“That will become clear.” The masked figure had already turned away. She knew the conversation was over.
An obedient Imperial officer, Juno had done as she was told and gone to see her new command. The ship had impressed her, requiring only a small amount of tinkering to make it function at its full potential. But now this strange clamor, this rowdy duel had taken over the hangar and, by the sound of it, threatened to spill out of Lord Vader’s secret spaces and into the wider ship.
Creeping around a cryo cylinder taller than she was, Juno finally caught sight of the combatants. Her blue eyes widened in surprise.
What struck her first were the weapons: glowing swords of a type she had seen only once before, on an old, forbidden holo her father had found in the depths of their new home’s database. He had shown it to her before erasing it with a snarl. “Murderers,” he had declared of the figures she’d glimpsed: brown-robed men and women of various species, fighting droids with shining swords of pure light. “Traitors, all of them.”
“What did they do?” She had been younger then, not yet fully cognizant of the frustration and resentment her father kept bottled up inside him. It only fully manifested when she gave it reason, and it was only ever directed at her.
“What did they do?” He turned on her, tone harsh and disparaging. “The Jedi filth betrayed Palpatine—that’s all they did. What rubbish do your teachers fill your head with if you don’t even know that?”
The memory of his mockery still stung. Juno forced herself to put it aside while she assessed what was happening before her. Two men—one bearded and solemn, the other much the same age as her, stubble-haired and thin as a whip—were dueling with weapons identical to those of the hated Jedi. One blade was so bright and blue, it burned almost white. Its counterpart was red and just as deadly. When they clashed, sparks flew in all directions. The men leapt and tumbled with inhuman agility. When they gestured, metal walls buckled and engine parts flew like missiles.
She didn’t dare make a sound. Every muscle was frozen as she crouched in the shadows, filled with a mixture of fear and awe. In all her years of service to the Empire, she had never seen anything like it. Heard rumors, yes—of Lord Vader’s arcane powers and of the cylindrical hilt that hung at his side—but seen nothing. It had been easy to dismiss the rumors as scaremongering and propaganda disseminated to instill fear and encourage loyalty. She had never needed to be threatened into service, so she had happily ignored them.
Now she was wishing she had paid closer attention.
Things became stranger still when the younger of the combatants, with a look of wild satisfaction, rammed his crimson lightsaber through the chest of his opponent. Defeated, the older man dropped to his knees, a look of shock spreading across his face.
That expression was shared by Juno when the form of the older man began to spark and flicker like a hologram—which, she realized an instant later, was exactly what he was. Arms, legs, torso, and face sputtered and dissolved, revealing the bipedal form of a droid beneath. He stirred and fell forward with a clatter of metal on metal.
“Ah, master. Another excellent duel.” The droid’s words were muffled until the young man who had “killed” him rolled him over onto his back.
“You caught me by surprise, PROXY,” the man said with an easy affection that belied his former ferocity. “I haven’t fought that training program in years. I assumed you’d erased it.”
The droid struggled to stand, but succeeded only in losing his balance and almost falling again. His owner caught him in time and helped him straighten.
“Easy, PROXY. You’re malfunctioning.”
“It’s my fault, master,” the droid said with an electronic sigh, looking down at the smoking hole in his chest. “I had hoped that using an older training module would catch you off guard and allow me to finally kill you. I’m sorry I failed you again.”
A concerned smile flickered across the young man’s face. “I’m sure you’ll keep trying.”
“Of course, master. It is my primary programming.”
Droid and master began moving through the maze of debris across the hangar. Juno remembered herself in time. Before they could see her, she ducked down behind cover and hurried back to the ship. Their voices were growing louder as they approached. She frantically reholstered the pistol and reached for her welder.
“Well, you won’t be ambushing me again until we get your central stabilizer replaced—and that could take weeks, this far from the Core …”
She didn’t look up as the odd pair rounded the cryo cylinder she had been crouching behind just seconds before, but she could feel the young man staring at her and hear in his sudden silence the double take he had performed. She kept her head down, hiding a flush of embarrassment—and a small amount of fear. What this unknown person might do if he found out that she’d been spying on him, she didn’t know.
