The Force Unleashed (12 page)

tried to fight them. There was no point. It was over.

* * *

JUNO WATCHED IN HORROR FROM the cockpit of the Rogue Shadow, her mouth hanging open

and her fingers limp on the controls of the ship. Perhaps she should have been

readying the ship for flight, or at least cutting the signal of her illicit data

feed. Later she would wish she had, but at that moment all she could do was stare.

Klaxons began to sound in the Dark Lord's inner sanctum, sounding a strident vent

alarm. Lights strobed painfully across the metal walls. Vader grabbed hold of the

nearest stanchion to avoid being sucked out into space himself, but the maelstrom

was short-lived. Within seconds-though it seemed like a small eternity-a large metal

grate had slid down and sealed the shattered viewport shut.

Air poured back into the room. The rasp of Vader's respirator eased.

With one black-gloved hand at his throat, he turned back to the Emperor's hologram

and straightened to his full height.

"It is done," he said in a cold, leaden tone.

"You are the apprentice, Lord Vader," the Emperor snarled. "You are my servant, my

enforcer. Never forget your place again."

Vader's domed head bowed. "Yes, my Master."

The Emperor's hologram flickered and dissolved. PROXY returned to normal, looking

stunned and shaken. Vader ignored the droid and walked to one of the intact

viewports. He stood looking out into space, where the apprentice's limp body tumbled

lifelessly through vacuum, surrounded by a cloud of fragmented transparisteel.

Juno's hand had risen to her mouth without her knowing it. Starkiller had done

nothing but obey orders, just as she had on Callos. He had been betrayed, literally

stabbed in the back by the one he had trusted most. It wasn't fair.

The sound of a door clanging open in the hangar was followed by the sound of booted

feet running toward the ship. Too late she closed the feed and focused on her own

problems. A squad of troopers from the Emperor's ships had broken the seal on the

Rogue Shadow's secret nest. They could only be coming for her.

Her heart hammered in her chest. Standing, she smoothed down her black uniform and

made sure her cap was straight. When she was sure her pistol was well out of reach,

she opened the ramp. Taking a deep, calming breath, she went out to meet her fate.

Page 44

star_wars_the_force_unleashed_by_sean_williams

EMPERIAL

Death wasn't at all as he expected. He was aware of it, for a start, even if that

awareness was of a fragmentary, nebulous sort. His consciousness came and went in

waves, drifting in and out on unfathomable tides. He sank and surfaced at the whim

of forces he couldn't comprehend. All he could do was ride with them and hope that

death wouldn't be like this forever.

There was a surprising amount of pain, considering that his body no longer existed,

lurking at the edge of his consciousness like a reminder of something important he

had forgotten. Was this some kind of punishment for the actions he had performed

during his life? Were the Jedi he had slain getting their revenge from a more

privileged position in the afterlife?

That was a ridiculous thought, he told himself. Irrespective of whether there was an

afterlife or not, privilege could not possibly exist, for anyone. The light and the

dark sides of the Force were identical in stature, if not in effect. He could no

more be tormented by the Jedi than he could torment them.

There were voices, too, and visions. They were harder to rationalize. Some were

familiar, such as PROXY soothing him as he would a child-as he had for many years,

until Darth Vader's apprentice had grown too old for such coddling. There was Darth

Vader himself, urging him to embrace his fear, not fight it, and thereby become as

strong as a mountain.

Some of the visions were memories, such as of the time he had asked PROXY to chain

him immobile in the dark and refused food or water until he had assembled a

lightsaber lying in pieces before him, using only the Force. He had failed at the

attempt, but in his extremity he had found the strength to abandon his weakened body

and embrace the dark side. He returned to that place many times after his death at

Darth Vader's hand.

In endless loops he felt his Master's lightsaber burning through his stomach and the

coldness of vacuum sucking the air from his lungs.

Many of the visions, however, were of things he could not possibly have seen while

alive, featuring people both familiar and un familiar in times and places he could

not always pin down.

He saw . . .

. . . General Rahm Kota in the control center of the TIE fighter factory over Nar

Shaddaa. His eyes were undamaged, and his stance was straight-backed from his recent

victory. Flanked by armed insurgents and surrounded by the bodies of dead

storm-troopers, he snapped off his lightsaber and began issuing orders.

"Lock down the command center and get that holoprojector up and running. Tell all

squads to fan out and funnel any opposition toward us."

"Yes, sir." Insurgents began running in all directions.

Page 45

star_wars_the_force_unleashed_by_sean_williams

"General Kota, he's here!" cried one.

Kota quickly moved to where a flickering image had appeared on the newly activated

holoprojector. It showed the approaching Rogue Shadow. On seeing it, the general

smiled grimly.

"So I've finally drawn you out of hiding ..." To the insurgent he added, "Lower the

containment field on Hangar Twelve and tell the men to get into position."

"Yes, General." The soldier left the room to hurry about his errand.

He saw . . .

. . . Kazdan Paratus pacing on his four metal limbs about the junk High Council

Chamber. The blank-eyed heads of his mannequins turned eerily to follow his

progress.

"No rest," he wheezed. "No rest for any of us! Why can't they leave us alone?"

I le turned to face the mannequin of Master Yoda as though the pile of droid junk

had spoken.

"Eh, my friend? What's that? Oh, yes. He stinks of Sith, all fight. But what's he

doing here now? Haven't I suffered enough?"

The paranoid Jedi Master continued to pace back and forth, passing his deactivated

lightsaber from hand to hand, as though debating whether or not to use it.

He saw . . .

. . . Shaak Ti, deep in the fungal forests of Felucia. Shading her eyes, she watched

the Rogue Shadow glide overhead, visible as little more than a distortion in the

light. She frowned and looked down at a young Zabrak woman who stood nearby, also

studying the approach of the starship with concern. Several Felucian warriors

guarded them, restlessly watching the trees.

