Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II

by Williams, Sean

  Juno was forcefully reminded then of how young Leia was. Boy troubles, parental expectations, frustrated ambition—for teenagers some things were universal, even in the middle of a galactic revolution. Leia reminded Juno of herself, not so very long ago.

  “My father tried to set me up with the son of a friend once,” she told the Princess. “A horrible boy, not much more than a recruit. Thought he was going to be the next High Commander but could barely button up his uniform right. Somehow just being from the right side of the planet mattered more than anything about who he was.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Learned to be the best pilot in my sector and got myself transferred. The kid stayed behind—never made it above corporal, for all his talk. My father probably still thinks I missed my chance.”

  “Parents have no idea.”

  They laughed again, even as Juno wondered what was going on. Did the Princess have so little contact with the people around her that she, too, had no one to talk to? That didn’t seem possible: She had mentioned the university, after all, where there would be lots of people her age, and Juno was sure Bail Organa wouldn’t let his daughter grow up isolated and socially inept.

  At least Leia still knew her father, Juno thought. Her own father was so distant and alienated that she didn’t even know if he was alive.

  “Do you have a boyfriend at the moment?” Juno asked her, testing the moment to see where it led.

  To her credit, Leia didn’t blush. “No one my aunts would approve of.”

  “Ah, it’s like that. Watch out for the bad ones, Leia. They’re the ones who really mess you up.”

  “Everyone says that.”

  “Because it’s true. Don’t learn it the hard way, like I did.”

  Instead of lumping Juno in with “everyone” and dismissing the advice, Leia nodded soberly. “I guess you did.”

  Juno sobered, too. She hadn’t even been thinking of Starkiller, but now she was. The pain was sharp and piercing, causing her to lower her eyes from the Princess’s searching gaze.

  And suddenly it was clear just how Leia saw her. Not as a friend or confidante, although she might claim either if directly asked. What else could a Princess of the Royal House of Alderaan with rebellious aspirations see in an independent-minded officer who always seemed to be in the thick of things but a role model?

  Now, that was a daunting responsibility.

  “I’m sorry,” said Leia. “I can’t imagine what it must feel like to miss someone so badly.”

  “I hope you’ll never know.” Juno collected herself and forced a smile. Time to change the subject. “It makes fighting the Emperor and our friends the Senators look easy in comparison. At least they’re fights we can win.”

  Like a good diplomat-in-training, Leia picked up on her signals. “Well, I’m sure we’ll find ways to keep you busy. Thanks for your support, Juno. I’ll be in touch again soon.”

  “We won’t be sitting on our hands out here, that’s for sure. The moment we have a target, the fleet will be ready to move.”

  Leia smiled and raised her hand as though to hit a switch at her end.

  “Oh, before I go,” she said, “if your droid is playing up again, have you considered that it might not be a random malfunction? There could be a reason for it, beyond a simple glitch.”

  “Like deliberate sabotage, you mean?”

  “Maybe. Or a message. Or something else entirely.” Leia shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s worth thinking about, though.”

  Juno nodded. “I will. Thank you.”

  Leia fizzled out, and suddenly Juno was sitting face-to-face with the droid himself.

  “What do you think, PROXY? Are you trying to tell me something?”

  “I can’t imagine what, Captain Eclipse. When I have something to communicate with you, I use the verbal interface my makers gave me.”

  “You’re all talk, in other words.”

  “Correct.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” That left sabotage or a message from someone else. But who would go to so much trouble just to send her images of Starkiller and herself? It didn’t make sense.

  “We have you on approach, Captain Eclipse,” said a familiar voice over the comm. “Welcome back.”

  “Thanks, Nitram,” she said, quickly taking stock of the shuttle’s location. It was decelerating smoothly on autopilot for the Salvation’s mid-spine docking tube. Taking the controls, she adjusted its trim and gave the thrusters an extra nudge. Just seeing the frigate raised her spirits. “Break out the Old Janx Spirit. It’s good to be home.”

  “Uh, seriously, sir?”

  Juno smiled at her second in command’s tone. Sometimes the Bothan was too easy to tease. “Of course not. We have work to do. The bottle stays in my safe until the Emperor is dead.”

  “Yes, sir. Understood.”

  The Salvation loomed ahead. Juno put all other thoughts from her mind as she jockeyed the shuttle in to dock.

  CHAPTER 11

  FROM DAGOBAH TO MALASTARE was a relatively short journey, but it seemed to take forever. With nothing to do but think and worry while the Rogue Shadow was in hyperspace, Starkiller paced relentlessly from one end of the ship to the other, turning over everything he had seen and felt on the swampy world receding behind him.

  “He has a healthy head start.”

  “We’ve been breached. Troopers boarding!”

  Juno lying dead in his arms.

  “Whatever you have seen, follow it you must.”

  He had gone to Dagobah hoping for clarity, and all he had received were visions and cryptic advice. Was he closer to Juno or getting farther away? Would he be able to save her, or was she already dead?

  The Force reflected his inner turmoil, sending occasional shudders and shakes through the ship. He tried his best to calm down. If his mood disrupted life support or the hyperdrive, he might not make it to Malastare at all.