A faint patter of footsteps told her that he and the droid had pulled back out of sight. She fought to make out a furious exchange of whispers.
“PROXY, who is that?”
“Ah, yes. Your new pilot has finally arrived, master.”
“But who is she?”
“Accessing Imperial records …”
There was a moment of silence during which she told herself not to be so curious. That only ever got her into trouble.
But then she heard her own voice speaking in the hangar and her temper got the better of her.
“Captain Juno Eclipse,” said the holodroid in Juno’s clipped tones. “Born on Corulag, where she became the youngest student ever accepted into the Imperial Academy. Decorated combat pilot with over one hundred combat missions and commanding officer during the Bombing of Callos. Handpicked by Lord Vader to lead his Black Eight Squadron, but later reassigned to a top-secret project—”
She stormed around the cryo cylinder and caught the strange sight of herself standing directly in front of her—an exact doppelgänger supported by the man whom she now realized was Darth Vader’s agent, the so-called Starkiller. Her face burned at the indignity and the invasion of her privacy.
“Is there a psychological profile in there, too?” she asked.
Young man and droid stared back at her. With a look of barely concealed embarrassment, Starkiller let go of the droid and stepped away. The droid, PROXY, wobbled on his feet, and then snapped to attention in a fair imitation of her—complete with neat blond hair, regulation uniform, tricolored insignia, and a smudge of grease just forming on her cheek as the droid updated his image files.
“Actually, yes,” the machine told her, “but it’s restricted.” To Starkiller as an aside he added, “Master, I can tell you that she’s going to be impossible to reprogram.”
Juno suppressed an urge to take the welding tool and ram another hole through the droid’s perforated chest. Coming face-to-face with herself was a disconcerting development, one for which she had been completely unprepared.
The young man gestured. The droid dropped his simulation of her and went back to being just a droid.
“You know why you’re here?” Starkiller asked her.
Remembering herself, she lowered the welder and took a deep breath.
“Lord Vader gave me my orders himself,” she said. “I am to keep your ship running and fly you wherever your missions require.”
Starkiller seemed neither pleased nor displeased. “PROXY,” he instructed the droid, “get the Rogue Shadow ready to launch.”
The damaged machine stumbled off to do his bidding, while Juno and his master followed at a more sedate pace.
“Did Lord Vader tell you that he killed our last pilot?”
Juno studied him as closely as he was obviously studying her. He was dressed in a worn black combat uniform that looked as though it had been mended many times. His arms and hands were a mess of scar tissue. “No. But I can only assume he or she gave Lord Vader good cause to do so.” She paused, then added, “I will not.”
“We’ll see. I’m
sick of training new pilots.” His eyes slid past her to where she had been working on the Rogue Shadow. His brows crinkled on seeing the new panels she had welded into place. “What’s this? What have you done to my ship?”
Suddenly self-conscious, Juno wiped the smudges from her cheek. “I have taken the liberty of upgrading the Rogue Shadow’s sensor array. Now you will be able to spy on any suspect ships across an entire system.” She waited for some sign of approval, but he only nodded. Her pride slightly stung, she said, “I assume that’s part of your mission profile. You can only be one of Darth Vader’s spies. Your ship has the most amazing longrange scanners and a cloaking device—”
“You don’t need to know anything about my missions except where I’m going.”
“Where are we going?”
“To Nar Shaddaa. Can you handle that?”
“Of course.” She bit her lip on an angry retort and brushed past him to the ramp leading into the ship.
In the cockpit she found the droid fiddling ineptly at the controls. “Leave that alone,” she snapped. “I’ll do it.”
“Yes, Captain Eclipse.”
The droid backed away with a series of creaks and sparks from his damaged midriff. Only then did she remember his strange remark to his master—about ambushing and killing him—and wondered if she shouldn’t perhaps have been more polite.
