Star Wars: The Last Command

by Timothy Zahn

  YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER. YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER.

  But you are another matter, Mara Jade.

  Mara jerked, the sudden motion banging the back of her head against the tree trunk behind her. Another voice; but this one wasn’t coming from inside her. It was coming from—

  I have seen you in my meditations, the voice continued placidly. Have seen you coming to me and kneeling at my feet. You will be mine, and Skywalker will follow. One way or another.

  Mara shook her head violently, trying to shake away the words and thoughts. The second voice seemed to laugh; then, suddenly, the words and laughter disappeared beneath a distant but steady pressure against her mind. Setting her teeth, she pushed back against it. Dimly, she heard the voice laugh again at her efforts—

  And then, with a suddenness that made her catch her breath, the pressure was gone.

  “Are you all right?” Skywalker’s voice asked quietly.

  Mara looked down. Skywalker had risen up on one elbow, his silhouetted face turned toward her. “Did you hear it, too?” she asked.

  “I didn’t hear any words. But I felt the pressure.”

  Mara looked up toward the leaf canopy overhead. “It’s C’baoth,” she said. “He’s here.”

  “Yes,” Skywalker said; and she could hear the apprehension in his voice. Small wonder—he’d faced C’baoth once, back on Jomark, and nearly lost out to him.

  “So what now?” Mara asked, rubbing at the sweat around her mouth with a shaking hand. “We abort the mission?”

  The silhouette shrugged. “How? We’re only a couple of days from the mountain. It’d take us a lot longer than that to get back to the Falcon.”

  “Except that the Imperials know we’re here now.”

  “Maybe,” Skywalker said slowly. “But maybe not. Did the contact cut off suddenly for you, too?”

  She frowned; and suddenly it hit her. “You think they moved some ysalamiri around him?”

  “Or else strapped him into one of those frames you were using on Jomark,” Skywalker said. “Either way, it would imply he was a prisoner.”

  Mara thought about that. If so, he might not be interested in telling his captors about the invaders moving toward the mountain.

  She looked sharply at him as another thought suddenly occurred to her. “Did you know C’baoth was going to come?” she demanded. “Is that why you wanted me to practice my old Jedi training?”

  “I didn’t know he’d be here,” Skywalker said. “But I knew we would eventually have to face him again. He said that himself on Jomark.”

  Mara shivered. Kneeling at my feet … “I don’t want to face him, Skywalker.”

  “Neither do I,” he said softly. “But I think we have to.”

  He sighed; and then, quietly, he peeled off the top of his bedroll and got to his feet. “Why don’t you go get some sleep,” he said, stepping over to her side. “I’m awake now anyway; and you took the brunt of that attack.”

  “All right,” Mara said, too tired to argue. “If you need any help, call me.”

  “I will.”

  She picked her way across Calrissian and the Wookiee to her bedroll and crawled into it. Her last memory, as she dropped off to sleep, was of the voice in the back of her mind.

  YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER …

  CHAPTER

  22

  The report came in from Mount Tantiss during ship’s night and was waiting for him when Pellaeon arrived on the bridge in the morning. The Draklor had reached Wayland more or less on schedule six hours previously, had offloaded its passengers, and had left the system bound for Valrar as per orders. General Covell had refused to take command until local morning—

  Pellaeon frowned. Refused to take command? That didn’t sound like Covell.

  “Captain Pellaeon?” the comm officer called up to him. “Sir, were getting a holo transmission from Colonel Selid on Wayland. It’s marked urgent.”

  “Put it through to the aft bridge hologram pod,” Pellaeon instructed, getting up from his command chair and heading aft. “Signal the Grand Admiral to—never mind,” he interrupted himself as, through the archway, he spotted Thrawn and Rukh coming up the steps into the aft bridge.

  Thrawn saw him, too. “What’s wrong, Captain?”

  “Urgent message from Wayland, sir,” Pellaeon said, gesturing toward the hologram pod. The image of an Imperial officer was already waiting, and even in a quarter-size holo, Pellaeon could see the younger man’s nervousness.