  Finally the navicomp chimed, warning him that his destination was approaching. Leaving the meditation chamber, he hurried to the pilot’s seat and took the controls. The moment the stars of realspace ceased streaking, he had the ship under power and accelerating toward the high-gravity world.

  Starkiller had visited Port Pixelito just once, while in the service of Darth Vader. A treacherous Imperial aide who had run up gambling debts from podracing had been his target, and one soon dealt with, even in the early days of his apprenticeship. In disguise and with PROXY’s help, he had infiltrated the security installation without being detected, then sliced into the mainframe to find his target. From there, he had crawled through ventilation ducts until he was above the target’s private chambers, then Force-choked him while he worked at his desk. Escaping had been just as simple. To date, he was sure no one knew what had really happened that night.

  Seeing the world brought back memories of his first pilot, a dour old sergeant who rarely spoke and who flew the Rogue Shadow like it was an ore barge. Like the murdered aide, he hadn’t lasted long. Tardiness wasn’t tolerated in Darth Vader’s employ.

  That mission had been five years ago, but the Starkiller in his mind seemed barely a child to him now. So much had changed since then. He had died at least once, for starters …

  The crowd on the ground cleared his head of any kind of nostalgia. Spaceports were typically chaotic, but this one broke all the records. Since the collapse of Imperial control, all manner of beings roamed the streets, free to pursue whatever dreams or fancies took them. Starkiller kept his guard up, and his senses tuned for Kota. The old man had said that he was heading here after Commenor, and he had definitely arrived. Starkiller recognized that mix of anger and self-control anywhere.

  The trail led him to a market, and from there to a machine repair shop. A cover, he assumed. Kota was very close now.

  He went inside. It looked perfectly innocent, from the mess of spare parts to the three-eyed Gran behind the counter. Behind the façade, though, Starkiller could sense something very different.r />
  “The Jedi,” he said, exactly as he had on Cato Neimoidia. “Where is he?”

  “No Jedi here,” said the Gran, blinking its eyes one at a time from right to left. “Got something to fix?”

  “I’m not a customer.” He raised and passed his hand in front of the Gran’s face. “You’ll show me the way.”

  The Gran couldn’t resist the Force. Starkiller’s suggestion was as implacable as gravity, made all the more irresistible by his urgent need. The Gran pointed hesitantly at the shelves. There was no door visible. Starkiller didn’t have the patience for guesswork, not when Juno’s life might be at stake.

  He faced the wall and Force-pushed, gently at first but with growing insistence. Machine parts rattled and shook. Glass smashed. With a groan and squeak of tortured metal, a section of the wall began to swing back.

  There was movement on the far side. Someone fired at him. He deflected the bolt effortlessly into the ground and leapt through the gap, sending what seemed like a mountain of spare parts flying ahead of him.

  A green lightsaber flashed toward him. He blocked it with both of his. By the mixed light of their blades, he recognized Kota’s face, and Kota recognized his in return.

  The general performed a startled double take.

  “What’s with you, boy?” he asked, deactivating his weapon and stepping away. “You could’ve knocked.”

  “I’m in a hurry.” Starkiller kept one lightsaber at the ready. The space was large and cluttered—not helped by the mess he had made on the way in—and he hadn’t yet pinned down the location of the person who had fired the blaster at him. “I need to find the Alliance fleet.”

  “You’ve had a change of heart, then.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. The fleet’s about to be attacked. I need to stop that from happening at all cost.”

  “Lots of people looking for the fleet at the moment,” said a voice out of the shadows. “Not all of them friendly.”

  Starkiller turned. Into the light stepped a broad-shouldered man holding an energy weapon trained at his head. His walked with an unusual gait and a strange whining noise. As he approached, Starkiller realized why.

  His legs were gone. In their place were three multi-jointed prosthetics tipped with rubber “feet.” They moved with a complicated grace that had nothing to do with the way ordinary humans walked.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m the repairman,” he said. “The name’s Shyre. What’s yours?”

  “I don’t have one anymore. Is that a problem?”

  “That depends. Do you vouch for him, General?”

  “I do.”

  “He part of your new squad? A spy, perhaps?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “So how does he know the fleet’s about to be attacked?”

  “It’s a long story,” Starkiller said.

  “I’m all ears.”

  “I had a vision,” he said, directing his words to Kota. It didn’t matter what Shyre thought. “The fleet was near a nebula, one I’ve never seen before. It was taken by surprise. Several fighters got through the defenses. Juno’s ship was hit. She was hurt. Then I saw her die.”

  “Juno?” asked Shyre, lowering his weapon.

  Starkiller glanced at him. “I don’t know whether I was seeing something that happened in the past or the future, but every second you hold me up makes it more likely I won’t be able to fix it.”

  “She was here yesterday,” Shyre said. “I told her where to find the fleet. It’s stationed just off Itani Nebula.”

  “Thank you,” Starkiller said, deactivating his lightsaber. “That’s all I need to know.”

