The Force Unleashed (5 page)

"Thank you, but I..." By the time she turned her seat around, the cockpit was empty

of anyone but her and the droid. PROXY stared back at her with unwinking

photoreceptors. She didn't want to admit that he made her slightly nervous, so she

flashed her warmest smile and hauled herself out of the seat.

"Well, let's get to it. I've got a report to write before I get any rest-if anyone

other than me will ever read it..."

* * *

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PROXY proved an efficient and unobtrusive co-worker. He followed instructions,

showed initiative, and did his level best to stay out of her way. That was more than

she could say for half the real people she had worked with since graduating from the

Imperial Academy on Corulag. Together they checked over the ship in a record time,

noting only a few small carbon scores on its port side and, near the aft sensor

array, a blaster burn that had been weakened so much by the shields, it would barely

have fried an egg.

When they were done, she dismissed the droid, telling him to go take an oil bath or

whatever he did for relaxation, and then set off to her quarters to work on the

mission report she insisted had to be completed.

That wasn't entirely a lie. She did need to report in detail to Lord Vader, just as

she had on every mission she'd ever flown for him. The thing was, she didn't really

need to do it right away. It could wait a standard hour or two, or even until the

morning. But there was something else on her mind, something much more important

that really couldn't wait any longer.

Is there a psychological profile in there, too? she had asked the droid before

they'd set out on their first mission together.

Yes, the machine had told her, but it's restricted.

That fact had burned in her all the way to Nar Shaddaa. It came as no surprise that

such a file existed somewhere in the vast bureaucracy that was the Imperial Navy.

Everyone probably had one, except Darth Vader and the Emperor. What rankled was that

it was being talked about. PROXY knew where it was. The wretched machine might even

have read it, for all his protest about it being restricted. A droid capable of

impersonating Jedi Knights might have unknown capacities for deception.

She wanted to know what that profile contained. What was it telling people about

her? What secrets did it reveal to the galaxy in general-about her early life, her

father, her career? About Callos?

Her mouth was set in a determined line when she reached her quarters on the

forty-first deck and activated her datapad. Hand-picked for special duties by Darth

Vader himself, she had a certain degree of access to files normally hidden to those

of her rank. Would that be sufficient for her to locate and read the file she

wanted? There was only one way to find out.

Carefully, and thoroughly, she began slicing into the flagship's data banks.

The first files she found concerning her contained nothing unexpected, little more

than the brief bio PROXY had given Starkiller in the hangar bay. She skimmed over

them in seconds, probing deeper through the architecture of the data banks, seeking

forgotten or overlooked corners of information. More snippets emerged. One talked

about her mother, a woman she barely remembered who had been killed in crossfire

between Imperial loyalists and insurgents on their home planet. She had been a

teacher. The file contained a holo Juno had not seen before, an image of her mother

with her with her long blond hair pinned back by a brooch made from a round black

stone. Her eyes looked lively and amused. She seemed terribly young to be a mother,

and dead.

Among a list of high-ranking Corulag graduates, she came across her name appended to

her complete academic record. The list of subjects and grades filled her with pride,

as it always did, but with that emotion also came sadness. She had worked so hard

and achieved so much, not just for herself, but for her father, too. A distant and

strict man, especially after the death of his wife, he had been a fierce admirer of

those serving the Empire. A civilian engineer, he would have signed up for the

Academy himself had he not lulled the physical. So he should have been proud of his

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daughter, who had graduated with such honor and gone on to achieve everything he had

ever wanted. Why, then, had he not even shown up at her graduation? It didn't make

any sense.

That was an old, familiar hurt. The profile could talk about that aspect of her life

as much as it wanted and she wouldn't think twice. She hadn't seen her father in

years and wouldn't mind if she never did again. Only in recent days, away from her

former squadron mates and lying alone in her bunkroom at night, did she ever wonder

what had become of him. Would she end up as bitter as he was? How many more missions

like Callos would it take before she forgot why she had joined up in the first

place?

In a small holo appended to the last file she found, her father looked at her with

empty eyes around his narrow, imperious nose. She closed that window with an

impatient flick of her index finger.

This was getting her nowhere. Searching through archives for her name could leave

her mired in trivia for days. There had to be a better way.

She leaned back in her seat and thought for a moment. It was PROXY who had alerted

her to the existence of the file, so the droid must have access to its location, if

not the actual contents. Therefore, if she could somehow pin down the information

PROXY had scanned in the last day or two, she might get a result.

Time had passed during her search. She barely noticed her weariness, trained as she

was to spend long hours in the cockpit on full alert. She could grab a short nap

later to catch up on what she'd lost. It took her just minutes to find an ID that

looked like it might belong to the droid-one not on the official log but with access

pretty much everywhere-and to begin following it through the data banks. Like most

advanced droids, PROXY had a lively, curious nature. His ruminations led him through

numerous fields, including history, repulsor maintenance, astrography, and

psychology. It could take her all night to find just one address among all the

others. But she persisted, determined to know what her superiors really thought of

her after Callos.

Without warning, her screen cleared. She blinked bleary eyes at a new view, a data

feed she appeared to have unintentionally sliced into. It was one occasionally

accessed by PROXY, showing a gun metal-gray corridor leading to a heavy, secure

door. The view came with sound. She could hear footsteps, faintly, from the other

side of the door. Someone was pacing restlessly back and forth. And breathing:

heavy, rhythmic breathing, as of lungs straining at a mechanical respirator...