  “Probably C’baoth,” Thrawn predicted darkly. They reached position in front of the hologram pod, and Thrawn nodded to the image. “Colonel Selid, this is Grand Admiral Thrawn. Report.”

  “Sir,” Selid said, his parade-ground posture stiffening even more. “I regret to inform you, Admiral, of the sudden death of General Covell.”

  Pellaeon felt his mouth fall open a couple of centimeters. “How?” he asked.

  “We don’t know yet, sir,” Selid said. “He apparently died in his sleep. The medics are still running tests, but so far all they can suggest is that large portions of the General’s brain had simply shut down.”

  “Brain tissue does not simply’ shut down, Colonel,” Thrawn said. “There has to be a reason for it.”

  Selid seemed to wince. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir; I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “I know you didn’t,” Thrawn assured him. “What about the rest of the passengers?”

  “The medics are checking them all now,” Selid said. “No problems so far. Rather, they’re checking all those still within the garrison. General Covell’s troops—the company that arrived on the Draklor with him—had already been dispersed outside the mountain when he died.”

  “What, the whole company?” Pellaeon asked. “What for?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Selid said. “General Covell gave the orders. After the big meeting, I mean, before he died.”

  “Perhaps we’d better have the story from the beginning, Colonel,” Thrawn cut him off. “Tell me everything.”

  “Yes, sir.” Selid visibly pulled himself together. “General Covell and the others were landed via shuttle approximately six hours ago. I tried to turn over command of the garrison to him, but he refused. He then insisted on having a private word with his troops in one of the officers’ mess halls.”

  “Which troops?” Thrawn asked. “The whole garrison?”

  “No, sir, just the ones who’d accompanied him on the Draklor. He said he had some special orders to give them.”

  Pellaeon looked at Thrawn. “I’d have thought he’d have had plenty of time aboard ship for special orders.”

  “Yes,” Thrawn agreed. “One would think so.”

  “Maybe it was C’baoth’s idea, sir,” Selid suggested. “He was at the general’s side from the minute they got off the shuttle. Muttering, sort of, the whole time.”

  “Was he, now,” Thrawn said thoughtfully. His voice was calm, but there was something beneath it that sent a shiver up Pellaeon’s back. “Where is Master C’baoth now?”

  “Up in the Emperor’s old royal chambers,” Selid said. “General Covell insisted they be opened for him.”

  “Would he be above the ysalamiri influence up there?” Pellaeon murmured.

  Thrawn shook his head. “I doubt it. According to my calculations, the entire mountain and some of the surrounding area should be within the Force-empty bubble. What happened then, Colonel?”

  “The general spent about fifteen minutes talking to his troops,” Selid said. “When he came out, he told me that he’d given them secret orders that had come directly from you, Admiral, and that I wasn’t to interfere.”

  “And then they left the mountain?”

  “After stripping one of the supply rooms of field gear and explosives, yes,” Selid said. “Actually, they spent a couple more hours inside the garrison before leaving. Familiarizing themselves with the layout, the general said. After they left, C’baoth escorted the general to his quarters an
d then was himself escorted to the royal chambers by two of my stormtroopers. I put the rest of the garrison back onto standard nighttime routine, and that was it. Until this morning, when the orderly found the general.”

  “So C’baoth wasn’t with Covell at the time of his death?” Thrawn asked.

  “No, sir,” Selid said. “Though the medics don’t think the general lived very long after C’baoth left him.”

  “And he was with the general up until that time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pellaeon threw Thrawn a sideways look. The Grand Admiral was staring at nothing, his glowing red eyes narrowed to slits. “Tell me, Colonel, what was your impression of General Covell?”

  “Well …” Selid hesitated. “I’d have to say I was a bit disappointed, sir.”

  “How so?”

