Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

by Sean Williams

  “Is there a problem, Juno?” He was kneeling in the center of the chamber with his hands hanging loosely in front of him. On the ground before him lay the hilt of his deactivated lightsaber, the one he had used since their escape from the Empirical. Next to it lay a small blue crystal. His back was slightly to her, so she couldn’t tell if his eyes were open.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “You tell me.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She decided to just come out and say it. “Are you all right? After what happened on Kashyyyk—”

  “I’m not wearing out,” he said. “The moorings were tough, but I feel stronger than ever now. It gets easier, I think, the harder you try. The Force is stronger than anything we can imagine. We’re the ones who limit it, not the other way around.”

  He half turned to look at her, and she was prepared to let him talk about that, if he wanted to. He had never spoken to her of the Force before; a life she had never seen flickered in his eyes when he did. But that was all he said, and when she could think of nothing to offer in return, his head drifted back around to face the floor and she had lost him again.

  “What about what’s happened to us apart from that? I turned my back on the navy and you abandoned your Master. We’re going through the same thing. We can help each other.”

  “Nobody can help me.”

  “I don’t think you really mean that. I just think you’re afraid to let me try.”

  “Is that really what you think?” He didn’t look up, but she noted a stiffening of his neck muscles. “After all those stormtroopers I killed, I’m afraid of you?”

  “It wasn’t just stormtroopers,” she said with more heat than she had intended.

  He glanced at her again. “Yes, and Captain Sturn.”

  “Don’t forget the pilots of the TIE fighters,” she said. “One of them was a kid I used to fly with.”

  Starkiller looked up at that, but said nothing.

  “It’s a lot easier to fight the Empire when it’s faceless,” she said, “when the people whose lives are ending are hidden behind stormtrooper helmets or durasteel hulls. But when they’re people we knew, people like we used to be …” She shrugged. “How much harder is it going to get?”

  He stared at her until gooseflesh broke out all down her back.

  “Are you having second thoughts?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “I—”

  I just want you to talk to me.

  She couldn’t say that.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  She turned on her heel to leave. Maybe PROXY was the only one who would ever reach him, on the point of a glowing lightsaber.

  “Juno,” he said, stopping her in the doorway. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

  She took a deep breath. “That’s okay. He wasn’t really a friend and it wasn’t anything personal. Youngster was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “And on the wrong side,” he added.

  “Yes, that, too.” She almost added, You don’t need to remind me, but left it unsaid, sensing that he was probing her, perhaps testing her, somehow.

  “I’m exhausted,” she said—thinking again, Why me?—and went back to work.

  STARKILLER REAPPEARED A SHORT TIME later, looking tidier and at least physically refreshed after his short timeout.

  “Where are we going?” he asked Juno.

  “Nowhere,” she said.

  Kota looked up with blind eyes. “When I last saw Bail Organa, he said he would find someone to help him if I wouldn’t: Master Shaak Ti was his choice. I warned him it would be too dangerous, but the fool went after her anyway, alone. There was nothing I could do to stop him.” The old man’s jaw jutted out as though daring anyone to disagree. “I’ve checked with Ylenic It’kla, his assistant on Alderaan. Bail vanished as soon as he landed on—”

  “Felucia,” said Starkiller, nodding.

  Kota cocked his head as though hearing a very faint, distant sound.

  A dense silence fell. Starkiller looked up at the same time as Juno, realizing too late what he had said. Would Kota realize? Juno watched in light-headed panic as Starkiller’s hand crept toward the hilt at his waist.

  “The Force is strong in you, boy,” said Kota softly, “for you to be able to sense my thoughts.”

  Juno let some of the tension drain from her.

  “You’re just easy to read, old man,” Starkiller said.

  “Then I suppose you know that Felucia is a dangerous place.”

  Starkiller dismissed that concern. “I can handle it.”

  Kota leaned closer. “Don’t be overconfident, boy. Felucia is a world finely balanced between the light and dark sides of the Force. Shaak Ti was the only thing keeping it from being consumed by darkness. If anything’s happened to her, your experience in the hut will seem like a bad dream in comparison.”

