Star Wars: The Last of the Jedi, Volume 4
Read Star Wars: The Last of the Jedi, Volume 4 Online
Authors: Jude Watson
Copyright © 2006 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or TM. All rights reserved.
Cover art and illustration by John Van Fleet
Cover design by Henry Ng
Published by Disney • Lucasfilm Press, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Lucasfilm Press, 1101 Flower Street, Glendale, California, 91201.
ISBN 978-1-4847-2014-1
Visit
www.starwars.com
Contents
Meetings with the Emperor were always unnerving. Malorum just hoped this one wouldn’t be fatal.
Malorum paused outside the airlock to the Emperor’s private office, high on the top floors of the Senate office building. He had undergone the weapons scan. As the Emperor’s most
loyal subject, it was a process he found insulting, but he had to submit to it. Once he went through those doors, he’d be whisked in to see Palpatine by Sly Moore, that moonfaced nonentity
who managed to slither herself into a position of power.
Probably by blackmailing the right beings
, Malorum thought, because he could find no other reason for her prominence. The usual
jealous surge passed through him as he wondered, once again, why others got what he deserved.
He took a deep breath.
He needed a moment. He needed to remind himself how well things were going. No matter what lies Darth Vader had told the Emperor, Malorum knew the truth. He was the best Inquisitor the Emperor
had.
Ready now, Malorum strode through the door. He went through his usual battle of wills with Sly Moore. She glided her way toward him and he kept going to the door to Palpatine’s inner
office, so that it wouldn’t appear that he was waiting for her to access it. He just walked right through—slightly ahead of her, of course.
He timed it perfectly.
His small victory died a quick death as Palpatine swiveled in his chair to face him. Right away, Malorum knew this was not going to be a good meeting.
He gathered his courage and walked forward into the grand red room. He loved this office. The bold red color, the bronzium statues of the Four Sages of Dwartii, the access to datafeeds that
spewed out information constantly. You felt you were truly in the center of the galaxy, controlling everyone in it.
Palpatine stared at him with his pale eyes. Malorum wished, not for the first time, that Palpatine hadn’t been so hideously scarred by the battle with Mace Windu. It was positively
unnerving; you’d think that with all that access to the Force he could find a way to make himself look more attractive. When Malorum became Emperor (a thought Malorum only allowed to cross
his mind occasionally; there was so much farther to go) he would make sure to get plenty of rest and a rejuvenating trip to the excellent surgeons of Belazura once a year.
“Why did you give an order to blow up the Jedi Temple?” The Emperor shot the question at him. So much for preliminaries.
“I was following through on an order by Lord Vader—”
“He said that you would claim that.”
“But it’s true.” Technically. Vader had made the suggestion only to see how Malorum would react. Malorum had fallen right into his trap by protesting that he had files that
would be destroyed. The next thing he knew, Vader was taking him to task for having secret files that weren’t registered with the Inquisitors’ main databank.
He had taken a gamble, attempting to blow up the Temple. He had actually enjoyed having his office there. To walk into that grand hallway was a thrill. It was visible evidence of the greatness
vanquished by the power of the Empire. Proof that a Force connection wasn’t enough; it was how you used the dark side of the Force that mattered.
He knew Emperor Palpatine was frustrated with the apprentice he’d ended up with. He had expected someone with awesome power, but instead he got a rebuilt body in a breath mask. Darth Vader
was powerful, but compared to what he could have been…well, who wouldn’t be disappointed?
What Palpatine needed was a new apprentice. Because of his Force-sensitivity, Malorum had been plucked out of obscurity. Palpatine had revealed that he was a Sith. He had explained what the
Force was in detail and how, with training, Malorum could use it for great things.
Malorum had expected greater access because of that: dinners with the Emperor and his most trusted aides; confidences meant for him alone; invitations to Palpatine’s private apartments in
the exclusive 500 Republica residential tower. Instead, he himself was on the waiting list for an apartment, lined up with Senators and bureaucrats. It was infuriating!
Now he was scrambling to please Palpatine and being undercut by Darth Vader at every turn.
“You exceeded your authority,” Palpatine went on. His gaze was as chilling as a monthlong vacation on Hoth.
