The Essential Novels

by James Luceno

  “Wonderful,” she said. “Maybe now this catastrophe is over.”

  chapter fifteen

  CENTERPOINT STATION

  Jacen marched in Thrackan’s direction, noting the silhouettes of more soldiers and possibly combat droids arriving from the distance beyond his cousin.

  Thrackan turned to the side, activated a door, and jumped through. It slid closed behind him, leaving nothing between Jacen and the distant soldiers.

  The enemy opened fire.

  At this long range, even with as many enemies as were firing, Jacen had no trouble deflecting incoming blaster bolts. He charged forward, sending most of the bolts back toward the enemy line, where front-row agents caught them with their crowd-control shields, sometimes staggering from the strength of the blasts.

  Jacen halted beside the door Thrackan had entered. Pressing on toward his original goal and drawing more and more enemies toward him—and, in all probability, Ben—would not benefit the mission. Keeping them well away from the centers where sabotage was to take place would.

  He slapped the OPEN button on the doorway. The door slid up. Jacen grinned. Thrackan, certain that Jacen would charge the oncoming CorSec agents and droids, hadn’t even bothered to lock the door down.

  He found himself in a long hallway with a corresponding door at the far end, forty meters away. That door was open and Thrackan was just on the other side of it, looking back at Jacen in some surprise.

  Jacen stepped in, shut the door behind him, and shoved his lightsaber through the security board—all the way through, his blade emerging into the hallway he’d just left and ruining the control board on that side, as well. The oncoming enemy would have to run a bypass, a procedure that would take at least a couple of minutes.

  He looked at Thrackan again. His cousin seemed frozen by Jacen’s new tactic. Then Thrackan slapped the control board on his side of the doorway. The door slid down.

  Jacen ran to it and slapped the OPEN button, but the door remained in place. Jacen grinned again. Thrackan did learn fast: he’d locked the door this time. Jacen drove his lightsaber into the top of the door, shearing through the machinery that held the door in place. In a moment he’d be through, and he could use the Force to lift the door out of the way.

  Dimly, he heard the ringing of boots on metal flooring beyond the door as Thrackan ran away.

  “No, you’re not,” Ben told the ungainly assembly of droid components. “Anakin Solo’s dead. He died when I was little.”

  The couplings where the droid’s torso units met its arm attachments lifted noisily, a gesture that looked like a human shrug. “Yes, I did die,” it said. “And I became a ghost, and I was eventually drawn here to inhabit this mutated clone body, where I could help my ancestors, the Corellians.”

  “That’s not a clone body,” Ben protested. “It’s a droid body.”

  The head swiveled so the droid could look down at itself. “You’re wrong, little cousin. Or you’re deliberately trying to confuse me. I suspect the latter. You’re here to sabotage this station, aren’t you? To destroy it, so the Corellians can never enjoy freedom and independence?”

  “Boy, have they got you programmed.” Ben took a step forward, his lightsaber up in ready position. With his free hand, he gestured at the droid’s head. If he could use the Force to wrench it aside, he might be out of the droid’s visual receptors, allowing him to jump in and attack without the droid seeing what was coming—

  Ben convulsed and his vision blurred. He felt his entire body twitch and heard his lightsaber hit the floor and roll away, humming for a moment before its safety circuits switched the power off.

  He shook his head and his vision began to clear.

  He was a meter off the floor, the air around him shimmering. His legs still twitched.

  The droid shrugged again. “I’m sorry about that. It’s an anti-Jedi defensive feature installed by my other cousin, Thrackan Sal-Solo. It constantly monitors brain-wave activity in an area. When centers of the brain that tend to become active when Force powers are being utilized are detected, it turns on. Repulsors under the floor hold the Jedi safely above the ground, and electrical emissions—mostly painless—interfere with the Jedi’s concentration. See, you’ve stopped using Force powers, and it has stopped shocking you. Efficient, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, sure, whatever.” Ben reached down to draw his lightsaber back up to his hand … and jerked and jolted again as the defensive system electrocuted him a second time. After a few seconds of recovery, he said, “I guess it really works.”