CHAPTER 3
THE ROGUE SHADOW’S SUBLIGHT ENGINES surged with smooth acceleration as its new pilot deftly manipulated the controls. The apprentice watched her closely as she worked, assessing her qualifications as well as her other qualities. Of the pilots he had worked with so far, none had been women. She was barely his age and very beautiful with it, but in the pilot’s seat she was a consummate professional. Confident and precise, she moved as though she had been born in a cockpit.
Once he was certain that he and PROXY were in safe hands, he turned his attention to the details of his mission.
“PROXY, give me the target.”
The droid who had been his sole continuous companion for most of his life was sitting in a jump seat at the rear of the cockpit, strapped carefully in place. Familiar distortions played across his metal skin and features as he activated the holoprojectors that made him unique. The appearance of a hardened human warrior took form in the droid’s seat. Dressed in the familiar browns of the hated Jedi, he possessed high cheekbones and a strong, broken nose. His eyes were deeply recessed and revealed none of his thoughts.
“According to official Imperial records,” PROXY said in a deep, commanding voice that was nothing like his own, “Jedi Master Rahm Kota was a respected general in the Clone Wars.”
“The Clone Wars?” Juno half turned at the controls as she prepared the ship for its jump through hyperspace. Her expression was as grave as that of the man sitting where PROXY had been. “You’re hunting Jedi.”
The apprentice hadn’t realized she was paying attention. “I bring Darth Vader’s enemies to justice,” he told her. “And now so do you.” Before she could initiate a full-on discussion about it, the apprentice said, “Go on, PROXY.”
“Of course. Master Kota was a military genius, but did not believe that the clone soldiers were fit for battle. Instead he relied on a small squad of his own personally trained troops. It’s the only thing that kept him from being executed when the Emperor discovered the Jedi’s plot against the Republic.”
Juno nodded. “There were no clones in his squad to bring him to justice.”
“Exactly, Captain Eclipse. After Order 66, he vanished. Imperial records actually claim he’s dead.”
The hologram of Kota faded, and PROXY returned to normal.
Juno still appeared more interested in the mission than plotting the hyperspace jump. “So why come out of hiding and attack the Empire now?”
The apprentice had been considering that very question himself. “Kota wants to be found.”
“Then we are walking into a trap.” She looked from the apprentice to PROXY and back again. “How many pilots have you lost before me?”
“Seven.”
“Oh, excellent.” She flipped a switch on the Rogue Shadow’s complicated console. “Coordinates for Nar Shaddaa are locked. Prepare for lightspeed.”
The apprentice braced himself as the stars ahead turned into streaks and the familiar unreal tunnel opened up around the ship. With a well-tuned whine, the Rogue Shadow and its passengers rocketed into hyperspace.
NAR SHADDAA, AKA THE SMUGGLER’S MOON, the Vertical City, or even Little Coruscant: the apprentice had never been there before, but he had learned as much as he could from history and other educational holos. Its criminal classes and extensive underground networks were famous across the galaxy, with lowlifes by the tens of thousands flocking there in search of ill-gotten fortunes. Although dwarfed by noisome Nal Hutta, the large planet it orbited, it outshone every other world in the Y’Toub system in every conceivable spectrum. Dozens of different species called it home.
The apprentice couldn’t hide a contemptuous sneer as the Rogue Shadow approached. Notorious for changing allegiances, the criminal capital was currently courting Imperial favor by inviting—or at least tolerating—the presence of a new TIE fighter manufacturing facility in its upper atmosphere. He could imagine the reasoning behind it: more money and resources flowing into the system; a new source of “legitimate” jobs for those few who required them; an influx of potentially corrupt officials to bribe. Sad for the locals, then, that the facility was staffed entirely by humans, with security maintained by a full legion of Imperial stormtroopers.