Malorum looked to the bronzium statues for inspiration, then turned his gaze back quickly. He had learned to stand his ground with the Emperor. Never argue. Present your case, then change the
subject if you can.
“The attack on Solace and her followers is proceeding,” he said. He unfurled his best piece of information, the one he was holding in reserve like an expert sabacc player.
“Everyone has been killed and the community destroyed. She is confirmed dead.”
“And you saw this with your own eyes?”
“I received a report from the commander.” Did the Emperor really expect him to travel all the way down to the Core, to the ancient ocean caverns?
“A Jedi is not dead until you see the body. Inform me when this is so.”
He had been dismissed. Malorum made an instant decision to withhold the information that he had Ferus Olin in custody. He might need that at a future date. And he had plans for the former Jedi
apprentice, plans that he was just beginning to form. Ferus was the only being he could find who could connect him to the old Darth Vader.
Malorum bowed and walked out, ignoring Sly Moore and proceeding directly to the express turbolift. As he descended into the Senate office building, he thought about what he knew…and what
he still had to discover.
His most important piece of information was this: He knew that Darth Vader was Anakin Skywalker.
The Emperor didn’t know that Malorum knew this. Before the tapes of the Temple attack had been erased, he had seen them. He hadn’t been an Inquisitor then, just one of the trusted
Imperial intelligence officers sent to the Temple after Order 66. He had seen what Anakin Skywalker had done. And he had seen the Jedi knight kneel down before the Emperor, who had called him
“Darth Vader.”
Since then he’d made it his business to discover everything he could about Skywalker. Bribes and surveillance and digging back into what had happened months before.
He knew that Anakin Skywalker had been a Jedi apprentice at the same time as Ferus Olin. He knew that Skywalker was the father of Senator Amidala’s child, the child that had never been
born. He suspected that the Senator had been treated on Polis Massa, but so far the disappearance of records had stopped the trail cold.
Secrets contained surprises. Once you knew a person’s secrets, you had the key to destroying him.
Ferus Olin would be the key.
It wasn’t so bad, for a prison. Ferus had seen worse.
He stirred on the hard duracrete where he slept…and found himself face-to-face with the biggest meer rat he’d ever seen, chewing on one of his boots.
Well. Maybe not.
He tossed his other boot at the rodent and it scurried away. He figured he might as well look the facts in the face. He’d landed in the worst prison in the galaxy, and unless someone near
and dear to him—or even someone who didn’t like him particularly much, like Jedi Master Solace—rescued him, he was stuck here, worked to death until he was executed.
It was the usual cunning plan of the Empire. Condemn the beings who displease you—don’t bother with a trial, because your suspicions are enough—then stick them all in a
stinking hole on a planet where nobody goes, force them to labor, don’t even let them speak to one another, and then, when they’re too weak to do you a bit of good, execute them. What a
swell system to be stuck in. Trust him to find it.
So maybe breaking into the Temple wasn’t the
best
idea he ever had. And then he had to go and do it twice. No wonder Malorum had been testy.
He had been looking for Jedi. Rumors had swirled that they were kept in a prison there. But the rumors were designed as a trick to lure any Jedi into a rescue attempt. Ferus had fallen right
into the trap.
The need to find every last Jedi was leading him to places he’d never expected to go. Obi-Wan Kenobi, now in exile on Tatooine, had refused to become part of his plans for a secret base.
Ferus didn’t let that stop him. He knew there must be Jedi out there who had survived the purge. They needed a sanctuary. He had stumbled on a remote asteroid that constantly traveled the
galaxy within a moving atmospheric storm. He had two trusted aides setting up a camp there, Raina and Toma, as well as the recovering Jedi Knight Garen Muln.
When he’d found Jedi Master Solace, he’d discovered that she’d set up a community next to the forgotten underground oceans of Coruscant. The raggedy society had built its homes
on a series of catwalks over the sea in a vast cavern. When he’d told Solace what he’d seen in the Temple—a room full of lightsabers captured from murdered Jedi—she had been
stricken by sadness and anger. Then he’d told her that he’d overheard that there was a spy in her camp, and she’d become enraged.