She lost her footing and jarred her shoulder. Dazed by pain, she would have tumbled helplessly out of the cargo bay but for a cable that whipped about her waist and dragged her back toward the bounty hunter.
At the same time, a stubby missile protruding from the top of his jetpack launched itself out into the void. Halfway between the cargo bay and the hanging ship outside, its tip unfolded into a grappling hook that an instant later found solid purchase on the side of the ship.
The cable binding Juno brought her within arm’s reach of the bounty hunter. Unaffected by the rapidly thinning atmosphere, he slapped a breather across her face and bodily threw himself out of the cargo bay, taking her with him.
She kicked and struggled but his grip and the cable combined were impossible to resist. Her cry of anger and frustration fogged up the mask of the breather, so for a moment she couldn’t tell what was happening behind her. They jerked to a halt, and she assumed at first that it was because they had reached the bounty hunter’s ship, but a rapid volley of blasterfire back the way they had come, followed by the straining sound of the grapnel retractor, revealed that something very different was happening.
She held her breath, cursing the foggy visor and willing it to clear more quickly. By the fiery light of the nebula she glimpsed the Salvation looming ahead of her, sparkling jets indicating where breaches were venting air into the vacuum. Flames burned on the other side of several transparisteel windows. Bodies tumbled like dead stars, too many to count.
Clinging to the edge of the cargo bay door, withstanding the emptiness of space, the doors that were trying to close on him, and the shots fired his way by the bounty hunter, was Starkiller. One hand reached for her, fingers straining as though clutching at something invisible. Through the Force, he was trying to bring her back.
The whining of the grapnel reached a higher pitch. It was only a matter of time before something snapped—either the cable or the motor trying to reel it in. Juno had no doubt of that. Starkiller had shifted whole Star Destroyers. It would be nothing for him to overpower a single motor.
The bounty hunter reached around her to push yet another button on his gauntlet. For a second it had no obvious effect. Then, in the cargo bay behind Starkiller, something vast and angular moved.
Sparks flared. Starkiller turned with lightsabers swinging. The force pulling her back to safety faltered—and then died entirely as the cargo bay doors slammed shut between her and him.
Juno could hold her breath no longer. She raged against her captor, calling him things she hadn’t called anyone since her earliest days in the Academy. She kicked and flailed against his chest, not caring how much it hurt her shoulder. The pain she felt ran deeper than flesh. Her entire being was in agony.
He was alive. She had seen him. A thousand questions barraged her—questions she didn’t want to ask, but would have to address later, because they weren’t ever going to go away.
How did he survive?
Where had he been for the last year?
Why had he stayed away when the Rebel Alliance had needed him so badly?
Why didn’t he tell her?
For now it was terrible enough that she was being taken from him, and there was nothing she or anyone could do to stop it.
CHAPTER 15
JUNO.
Her proximity filled his mind, making it hard to deal with anything or anyone else around him. After leaving Kota, his comlink had squawked and blared about distant events and conflicts, so he had switched it off in irritation. He didn’t care what happened outside the ship, only what happened to Juno inside it. When stormtroopers had crossed his path, he had blasted them out of the way with disinterested ferocity. Nothing could slow him. Nothing would stop him. The only thing keeping him and Juno apart was distance, and that could easily be overcome.
“Whatever you have seen, follow it you must.”
“To the ends of the galaxy if I have to.”
But the man in his vision was wilier than Starkiller had anticipated. The trail he had been following led nowhere, and was seeded with numerous traps and troopers designed to slow him down. If Juno was being taken to the cargo bay on level seven, then she was going by a very different route.
He forced himself to concentrate, seeking her through the many walls and decks of the Salvation, and finally sensed her presence two decks up. They were connected through the Force, by invisible lines that might fade but would never entirely break. Now he saw them clearly, it was just a matter of following them. Forgoing stairwells or lifts, he simply blasted his way through the ship’s infrastructure. Metal and plastoid could be repaired. Wires and hydraulics could be rerouted. Human life—Juno’s life—could not be replaced.
