Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

by Sean Williams

  Juno supposed that normal might be something she’d never experience again.

  CHAPTER 21

  THE APPRENTICE STOOD STARING AT the ruin he’d found, wondering why this one had caught his eye out of the dozen or so he’d stumbled across elsewhere. A decade or two ago this particular patch of the forest had been a clearing, home to a small village, home perhaps to a mixed community of Wookiees and offworlders who wanted to feel the dirt beneath their feet. A dry creekbed snaked through the abandoned settlement, choked now with vines, ferns, and other native plants. The ruins had surrendered to the undergrowth, which was steadily overtaking it, but enough remained to show that the reason for the village’s abandonment was not entirely natural.

  Burned wood was evidence of fire. Circular, deep burns with a faint spiral pattern were evidence of energy weapons. Both were visible everywhere he looked.

  He stepped closer. Thirty seconds ago he had been focused on his mission. Now, confronted by the ruin, he was utterly derailed. Calling Kota hadn’t helped. It only made him more curious. What would he have to face alone? Had the aging general sensed something through the Force, for all his protestations about being severed from it?

  The truncated cone of the largest hut had split on falling. There was a clear entrance through that rent. It looked—his breath caught—it almost looked as though someone had blasted their way into it. Except here the evidence of energy weapons lacked the regular spirals of blasterfire. These scars were in straight lines, curving only slightly toward the end.

  Not blasted, then, but sliced …

  A breeze swept through the overgrown clearing, making something move within the ruined hut. He brought his lightsaber up but didn’t ignite it. The movement didn’t come from one of Kashyyyk’s many predatory species. It was a piece of cloth, fluttering. Leaning forward so his head was in shadow, he saw the remains of a long tapestry, tangled around an errant plank. There was a symbol on the tapestry, of a stylized hunting bird, perhaps, with wings and beak proudly upraised.

  A strange feeling shivered through him, as though he had been touched by someone from another universe.

  Unable to stop himself, he stepped into the shadowy ruin and touched the faded symbol with the fingers of his left hand. The space within was a mess, full of broken furniture and giant, alien cobwebs. The air was cool but very, very close. He felt suffocated, claustrophobic. He turned back to the door as though to flee, and stopped at the sight of a small blue crystal lying on the ground at his feet.

  Trembling, he knelt to examine it more closely. The gleaming gem was as large as the knuckle of his little finger and looked like nothing so much as the focusing crystal of a lightsaber.

  His head was swimming with questions and speculations. Why had he been drawn to this place? What had happened here that it should mean anything to him at all?

  In the act of standing, he was plunged into a vision more forceful than any he had experienced before.

  KASHYYYK WAS BURNING. The fires were visible from space, and so were the vast swaths of smoke poisoning the air. The Imperial blockade surrounding the planet was impervious and relentless. Observers weren’t allowed in; refugees weren’t allowed out. The only people moving to and from the surface were stormtroopers.

  And him.

  The shuttle carrying him landed on a cliff overlooking a deep, blue bay. Battles raged around him as rebel Wookiees fought with Imperials in AT-STs, not caring that they were hopelessly outnumbered. Huge forest forts spread through the canopy like underground tunnels, ferrying resistance fighters and ammunition to the fringes, where the fighting was fiercest. Energy weapons struggled to penetrate the centuries-old bark of mature wroshyr trees, but set fire and flesh instantly alight.

  The apprentice saw all this as though in a dream. He was part of the dream, but not a participant in it. Although he tried to speak and turn his head, he could not. The vision didn’t allow him to change anything that had already happened.

  Already happened—or yet to come? Was this his destiny, to return to Kashyyyk under his Master’s orders and deal permanently with the Wookiees?

  With one black-gloved hand he waved for the hatch to open. The ramp was already extended. Striding heavily onto the planet, he stood with hands on hips and took in the view firsthand. His black cape fluttered in a hot, ashen wind.

  There was something wrong with him. His senses were muted, filtered somehow, as though he viewed the world through artificial means. His limbs felt distant, numbed. And the sound of his breathing was strained, almost mechanical …

  An Imperial officer rushed up to him.