  “It does, doesn’t it? So, what were you going to do here?”

  “Destroy the station, or at least disable whatever they’re using to regain control of the repulsor weapon.” Ben looked dubiously at the droid. “I guess that’s you.”

  Pounding began on the other side of the door. Ben winced. The guards outside would be calling for reinforcements. And even as badly as he’d damaged the door, it would still be only a few minutes before they had it open.

  He’d failed.

  Well, not quite yet. “They tell you they’re going to use the station’s weapon to stay independent,” Ben said. “And that would be fine if that’s what it was all about. But it’s not. They’re lying to you. The first, big lie is that you’re Anakin Solo, and that you’re in a living body. You’re not. You’re a droid.”

  The droid sighed. “Yes, yes. Of course.”

  “It’s true! They needed Anakin Solo’s bio- bio-whatsis—”

  “Biometric.”

  “Yeah, biometric data to control the repulsor weapon. So they probably got his fingerprints from old records. They would have reconstructed his brain waves from whatever medical recordings they could find. Probably had to adjust them and mess with them until they could affect the station controls. And they installed them all in you, so they’d have an Anakin Solo who would think and behave like a human … but do whatever they say.”

  “I’m Anakin Solo. I’m a Jedi. I have control over the Force. See?” The droid extended an arm, and Ben’s lightsaber flew from where it had rolled into its hand.

  “That’s not the Force. I would have felt it if it was the Force.” Ben considered. “Since you can’t have repulsorlift vents installed everywhere in the room, it was probably directed magnetics. You grabbed the metal handle of the lightsaber with magnetics.” He tried to keep an expression of dismay and sadness from his face. He didn’t think he was very successful. It wasn’t just that his mission was in jeopardy; there was something grotesque about this situation, about dealing with a droid that honestly thought it was his cousin.

  He’d have to find some way to destroy it.

  “There are security holocams operating in here, aren’t there?” Ben asked.

  “Sure.”

  “What do you look like in them?”

  “I’m a very big human teenager. With somewhat overdeveloped bones to handle the strain caused by my great mass.”

  “I’m going to open my pouch,” Ben said. “I’m going to pull out a little holocam. Please let me record you with it.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Ben reached into his pouch and pulled out the holocam unit he’d used on Adumar. As soon as it cleared the lip of his pouch, though, the droid gestured and the holocam snapped across the room into the droid’s other hand.

  “Hey,” Ben said. “You promised.”

  “No, I didn’t.” The droid held the holocam up to its head, scrutinizing it under a succession of sensors. “I have to be sure it’s not a blaster disguised as a holocam.”

  “Well, it’s not. You sound like someone who’s afraid to get killed.”

  “I am afraid to get killed.”

  Ben felt a surge of accomplishment, as though he’d managed to take a step toward eventual victory. “Anakin Solo wasn’t. You’re not him.”

  “Quiet. I’m going to examine this thing’s programming.” A slot in the droid’s head, approximately where a human mouth would be in relation to its e
yes, slid open. It stuffed the holocam into the slot and it closed.

  “Hey! What do you think just happened?”

  “I’m using my Force interface with computer equipment to analyze the programming.”

  “That’s not a Force power, you twit. And I mean, what just happened physically? You stuck my holocam into your own head!”

  “You’re crazy.” The droid’s mouth slot opened and deposited the holocam back into its hand. The hand twitched, and suddenly the holocam flew back across the room toward Ben.

  Ben caught it. “So?”

  “I’m satisfied it’s not a weapon. Or programmed for any activity not part of a holocam’s standard tasks.”

  Ben brought the holocam up, made sure that the droid’s magnetics had not disrupted its operation, and began recording. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Wave. Like you’re on holiday. Do you have a message for your parents? Say something.”

  “That’s a good idea.” The droid waved awkwardly. “Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad. I’m working hard but having a good time. I hope I’ll get to see you soon.” It paused. “How’s that?”