And he had seen her, briefly, face white and spattered with her own blood, eyes wide and staring at him in utter disbelief. What was going through her mind he could not begin to guess. Joy? Confusion? Relief? Doubt? They had only locked stares for a moment before the man who had taken her captive pushed her out of sight. Then he had fired a missile at Starkiller’s feet that had blown a massive hole in the frigate. Starkiller had thrown up a Force shield at the last instant, but had still found himself four decks away when the blast dissipated. By the time he had retraced his steps, Juno was gone.
She was nearby, though, and it had taken him less than a minute to catch up, thinking hard all the way. If Juno was bait, why hadn’t the trap been sprung? Starkiller was still alive and unfettered, and so, presumably, was Juno. Where did this particular gambit end?
“I do not expect you to survive,” the voice of his former Master said in his mind. “But should you succeed, you will be one step closer to your destiny.”
Starkiller could clearly remember the moment those words had been spoken. It seemed an eternity ago, while receiving orders to kill the mad Jedi droid maker, Kazdan Paratus. He had succeeded in that mission, but his destiny remained as elusive as ever.
What did Darth Vader want?
Sometimes it seemed that only Darth Vader could answer that question.
Starkiller reached the cargo bay doors. They were locked, but that didn’t slow him for longer than a second. Inert matter was no match for the Force, and therefore no obstacle to him. Had Juno not been on the other side, he would have vaporized it in an instant, sending scalding metal shrapnel flying all through the cargo bay.
She was facing him, being dragged backward by a loop of cable wrapped around her waist. The armored man blew out the cargo bay’s external force field, and the vacuum pulled them with the rushing atmosphere outward into space. Starkiller grabbed hold of the nearest solid object in order to stop himself from sliding out after them. There was a stocky ship hanging just outside the air lock, obviously waiting to scoop them up and take them elsewhere. Juno’s captor fired a grappling hook toward it and began to reel him and his struggling prisoner aboard.
Starkiller braved the hurricane pouring past him and skidded to the very edge of the air lock. There he found purchase against the bulkhead and stretched one hand out toward them. Again, he could have wrenched them back into the frigate without great difficulty, were it not for fear of hurting Juno in the process. If he pulled too hard, she might be crushed. Also, the man holding her was armed and unafraid to use his weapon. If he turned the weapon on her, she might be killed before Starkiller could prevent it.
Still he tried, straining against the cable winch and, when that proved too difficult, actually dragging the ship in toward the frigate. Why fight the winch when he could just as easily move the anchor it was attached to? The stocky ship rocked and swayed and began to creep toward him, Juno and her captor with it …
Then a shadow fell across him from behind. His concentration wavered. Something was moving toward him. Not a stormtrooper, visible or otherwise. It came from above, and got bigger the more it came into view.
Dying wasn’t going to help Juno. He turned, lightsabers upraised to strike whatever it was. A droid of some kind, with multiple glowing photoreceptors
and a vast, armored body that towered over him, balanced on eight thick legs.
He had seen it before, in his vision of Kamino. That knowledge didn’t help, however, as it raised its forelegs and tried to spear him with four powerful lasers. He jumped, and the orange beams followed him, leaving glowing lines in their wake. It was big but fast, and he barely stayed ahead of its deadly attack. Behind him, the cargo bay doors slammed shut and life support began pumping in air. It smelled scorched and acrid under the giant droid’s relentless assault.
Running wasn’t helping, either. It was only wasting time. Starkiller took stock and decided to try another tactic.
He leapt into a corner and faced the droid with his lightsabers crossed. The convergent beams hit both blades and were reflected back at their source. The droid’s mirror finish bounced them right back at him, doubling the number of attacks he had to deal with. Instead of retreating, he changed the angle of his blades. The four laser beams reflected by him sliced down toward the ground, slicing arcs in the durasteel floor. Metallic smoke rose up around the droid in thick streamers. By the time it realized his intentions, it was too late.