  “He just wasn’t what I was expecting, Admiral,” Selid said, sounding distinctly uncomfortable. Pellaeon didn’t blame him: criticizing one senior officer in front of another was a serious breach of military etiquette. Especially between different branches of the service. “He seemed … distant is the word I’d have to use, sir. He implied that my security was poor and that he would be making some important changes, but he wouldn’t talk to me about them. In fact, he hardly spoke to me the whole time he was here. And it wasn’t just me—he was short with the other officers who tried to talk to him, as well. That was his privilege, of course, and he may have just been tired. But it didn’t seem to fit with what I’d heard of the general’s reputation.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Thrawn said. “Is the hologram pad in the Emperor’s old throne room operational, Colonel?”

  “Yes, sir. Though C’baoth may not be in the throne room itself.”

  “He will be,” Thrawn said coldly. “Connect me with him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Selid’s image vanished, replaced by the pause symbol. “You think C’baoth did something to Covell?” Pellaeon asked quietly.

  “I see no other likely explanation,” Thrawn said. “My guess is that our beloved Jedi Master was trying to take over Covell’s mind, perhaps even replacing entire sections of it with his own. When they hit the ysalamir bubble and he lost that direct contact, there wasn’t enough of Covell left to keep him alive for long.”

  “I see.” Pellaeon turned his head away from the Grand Admiral, a darkening anger flowing through him. He’d warned Thrawn about what C’baoth might do. Had warned him over and over again. “What are you going to do about it?”

  The pause symbol vanished before Thrawn could answer; but it wasn’t the standard quarter-size figure that replaced it. Instead, a huge image of C’baoth’s face suddenly glared out at them, jolting Pellaeon an involuntary step backwards.

  Thrawn didn’t even twitch. “Good morning, Master C’baoth,” the Grand Admiral said, his voice mirror smooth. “I see you’ve discovered the Emperor’s private hologram setting.”

  “Grand Admiral Thrawn,” C’baoth said, his own voice cold and arrogant. “Is this how you reward my work on behalf of your ambitions? By an act of betrayal?”

  “If there is betrayal, it’s on your side, Master C’baoth,” Thrawn said. “What did you do to General Covell?”

  C’baoth ignored the question. “The Force is not so easily betrayed as you think,” he said. “And never forget this, Grand Admiral Thrawn: With my destruction will come your own. I have foreseen it.”

  He stopped, glaring back and forth at the two of them. For a handful of heartbeats Thrawn remained silent. “Are you finished?” he asked at last.

  C’baoth frowned, the play of uncertainty and nervousness easily visible in the magnified face. For all its intimidating majesty, the Emperor’s personal hologram setting clearly had its own set of drawbacks. “For now,” C’baoth said. “Have you some feeble defense to offer?”

  “I have nothing to defend, Master C’baoth,” Thrawn said. “It was you who insisted on going to Wayland. Now tell me what you did to General Covell.”

  “You will first restore the Force to me.”

  “The ysalamiri will stay where they are,” Thrawn said. “Tell me what you did to General Covell.”

  For a moment the two men glared at each other. C’baoth’s glare crumbled first, and for a moment it looked as if he was going to fold. But then the old man’s jaw jutted out, and once again he was the arrogant Jedi Master. “General Covell was mine to do with as I pleased,” he said. “As is everything in my Empire.”

  “Thank you,” Thrawn said. “That’s all I need to know. Colonel Selid?”

  The huge face vanished and was replaced by Selid’s quarter-size image. “Yes, Admiral?”

  “Instructions, Colonel,” Thrawn told him. “First of all, Master C’baoth is hereby placed under arrest. You may allow him free run of the royal chambers and Emperor’s throne room but he is not to leave there. All control circuits from those floors will be disconnected, of course. Secondly, you’re to initiate inquiries as to precisely where General Covell’s troops were seen within the mountain before they left.”

  “Why don’t we ask the troops themselves, sir?” Selid suggested. “They presumably have comlinks with them.”

  “Because I’m not certain we could trust their answers,” Thrawn told him. “Which brings me to my third order. None of the troops which left the mountain under General Covell’s orders are to be allowed back in.”

  Selid’s jaw dropped visibly. “Sir?”

  “You heard correctly,” Thrawn told him. “Another transport will arrive for them in a few days, at which time they’ll be rounded up and taken off the planet. But under no circumstances are they to be allowed back into the mountain.”