"Darth Vader has found us?" asked the girl, a hint of excitement in her voice.

"Perhaps," Shaak Ti answered her. "Gather your belongings and go into hiding, just

as we've practiced. Do not return until I summon you."

An angry flush spread across the girl's face. "But-you can't send me away. Let me

fight at your side!"

"Against a Sith assassin? You would surely be killed." Shaak Ti raised a hand to

silence her protests. "Please, Maris, just go to the graveyard and wait for my

summons. I will lead this assassin to the Ancient Abyss alone. Your strength will be

tested in other ways, and soon."

With an angry look on her face and tears running down her cheeks, the girl turned

and ran into the forest.

Shaak Ti watched as the jungle closed over her.

"May the Force be with you, Maris," she whispered.

He saw the past. That was what he assumed. He was at one with the Force-and the

Force saw all things, felt all things, lived in all living things. He had returned

to the source of the river that ran steadily through the galaxy, invigorating and

sweeping up the dead as it passed. The current tumbled and turned him to face all

aspects of his life. He watched it unfold with new understanding.

Page 46

star_wars_the_force_unleashed_by_sean_williams

Some fragments were, however, much harder to comprehend.

He saw ...

. . . a sad-eyed young woman standing at a large bay window, looking out over a

landscape of denuded forests. In the distance fiery line stretched up into the night

sky, to a point in low orbit where a cluster of tiny lights gathered. Somewhere

nearby, an astromech droid cooed mournfully to itself.

. . . a dirty and tattered man sitting in the corner of an enclosure that seemed

made entirely of bone. A small halo-lamp shone in front of him. His hands hung free,

but his wrists were tightly bound by electronic cuffs. The stink of raw meat cloyed

in the air, making him wrinkle his nose in disgust.

. . . Darth Vader, his armored life-support suit rent to the flesh beneath in a

dozen places, standing in the wreckage of a mighty battle. Dead stormtroopers lay in

pieces on the bloody floor surrounded by fragments of shattered transparisteel and

twisted metal. The apprentice's former Master put a hand to his exposed temple,

touched the scars visible there, and swayed.

"He is dead," Vader said with some difficulty over the damaged wheeze of his

respirator.

The Emperor stepped Out of the shadows to stand at his side.

"Then he is now more powerful than ever."

Was this what might have been had he stood up to his Master instead of giving in

numbly as his entire life had been turned upside down? In his deathly state of

semiconsciousness, the former apprentice couldn't tell. He could only watch as he

would a blurry, fragmented holodrama, in the hope that at some point, perhaps when

he had more of the pieces before him, the sense of it would start to emerge.

II anything, however, it only became more complicated. Beyond light and dark, beyond

past and future, beyond life and death, lie saw the same face he had glimpsed while

fighting Rahm Kota; the face that might have been his as an older man, had he lived:

strong and kind, with dark hair and warm, brown eyes. In the background, he could

hear the distant pounding of weapons and the crump of explosions. Trees cracked and

fell. A shadow loomed over the vision, as though a cloud had blocked the sun. He i

on Id smell burning blood and hair and hear the sound of a lightsaber sizzling

through flesh. A voice cried "Run. Run now!"...

...but he didn't. He couldn't. Whatever kind of dream this was, it wouldn't let him

move. He was trapped within it, fixed tight by some strange kind of mental amber.

Was this a fantasy or something more sinister? Was someone trying to tell him

something?

He saw ... somewhere not so far away-or perhaps at the farthest edge of the

universe-Juno Eclipse was in pain.

IT CAME LESS AS A surprise, more of a relief, when he finally awoke. At first,

anyway.

His first clue that he had returned from the dead came when darkness truly fell. The

visions evaporated, and the voices went with them. For a very welcome period, there

was nothing to see or hear, or even think. He could just rest, and be.

Page 47

star_wars_the_force_unleashed_by_sean_williams

Then new noises began to intrude on the peaceful silence: the whirring of cutting

blades, low-pitched beeps and clicks from droids, a fizzing, spitting noise that

could have been a cauterizing tool, and other sinister sounds. His heart rose at the

sound of a respirator rising above the others. The faint sticking point between each

breathing cycle was horribly familiar.

An artificial voice spoke: "Lord Vader, he's regaining consciousness."

"Keep him restrained until I'm finished."

"Yes, sir."

The former apprentice raged against invisible bonds to move limbs he couldn't feel.

The babble of noises faded for a moment, then returned, this time with light and

sensation accompanying it. He was strapped prone to a medical table in the center of

an operating theater. Multicolored tubes and wires ran from several places in his

body to dark machines hovering around him, and stretching up to the high ceiling

above. Angular droids milled about him, poking and prodding with sharp-tipped

appendages.

The familiar silhouette of Darth Vader loomed over him as, without warning, full

sensation was returned to his body.

He strained against the straps holding him down and screamed with rage.

"You!" Foam flecked his lips. He had never felt such anger-brilliant in its purity,

yet so untamed it utterly debilitated him. "You killed me!"

"No." Vader leaned closer, resting one gloved hand on the table as though to

literally impress his gravity on his former apprentice. "The Emperor wanted you

dead, but I did not. I brought you here to be rebuilt. If the Emperor knew that you

survived, he would kill us both."

He stared up at the expressionless mask, neck twisted to increase the distance

between them. Could it be so? His memories of betrayal and pain were so unclouded by

doubt. A flash of his Master's bright red lightsaber protruding from his gut

threatened to tip him back into unconsciousness. He resisted, thinking of Shaak Ti's

final words: The Sith always betray one another. He had been so sure-but surety