Already straining under the droid’s weight, the floor sagged and gave way. The droid’s lasers switched off, entirely too late. The sharp tips of its eight legs scrabbled for purchase, leaving deep scratches in the floor, which only gave way further.
With a grinding of metal, the droid dropped out of sight and crashed through the levels below, one after the other.
Almost before it had vanished from sight, Starkiller was moving. The external door was shut, but he forced it open and braved the renewed storm of air to see outside. Juno and her captor were no longer visible. The stocky ship’s trio of engines was firing, pulling it away from the frigate. Starkiller reached out to catch it, too late. The craft barely wobbled as it receded into the distance, and vanished into hyperspace.
“No!”
His cry disappeared into the vacuum. He had lost her again, and for all his frustration and fury, there was nothing he could do about it now. The Force couldn’t accomplish miracles, even in his hands.
It could, however, help him get revenge.
The dark side rose up in him, seductively powerful. Darth Vader had sent the bounty hunter to capture Juno, knowing that Starkiller would try to save her from him. There was only one place, then, that she could be headed: back to where it had all started. Kamino. He would go there, but he would not succumb to the trap Darth Vader had undoubtedly prepared. His wrath would know no bounds. All who stood in his way would suffer.
A new vision came to him, rushing out of the void to fill his mind.
Lightning. The Dark Lord on one knee before him, helmet slick and shining in the rain, disarmed. Starkiller’s lightsabers formed an X between them, and Vader’s neck lay just millimeters from their intersection. With a flick of his wrists, Starkiller could behead the galaxy’s greatest monster, and gain revenge for everything he had done.
But what would revenge get him? It couldn’t turn back time. It couldn’t tell him who the real Starkiller was. It couldn’t bring Juno back.
None of those things, he decided, but better than nothing.
His face formed a determined expression. He tensed to execute the man who had made him into what he was: a killing machine, with no hope for anything better.
Before he could complete the move, a red blade erupted from his chest, exactly as it had in a former life, on the Empirical. Only this time his former Master couldn’t have wielded it. He still knelt before him, awaiting the death blow.
The pain and shock were too great. Starkiller arched backward, lightsabers falling from his hands. With an agonized cry, he crumpled to the ground, and stared up at the man who had killed him.
It was himself.
Darth Vader rose to his feet. Blasterfire erupted around them. Starkiller heard screams and cries and the sound of people falling. The battle was intense but short-lived, and he had eyes only for the pair in black looming over him.
“I lied when I told you that the cloning process had not been perfected.”
His former Master’s words fell like blows upon his stricken
form. The version of himself sanding at the Dark Lord’s side was upright and whole in every way. The Sith training uniform he wore was immaculate and lethally adorned. The two red lightsabers held crossed over his chest didn’t waver a millimeter as their eyes locked.
Starkiller’s breath was growing shallow. The fire that had burned in him was dying, as it always died in the end. The dark side consumed everything. Hatred was never a substitute for love, and the price of pursuing it was life itself.
In the corner of his view, lying drenched in the rain, lay a limp, shattered form. He could not bear to look at it. Instead he clutched the burning hole in his chest and watched the Dark Lord give his new apprentice his first orders.
“You have faced your final test.”
The reborn Starkiller knelt at the Dark Lord’s feet. “What is thy bidding, my Master?”
“Take the Rogue Shadow. Scour the far reaches of the galaxy. Find the last of the Rebels and destroy them.”
“As you wish.”
“Then, and only then, will you achieve your destiny.”
The new apprentice rose and walked away, stepping over Juno’s body as he went. Kota’s body lay nearby, and PROXY’s, sliced neatly in two. Darth Vader looked down at Starkiller’s body and, with a contemptuous flick of his wrist, sent it skidding over the edge of the platform and into the sea.