  “Lord Vader,” he gasped. “We were ambushed upon arrival, but I have the situation well in—”

  “I have no interest in your failures, Commander,” the apprentice said in his Master’s voice. All around them lay the bodies of Imperial stormtroopers, strewn in pieces across the ground. “I am here on a mission of my own.”

  Leaving the officer sweating with relief, the apprentice in Darth Vader’s garb stalked away.

  With each step of those heavy boots, he flinched. Nothing he did could redirect that fateful march. He didn’t care if he was seeing the past through his Master’s eyes or seeing his own future—one in which he’d been forced to become Darth Vader, through some strange surgical substitution—but he was certain he didn’t want to see any more.

  His field of vision blurred. A large, spinning ax had come out of nowhere. His left hand came up, deflecting it deep into the ground with the power of the dark side. His right drew and ignited his lightsaber with one rapid motion. Turning, he faced a trio of Wookiee soldiers led by a truly huge member of the alien species, with a snarling visage and light armor over dark brown fur. The creature’s roar was almost physically painful, even through the deadening of his senses.

  Past or future, his limbs moved with strength and surety, bringing his lightsaber up to slice a second ax in two, then stepping forward to meet the berserker head-on. Two blows saw the warrior in pieces, having laid not a claw on his black armor. The pair of Wookiees bringing up the rear fared no better.

  He didn’t waste time gloating. As soon as the last body fell, still twitching, to the ground, he was on his way again, away from the cliffs, following unknown clues deeper into the landscape.

  The apprentice was swept up in the carnage each time a Wookiee fighting group encountered them, but in between, as “Darth Vader” pressed relentlessly on, he felt like screaming.

  When he rounded a bend and saw a village laid out before him beside a thin, trickling stream, the apprentice prayed that he would be ambushed and killed before the vision could play out.

  It wasn’t to be, and he could only despair as Vader Force-leapt to the first of the wooden platforms that jutted from the bole of a youthful wroshyr tree. The hut the apprentice had entered—surely in the future now—loomed high above, its wooden sides gleaming with resin. Numerous tapestries waved in the breeze, among them one containing the striking bird symbol he had found among the ruins. Wookiees had spotted the intruder to the village and rapidly retracted a series of rope ladders leading to the platform below before Vader could ascend.

  A tall, human figure in brown robes appeared on one of the hut’s balconies, looking down at Vader. He stood with hands on hips, flanked by menacing Wookiee warriors. Small touches marked him as someone who had lived among the indigenes a long time. His face looked faintly, impossibly familiar.

  “Turn back, Dark Lord,” he called in a commanding voice. “Whatever you want, you won’t find it here.”

  “You can’t disguise yourself from me,” Vader replied, “Jedi.”

  The man stiffened and gestured. Wookiee warriors swung in on ropes and vines from surrounding trees, converging with wild whoops and roars on the lone figure in black below. The apprentice’s vision dissolved into an unending stream of violent images as, one after another, each of his attackers fell from the platform with limbs slashed and neck broken. His lightsaber was a crimson b
lur—and slowly, inevitably, everything he saw was painted horribly red.

  When the warriors were spent, he turned his attention to the struts of the hut. Raising one hand, Vader dug deep into the dark side, bending and cracking the ancient wood. It resisted, as strong but not as brittle as metal could be. It twisted and flexed, releasing energy slowly rather than snapping in two.

  But that didn’t save the people above. The hut tossed like a ship on stormy seas. Wookiees leapt or swung to safety.

  “Grab hold of something,” the robed man called to them. “Quickly!”

  Vader clenched his fist, hard, and the support struts finally cracked. He extended both hands, and the hut shook from side to side. With a sickening sound, the last of its supports gave way and the hut tumbled to the platform below. Wookiees flew bodily in all directions. Splinters and dust filled the air.

  Vader didn’t flinch as the hut crashed directly in front of him, split open like an overripe fruit.

  He didn’t move until, out of the thick, dusty haze, he glimpsed a bright blue lightsaber—and its wielder, coming for him like a ghost.

