The Force Unleashed (20 page)

lightsaber at the ready, but the only beings in evidence were a trio of nervous

protocol droids. "There seems to be no one about."

"You're very close to your objective. Don't allow yourself to be distracted."

"Want to tell me what I'm looking for?"

"Patience, boy. You'll know."

The apprentice grunted an affirmative. He strode down the main corridor, kicking

open doors and using the Force to enhance his physical senses. The smell of burning

food came from the kitchen. He ignored it.

"Something . . . ," he said, an instinct leading him toward the rear of the lodge.

"Someone ..."

He turned a corner and entered a long wooden corridor lined with two-dimensional

ceramic artwork. Two stormtroopers and Imperial Guard stood watch over a locked door

at its end. Tin-troopers raised their blaster rifles as he came into sight. The

guard's saber-staff was already activated.

"Hold on," he told Kota. "I think I'm getting warm."

The troopers started firing before he had taken two paces toward them. They were

dead long before he reached the door, killed by their own reflected fire. The

Imperial Guard lasted barely as long, felled with four swift lightsaber strokes then

shocked with lightning as he dropped backward to the ground. The apprentice' nodded,

satisfied that his skills had improved since Nar Shaddaa.

Looking back over his shoulder, he nodded again. Not a single piece of art had been

damaged.

My good deed for the day, he thought as he burned out the m k and used the Force to

push the door in.

The room on the far side was luxuriously appointed, and taste-lull v so, considering

its deceased owner. Dozens of different woods provided subtle contrasts among walls,

cornices, floors, and ceilings, with a huge bay window on the far side overlooking

the for-i In the distance, clearly visible against the blue sky, was the bright line

of the skyhook.

Instead of the local despot, he found himself facing the back of a slender, hooded

woman in white. She stood facing the view with a blue-and-white astromech droid at

her side, and although she didn't turn to see who had blown in the door he could

tell that she was closely aware of his presence.

He took two steps toward her and activated his comlink so Juno and Kota could

overhear.

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"I should have expected that the Emperor would send an assassin," the woman said,

sounding more irritated than worried. "It's a coward's tactic."

"I do not serve the Emperor."

The woman turned and lowered her hood. Not a woman, he realized, but a teenager

barely his age with brown hair hanging in looped ponytails over her shoulders. She

studied him with a world-weary skepticism.

"I told Captain Sturn to spare me the charade, and now I'm telling you..."

"No, really," he said, raising a hand to cut her off. "I'm here with Master Kota."

"Master Kota is dead, killed above Nar Shaddaa. My father..." She caught herself.

"Your father?" He took a step closer, putting several pieces of a puzzle together.

Kota's friend ... the "very valuable" item he was supposed to extract. . . "How long

has your father been feeding Kota information about Imperial targets?"

She looked at him warily. "How do you know..."

"Master Kota told me himself. He survived Nar Shaddaa. We were sent to find you. I

think you're supposed to come with mi now."

Her skepticism increased. "I can't leave, not while the planet in enslaved."

"Is that what you're here for?"

"No." Her answer was clipped and angry. "I'm a Senatorial observer appointed by the

Emperor himself. My job is to oversee the construction of that monstrosity." She

cocked her head at tin view of the skyhook towering over the forest. "He can't kill

me, but he can keep me busy and send a message to my father at the same time. A

coward, as I said, but a clever one, well versed in the arts of coercion and

manipulation."

The apprentice nodded his understanding.

"I'm not so harmless myself," the young woman said, pointing with her chin at the

lightsaber. "I know what that is. If you're truly a Jedi, then you'll understand why

I can't leave."

"But your father..."

"My father isn't here." She turned back to the window. "Once the skyhook is

complete, the Empire will be able to shuttle Wookiee slaves in earnest. Entire

villages will be taken offworld in a matter of days. Artoo-Detoo?"

The little astromech rolled over to the pair, stopping between its mistress and the

apprentice. Chirping and whistling, it projected a standard bluish white hologram of

a massive construct, circular in shape, with buttressed sides and reinforced anchors

digging deep into exposed bedrock. The image rotated slowly in the air while Leia

talked the apprentice through her plan.

"Artoo and I have been studying the skyhook from here. I think I know how to take it

down. These are the moorings. Disable them and the skyhook will detach from the

planet, causing a chain reaction that should destroy the orbital platform before it

can be put to use."

The apprentice studied the image, looking for some way of discerning the

construction's scale. He found it in the form of a tiny human figure, dwarfed by the

moorings. That wasn't very encouraging.

Destroying it won't stop the Empire for long," he said. "They'll just build another

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one."

"Eventually, maybe. But you'll give the remaining Wookiees a chance to disappear."

She folded her arms across her chest as though daring him to disagree. "Back the way

you came, there's a tube transport that leads down to the forest floor. It'll be

crawling with Imperials, clearing out the undergrowth, but it'll take you to the

base of the skyhook."

"All right," he said, despite serious misgivings. If he wanted to |H her offworld,

he would need to do as she said. "But what about you?"

"My shuttle is still on the landing platform, I presume."

"Yes, but I won't make any promises about the pilot."

"What makes you think I need one?" She flashed him a smile over her shoulder, and

added more gravely, "Please tell my father I'm safe."

"I will."

Then she was gone.

"DID YOU GET ALL THAT?" Starkiller asked from the planet's surface,

"We did," Juno replied, feeling decidedly ambivalent about tin new development.

