by James Luceno
In areas where there were lulls in the fighting, many Wookiee females and younglings were falling back toward the tree-city, or evacuating Kachirho’s lower levels for the refuge of the high forest.
Starstone wondered just how much the Empire was willing to risk at Kashyyyk. Had Palpatine’s minions considered that, faced with captivity, the Wookiees might flee their arboreal cities and become a rebel force the likes of which the Grand Army had yet to confront?
The thought provided her with a moment of solace.
Then she glimpsed something that sent her heart racing.
Sensing her sudden distraction, Forte and Kulka followed her gaze to midlevel Kachirho, where a black Imperial shuttle was drifting in for a landing on one of the tree-city’s enormous balconies.
“It’s Vader,” Starstone said when the two Jedi Knights asked.
“Are you certain?” Forte said.
At Starstone’s nod, Kulka gestured broadly to the ongoing fight. “This is more about us than the Wookiees even know.”
Starstone shut her eyes briefly and forced a determined exhalation. “Then it’s up to us to make this about Vader.”
Leading an exodus of women and younglings from Kachirho’s lowest levels, Chewbacca thought about his own family in distant Rwookrrorro, which apparently was also under siege. Rwookrrorro was days away on foot, but only minutes by ship. He would get there one way or another.
Off to his left, the six Jedi who had been fighting alongside him for the better part of a local hour were suddenly racing back toward Kachirho’s central wroshyr. Lifting his eyes, Chewbacca saw no significant threat, save for a Theta-class shuttle that was taking heavy fire as it attempted to fold its wings and settle on one of the tree-city balconies.
Higher up, the sky was crisscrossed by laserfire and contrails, and still filling with gunships, eerily reminiscent of what had happened only weeks earlier, when the Separatists had launched their invasion. Wookiee fluttercraft and an assortment of traders’ vessels were engaging the Imperial ships, but the outcome was clear.
The sheer number of descending gunships gave evidence of a sizable flotilla of capital ships in orbit. For all the Wookiees’ success in repelling the first wave, it was surely only a matter of time before the Star Destroyers would open fire. And then only a matter of time until Kashyyyk fell.
Anyone who thought that the Jedi were responsible for having brought the Empire down on Kashyyyk had no understanding of the nature of power. From the moment the troopers of Commander Gree’s brigade had turned on Yoda, Unduli, and Vos, Chewbacca, Tarfful, and the elders of Kachirho had grasped the truth: that despite all the rhetoric about taxation, free trade, and decentralization, there was no real difference between the Confederacy and the Republic. The war was nothing more than a struggle between two evils, with the Jedi caught in the middle, all because of their misplaced loyalty to a government they should have abandoned, and to a pledge that had superseded their oath to serve the Force above all.
If there was any difference between the Separatists and the newly born Imperialists, it was that the latter needed to legitimize their invasion and occupation, lest other threatened species rebel while they stood a fighting chance.
But a planet could fall without its species being defeated; a planet could be occupied without its species being imprisoned.
That was what separated Kashyyyk from the rest.
Back- and hip-packs bulging with survival food and rations, Wookiees were streaming down the city staircases, racing across the footbridges, and disappearing into the thick vegetation that surrounded the lake. Blazed as a defense against sneak attacks by Trandoshan slavers, hundreds of well-maintained evacuation routes cached with arms and supplies radiated from Kachirho and wove through the isolated rock outcroppings to the high forest beyond.
More to the point, Wookiees even as young as twelve, fresh from their coming-of-age hrrtayyk ceremonies, knew how to construct shelters from saplings, how to fashion implements from the stalks of giant leaves, and how to make rope. They knew which plants and insects were edible; the location of freshwater springs; the areas where dangerous reptiles or predatory felines lurked.
Despite all the elements of high technology they had incorporated into their lives, Wookiees never considered themselves separate from Kashyyyk’s grand forest, which on its own could provide them everything they needed to survive, for as long as necessary.