  Starkiller pulled back. “How did you know—?”

  “You’re easy to read, too.” Kota’s smile was tight-lipped.

  “Felucia it is,” said Juno to break the tension.

  “No.” Starkiller put his hand on her shoulder before she could turn back to the controls. “You go get some rest. PROXY and I will get us the remainder of the way. I’ll wake you when we’re close.”

  She looked up at him and nodded. He had thought of her unprompted; that was encouraging. “All right. But the slightest problem—”

  “Don’t worry. They’ll hear us hollering in Coruscant. Go.”

  He took her space at the controls. “Now, PROXY, here’s your chance to remind me how astronavigation works.”

  “I fear, master, that it would take far too long to supplement your primary program with the algorithms required …”

  Smiling to herself, she put the cockpit behind her and went to get some rest.

  CHAPTER 24

  SHE DREAMED INTENSELY AND POWERFULLY that she was already back on Felucia, watching an exceedingly fragile flower unfold. Bright red petals hid an intensely black heart. When she leaned close to study it, she found it to be crawling with tiny, many-legged insects.

  Then she was in orbit, watching a skyhook cable snapping upward from its severed base. A large chunk of Felucia’s crust came with it, like the plug from a bath. The planet began to deflate, darkening as it shrank until it became Callos under its pall of smoke. She stared in horror, knowing that she was unable to put the plug back in, no matter how much she might want to.

  Then her father was shouting at her, telling her that she had shamed the family and the Empire. When she tried to tell him—as she never had in life—that he was the one who had been wrong all along, about Palpatine and his murderous regime, his hook-nosed visage changed into that of the Emperor himself, who snarled at her and repeated the words her father had used.

  Then she realized that neither the Emperor nor her father was the true face of the being in front of her. It was PROXY, playing a trick on her. She plucked at the illusion, trying to unravel it, but all she revealed beneath was Starkiller, smiling benignly.

  Who are you? she asked him. What’s your real name?

  He smiled wider and said, Your gratitude is wasted on me.

  She woke in a cold sweat, feeling as though she had been dunked in one of Raxus Prime’s poisoned puddles, and knew that she would be able to get no more sleep.

  CHAPTER 25

  JUNO CAME FORWARD JUST BEFORE the apprentice sent PROXY back to get her. He had checked on her earlier and found her sleeping soundly, but she looked as though she hadn’t taken much rest from it. She looked much like he felt, in fact: profoundly strained by recent events, but putting on as good a face as possible.

  I’m exhausted, she had said. He had been struck on hearing those words that she might mean more than just needing sleep. What if the emotional strain of serving with him proved too much? His mission was far more important than her conflict over betraying the Empire, but in order to meet his Master’s goal—and thereby successfully c
hallenge the Emperor—he would need her help. While dealing with his own problems, he would have to find ways to lighten her load.

  Kota was next to no help. The old man seemed so wrapped up in his own problems, he barely noticed anyone else. When Juno joined them, he just scratched his bristly chin and settled deeper into his seat.

  They made a motley crew, the three of them. Only PROXY seemed happy in himself and with his own goals. The apprentice wished he could be so clearly defined.

  All my life I’ve thought of myself solely as Darth Vader’s apprentice. Now I find I might have had a past before that—a father, a name, a history. Who was this Galen? What were his dreams, his hopes, his fears? What made him laugh? What made him cry?

  It seemed inconceivable that he could have forgotten something as traumatic as the death of his father, but he knew that intense trauma could cause partial or complete amnesia. He couldn’t therefore rule anything out.

  And the question remained: did it matter? Whoever he had once been, that being was forgotten, and his purpose now was unchanged. He was his Master’s apprentice; they would be victorious; and Juno would learn, in the end, that she had not betrayed the Empire after all. If only, he thought, I could tell her now …

  He got up to let her into the seat, then leaned over PROXY as she checked the course the two of them had laid in.