While glad that they had managed to achieve the objective given to them by Kota's

friend in the Senate, their continued proximity to danger made her sweat in her seat

Starkiller wasn't likely to be coming off the ground anytime soon, and the stygium

crystals weren't going to last forever. "Are yon going to do as she says?"

"I'm already doing it," he replied.

"You and your one solution,'" she muttered to Kota.

"Is everything all right up there?" Starkiller asked her.

"We're killing time," she said. "Where do you think the Wookiees are being taken-and

why?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. They're strong and smart. If it weren't for their

tendency to rip people's heads off when they get angry, they'd make excellent

slaves."

"There are ways around that," said Kota dourly.

"What do you mean?" asked Juno.

"Attachment," he told her. "Wookiees have a keen sense of family. The bonds among

them are exceedingly tight." His lips twisted. "That's why the Jedi didn't have

families. It was the only way to remain objective."

"Being objective obviously wasn't enough," Juno said. I he general just scowled.

"Kota," came Starkiller's voice from the ground. "I want you to p.iss her message on

to her father, whoever she is."

"All right," the general said, turning to his keyboard. "I'll try.

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Silence fell on the comms. The pair in the Rogue Shadow waited wordlessly for some

time, he tapping at the keys, wrapped in unhappy thoughts, and she wondering what

was happening to Starkiller on the ground. She scanned the ship's data banks for

information on Kashyyyk's forests and wasn't remotely reassured. If he wasn't being

shot at by Imperials converging on the scene of his earlier disturbance, he was most

likely being eaten by blastails or smashed to a pulp by terrible minstyngar.

After a prolonged period of typing, punctuated by irritated snorts and worried

grumbles, Kota pushed aside the keyboard and erupted from his chair. With an

explosive "Gah!" he stumbled out of the bridge, patting the walls to find his way.

"Something wrong?" she called after him.

He didn't reply. With a hiss, the door to the meditation room opened.

She shrugged and let him be. If he didn't want to talk, she couldn't force him.

Moving on from Kashyyyk's many perils, she turned to researching skyhook design

instead. That left her distracted but hardly reassured.

With a slight crackle, Starkiller's voice came over the comlink. "General Kota?"

"He's not here right now," she said.

"Get him," he said. "I... I think I've found something."

There was an edge to his voice, something new and strange. She didn't hesitate.

"Kota!" she called over her shoulder. "Kota, get out here!"

The general appeared in an instant. With no wall tapping Q) hesitation, he burst out

of the meditation room and fairly ran into the cockpit. "What is it?"

She pointed at the comlink. He patched in, and Starkiller repeated what he had said

before.

"What have you found, exactly?" the general asked him, a concerned look spreading

across his face.

"Just an old hut," Starkiller said. "A ruin, really. But it feels familiar." Juno

could hear the strain in his voice. "I've been sensing something strange ever since

I arrived on Kashyyyk. There's a great darkness in the forest. And-yes, sadness.

Something happened here."

Kota spoke with urgent emphasis. "Turn away, boy. Get on with your mission. There

are some things you aren't ready to face."

"Why?" Starkiller asked. "What's inside?"

"How should I know? My link to the Force has been cut." Kota sank into the copilot's

seat, his expression hard. "If you go inside, you'll face whatever's in there

alone."

Starkiller offered no response to that. Juno perched on the edge of her seat,

waiting for him to say something, anything. Through the hiss of the open comm

channel, she thought she could hear him breathing.

"What's he doing?" she asked Kota.

He silenced her with a gesture.

The minutes dragged by, and slowly Juno convinced herself that Starkiller hadn't

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gone into the hut at all. Despite the fearful yearning she'd heard in his voice, he

had heeded Kota's advice and walked on by, and was even now nearing the base of the

skyhook. Soon he would call in for advice and her nebulous fears would be dispelled.

She would laugh and feel foolish, and everything would be back to normal.

Then Kota stiffened beside her, as though touched by something cold and clammy on

the back of the neck. A muscle in his right cheek twitched. He gasped aloud and

reached for the control insole for support. He sagged.

"I told you to leave it alone, boy," he said with a sigh.

Juno supposed that normal might be something she'd never experience again.

THE APPRENTICE STOOD STARING AT the ruin he'd found, wondering why this one had

caught his eye out of the dozen or so he'd stumbled across elsewhere. A decade or

two ago this particular patch of the forest had been a clearing, home to a small

village, home perhaps to a mixed community of Wookiees and offworlders who wanted to

feel the dirt beneath their feet. A dry creekbed snaked through the abandoned

settlement, choked now with vines, ferns, and other native plants. The ruins had

surrendered to the undergrowth, which was steadily overtaking it, but enough

remained to show that the reason for the village's abandonment was not entirely

natural.

Burned wood was evidence of fire. Circular, deep burns with a faint spiral pattern

were evidence of energy weapons. Both were visible everywhere he looked.

He stepped closer. Thirty seconds ago he had been focused on his mission. Now,

confronted by the ruin, he was utterly derailed. Calling Kota hadn't helped. It only

made him more curious. What would he have to face alone? Had the aging general

sensed some thing through the Force, for all his protestations about being severed

from it?

The truncated cone of the largest hut had split on falling. There was a clear

entrance through that rent. It looked-his breath caught-it almost looked as though

someone had blasted their way into it. Except here the evidence of energy weapons

lacked the regular spirals of blasterfire. These scars were in straight lines,

curving only slightly toward the end. Not blasted, then, but sliced . . .

A breeze swept through the overgrown clearing, making something move within the

ruined hut. He brought his lightsaber up but didn't ignite it. The movement didn't

come from one of Kashyyyk's many predatory species. It was a piece of cloth,