Targeted by unexpected anti-aircraft fire, Vader’s shuttle jinked for the largest of the Kachirho’s arboreal balconies, its powerful defensive shields raised and its quad lasers spewing unrelenting fire at a pair of hailfire droids the Wookiees had hoisted into their massive tree-fortress. Bolts from the shuttle’s forward weapons reduced the missile platforms to slagged heaps and chewed into the balcony’s wooden columns and beams, filling the air with splinters hard as nails. The explosions flung the bodies of Kachirho’s furry defenders far and wide. Hurled clear off the tier, some plummeted to the ground a hundred meters below.
In the cabin space of the shaken shuttle, Vader was being addressed by the holoimage of one of the task force commanders.
“Our circumspect attacks are being repulsed planetwide, Lord Vader. As I thought I made clear, Wookiees do not take lightly to the threat of captivity. Already they’re abandoning the tree-cities for the high forests. If they penetrate deeply enough, we will need months, perhaps years to find and root them out. Even then, the cost to us will be great, in terms of matériel and lives.”
Vader muted the holoprojector’s audio pickup and glanced across the aisle to Commander Appo. “Do you concur, Commander?”
“As it is we’re losing too many troopers,” Appo said without hesitation. “Grant permission to the naval commanders to initiate surgical bombardment from orbit.”
Vader mulled it over for a moment. He didn’t like being wrong, much less admitting that he had been wrong, but he saw no way out. “You may commence bombardment, Commander, but make certain you save Kachirho for last. I have business to finish up here.”
As the holoimage faded, Vader turned to the cabin’s small porthole, meditating on the whereabouts of his Jedi quarries, and what nature of trap they had set for him. The thought of confronting them stirred his impatience and his anger.
Wings uplifted, the shuttle made a rough landing on the tier, bolts from Wookiee blasters careening from the fuselage. When the boarding ramp had extended, Appo and his stormtroopers hurried outside, Vader right behind him, his ignited blade deflecting fire from all sides.
Three troopers fell before they made it two meters from the ramp.
The Wookiees were dug in, shooting from behind makeshift barricades and from crossbeams high above the balcony. Raising the shuttle on repulsorlift power, the clone pilot took the craft through a 180-degree sweep, drenching the area with laserfire. At the same time, two Wookiees with satchel charges slung over their shoulders rushed from cover and managed to hurl the explosives through the shuttle’s open hatch. A deafening explosion blew off one of the wings and sent the craft spinning and skidding to the very rim of the tier.
Counterattacking, Vader strode through fountaining flames to take the fight to the Wookiees. Crimson blade slashing left and right, he parried blaster bolts and amputated limbs and heads. Caterwauling and howling, showing their fangs and waving their long arms about, the Wookiees tried to hold their positions, but they had never faced anything like him, even in the darkest depths of Kashyyyk’s primeval forest.
As tall as some of them, Vader waded in, his lightsaber cleaving intricately carved war shields, sending blasters and bowcasters flying, setting fire to shaggy coats, leaving more than a score of bodies in his wake.
He was waving Appo and the other troopers forward when flashes of refulgent blue light caught his eye, and he swung to the source.
Emerging from a covered bridge anchored distally to the bole of the giant tree rushed six Jedi, deflecting blaster bolts from the stormtroopers as they attacked, doing to
Appo’s cadre just what Vader had done to the Wookiees.
Forging through the offensive, three Jedi raced in to square off with Vader.
He recognized the petite, black-haired female among them, and tipped his blade in salute.
“You’ve saved me the trouble of looking for you, Padawan Starstone. These others must be the ones you gathered by accessing the Temple beacon.”
Starstone’s dark eyes bored into him. “You defiled the Temple by setting foot in it.”
“More than you know,” he told her.
“Then you’ll pay for that, as well.”
He angled the lightsaber in front of him, tip pointed slightly downward. “You’re very much mistaken, Padawan. It is you who will pay.”
