Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (3 page)

Numerous pairs of eyes lit up in the shadows. The PROXY droids were activating. Starkiller’s fists balled in readiness. He had defeated their training programs over and over again. There wasn’t a Jedi simulation that could beat him.

But this was different. Even as Darth Vader provided him with his weapons-two lightsabers with marched crystals, producing identical red blades-he saw that he wouldn’t be fighting Jedi Knights this time. The targets stepping out of the shadows wore uniforms not dissimilar in color to the Sith’s ancient enemy, but these were ordinary men armed with nothing more than blasters.

He had seen such armor before, in the memories of the original Starkiller’s life. Men like this had fought him in a TIE fighter factory high above Nar Shaddaa. They had been on Corellia, too. He remembered the places clearly, even if he couldn’t put them in context. The uniforms weren’t Imperial. That was the only thing he could be sure of.

More voices came to him, a veritable babble of overlapping statements that went some way to filling one hole in his memory.

“We’ll join your alliance. “

“All we needed was someone to take the initiative. “

“Let this he an official Declaration of Rebellion. “

And he did remember now. The PROXY droids were wearing the uniform of Kota’s militia, later adopted by the Rebellion-the Rebellion the original Starkiller had brought into being through a mixture of deceit and something that felt, through the obscuring veils of the cloning process, remarkably like sincerity.

“You must destroy what he created, ” Darth Vader intoned.

Starkiller ground his teeth together. If he was going to survive the coming minutes, he had to concentrate. He wasn’t really destroying the Rebellion, just an imitation of it. And what did the Rebellion matter now, anyway? It existed. The original Starkiller was dead. He needed to move on.

The troopers rushed him from all sides. Twin red blades flashed as he met their advance, spinning and slashing with an easy grace that belied the strength behind it. Mastery of the Jar’Kai dual-lightsaber fighting style hadn’t come easily, even given his inherited knowledge of the Niman and Ataru techniques. Using two blades came with both advantages and disadvantages. Although he could attack or defend himself against more than one opponent at once, he could only wield his lightsabers one-handed, reducing the power of his blows.

Building up his physical strength had therefore been a key part of his training on Kamino, starting with simple weights and graduating to combat training with droids like these. Dueling the Dark Lord himself had come last of all, and he had clung to that ultimate challenge even as his mind played games with him. He might not know who he was, but he could learn-and had learned-how to fight.

Fight he did, deflecting every attack the faux-Rebels dealt against him, singly or in pairs and trios. Holographic limbs and blasters were no match for his blades. Sparks flew. Droids fell in pieces. Brown uniforms turned red with illusory blood.

More droids issued from the wall, crowding him, coming at him in waves of four or more. Starkiller went into a fighting trance, stabbing and sweeping complex arcs through the air. His nostrils were full of smoke. The stink cleared his head. No more voices assailed him, and no doubts, either. He was who he was. Born to kill, he killed.

With a roar he forced his way through a wall of Rebels, slashing and hacking as he went. They fell apart on either side, leaving just one standing before him. He raised both blades to strike him down.

Nor him. Her. She was a slender, blond woman in an officer’s uniform clutching a blaster in both hands.

Starkiller froze.

He knew that face.

He took a step toward the woman.

“You’re still loyal to Vader! After all he did to us-branding me a traitor and trying to kill you- “

“No, ” he said.

The words in his head wouldn’t be drowned out.

“I saw you die. But you’ve come back. “

“No, ” he repeated, raising his blades.

“Don’t make me leave another life behind. “

“No!”

The woman cowered before him. “Wait, ” she said in a voice identical to the one in his head. “Don’t!”

“Now the fate of this Alliance rests only with you. “

He lowered his blades, stunned out of his fighting trance. The voices were the same!

Memories stirred in his mind. Images of the woman before him came in a bewildering rush. Vader wanted him to destroy everyone the original Starkiller had fought with, and that meant this woman, this Rebel officer, this…

“Juno?”

“Yes, ” she said.

“Strike her down” came the command from Vader.