  “Pretty good.” Ben’s feelings of dismay intensified. The droid’s words, as banal as those spoken by any average teenager separated from his parents, hit him hard.

  He stopped the recording and held out the holocam. “Now look at what you just recorded.”

  The holocam flicked out of his fingers and into the droid’s hand. Once again the droid lifted it to the mouthslot and internalized it.

  Ben waited. There were more voices out in the hall, and the clanking of equipment being set down. The only other sounds were the hum of all the electronic equipment in the room and Ben’s own breathing.

  “It’s a lie,” the droid finally said.

  “You looked at the holocam yourself. You said it had no weird programming.”

  “I missed something.”

  “No, you didn’t. You know you didn’t. That holocam is dumber than a mouse droid. It couldn’t hide anything from you.”

  The droid turned its upper body as it looked at Ben again. The boy could swear that its posture sagged.

  Tears sprang to Ben’s eyes. He wiped them away. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “But it’s true. You’re a droid who’s been programmed to think it’s Anakin Solo. But if you were really Anakin, you’d help me destroy the station now, because the people who made you can use it as a weapon and they could destroy whole stars with it.”

  “How would you have destroyed me?”

  “I didn’t come here to destroy you. I came here to destroy the station. I have a way to cause this control room to send a pulse through the station and wreck it.”

  “Killing everybody aboard.”

  “No, it sends an emergency evacuation code first and waits ten minutes.”

  “Ten minutes?” The droid sounded offended. “You think everyone on a station this large could get to escape pods in ten minutes?”

  Guiltily, Ben shrugged. “I didn’t come up with the plan.”

  “Give me the data.”

  Ben reached into his pouch and grabbed the spiketopped data card. As an afterthought, he also grabbed the other data cards, those that would have initiated self-destruct or shutdown sequences from other control rooms in the station. He held them up and felt the droid’s magnetics yank them out of his hand. A moment later they went into the droid’s mouth-slot.

  “Analyzing,” the droid said in its heartbroken tones. Then, “Oh, I know where that interface is. But I’ve been interpreting it as a candy dispenser.”

  “That’s … wrong,” Ben said.

  “I have to reinterpet myself in light of what it really is. These commands … no. I won’t take life unnecessarily.”

  “Unnecessarily? Think about what’s going to happen if you don’t!”

  “It’s true. Somebody is going to die. Them or me. Me or them.”

  “Except you wouldn’t be dying,” Ben said. “You’re a droid. You’re not really alive.”

  The droid leaned toward him, its posture suddenly menacing. “If I do this, I’ll end. Everything I am will just stop and never happen again. Tell me that’s not dying. Go ahead, tell me again.”

  Ben leaned away from the droid, ashamed. “I’m sorry.”

  The droid resumed its earlier posture. “Analyzing programming,” it said, its voice distracted, almost droid-like. “Security bypasses. Passcodes. Hey, there’s some brilliant stuff here.”

  “Our best spies have been working on it,” Ben said absently. The clanking and voices from the hall were becoming louder. He heard a whining noise, and the door lifted enough that a centimeter of corridor light shone through.

  “I’m going places I didn’t know about. Seeing through security holocams I couldn’t access before.” The droid looked up and waved toward the ceiling. “Look, there I am.” Its voice became dreamy. “There are places, intersections into the old systems. So old. Beautiful engineering. I can … almost … get in.” It sighed, a sound of exasperation. “They won’t let me in.”

  “Time’s kind of running out,” Ben said. “What are you going to do, Anakin?”

  “I’m not really Anakin, am I?”

  “You’re … an Anakin. Not Anakin Solo.”

  “Anakin Sal-Solo.” The droid laughed, but it was a humorless noise. “Thrackan’s offspring. That’s what I am.”

  Ben suddenly found himself falling. He landed in a crouch on the floor. He looked cautiously up at the droid.

  “I’m not going to destroy this station,” the droid said. “If you could feel it the way I do … feel its life … and there’s so much knowledge here. But I’ll keep my father and his friends from using it. I guess that means I have to die.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ben said. And he truly was. He couldn’t quite accept the droid as his cousin, but he abruptly realized he was thinking of it as a him, a living thing … a noble one.