Before Starstone could make a move, Siadem Forte and Iwo Kulka stepped in front of her and attacked Vader.
As was the case with many Jedi Knights, the two were familiar with accounts of what had happened on Geonosis when Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker had gone after the Sith Lord, Count Dooku. And so Forte and Kulka went in as a team, each of them employing a radically different lightsaber style, determined to offbalance Vader.
But Vader merely stood like a statue, his blade angled toward the ground until the very instant the two Jedi unleashed their assault.
Then, as the three blades joined in scatterings of dazzling light and grating static sounds, he moved.
Forte and Kulka were skilled duelists, but Vader was not only faster than Starstone remembered him being on Murkhana against Master Chatak, but also more agile. He employed his awesome power to put a quick end to the fancy twirling of his opponents, who fell back against the hammering blows of Vader’s bloodshine blade.
Time and again the two Jedi Knights attempted to alter their style, but Vader had an answer for every lunge, parry, and riposte. His style borrowed elements from all techniques of combat, even from the highest, most dangerous levels, and his moves were crisp and unpredictable. In addition, his remarkable foresight allowed him to anticipate Forte’s and Kulka’s strategies and maneuvers, his blade always one step ahead of theirs, notwithstanding the two-handed grip he employed.
Toying with the Jedi, he grazed Forte on the left shoulder, then on the right thigh; Kulka, he pierced lightly in the abdomen, then shaved away the flesh on the right side of the Ho’Din’s face.
Seeing the two Jedi Knights drop to their knees, wincing in pain, Padawan Klossi Anno broke from where she was helping Jambe and Nam engage the stormtroopers and got to Vader one step ahead of Starstone.
Sidestepping, Vader slashed her across the back, sending her sprawling across the balcony; then he whirled on Forte and Kulka just as they were clambering to their feet and decapitated them. From behind Vader came Jambe and Nam, neither of whom was an experienced fighter and both of whom Vader immediately eliminated from the fight, amputating Jambe’s right arm, and Nam’s right leg.
To her horror, Starstone realized she was suddenly alone with Vader, who immediately signaled his stormtroopers to leave her to him, and to devote themselves to slaughtering the few Wookiees who remained on the tier.
“Now you, Padawan,” he said, as he began to circle her.
Calling on the Force, Starstone fell on him in a fury, striking wildly and repeatedly, and with anger. Moments into her attack she understood that Vader was merely allowing her to vent, as the Temple’s swordmaster had often done with students, allowing them to believe that they were driving him back, when in fact he was simply encouraging them to wear themselves out before disarming them in one rapid motion.
So she retreated, altering her strategy and calming herself.
Vader is so tall, so imposing … But perhaps I can get under or inside his guard as Master Chatak did—
“Your thoughts give you away, Padawan,” he said in a flash. “You mustn’t take the time to think. You must act on impulse. Instead of repressing your anger, call on it! Make use of it to defeat me.”
Starstone feigned an attack, then sidestepped and slashed at him.
Shifting to a one-handed hold on his lightsaber, he parried her blade and lunged forward. She snapped aside in the nick of time, but he kept coming at her, answering her increasingly frantic strikes with harsher ones and driving her inexorably toward the rim of the balcony.
He flicked his blade, precisely, economically, forcing her back and back …
She felt as if she were fighting a droid, although a droid programmed to counter all her best stratagems. Ducking out from under a broad sweep of the crimson blade, she somersaulted to safety.
But only for a moment.
“You’re skittish, Padawan.”
Sweat dripped into her eyes. She tried to center herself in the Force. At the same time she was vaguely aware of a new sound in the air, cutting through the chaos of the battle below. And just then a familiar ship slammed down on the tier alongside the crippled shuttle, two equally familiar figures leaping from the hatch even while the ship was still in motion.
At once, and seemingly of its own accord, the blood-smeared hilt of Master Forte’s lightsaber shot from the balcony floor, whizzing past Vader’s masked face to snap into the hand of one of the figures and ignite. A gurgled sound issued from somewhere close to the newly arrived ship and something metallic hit the floor and began to roll forward.