  “Not bad,” she said, making only a couple of small corrections. “We’re not going to crash into anything, anyway.”

  “Thank you, Captain Eclipse.” PROXY’s insides whirred with pride. “I estimate that we will arrive in one standard minute.”

  “Do you want us to put down anywhere in particular?” she asked the apprentice. “It’s a big planet.”

  “Every Senatorial shuttle broadcasts a unique transponder signal,” he said, thinking of the many missions he had flown for his Master, weeding out political enemies. “Search for Senator Organa’s signal; that will tell us where to land.”

  Hyperspace gave way to realspace through the forward viewport. Felucia hung directly ahead, as swollen with life and as green as the apprentice remembered it. He studied it closely, seeking any sign of the “imbalance” Kota had warned him of. He wasn’t afraid of the dark side. If anything, he would feel more comfortable on a world in which the proper dynamic between light and dark had been restored. Shaak Ti’s death should have had a profound effect on the world and its inhabitants.

  “Searching for the transponder,” said Juno. “Shouldn’t take long. Felucia’s as quiet as—ah, yes. There it is. You were right.”

  Juno moved the Rogue Shadow in a fast orbit through the skies of Felucia, triangulating on Bail Organa’s signal. The transport had landed very close to where she and the apprentice had put down the first time, although neither of them mentioned that fact in front of Kota. The apprentice stayed in position as the ship descended along a carefully controlled flight path. The atmosphere roiled around them, as thick with pollen and airborne life-forms as before. Clouds of bacteria swarmed in the air, coating the forward view with a faint patina of green. He hadn’t noticed that last time and hoped it wouldn’t affect hull integrity.

  “I’m picking up signs of a large Imperial presence on the ground,” Juno said as they descended. “They’re the least of your worries, I suspect.”

  Juno put them down on another sturdy mushroom cap, more confidently than she had on her first try. Organa’s transport was parked on the far side, its hatches open, empty of life according to the Rogue Shadow’s sensors. During the hyperspace jump the apprentice had accessed records of Bail Organa, Imperial Senator and Prince of Alderaan, and been struck by a strange familiarity about the man’s face. Dark-haired and tall, with a gray-flecked goatee and a strong, thoughtful stare, he had definitely crossed the apprentice’s path before—but where? Not on one of his many missions for Darth Vader; of that he was certain. Hopefully it wouldn’t compromise his mission, if they had encountered each other in his secret past …

  “Want to come, General?” he asked the old man.

  “What use would I be to you out there?” Kota retorted. “You’ll be better off without me slowing you down.”

  “Whatever you say.” The apprentice strode down the ramp.

  “Wait.” Juno followed, running in her haste to catch him.

  He turned, thinking that he had forgotten something, but she took his arm and led him off the ramp, toward the empty transport.

  “Let’s make sure he’s not still in there, dead, and our trip wasn’t for nothing,” she said, “before you go gallivanting off into the jungle.”

  Puzzled at something in her tone, he let himself be led away from the Rogue Shadow. The transport was a small one, large enough for five people with a small but efficient hyperdrive, impeccably maintained. Two crests adorned its sides: those of the Organa family and of Alderaan, both of which the Senator represented. It didn’t appear to have been interfered with, except by a small colony of flying insects that had made the tiny but opulent passenger quarters its home.

  The shuttle was indeed empty. The apprentice turned to Juno to state the obvious, but she had reached past him to activate the air lock controls. The door slid shut, sealing them inside with the swarm of disconcerted insects. Before he could say anything, she put a finger to her lips and switched off both their comlinks.

  “There,” she said, stepping back and wiping her hands nervously on her pants. Those and her boots were the only things she’d retained of her former uniform. “Now we can talk in private.”

  “What’s this about?” he asked, feeling the beginning of nervousness. The walls of the tiny air lock in which they were standing suddenly seemed entirely too close.

  She avoided his gaze and indicated the shuttle’s passenger hold. “I guess Organa made it this far.”

  “Certainly looks that way,” he said, increasingly puzzled.