  They fought back and forth across the wooden platform, the tall man’s reach a match for Vader’s but his strength not as profound. Whoever he was, combat was not his strong point. He had an understanding of the ancient Shii-Cho style but barely a smattering of more advanced Makashi. His attacks were simple to deflect; his defenses, relatively easy to penetrate. Vader toyed with him awhile, then pressed him hard against the side of the fallen hut, giving him no more ground to retreat to.

  One telekinetic push saw the man flung through the rent in the fallen hut. His lightsaber flew in a different direction. The pommel shattered into a dozen pieces, its blue focusing crystals scattering like jewels.

  Vader strode into the hut, where he used the Force to grip the man around his throat and wrench him into the air. His bright red lightsaber pointed directly at the man’s chest.

  Victory.

  And yet, on the cutting edge of perception, reason to reconsider.

  Vader cocked his armored head.

  “I sense someone far more powerful than you nearby. Your Master … Where is he?”

  The choking Jedi Knight struggled to speak. “The dark side has clouded your mind. You killed my Master years ago.”

  “Then you will now share his fate.”

  Vader raised his blade to cut down the Jedi Knight, but before he could swing it the lightsaber suddenly flew from his hand. The Dark Lord wheeled around to attack, his free hand raised to crush whoever dared oppose him.

  He hesitated, an uncommon move for Darth Vader—

  —and the apprentice felt his mind spin with shock—

  —at the sight of a human child standing in the corner of the hut, dirty and bruised by the fall, dressed in clothes bearing Wookiee touches similar to those of the man still hanging in the air behind the Dark Lord. The boy held Darth Vader’s lightsaber in both hands. The tip danced, but only slightly.

  “Run!” choked the Jedi. “Run now! Don’t look back!”

  “Ah,” said Vader with dawning understanding. “A son.”

  Turning back to the father, he clenched his left fist. The awful sound of bone cracking was clearly audible—as was the boy’s sudden gasp of horror.

  Vader turned back to the child, and froze.

  The tableau stayed that way for a small infinity: father dying, child watching, murderer standing patiently between them, as though waiting for fate’s dice to fall.

  Then three stormtroopers burst into the hut, led by an Imperial officer. Drawn by sounds of combat in the village, or perhaps just shadowing their Dark Lord’s path across the forest world, they ran in with weapons drawn and broke the moment forever.

  “My lord?” the officer started to ask, confused.

  He got no farther. With a flick of his fingers, Vader had his lightsaber back in his hand. The officer and troopers backed away as their Master approached. One of them sensed the imminence of their deaths and fired his blaster ineffectually. The bolt ricocheted off the crimson blade into the wall of the hut, leaving a black burn.

  In a second, it was over.

  The boy watched, terrified, as the man covered from head to foot in black armor killed his own allies. His every move was brutal but at the same time possessing a deadly elegance, like the stalking moves of a wild walluga. Each stab and slash found its mark.

  He had never seen anything so beautiful—or so horrible.

  When it was done, the man in black loomed over him and grabbed him by the arm. Thinking the moment of his death had come, the boy didn’t resist.

  “Come with me.” The deep, hollow words were worse than blows. “More will be here soon.”

  As he was wrenched from the hut, the boy twisted his head to snatch one last glimpse of his home. Tipped over it might have been, broken and full of still-smoking bodies, but all the boy saw was the body of the dead Jedi Knight on the floor. One hand lay outstretched with fingers curled, as though clutching for something that was no longer there …

  THE APPRENTICE BLINKED. HE WAS standing, frozen, staring at the very spot where the bodies had once lain. There was no sign of them now, not even a bone. Scavengers must have carried them off, or they had been thrown free when the platform the hut had fallen onto had in turn collapsed. There was only the crystal, which had somehow come to be folded tightly in his hand. It looked just like one of those from the fallen Jedi Knight’s lightsaber, which the boy might have liked to play with when he was younger, for comfort.

  His face twisted into a snarl. Looked just like … might have … He was trying to validate the vision, when it was nothing really but a dream. A fantasy. The truth was that he had been bothered by something ever since he had arrived on Kashyyyk—an irrational feeling that something was wrong, which probably related more to his alliance with Kota than anything to do with his own past. Darth Vader had raised him; he didn’t need to imagine parents or a home to give himself meaning. He was just fabricating a story out of thin air.

