Of course. This man was no city worker. The weapon was a lightsaber, and this was Luke Skywalker, Vader’s quarry.
Quarry that had now been cornered.
Deena squeezed herself into a ball, desperate to remain hidden, feeling like she was in full view. She gasped as Lord Vader lifted his own saber, the blade a brilliant and angry red.
Deena’s heart raced as she risked a look over her shoulder. She had to get out, but the only exit was a corridor behind her, and there was no way she could make it without being seen.
She would just have to wait until the room was clear.
Wait—and watch….
What happened next, though, Deena did not expect. Instead of engaging in a duel, Lord Vader lowered his blade. There was a noise from behind the pilot, a metallic tearing. Deena watched as Skywalker swung his saber at a long, tubular piece of pipework that seemed to have fallen from one of the wall fittings.
Lord Vader seized the moment of distraction and commenced his attack—but strangely, only for a few seconds. From nowhere, an equipment box flew through the air and hit Skywalker on the head, throwing him off balance. As Deena watched, Vader took a step back and lowered his blade again as more equipment was pulled off the walls. Deena saw it with her own eyes this time, bolts shearing as chunks of machinery were ripped, sparking and spitting, from their fittings, without even being touched. Piece after piece flew through the air, directed by Lord Vader himself as he channeled the power Deena had seen him wield many times. But those instances aboard the Executor—the summary termination of subordinates without laying a gloved finger on them, the unfortunate victim occasionally held aloft as they were choked by the invisible force—were nothing compared to the onslaught Deena was witness to, the power multiplied exponentially as Lord Vader wrenched the control room apart with nothing but his mind.
The machinery pummeled Skywalker, who struggled to defend himself with his lightsaber, but he kept swinging in the wrong direction. Stumbling backward, he was narrowly missed by a huge cylindrical object that smashed through the center of the great window behind him.
It was as if a starship air lock had been blown. Deena grabbed the console as best she could as the atmosphere in the room began to evacuate through the broken window. She saw Lord Vader himself struggle against the sudden vacuum, his cloak billowing as he reached for a pillar.
Deena felt her own grip begin to slip, her boots sliding on the smooth metal floor as the wind roared in her ears.
But this was the opportunity she needed. She had no choice. She had to risk it.
She had to get out.
Deena took one look over the top of the console, saw Lord Vader facing away from her, saw Skywalker trying to keep himself from being sucked outside, the blue blade of his lightsaber raised across his face for protection.
Deena braced herself against the console, took a deep breath, and pushed off, powering down the corridor leading out from the control room with all her might as debris flew past her, the endless wind threatening to sweep her off her feet. Halfway down she found her strength beginning to weaken. The corridor wall was broken up by protruding bulkheads. She threw herself against the wall and found herself leaning against a maintenance hatch. Flinging the panel open, Deena pulled herself inside.
* * *
—
The maintenance crawl space was long and dark, and the going was slow, and Deena could only hope that she could find an exit soon that would get her back into the city and closer to her intended destination and away from Lord Vader’s fight with Skywalker.
If Skywalker was even still alive. The pressure equalization in the control room had been severe, and he’d been close to the window. It was more than likely he’d been sucked out to his death.
Deena swore as she moved on, the going difficult as she found herself having to squeeze past cable runs, and trip over bulkheads, control boxes, data feed junctions. Ahead, the narrow confine got narrower. She couldn’t go back. She’d have to get out soon and see where she was. As far as she could tell, the crawl space ran alongside an open corridor, but she’d lost all sense of direction already in the dark and close space.
There was another maintenance hatch coming up. She headed toward it, but her foot caught on another mystery object hidden in the dark. As she toppled forward, there was a click from somewhere over her head. A tinny little public address system buzzed to life.
“Attention, this is Lando Calrissian. Attention. The Empire has taken control of the city. I advise everyone to leave before more Imperial troops arrive.”
Deena lay where she was, waiting for more, but the PA clicked off and that was it. That settled it. She needed to get out of the crawl space and find a ship to hitch a ride on fast.
Then she heard something else. She pulled herself up, grabbed the blaster from where she’d dropped it, and moved closer to the maintenance hatch. She pressed her ear against it and listened.
It was a crackling, buzzing sound, two giant, angry insects swooping in on each other, punctuated by electric bangs, the harsh spitting reminding her of energy bolts shorting against a deflector shield. Beneath it all, the mechanical huffing of Lord Vader himself.
Deena pushed the hatch open just enough to see into the corridor. Her heart leapt into her throat as she saw the two figures locked in combat beyond the open doorway at the end of the passage. Lord Vader was pressing his attack, forcing the very much alive Luke Skywalker back along a metal gantry that hung over the gaping maw of the city hub, their lightsabers crackling and fizzing over the wind that howled into the corridor from outside.
She had to get out, but the combatants were too close, and even locked in battle as they were, she couldn’t risk being seen. Having seen the extent of Lord Vader’s true power, it didn’t take much to imagine him snapping her neck in his rage without a second thought even as he continued his attack against Skywalker.