“I-I can’t. “

“You must learn to hate what he loved, ” said Vader, and suddenly it was just the three of them in the center of the droid-strewn training ground. Starkiller, the Sith who had created him, and a woman from the first Starkiller’s past.

Conflicting impulses warred within him, triggered by the ongoing cascade of recollections. Juno was Juno Eclipse, the woman Starkiller had, yes, loved. But he wasn’t Starkiller, so what did he owe her? He was just a clone, and she was only a droid, an illusion fashioned to rest him. What did it matter if he did as he was told, as he had been bred to do?

His hands trembled. The twin red blades wavered. They grew steadier as he drew his elbows back, preparing to strike.

“I guess I’ll never need to live this down. “

He remembered a render pressure against his lips, the feel of her body against his, a heat he had never experienced before, in this life or any other…

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill her.

With a double click, he deactivated his blades. His arms came down and hung at his sides.

“It is as I feared. “

Darth Vader lashed out, channeling the dark side with practiced ease. Starkiller winced, but it was the training droid the Dark Lord had targeted. His lightsaber sliced it neatly in two. The image of Juno Eclipse vanished in a shower of sparks.

Starkiller held his ground. No more my Master. No more pretense. “What will you do with me?”

Darth Vader strode to face his former apprentice, kicking the body of the droid out of his path.

“You will receive the same treatment as the others. “

“What others?”

“Those who came before you went mad within months, tormented by emotional imprints I was unable to erase. Some would not kill their father, others their younger self. With you, it is this woman. Now you will suffer the fate they did. “

Starkiller bowed his head, rocked by the revelation that he wasn’t the only Starkiller Darth Vader had recreated. This he had never been told. The possibility hadn’t even been insinuated-although he should have guessed.

How many had come before him? How many had died before they had ever truly lived? Could his creator possibly be telling the truth about their stubborn emotional imprints? He spared no feelings for the father he could no longer remember or the boy he had stopped being long ago. It didn’t seem remotely possible that any version of Starkiller could do anything other than share that love for Juno Eclipse.

Another vivid memory tore through him.

Staring down in shock at the sight of his Masters lightsaber protruding from his stomach. Unbearable pain. Falling heavily to his knees with a choked scream.

And another woman’s voice, the dying words of a Jedi Master he had killed.

“The Sith always betray one another-but I’m sure you’ll learn that soon enough. “

His mind cleared, and he stared in new understanding at the Dark Lord before him.

Vader was lying. There had been no other clones-or, if there had been, they had felt the same way as him. The original Starkiller had loved Juno Eclipse, and so did he. He was sure of it. He felt it in his bones, in the genetic machinery of his cells. It was the one thing he was sure of.

Vader wanted to weaken that certainty, to turn him back into a weapon, by implying that this feeling was spurious.

And worse-the act of killing Juno Eclipse was symbolic only, here in the Vader’s secret cloning laboratory. How long until that became Juno’s actual slaughter? Would that have been the next stage in his training?

The hum of the Dark Lord’s lightsaber changed pitch slightly as Vader shifted position.

Before Vader could strike, Starkiller turned. He didn’t activate his own lightsabers. Vader would expect be expecting that-a defensive pose, or at best a halfhearted attack. Starkiller would surprise him with the one weapon Vader couldn’t wield in return.

A burst of lightning arced from Starkiller’s fingers. Too late, the Dark Lord raised his lightsaber to catch the attack. Lightning crawled up and down his chest plate and helmet, provoking a painful whine from his breathing apparatus. The servomotors in his right arm strained.

Starkiller had only a split second before his former Master repelled the attack. The Force flowed through him. Droid parts and debris rose up and spun around the room. With a harsh rending sound, the metal wall burst outward, letting in the fury of the storm.

But even in the grip of his passions he knew that there was a difference. He was intimately familiar with what being driven by negative emotions felt like. His original had been a slave to the dark side until Juno and Kota had shown him how to be free. That legacy remained even now. He would choose the emotions that ruled him. He would not be a slave to them.

The dark side tugged at Starkiller, and it was hard to resist. He hated his former Master. He feared for Juno. He doubted the very fact of his existence. Killing the man who had created him would go some way to solving at least two of those problems. The temptation was very strong.