  He turned to leave, but Kota stood in his way. The general’s armor was still battered and bloodstained, but he had regained his strength and confidence.

  “Just slow down, boy. How do you know this isn’t a trap?”

  “It might well be,” he said. “Vader is hunting me. I saw that, too.”

  “What if the vision was a fake? You should at least think it through before charging off on your own.”

  Starkiller saw the sense in that. There were inconsistencies in what he had seen that had bothered him ever since Dagobah. Painful though the events of the vision were, he forced himself to remember them, searching for incriminating details. If it was a fake, then maybe the other visions were, too.

  “She was the captain of a frigate,” he said, “but you told me that. I only got a glimpse of the instruments. It looked like a Nebulon-B. It was called the Salvation.”

  Kota nodded. “That’s her ship, all right.”

  “Her second in command was an alien of some kind.”

  “Bothan.”

  “But I saw PROXY,” he said, “and that can’t be correct, can it?”

  “She and Bail Organa found your droid on Corellia. She must have gotten him working again.”

  Kota and Shyre exchanged glances.

  “Sounds real to me,” said Shyre. “So what are we going to do about it?”

  “You’re not doing anything,” Starkiller said. “I’ll handle this.”

  “You won’t get within a parsec of the fleet without me,” said Kota. “You don’t have the authorization codes.”

  “So give them to me.”

  “Are you ready to expose yourself like this? Have you thought through what’ll happen when you turn up in the middle of the fleet as though you’ve never been away?”

  Starkiller hadn’t, but he was beginning to now. If the Rebellion was as riven by arguments as Kota had said—and if Kota had told anyone else about the Jedi Starkiller had murdered—then his arrival would be like an anti-matter bomb going off among them. It might take months for the pieces to come back together, if they ever did. Rushing in might end up placing Juno in more peril, in the long run.

  “All right,” he said. “You’re coming with me.”

  “And if I’m coming, so’s my squad. I’ll call them and they’ll be ready to lift off within the hour.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “How many ships did you see in your vision?”

  “Seven, maybe eight.”

  “Let my crew handle them while you look after Juno. Besides, they need to bond. Fighting Imperials is just the thing for that.”

  Kota held out his hand, and Starkiller, resigned to the sense the general was making, shook it.

  “You move fast, old man.”

  “Stand still too long and you’re dead.”

  Kota left the workshop to call his squad, leaving Starkiller momentarily alone with the repairman.

  Shyre was staring at him with an odd expression on his face.

  “You’re him,” he said.

  A crawling sensation went up Starkiller’s spine. “Him who?”

  “Juno told me about you. You flew together. She told me she—” A pained expression flashed across Shyre’s face. “She told me you died.”

  Starkiller didn’t hesitate. He didn’t need people talking about him behind his back, not when Darth Vader was sending bounty hunters across the galaxy in search of him. The wrong word in the wrong ear could bring about a much greater disaster than the one he was trying to prevent.

  He took three steps closer to Shyre and raised his left hand.

  “You don’t know me,” he said.

  The repairman stiffened and his voice took on a distant tone. “I don’t know you.”

  “I was never here.”

  “You were never here.”

  “Neither were Kota and Juno.”

  “Neither was Kota.”

  “Or Juno.”

  Shyre’s jaw muscles worked. “Or Juno.”

  “Good. You’ve got a lot to clean up and you’d better get on with it.”

  “Okay, well, I’ve got a huge mess to clean up here. Guess I’d better get on with it.”

  Starkiller released his hold over him. Shyre turned and went looking for a broom. Starkiller left him to it.

  KOTA’S SQUAD HAD A SHIP, a modified Ghtr
oc 630 freighter that had seen extensive action, judging by the carbon scoring on the hull and the slightly cockeyed look to its drives. Kota arranged for them to assemble at the ship, a dozen berths up from the Rogue Shadow. Starkiller didn’t want to meet them, but Kota insisted.

  “The medic, at least. There’s something you need to hear.”

  Starkiller grudgingly consented to listen. They found a quiet corner in a smoky cantina where the three of them could talk in private.

  “Ni-Ke-Vanz.” The medic was a fast-talking Cerean with a high domed skull and amazingly elaborate eyebrows. They rose up and down rapidly as he talked, providing a visual counterpoint to his words. “Kota tells me you want to make a clone.”

  That was news to him, but he could guess where it was going. “Do you know how it’s done?”

  “I ought to. For five years I worked with a Khommite. They’re the galaxy’s experts at this kind of thing.”

  “Where was this?”

  “On Kessel.”

  “I didn’t know they had cloning facilities there.”

  “They didn’t,” said Ni-Ke-Vanz. “We were slaves.”

  Of course. Starkiller indicated that he should continue.

  “The Khommites have been cloning themselves for a thousand years and they’ve got it down to a fine art. It defines their entire culture. They have certain lines they reproduce over and over again—lines that are good at teaching, good at art, good at politics, and so on. Each line is basically the same person made multiple times over. On the whole planet, there might be only a few dozen true individuals. The rest are just repeats, passed on down the generations.”

  “That’s not the kind of thing I’m after,” said Starkiller.