A shock of adrenaline rushed through her. Only one person in the galaxy breathed

like that. She must have patched by accident into Lord Vader's private chambers. Her

hand reached up to cancel the feed lest she be discovered spying on him, but before

she could complete the command, the door hissed open and her curiosity was caught.

Revealed in the doorway was Starkiller, a picture of impatience and restraint. He

had clearly been waiting to speak to his Dark Lord all this time. In four quick

paces he walked past the vantage point of her hidden security cam and out of view.

With a series of hesitant commands, not quite believing her audacity, she tested to

see if the viewpoint was movable. It rotated smoothly to bring Starkiller back into

sight, revealing a room as empty of personality as the rest of Darth Vader's secret

hideout. The Dark Lord himself stood with his back to the room, staring at the

burning red sun outside.

Starkiller knelt behind Vader and waited. He seemed well accustomed to doing that,

despite the energy boiling through him, barely contained by his skin.

Without turning, Lord Vader asked, "Master Kota is dead?" Starkiller didn't answer

straightaway. He raised his head, considered the question, and then said, "Yes."

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"His lightsaber."

Starkiller unclipped the second weapon from his belt. Vader turned just enough to

reach out with one hand. The fallen Jedi's lightsaber was snatched into Lord Vader's

grasp as though by invisible fingers.

Juno let out a surprised gasp and stifled it under both hands, irrationally afraid

that the Dark Lord might hear her through the one-way security link.

Oblivious to her scrutiny, he turned back to the viewport and examined the

lightsaber in his hands. Starkiller waited, immobile, as though he could have knelt

there all night.

Finally Vader spoke again.

"My spies have been watching another Jedi. Kazdan Paratus is hiding on the junk

world of Raxus Prime."

"I'll deal with him as I dealt with Rahm Kota," said Starkiller unhesitatingly.

Well, that's that, thought Juno, abandoning all hope of sleep that night. No rest

for the wicked. She moved to disconnect and get ready for the call to arms, but her

finger hovered over the switch, unable to let the moment go. Her position was an

illicit but privileged one, and hard to abandon.

Vader looked up from the lightsaber and turned to face the young man kneeling before

him.

"Kazdan Paratus is far more powerful than you," the black-masked figure said,

filling her with apprehension. "I do not expect you to survive. But should you

succeed, you will be one step closer to your destiny."

Starkiller nodded eagerly. "The Emperor."

"Yes. Only together can we defeat him."

"I will not fail you, Lord..."

Juno's finger stabbed down hard on the cutoff switch and she recoiled into her

chair. Apprehension had become pure horror. Could she possibly have heard correctly?

The Emperor? Vader and his dark apprentice were going to betray the Emperor?

No, she told herself, getting up from her chair and pacing back and forth across the

small room. It couldn't be true. There must be more to it than she thought. Perhaps

if she'd kept listening...

When she tried to get the feed back, the connection was gone. The screen remained

resolutely blank, as though taunting her fearful concerns.

Darth Vader had been the Palpatine's right-hand man for as long as the Emperor had

been in power. It was inconceivable that he would turn on his Master now. Even if he

was considering it, what could he and one scruffy agent do against Imperial Guards

and well-armed aides who attended the Emperor everywhere he went? The thought was

preposterous. She had to put it out of her mind as a product of fatigue and go about

her duty as though nothing had happened.

It wasn't as if she could turn either of them in on such flimsy evidence. If she

tried, she'd be killed for sure, whether the accusation was true or not...

Right on cue, her communicator buzzed.

"Yes?" she said, speaking as though nothing untoward had happened.

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"I need you in the Rogue Shadow," Starkiller informed her, as she had known he

would. "We have a new mission." "I'll be right there."

She took a moment to smooth her uniform and her hair, and to rub the dark circles

under her eyes, then she hurriedly shut down her datapad and left the room.

The junk world of Raxus Prime was in the Tion Hegemony on the Outer Rim, so there

was time during the journey for both her and Starkiller to refresh and research

their objectives. He was as distracted as she felt, much to her relief. He kept

asking PROXY to repeat details he had missed while deep in thought. Eventually he

excused himself to enter the ship's small meditation chamber and gather his

energies.

She did the same, in her own way, by reclining her seat and putting her feet up on

the instrument panel. There was time at last for that short nap she had promised

herself.

But everything she had learned in the previous few hours kept circling through her

mind, making it hard for her to relax. For the hundredth time, she reminded herself

to forget Vader and the Emperor and concentrate on the mission at hand. If she was

going to have insomnia, she might as well think about something useful.

Kazdan Paratus was an odd beast by anyone's definition. PROXY was unable to

reproduce his form because all physical details of this particular Jedi had been

erased from the records-perhaps by the paranoid old Master himself. Patchy Jedi

history files accredited him with considerable skill at droid making, responsible

for numerous one-of-a-kind machines possessing abilities far beyond those of

ordinary droids. In recognition for his unique talents, the Jedi Council had made

him the Temple's official engineer and allowed him a dedicated workshop on

Coruscant.

The Clone Wars had lured him out of seclusion to study the Confederacy's droid

armies. Life on the front line had afforded him numerous opportunities to examine

the war automata, while at the same time building medical droids, power droids, and