Vader’s blade caught the edge of the lightning. The Dark Lord began to straighten.

Starkiller leapt for the hole he had torn through the wall and entered the storm. He jumped high and long, aiming for the landing platform he had located by hearing alone, weeks ago.

He came down with a solid thud on the slick metal platform, just meters from Vader’s TIE fighter. Lightning split the sky into a thousand pieces. Thunder boomed. Far below, and all around, the sea raged.

The rain and wind scoured him clean. He opened his mouth and felt moisture on his tongue for the first time in thirteen days. After so long in the pit, it tasted like freedom itself.

His arrival took the squadron of stormtroopers guarding the facility by surprise, but they reacted quickly enough. Sirens sounded. Blaster rifles came up to target him. Three AT-STs standing guard over the landing platform clanked and began to turn.

Starkiller bared his teeth. His heart beat with an excitement he hadn’t felt since his awakening in Vader’s laboratory. This was why he had been made. This was why he existed.

He reached out with his hands and flexed his will. The Force responded, swelling and rising in him like an invisible muscle. A nearby communications tower groaned and twisted. Sparks flew. He wrenched the tower down and sideways, sweeping it over the platform, knocking the AT-STs into the ocean and crushing the stormtroopers gathering to rush him.

Something exploded-a generator, pushed far beyond its capacity. Through the exploding shell of shrapnel stalked a black figure holding a red lightsaber. Vader was moving with surprising speed.

Starkiller almost smiled. Vader’s rage was not so easily escaped. But he had done it once before. He would do it again.

The starfighter behind him was unharmed by the devastation he had wrought. Starkiller ran to it and leapt inside. He worked its familiar controls with confident speed, activating systems still warm from its last flight. Its ion engines snarled.

An invisible fist gripped the starfighter. Starkiller increased the thrust. His determination met Darth Vader’s rage, and for an instant he was unsure which would win.

Then all resistance fell away, and the TIE fighter leapt for the sky. He fell back into the seat and watched the black storm clouds approach him. Electrical discharges danced around the cockpit. Darkness briefly shrouded him.

Then he was through and above the clouds and rocketing high into the atmosphere. The planetary shield surrounding Kamino was designed to keep ships out, not in, so he passed easily through their visible barrier. Stars appeared, and Vader was far behind.

Now what?

He didn’t dare believe that he was entirely free, or that Juno was entirely safe. He had to find her before Vader did. He had to be with her.

Every breath he rook filled him with the certainty of that fact. This was the emotion that would rule him, not revenge or blood-lust or despair. But how to pursue this mission? Where did he start looking for one woman in an entire galaxy?

“Starkiller’s former conspirator has been captured. “

General Kota. If anyone knew where she was, it would be him.

As the cloud-racked face of Kamino receded behind him, Starkiller locked in a course for Cato Neimoidia.

Four days earlier…

The Solidarity shone like a miniature star in the reflected light of Athega system’s blazing primary. The streamlined, organic-looking star cruiser, a recent Mon Calamari model, hung in the shadow of volcanic Nkllon, a small world about as inhospitable as any Juno could imagine. There the Solidarity and its small flotilla of attendant vessels were simultaneously hidden from any passing gaze and shielded from the blazing, hull-stripping light of the deadly sun.

“Your request to come aboard has been granted, ” Juno’s second in command said. Nitram spoke cautiously, as though reluctant to intrude on her mood. “The shuttle is ready to launch. “

Juno didn’t blame him. Knowing what she faced, she had been tense throughout the journey, and her crew had left her alone, which was exactly what she had needed. She had a lot to consider where the Alliance leadership was concerned.

“Thank you, Nitram. You have the helm until I return. “

He saluted, touching his left ear with the tip of one paw-like hand. “Yes, sir. “

She strode unhesitatingly from the bridge, keen to give the impression that she had no doubts at all about her return, when in fact there were no certainties at all. She had put her ship at risk to assist Kota on one of his unauthorized missions. In the past, the success of Kota’s missions had protected her from disciplinary action. This rime, she had no such recourse. Officers had been demoted for much less.