His black cloak unfurling, Vader spun around to find the helmeted head of Commander Appo coming to a rocky rest at his feet.
A few meters away Roan Shryne stood with his legs spread to shoulder width, Forte’s blue blade angled high and to one side. Alongside him, blasters in both six-fingered hands, Archyr was dropping every stormtrooper who approached.
“Get away from him!” Shryne yelled at Starstone.
She gaped at him. “How did you—”
“Filli was keeping us updated. Now move away—hurry!”
Vader made no effort to prevent her from slinking past him. “Very touching, Shryne,” he said after a moment. “Treating her like your personal learner.”
Shryne gestured broadly. “Olee, get the wounded into the drop ship!” Advancing on Vader, he said: “I’m the one you want, Vader. So here’s your chance. Me for them.”
“Shryne, no—” Starstone started.
“Take the wounded!” he cut her off. “Jula’s waiting.”
“I’m not leaving you!”
“I’ll catch up with you when I’m done with him.”
Vader looked from Shryne to Starstone. “Listen to your Master, Padawan. He has already lost two learners. I’m certain he doesn’t want to lose a third.”
Coming back to herself, Starstone hurried to help Lambe, Klossi, Nam, and some of the Wookiees get aboard the drop ship. Determined to quiet her fears for Shryne, she forced herself not to look at him, but she could feel him reaching out to her.
He is a Jedi again.
With gunships circling Kachirho like insects spilled from an aggravated nest, Skeck powered the drop ship over the edge of the balcony and dived for the beleaguered landing platform. Airbursts from Imperial artillery crawlers raked and scorched the ship, inside which Starstone sat slumped on her knees with her arm around Klossi Anno, who was going in and out of consciousness, the wound on her back like a blackened trench. Across the cramped passenger bay Lambe and Nam, white-faced with fear, were nursing their amputated limbs and calling on the Force to keep from going into shock.
Wookiees huddled, braying in anger or whimpering in pain. Two of those Starstone and Archyr had helped carry aboard were dead.
Who was Vader? she asked herself. What was he?
She looked again at Klossi’s wound, then at the one in her upper arm she hadn’t even felt herself sustain. Vader’s way of marking them with a Sith brand.
Could even Shryne defeat him?
“Hold tight!” Archyr yelled from the drop ship’s copilot’s seat. “This’ll be one to remember!”
Skeck was taking the ship in fast. While the impaired repulsors were managing to keep it airborne,
the ship was tipped acutely to one side. As a result, the wing on that side made first contact with the platform, gouging a ragged furrow in the wooden surface and whipping the ship into a spin that sent it crashing into a parked ferry in even sorrier condition.
Starstone’s head slammed against the bulkhead with such force that she saw stars. Setting Klossi down gently, she checked on Lambe and Nam. Then she stumbled through the drop ship hatch, with Archyr trailing while Skeck remained at the controls.
Daylight was fading and the air was filled with the smoke and grit of battle.
The sky wailed with ships and pulsed with strobing explosions. Wookiees and other beings were running every which way across the landing platform. Elsewhere, bands of Wookiees, including some of those the Jedi had met, were carrying the wounded to shelter. Many of the traders’ ships had lifted off, but just as many had been savaged by gunship fire or were buried under debris that had fallen from Kachirho’s uppermost limbs and branches.
Principal fighting had moved east of the platform, closer to the lake. There, several crashed gunships were in flames, and the ground was piled high with the bodies of dead Wookiees and clone troopers. Imperial forces were storming the tree-city from all sides, even from the far shore of the lake, arriving on swampspeeders and other watercraft. Searing hyphens of blasterfire were streaming from fortified positions high up the trunk, but what with the circling gunships and mobile artillery, the Wookiees were slowly being driven toward the ground.
Her head swimming, Starstone steadied herself against the drop ship’s tipped fin.