  “Yes, sir,” Selid said, floundering. “But—sir, what do I tell them?”

  “You may tell them the truth,” Thrawn said quietly. “That their orders came not from General Covell, and certainly not from me, but from a traitor to the Empire. Until Intelligence can sort through the details, the entire company will be considered as under suspicion, as unwitting accomplices to treason.”

  The word seemed to hang before them in the air. “Understood, sir,” Selid said at last.

  “Good,” Thrawn said. “You are of course reinstated as garrison commander. Any questions?”

  Selid drew himself up. “No, sir.”

  “Good. Carry on, Colonel. Chimaera out.”

  The figure vanished from the hologram pod. “Do you think it’s safe to leave C’baoth there, sir?” Pellaeon asked.

  “There’s nowhere in the Empire safer,” Thrawn pointed out. “At least, not yet.”

  Pellaeon frowned “I don’t understand.”

  “His use to the Empire is rapidly nearing an end, Captain,” Thrawn said, turning and walking beneath the archway into the main section of the bridge. “However, he still has one last role to play in our long-term consolidation of power.”

  He paused at the aft edge of the command walkway. “C’baoth is insane, Captain—that we both agree on. But such insanity is in his mind. Not in his body.”

  Pellaeon stared at him. “Are you suggesting we clone him?”

  “Why not?” Thrawn asked. “Not at Mount Tantiss itself, certainly, given the conditions there. Most likely not at the speed which that facility allows, either—that’s all well and good for techs and TIE fighter pilots, but not a project of this delicacy. No, I envision bringing such a clone to childhood and then allowing it to grow to maturity at a normal pace for its last ten or fifteen years. Under suitable upbringing conditions, of course.”

  “I see,” Pellaeon said, struggling to keep his voice steady. A young C’baoth—or maybe two or ten or twenty of them—running loose around the galaxy. This was an idea that was going to take some getting used to. “Where would you set up this other cloning facility?”

  “Somewhere absolutely secure,” Thrawn said. “Possibly on one of the worlds in the Unknown Regions where I once served the Emperor. You’ll instruct Intelligence to begin searching for a suitable l
ocation after we’ve crushed the Rebels at Bilbringi.”

  Pellaeon felt his lip twitch. Right: the dangerously ethereal Bilbringi attack. What with this C’baoth thing, he’d almost forgotten the main business of the day. Or his reservations concerning it. “Yes, sir. Admiral, I’m forced to remind you that all the evidence still indicates Tangrene as the probable point of attack.”

  “I’m aware of the evidence, Captain,” Thrawn said. “Nevertheless, they will be at Bilbringi.”

  He sent his gaze leisurely around his bridge, his glowing red eyes missing nothing. And the crewers knew it. At every station, from the crew pits to the lateral consoles, there were the subtle sounds and movements of men aware that their commander was watching and striving to show him their best. “And so will we,” the Grand Admiral added to Pellaeon. “Set course for Bilbringi, Captain. And let us prepare to meet our guests.”

  Wedge drained the last of his cup and set it back on the chipped and stained wood of the small table, glancing across the noisy Mumbri Storve cantina as he did so. The place was as crowded as it had been when he, Janson, and Hobbie had come in an hour earlier, but the texture of the crowd had changed quite a bit. Most of the younger people had left, couples and groups both, and had been replaced by an older and decidedly seedier-looking bunch. The fringe types were drifting in; which meant it was time for them to be drifting out.

  His fellow Rogue Squadron pilots knew it, too. “Time to go?” Hobbie suggested, his voice just audible over the noise.

  “Right,” Wedge nodded, getting to his feet and fumbling in his pouch for a coin that would cover this last round. His civilian pouch; and he really hated the awkward things. But it would hardly do for them to go wandering around town in full New Republic uniforms, complete with the distinctive Rogue Squadron patches.

  He found a proper-size coin and dropped it into the center of the table as the others stood up. “Where to now?” Janson asked, hunching his shoulders slightly to stretch out his back muscles.

  “Back to the base, I think,” Wedge told him.

  “Good,” Janson grunted. “Morning’s going to come early enough as it is.”