The last thing Starkiller saw was storm clouds and lightning far above, as he had on the first day of his freedom, just days ago.
Thunder boomed, and Starkiller came back to himself with a gasp. The sound echoed around him, disorienting him. It couldn’t be real. He had been seeing the future, not something happening in the present.
The deck beneath him shook. The sound came again. Not thunder, he realized, but the giant droid fighting its way back up to him, intending to finish their battle.
He felt weary, then. Weary of hatred and pain and loss and despair. He would fight on, but not by giving in to the dark side. He would find his own way, even as he ran headlong into a trap and put everything at risk.
He reactivated the cargo bay’s force fields, and air rushed back in once more. Staring out at the nebula, he pulled the comlink from his belt and switched it on.
“Kota? Come in, Kota.”
“I’m here, boy.”
“Where’s here, exactly?”
“On the bridge. We’ve regained control of the Salvation and repaired the hyperdrive. The hostile ships are retreating. What’s your status?”
“That doesn’t matter. Juno has been captured, and I know exactly where she’s going. It has to be Kamino, where it all started. Which means that Darth Vader is there, too. I think he’s set another trap.”
“For you or the rest of us?”
“Just me, I think.”
“Then he won’t be ready for the entire Rebel fleet when it arrives on his doorstep. I told the Alliance about this chance to strike. The fleet is converging exactly as you wanted it to.”
“Good,” said Starkiller with a faint smile, “because if you hadn’t sent the order I was going to go without you.”
“Prepare for lightspeed, boy,” said Kota from the bridge. “Let’s hope you know what you’re doing.”
The booming from below grew louder. Behind it came a new scuttling sound that Starkiller hadn’t heard before, as of giant metal insects crawling across a hollow deck.
Outside, the stars stretched and snapped. The angular impossibility of hyperspace filled the cargo bay doors.
Starkiller activated his lightsabers and stood facing the hole in the floor. The dark vision he had just received ate at his confidence. Thus far, three of his visions had come true: The bounty hunter had been sent after him, resulting in Juno being injured and deprived of her command, and his lightsabers had turned blue. That left two visions,
the grimmest of them all. Was there any way he could avoid both their deaths? Was the other Starkiller, perfect and deadly in every way, something that already existed, or could he be a mere possibility, or even nothing more than a manifestation of his deepest fears?
“What happens if you do clone someone Force-sensitive?”
“Terrible things. Insanity. Psychosis. Suicidal tendencies.”
The list of symptoms Ni-Ke-Vanz had rattled off was frighteningly close to what Starkiller himself was experiencing—but he had begun, perversely, to take hope from that. Perhaps Kota was right, and he had always been this way, even in his first life. Maybe learning to hate the way one felt was part of growing up. Maybe—
The rattling of tiny feet reached a crescendo. Five miniature versions of the huge droid rushed out of the hole on four sharp-tipped feet. He snapped out of his thoughts and ran forward to meet them, wearily grateful for the opportunity to act rather than think. The first two leapt at him, and he sliced them in pieces right out of the air. The other two split up and came for him from opposite sides. He met both advances with a lightsaber outstretched in each hand, using the Force to guide his blows. The droids shot piercing darts of energy in streams at him, trying to get through his guard. They, too, were immune to their own reflected fire, so instead of pursuing that tactic he danced closer to one and sliced its domed midsection in two, then brought his free hand around to blast the other with lightning. The miniature droid went wild, spinning in circles and sending energy darts about the cargo bay. Its green eyes glowed blue, then purple, and then its head exploded. Tiny bits of metal rained all over the hold with an almost musical sound.
More rattling came from the hole. Starkiller approached the lip and peered cautiously over the edge.
No less than a dozen droids were climbing toward him, hopping from deck to deck through the gaps the larger version had created. He reached out for the crates remaining in the cargo hold and sent them tumbling down on the droid’s heads. They fell with legs spinning and were crushed far below.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II Page 18