The sneer became a frown as the apprentice remembered Lord Vader’s words: Leave no witnesses. He was more uncertain about that than he was about facing his first fugitive Jedi. Although his Master spoke of confronting the Emperor and taking over in his stead, the apprentice felt no disloyalty to the many troopers and officers working steadfastly in Imperial service. If they broke no laws or hatched no plots against his Master, he had no gripe with them. But now, for the first time, he would have to act against those whose only error would be to cross his path. Was this a test, he wondered, to see how far he would go in pursuit of his destiny? If so, he swore not to disappoint his Master. He would obey orders and follow his instincts. He would not fail.
Sometimes he despaired of ever attaining full mastery of the Force and thereby earning his Master’s respect—but he knew well how to turn despair to his service, by using it to fuel his anger and thereby stoke the desire for power. In time, he would succeed. There was nothing he could not do, in this matter or any other, if he tried hard enough.
Yet his frown deepened as he watched Juno pilot the ship closer to the facility. What did he know about her? Nothing, really. In almost every respect, she seemed the perfect Imperial officer: neat, efficient, and human. That she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind couldn’t have bothered his Master overmuch, so he shouldn’t let it bother him. He would trust her with the Rogue Shadow while he went about his duties, and the Emperor help her if she failed him.
The starfighter facility was much larger than it had seemed from a distance, looking like a stack of round plates hanging high above the Vertical City. What he had assumed were lights flashing across its irregular surface resolved into explosions when viewed from a nearer perspective. Vast balls of yellow-hot gas erupted at irregular intervals from shattered viewports, weakened bulkheads, and burst access tubes.
“The shipyard’s sustained heavy damage,” Juno said matter-of-factly as she looked for a place to dock.
“I can see that.” The apprentice peered with her. Former general Rahm Kota had obviously been busy. “Get us closer.”
The Rogue Shadow wove gracefully between gouts of flame. The apprentice was forced to admire Juno’s deft hand at the controls. The only tension she showed as the ship rocked and slewed was in her jaw. It was clenched tight.
He rode out the turbulence with a calm, confident center, enjoying the sharp eddies and currents of the Force. So
me craved peace and quiet in order to detach from the cares of the galaxy. He, however, had learned to find himself in any environment—the noisier, in fact, the better. In conflict it was easier to become one with the dark side. Violence was the ultimate meditation.
“Over there,” he said, pointing. “That looks like an open hangar.”
She nodded tightly. “It is defended.”
“We don’t have the time to talk to security.” Or to explain that he was forbidden to let anyone know who they were. “Come in hot. Let me handle the defenses.”
With well-practiced moves of his own, he activated the ship’s weapons systems and took a bead on the cannon emplacements protecting the open hangar. He waited until automated targeting had registered their presence and they swiveled to take aim at the Rogue Shadow. Then, with two precise shots, he destroyed the emplacements and thus cleared the way for a landing.
Juno didn’t waste any time. The starfighter streaked into the hangar and settled onto a flat space clear of debris. As thrusters brought the Rogue Shadow to a halt, the apprentice was already out of his seat.
“I will slice into the mainframe and guide you through the infrastructure,” Juno said, slipping a commset over her right ear. “Your friend here can help me.”
The apprentice didn’t dissuade her, although he knew her efforts would be mostly unnecessary. He could already feel the presence of the Jedi radiating through the facility like a bright light after a snowstorm. Kota wanted to be found, all right.
“Just keep the ship safe,” he told her, “and be ready to leave when I get back. We might need to move quickly.”
“That is my specialty,” she said through the comlink on his wrist as he glided through the ship to the exit ramp, which was fully extended before he arrived. He smelled smoke and spilled blood on the air. That and the faint stench of Jedi made his heart quicken. His eyes narrowed. He took a running jump out of the ship.
His lightsaber was lit before he hit the deck, ready to deflect the shots fired his way by the contingent of troopers sent to investigate their landing. The Force guided his arm—no, the Force was his arm. That was how it felt to him. During moments such as these, he was purely a vessel for the dark side. It rushed through him like wine down the neck of a bottle, joyous with release and the promise of more to come. His blade drew glowing lines through the air, casting energy bolts back at the troopers who’d fired them, sending them sprawling in a shower of sparks.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Page 2