  “Where will you start looking for him?”

  “Where I first confronted Shaak Ti. If he followed her trail that far, he might still be nearby.”

  Her blue eyes met his, then danced away. “Does it disturb you to return here after—after last time?”

  “No,” he said, exhaling through his nose. “If I let it affect me, Master Kota will sense it.”

  “Exactly.” Her hand reached out and gripped his upper arm. Suddenly her full attention was on him. “That’s what worries me. It’s dangerous having him with us. If he discovers who you are—who you were—he’ll never forgive us.”

  A worm turned in his stomach. “We’ve got nothing to feel guilty about.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Don’t worry, Juno. Really.” He put a hand on hers and awkwardly squeezed it. Her skin was soft. He was very conscious of the heady smell of her in the close confines. He wanted nothing more than to reassure her, but suspected words wouldn’t be enough. “If Kota senses who I am, I won’t give him the chance to tell anyone else.”

  That didn’t have the effect he had intended. She pulled away and turned to face the exit. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” she said, her hand reaching for the air lock control.

  Light and air rushed in as the door whooshed open. He blinked at the sudden transition and at the passing of the moment that had existed so briefly between them. Something had been communicated that he didn’t quite understand. Although he had tried, he had failed to give her what she needed from him. Reassurance, certainly, was part of it; evidence of his true allegiance as well, perhaps. He struggled for words to bring her back, but could only watch her walk back to the ship.

  “PROXY,” she called through her comlink, peering into a green-slimed intake vent, “come out here and help me scrape some of this gunk off the ship.”

  The apprentice took the hint. This was a problem he would have to deal with later, once he had Bail Organa safely in hand—at which point his mission would become even more complex and dangerous. Rescuing a blind old man was one thing; proving his worth to a fellow teenager—even one with Leia Organ
a’s obvious abilities—was only marginally more difficult. Bail Organa, on the other hand, had survived Palpatine’s usurping of the Senate and the Jedi Purge; he would surely be adept at detecting and rooting out spies. Once Organa was on his side, the apprentice would well and truly be behind enemy lines, liable to be uncovered as both a traitor to the rebel cause and to the Empire if he was uncovered by either faction. His skills were not inconsiderable now, and growing stronger with every mission, but this would test his every ability to the limit.

  Somehow, though, Juno worried him much more. His Master had trained him extensively in the arts of violence and deception. Women were a topic on which he knew nothing at all.

  With one last look at her, working diligently to ensure the well-being of her mechanical charge, he reactivated his comlink and loped off into the fetid jungle.

  IT TOOK HIM NO TIME at all to attune his senses to the vast and tangled life-fields of the fecund, overrun world. The balance had indeed shifted profoundly toward the dark side since his last visit. He found the world’s new ambience familiar but not comfortable, and felt that he was recognized but not welcome. The latter surprised him and occupied his mind even as he defended himself against every able-bodied predator the world had to send against him.

  So it seemed, anyway. Without Shaak Ti keeping their innate Force sensitivity in check, the native Felucian species fought him every step of the way. The jungle was cloaked with deep shadows and stank of rot. Bulbous plants exploded as he approached, spraying him with acidic mist. Gnarled, muscular vines tangled in his ankles or around his throat while poisonous leeches affixed themselves to his boots every time he stepped in a puddle. Pools of quicksand sucked at him with more than a passing semblance of life. Large, flying rays with scissoring, jagged jaws swooped through the canopy, snapping at his head, and horribly animate fungal growths smacked thick, meaty lips at him as he passed.

  Once, when he took shelter from a flying ripper under a tree, the tree itself tried to kill him. With a loud crack, it separated from its root system and toppled down over him; it would have crushed him to the ground had he not jumped aside in time. Startled and bemused, he had stared as an entirely new root system squirmed through holes in the bark, obviously intending to feed on the creature it thought it had imprisoned under its weight. Myriad scavengers, from the invisibly small to the thunderously large, converged on the sound, hoping to take advantage of the tree’s intended meal.