Deena shrank back into the crawl space, closing the panel behind her. She twisted herself around, trying to get her bearings before using fistfuls of cable to drag herself back through the tight space, while the sounds of battle continued to echo from outside.
She pushed on in haste, hardly aware of which direction she was facing. Then her foot tangled again, and she fell. Outside, the wind howled, and the sounds of the fight seemed to fade. Deena lay still in the dark, and listened—was Lord Vader saying something? Then the duel recommenced.
Deena rushed to free herself, her hands groping blindly in the dark. She struggled for what seemed like forever, then finally she was free. Ahead, the crawl space came to a pointed end and was relatively clear of obstacles.
Nearly there.
Deena slid to the last maintenance panel in the wall and popped it open. She came out right at the end of the corridor.
The wrong end. She was at the doorway, leading out onto a long external gantry. Somehow, she’d gotten herself turned around. Deena swore to herself again and, keeping close to the wall, she risked a peek around the bulkhead of the doorway.
Their lightsabers had been deactivated, but Lord Vader had Skywalker trapped at the end of the gantry. Skywalker, however, seemed unwilling to accept his defeat, and was backing away on his hands and knees along an antenna array that stretched out toward the middle of the city hub, the seemingly infinite drop now directly below him. As Deena watched, Lord Vader reached toward his quarry; he was speaking, but the eddies of wind swirling around the platform made it difficult to make out his words.
“There is no escape. Don’t make me destroy you.”
Deena blinked. What had Lord Vader said? Or was she mishearing over the noise of the wind? This was Luke Skywalker, a kid who had destroyed the jewel in the Emperor’s crown, the object of Lord Vader’s obsession for the last three years.
Why would he spare him? Skywalker was trapped, at Lord Vader’s mercy. All it would take is a single b
low from his lightsaber, and—
“…You do not yet realize your…you have only begun to discover…”
Deena hissed with frustration as the wind picked up. She had to go—now!—but part of her was desperate to find out what was happening. She dropped into a crouch and poked her head out a little farther.
She could risk a few moments, surely—witnessing this private moment between Lord Vader and his enemy, maybe she could pick up some useful intel, something she could use to bargain with once she got out of the city.
Lord Vader raised his voice. “With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict, and bring order to the galaxy!” In reply, the pilot yelled something that Deena couldn’t make out, but Lord Vader’s next statement was loud and clear.
“If you only knew the power of the dark side.”
The wind whipped around the doorway. Deena ducked back inside the corridor. Unsure of the value of what she had heard—was Lord Vader offering a truce, some kind of alliance with Skywalker?—she moved back to the doorway to try and hear more. Outside, Skywalker was now clinging to the side of the antenna array with one hand, the other clutched to his chest. The wind changed direction again, and Deena could just make out his words.
“He told me you killed him.”
“No,” said Lord Vader, “I am your—”
A huge gust blew in through the doorway, forcing Deena back inside. She pressed herself against the wall, turning to face it, her head curled down toward her chest. The wind dipped, briefly, enough for Deena to hear Skywalker yell something—she couldn’t understand what, but she could hear only too well the pain in his voice, his primal scream of anguish stirring something deep inside her.
Then the wind swelled again, the eddies now caught between the jutting bulkheads in the corridor, spinning into a miniature whirlwind. She couldn’t stay where she was—Lord Vader could come back in at any moment—so she opened the maintenance hatch and returned to the relative peace of the crawl space, leaning against the closed panel as she got her breath back. The panel rattled under her as the wind gusted again, then it died. Deena didn’t move. The seconds in the dark seemed to stretch forever, and then she heard heavy footsteps pass by in the corridor. Once they had faded away, Deena popped the panel open again.
The corridor was empty. Looking back down toward the doorway, she couldn’t see anybody out on the gantry.
The footsteps must have been Lord Vader, but where was Skywalker? It had sounded like only one person walking by, but, to be honest, it had been hard to tell. As if to prove her point, the wind blew up again, filling the corridor with an eerie howling that Deena realized was certainly loud enough to mask the softer footfalls of Lord Vader’s…what? Enemy? Or was Skywalker now some kind of co-conspirator? Or…that scream—had he fallen off the antenna? Deena didn’t think so. It hadn’t sounded like the scream of someone falling.
Deena waited a few more moments, her back pressed against the panel behind her as the wind rose and fell. Then, satisfied that Lord Vader and Skywalker were far enough away, she followed their direction down the corridor. As she walked, she ran what parts of the conversation she had heard back through her head.
Don’t make me destroy you. Deena shook her head, trying to parse that statement. She only wished she had heard more.
But Lord Vader’s suggestion that the pair could unite and bring order to the galaxy—now that was clear enough. Deena wasn’t quite sure how to leverage that information, but she was sure somebody would be interested….
Right now, she had to refocus on the task at hand: getting out before the Imperial forces took full control.
