Through the metal he heard a relentless hiss that could only be rain. Sharp cracking sounds were lightning, coming and going in staccato waves. Rolling rumbles were thunder, and a deeper note still was the song of seabed-hugging currents that circled the world.

He was on Kamino. Starkiller was sure of that much. He had been reborn on the distant water world, where a significant percentage of the Emperor’s stormtroopers were grown. Here it was that he would live and grow strong, or die weak and unmourned. Every hardship, every hurdle, was one step closer to full mastery of his fate. That was the lesson underlying all lessons.

A new note entered the planet’s endless song: the scream of a TIE advanced prototype starfighter. Angular and fleet, with bent vanes, it entered the atmosphere with a whip-crack sonic boom and descended on a bold, high-energy descent toward the facility.

Starkiller tensed. He knew that ship’s sound and could sense the well-practiced hand behind its controls. He heard stormtroopers marching quickly in response to their master’s electronic summons, calling orders to one another as they went. Blast doors opened and closed with booming thuds. The facility woke from its unattended slumber.

He didn’t move as the TIE fighter landed. He didn’t open his eyes as two heavy, booted feet dropped onto the platform and began the long walk through the facility. He breathed at a steady-pace through the whine of the turbolift and the hiss of doors opening. A ring of red lights at the top of the pit came on, and although he felt the light against his hunched back, he didn’t look up.

He heard breathing, mechanical and regular. Heavy footsteps came to the very lip of the pit, and stopped.

“You’re alive, ” said Darth Vader.

At the voice of his former Master, Starkiller looked up, blinking against the light. Vader’s boots were three meters above him, barely visible behind the lights and the grate that separated the pit from the dark room beyond. The Dark Lord loomed like a shadow, a black hole in the shape of a robed man.

Starkiller’s throat worked. It was so dry he could barely talk at all.

“How long this time?”

“Thirteen days. Impressive. “

The compliment was hard-won. It ground out of the triangular grille covering Vader’s mouth and fell on Starkiller’s ears like dust.

“The Force gives me all I need. “

“The Force?”

The hint of praise turned to warning, as it did so often.

Starkiller lowered his head. He knew what was required. The weeks of training and isolation he had endured made that exceedingly clear.

“The dark side, I mean, my Master. “

One gloved hand moved. The grate flew open.

“Come, ” said the dark figure above him.

The metal floor beneath Starkiller lurched and began to ascend. He forced his leg muscles to unlock from their long kneeling position, and stood to meet Darth Vader upright and unbowed.

The room above was sparsely furnished, with no windows, just one exit-the turbolift-and little light. Shadows cast by terminals and floor lamps made its very dimensions ambiguous, but Starkiller knew from long training exercises that the room was circular and its walls were impenetrable. He flexed his fingers, yearning for a lightsaber to hold. Muscle memory was keener than any other kind. Even with the new skills Darth Vader had taught him, his hands wanted to fight the way he knew best.

At the very edge of his vision stood several skeletal PROXY droids, awaiting activation. If he was lucky, he would be unshackled and allowed to duel some of them. If not…

The lift ground to a halt. Vader stepped back to study him. Starkiller felt the keen eye of the Sith Lord on his gaunt form even through the layers of durasteel, obsidian, and plasteel that covered the man’s face. Something was different. Although nothing had been said, he could tell that this was no ordinary training session.

He waited. There was no hurrying Darth Vader.

“I have a mission for you. “

“Yes, my Master. “

“Starkiller’s former conspirator has been captured. “

He experienced a moment of confusion. Then his memories stirred, providing a name. The name of the one who had lured him away from the dark side and to his death.

The same voice that had disturbed him from his meditation…

“Vader thinks he’s turned you. But I can sense your future, and Vader isn’t part of it. I sense only… me? “

“General Kota, ” he said, struggling to keep himself anchored to the present.

“Yes. You will travel to Cato Neimoidia and execute him. “

“And then will my training be complete, Master?”

“You will not he ready to face the Emperor until you have faced a true Jedi Master. “

The voice was Darth Vader’s, but again from another time, another memory. The present-day Darth Vader hadn’t spoken at all.

Starkiller put his manacled hands to his head and turned away, lest his disconcertion be exposed. No matter how he tried, no matter how he concentrated, the past simply wouldn’t leave him alone.

Vader’s close attention hadn’t ebbed. “You are still haunted by visions. “

“Yes. ” There was no point denying it. “Yes, my Master. “

“Tell me what you see. “

He didn’t know where to start. Thirteen days, this time, he had stayed motionless in the pit, subjected to visions and hallucinations through all his senses: strange odors, fleeting touches, voices calling him, sights he could never have imagined. He tried to ignore them, and when he couldn’t ignore them, he tried to piece them together instead. Neither was entirely possible, and every attempt hurt so badly he despaired of it ever ending.

“Sometimes, ” he said, falteringly, “I smell a forest on fire. “

“Continue. “

“I see the general falling, and feel the ground shake as a starship crashes around me. And I hear a woman-a woman’s voice-when I try to sleep. ” He swallowed. This was the most painful recollection of all. “I can’t understand what she’s saying. Do you know who she is?”

A pleading note had entered his voice, and he hated himself for it.

“They are the memories of a dead man. ” Vader came closer, his physical presence lending weight to his words. “A side effect of the accelerated cloning process and the memory flashes used to train you. They will fade. “

“What if they don’t?”

“Then you will be of no use to me. “

Starkiller straightened. For the first time, that fact had been said aloud. He had always known it was so; Darth Vader wasn’t renowned for his charity. But to hear it stated so baldly-that this Starkiller, this clone, would be disposed of like some faulty droid if he didn’t pull himself together soon-had a profoundly focusing effect.

Nor for long.

“Try the Corellian razor bounds. “

That was a new voice, one he hadn’t heard before. He winced, and knew that by wincing he had effectively doomed himself.

“Starkiller’s emotions made him weak, ” the Dark Lord said. “If you are to serve me, you must be strong. “

What form of service that might take, Darth Vader had never said. To take the former Starkiller’s place, he presumed, as a weapon that could be aimed at the Emperor then Vader’s enemies whenever he commanded. From treacherous commanders to perhaps the Emperor himself-that was how it had been, and how he assumed it would be now. For the moment, however, that didn’t matter. The new Starkiller wanted only to live.

“I am strong, my Master, and I am getting stronger. “

Vader stepped behind him and waved a hand. Metal complained as the manacles dropped from Starkiller’s wrists and hit the floor with a boom.

“Show me. “