  “There it is, right at the human-builder interface,” the droid said. “The code representing the station’s imprinting on Anakin Solo. I’m installing a procedure to scramble what the station thinks Anakin Solo is. And another one to purge my memory—in me, in all my backups. Without those … files … I doubt they’ll ever be able to deconstruct what I’ve done.”

  The door suddenly shot upward a meter. Without looking, the droid gestured toward it. It slammed shut again, so hard that the frame buckled. Ben heard cries of alarm and outrage from outside.

  “There’s my own code, my programming,” the droid continued. “Checks and locks in place. Let’s get rid of that one.” It sighed, a sound of tremendous relief. “There we go. No more fear of death. Take three steps to your right.”

  It took Ben a moment to realize the droid was addressing him. He obeyed.

  The lightsaber flew from the droid’s hand to him. He caught it out of the air.

  “Straight down from where you are,” the droid said, “there’s an unguarded chamber. It leads to a corridor that parallels the one outside. You should leave now.”

  “Thank you,” Ben said. He felt numb. He activated his lightsaber and pressed the blade tip into the floor. Smoke curled up as he began dragging the blade around in a slow circle.

  “I think I’ll activate that evacuation alarm anyway,” the droid said. “You know why?”

  “Why?”

  “ ’Cause it’ll be funny to watch all the people run around.” The droid laughed again, and this time there was real mirth in it. “Won’t that be a good way to die? No pain, and watching people do silly things like in a holocomedy?”

  “That’s a good way, all right.” Ben’s circle was almost done. His lightsaber blade hissed louder as his tears fell on it, and little puffs of steam rose to join the smoke.

  Jacen caught up to Thrackan in a corridor intersection. Against the long wall, flush with the floor, were two shiny silver discs more than a meter in diameter. Above them, transparent tubes emerged from the ceiling a short distance, no more than twenty centimeters. The tub
es looked like some sort of escape access, but no ladders led up to them.

  Thrackan was in the act of reaching toward a control panel on the wall when Jacen lashed out through the Force, hammering Thrackan into the wall. The older man bounced off, rolling painfully to his knees atop one of the silver discs.

  And then Jacen reached him, holding the glowing tip of his lightsaber just under Thrackan’s chin. Jacen saw the tips of Thrackan’s beard hairs blacken from the heat.

  His cousin, panting and almost stunned, said, “I guess you win.”

  “I guess I—”

  “Time to die, Solo!” The voice was Thrackan’s but it came from behind. Reflexively, Jacen turned and began to bring his lightsaber up in a defensive posture.

  There was a blaster retort from behind him. The shot hit his lightsaber hilt and catapulted the weapon out of his hand, sending it down the corridor.

  He spun again. Thrackan, blaster in hand, finished rising and fired into Jacen’s chest.

  Jacen caught the shot—bare-handed, dissipating its energy before it reached his palm. He smiled and opened his hand, showing Thrackan his undamaged palm.

  Thrackan fired again. Jacen twitched his hand over to the left, caught the second shot.

  Then he crooked his finger with his left hand. The blaster flew from Thrackan’s grip into that hand. Jacen glanced back to where his lightsaber lay and gestured for it. It flew the four meters between them and dropped into his right hand. He activated it again and positioned its tip in front of Thrackan’s neck.

  “Stang,” Thrackan said. His expression suggested he was genuinely impressed. “I heard rumors that Darth Vader could do that. Can all Jedi do that?”

  “No. What did you do? A recording?”

  “Yes, a little sound recorder. It was triggered by me saying, I guess you win.”

  “Time to die, Solo!” came the cry from behind Jacen.

  Jacen snorted, amused despite the urgency of his mission. “I see.”

  “Except you really lose. In a minute, all the forces I’ve brought to bear will be here. They’ll continue to follow you, to wear you down, until one of them drops you. And your plan to destroy this station will fail. In that sense, it already has failed.”