Deena found a cargo lift that, thankfully, displayed a directory of city levels. But just as she was about to punch the control for what was listed as the Tibanna export hub, the lift was commandeered by a cadre of Ugnaughts who sent the lift to the top level. The small workers seemed to be arguing among themselves, not only ignoring Deena’s protests, but physically pushing her out of the lift ahead of them once they had reached their destination. No sooner had she exited the lift than the doors closed and it began a fast descent.
Deena sighed. She’d wasted enough time already and knew her best bet now was trying to get out with the city’s civilian population as they evacuated.
The upper levels were in total chaos, people running in every direction, carrying personal belongings and camtonos of valuables, adults carrying children, children leading the elderly by the hand. In the middle of all this, blue-uniformed city officials were doing their best to organize both themselves and the citizens. Evacuating the city was a huge operation, and Deena knew, deep in her bones, that the Empire would make short work of anyone unlucky enough to be left behind.
Deena looked down at Tig’s blaster in her hands and pushed down the feeling of nausea at the thought that, just a few hours ago, she would have been among the stormtroopers unleashing the Empire’s anger on these innocent people.
She pulled herself out of the seething crowd and took off down an empty corridor leading away from the main thoroughfare. She took a left, a right, backtracked at the sight of a squad of stormtroopers, picked another passage and ran down it. At the end of this one, she found herself in a quiet white atrium with an abstract, globelike sculpture at the center. She came to a halt and checked around. Apparently alone, she almost fell against the wall and closed her eyes, concentrating as she tried to visualize the route to the upper landing pads.
She heard them first. She opened her eyes, then darted back around the corner as a group of Imperials came out of a corridor beyond the atrium—Lord Vader, an Imperial officer, and a fireteam of stormtroopers, thankfully heading away from her position toward a door leading out onto one of the landing pads, which she’d managed to reach without even realizing.
“Alert my Star Destroyer,” said Lord Vader, as he led his entourage, “to prepare for my arrival.”
Then three more stormtroopers marched into the atrium from the other side. Deena turned and ran back the way she had come, taking a series of left turns to make sure she looped back to the landing pad.
She had to be quick—before the group disappeared.
Before she changed her mind. Because it was suicide. She knew that. Maybe it was the adrenaline, the fatigue, maybe it was the years of anger and hatred.
Maybe it was the fear. Fear that she’d made a mistake, that there was no hope.
That there was no going back.
Maybe she’d overheard something important. Maybe that intel was so incomplete as to be totally worthless.
So maybe she could do something herself that would make a difference.
Five stormtroopers. One officer. Lord Vader.
She couldn’t take them all out, but she didn’t need to. All it would take was one carefully aimed shot. She’d die under a blaze of energy bolts just a few seconds later…but not before she’d made a difference, made a contribution that would go down in history.
She came around the corner and found herself at the landing pad door. Lord Vader’s group was still in range, but only just, as they approached the shuttle docked on the pad.
Deena fell into a combat crouch. She raised the blaster. She took careful aim.
She squeezed the trigger, and nothing happened.
Deena felt her stomach do somersaults. She checked the blaster, thumbed the safety again—and found it was jammed, as Tig had said. The blaster really had been damaged in her fall from the freezer platform. In her adrenaline-fueled daze after leaving the freezing chamber, Deena had forgotten that simple, but important, fact.
Deena stood, breathing a huge sigh of…relief? Yes. Relief that she hadn’t thrown her life away for nothing. Lord Vader would never have fallen to a single blaster bolt. It would have been an empty gesture.
Deena dropped the blaster, fell to her knees, and watched the shuttle take
off.
“You there! What are you doing here?”
She looked over her shoulder as a group of blue-uniformed city officers surrounded her. The one who had spoken knelt beside her, while another man dressed in gray, his bald head wrapped in a cybernetic implant, stood to one side.
The officer kneeling beside her moved his hands carefully around her shoulders. “Do you need medical assistance?”
Deena looked at him. He was frowning, but it was a look of genuine concern.
“No, I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said. She got to her feet, the officer helping her. As she stood, the bald man looked her up and down—she’d seen him in the freezing chamber earlier, he was some kind of administrator, wasn’t he?
She turned to face him.
“I want to help,” said Deena. “With the evacuation—I’m…”
She hesitated. The bald man glanced at the other officer, and Deena realized they were all watching her closely.
“I’m a qualified pilot,” Deena continued. “I can help organize an ordered evacuation.”
The lights on the bald man’s implant flashed in sequence, but still he didn’t speak.
Deena sighed. “Look, you’re going to need all the help you can get. Pretty soon there are going to be Imps crawling all over the city, and you’re not going to be able to fight them.”
Imps. Even as she said it, it felt…strange. This was the language of the Rebellion, of those she had dedicated her life to fighting.
Not anymore.
Then the bald man gave a curt nod and walked away.
“Okay,” said the other officer, “let’s go.” As one, the group moved off at a run.
Deena watched him for a moment, then, grinning to herself, followed.
It seemed that, now, she really had picked her side.
THE MAN WHO BUILT CLOUD CITY
Alexander Freed
Our tale begins with one word. One word repeated twice by a very lonely man:
From a Certain Point of View Page 44