  But he had seen the skyhook in one of his near-death visions—a bright line extending high up into the sky—and he realized now that the figure standing in front of the skyhook had been none other than the girl he had met in the lodge. If his visions contained some truth, why not this one, too?

  And the face of the Jedi Knight was the very same one he had seen while dueling Kota …

  Time slowed. The air felt as thick as honey. He strained against it, fearing that he was about to succumb to another hallucination, but he remained in control of his limbs. A shadow fell over the hut, as though a cloud had blocked the sun. He shivered and raised his hands to hug himself.

  Cold metal touched his skin. He looked down in horror at what had become of his fingers. They were artificial claws, like the hands of a surgical droid, with blades sharp enough to cut bone. His wrists and forearms were part flesh, part machine. The unnatural amalgamation continued up to his shoulders and disappeared under a high, metal collar that protected his neck. What skin was visible on his wrists was blistered and scarred, as though burned many times over by ferociously high heat.

  More than just his hands and arms had changed. His clothes were different, too. Instead of the new uniform Darth Vader had given him, he now wore a ribbed vest of flexible armor plates and a series of leather belts around his waist. From the belts hung a collection of grisly trophies—lightsabers most prominent among them. Under the tight black garments, his body felt strange, more mechanical than alive.

  With shaking hands, he raised his metal fingers to touch his face. Metal blades touched armor with a piercing squeak. His face was hidden behind a mask, as deathless and horrible as his Master’s. His breathing was loud in his ears.

  He had become someone’s worst nightmare.

  A golden glow flickered through the honeyish air. He turned his masked head to face it, and made out a dark silhouette walking toward him. His clawed right hand reached for his lightsaber, which he select
ed automatically from the many at his waist. It snapped on, casting a bloody red glow through the hut.

  By that light, a man in Jedi robes was revealed, tall and straight-backed. The face beneath the hood was smooth-skinned and calm. His eyes gleamed, containing sorrow and pity. Familiar and yet unfamiliar, known and yet utterly unknown …

  The apprentice hissed a low, dangerous sound through his mask’s vocoder and crouched like a poised snake, master of Juyo, the most vicious form of lightsaber combat known in the galaxy.

  The Jedi drew his own lightsaber—a bright sky blue—and adopted a classic Soresu opening stance, with left arm upraised, palm-down, running parallel to the lightsaber in his right. With his left foot forward he balanced perfectly on his right, ready to defend himself against any attack.

  The apprentice didn’t keep him waiting. He didn’t employ any wild acrobatics or fancy Force moves. He simply lunged, using his whole body as a weapon, his balance and dexterity utterly focused. The dark side thrilled through him, harmonizing perfectly with the anger and hate in his heart. The Jedi was going to die, one way or another. It might as well be now.

  Blue blocked red in a spray of energy. The apprentice struck again, higher this time, a deceptively loose blow that hid deadly subtleties beneath its wide swing. The Jedi blocked it, too; just. Soresu was a defensive fighting style well suited to the close confines of the hut, but it wouldn’t last forever against the malignant grace of Juyo.

  The Jedi came in hard and fast before the apprentice could rally another attack. He cared little if the Jedi hit him, so long as damage was minimal. Close hits left flesh sizzling and armor smoking. The energy he saved on wild dodges he spent on tearing jagged planks from the walls and throwing them at the Jedi’s head. All were deflected, but it distracted the man, robbed his attack of some of its momentum. When he paused, the apprentice sent a surge of Sith lightning under his guard.

  The Jedi was caught in the flickering storm. His face twisted into a pained grimace. Then he brought his right arm down and placed the blade of his lightsaber directly in the lightning’s path. The energy was absorbed by the blade, then bent back upon itself in a superconducting loop, striking its source with more energy than it had originally possessed. The apprentice stiffened as pain coursed up his hands and arms. The agony was unbearable—but bear it he did. His skin melted and warped all over his body, and he gagged on the stink of his own burning flesh. The pain and revulsion only fed the dark side, so the faster the lightning came back to him, the harder and stronger it flowed from him.